Boomtown Fair: 11th Chapter

BOOMTOWN FAIR

Audio Feed’s Oz Jefferies; Nucleus Project Manager, Loz Poulton; Nucleus Production Manager, Zoe Hodge; The Nucleus visual crew; Laser Grafix’s Toby Macknight.

Unicos, GLP impression X4L Bars, GLP impression X4 Bars, TMB Solaris Flares, SGM P-5s to light the structure and left and waterfalls, 2-Lite and 4-Lite Molefays. All controlled by a pair of MA Lighting grandMA2 full size consoles, managed by grandMA NPUs and PRG Super Nodes. 


PRG worked closely with The Streets Lighting Designer, Steve Hough to supply a floor package which featured Martin by Harman MAC Vipers, TMB Solaris Flares, 2-Lite Molefays and SGM P-5s. “The Streets show looked amazing,” PRG Account Handler, Rob Watson praised the design and timing of the set, which he claimed was “perfect in every way.” PRG also facilitated The Chronixx, Lauryn Hill, UB40 and Groove Armada on the stage.

PRG also supplied lighting and video rigging motors which included a mixture of 1-tonne, 500kg and 250kg EXE Rise Hoists. Rigging Crew Chief, Nick Brown was assisted by ‘Giz’, Marcus Brown, Neil Hayden, Michelle Hayden and Ali Morris. PRG Crew Chief Jonty Rivers was assisted by Callum Humphries, Ashley Neal, Sam Jackson, Charlie Smith, Simon Lynch, Devante Benjamin and Sara Janebrink.

Video Illusions provided an additional HD camera package and IMAGs. Having been through a structural change, going from an old temple to a mountain top relic / monastery has brought in “newer and different artists to the festival”, according to Video Illusions’ Ollie Davies, who dubbed the stage as effectively a “touring arena show” ideal for touring artists, allowing an entire rig to “roll in and out” seamlessly.

The IMAG system boasted Video Illusions new VI-ER4 LED panels, upgrading from 6mm for higher resolution feed. VI also supplied the large 15m wide back-wall screen was over 2k output. The camera package contained a stage left and right camera, a tracking dolly with platform on the front, 12.5m pole jib arm, along with FOH long lens and wireless cameras.

Davies praised the festival’s collaboration with PRG. “They are fantastic and know what they’re doing, the changeover has brought a more structured and deliverable target,” he said. “When PRG give you a time for load in you can guarantee that it’s done. The professionalism of the riggers is also great.” The Video Engineer expressed the temperamental outdoor elements as a “massive challenge” to the screen building process. “Structural changes have also meant there’s been a few challenges with IMAG builds and breakdowns. However, the planning and pre-production here is led by David Henley and he is fantastic and organised.”

Davies recounted the Boomtown ethos. “We’re building cities, not stages,” he explained. “Temporary structure-wise it’s like nothing I’ve seen before, the set design blows your mind every time you see it.”

AF Live’s Paul Rose was tasked BCS Audio with providing sound for Lion’s Den for the last seven years. K Series has been his choice from day one, with the system expanding in line with the evolution of the stage. “One of our main challenges is achieving coverage in the natural bowl that forms the audience area. The stage also needs a system that is universally rider friendly, fast and easy to rig whilst delivering the best quality sound across the entire audience area,” said BCS System Engineer Oli Crump, who worked alongside FOH System Tech, Kim Watson.

“L-Acoustics ticks all those boxes and Soundvision software’s integration with Sketchup means we can directly import detailed terrain data and site boundaries, allowing us to accurately predict the coverage and tonality across the audience area and use that to refine the positions of delay towers and fills,” Crump explained.

The new Autosolver tools in Soundvision allowed the engineers to easily keep on top of last-minute structure changes and quickly import the new electronic settings into almost 50 amplifiers in LA Network Manager. Crump explained: “These predictions translated very well into reality, reducing the tuning time significantly, and allowing us to quickly get to the finer details during our limited tuning time.”

The final design comprised main hangs of 10 K1s and four K2s stage left and right, with outhangs of 12 K2s and a sub array of 24 KS28s across

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BOOMTOWN FAIR

David Whiteoak & Oli Chilton; Trevor Fairclough & Simon ‘Diggers’ de la Cour; Jamie Moore; Christian ‘Smithy’ Smith & Elliot Baines; Ollie Davies.

the stage front. Front fill was courtesy of 12 Karas and delays were four hangs of seven K2s. Stage monitoring also included DV-subs and Karas. The system was driven by LA12X amplified controllers. “I’m not a fan of festival mixing positions/towers, and the ‘Lion’s Den’ position halfway up a natural amphitheatre didn’t look too appealing,” recalled The Streets FOH Engineer, Johnny Haskett. “The system design was such that coverage was great, sub was even, and I had plenty of headroom for even my largest sub drops, all the time managing to stay well inside the festival noise requirements both on and off site. It’s one of my most enjoyable mixes of the summer!”

RELIC STAGE On the Relic Stage, PRG provided around 400 lighting fixtures, video screens and rigging. The impressive lighting rig comprised 60 PRG Icon Edges, 24 PRG Best Boy Washes, 18 PRG Bad Boys. Sixty TMB Solaris Flares, 74 Martin by Harman Atomic 3000s, 140 IP-Rated LED Pars and 24 Molefays (4-lite)

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