PSNE Live 2018 - Digital Edition

2018 BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MAKERS OF PSNEUROPE VOLUME 13

www.psneurope.com

Behind the scenes at Roger Waters’ record-breaking BST performance

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24/07/2018 13:53

WHAT YOU HEAR is

WHAT YOU SEE

L-ISA multichannel solutions combine sound system implementation and object-based mixing to reconnect artists and audiences.

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Ennio Morricone - Milano, Italy L-ISA Live

17/05/2018 14:21:03

2018

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2018

Welcome to PSNLive is brought to you by the makers of PSNEurope next generation of live sound www.psneurope.com

P06 The tour manager

FOLLOW US ON Twitter.com/PSNEurope Facebook.com/ProSoundNewsEurope Instagram.com/PSNEurope

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EDITORIAL Editor: Daniel Gumble daniel.gumble@futurenet.com • +44 (0)203 871 7371

The composer

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The production manager

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P10 The FOH engineer

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MANAGEMENT Chief Operations Officer Aaron Asadi Managing Director/Senior Vice President Christine Shaw Content Director James McKeown Managing Director/Europe Mark Burton Commercial Finance Director Dan Jotcham

The monitor engineer P12

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The stage manager

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The sound designer

Printed by Pensord Press Ltd, NP12 2YA ISSN number 0269-4735 (print) © 2018

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P14 AV and VR How new tech is changing old events

All contents © 2018 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.

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his year’s PSNLive is all about looking forward. Which is not to suggest that any of our previous editions were backwards looking in any way, but this time around our gaze is firmly fixed on the people and the technologies that look set to define the next generation of the touring sector. And from what we’re seeing and hearing it would appear that the live market is currently entering one of the most exciting stages of its evolution to date.

After years of buzz and hype it seems that immersive audio at live events is coming into its own like never before, as Phil Ward discovers over on P18, while David Davies delves into the ever-more lucrative market of hologram concerts on P32.

Elsewhere, prior to its acquisition by SSE, Capital Sound supplied a Martin Audio surround sound system for Roger Waters’ performance at this year’s BST Hyde Park gig series – a system never before deployed at the event. You can read our behind the scenes report on this incredible sounding show over on P22.

We have also spoken to some of the finest young talent working in the market, from FOH engineers to sound designers, to hear their views on where the industry is headed and how best to pursue a career in audio in 2018.

To cap it all off, Kevin Hilton tests the limits of what’s possible in today’s live events market with his report into the world of extreme gigs. So, with plenty of incredible live events on the horizon, enjoy the rest of the summer and, indeed, the remainder of the festival season. n

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If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.

A BST first Inside Roger Waters’ Hyde Park spectacle

P24 Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR) www.futureplc.com

03 Contents PSNLIVE_18 v3final.indd 1

Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

Extreme gigs A look at the most daring gigs on earth

25/07/2018 11:35

2018

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Next generation

Innovation has been at the heart of the live audio industry this year, with immersive sound and new wireless technologies taking centre stage. But who are the people working the kit behind the scenes? We spoke to the next generation of audio professionals at the forefront of live sound about what they think is in store for the future of this thriving sector of the industry...

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ince the beginning of the year, PSNLive’s sister publication PSNEurope has had its sights set firmly on the future. The speed at which audio technology is evolving means that each issue has featured stories on the unwavering potential of immersive sound, experimental techniques in the recording studio and tactical acquisitions preparing businesses to adapt and become more flexible in the decades to come. This proves that now, perhaps more than ever, is a truly exciting time to be involved in this industry, as audio and AV tech is being driven by worldleading innovation.

This open-minded approach is testament to the people working within the industry, who make it such

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a great and competitive market to work in. In the summer months, the live sector of the audio industry really comes into its own, as festivals, outdoor gigs and theatre events bring audiences together to hear their favourite music or their best-loved Shakespeare verses in an outdoor arena.

For this year’s PSNLive, we spoke to the next generation of live audio professionals shaping the direction of the industry about what it looks like in 2018 and the changes they’d like to see going forward.

We believe these seven stand-out pros are changing the game in their approach, attitude and ambition towards this ever-fascinating sector of audio. #PSNextGeneration

24/07/2018 18:06

d&b Soundscape – and everything is a concert hall.

Enveloped by sound. Exhilarating acoustics, inside and outside. Emulated with the reverberation signatures of exemplary venues. Sound coherent with the program and setting. Transforming spaces to bring completely new listening experiences. d&b Soundscape is a revolutionary audio system processor, an object positioning tool, a reverberation system, akin to a musical instrument – a tool to provide the appropriate stage for a culture – even under the open sky.

dbsoundscape.com

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2018

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JAMES HILL TOUR MANAGER

STAYING ORGANISED MAKES LIFE EASIER How did you get into this industry?

I studied music production at the University of Huddersfield, and my third year was a year’s placement in the industry. I worked at a live music venue in Sheffield called Corporation and really enjoyed the live music side of the business. After graduating, I returned to Corporation as a main member of their sound engineering team and from there started to meet touring engineers and tour managers. This networking led to further jobs at a recording studio, other live venues and touring work.

After a few years of touring, mixing front of house sound for many different bands, I started to work for a band called While She Sleeps from Sheffield. After a few festival shows and a tour, they asked me if I would be up for being their tour manager as well, as they didn’t have anyone in that role and were doing it themselves.

From spending time around other tour managers on the road, I knew the tour manager responsibilities fairly well already and settled into the job role pretty fast. This led me to accept more tour manager/sound engineer work with other bands, including Boston Manor who played on the main stage at Download Festival this year.

I am also currently advancing a tour for Waterparks who will play on the main stage at Reading and Leeds in August.

he’s always been supportive and recommended me for tours and work. His live mixes are super clear and he always manages to make the live show sound exactly like the record.

Another influence soundwise is probably [Metallica’s live engineer] “Big” Mick [Hughes]. He once came to an arena show I was mixing with a pop-rock band because he was friends with the band’s manager and he showed me a few things to help my mix. He was super friendly and helpful and he said he liked my mix, so that’s always a bonus.

For an influential tour manager, I would have to say my good friend Olly Rowland. Olly was the TM for the support band on the first ever tour I did and it was his first ever tour as well; before that he was a stuntman in films and TV. Since then he has worked hard and become a great TM for bands such as McFly and Bros. If I ever need advice on any tour manager problems, I will always call Olly first.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

Nobody has ever really given me any bad advice, but while touring I’ve picked up on some things from other tour managers that I try to avoid, such as poor communication between the touring team and trying to sort things on the day that could really have been done in advance.

Name: James Hill Age: 29 Based: Sheffield, UK Job title: Tour manager/sound engineer Employer: Freelance Current projects: While She Sleeps, Waterparks, Boston Manor, Deaf Havana Notable achievements: Mixing main stage at Reading and Leeds Festival Awards/nominations: Nominated for Rising Star at Pro Sound Awards 2017

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

The people. I’ve made some great friends doing this job.

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

As long as you have advanced the tour well and are well organised you shouldn’t have too many challenges to overcome during the job. The main challenge is trying to get band members to do press at the correct time. Of course, they will always head into catering or go for a walk 15 minutes before the scheduled interview!

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

When I’m at home I enjoy cooking. On the road it’s a lot of eating in restaurants or fast food places, or making a boring sandwich from the backstage rider. So when I get the chance to cook myself a meal, I enjoy it.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

Be nice. No one wants to tour with someone they don’t get on with. I’m lucky enough to call every band I tour with my friends and still talk to them outside of the touring world.

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

And the best tips you’ve been given?

Still touring the world with the bands I work for now – but just in bigger venues with better catering.

I guess an influence soundwise for me is Phil Gornell (FOH for 5 Seconds of Summer/All Time Low). I work with him at his studio in Sheffield [Steel City Studio] and

Stay organised. If I can have everything to do with the tour all sorted and ready before the tour starts then it makes being on the road a lot easier.

twitter.com/himynameisjames steelcitystudio.co.uk

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2018

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CHRIS DROHAN COMPOSER

Name: Chris Drohan Age: 23 Based: London, UK Job title: Sound designer/composer Employer: Freelance, represented by BBA Management Current projects: Thrown (Edinburgh), Knock Knock (UK Tour), New Nigerians (UK Tour) Notable achievements: All Or Nothing (Ambassadors Theatre, West End), composer for Andromache (BBC Radio) Awards/nominations: Off West End Award nomination for Sound Design in 2017

How did you get into the theatre side of the professional audio industry?

I began as a musician when I was young, with an interest in both recording technologies and theatre.

As I grew up, I kind of merged those interests and discovered there was a career where I could do them all.

I went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) where I learned about all aspects of the theatre industry, and after graduating I worked my way up through the industry as a technician and creative.

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

I’m often influenced by my peers and those around me making work that is exciting. Influences include sound designers such as Gareth Fry, who has worked in such a varied way while also creating so many opportunities for designers of all levels, are a huge inspiration creating new work while ensuring there will be a new generation to take over.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

I fortunately don’t think I’ve been given much bad advice, thankfully. I often hear people say that to pursue a career in theatre, you need to train at a well-known drama school to succeed. However, I believe that there are many ways to get where you want to go; it’s about choosing the best for you, not for someone else.

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BE NICE... AND SHOW UP ON TIME And the best tips you’ve been given?

The best tips I’ve ever been given were to be nice, and show up on time. It’s two really simple things, but gets you such a long way. No one wants to work with the person who is unreliable, and as one director told me, the person you want to work with is the person you could bare to spend a three-hour train journey with.

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

My favourite thing is definitely being able to move around and do different things every day. I’ll often find myself in multiple cities in the same week, working with different people and creating different shows. It’s tough sometimes, but really exciting.

some fresh air (which is often lacking in theatres). When I can’t, a quick yoga session can often give much the same effect.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

It’s totally mindless and not sound-specific, but always be the person in the room with phone chargers on your desk, it’ll make you very popular! Bringing baked goods is another way to guarantee you’ll be asked back. In sound terms, my best tip is to trust your ears. Sit in every seat in the theatre and listen with an unobstructed view, with no screens or read outs.

Yes, computers can be helpful and give you lots of information, but there’s nothing like sitting back and hearing it yourself.

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

The job often involves long hours, high stress situations and being away from home a lot of the time, and it’s important to strike a good balance with your social life.

Being able to work at your best means being selective about the jobs you do. It is always best to do one job to the best of your ability than do a bad job on multiple shows at once.

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

I love to run, it’s a great stress release and good to get

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

In 10 years, I’d like to be pushing boundaries with new technologies and new ways of sharing stories with sound. Sound is a hugely powerful tool and we’ve really only just scratched the surface of what we can achieve with it. I want to be on the forefront of that, and helping to bring a new generation of sound designers into this industry with good opportunities. chrisdrohan.co.uk soundcloud.com/chrisdoessound

24/07/2018 18:08

2018

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OLIVE OLIN PRODUCTION MANAGER

YOU CAN’T BE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE How did you get into this industry?

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

I’ve always studied music from a very young age in Sweden, but when I graduated college I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do. I never wanted to be a performer, but I was determined to still find my path within the music industry. I always wanted to move to London so I did some research and found the Music Production course at Tech Music School (now BIMM London). I had no knowledge of music production at all but I applied and they thankfully accepted me. In my second year I chose Live Sound as a module and that is where I felt like I found my true calling. Here I am a couple of years later, due to a lot of hard work and with the help of some good friends.

I guess it was not so much advice, but I was told I did not belong in the world of live sound because of my gender and should think about a different career path. Luckily I did not listen. It is not for anyone else to tell me what I can or cannot do.

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

[Production manager and promoter from Breathe Out Music] Pete Webber has been a big influence. He introduced me to the world of live sound and I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. Not only is he a great FOH with some absolutely amazing venues behind him, he is such a great teacher and a dear friend who inspires me in so many different ways. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting and working alongside Becky Pell a couple of years ago and she was the first female sound engineer I’d encountered. You can’t be what you can’t see, but luckily I saw Becky and I thought, I want to be just like her.

All the amazing people that I meet and get to work with on a daily basis. And that I get to listen to incredibly talented musicians every single day.

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And the best tips you’ve been given?

The first and best piece of advice I was given was ‘don’t be a dick’ (or in nicer terms ‘don’t be rude’). Wherever you work, no matter how nervous or un-confident you are you will always be fine as long as you’re friendly.

We are all under a lot of pressure a lot of the time so a friendly face goes a long way.

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

Stress is definitely the main challenge for me personally; I am not the greatest at handling it but is something I am actively working on and is something you learn to deal with on the go. The job is very fastpaced and you’re under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. Especially if I am working on bigger events, there is a lot of planning, pre- and post-production. You can’t

Name: Olive Olin Age: 25 Based: London, UK Job title: Production manager Employer: The Ned Hotel in Bank, London Notable achievements: Blogger for Soundgirls.org

rely on anyone else doing your work or pick up your slack when you are a team of only three people. You have to think and plan for every possible scenario. But with great challenges come great rewards.

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

I’m all about audio. In my spare time I DJ, compose, remix and produce music. If I have some time left over I go to the gym and catch up with my friends and family.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

Follow your dreams, but be prepared that they might change as you go. Work hard and get your foot in wherever you can. Reach out and ask for help. Always ask even if the answer might be a no. Most importantly, be kind to yourself.

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

In 10 years I hope I’ll be a teacher in music production or live sound. Hopefully I’ll have enough experience to teach and encourage young individuals to follow their dreams. I’d also like to have toured a bit, that is definitely something I’d love to do if given the opportunity. Only time will tell. oliveolin.co.uk soundgirls.org/contributors/olive-olin

24/07/2018 18:08

ELEVATING THE

FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Photo: Ralph Larmann

Roskilde Festival Group and Meyer Sound have joined together for a unique partnership that will leverage the shared values and respective strengths of both organizations. For 2018 and beyond, these partners have jointly created new programs for technical staff training, education initiatives, and a memorable audience experience.

Together, with strong leadership, Roskilde Festival Group and Meyer Sound are working closely to bring an amazing sonic experience to the festival on each 100% Meyer Sound stage.

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24/07/2018 13:22:49

2018

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BRYONY OCTOBER

FOH ENGINEER I’VE LEARNED EVERYTHING ON THE ROAD How did you get into this industry?

Back in the mid-’90s when I was a teenager I was a massive Levellers fan. I wrote to their fan club On the Fiddle to see if I could do my Year 10 work experience at their offices in Brighton. I was too embarrassed to post the letter, I thought they would think it was a ridiculous proposition, but my mum posted it in secret and they replied almost immediately welcoming me down.

Having got on very well with everyone I went back every school holidays and was often invited to various parties, gigs and festival shows they were doing. Off the back of this, they eventually invited me to spend a few days on tour helping with merch when I was still only 15. A couple of years later, they offered a me a paid job as the assistant merch seller. Two days into it, I couldn’t really handle just sitting around when the sound and lighting teams were so busy loading in, so I decided to set my sights higher than selling t-shirts and offered to make myself useful. I initially just pushed boxes around and helped with the PA rigging. I then joined the tech crew at my university student union and got some hands-on time with mixing consoles so the Levellers’ engineer let me start mixing the support acts that came through with no engineer. Everything I know about touring and live sound has been learned by doing it on the road - I was just so lucky to get access to large scale touring at such a young age.

She’s been a a huge support and a massively positive influence - I literally didn’t know any other women that did live sound until I met Jac. In the same year I worked with Diane Barton on the Tim Burgess [Charlatans] solo tour – she was mixing FOH and I did my one and only stint as a monitor engineer. She had kids and still toured and had made a full career out of it. I think she made me realise deep down that, albeit highly unusual, it was possible to have a proper career as a sound engineer at a meaningful and successful level, even if you were a woman. Finally, Caz Adcock, who’s juggled being a touring engineer with having two small children. She gives me hope that there is a ‘normal’ life to be had somewhere out there if I ever get home for long enough to find it.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

Never get emotionally involved with the people you work with. It’s both good and bad advice. But in reality it’s impossible not to when you spend 24/7 with people.

It’s also is a massive part of making touring work as a lifestyle and being part of a small team of people that have to live with each other for months at a time.

This is not to say there shouldn’t be boundaries, but you have to be part of the team and that means wiping tears and giving life support as part of the team you are in.

Name: Bryony October Age: 37 Based (city/country): Brighton UK, and Dublin, Ireland Job title: FOH engineer Employer: Freelance Current projects: Katie Melua; Beth Orton; Natalie Merchant; Ward Thomas; Lily Moore Notable achievements: Making a living for 20 years as a female FOH engineer...

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

I think the biggest challenge for me is striking a work life balance, in that I have none whatsoever. To get this far has meant throwing everything at it and never coming up for air. Therefore, over the years, I’ve sacrificed relationships, children, weddings, funerals, friendships to keep my nose to the grindstone. I’ve definitely used it as an escape from real life to lucrative and fulfilling ends, but I think that it’s very, very difficult with job insecurity to not give it everything, say yes to everything and make it everything in your life.

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

Politics, literature environment, nature, yoga, home renovation, knitting… but I find it incredibly hard to stick to any proper hobbies as I have very little commitment to engaging in them due to work.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

Be nice to everyone, no matter what. Keep it all in perspective: remember it’s just a gig at the end of the day, none of us are heart surgeons; maintain a strong and fulfilling home life and connections to family and friends are more important than your job.

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

It can be hard not to feel extremely alone in the world as a female FOH engineer, so it’s hard to find inspiration on a like-for-like basis in the industry. However, there are three women who spring to mind. Jac Nott, who I met running when she was running FOH at a festival in 2003 and who is now the Levellers monitor engineer.

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What’s your favourite thing about the job?

I still get incredibly excited when I get a phone call on a Friday asking me to go to Australia next week, or Shanghai or New York. So the fast pace of change and the amazing travelling opportunities are still a big part of what I love (and also hate) about the industry. The camaraderie and a feeling of all being in a special gang is also a big part of it.

I would like to have smashed the glass ceiling hanging over women who mix FOH sound that I’ve been battering for 20 years and see more women with the confidence and opportunity to be out there at the FOH console. I would also like to have said I manage to find a life outside of touring and get some balance into my life. soundgirls.org/contributors/bryony-october

24/07/2018 18:08

2018

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ANNE-LISE COULET

MONITOR ENGINEER

DON’T HAVE A PLAN B How did you get into this industry?

Back when I was in college in France, I was really into music. I volunteered at a music festival on my campus and I ended up helping out on stage. When I saw the monitor engineer mixing, I thought to myself, ‘that’s it!’

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

So many people have influenced and inspired me in my career but the three major ones are French mixers who I worked with when I first started in the audio industry: Yves Jaget, Sebastien Rouget, and Stephane Kijek. To this day, I still use all their tricks.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

Several voices are resonating in my head right now.

When I first decided to get into the audio industry, people told me that you have to be born into it or you have to be a musician to understand. I was raised on a farm in Eastern France and I discovered Led Zeppelin when I was 16 years old. People trying to tell me that I didn’t come from the right place or have the right background is something I’ve dealt with quite a lot throughout my career, and I’m glad I didn’t listen to any of the bad advice. Six years ago, when I decided to make the big

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Name: Anne-Lise Coulet Age: 32 Based (city/country): Los Angeles, USA Job title: Monitor engineer Employer: Freelance Current projects: Jennifer Lopez residency in Las Vegas Notable achievements: Jennifer Lopez; The Jacksons; Neyo; Christina Aguilera; Tegan and Sara

move from Paris to Los Angeles, people said things like, ‘You know that working in the US as an audio engineer is impossible, right? You should consider a plan B’.

closely to what they want, to be able to read body language and work with unspoken cues from the artist who’s in the midst of an intense performance.

And the best tips you’ve been given?

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

Do not consider a plan B and go ahead! Learn to work on every console and make sure you understand RF. One of my best friends, Emmanuelle Pedron, is a very talented and respected lighting designer in the industry.

She used to tell me to take every gig that you are offered. Experience is definitely the best teacher.

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

In the live audio industry you can dream big, because anything is possible. You can receive a call one day and the next thing you know you are on a flight to Japan to mix monitors for an A-list artist. You get to travel the world and discover new cultures and new ways of working all the time.

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

Staying up to date with the new technology;d it changes very fast. Also, to stay open minded. Every artist is different, as well as their IEM mix. You have to listen

I love languages, yoga, and reading. I also love to travel and discover new cultures.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

Work hard, be attentive, focused and humble. Be curious about how other audio engineers approach their mixes, ask questions. Repeat. All the live audio mixers are coming from different horizons, most of the time selftaught. Every engineer who I’ve worked with has helped develop my technique.

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

I can see myself mixing TV shows, monitors or FOH. I’ve recently tried to get more into Pro Tools. I’m hoping this could fit somewhere in the picture also. Or maybe teaching others all that I’ve experienced on the road. linkedin.com/in/anne-lise-coulet-8a529770

24/07/2018 18:08

2018

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JAMES HAYWARD STAGE MANAGER

YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN

Name: James Hayward Age: 24 Based (city/country): Cheshire Job title: Stage manager Employer: Freelance Current projects: The Specials; Paul Weller; Ocean Colour Scene; Nick JD Hodgson Awards: UK Music Outstanding MAP Graduate Award Winner 2018, 2017 TPI Breakthrough Talent winner

How did you get into this industry?

And the best tips you’ve been given?

world of audio?

I started in this industry at around 16-17, pushing boxes and pushing faders for my friends in bands, along with playing in my own band. I then moved on to work with session musicians on touring shows as a backline tech for a corporate company in Manchester called Sterling Event Group as a freelancer. At university I discovered what I was great at - and what I was not so good at - as university is competitive in that everyone else had the same goals. I needed to stand out and make myself the best at what I do… and fast. Having a rocky start at uni, I found my tutor at Backstage Academy [Sara Gleadhall] lining me up to make the right choices in networking and linking me up with tour managers such as The Specials. tour manager Mike Darling. From there on, the rest is history!

I think the best tip I’ve ever been given is to embrace the moment you are in. Like listening to a piece of music you don’t skip to the end, you listen to the whole thing. I think that’s a good way to live, especially in this industry, as you see so many wonderful things you could be missing by thinking of the future.

I’m heavily into the fitness industry and obviously music.

I’m a keen guitar player and have been since getting my first Fender Stratocaster copy from Argos when I was around 10 years old.

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

Probably the places I visit. In the past year and a half I’ve been to New Zealand, Japan, Australia, USA, Europe, all over the UK, doing shows in places like the Sydney Opera House, the Hollywood Bowl, and supporting the Rolling Stones. It’s like a dream come true, I can see such amazing places and get paid for it.

The best advice I’ve ever given anyone was to a friend: “We can do anything in this game, because we either know it or we can ask someone else who already does and learn it fast,” that’s the basic idea of it. I think that for someone like me or someone starting out it’s about being confident in what you do and not being afraid to ask questions, because once you know you know, and then nothing can stop you.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

What are the biggest challenges of the job?

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

Probably to be told that it will all come my way without working for it and that this industry is all based on luck.

I’m a firm believer that if you work hard, people will notice you, then they won’t forget you for the future. You just have to work to your best ability all the time, you only get out of this what you put into it. If you shy away from approaching your career head-on, I think it’s likely you’ll just plateau.

Mainly being away from home and my girlfriend, but apart from that nothing, really. I can’t find any negatives to the job or what some would think of as a challenge or difficulty, purely because I find the the challenge of putting a show on such a thrill, so I always look back with rose-tinted glasses.

I don’t really know where I’d like to be in 10 years.

Maybe a beach in New Zealand with a barbecue going, but probably tour managing a top artist and continuing to see the amazing places I’ve already seen and learn more about the world. But for now, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing and enjoy it.

What other interests do you have outside the

linkedin.com/in/james-hayward-5b4914117

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What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

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DAN BALFOUR SOUND DESIGNER A MINUTE’S PREPARATION SAVES AN HOUR IN TECH

2018

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Name: Dan Balfour Age: 26 Based: (city/country): London and South Yorkshire, England Job title: Sound designer Employer: Freelance Current projects: LAVA, Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham, England; VINOVAT,-Ă, at Centrul REPLIKA, Bucharest, Romania; Effigies Of Wickedness, Gate Theatre, London, England Notable achievements: Awards/nominations: 2018/19 Off West End Award Nominee for Best Sound Designer

How did you get into this industry?

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever heard?

I got into this industry through my love for writing, creating and performing music. When I was a teenager I played music in two contrasting contexts: improvising music on the clarinet and drums in my father’s church and as a drummer in a progressive metal band. I learned so much by responding to live audiences as a musician. I got into theatre at the same time: first acting at secondary school and then after high school creating independent work in south Yorkshire and Lincolnshire with my best mate. We both still work together professionally with our company BÉZNĂ Theatre, a Romanian-British political theatre company of which I am company sound designer.

Luckily enough, so far, I’ve not received any bad advice.

What other interests do you have outside the world of audio?

What’s the best advice you’ve been given?

I love going to gigs, being outdoors, travelling and discovering new music.

Can you name some of your influences within the industry?

My teacher at Central School of Speech and Drama, Greg Fisher; my peer, mentor and friend, sound designer Tom Gibbons and my good friends Nico Vaccari and Sînziana Koenig who run BÉZNĂ Theatre.

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Tom Gibbons once said to me, Strive to be the most prepared member of the team.

What’s your favourite thing about the industry you work in?

Seeing an audience affected by our collective work, that moment during a play when the air is sucked out of the room. I also love seeing the fruits of everybody’s creative work come together in the technical rehearsal.

What are the biggest challenges of your dayto-day job?

The financial challenge of the arts industry at grassroots level: outside of commercial theatre, funding can be limited and this is felt across all departments.

Maintaining the balance between earning a living and doing what you love.

What advice would you give to someone else – your best tip or trick?

Always remain stimulated creatively: if it’s not in the text, find it elsewhere. Remember: a minute’s preparation saves an hour in tech.

Where do you see yourself being professional in the next 10 years?

I want to continue to make exciting socially and politically engaged theatre that reaches as many people as possible. Even earlier than 10 years, I’d really like to see the industry become more welcoming to female sound designers. n danielbalfour.com beznatheatre.org

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Photo: Sergey Becker

Classic BRITs

Old events, new tricks The emergence of AR, VR and Next Generation Audio technologies has raised some intriguing questions about the future nature of live music events. But which of them really has the potential to go the distance, wonders David Davies..?

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ot LIVE If You Want It!’ declared The Rolling Stones on their debut live album from 1966. Back then a live show was a relatively straightforward proposition – albeit one fraught with potential difficulties thanks to the relatively primitive audio systems of the day. Over the next few decades PAs improved exponentially, while at the same time light shows, lasers, props and increasingly outlandish conceptual notions all added considerably to the notion of what a pop/rock concert could contain.

But given the discussion currently taking place around several new or emerging technologies, you could be forgiven for thinking that we are now on the eve of something approaching the reinvention of the gig-going experience. Broadly speaking, these technologies can be divided into two groups – those pertaining to the invenue experience, and those related to the engagement of fans around gig times or those who aren’t attending at all but still wish to join in the excitement.

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It is the first group that concerns us here, and within that it is arguably immersive audio, VR/AR and wearable technologies about which there is presently the greatest buzz. All are still evolving, and as such it is not easy to forecast their long-term potential – not least with regards to monetisation by event organisers and vendors. If they are to become fundamental elements of live events in a widespread way, sustainable business models will need to be established. But what can be assessed more meaningfully at this point is the creative contribution that some of these technologies might make to the overall experience of live music in the years to come.

Prepare for total immersion The extent to which immersive audio technologies have diversified in recent years can be ascertained by the fact that there is now a relevant catch-all term: Next Generation Audio (NGA). But although their aims and

implementations vary considerably, these technologies share the objective of making the audio experience more all-encompassing, chiefly by adding extra speakers in order to achieve a more rounded, spatiallyaware sound.

Those with longer memories will be aware that the immersive audio concept is hardly new – the likes of Pink Floyd were experimenting with quadrophonic sound as far back as the late 1960s. Since then 5.1, 9.1 and assorted other configurations have brought surround audio closer to being a default option, but Bryan Grant from Britannia Row – the legendary touring sound company originally founded by the Floyd back in the mid 1970s – suggests that it’s time may have finally arrived.

“I certainly hope that there is a future for immersive [sound] because for too long audio has often been relegated to being the concert equivalent of plumbing – it’s taken for granted that it’s there and works

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Tommy performed at the Denver Centre

effectively,” he says. “There has been a lot of attention given to lighting, videos, costumes, dancing girls and so on, but on the audio side I think a kind of complacency has been allowed to exist.”

Brit Row has certainly been doing its bit here, having recently utilised the L-Acoustics L-ISA system, which enables the creation of immersive audio environments through the combination of the bespoke L-ISA processor and L-Acoustics loudspeakers and amplified controllers – for Angus & Julia Stone and the Classic BRIT Awards, both of which took place at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

But there are plenty of other technologies competing for market space, from the much-publicised Dolby Atmos to the fast-rising likes of Astro Spatial Audio, founded and led by Bjorn Van Munster. The ASA solution has a brand-agnostic approach to speakers and amplifiers, but revolves around the principles of wave field synthesis and the specially-developed SARA II Premium Rendering Engine.

“We believe that it is no longer a question of whether spatial audio technologies are going to have a big impact on the live events industry; it’s a matter of how quickly the industry recognises [their importance],” says Van Munster.

Without a doubt the high-profile credits are starting to mount up. In the last few months alone, ASA technology

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WE BELIEVE THAT IT IS NO LONGER A QUESTION OF WHETHER SPATIAL AUDIO TECHNOLOGIES ARE GOING TO HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON THE LIVE EVENTS INDUSTRY - IT’S A MATTER OF HOW QUICKLY THE INDUSTRY RECOGNISES THEIR IMPORTANCE

BJORN VAN MUNSTER

has helped to realise an ambitious, effects-laden new production of The Who’s Tommy at the Denver Centre for the Performing Arts, as well as an event with JUR in Amsterdam, at which ASA helped to localise sound relative to performers’ positions. With events such as these, “audio allows you to give cues, directions, create emotional responses, and build a deeper layer into a

show. It affects the audience in a deeper way,” explains Van Munster, who believes that ASA’s ability to work with different brands means that it will become an attractive option for festivals on account of their fastturnaround requirements.

Of course, there are cost and time management implications – from the hire or install of additional speakers to extra labour to rig them, as well as the training or pure experimentation time that may be required for engineers to fully get to grips with immersive audio and its numerous creative opportunities (as Van Munster acknowledges, sound professionals do need to evolve “a fresh approach to building up your mix and your stems”).

But with the number of live events remaining significant, and the need to maintain consumer interest amid controversy over ticket prices, these may increasingly seem like manageable concerns in order to add – quite literally – another dimension to the live music experience.

In fact, Van Munster believes that “in the very near-future the use of technologies such as enhanced localisation, multi-channel immersive audio and dynamic interactive room acoustics will be expected by audiences, even if they don’t understand the technicalities. The real competition will be in how

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PEOPLE RARELY JUST GO TO SEE A HEADLINER FOR A FEW HOURS. IT’S ABOUT THE WHOLE SOCIAL EXPERIENCE. WE ARE A GREGARIOUS SPECIES AND WE NEED TO FIND REASONS TO GET TOGETHER. THE GENRES OF THE ACTS WILL CHANGE, AND SO WILL THE TECHNOLOGIES INVOLVED, BUT I DON’T SEE THAT BASIC HUMAN NEED GOING AWAY

BRYAN GRANT

effectively the technology is used.”

Enhancing ‘reality’ Elsewhere there are moves afoot to further enhance the visual enjoyment of concerts. The advent of 4K/UHD screen technology is already in the process of making those large-scale visuals even more arresting – both for in-person spectators and those enjoying performances via broadcast platforms – but now there is increasing clamour around the transformative potential of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR).

For in-person gig attendance, AR seems particularly

The Who’s Tommy

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exciting, with the opportunity for fans to experience visual effects through using their smartphones at designated times. There have been a number of high-profile examples recently, of which a recent show Samuel Westberg

by NYC band Starset – in which a bespoke app provided fans with a countdown to the start of an AR experience that centred around a huge virtual spaceship entering the venue and landing on the stage – is one of the most striking.

LiveLike has rapidly established a niche in providing VR, AR and MR experiences to fans via any mobile platform. To date it has focused its efforts on the sports market, with its current involvement with broadcasters who acquired the rights for the VR World Cup feedsrelated streaming project set to bring the company its highest profile to date. But VP of sales EMEA Samuel Westberg believes these kind of technologies can, and will, transfer to the live music and entertainment spaces in a major way.

“It’s such a natural transition of our experience to concerts and other entertainment,” he says. “In particular, these technologies will really help to open up access to shows like never before, in addition to ‘regular’ production, which I still believe is a great way of attending the event.” At shows, AR-based solutions will allow fans to experience all manner of visuals effects and additional content; for those located remotely, VR promises a type of immersive experience that is “not remotely comparable to viewing via VOD services, which is ultimately just more conventional content.”

The model for live events is certainly different to that for live sports, with promoters, venue operators, artists and agents all likely to be wanting input. But LiveLike has already conducted several significant private trials at music-related events, and Westberg believes that “it is only a matter of time before [the relevant business models mature] as there are so many opportunities to create incredible fan experiences.”

In truth, we have only begun to scratch the surface here. There is also much excitement around wearable technologies following eye-catching trials by the likes of Coldplay, who used wearables in combination to create an ocean of light during shows on their 2016 tour. There are suggestions, too, that drone technology could play an increasing role at events, for example to deliver instant high-quality selfies. Simultaneously, more carefully targeted advertising technologies will allow event organisers, and the brands that support them, to establish more meaningful and lucrative connections with their patrons. All of which reliance on mobile technologies may mean there is greater clamour than ever for ‘phone free zones’ – which could in turn become marketable elements of the gig-going experience!

Ultimately, it will be economics and returns on investment that determine which of these technologies achieve long-term traction. Fortunately, the solid base on which the live events industry is founded isn’t in any doubt, as Bryan Grant observes: “People rarely just go to see a headliner for a few hours. It’s about the whole social experience. We are a gregarious species and we need to find reasons to get together. The genres of the acts will change, and so will the technologies involved, but I don’t see that basic human need going away.” n

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Photo by Pamela Raith

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Shore thing: The Last Ship

Audience participation Audiences will not notice object-based audio until it’s not there, argues PSNEurope’s Phil Ward…

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orget ‘360’ sound. If immersive audio is going to mean anything significant in the coming years, it won’t be because a few Pink Floyd remixes can mess with your head in a museum. No disrespect is meant to the superb use of Sennheiser’s AMBEO platform at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London during the exhibition Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, but when it comes to core live music such as rock, classical and indeed any other style, there is a fundamental requirement to deliver a solid mix to an audience at least familiar with the programme. For this, 180° systems are enough.

This is where the new generation of object-based sound reinforcement is going to make a real impact – or perhaps no impact at all other than swathes of newgeneration ticket buyers curiously more happy than ever before with their experiences. It has long been a goal of reinforcement in classical and operatic productions to become invisible, if we can set aside this irrefutable case of oxymoron. Blending into the room acoustics suits not only aesthetics but also the sensitive politics of arts booking in which, not to put too fine a point on it, stealthy sound engineers let sleeping puritans lie. Object mixing is only going to make this job easier.

Blind test As for pop and stage musicals, pro audio may be accepted as part of the stage package, but even then comes wilfully low on the list of ingredients that might make a difference. Here’s an extract from a telling review of The Last Ship, Sting’s new show about his roots in Newcastle now touring the country. It’s a highly favourable notice, but in her attempts to identify the

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source of her happiness, the reviewer – Kate Richards for the South Wales arts website Get The Chance – exhausts every possibility except the correct one: “My instant reaction to the opening few bars of The Last Ship was ‘wow what a sound’! I found myself trying to rationalise why the quality of the sound had made such an impression on me – were these particularly exceptional singers, are the acoustics in this auditorium better than other venues or could it be that I just don’t hear live music often enough?”

Try as she might, Kate just cannot get to the heart of the matter even as she leaves the Wales Millennium Centre a happy customer. “By the end of the production,” she concludes, “I had decided that the phenomenal sound was a combination of all three elements – there are some absolutely exceptional singers in this cast, the auditorium does have great acoustics and yes, there really is a huge positive difference between the immersive experience of listening to live music in a theatre versus the usual way I consume music these days – the digital radio in my car or occasionally on a mini-speaker around the house.”

Were it not so amusing, it would almost be an insult to a sound system that deploys a 180° version of Soundscape, d&b audiotechnik’s object-based processing platform. Sebastian Frost, the sound designer of The Last Ship, takes being completely ignored like this as the greatest compliment.

“Absolutely,” he says. “Our job is not to make our presence known. It can be felt, I guess, but not known.

It’s nice to have any appreciation of what one does, anyway. Funnily enough, the new systems allow greater creative expression rather than less. A lot of the time in

a venue is spent dealing with the inadequacies of the design, the acoustics and indeed the production itself, in a highly technical way. With all of these new tools you find ways of using them far more constructively, and you have a lot more time to do so. It levels the playing field in a way that re-sets the sonic environment to what it truly should be, in the truest, most natural sense. That allows you to add your own style.”

You also have space to add the unnatural, should it be required. Serge Gräf, nowadays using Soundscape while mixing FOH for those sonic pioneers Kraftwerk, gets a similar response even though he is using the 360° system to its full potential.

“I asked some non-audio professional friends what they thought of the ‘surround’ after one show,” he recounts, “and they said ‘What? There was surround?

We just thought each voice was coming from where could see them…’ So this shows that even without tracking technology you can solve most of the localisation issues in a convincing way, even for people on completely the opposite side of the auditorium.”

Local brew Localisation is the key. Advanced products like Out Board’s TiMax SoundHub and TiMax Tracker have been cracking this particular chestnut for some time, but if accurate-enough localisation can be achieved using an essentially proscenium concept more or less right out of the box then more audiences than hitherto possible will at least get a hint of what they’ve been missing. Or again, what they haven’t been missing because nobody told them it wasn’t there.

Sound designer Kai Harada has been using Astro

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Sergey Becker

Spatial Audio’s SARA II Premium Rendering Engine, an application of The Fraunhöfer Institute’s SpatialSound Wave technology, for the musical The Band’s Visit on Broadway. In fact, he’s won a Tony Award for it, so people are noticing something, even if it’s not a new paradigm in sound mixing. As he puts it: “The best compliment we can receive is if the audience didn’t notice the sound system: then we have achieved our goal of simply reinforcing the natural sound of the voices and instruments.”

But he is in no doubt that Astro Spatial Audio (ASA) will change the way he uses conventional PA speakers.

“I think the benefit of ASA’s system and topology is that I can still design a more ‘traditional’ sound system designed for coverage and optimised for different types of sources, but put SARA on top of it all,” Harada says. “Of course I was apprehensive about such a new piece of equipment, but it worked flawlessly and I appreciated the time that [ASA founder] Bjorn van Munster spent with us. I think the ability to easily manipulate localisation as well as room acoustics will be very beneficial for future shows. The speakers themselves don’t need to change much, but we may be able to become more flexible with loudspeaker locations provided we have enough power, as the ASA system can do a lot of the math for localisation without too much user intervention.”

Another significant point Harada makes concerns the misapprehension that these new systems presuppose

ASA Engine

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some kind of surround experience.

“To be absolutely clear,” he says, “we are not creating a 360° immersive experience at The Band’s Visit. It’s still a traditional musical in a proscenium theatre. We are simply using an objectoriented approach for specific sound sources, to great success. With live theatre, I think there is a world where we can have more fun with sound sources in different locations, but it has to be specific to the type of show: it wouldn’t make sense, for example, to do a classical musical with multichannel sound sources and the violins coming from behind you. That’s not appropriate to the show.

“However, I think that as theatre creators come up with new and interesting ideas there may be a world for such effects.”

“The 180° techniques are far more important,” emphasises Frost. “They’re totally separate things, and they give different results. We’ve been able to re-shape room acoustics, or do stage-tracking, or other forms of ‘surround’ for some time. What we haven’t been able to do is to replicate sound sources in a natural manner, in a way that’s true to what you’re seeing in front of you.”

Pink noise L-Acoustics makes an important distinction within its L-ISA object-based audio ecosystem between ‘immersive’ systems and what it calls ‘hyperrealism’: the former concerns extended 360° solutions, while the latter is the frontal arrangement that we can identify as ‘180’. Sound designer Colin Pink deployed a hyperreal configuration of L-ISA Live at the Classic BRITs recently, an awards night of speeches, solos and orchestra at the tricky Royal Albert Hall in London.

“When you start using L-ISA,” Pink explains, “the first thing you notice is the greater separation that you have. It allows you to place each instrument where you want it, and the off-axis imaging is quite remarkable.

The whole premise of restricted stereo imaging of old is eliminated, and this is the biggest change that you are aware of. Because of it you get a lot more detail, and you can really focus on all of the different elements of the mix.

“You also get a lot of headroom, simply because you’ve got more hangs, even though they’re smaller.

You’re distributing your energy among them, so everything sounds a lot more effortless. It allows you to be more creative with your mix, too, because you have those extra dimensions of width and depth and the greater accessibility of placement.

“What’s really interesting is that you push the faders up and you get a good mix quite quickly. It’s much quicker to hear what’s going on and

Sebastian Frost

how different instruments are working either with or against one another. That is a really important part of this evolution.”

Sergey Becker is L-Acoustics’ UK application engineer for touring, and has his own theory about typical audience nonchalance. “As with anything else,” he points out, “psychologically we take good things for granted. If the frontal part of an L-ISA Live system is compared to conventional stereo the change may seem subtle at first, and the difference is much more apparent off-axis. In the centre, the difference between stereo and L-ISA is audible, but off-axis is where it really shines. At the Albert Hall 70% of the audience was within the L-ISA zone and had this experience. Even in the middle there is much greater amount of discrete separation and clarity.”

Rock follies Most engineers who have used object-based audio agree that, once tried, it’s a disappointment to have to go back to stereo. But they’ll have to, for a while.

“There is still an expense attached,” points out Frost, “and it can be challenging to install. It’s not something that’s going to apply to all corners of the industry, for some time to come. Nevertheless, I think it is where everything needs to end up going.”

One may assume audiences will notice too, even if they won’t know why. All of which, as we sanction these silent assassins of bad sound, will contribute to a greater mass suspension of disbelief than ever before – which is a sub-conscious process at best. It may even be unconscious, at some gigs… In the opinion of Eddie Thomas, founder of ETA Sound and now SSE Audio’s large-scale installation guru, even if object-based mixing does transform rock sound, its audiences will be the last to pay it any heed.

“They just want it to be loud, while they all get drunk and fight,” he says with tongue partly in cheek. “Isn’t immersive audio wasted on that market?”

He may have a point… n

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Return of the Classic BRITs

June’s Classic BRIT Awards saw Britannia Row provide the event’s audio element, with Digico desks deployed at FOH and monitor positions. PSNLive hears from the evening’s engineers to find out how they performed on the night…

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he Classic BRIT Awards made a triumphant return after a five-year hiatus on June 13, celebrating the very finest the world of classical music has to offer. The great and good from this vibrant corner of the music industry turned out in force to celebrate the best in the business, sending a strong message to those in the industry who turned their backs on the event after its 2013 outing.

Held in London’s Royal Albert Hall, the 2018 Classic BRIT Awards were hosted by Myleene Klass and Alexander Armstrong and featured show-stopping performances from a raft of international stars, including the likes of Katherine Jenkins, Beatrice Rama, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, Tokio Myers and many more.

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I HAD HEARD L-ISA IN A DEMO SITUATION BEFORE BUT PRIOR TO THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL. THIS WAS A REALLY SPECIAL AUDIO EXPERIENCE

LEZ DWIGHT Britannia Row Productions was tasked with providing audio for the show, as it has been for the regular BRIT Awards for the past 22 years. Sound supervisor for the event was revered audio expert Colin Pink, who was in charge of coordinating audio between the artist, production and broadcast, with FOH engineers Simon Sayer and Tom Marshall operating a Digico SD7 for the orchestra and soloists and an SD12 for mixing strings and presenters respectively.

In addition, a Digico SD5 and SD12, the latter being used for orchestra and soloist monitoring and operated

by Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Sergeant, were deployed at the monitor position.

“We chose to use Digico SD consoles because of their natively integrated L-ISA Source Control functionality and ease of connectivity over a fibre loop,” explained Brit Row’s Lez Dwight when discussing the company’s audio specification process. “This means we can position stage racks anywhere we like, which is a huge advantage. It’s a proven system and very solid.”

The L-ISA processor’s MADI input can handle up to 96 channels; the final count for the show ran to around 54, with the Digico interface allowing each of those channels to be one input or a combination/group.

“I am very impressed with the L-ISA system,” commented Sayer. “It enables, relatively easily, the placement of instruments in the Frontal Scene. The software is very user friendly and interfaces perfectly

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within Digico; it’s seamless and the audio sources can be moved around, with the changes programmed and easily recalled within the desk by using the console’s Snapshots function. We grouped sections of the orchestra, allowing us to move them as a whole to conserve our MADI streams, sending the groups directly out to L-ISA.” He continued: “As the channel numbers of the L-ISA system relate directly to the actual channel numbers in the Digico system, it’s useful to place the output group next to the corresponding input channel on the desk screen. This input channel control becomes your L-ISA automation for that group.”

Sayer found this to be an interesting way to work, explaining that it prompted him to stop and consider things at the earlier stages of set-up and rehearsals to get the right ‘picture’.

“For a show like this, or for very densely packed arrangements with a large number of musical elements to conventionally fit in to a left/right system, it was an invaluable tool,” he elaborated. “All in all, I loved it and I’m looking forward to using it to great ends on the next project.”

“I had heard L-ISA in a demo situation before but prior to the RAH. This was a really special audio experience,” concluded Dwight. “It’s similar to being in a movie theatre with a Dolby system, the beauty of L-ISA being that you get the correct audio imaging even when

you’re not sitting in the ‘sweet spot’. The interface on the channel strip that’s integrated into the Digicos is a huge bonus; it was all very intuitive and quite easy to programme. And best of all, the results were stunning.”

Big winners on the night included Dame Vera Lynn, who at the age of 101, received the Lifetime Achievement Award, while two awards - Best Male Artist and Critics’ Choice Award – went to 19-yearold Sheku Kanneh-Mason. The brand new Soundtrack Of The Year award went to The Greatest Showman OST, which has spent an incredible 11 consecutive weeks at No.1 on the UK Official Charts – the joint longest run at No.1 in 30 years with Adele’s 21. Renee Fleming won Female Artist of the Year, while Andrea Bocelli was awarded the Classic BRITs Icon Award.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and BRIT Awards, said: “We congratulate all the Classic BRITs winners on their deserved awards, which reflect classic music in all its diversity. It’s wonderful to see great icons such as Dame Vera Lynn and Andrea Bocelli being rightly honoured but also very encouraging to witness a new wave bristling with talent, such as Sheku-KannehMason, Tokio Myers and Sound Of Classical Poll winner Jess Gillam breaking through. With such exciting new artists, classical music is evolving and embracing the opportunities that the streaming era offers to connect with new fans.” n

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Young people from the Grenfell community joined Waters onstage for Another Brick In The Wall

Wish you were here Martin Audio deployed its largest ever MLA surround sound system for the first night of British Summer Time (BST) in Hyde Park this summer. Garnering positive feedback from punters and press alike, it was also the first time this particular set-up was used in BST’s six-year history. Daniel Gumble sent back this report from Roger Waters’ headline-making Us + Them set...

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dizzying cacophony of ringing alarm clocks fills the air in all directions as the opening bars of Dark Side Of The Moon’s Time play out over a sun and lagerdrenched Hyde Park. The response from the crowd, consisting of both young Pink Floyd fans and a strong contingent of seasoned aficionados, is one of awe, with the effect produced by the Martin Audio MLA surround system generally not one experienced in an outdoor festival setting such as this. It’s the first real spinetingling moment of an evening that delivered many over the ensuing two hours and 40 minutes of Roger Waters’ career-spanning headline set on the opening night (July 6) of the British Summer Time Hyde Park concert series.

Over the course of the show, the audience was treated to an audiovisual feast, as the complex audio mixes and productions of Pink Floyd and Waters’ solo recorded material was brought to life via a barrage of aural assaults and projections. The iconic Dark Side

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Of The Moon cover was recreated with laser beams over the heaving crowd, while the image of Battersea Power Station filled the full breadth of the stage, complete with artificial chinemys and, of course, the famous flying pig. Perhaps the most poignant moment came during Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, when a choir of children from the Grenfell community took to the stage dressed in black hoods and orange boiler suits, underneath which they were wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the word ‘resist’.

The following nights would see headline performances from a glittering array of stars, including The Cure, Bruno Mars, Michael Buble, Eric Clapton and Paul Simon, but it was only Waters’ curtain raising show that featured the MLA surround system – the first time such a system has been used at a BST Hyde Park show in its six years to date.

Supplied by Capital Sound, and in addition to the system deployed for the rest of the festival, the

surround system in place for Waters’ set featured an extra 12 hangs of MLA/MLA Compact on towers positioned through the concourse to provide 12-point surround sound effects at positions set by Loud Sound’s Dan Craig and fine-tuned by Waters’ sound team. The auxiliary towers added a further 112 MLA/MLA Compact cabinets to the existing total of 206 MLA series cabinets deployed in the Park. With 318 enclosures in total, this was the largest deployment of MLA at any festival in the world, eclipsing that of Rock In Rio and Glastonbury.

For the remainder of BST, the main stage was equipped with two hangs of 16 MLA and one MLD Downfill per side, with 13 MLA and an MLD Downfill for the sidehangs. The sub array consisted of 32 MLX in a broadside cardioid design (21 front facing, 11 rear facing). With 12 MLA Compact serving as front fills all MLA components were operating on the same network.

Out in the field, there were nine main delay towers, seven comprising seven MLA and a single MLD Downfill,

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while for delay positions 10 and 11, eight MLA Compacts were deployed. Four of the positions were supported by 12 MLX subs.

According to Toby Donovan, MLA system engineer for the BST concerts, it was a challenging but satisfying project to work on.

“It’s hugely different to anything we’ve done here before,” he told PSNEurope. “This year with Roger we’ve installed another 12 delay towers – a mixture of MLA and MLA Compact. Roger Waters has been touring this set up over a mixture of arenas, stadia and other outdoor shows, and it’s what they’ve asked for and it’s how they want to translate that show into a festival of this size, especially one where there are noise challenges with regards to sound offsite. It’s just about integrating their requirements with what we’re doing.”

Donovan also highlighted the extra responsibilities that come with incorporating a system on this scale.

“It does make the job more difficult,” he stated. “There is probably double the infrastructure required, a whole fibre optic network. It’s the same network as usual but there’s twice as much of it so there are twice as many units to configure and twice as many things to keep an eye on. There is a whole additional team of people required to fly the additional loudspeakers as well, plus there is a whole lot more work involved in getting the time alignments right for all those additional hangs of PAs. But it’s really worthwhile; the effect is absolutely spectacular. I’ve worked on shows involving surround sound and different zonal systems before, but nothing on this scale.”

He continued: “MLA has always given us good results offsite because it’s got controllability. Applying it to this surround system, we have walked the field several times with Roger Waters’ guys and made quite a few coverage changes to accommodate their needs with how they want it to sound at FOH, how they want it to sound at the back of the field, changing how far the arrays are covering, changing what level they are achieving over the different areas they are covering… with different systems that may require physical

The MLA deployment was the largest ever seen on a festival stage

changes, whereas we’ve been able to implement those changes in the electronic domain. That makes it possible, and indeed, much easier.”

Capital Sound’s Robin Conway was called upon to design a new Optocore multi-node system based around 21 x X6R-FX-8AE/8MI interfaces and an Optocore DD32R-FX at FOH to accommodate an AES signal distribution and deliver the surround sound experience for the show. The rental company deployed all its own Optocore interfaces with Gilles Bouvard’s GB4D in France supplying additional surround sound units—linked by 24 lengths of multimode fibre across 1km of the site to create the loop—and the DD32R-FX AES interface.

Conway explained: “I wanted to run the show AES. The feeds onto the network were all AES and the system was clocked from the Dante network. Everything this year was digital and synchronous.”

Commenting on the control set-up, he added: “This was the first time we had run a DD32R-FX at FOH and certainly I have never programmed an optical network of such a size. But Optocore is so good it just runs and runs. Once we had synchronised issues such as fibre speed, sampling rate and had assigned IDs to

the various devices, everything just fell into place and worked fantastic.”

Heading up Capital Sound’s 24-strong crew was Martin Connolly, account manager, Great Oak Stage, with Capital operations and development director, Paul Timmins, handling each of the other stages. As for Martin Audio, Jason Baird was on-hand to provide system alignment and propagation tests, while Chris Pyne lent additional MLA support.

Commenting on the opening night of BST 2018, Timmins said: “This is up there in my top five shows of all time. We’ve never built a surround sound system on that scale, and we were not only firing low-level FX but high-level sources around the site, which needed to be contained. But with everyone working to a common goal, we were able to meet all sound level challenges, and the reviews of the sound system in the media the following day were 100% positive.”

Connolly was equally impressed: “Roger Waters’ production team, including sound engineer Jon Lemon, system tech Dean Mizzi and Josh Lloyd, who did the set-up with our system tech Toby Donovan, achieved everything they wanted. All have sent us emails thanking us, and we are delighted with the result.” n

Dark side: Waters was the first headliner at BST 2018

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Pink Floyd tribute act Pink Flawed perform at the Carnglaze Caverns

Pushing boundaries Most live audio work comes with its challenges, but when you’re mixing sound in a cave, or using every single loudspeaker of its kind available in the world, the brief can become somewhat trickier. And much, much louder, as Kevin Hilton discovers...

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he extreme gig is not solely the preserve of the wild, hairy or left-field. Radio and teen-friendly acts such as Katie Melua, Jamiroquai and former Busted man-child Charlie Simpson have pushed the limits with their deepest, highest, fastest, coldest exploits. But it makes more sense when the likes of Metallica up the wattage and lovable eccentrics British Sea Power seek out one of the more unusual venues in the UK. Carnglaze Caverns near the town of Liskeard in Cornwall was originally excavated for slate and has made a small but notable impact on British rock-pop.

The deepest cave of the three in the complex contains an underground lake, which featured on the cover of Echo And The Bunnymen’s 1984 Ocean Rain album. The upper cavern is known as the Rum Store because it was used to store the Royal Navy’s stock of the spirit during World War II. The Rum Store is now a 400-seat venue that has played host to more unconventional and adventurous artists including Fish, The Levellers and Fairport Convention. British Sea Power has played there twice, once in 2005 and again two years later. Front of house engineer Shan Hira worked on the first of these and says the band was “very excited” about playing there

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because “it was a bit different to the norm”.

Equipment included two loudspeaker and amplification rigs, featuring Citronic PPX900/PPX450 and BK MFX600/400/200 amps powering two bass cabinets, two low-mids, two mid-highs and two horns for the first system and two custom-built boxes (500W each), two Rokk columns (200W aside), two T Box and two custom wedges. “My overriding memory of the space was that it was quite lively,” says Hira. “I was aware I had to mix to the cave and not be overly loud and excite the room too much so as to try and preserve the clarity of the mix.” Fittingly, British Sea Power ended their two sets in Carnglaze Caverns with the song Lately, which has the refrain “Do you like my megalithic rock?”

Upping the Wattage ante Internet forum opinion varies as to who has used the biggest ever PA system - U2 is generally among the contenders. The Irish rock behemoth’s live shows have grown steadily bigger since the early ‘90s, to the point where the ongoing Innocence + Experience tour, which first went out in 2015, relies on more than 200 cabinets of Clair’s Co(hesion) 12 system over two stages.

The trend for massive PAs can be traced back to the doyens of wacked-out US ‘60s/’70s rock, The Grateful

Dead. In 1974 the band unveiled the fittingly named Wall of Sound. This monstrous assembly of loudspeakers and amplifiers comprised between 604 and 640 loudspeakers, with outputs of 26,400 to 28,800W. It was so costly to run, it led to the ‘retirement’ of the Dead the same year it came into operation.

Metal maniacs Metallica are already noted for their extreme gig in Antarctica during 2013. Earlier in their career the band played the 1991 Monsters of Rock in Moscow, which is still claimed to have used one of the biggest - if not the biggest - PA display ever. Metallica’s long-serving front of house engineer Big Mick Hughes says every Electro-Voice MT4 box from all the rental companies that stocked the system was brought in for the show.

“There were many delays that were positioned for miles beyond the ones I could see, for an audience of around 1m people. It was a very cool show to engineer.”

Hughes commented at the time: “The distances involved are quite big and for me to check all zones during the show would mean I would only be at FOH mixing for the first five minutes of the show.”

Which is probably where the online legend that Big Mick used a helicopter to go round and tune all the delays came from. Extreme in the extreme. n

24/07/2018 15:59

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Spotlight:

Independent festivals How do we tackle the plastic problem at music festivals? AIF (Association Of Independent Festivals) CEO Paul Reed reveals what the organisation is doing to affect real change across the board, from encouraging more recycling to drug testing...

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here are few events that can conjure almost as much discussion during their absence as they can in their active years.

In fact, Glastonbury might be the only one.

It’s already been put to me numerous times that AIF members must be seeing a dramatic uplift in sales while the festival giant sleeps. But I’ve always seen ‘the Glastonbury effect’ as something of a myth. In my view, Glasto is a lifestyle event and there simply aren’t hundreds of thousands of people looking for another

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festival to attend during its fallow years. Our members are stable year-on-year, and generally unaffected by what happens on Worthy Farm.

Far more interesting to independent festival promoters will be the trends highlighted in AIF’s last annual audience survey. Increasingly, punters are considering the overall experience a festival offers when deciding how to spend their hard-earned cash.

Asked the question, ‘When buying a ticket for a festival, what is the single most important factor when deciding

which one to attend?’ 51% of those who responded said that it was “The general atmosphere and overall vibe, character and quality of the event”.

Interestingly, only 6.5% said that headliners were the main driver behind their ticket buying decisions. I still believe, however, that the death of the traditional music festival has been greatly exaggerated – it’s more about event organisers finding their niche, which independent festivals such as End Of The Road and 2000 Trees have done brilliantly, flourishing into trusted gatekeepers that

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sell out year-on-year.

More generally, sustainability is particularly high on the agenda of the festival industry today, given our collective carbon footprint. Frankly, few things are more important than the future habitability of the planet.

To put it simply: we have a serious problem with plastic. The calls to action are becoming louder but the stats behind the stories are bleak. It’s predicted that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 – 38.5 million plastic bottles are used once and discarded in the UK every day, and 91% of plastic in the UK isn’t actually recycled at all.

On a more festival-specific level, 23,500 tonnes of waste is generated annually in the UK, with audiences consuming 10 million plastic bottles at events (at a conservative estimate).

AIF members such as Shambala have been leading the way on this, and other areas of sustainability, for a long time, having banned single-use plastic over eight years ago. This year, Bestival led the impactful ‘Final Straw’ campaign, pledging to remove plastic straws across its site. Subsequently, every other AIF member festival that had not already taken this step has committed to banning straws at their events as well.

Swapping our straws for something more sustainable is a great first step, but it really is just the tip of that giant plastic iceberg. Leading up to this year’s festival season, we asked ourselves: As a creative and progressive industry with a huge environmental footprint, what else can we do to reduce the impact we have on the planet?

We came up with ‘Drastic On Plastic’ - a digital campaign launched to coincide with Earth Day on Sunday April 22. For 24 hours, AIF member websites were ‘wrapped in plastic’ to raise awareness of single use plastic.

Visitors to the websites were greeted with key facts and messages about the extent and impact of our everyday use of plastic, along with links to resources from campaign partner RAW Foundation - a UK sustainable development charity dedicated to sustainable consumption through education and behaviour change.

Crucially, participating festivals pledged to completely eliminate all single-use plastic at their events by 2021.

Festival-goers were also given the chance to pre-order a limited edition ‘Drastic On Plastic’ steel bottle ahead of the festival season - It was vital to offer people alternatives and the chance to take action, rather than simply highlight the problem.

The core message was ‘Reuse, not single use’ and there are plenty of personal steps that festival-goers can take this season to make a collective difference from taking reusable bottles, cups and bags to a festival, to refusing single-use cutlery and choosing bio glitter over plastic glitter.

The response to the campaign has been excellent, with global media coverage across major TV, radio, print

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Guy Hurst (guy hurst) on Flickr

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Coldplay at the 2016 Glastonbury festival

and online outlets, as well as incredible social media reach, with an estimated 15 million people engaging with the campaign on Twitter alone. It was well timed, impactful and created a flashpoint that allowed us to demonstrate how seriously festival organisers are taking this issue.

But it was only the start of a conversation and the beginning of a long-term commitment to an issue that isn’t going away any time soon. There will be operational and financial challenges on the road to achieving our aims, due to the pervasive nature of plastic at temporary events. When we talk about single-use plastic, we aren’t just targeting bottles and cups but cable ties, glitter and wristbands as well.

Ultimately, the aim of the campaign was to capture a moment, underline our commitments and get all of our members working to a realistic timetable towards the end goal of eliminating single-use plastic.

Another major topic going into the season is drug testing, with the recent tragic drug-related deaths at Mutiny festival. AIF supports The Loop and Multi-Agency Safety Testing (MAST), whose services will be front of house at AIF member events such as Bestival, Kendal Calling and Boomtown Fair this season. MAST is a model of drug testing that involves obtaining samples of substances from individual festival-goers. The samples are posted in amnesty bins, with users receiving a unique identity number. The substance is then forensically tested and linked to a computer database of all known legal and illegal substances. Users of the service then wait about half an hour before returning with their unique identity number and are given the results of the testing as part of a 15-minute, individually tailored, harm reduction package by a qualified drugs counsellor. Samples are destroyed in the testing process and no drugs are returned to users.

The upsides are obvious: MAST identifies mis-sold

drugs, variations in contents and purity, adulterants and potentially high-risk substances in circulation alongside providing information and intelligence to all sites and medical and emergency services.

In 2016, which was the first year of such testing front of house, a total of 300 individual tests were undertaken at two festivals (Kendal Calling and Secret Garden Party) with brief interventions delivered to over 1,000 users.

Tellingly, almost one in five of these individuals asked the Loop to dispose of their drugs after learning what was contained within them.

Substances of concern identified in testing have included boric acid, malaria pills mis-sold as cocaine, and concrete mis-sold on site as ecstasy pills. There can be a ten-fold variation in MDMA content of ecstasy pills tested on site on any given day.

Initiatives such as MAST are simply about harm reduction. All festivals have zero tolerance policies when it comes to illegal drug use, but, realistically, if people can smuggle drugs into prisons they can get them through festival gates. Rather than burying our heads in the sand, we have to start looking towards pragmatic measures that underline the duty of care held by the festival organiser.

This isn’t about legitimising drug use, it’s about saving lives and I’d like to see similar schemes rolled out at every UK festival that feels they have a need for such a service to be onsite.

Festivals are all about escaping day-to-day reality, but they are also microcosms of our wider society, complete with the same challenges and opportunities.

Our independent organisers will do what they do best and put on a host of great shows this year, but they’re also keenly aware of their ongoing responsibility to build safer, more sustainable events – a crucial part of that overall experience that festival-goers demand. n www.aiforg.com

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The viewing platform at the Great Oak Stage at BST 2018

Access all areas Festivals are being encouraged now more than ever to make their event fully accessible for audiences, from the booking process to the accessible facilities at the gig. AEG’s British Summer Time double-weekender in Hyde Park has paved the way on accessibility since it launched six years ago. Tara Lepore spoke to its team about making 2018 its most inclusive year yet…

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eing passionate about live audio output is about much more than replicating the studio-quality sound you hear on a record.

The mix that comes out of the loudspeakers, combined with the visuals we see onstage, creates a shared experience for an audience that arrives at a gig hoping to witness an unforgettable show. The power to unite crowds of people is surely one of the best feelings that comes from working in the live sector of audio, and this shouldn’t be specified to any one type of gig-goer.

More and more European festival organisers are prioritising inclusivity to attract a more diverse audience to their events, and this year, accessibility charity Attitude is Everything (AiE) put this into action by working with major festivals on a new Ticketing Without Barriers initiative, with the aim to improve the ticket booking experience for deaf and disabled audiences.

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Back in 2013, AiE awarded Barclaycard’s British Summer Time (BST) festival in Hyde Park with a Silver Level of its Charter of Best Practice for its accessibility efforts, despite it being the first year the festival took place. In the years since, BST has responded to audience feedback to improve its accessibility options each year to include lowered service counters, British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters and a viewing platform with a fantastic view of its two main stages.

BST event organiser AEG Presents was one of the founding members on AiE’s aforementioned Ticketing Without Barriers coalition this year. Accessibility manager Jenny Hamada told PSNLive: “Our aim is to ensure that BST is fully accessible to anyone who wants to attend, and we worked across all departments to make sure that we delivered this in our first year. The work did not stop there and we continue to strive for

excellent customer service and experience each year.”

For BST 2018, which took place over two weekends in July and welcomed headliners including Paul Simon, The Cure and Roger Waters to its main stage (and a certain World Cup semi-final that we won’t mention here), a number of changes were made since the previous year, including improvements to the operation of viewing platforms and better BSL provision.

AEG Presents becoming a founding member of the Ticketing Without Barriers coalition was a way for the festival to “lead the way in accessibility,” adds Hamada.

For the first time in 2018, ticketholders had the opportunity to provide evidence of their disability online, in advance. Not only did this mean punters didn’t have to bring important paper documents along with them on the day, it’s also advantaegous for the organiser, as AEG can build a database of accepted evidence so these

24/07/2018 15:47

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Festival staff are always on hand to provide accesibility information

audience members won’t need to resubmit their forms in future years.

The Barclaycard Stage Viewing Platform was also moved to a better location, as a response to constructive customer feedback, with an improved access route and better access to nearby accessible toilets. Roving vendors for drinks service on the main stage viewing platform Jim King were also serving audiences once again after last year’s trialled success.

For sign language provision, AEG improved the visibility and quality of the screen-in-screen display following last year’s feedback, as well as making the interpreters more visible at the side of stage. A new Typetext service for those with hearing impairments wanting to contact a member of AEG’s customer service team by phone was also introduced for this year’s festival.

PSNLive spoke more to accessibility manager Jenny Hamada and festival director Jim King about how AEG Presents has been striving to improve accesibility year-on-year at British Summer Time festival in one of London’s best-loved parks…

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How do you think the approach to accessibility at live concerts and festivals has changed over the years?

JH: There is more resource and advice out there than ever before, so across the board there is no reason or excuse for not striving to make an event as accessible as possible for all those who wish to attend. All music fans should have the opportunity to enjoy the shows.

How is AEG planning to make more of its events fully accessible in the future?

JK: We develop robust access action plans for any new greenfield event, applying the knowledge and expertise developed through our work on BST Hyde Park and other festivals. Our aim is always to make any event accessible to all who wish to attend.

Why did BST sign up to Attitude is Everything’s Ticketing Without Barriers campaign?

JH: We aim to be at the forefront of accessibility discussions and are proud to be a founding member

of the Ticketing Without Barriers coalition launched earlier this year by Attitude is Everything. Together we pledge to work on industry-leading solutions to ensure an equal ticketing experience for deaf and disabled audiences. As outlined by Attitude is Everything, the coalition will enable members to exchange ideas, issues and solutions, and work together towards a single, unified vision for what best practice means when it comes to facilitating access booking for deaf and disabled people.

What feedback have you got from deaf and disabled audience members attending BST? JK: Overall feedback has been extremely positive and each year we look to improve on this based on previous feedback. We collate these views from post-event surveys, mystery shoppers - another AiE initiative - and through publishing online blogs written by deaf and disabled audience members.

What steps can festivals take to become more accessible for everyone?

JK: Whether you’re a small venue or multi-day festival, Attitude is Everything is a brilliant resource for advice and support. They have 19 years of experience supporting non-profit and commercial organisations to make what they do more accessible and inclusive for deaf and disabled people. n www.attitudeiseverything.org.uk www.aegpresents.co.uk

24/07/2018 15:47

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L-R: Jeff Pezzati and Ahmet Zappa

The rise of the holograms Roy Orbison and Ronnie James Dio have already been out on tour, while Frank Zappa is preparing to hit the road in 2019.

David Davies finds out that, thanks to holographic concerts, death or retirement are no longer obstacles to the perpetuation of a successful live performance career, as technology moves leaps and bounds towards giving audiences a truly final encore…

F

rom Paul Simon to Slayer, the live music industry is entering the era of the farewell tour. Despite the understandable suspicion that a so-called ‘last show’ might not ultimately prove to be so, it does appear that a raft of heritage acts are genuinely preparing to embark on their final hurrahs. Be it specific physical ailments, the general wear and tear of life on the road, or the understandable desire to be at home rather than checking in or out of hotels, the next few years’ tour schedules look set to be dominated by heritage acts taking one more trek around the globe for glory and/or pension fund.

In this context, it is no wonder that promoters, agents and other stakeholders are increasingly voicing concerns about filling the inevitable gaps that will be left by these acts. In particular, this raises serious potential issues for festivals and larger venues [the topic of a

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separate feature on page 40 of the July/August edition of PSNEurope], but it could well be that – along with a generation of younger bands who are now ready to make the move from theatres and smaller arenas to the enormodomes – technology is about to help address the forthcoming shortfall via the medium of hologrambased tours.

The format and structure of a hologram show may vary considerably (as we shall see), but to simplify greatly the principle of an event based around a digitised version of a much-loved performer – augmented by a full band or orchestra – it provides the opportunity for audiences to experience the music of a deceased performer in a new way. And for those acts who are still with us but no longer wish to tour – ABBA, whose so-called Abbatar tour is set to kick off in 2019 or 2020, being an obvious example – it heralds some significant potential new revenue streams.

Time will tell, but with a raft of such tours on the cards for the next few years we will soon find out how much life (so to speak) there really is in holograms.

The return of Ronnie and Frank Eyellusion Hologram Production is certainly in no doubt that hologram tours constitute a significant new addition to the live sector. Based in LA with offices in New York, Eyellusion mounted the first hologram world tour in 2017 based around the music of hard rock singer Ronnie James Dio, who passed away in 2010.

A trial deployment at a German music festival in 2016 took place during a lengthy period of refinement, in which Dio’s widow, Wendy, and other family members were closely involved.

Jeff Pezzuti, CEO of Eyellusion, says that the starting point for the business was “drawing up a list of 20 or 25 acts of which I am a big fan and then considering

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Metal singer Dio was immortalised via hologram on a world tour in 2017

what kind of show might be appropriate.” Having been a fan of Dio “since I was about 10”, the singer was always near the top of the list for Eyellusion’s first projects.

Consequently there was a long dialogue with Wendy Dio about what kind of show this should be, how it should be structured, and so on.

Technologically and creatively there were several important stages: the sourcing of live footage of Dio and its painstaking digitisation to create the hologram; the sourcing, restoration and remastering of Dio’s own live vocals from existing recordings; the integration of the hologram and archive vocal content into what is, in every other respect, a live band show; and then the considerations that are familiar from every other contemporary concert, including setlist structure and set design.

“We wanted it to feel like a rock show – not as if people were watching a movie – so it needed to be fun and have plenty of activity on-stage to create engagement,” says Pezzuti. Hence “the players are looking to the drummer for their cues” – just like in a million other rock gigs – while the Dio hologram is only on stage for about half the show-time, meaning the band has plenty of time to rock out without thinking about the hologram component.

The show was well-received and is set to go out on another run of dates in the near-future, but while the casual observer might expect this to presage a huge number of events involving other ‘hologramised’ performers, it is clear from talking to Pezzuti that each

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new tour constitutes a significant challenge in its own right. And in terms of challenges, there could hardly be a greater one – both in terms of the complexity and diversity of the material involved, and the expectations of a super-loyal fanbase – than that posed by musical iconoclast Frank Zappa.

“Totally, totally, totally!” laughs Pezzuti when asked if the forthcoming Zappa hologram show constitutes a further step up in terms of technical and musical difficulty. With a number of senior Zappa band alumni involved – including guitarist Steve Vai and multiinstrumentalist Mike Keneally, who will be MD for the tour – Pezzuti adds that he is well aware he has a “super-talented band” to his advantage, “with lots of guests at different shows and lots of room for the group to improvise.”

In keeping with FZ tradition – whereby a huge number of songs would be rehearsed in advance of a tour that would often feature sharply contrasting set-lists from beginning to end – ‘The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa’ shows will differ substantially from night to night, blending live footage of Zappa with “outrageous visuals” to provide a resonant insight into his idiosyncratic music and often outlandish humour.

One of Zappa’s sons, Ahmet, has been closely involved in the production (he is now EVP of business development for Eyellusion), and publicity around the tour highlighted conversations with his father about “3D and ‘holography’…”, being a a concept he actively engaged in. He actually devoted half a chapter of his The

Real Frank Zappa Book (1990) to this subject. So there are certainly plenty of historical precedents for ‘The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa’, which is set to hit the road in 2019.

‘Deadstock 2025’?

It is too early to say whether holograms will become an identifiable segment of the touring market in their own right, and there’s no doubt that not all of the hologram shows to date have been universally well-received, as anyone who read Telegraph critic Neil McCormick’s darkly hilarious assessment of the recent Roy Orbison In Dreams show will attest (NB: the promoters of that tour did not respond to multiple requests from PSNLive for interview). McCormick isn’t the only person to have legitimate concerns about the ethical implications of these tours, and both creatively and technologically hologram shows surely won’t suit the repertoire of every act.

But in the short-term at least, the undoubted ability that now exists to achieve a coherent hologram-based show is bound to precipitate a wave of creativity that may help promoters and venues make up for the aforementioned legacy act shortfall. One-off special and lengthy tours are a certainty, but how about an entire hologram festival – Deadstock 2025, perhaps – with hologramised versions of The Grateful Dead as headliners? Well, given the current pace of development you’d be foolish to bet against the prospect. n www.eyellusionlive.com

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Following The Script

Hailing from a session musican background, FOH and monitor engineer Steve ‘Patto’ Pattinson sposke to Phil Ward about life on the road, Allen & Heath’s dLive mixing console and using the PA as an instrument on The Script’s current world tour...

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nquire within the live circuit about ‘Patto’ and everyone will know to whom you are referring.

For at least 15 years now Steve Pattison – selfstyled ‘sound engineer to the stars and bands you’ve never heard of’ – has been mixing either monitors or FOH for an impressive array of modern talent, from early outings with My Chemical Romance and Maximo Park and now regular call-ups by Röyksopp, Wet Wet Wet, Ellie Goulding and Glasvegas.

PSNLive caught up with Pattison backstage on the current Freedom Child world tour to promote the fifth studio album by Irish rockers The Script.

Looks like you’ve come a long way in your career, but where from?

The north west, Widnes to be exact, but we’ve just moved to – d’you know, I can’t remember…

You spend that much time on the road?!

Well, I’ve never had a proper job. I was originally a guitar player, and I did loads of studio sessions around the area. You always notice the guy behind the desk, and he’s always got a job. It struck me that when we left, someone else would come in and he’d still be working.

So I began to say Call me anyway, even if you don’t need a guitar player, and I’ll sit in and make coffee and find out how it works. Eventually you become tape op, and then recording engineer – it took about two years. But touring looked like more fun, so one day I called Andy Dockerty at Adlib in Liverpool. I think if they see you’re the right person, they’ll give you all the help they can.

If you learn quickly, you’re fun and not an egomaniac, you’ll get a grounding. You need realism! You also need to keep rock stars’ feet on the ground and not grant them their every PA whim. I believe in coverage rather

than running as 115dB all day long – in-fills, out-fills, delays. As long there’s enough headroom to get some transients in there and get it punchy, that’s great, but I want it to be the same everywhere. People have bought tickets and they shouldn’t be left out of the picture.

If I can’t cover a given area because the sponsor insists on placing advertising where I need to place some speakers, I’ll suggest refunding everyone gathered there. They’ll ask me to turn it up, but that won’t make any difference. They can block the sound wherever they like as long as they’re happy to field the complaints and give money back, so that’s the advice I always give.

I’m always discussing plans with the lighting and video crews to get the best possible dispersion.

What do you like so much about the Allen & Heath console on this Script tour?

The dLive is clear and transparent, and doesn’t have a character that imposes upon everything. You always knew a Yamaha or a Midas by its innate sound, which is great, but sometimes you want to be able to paint the picture yourself. With the dLive all you hear is the PA and the room. You can pick your own palette, and make the instruments fill certain spaces. You might not want the kick drum to be the bottom end of the scale; you might want the bass to fit underneath it, so that the kick is punchy without being the thing that shakes the room.

We once got to a point where we described the studio as an instrument in itself; is the PA reaching that point?

Totally. It really is another instrument, perhaps more so. One of the tunes in The Script’s set has a big subdrop, a real downward boom, and we were looking at the SMAART reference screen one day and saw that it

tails off at 50Hz. In the studio on the recording, you’d leave it at that because you won’t hear any more after mastering. But we’ve got a world of subs at our disposal with a lot more headroom, so we were able to fill that out: using the tone generator on the desk, I take a sine wave and sweep it down so it doesn’t stop at 50Hz any more – I manually carry it on and dial in a much deeper tone. It’s very much a production rather than simply reinforcement. In theory I would be just making things louder, but that’s never going to happen. Everything’s different every day; everybody plays differently every day; the drummer hits harder or softer; the guitar player has adjusted his sound; Danny [O’Donoghue] can sing very differently. Nothing is identical. It’s not a controlled environment like a studio; even the backing tracks come out differently.

Do the bands get this?

For sure. You build up a trust. The Script are really good.

Often when a band starts rehearsing before a tour it’s just the monitor guy in there, sorting out the in-ears. But with The Script, I’m in there from day one. What we do is map out the space, placing vocals and instruments, and making sure that when I look at the stage I can hear every single thing that I can see. I don’t want to see a musical action and not hear it, but it also has to sit in the right place. There’s a slot, a hole, a shelf for everything to fit in. That sense of space, of room… that’s what I really felt when the dLive came out with its 96kHz resolution. You could tweak something by one single increment and really notice it.

Thanks, Patto.

No problem. Hang on – Great Budworth! That’s it; we’ve moved to Great Budworth in Cheshire. Nice place. n

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