The Collective Sessions

A collection of touring veterans join forces for a new venture, providing a space for artists to perform and stream live shows from London’s Millennium Studios at an affordable price. With the preparations well underway, TPi gets the inside scoop...

From the time lockdown was announced, artists have been releasing footage of themselves to their fans across the globe – but as we move into July and measures begin to relax, most will agree that there is now somewhat of an expectation of a higher production values. As much as a smartphone on a tripod of books filming the front room might have cut it back in March, fans are increasingly looking for something a bit more professional. First out of the gate during the pandemic were several solutions from major rental houses, re-purposing their warehouse spaces for multiuse streaming solutions, which could be used for everything from corporate, religious ceremonies and, of course, live performances. But now there is a new incentive in place that has been put together by a number of touring veterans for the world of live music: The Collective Sessions.

The brainchild of Production Manager and Video Crew Chief Simon Schofield [Noel Gallagher and Marina] and Tour Manager, Suzi Green [The Chemical Bothers and Placebo], the idea was to create a functional performance space in which an artist could take over for a day with its inhouse flexible visual package and produce a live show to either be streamed or recorded for later release. Housed in Millennium Studios, Bedford, The Collective Sessions has been built on two core principles: firstly, a festival-style setup, which will enable any artist to roll-in and produce a good-looking show; and secondly, a reasonable price point, to open the streaming world to a larger range of performers. “As soon as we started to lose work, Simon and I put our heads together to come up with some ideas of what we could do,” stated Green, who has worked with Schofield a number of times over the years. “It was very much an idea that was built out of the frustration brought on by lockdown. But once we had the space at Millennium and the other suppliers on board, all the pieces fell into place really quickly.” Schofield interjected by discussing the importance of the venue. “The real advantage of using Millennium is that it’s designed for this job,” he stated plainly. “Some of the other solutions that have cropped up in the past few months are very much converted warehouse space – here, on the other hand, we have a roof that can take weight, a 60ft stage, and high spec’d dressing rooms with toilets and showers, making social distancing a very simple process to implement.” As part of the project, Millennium has also handed over the use of the other building space as well as the main studio, giving even more options to place elements such as broadcast and control to take place in an entirely different room.

“We jumped at the chance to be part of this,” enthused Nina Malivoire, Studio Sales Manager for Millennium Studio. Malivoire explained how the project’s main base would be ‘A’ stage. “Not only is it a huge space, but there is so much external space near the stage to be utilised for the project.” The plan is that during the project, the team will create “space bubbles” throughout to ensure everyone is able to keep their distance. “The team that Simon and Suzi have put together will make a real success of this project and it’s exciting to be involved as the studio space.”

As w ell as being a state-of-the-art rehearsal facility, the other major benefit for the Millennium campus is that it is also the site of a major

medical research facility. What this means is that the entire site is held to the highest grade of health and safety regulations when it come the cleaning and maintaining a safe working environment.

Helping Green and Schofield make this project a reality were Urban Audio, GLS Lighting and Really Creative Media (RCM). “We’ve worked with each company a number of times over the years,” explained Green. “All the companies really bought into the concept of creating a festival setup that was flexible and would enable an artist to walk in and start using the space.”

On the video side, RCM put forward a comprehensive base camera package, allowing remote camera management, so that all bands can capture their rehearsals and performances in HD and safely. Bands can opt for upgrades such as a roving steady cam, with additional camera options available to expand their broadcast options. A vision gallery and livestreaming technology will also be installed on-site. Projection and LED screen options will also be available, with RCM video directors giving bands plenty of creative visual options.

RC M’s Nick Dew stated: “If bands and fans can’t come together for a live show, we’re taking the approach that ‘all the world is a stage’ and we are the players to make that stage a creative, professionally exciting virtual platform. It’s very exciting to be working with Millennium Studios and other partners to deliver The Collective Sessions.

“T he live music industry is in a tough place, so we’re happy to be giving artists the chance to connect with their audiences with high-quality livestreaming, creativity, tech production and recording possibilities at a reasonable cost.”

Wor king alongside RCM to provide to visual canvas for the performances is GLS Lighting. Talking through the lighting design was Ian Turner, who created the rig for the space. “The biggest thing that I had in mind while creating the design for this show was that the rig had to be able to do a number of things, with minimal touch,” reflected Turner. Every step of the way, flexibility was the name of the game,

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Tour Manager, Suzi Green; Really Creative Media’s Nick Dew; GLS Lighting’s Jac Nott; Production Manager and Video Crew Chief, Simon Schofield with Head of Puplicity, Milly; Director of Urban Audio, Dan Lewis; GLS Lighting’s Ian Turner.

leading the LD to create a rig where each truss could split in the middle. “What this means is that you can angle each truss any way the artist’s visual team prefers.”

The main workhorses on Turner’s proposed rig included a great deal of GLP impression X4 Bar 20s, which act as the main wash fixture for the set alongside a number of JDC1 strobes. “As they are both from the same family, the colour matching is really good and gives us a good consistency throughout.” Also on the rider were the new Elation Professional Picasso spot fixtures. “Since they were released, I’ve been very impressed with these lights,” enthused Turner. “The fact that the performances were all to be filmed was very much a deciding factor with the use of the Picasso,” he added. “We needed something with a good gobo lens and LED source that could produce a sharp spot for the close up looks.” Also on the rig were a number of Robe Robin Pointe for beams, along with CHAUVET Professional Strike 4s for blinders to fill in the set.

“The floor package was always going to be of utmost importance as this element would always been in the shot,” started Turner. “This is why we replicated a number of fixtures on the floor to those in the roof to add consistency.” GLS also supplied a few other scenic elements to add some options for the stage, including Astera light tubes.

There will also be a number of different control options available, including a ChamSys MQ 500, Avolites Tiger Touch 11 and an MA Lighting grandMA2. The goal is to have artists’ designers submit a suggestion of what they want to create prior to their performance so the in-house crew can prepare the rig and floor page before the artist even sets foot in the space. “This has been a fantastic project to be involved in,” concluded Turner. “The co-operative mindset has been a really good experience and, what’s more, it means we’ve been able to create work for other freelancers and techs during this trying time.”

Also commenting on GLS’ involvement with the project was Director, Jac Nott. “What is fantastic about this project is that it’s creating opportunities for both artists and crew during these uncertain times,” she said. “We’re lucky at GLS as we already have the methodology and risk assessment side of things in place as we had done some small projects during the lockdown which we have transferred to The Collaborations Project to ensure that everyone is safe. The space and the design Ian has created is flexible enough so that no matter the genre, each artist can go into the space and really make the show their own.”

Finally, commenting on the audio package available at Millennium Studios was Dan Lewis – Director for Urban Audio. Just like the other departments in the collective, Lewis’ main goal was to replicate a festival-like package that would be very user friendly to any engineer that entered the building. “That’s why we went for a Yamaha CL5 for the monitor desk, as it’s a surface that almost every engineer will be able to make work for their show.” Also provided were a number of L-Acoustics wedges, Sennheiser IEM packages along with Shure Axient Radio mics.

A CL5 was also the desk of choice for the broadcast mix. “Having a system that was easy and reliable to network was essential,” stated Lewis, explaining how the broadcast mix was due to be situated in an enterally different room to that of the performance. “For this reason, Yamaha fit the bill perfectly.”

At t he time of writing, all the pieces are very much in place for the first artists to tread the boards of Millennium Studios and calls are already underway with various management contacts. As well as giving artists a reasonable solution to keep the music alive during these trying times, Schofield was keen to highlight that this also went for the crew they were bringing on. “We are paying people the right rates that they deserve in this project,” he asserted. “Not only that, but we as a collective are sticking with what we know – which is live touring and music production.” And with such a flexible space, it surely won’t be long until we are seeing a number of performances from the famed studio space. TPi Photos: Millennium Studios www.millenniumstudios.co.uk www.glslighting.com www.uaproductions.com www.reallycreativemedia.co.uk