FESTIVAL FOCUS
ALL POINTS EAST Emerging as an established music site on London’s inner-city festival scene, All Points East Festival takes over Victoria Park for the second year running…
All Points East bore witness to opening and closing three-day weekends firmly dedicated to music. The opening weekend main stage headliners included the likes of Chemical Brothers, The Strokes and Christine and the Queens. In between the music, four days of community-driven free entertainment was available, with comedy, film screenings, street food and much more at play. All in all, making for an inclusive, eclectic inner-city festival programme. The experienced AEG Presents team led by Jim King, and event production company LarMac LIVE, led by Director Ian Greenway, returned to deliver the highest of standards across every aspect of All Points East’s second incarnation.
festivals including Field Day and Lovebox, LarMac LIVE ensured experienced personnel were onsite to handle the dynamic nature of festivals. “Being able to give a show an identity is something we pride ourselves on,” he openly declared. “It’s an intention of the product to ensure that the customer walks away with a smile on their face.” Principal suppliers, Star Events, Pearce Hire, PRG, Colour Sound Experiment, Showforce, Capital Sound and Music Bank, were hand-picked to lead the technical charge. “It’s a mirror of the supply chain last year, we are big fans of familiarity and it’s not a case of convenience or laziness,” Greenway continued. “The old approach of being able to drop any show into any field is against our ethos, every show has a nuance.”
PRODUCTION Onsite at Victoria Park, TPi checked in with unshakable Production Manager, Ian Greenway, of LarMac LIVE. “There’s a high-level attention to the aesthetic elements of the festival – it’s a radical departure from the preexisting inner-city festival model!” Following its launch last year, changes to the production were “minimal”, as Greenway, explained: “It’s great that we had a successful model last year which we could then tweak rather than overhaul.” He referred to the “refreshing” attention to detail required. “Walking around the site, the average customer experience is heightened by the level of finish and veneer.” No stranger to Victoria Park, having hosted a plethora of summer
SETTING THE STAGE Working alongside Loudsound and LarMac LIVE, Star Events supplied the four principal stages to All Points East; the East Stage, the North Stage, the West Stage and the X Stage, together with FOH structures. This year, the APE production team and incoming productions benefitted from increased storage at the East Stage, while a fairly sizeable change to the stage dock has also helped with the transport arrangements. Star Events’ Project Manager at All Points East, Gavin Scott, discussed how the festival has evolved and diversified. “The most noticeable difference was with the FOH structures at East Stage where Huawei sponsored engineered terraces on top of the sound and lighting booths,” 74
