TPi August 2014 - Issue 180

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL

WWW.TPiMAGAZINE.COM AUGUST 2014

ISSUE 180

LIVE EVENT DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY • AUGUST 2014 • ISSUE 180

ARCADIAN SPLENDOR GLASTONBURY’S MOST SENSATIONAL STRUCTURE NATURAL HARMONY....

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: D3 TECHNOLOGIES • PARKLIFE WEEKENDER • NEIL YOUNG • MILEY CYRUS YPN AT SONISPHERE • EDC LAS VEGAS • HOVE FESTIVAL • LIGHTING CONSOLES MARKET FOCUS

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EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION! It’s not often that Manchester gets a heat wave, but this month it certainly did.

There’s been a debatable amount of flip-flop and shorts activity around our office, mainly from me, and we’re still buzzing with anticipation for the rest of this summer’s events.

I got some pro audio education thanks to d&b audiotechnik’s Electro Acoustics seminar at its Nailsworth, UK HQ. Both myself and mondo*dr magazine’s Helen Fletcher completed the day’s lesson with a grip on maths and physics not felt since my school days. While I’ll never be an engineer myself (no, really!), it is fun to learn the basics. Our intern Megan is on this route too, honing her skills towards becoming a journalist, as she goes into the third year of her degree at Cambridge University.

Thanks for all your help this month Megan!

This issue has been a real challenge in terms of time. Given our often tight deadlines and busy travel schedules, August has been particularly tricky for pinning most of you down! Festival after event has led to late night trans-Atlantic interviews and “At the 2014 TPi Awards, early morning conference calls and sometimes Arcadia Spectacular’s downright badgering, but we’ve made it! Thanks incredible ‘alien spider’ to everyone who took part in this issue, and for taking time out from your day jobs to talk to us. won your vote for Live This issue features festivals from India, events Production of the Year. A from Las Vegas, live productions from Hyde very worthy winner, we Park (where Patrick talked audio with Capital couldn’t help but speak to Sound) and a global tour with one of the most photographed women on the planet. Miley Cyrus the people involved with can be found on Pg. 36 riding giant inflatable what has to be one of the hot dogs, dancing on cars and singing in front of most unusual stages on the animated kittens for her Bangerz tour. Go on, we know you’re curious! planet...”

Meanwhile back in festival land, Ms. Eakins and I are pictured here with Glastonbury’s Press Officer, John ‘The Law’ Shearlaw last month. It was great to see you out in the fields, and hopefully you’ll enjoy the read.

We have a highlights run down from the whole weekend (starting on Pg. 26) but before that, we have our main focus at Glastonbury with a look at the Arcadia Stage.

At the 2014 TPi Awards, Arcadia Spectacular’s incredible ‘alien spider’ venue won your vote for Live Production of the Year. A very worthy winner, we couldn’t help but speak to the people involved with what has to be one of the most unusual stages on the planet. Not only does our cover star look awe-inspiring by day or night, but it has quite a story behind its existence, technological development and artistic evolution.

Find out all you need to know about this year’s Arcadia production on Pg.16.

That’s all from me this time, I’m writing this column as I pack my bags for Montreal, Canada, where we’ll be visiting some of the most sought-after creatives, rental companies and manufacturers in the touring world today. The education is endless! More on that next time… if I can find my passport that is.

(Just kidding Eaks, see you at check-in!)

Kelly Murray Editor

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Editor Kelly Murray Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7738 154689 e-mail: k.murray@mondiale.co.uk Assistant Editor Patrick McCumiskey Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8385 Mobile: +44 (0)7929 249169 e-mail: p.mccumiskey@mondiale.co.uk

CONTENTS 08/2014 EVENT FOCUS 08 British Summer Time Festival

TPi speaks to Capital Sound at Neil Young and

Crazy Horse’s gig at Hyde Park.

10 YPN at Sonisphere’s Rock Royalty International Advertising & Sponsorship Hannah Eakins Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7760 485230 e-mail: h.eakins@mondiale.co.uk

Patrick McCumiskey meets the team behind Sonisphere’s Rock Royalty area.

14 Holi Gaudi Festival

TPi reports from India’s festival of colour with Electro Voice.

Graphic Design & Production Dan Seaton: d.seaton@mondiale.co.uk Mel Robinson: m.robinson@mondiale.co.uk

16 Glastonbury: Arcadia

General Manager Justin Gawne

Mondiale Group Chairman Damian Walsh

26 Glastonbury Highlights

www.tpimagazine.com • www.tpiawards.com

Cover Photography: Arcadia by Ben Daure Contributors Sarah Rushton-Read

PRODUCTION PROFILE The TPi Award-winning Live Production of the Year 2014 charms Kelly at Glastonbury.

We give you the production highlights across 2014’s Glastonbury Festival experience.

36 Miley Cyrus

Sarah Rushton-Read goes backstage on the controversial Bangerz tour to talk to the crew who create the colourful show.

48 Parklife Weekender Intern Megan Hughes

Printed by Buxton Press

54 EDC Las Vegas

Annual subscriptions (including P&P): £42 (UK), £60 (Europe), £78/$125 (RoW).

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Kelly talks unique Temple structures at Manchester’s home-grown festival.

TPi examines some key production elements at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway EDC venue.

COMPANY PROFILE

66 Hove Festival

We take a look at the suppliers involved with Norway’s Hove Festival.

CLOCKING OFF 70

Dedicated to Emma and Brian Wares’ Diplegic Cerebral Palsy suffering son, Lewis.

Issue 180 / August 2014 TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL is a controlled circulation magazine, published 12 times a year by Mondiale Publishing Limited under licence. ISSN 1461-3786 Copyright © 2014 Mondiale Publishing Limited. All contents of this publication are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, in any form whatsoever, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Every effort is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication but neither Mondiale Publishing Ltd, nor the Editor, can be held responsible for its contents or any consequential loss or damage resulting from information published. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Publishers or Editor. The Publishers accept no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations, advertising materials or artwork.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT

72 Patrick McCumiskey talks with d3 Technologies’ Chris Bird about the new Pro Range.

MARKET FOCUS 82 The Lighting Consoles directory.

PSA 86 PSA talks partnership, not ownership.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS 82 The latest industry appointments.

VITAL STATS 86 JBL’s Paul Bauman talks music, sound and JBL’s new VTX V20 line array.

07

EVENT FOCUS: British Summer Time Festival

BRITISH SUMMER TIME FESTIVAL

HAVING BEEN GRANTED A LICENSE TO RUN A SERIES OF SIX BRITISH SUMMER TIME HYDE PARK EVENTS BY WESTMINSTER COUNCIL IN 2013, IT WAS CLEAR THAT PROMOTERS AEG LIVE STRUCK A WINNING CHORD IN HANDLING THE NOISE POLLUTION ISSUES THAT HAD PLAGUED PREVIOUS HYDE PARK EVENTS - THANKS IN NO SMALL PART TO AUDIO PRODUCTION COMPANY CAPITAL SOUND AND THEIR PREMIUM MARTIN AUDIO MLA SYSTEM. TPi WENT TO SEE NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE TO LEARN HOW THE MLA SYSTEM EMPLOYED IN HYDE PARK 2014 FOR THE SECOND CONSECUTIVE YEAR AFTER A SUCCESSFUL APPEARANCE AT GLASTONBURY - HAS PROVEN ITSELF NOT JUST TO THE COUNCIL, BUT TO VARIOUS SOUND ENGINEERS TOO...

Between 3 and 13 July, London’s Hyde Park was back to business playing host to the Barclaycard British Summer Time Festival, with heavyweight acts such as Arcade Fire, Black Sabbath, Tom Jones and Neil Young topping the bill. Although Hyde Park has been home to some memorable gigs through the years, noise pollution issues have plagued the site considerably. With a 75dB limit imposed by Westminster Council on the Park Lane side of the Park, in 2013 AEG Live turned to Capital Sound, who had purchased Martin Audio’s MLA System for the purpose of satisfying noise pollution levels at such sensitive sites as Hyde Park.

AEG Live Event Director, Jim King, was on hand to summarise the success of the MLA System: “We have been able to achieve further increases in sound levels over and above the significant improvements we already made 08

last year. Headliners at Hyde Park are now performing at levels well in excess of 100dB, which was unthinkable only two years ago.

This has been achieved whilst maintaining even better control at off-site monitoring locations and with a consistently lower number of complaints from the community.

“Capital and Martin Audio have done an excellent job and the system data and knowhow about the site is there for visiting FOH engineers to get the very best levels and sound coverage for their artists.”

The site design was a replica of last year’s proven solution when the stage was reorientated at a 30° angle to usher the sound away from sensitive off-site areas: “Following the success of last year, we changed very little for 2014,” said Paul Timmins, General Manager, Capital Sound. “The only obvious change was to reduce the delays from 10 to nine, based on the

results from 2013. We were also awarded the five smaller north stages, as we demonstrated this wouldn’t impact on the main stage with equipment and crew; we took the decision to use different project managers for main and the north stages, to keep them independent, and only shared resource where it was sensible to do so.”

Atop a block of flats in nearby Upper Brook Street in Mayfair was one of the key off-site measurement points identified by both Westminster Council and acoustics specialists, Vanguardia Consulting. Jason Baird, Martin Audio’s R&D Director, commented: “We conducted propagation tests based on what we learnt last time around. When I visited the property last year, I was able to look at the complete spectrum of the signal. You could hear there was only LF and low-mid that was contributing to the A-weight measurements

EVENT FOCUS: British Summer Time Festival

Opposite: Neil Young and Crazy Horse on stage at the British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park, London. Martin Audio’s MLA system - seen partially hanging from the Es Devlin designed forestry on the stage - has been successful in securing Capital Sound and AEG Live the tenure of the festival.

and we realised that if we could reduce that frequency band we could have a better differential.”

“It all worked well,” confirmed Capital Sound’s Technical Manager and Systems Designer, Ian Colville. “There were no issues with the three arrays we used the new optimisation algorithm on.”

Toby Donovan, Senior Assistant Engineer with Capital Sound, who was present for the entire duration of the concerts, added: “Anything that can buy us a decibel or two offsite can give us more SPL at FOH. [Fellow System Tech] Mark Edwards was texting me from Glastonbury saying what great levels he was getting at FOH with the MLA System. And here, it’s the same; we’ve been getting 101-102db at FOH.” Hanging from the Star Events constructed stage (designed by 2012 TPi Awards Set Designer of the Year Es Devlin) were two hangs of 16 MLA and one MLD Downfill per side, with 12 MLA and one MLD Downfill for the sidefills. The subwoofer array consisted of 21 MLX in a broadside cardioid array, coupled with 11 back-facing enclosures. The audio signal was distributed via a DiGiCo SD11 master console to a Meyer Sound Galileo Loudspeaker Management System, which in turn fed the MA Audio MLA System. Signal transmission around the site was via Capital’s Optocore fibre network devices.

The three delay rings consisted of between seven and nine MLA element hangs, supported

by Martin Audio MLD Downfill and MLX subwoofers. Ring three featured eight MLA Compacts set at distances of 90-metre, 160-metre and 210-metres from the stage.

Whilst levels at FOH were in excess of 100db, the system ensured that the 75dB limit on the Park Lane side was never breached. Thanks to the MLA system, relations between Vanguardia Consulting and sound world remained peaceful. Both Capital Sound and Martin Audio work closely with Vanguardia to carry out propagation tests. As Martin Audio APAC

technical support specialist Chris Pyne, pointed out, “Above all, we are trying to provide a good quality sound level for the festivalgoers so they leave having had a great experience. With the decibel limits becoming lower and lower in the EU area, there’s a certain amount of energy and dynamics that you miss as the volume drops. So we try to provide that energy and dynamic while the sound level reduces. We can also factor in such things as wind speed, but at the end of the day we can manipulate the effect but you can’t control the weather.”

As there were a total of six dates over this year’s Barclaycard British Summer Time festival in Hyde Park - with each headlining act having up to three support acts - there were a lot of visiting engineers to be accommodated.

Stereophonics’ FOH Engineer Dave Roden performed FOH ‘babysitting’ duties for Capital Sound, and was responsible for looking after the constant stream of visiting engineers.

“I make sure everyone has enough room to put in their control packages, and I liaise with Toby Donovan to make sure everything is configured correctly. Also, if there’s a band that comes in without an engineer, I will mix for them.

“Whilst the house consoles are two Avid Profiles with standard FOH racks, we’ve seen a varied array of control packages visiting. Neil Young’s engineer, Tim Mulligan, has brought in a DiGiCo SD7 console. We’ve had Midas XL4 analogues, Avid Venues, Avid Profiles and DiGiCo desks - and we make sure that we can accommodate all of them.”

Visiting Sound Engineer Chris Madden (working with Little Mix), commented: “I used the Martin MLA system about two years ago with Jessie J and I enjoyed it then. But I think it was even better this time. It’s a very interesting and remarkable piece of equipment. I didn’t EQ it at all at BST and it sounded great.”

Matteo Cifelli, FOH Engineer for Tom Jones, who performed on the final Sunday, added, “I was very happy with the results we achieved, the mix immediately sounded just as it was conceived. This is the sign of a good cabinet,

and also of a well-tuned system.”

Brandon Reid, FOH Engineer for support band, The National, stated: ”When we came to the Albert Hall in 2010 with the National, we worked with Capital Sound, and the service was just great.” He continued: “I’ve used the MLA a few times already and we’ve been having great results. The last time was at the Zitadelle Spandau in Berlin, Germany. The National’s sound is pretty straightforward to mix, and it sounds really clean through the MLA. There’s plenty of top end for me to play with.”

“Due to the incredibly good weather in 2013, where we experienced sun and virtually no wind for the two weeks, we wanted a more challenging weather pattern to demonstrate that the science of MLA was giving the level benefits,” said Capital Sound’s Paul Timmins.

“We certainly had more wind, but we were still able to run headliners in excess of 100dbA and normally in the region of 102dbA. The success of BST has enabled us to grow our summer business with new projects for 2014 including Kew the Music and SW4 at Clapham.”

If this summer’s successes are anything to go by, Martin Audio’s MLA System is surely set to entice more rental companies and win over more venues with its astounding balance of great sound quality and noise pollution control.

For those such as Capital Sound who have already been converted by the charms of Martin Audio’s MLA System, there’s certainly a feeling that other loudspeaker manufacturers have got a lot of catching up to do. The vast majority of line arrays - when placed in the right hands can be set-up to sound great. Managing sound distribution, however, is something that only Martin Audio can do with such proven success.

At the moment, that is.

TPi

Photo: Patrick McCumiskey

www.capital-sound.co.uk www.martin-audio.com www.bst-hydepark.com http://vanguardiaconsulting.co.uk/ www.stareventsgroup.com

09

EVENT FOCUS: Sonisphere Rock Royalty

SONISPHERE ROCK ROYALTY ATTRACTING 50,000 ROCK AND HEAVY METAL FANS, THE FOURTH SONISPHERE FESTIVAL TOOK PLACE ON 4-6 JULY IN KNEBWORTH PARK, UK, AFTER A TWO-YEAR PAUSE. THE ‘ROCK ROYALTY’ AREA - OFFERING FESTIVALGOERS A ‘PRIVATE’ AREA WITH ITS OWN PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE OF BANDS AND DJS - WAS CURATED AND PRODUCED BY THE YOUTH PRODUCTION NETWORK (YPN) FOR THE SECOND TIME. TPi’S PATRICK MCCUMISKEY INVESTIGATED...

This year’s greatly anticipated Sonisphere festival returned once again to the magnificent grounds of Knebworth Park.

And what an extraordinary pedigree the location boasts! Knebworth has played host to some of the most memorable concerts in recent history. The name Knebworth immediately conjures up images of performances from the likes of Led Zeppelin, who played to an estimated 200,000 fans in 1979, and Oasis’ Britpop extravaganza held at the park in 1996 - one of the most anticipated gigs in British rock ‘n’ roll history for which an estimated one in 20 people in the UK applied for tickets. With the Prodigy, Iron Maiden and Metallica headlining the three days at 2014’s Sonisphere, the line up of this year’s festival was no less impressive.

The Rock Royalty area of the festival offers festivalgoers several festival-enhancing additions over the standard festival ticket. On the one hand, Rock Royalty guests are treated to upgraded facilities including improved toilets, showers and camping right next to the arena. Furthermore, guests could enjoy a full 10

programme of music and DJs in ‘the barns’ - a feature that has garnered Rock Royalty a reputation as one of the key after-hours venues once the main stages reach their noise curfew.

Despite its afterparty reputation, however, activities at Rock Royalty weren’t just limited to nighthawks; during the day, Rock Royalty ticket holders could enjoy exclusive acoustic sets and performances. This year, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst could be seen milling around Rock Royalty on the first day of the festival for the Lounge Kittens’ set - a band of three female entertainers who were discovered by Durst via YouTube covering a spoof version of Limp Bizkit’s 2000 hit Rollin.

WHAT IS YPN? YPN began in Soweto Township, South Africa, at the 2010 World Cup Kick-Off Concert, and now has members in over 20 countries worldwide including Burkina Faso, Brazil, Holland, Ghana, Guinea, Tunisia and, of course, the UK. The UK wing of the organisation was set up in 2010 by Rachel Haughey, an international Show Producer. Soon after

founding YPN, Haughey was given the task of managing the production of Rock Royalty at Sonisphere back in 2011. Coincidentally, Production Manager of 2014’s Rock Royalty, Liam Wood, 25, actually began working for YPN at the festival in 2011. I asked Wood how he became involved with YPN: “Towards the end of my live music degree two years ago, I found out about YPN through my head of course at University, who met Rachel (Haughey) through mutual friends. Having found out about YPN through this connection, I started working for them in 2011 - coincidentally at Sonisphere - just one year after the organisation was formed.

“I came along to do work experience helping out with anything and everything. I had no idea what an Artist Liaison or Production Manager was back then! I worked really hard and Rachel was impressed, so she invited me back to work at other YPN events - but it all started here!”

After a year working as YPN Tour Manager, working alongside Haughey helping to book crew for the shows, Wood was brought on as Artist Liaison for the compère at the first Olympic Torch Relay show in Cardiff, Wales.

EVENT FOCUS: Sonisphere Rock Royalty

First Page: The entire YPN crew at Rock Royalty. Below: Countless young and unsigned bands took to Rock Royalty’s band stage over the course of the festival; 10-year-old Elliot Baines in front of the Avolites Pearl Expert console from White Light.

“There was a bit of a gap in roles so the compère had to write his own script, so I ended up having to help him write his own script.

Then I helped him as Floor Manager. He liked working with me so much that I was asked to assist him for the remaining big Olympic Torch Relay shows including the Hyde Park Finale with 80,000 people! Eventually I became Rachel’s Production Assistant, working alongside her at all of her big shows. My current role is YPN Production Manager here at Sonisphere’s Rock Royalty,” concluded Wood.

HOW DOES YPN WORK? “YPN works in a very simple way,” commented Aisling O’Connor, 22, Artist Manager and receiver of the Cato Music Scholarship awarded to YPN this year. “Anyone can get involved with YPN. It functions like this: everyone is given a real role on site, whether it’s work experience, training or paid work you walk away with something to put on your CV. We work on a crew chief basis, so all crews are managed and supported on site, and they all have someone there to ask any questions. What YPN offers

people is the chance to gain valuable work experience and training in the event production industry.” She concluded: “The bottom line is that it’s a great opportunity to throw yourself into the deep end. We are really lucky to offer others the support that we also got from YPN. It’s great for our CVs, when you look back after six months and you realise what you’ve done in the last few months, its crazy. Its difficult to keep track of how much you’ve been involved with!”

It is no coincidence that all the YPN crew

11

EVENT FOCUS: Sonisphere Rock Royalty

Below: The courtyard’s offering of food stalls; Production Manager Liam Wood and Artist Manager Aisling O’Connor.

are passionate about music and live event production. YPN welcomes any young person who has a passion for live event production, whether you have graduated from a university or you live in a township. Haughey commented: “No matter where you have come from or whatever experience you might have, the litmus test is seeing how each young person operates on site. The crew chief system provides the support that I wished I’d had when I was learning production. As an official partner of the National Skills Academy, YPN is connected to many colleges and universities, as well as a wide range of industry based training courses such as the Britannia Row Training Centre, Whitelight apprenticeship and new Cato Academy for tour production.”

Although the average age range of people working at YPN ranges from 18-22 years old, there’s no strict guideline on age. Wood affirmed: “It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what your background is - YPN is for everyone wanting to gain experience in event production.” In fact, most of the crew are themselves musicians, and some even performed throughout the weekend on the Rock Royalty stage.

YPN first-timers Alex Dumbiotis and Oli White, whose band, Embers of Eden, recently won Richer Unsigned and Q Magazine’s Battle of the Bands competition, were working at YPN for the first time. White commented: “We’re really pleased to be have the opportunity to work at the Sonisphere. For us, its fascinating learning about the inns and outs of festival production.”

CRAZY CLOWN TIME YPN were also afforded the responsibility of creating the circus theme which adorned the Rock Royalty area this year. “To begin with, we had a few random ideas but nothing concrete”, conceded O’Connor. “We pursued a few themes just searching through pinterest. Me and Liam (Wood) had sort of a rough idea on the circus side of things. We both went on Pinterest and came back with the same picture of a clown’s mouth. We then took it to Susie Carlino at 12

Creative Draping, and asked how possible it would be to recreate it over the doorframe in the entrance. She said that it would be possible, but I have to say that the finished product just exceeds expectations.”

To add to the clown theme, actual Clowns, stiltwalkers, fire-breathers and angle grinders could be seen at Rock Royalty at various points, in addition to clown branding and decoration.

The printed draping, which adorned the walls of the DJ chill out and gaming area (where guests could play on an antiquated Sega Megadrive amongst other consoles) was also made by Creative Draping, based in nearby Milton Keynes. “We were going for a graffiti tattoo parlor theme - because everyone at Sonisphere has tattoos. What they produced from our ideas is just fantastic. We couldn’t thank Creative Draping enough; they’ve done an incredible job.”

CATERING YPN worked alongside catering company Sodexho to provide guests with a varied selection of foods, including a sausage stand, a curry stand and a cafeteria with rotating menu.

Olga Wayfor, General Manager of Sodexho, commented: “This is the fourth time that we’ve been involved with Rock Royalty at Sonisphere - and this is by far the busiest we’ve seen it.

We worked closely with the organisers of YPN to bring some interesting developments to the public. We listened to their recommendations and from the feedback they received in 2011 and we tried to implement the changes. The ‘I love sausage’ stand being one example.”

LIGHTING The equipment used on the stage in ‘the barn’ of Rock Royalty was supplied by some wellknown industry houses - sound was provided

by Britannia Row, lighting from White Light and backline by Cato Music - affirming YPN’s strong ties within the industry. “We have a great arrangement whereby we receive equipment from the suppliers and we get their trainees - it is mutually beneficial” added Haughy.

In charge of the lighting design was Lighting

Designer Jack Chapman, who had come to be involved with YPN - as was the case with many of the YPN crew - through Production Manager, Liam Wood, who he had met at college in Devon. Normally working freelance for Mass Affect in Cornwall, Chapman was enthusiastic about his part at YPN at Sonisphere: “It’s great to be involved with YPN again, all the crew get on well with each another. There’s no stress.”

Chapman had initially planned for four trusses worth of lighting equipment, but last minute changes to the stage set-up meant that only two trusses of lighting could be implemented. “I specified eight Martin by Harman MAC Vipers, 20 Coemar PAR Lite LEDs, four Sunstrip Showtec Active DMXs and nine SGM P-5 washlights. I try to employ these lighting combinations to create a Nine Inch Nails style backlighting effect. White Light also supplied an Avolites Pearl Expert console.” All lighting was supplied by White Light, with the majority of the lighting team coming from the White Light apprenticeship scheme, including Sonny Turner, Matt Wells and Andy Judd.

Visiting YPN at Sonsiphere was 10-yearold (yes, 10 years old!) Lighting Designer Elliot Baines from Bradford. “I’m probably the youngest Lighting Designer in the world”, conceded Baines. Due to his young age, Elliot is escorted on sites by his Mum Michelle, who doubles up as his roadie. With one hand clutching a half eaten ham sandwich and another toying with the Avolites console, Baines described to me in stream of consciousness mode how he became interested in lighting: “I started getting into lighting when I was three years old. The story is that I began shining torches on incense sticks. One day I went to a nightclub in Bradford called Rio where my Dad was playing with his band. I liked the look of the lighting console and I went over to have a look. The guy asked me if I wanted to have a go lighting my Dad’s band and so I did. Then I just took it from there, lighting bigger venues and also becoming involved with YPN.” As for lighting preferences, Baines has already sniffed out his favourites: “My favourite desks are UTX, Chamsys and Avolites desks. My

EVENT FOCUS: Sonisphere Rock Royalty

favourite lights are washes, particularly Robe Robin 300’s, and I like moving head spots with gobos.” The nurturing of young talent is exactly what gives YPN the reputation it deserves. As for Mr Baines, I’m sure we will be seeing more of this talented young man very soon. You heard it here first!

SOUND Britannia Row supplied the audio equipment for the Rock Royalty stage. The PA system came in the form of two Turbosound 425 subwoofers with Turbosound 440 tops. On stage, six Turbosound 420 wedge monitors were employed. The mixing console was a Midas Pro1 and was used - owing to the small size of the venue - to mix FOH and Monitors simultaneously. Stephen ‘Scuba’ Wess, YPN Crew Chief and FOH / Monitor Engineer at Rock Royalty was responsible for overseeing Hannah Brodrick, Sander Van Laere and Sam Papworth - all trainees from the Britannia Row Training Academy.

For microphones, six Shure 58’s, eight 57’s and 1 Beta 58 were used. In addition, two AKG 414’s and two Sennheiser e604’s were employed. In the DJ barn, two Turbosound 425 subwoofers with Turbosound 440 tops were employed, in addition to an Allen & Heath GL2400 compact console. In the courtyard two

Turbisound 440 tops were used in conjunction with a Yamaha MV800 console.

Bryan Grant, Managing Director of Britannia Row Productions holds YPN in high regard: “Although we supplied the audio equipment for Rock Royalty, Rachel Haughey’s team set-up up and operated it throughout the festival and did a very professional job. I think what Rachel’s doing for the young ones around the world is brilliant; others talk about helping, but Rachel’s doing it.”

Cato Music supplied Backline equipment including an array of Fender and Marshall amplifiers and a drum kit. The relationship between Cato and YPN is again very strong, with YPN even being based in the Cato mansions in Wandsworth. In addition, YPN was recently awarded a full scholarship position at the new Cato Academy Tour management course.

On the festival site, I spoke to Zac Fox, Head of Operations at Kilimanjaro Live and founder of NOWIE - Network of Women in Events, and Production Manager of the entire Sonisphere festival, about her experience at this year’s festival, and the successful balance between male and female workers at the festival. “We put a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone on site feels like one team and I’m convinced that is helped by the fact that we have a lot of women in senior roles.” She continued: “In 2014

those roles included the Site Manager, Deputy Site Manager, Site Assistant, Front of House Manager, Lead Sound Consultant, Daytime Campsite Manager, Control Room Manager, Marketing Manager, Artist Liaison Manager, Concessions Manager, Festival Accountant, VIP Area Production Manager, Sponsorship Manager and of course myself as Festival Manager. It’s something I’m really proud of.

“Being told that Sonisphere is a great place to work is something that happens to me regularly. As I was packing up on Monday there was a steady stream of contractors and suppliers stopping past my office on their way out of site to let me know how much they had enjoyed it again.”

With the three-day festival running smootly and efficiently, YPN’s involvement in Sonisphere was undoubtedly a success. The most important point to note, however, is the success of YPN’s cause.

TPi Photos: Photos: Patrick McCumiskey, Fletch Photography & Kasey Newton www.facebook.com/YPNetwork http://ypnetwork.org.uk http://Training.britanniarow.com www.whitelight.ltd.uk www.catomusic.com www.creativedraping.com

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EVENT FOCUS: Holi Gaudi

HOLI FESTIVAL FINDS ITS VOICE EACH YEAR, INDIA CELEBRATES THE COMING OF SPRING WITH THE HOLI FESTIVAL, OR FESTIVAL OF COLOURS. THOUSANDS GATHER NATIONWIDE, THROWING COLOURED POWDER AND WATER IN THE AIR. TPi REPORTS ON THE 2014 TOUR. This ancient Hindu festival is becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the world, including Europe. From May onwards, over 30 locations in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark will celebrate with Europe’s largest Holi festival tour, the Holi Gaudi.

Providing the staging, light and sound for twelve events of the tour are Mill Music, Spyker Sound and Kersjes P.A.-Verhuur from The Netherlands. “At every event, the sound system needs to reproduce house music for up to 7000 people, and from noon until way after midnight.

We therefore need a sound system that not only provides enough sound pressure and sufficient coverage but that is also reliable and consistent,” explained Raymond Kersjes, owner of Kersjes P.A.-Verhuur. Further challenges on site are local noise protection regulations and the coloured dust itself.

Based on simulations using LAPS II software, the solution proved to be a sound system from Electro-Voice. According to Kersjes: “I fell in love with the EV sound back in 1995 with DeltaMax and have been a fan ever since.” For the Holi Gaudi, Kersjes and his colleagues rely on two line arrays consisting of 12 Electro-Voice 14

XLD281 full-bandwidth, three-way elements with a coverage angle of 120º on each side of the stage. As subwoofers, the team opted for 12 Electro-Voice Xsubs in a cardioid set-up in front of the stage. To ensure that the system is provided with sufficient power, 12 ElectroVoice CP3000S and six TG-7 amplifiers drive the system. Equipped with FIR filters on the outputs and managed over IRIS-Net, a NetMax N8000 digital matrix offers comprehensive management of the line arrays.

From a sound perspective, Raymond Kersjes is more than satisfied with the tour so far: “Because their other events are handled by other rental companies, our customer can make a direct comparison. And he really loves our system - it’s intelligible and powerful while fulfilling the respective dB regulations on site and provides sufficient coverage.” After putting so much time into the development of the sound solution, for Kersjes: “it’s fantastic to hear such positive feedback. My personal wish is that the tour continues just the way it started and that every guest goes home with a smile on their face.”

TPi www.electrovoice.com

Above: 12 Electro-Voice XLD281 full-bandwidth, three-way elements with a coverage angle of 120º on each side of the stage.

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

ARCADIA SPECTACULAR TPi’S KELLY MURRAY SPEAKS TO THE TPi AWARD-WINNING LIVE EVENT PRODUCTION TEAM AT GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL.

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

First page: The ‘alien spider’ stage was born of a desire to challenge the traditional lack of visual stimuli at festivals. Below: Arcadia’s alien spider is made up of 50 tonnes of recycled military parts.

It’s not too often that we get to write about a stage as unique as this. The words ‘alien spider’ are pefectly descriptive for the other worldly structure, which was born out of a passion to create something truly memorable and boundary breaking for live events and festivals, something that would draw crowds in and allow the performers to feel part of something quite unusual whilst still delivering a sense of community to everyone involved.

The initial idea came from artists who specialised in welding and creative technical design, namely Pip Rush and Bertie Cole. Five years later the ‘alien spider’ has become one of the most talked-about stages on the European festival circuit, and it all started at Glastonbury thanks to Michael Eavis’ backing. This year’s ‘Glasto’ as it’s known to its attendees, saw Arcadia Spectacular adorned with flames effects and pyrotehcnics, lasers and LED screens representing facial features of the spider.

It looked incredible, sounded rave-perfect even in the rain - and literally lit the sky with an abundance of production worthy jaw-dropping gasps and the story behind what that takes is as heartwarming as the beast’s propane gas breath.

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ARTISTIC VISION “Bert and I had an early morning chat in 2008 about how we were bored of linear stage setups and consistent lack of visual stimuli at music festivals, so we set out on a mission to make the visuals at a festival complement the music… we got working on every element from the staging through to the truss and of course all the electronic effects we had available. We didn’t have any capital but we could weld, so scrap became our best resource,” explained Arcadia’s Creative Director, Pip Rush.

Rush is from a sculpture background, a skill that would lend itself nicely to his vision: “My family are all artists of some sort, including my elder brother Joe Rush who made giant metal sculptures and taught me to weld as a teenager.

I met Bertie [Cole, Technical Director] in 2008.

He’d been working for Khyam Tents mastering some of the largest tensile structures in the world and had experience of construction on a huge scale, so we teamed up and the scope of what we could build really expanded...”

Rush and Cole had both been attending Glastonbury since childhood and after looking for bigger projects to get involved in, 2008 became the year they would become one of the festival’s stage suppliers. “Michael Eavis

gave us our first budget and we made our first 360º stage in a cow shed for Trash City. It was supposed to be a chill out stage but Eat Static played the first set from a jet engine in the middle! It was instant; we had 5,000 people raving on top of it and before we knew what was going on we had become Glastonbury’s late-night rave stage!”

Today, Arcadia’s alien spider is made up of 50 tonnes of recycled military parts. The eyes and underneath the DJ booth are engines from old planes and the legs are made up of old scanning machines used by HM Customs & Excise. When not in use the structure is kept on a farm in Sommerset (UK) and in neighbouring Bristol there is an abundance of creative people creating interesting things to enhance the project.

“It’s perfect for Glastonbury because it’s real, you can see it all around you, hear it, feel it, smell it, touch it… it’s truly immersive on every level and it’s all made from re-used military hardware that’s been re-invented to create smiles and laughter,” he continued, citing that the hope is for people to leave the stage feeling a sense of unity from the experience.

This was certainly the kind of sentiment felt by DJ Craig Charles who played Arcadia

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

Below: An Avolites Sapphire Touch console provided lighting control and triggered flames, pyrotechnics and lasers with on-site support from the Avolites team.

for the very first time this year, explaining to the crowds that he could “tick it off my bucket list”. Post set, he rather enthusiastically told TPi: “Playing the Arcadia spider was hipper than a hippopotamus dancing to hip hop at the Hippodrome. We chased the rain away through the power of funk. An epic magical moment… we are soul busters!”

Indeed, Arcadia’s Spider is often seen as a ‘must do’ for DJs and dance acts. James Pinnock is the man in charge of music and DJ scheduling / programming for the spider and Freefall Collective compose and mix the both the show and finale music. This year the collective worked with an onsite studio to do last minute

remixes and tweaks to bring the show together, ensuring each and every act walked (or danced) away from the stage happy.

TECHNICAL PRODUCTION Having worked at Glastonbury in various roles, Technical Production Manager, Tim Smith of Smash Productions explained that he “stumbled across a job advert for Arcadia, met with the guys and fell down the rabbit hole into a crazy journey.”

Coming on board with the project earlier in the year, Smith continued with existing suppliers and relationships where possible. New suppliers were chosen to advance the technical capability

of the spider. “Arcadia are always looking to push the boundaries of what is possible and are keen to work with suppliers with innovative ideas and who can think outside the box,” he added.

“The spider is not your everyday stage to work on, forget your three truss stage, or left and right sound system, everything has to be designed around the creative vision, aesthetics, possible weather implications and suitability to the task, never mind the full 360º experience!

All of our suppliers provide us with a wide variety of equipment, suiting the ever-changing nature of the show, surroundings and countries that we work in.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014 Below: The Arcadia concept is a fusion of industrial art and innovation, now with the addition of LED.

“From a technology point of view there is endless effort, creativity and late night problem solving which enable Pip and Bertie’s vision, and our own creative pride. The show is a once in a lifetime project and I speak for all of the technical team when I say that we are proud to be a part of such an amazing show!”

As with any live production, there are a lot of speciality staff on site for Arcadia at Glastonbury besides the engineers and operators. Arcadia has its own key production staff including Head Rigger, Adam Blackburne and site riggers Wim Penhaul and Rupert Sherston. Crane drivers are Sam Bond (Head of Cranes), Nathan Dare, Henry Arnold, Richie Pearce and Steve Corocan, Show Caller and Creative Producer is Ami Jade Cadillac and Ceri Wade is Arcadia’s Event Production Manager, ensuring the event runs smoothly.

Arcadia also has an in-house team of Aerialists.

Smith continued: “They are all very specific and demanding roles and it has taken a few years for the right team to grow. There is a huge amount of trust, professionalism and respect between the disciplines which is essential when working on such an unusual stage and innovative show.”

VISUALS Arcadia’s visuals are created by Video Illusions and blinkinLAB, with projection supplied by video production specialists, Central Presentations CPL. The fabulous and highly visual Arcadia concept is a fantastic fusion of industrial art and innovation that’s captured the hearts and minds 20

of festival goers from around the world, now with added LED. CPL was invited back to Arcadia after its successful collaboration at last year’s Glastonbury extravaganza, this year led by Matthew ‘Max’ Boyse and Jimmy Smith.

Again they worked closely with Video Illusions’ Dave Whiteoak - who first came up with the whole concept of bringing the spider to life with video, a project that has energised him for the last four years - and with blinkinLAB’s Tom Wall, who created all the bespoke footage and animations for the visuals show.

Together, CPL and Video Illusions designed the dynamic HD projection system - using six of CPL’s Panasonic PT-DZ 21K projectors - one for the back and one for the front of each of the spider’s three massive legs. This year, with the whole Arcadia space being increased to allow a greater capacity audience to catch the vibes, the custom projector towers complete with scenic surrounds were moved back another 20 metres - so the machines had to throw a distance of 40 metres.

Each image projected was 11 metres wide by about 15 metres high and were mapped precisely onto the spider’s legs using an Avolites Ai media server which stored and replayed all the video content.

In addition to the projected visuals, Video Illusions supplied its own 10mm LED screen panels which were integrated into the structure around the DJ booth, forming the mouth and the brain of the spider, with the projections

effectively becoming its skin.

The bespoke content for the 2014 show was originated by blinkinLAB which received a 3D CAD model of the spider from Arcadia and created a simplified UV-mapped 3D model for use in the Avolites Ai media server.

The timecoded AV footage created for the 2014 ‘landing’ show lasted around 35 minutes. The spectacle included a hi-energy choreographed montage of aerialists, lasers, flames and cranes complete with pumping soundtrack.

The remainder of the time the area was in action, Arcadia’s projected and LED visuals were VJ’d freestyle, for which blinkinLAB produced over 100 video loops and mapped animations - all with spectacular results that could be seen and appreciated from near and far.

CPL’s Boyse commented: “It was incredible to be part of the Arcadia experience again this year. We really enjoyed the great synergy with Video Illusions and blinkinLAB, and we’re very happy to be part of one of the most unique, talked-about and most enjoyed elements of the festival”.

Video Illusions’ Dave Whiteoak said: “I was very keen to work with CPL after last year’s success, and once again everyone worked tirelessly with 24-hour days to produce a showstopping production. Throughout the whole Arcadia project I have been lucky to grow a number of amazing relationships with some of the most talented technicians / suppliers and artists in the industry… Pip Rush and Bertie Cole are absolute legends and them introducing us

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

Below: The stage allows performers to feel part of something quite unreal, while also delivering a sense of community.

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to CPL has helped us massively change how we work on our crazy designs and custom projects.

I believe together we now have a new A-Team.”

FULL VISUAL SUPPORT Whiteoak also told us about the incredible manufacturer’s support behind this year’s project: “I arranged a meeting with Dave Green, the Ai Media Server Designer and explained to him the ideas we had in mind for Arcadia...

Dave was over the moon that we had come to him for his support on this project. During a number of conversations I said we’d need the Ai server to have full control of the show and have full control of the fire. His response was “hell yes!”

Green then explained to Avolites MD, Steve Warren what the proposal involved and what the visuals team wanted. “Steve called me and offered 100% full support from Avolites Media on this project. As time passed, Jazz from Avolites soon got involved with the lighting side of the project and Steve again offered the Avolites Sapphire Touch lighting desk to play a huge part in this project.

“Quite a few meetings started to happen at the Avolites office to discuss how all parts of this project were going to work, from the infrastructure installation to the media server project design, lighting fixture plan and timecode layout.

“Before we knew it, all of the teams were in a field with 1000 metres of cable pulled in, the LED rigged, the projectors up on towers and FOH media server and lighting desks with timecode controlling fire, lighting and video!

During the video mapping set-up night, we all stood back and were amazed with what we had brought to life and the new visual element to Arcadia Spectacular was born. Video Illusions, Blinkin Lab, Avolites, Avolites Media and Colour Sound Experiment - which supplied lighting fixtures - combined forces to bring a new visual element to Arcadia at Glastonbury to life,” concluded Whiteoak.

The Avolites products came from Smash

Productions which supplied Arcadia with several Avoilites and Ai products. This year the lighting kit comprised an Avolites Sapphire Touch lighting console, two Titan Net Processors, and a Tiger Touch II lighting console. Media servers were the Ai Infinity EX8 model alongside a Sapphire Media controller surface. Avolites’ Steve Warren added: “We are overcome with pride to have supplied Arcadia Spectacular 2014 with Sapphire Touch, providing lighting control as well as triggering flames, pyros and lasers, and to have controlled the non-uniform video mapping from a sapphire Media console and Ai servers. The fully timecoded opening show, followed by live lighting and video jamming to DJs demonstrated the flexibility and power of Avolites control systems.

“On a personal note, I will never forget the moment when I saw Arcadia for the first time, my eyes open wide in awe of the stunning spectacle. With Avolites now working directly with the creative team headed up by the charming and capable Pip Rush and Bertie Cole, I look forward to helping them take Arcadia to even greater heights.”

LIGHTING FIXTURES Colour Sound Experiment provided further lighting elements to Arcadia, as it has done for some time. This year’s lighting design was an evolution of the 2013 creation with upgraded kit.

Colour Sound deployed its new Robe Pointe multi-purpose moving lights and 100 DragonLED 220 external PARs for lighting the structure. The DragonLEDs feature six-colour RGBWA and UV LEDs; the huge metal beast gave main stage headliners Metallica a run for their money in terms of hardware credentials.

Other lighting fixtures include Robe LEDWash 600’s, Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500’s and another huge smoke emporium, all operated by Jamie Trant using an Avolites Sapphire Touch, while Colour Sound Experiment’s Crew Chief for the area was Stu Barr.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014 Below: Specialty staff are brought in to fill the unique roles created by undertaking a project like the spider; The huge metal beast gave main stage headliners Metallica a run for their money in terms of hardware credentials.

Trant first became involved with Arcadia in 2012 when he was brought in as last minute Operator for the ‘Afterburner’ show at Bestival, Isle of Wight. From that point forward, the young LD continued to light many of Arcadia’s festival shows leading to his first involvement with the ‘Spider’ at their landmark Glastonbury show in 2013. He told TPi: “The rig this year consisted mainly of Robe Pointes. Although being predominantly a beam fixture, their surprisingly wide zoom and effects prisms provided an additional set of looks to be utilised. They’re also barking bright! For what is a completely open air show, I could rely on them to punch through.

“The design for the spider is one of delicacy and consideration - a mixture between architectural and effect lighting. Whilst there are many exciting audience effects, it is important that the structure is lit in a way that it can always be recognised as a sculpture,” said Trant.

His console of choice - an Avolites Sapphire Touch - came about because the majority of the show was busked: “It was a very easy decision to make, both the ‘landing’ and ‘finale’ shows are fully time coded, as well as needing to receive midi triggers which control the flame lamp posts. Being a longstanding Avolites user, I’m no stranger to their friendly ‘family’ style support. They are a great bunch of people, producing some really great products who are always there to help. I would like to extend my personal thanks to Gregory Haynes and Peter Budd who both went well outside of their remit 22

supporting us through Glastonbury during some pretty gruelling programming!”

LASERS Dal Badial of Laser Hire London took care of Arcadia’s laser effects thanks to his existing relationship with Arcadia supplier Smash Productions. Badial supplied four staff to help man the lasers as and when they were being operated for the show. Laser products used for the production comprised nine laser units including HB, Kvant and Laser Hire’s own inhouse designed units.

Said Badial: “When first seeing the sequence and watching and hearing the response from the crowds, it was emotional. All the hard work, effort and creative vision of the Arcadia team had done the task it had set out to do!”

PYROTECHNICS Pyrotechnics are a huge part of Arcadia’s personality, so much so that even if you’re not a fan of the music, the flames will catch your attention and seek your presence as the spider gets excited. Ed Samkin of Event FX told TPi: “I first got involved with Arcadia in 2009 when I introduced them to the use of Pyrotechnics for their Glastonbury shows. This year I was approached by Pip eight weeks before this Glastonbury and he briefed me of the new finale they wanted to produce. I wrote a proposal and within a week I had been signed up as Pyro Designer and a supplier for the show.

“I love working with Arcadia as they tirelessly strive to develop the audience experience and

put on the best show humanly possible within the budget and Health and Safety constraints.

It’s an exciting project that I’m proud to be a part of. I worked closely with Pip, Ami and Tim to work out a design to the music, establish suitable firing locations and make the best of the challenging structure and conditions.”

“In my role as the pyro supervisor, I manage the crew and liaise with the other HODs and performers to make sure everyone knows the cues, locations and scale of the pyrotechnics.

During rehearsals I worked closely with Ami to choreograph the crane movements to ensure we got the best from the pyro sequences as high on Pip’s brief was to create a unique look that incorporated the cranes and their movements with pyro. Once we got into firing the show I was the operator at FOH.” Samkin ordered special pyrotechnic materials from the US from his supplier and imported them via Heathrow Airport. “Once these arrived I batch-tested, packed and loaded all the equipment and went to site.

Health and Safety is the most important thing when using pyrotechnics,” he noted.

Samkin also wrote a comprehensive safety document detailing the exact products intended for use, their locations on the structure, a specific method statement and risk assessment.

“The Arcadia spider is a very challenging structure to fire pyrotechnics from as there are a lot of moving parts, big flame effects, performers, rigging crew, crane drivers and above all else there are ten of thousands of revellers directly below us. It’s of paramount

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

Below: As well as flame effects and expert pyrotechnics, LED screen panels were integrated into the structure around the DJ booth, forming the mouth and brain of the spider whose legs are made up of old scanning machines used by HM Customs & Excise; All the effects work together climatically with the music and lighting for show-stopping performances.

importance to use the most reliable low debris material available on the market which is why I import a lot of products from the US. “Also the crane choreography was essential as if they were in the wrong place and the wrong time they could be physically over the pyrotechnics when they fire which could alter they trajectory and cause damage to the structure. I relied on a Pyro Spotter who is on a dedicated comms system to give clearance of the cues on the side of the spider I had poor visibility of. In addition I have a deadmans handle on my control system so although I’m running a timecoded sequence I only hold on the deadman, and hence arm the system, when it is safe to fire.

“The general theme I’ve always had in my mind with Arcadia is a sort of Steampunk, out of this world, scrap metal, futuristic theme. I’ve always tried to use pyrotechnics in a way that isn’t too obvious or expected. For example I will avoid firing a row of equally spaced, same height effects

and try to use obscure angles and work with the shape of the structure.

One thing I try to do is continue the lines of the spiders limbs and work with the tripod look of it. So for example, I would fire three large tailed comets from each of the three legs so that they match the shape of it.”

FLAME EFFECTS Germany-based Sir Henry Hot and his team are responsible for assembling the flame machine on top of the spider, which creates flames using propane gas. He said of his love for the job: “The mysticism, the wildness, the eeriness and the brachial aesthetic of fire has always fascinated me… you can feel the fire on your skin, in your body, as well as acoustically and visually. When fire combines with music, performance and the technology used in a live show, the sensation is indescribable.

“I believe that any plan can be made a reality. Whatever image you have in your head - providing you’re willing to put enough planning into

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Arcadia at Glastonbury 2014

Below: DJ Craig Charles described his first ever set at the Arcadia stage as “an epic, magical moment”; Stacks of L-Acoustics Kara loudspeakers were flown from the spider’s legs to fill the centre of the sound field; The Arcadia stage has become Glastonbury’s late-night music stage with a light show to rival any production; The alien spider has become one of the most talked-about stages on the European festival circuit; When not in use, the structure is kept on a farm in Somerset, UK but at Glastonbury, it comes alive with TPi Award-winning production values.

it - you can realise it. The Arcadia stage is the perfect example of this.

“I received sketches of the Arcadia structure, and we were able to develop our concept for the stage around these sketches. The fire gets released on Timecode so that all the effects work together climactically with the music and lighting - the fire has to be meticulously planned into the proceedings.

“The spider structure has also developed significantly in the last four years. Initially our flame machines were placed on the arms of the spider, but this year the machine was on the top.

Of course, there are many things to factor into consideration when assembling our machines on the structure. The safety of the crowd, first and foremost, and ensuring the lighting and sound are not affected by the flames.”

AUDIO AF Live have been supplying sound at Glastonbury for the last nine years, and have worked with Arcadia since the company began supplying its spider stage for the festival; they now supply systems for that stage, along with the company’s Afterburner and Bug structures.

Within the spider stage’s 80-metre sound field, AF Live implemented a six-point hexagonal design, with three infill positions at its centre and two outfill positions to cover viewing areas.

They employed 98 individual L-Acoustics speaker cabinets to provide an L-Acoustics line source system for the event. For the six main points, 24

there were stacks comprising six L-Acoustics Kara modular line source loudspeakers, three L-Acoustics SB28 subwoofers and a pair of L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers.

According to the company’s Director Paul Rose, they designed and specified an L-Acoustics Kara system in these positions due to the sensitive noise conditions at the festival: “Using Soundvision 3D acoustical simulation software, we mapped the arena and used the data to show SPL levels both in the crowd and offsite. We applied a cardioid subwoofer design with the SB28 to four of the main stacks to help reduce the bass leaving the sound field in sensitive directions. The wide coverage of the Kara makes it an ideal box, since we expanded the sound field to 80 metres this year; traditionally we have only take it out to 50 metres.”

For the infill systems, AF Live supplied units from the L-Acoustics Kiva range in three positions flown from the spider structure, designed to fill the centre of the sound field.

A total of 18 L-Acoustics Kiva loudspeaker enclosures, divided into six hangs of three units, were deployed alongside two L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers. The two outfill systems comprised three L-Acoustics Arcs Wide line sources, three L-Acoustics SB18 subwoofers and a single L-Acoustics LA8 Amplified controller apiece. DJ monitoring was achieved through four 8XT cabinets and two 115XT HiQ stage monitors, both from L-Acoustics, while FOH

monitoring came from four L-Acoustics 115XT HiQ units and one L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controller.

From AF Live, Rose acted as Project Manager with a crew of six working on the installation, as well as three engineers working throughout the show. Russell Kearney was FOH Engineer, while Matt Howes was System Technician in charge of design and Ben Willbee was responsible for the stage and patching audio. For Rose, working with Arcadia at Glastonbury is one of the most rewarding projects his company is involved with: “Arcadia are great to work with because they are always pushing the boundaries of production. The sound field designs we provide offer much more of a challenge than your standard stage set-up with hangs of PA stage left and right; each gig is always a new challenge!”

TPi Photos: Charlie Raven, Ben Daure, Shot Away Chris Cooper, Paul Holmes, Charlie Barnyard www.arcadiaspectacular.com www.smashproductions.co.uk www.audiofunktion.co.uk www.coloursound.co.uk www.cplav.com, www.avolites.com www.freefallcollective.com www.sirhenryhot.com www.videoillusions.net www.globalfxgroup.com www.laserhirelondon.co.uk

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24/04/2014 07:58

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

GLASTONBURY HIGHLIGHTS BESIDES THE ARCADIA STAGE, GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2014 HAD MANY OTHER PRODUCTION FEATS TO OFFER. HERE WE RUN THROUGH A HIGHLIGHTS GUIDE OF RENTAL COMPANIES, FESTIVAL SUPPLIERS, PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS WHICH TOOK THE FIELDS

BY STORM (QUITE LITERALLY).

MARTIN AUDIO

WWW.MARTIN-AUDIO.COM © Sarah Rushton - www.thefifthestate.co.uk

Martin Audio’s groundbreaking Multi-Cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) system has made Glastonbury history by delivering the highest sound levels to the audience without exceeding noise pollution levels beyond the perimeter.

Making its Glastonbury debut, the system deployed on the Pyramid Stage was impressive in every respect, utilising cabinets from the entire MLA range of loudspeakers. This comprised a total of 72 MLA for the main hangs, eight MLA Compact for stereo infill at the pit barrier and four delay positions of 14 MLA each. The latest addition to the range, the MLA Mini, also featured, providing stereo infill behind the FOH control structure and onstage coverage of artists’ guest viewing platforms. A massive broadside array of 38 MLX stretched across the entire width of the stage to provide sub-bass support to the entire system.

The company’s unique MLA technology enables very fine control of how each array covers its designated audience area.

Acoustic cells housed within each cabinet are independently controlled by their own amplifier and DSP channel, a total of six in each MLA. This control allowed RG Jones System Engineer Mark Edwards to specify exactly what SPL and frequency response was required across the audience, with the intelligent software automatically controlling the array to produce that result. This amounted to just a 6dB drop off over the 300-metre long audience area, with incredibly even frequency response.

“We used our proprietary computer software to figure out how to drive each cell in each array to direct sound just at the audience, and then cut it off sharply just beyond the audience to dramatically reduce noise pollution,” said Martin Audio’s R&D Director Jason Baird. “As a result, headliners including Arcade Fire and Metallica could play at 104-105dBA - this is the first time such high levels have been achieved in the history of Glastonbury as noise limits are really strict.”

More than 150,000 fans listened to headline 26

acts Metallica, Arcade Fire, and Kasabian, as well as The 1975, Elbow, Rudimental, Nitin Sawhney, and Dolly Parton, mixed on the MLA system. Having persuaded the festival production in 2007 that RG Jones Sound Engineering was the right company to run audio services on the Pyramid Stage, Simon Honywill said, “I have believed that MLA was the right system for the Pyramid since I first heard its extraordinary fidelity and learnt about its unique abilities. Having used it at the past two Glastonbury Abbey shows, it was natural to suggest to Dick Tee and his team that it should take its rightful place on this iconic stage. I think it has more than proved itself here - I spent a considerable amount of time out in the audience and have never heard the field covered so well. And people in the crowd were openly complimentary about the volume and clarity too.”

There was also effervescent praise from the stream of FOH engineers over the weekend.

One of the biggest draws of the weekend was Metallica, engineered by Mick Hughes: “MLA is a new system to me, a new experience. I was surprised how easy it was to get the mix I wanted out of it. When I first used it I thought ‘whoa’ there’s some serious horsepower here.

It just sounded really alive; I wouldn’t shy away from using it again.”

One of the most enigmatic performances was from Lana Del Ray, engineered by Max Bisgrove: “In half a song, I could get out what

I needed from the MLA system. Great clarity, great power, it’s by far my favourite Glastonbury mixing experience so far.”

Dave McEwan, FOH Sound Engineer for Nitin Sawhney, remarked: “Glastonbury was the first time I’ve used the big MLA, and I’m really impressed - great imaging, 3D, even 4D sound.

You can dive in and enjoy, it’s another sort of PA! I’m hoping to use this at the Royal Albert Hall for Nitin in September. I love it; it’s a great product, a super sounding system, lush and hifi, with lots of depth.”

The 1975’s Sound Engineer, Jamie McLuckie, added: “At some festivals you have to tweak the bottom end, but MLA was nice and easy. The system sounded fat, with nice clarity and nice high end too. I couldn’t really fault it.”

For John Carroll, MD of RG Jones Sound Engineering, Glastonbury has been the affirmation of what he’s known for some time: “Martin Audio’s MLA is the next generation and there’s nothing out there to match it. Our continued support from Martin Audio is second to none.”

Summing up, Jason Baird said: “It was my career highlight back in 2008 working on our very first Glastonbury, but with MLA this year, it’s been topped. To see the massive audiences in complete unison front to back enjoying the performances, combined with the constant stream of smiling faces at FOH, it’s been the showcase for everything that Martin Audio and MLA stand for.”

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

XL VIDEO

WWW.XLVIDEO.TV © Nic Diacre

XL Video supplied creative video projection and control to the Shangri La area at the 2014 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts at Pilton in Somerset, UK, helping to give this popular immersive, interactive fictional world a real edge.

XL Video’s Nick Diacre project managed two specialist video installations working for technical producers PF Events and its Technical Production Manager Seain Loughlin, who received the brief from Shangri La’s Creative Director Debs Armstrong.

The main projection feature in Shangri La was in the Heaven area, involving eight Barco R22 projectors, run as four doubled up pairs for optimised brightness and mapped to cover a 44 metre long wooden art-wall structure composed from a myriad of hand-cut tessellated triangles.

The work was created by Andy Cross from ANArchitecture.

This impressive sculpture represented the cloud of Heaven and was brought alive by the projections which added movement and texturing. It featured several entrances allowing people to pass through to explore other areas of Shangri La. As the structure was a freehand piece of imagineering, all the video mapping had to be undertaken ‘on-the-fly’ once it was built!

Diacre and the XL Video’s team took around 200 photos and from these made a detailed composite of the structure which allowed them to map it using one of XL Video’s new Mac Pro Servers - which was also used to facilitate all the video playback.

The custom map was then applied to the structure during one of the overnight programming sessions during the set up.

The projectors were installed on four towers lined up with each corner of the wall and cross-

projected onto the surface.

In addition to this, VJs collaborated with the XL Video team by supplying audio generative content that was played out through the system, and other artists created a raft of bespoke video material for the project.

Diacre was joined on site by XL Video Technicians Richie Jewell, Erica Frost and Media Server and Control Systems Manager Christian Dickens. He commented: “It was very much a team effort and we all worked long hours and put lots of energy into making it happen. It was a very exciting way to work and the results spoke for themselves. I can truthfully say I’ve never had such a strong team, who took on their roles and made such a complex brief look easy.”

Related but separate to the Heaven installation, XL Video also supplied projection, media servers and playback control for The Pyschotron, an artwork by Doug Foster comprising an eight-metre circular screen mounted in the roof of a geodesic dome with visual art beamed onto it.

The projectors were two more Barco R22’s, doubled up driven by redundant Mac Pro servers running Milumin software for both mapping and playback - which allowed the systems to be independently mapped in great detail and played back synchronised for five days without missing a beat.

Loughlin and the PF Events team supplied AV systems to five stages in total across Shangri La, delivering a mind blowing audio visual experience. Alongside a team of artists and set designers who toiled for weeks in both sun and mud, the end result transformed a small corner of Somerset into a futuristic dystopia.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

PICTURE WORKS

WWW.PICTUREWORKS.COM © Brendan Bell

The Picture Works Director Robin Wealleans began his Glastonbury story with the sentiment: “As long I’m alive, you’ll always find me at Glastonbury - it’s the best weekend in the known universe.”

With a staggering 28 appearances there at the age of just 36, his opinion is certainly valid. This year his company handled the video for several high profile artists, with a busy team scuttling between the stages throughout the event.

The video specialists had initially been booked to supply its 8 by 4.5-metre rolling LED video screen on the legendary Pyramid Stage for American starlet Lana Del Rey. The system had been specified because of a particularly tight changeover, as Project Manager Rhodri Shaw explained: “Metallica’s headline set comprised a giant onstage screen which made supplying any major production for artists earlier on the

bill was a real challenge - which is where our rolling video system came into play. We designed it for exactly this purpose - it divides into four and can be on a truck within 10 minutes of an artist leaving stage.”

The motorised system was so popular that it led to other bookings over the weekend from Paolo Nutini, The Black Keys and a last-minute 6 by 4.5-metre screen request for MGMT. Due to an unforeseen mishap they were in danger of having no video at all for their headline set.

With “no time to pretend” as Wealleans quipped, the team quickly de-rigged the Lana Del Ray show, put it on a truck and drove it straight to the John Peel stage just in time to rescue a very-grateful band!

Apart from its main stage duties, Picture Works usually provides a secret installation

elsewhere, and this year’s effort was best described by Wealleans: “I picked Pluto’s - a noisy and brilliant bar run by some Welsh friends that was in the late night Shangri La area. What really made me go for it was that this crazy drinking den was in a maze

COLOUR SOUND EXPERIMENT

of artistic installations between the Heaven and Hell themed areas. So technically, our hidden delights were in a place that our crew should have easily got to; Picture Works were in Purgatory!”

Apparently only Wealleans found it…

WWW.COLOURSOUND.CO.UK

© David Morrell

Colour Sound Experiment has worked on many block9 projects over the years, and the radical set design duo returned to Glastonbury 2014 with a 24-hour showcase of extremely unconventional and edgy performances on the Genosys stage. There were also two other major visual experiences, namely London Underground - a mean looking tower block with a tube train trashing out of it - and the lowbeat vibes of NYC Downlow. All of these received lighting and visuals treatment from Alan King of Rockin’ Horse, who was also the main Lighting Operator in Genosys. A wide variety of fixtures were supplied including Robe LEDWash 600’s and 1200’s, along with Cyclones - high powered fans with LED ring. This went with Chauvet Professional Colorband Pix IPs to light the main Genosys pods, as well as lots of strobes and Moles, without which no block9 creation would be complete.

Alan King ran the lighting using his own Chamsys MagicQ console and commented: “As always it was great working with Haydn Cruickshank and the CSE team to create one of the best looking and liveliest areas on the 28

site.”

CSE also supplied two 6W green lasers for Genosys.The lighting of block9 included its three main performance spaces, many architectural features and building exteriors as well as an alien invasion / abduction area for fantasy adventure seekers and a whole Hippy Festival area, complete with appropriate props and scenery.

One of the most laid back and attractive areas on site is Glade, ensconced in the trees in its own little world. Glade lighting was again designed by Colour Sound’s own Jasper Johns, who operated it, together with Sam Akinwale. They used a combination of Robe Pointes, Clay Paky Sharpys and GLP Spot One LED washes together with generic fixtures and strobes.

Along with CSE’s BT6 high resolution LED screen at the back of the stage for visuals and four 3W RGB lasers, there was a whole host of other architectural lights and some huge glitter balls. While the performance areas always attract plenty of attention, with a full Festival population in the immediate vicinity, the bars are constantly busy and important areas to light well.

CSE has also illuminated bars at Glastonbury since 2007 and this year supplied a selection of funky lighting to each of the nine bars in which they were involved, as well as practicals to allow everyone working to do so safely. One of the larger bars was the flagship Liquid Bar, a large inflatable white structure in the middle of the Dance Field.

CSE Project Manager for Glasto, Fletch, designed the lighting, featuring 20 moving lights including GLP Spot Ones and Chauvet QWash 260’s, all patched into a ChamSys console which ran pre-programmed chases.

Waterwave FX lights were used to project liquid effects all around the space and ChromaStrips, installed around the bar fronts, enabled colour changes. Outside were a myriad of extra DragonLED exterior PARs, which glowed with colour and thus attracted people to it.

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

ENTEETAINMENT 2014 saw Enteetainment’s 18th year managing the technical production at the iconic main Pyramid Stage and Other Stage.

There has always been a uniquely special atmosphere around Glastonbury Festival, emanating from the tightknit team assembled around organisers Michael Eavis, his daughter Emily and her husband Nick. Enteetainment are in constant touch throughout the year’s planning that goes into constructing the world’s most famous festival stages and their associated production, ensuring the 135,000-strong audience enjoys the 51 bands appearing on these two stages across the weekend.

The core team comprises Dick Tee, Head of Production, along with daughter Frankie Tee, (in the role of Pyramid Stage Office Manager) working her seventh year, Amy Harmsworth (Operations and Logistics Manager Pyramid

WWW.DICKTEE.COM

and Other Stage) working at her 13th Glastonbury and Kim Bickell (Other Stage Office Manager) also working her seventh festival. Other key Enteetainers in the team of 24 include John Clarke (site manager for Pyramid and Other stage) and Tony Boffey (Deputy Site Manager for Production at Pyramid and Other Stage).

Dick Tee commented: “Our close relationship with the Eavis’s and the extended Glastonbury Festival family means that we are all on a common wavelength of moving the festival forward in the right direction.

“There are quite a few parent / sibling relationships working at Glastonbury, which I believe stems from the great respect we’ve built between us and an ethos that any parent would want their children to be a part of.”

Tee’s son Toby is also working on site as a rigger within Neg Earth’s lighting team. The mentoring of

© ShotAway

knowledge goes beyond family and Enteetainment Crew as the company also brings in placement students from the local community to learn about festival production during the festival build and over the weekend. Amy herself was introduced to the

industry as a placement student with Dick in 1998 and has gone on to progress to her current status as a senior production manager within the company.

This highlights the ongoing policy of introducing new talent into the industry.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

d3 TECHNOLOGIES

WWW.D3TECHNOLOGIES.COM © Tiemen Rapati

Long-time triphop favourites Massive Attack drew in the crowds at the Other Stage on Glastonbury’s final day, Sunday 29 June, as part of their European tour which started in Bulgaria mid-June. Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja teamed up with London-based creative studio Artisan to create the stage design and visuals for their show. Bringing some of their most famous tracks on stage, the band was assisted throughout their set with famed collaborators Horace Andy, whose songs included Angel, Martina Topley-Bird (songs included Teardrop) and Deborah Miller (songs included Unfinished Sympathy).

content, numbers, and political statements, as well as illustrative imagery. The six panels, placed in two horizontal rows, were automated to rotate, enabling entirely different looks at different points in the show.

Said Kreukniet: “All panels could rotate like horizontal blinds. Allowing us to reconfigure them to be used as a light source for the stage, or to reveal additional light sources behind. For most of the performance though, they would face the audience and present messages varying from quotes from Guantanamo Bay prisoners to more abstract representations of information.”

In addition,160 red DMX laser diodes

“For this tour we wanted to create an evolution of our previous work with Massive Attack and incorporate some elements from the show we created with them and Adam Curtis last year.”

Ben Kreukniet from Artisan said about the stage design: “For this tour we wanted to create an evolution of our previous work with Massive Attack and incorporate some elements from the show we created with them and Adam Curtis last year. Keeping the clean information-based aesthetic of the previous tours but looking at how we could bring more narrative and imagery into the show. We also used different types of lasers to add a structural, almost architectural element to the set, whilst still making sure the design was flexible enough to accommodate smaller stages.”

Specialising in technically innovative, dynamic spatial design for live performances, Artisan was established by the founders of United Visual Artists, who originally created d3 Technologies and have worked with Massive Attack for the past 10 years. Artisan opted for six LED panels, placed behind the band, which showed abstract

30

mounted in two rows on the lighting truss created a cage of light around the band during Safe From Harm and Future Proof, almost forming a light barrier between the band and the audience. Songs Battlebox and Jupiter saw heavy use of three separately mounted RGB laser scanners, drawing rectangular shapes on stage in front of the band. The content and automation of the LED panels as well as both the laser scanners and laser diodes were controlled by d3 Technologies, with a custom module written to control the laser scanners.

All previsualisation and sequencing was done in advance in d3 Technologies as well, allowing for changes right up until show time.

One of the most talked about performances of the festival, Kasabian closed the Pyramid Stage on the same Sunday, energising the crowd with a robust set of hits that all fans knew by heart. For their visuals, the band opted for

a huge LED screen at the back of the stage, revealing a series of words and coloured abstract video content throughout the show.

Building up anticipation prior to the band starting their set, the wall counted down to 00:00 in pink hues before white drapes rolled in left, right, and over the top of the wall to close it in and create a white ‘stage within a stage’.

Aitor Throup, Kasabian’s Creative Director in charge of content and stage design, matched the visuals perfectly with the look of the band’s latest album 48:13.

Although slightly scaled down from their massive homecoming show in Leicester for 50,000 people, where the LED wall measured 21-metres by 10.8-metres, the Glastonbury stage still added the visual punch that suits the music. Gilbert Roper, d3 Operator for the Kasabian tour, said: “It was a fairly straightforward design that we feed mapped in d3. The whole show is running on timecode.

We used 9mm WinVision, which gave the show a strong look. d3 was particularly useful in terms of the previsualisation: it really enabled me to show the designer what the show would look like ahead of the typically short build-up time. The stage simulator can bring a level of confidence to clients who - naturally - are very engaged with what the end result will look like.”

Going off to the next gig with a splash, the last song of Kasabian’s set saw the introduction of live camera capture. Said Gilbert: “We had two camera men filming the crowd, feeding images to an interactive module developed by Andreas Muller. The output of this was captured by d3. Using this software, we could easily add visual elements to the crowd and work with individual faces to the beat. That worked well.”

Project management was done by Alex Leinster from Chaos Visuals, who also supplied the main and understudy d3 4U v2.5 machines for show.

Concluded Gilbert: “It was great working with Alex as Chaos supply extremely well-prepped racks and excellent back up and support, leaving me free to concentrate on the show.”

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

THUNDERING JACKS

WWW.THUNDERINGJACKS.COM © Thundering Jacks

Working with Ed Sheeran at this year’s Glastonbury was video company Thundering Jacks’ first experience at the festival. Sheeran’s Show Designer Mark Cunniffe had seen some examples of the company’s VideoDust real-time video effects online, so Thundering Jacks were brought in to work closely with both him and Video Director Phil Mead to create some unique live graphic content for Sheeran’s festival run this summer.

The VideoDust video and graphic effects system was designed specifically for concert touring; it allows IMAG camera images to be present as graphic content for screens, as on the night of Sheeran’s performance. Thundering Jacks Founder and Designer, Stuart Smith, was satisfied with the overall result: “The proof is in the pudding. The BBC broadcast seemed very happy to use many wide-angle shots of the stage, which show our effects very well; if the BBC hadn’t liked the look, they would not have used so many of those shots. We were very happy!”

Reality Shows | Big Screen Feeds Congress Centres | Festivals | Events Concerts | Tours | Sport | News +44 (0)1590 622 440 www.bradeng.com

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

MUSIC BANK

WWW.MUSICBANK.ORG

Glastonbury Festival 2014 was the 20th year that Music Bank has been the official backline supplier for the event. Over the years, the company has gone from supplying a few choice components and a couple of artists’ backline to providing up to 50 individual backline, rolling risers, backline crew and dressing room support riders.

For Jimmy Mac, Manager at Music Bank, the festival’s draw lies in the familial atmosphere behind the scenes, and the company’s Bookings Manager, Jules Sparrow, has built up great relationships over the years, in particular with the project managers from Glastonbury’s satellite stages.

“It sometimes seems like a big catch up! When the trucks get locked well after the headliners leave the stage, we can enjoy the full Glastonbury experience as much as anyone,” Mac explained.

With everything from blazing sun to lighting storms, the weather was typically unreliable, and turned out to be the main challenge for the Music Bank team. “With it being wet and muddy under wheel and foot, it was harder than usual to catch up on lost time,” Mac continued. When De La Soul’s crew was stuck offsite, he was prepared for a problematic set. “We always have one artist who is ‘difficult’, and this year we thought that was going to be De La Soul.”

As it turned out, the Music Bank crew were called upon to set the large backline up blind. Thanks to their relationships with the sound and stage crews, they were able to swiftly resolve the issue, enabling the band to take to the stage on time with everything ready for them. For Mac, who sticks by the old adage of work hard play hard, being involved with artists such as Metallica and Mogwai made the whole experience worthwhile.

GREEN HIPPO

WWW.GREEN-HIPPO.COM

Green Hippo has been working alongside Bryte Design on Glastonbury’s John Peel Stage since 2008. For the company, it is an opportunity to get closer to its customers, technicians, operators and designers in order to better understand their requirements. Green Hippo maintains a strict policy of not directly supplying equipment to the festival, so as not to take business away from production and rental companies, Hippotizer Media Servers were supplied by Vortex Media.

Green Hippo started working with Bryte Design long before the festival and according to Simon Harris, the company’s User Experience Manager, and a Media Server Technician at the event, the arena has to hit certain criteria. “It needs to be exciting to look at, and appealing to incoming bands who don’t have their own equipment. It also needs to allow for simple operation, either by the in-house operator or from the lighting console. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to look great on camera.” BBC coverage of the stage has increased year on year, and providing a show they can broadcast is paramount.

Not only does it receive ample televised exposure, but the John Peel Stage has also grown in size over the last few years to accommodate bigger acts drawing larger crowds. Consequently, the design process and technical challenges posed have become 32

© TPi

more complex. “The John Peel Stage has to accommodate everything from small bands, comprising themselves and a manager, to bands coming in with full production and trucks full of gear. Having the flexibility in all of our systems, be it lighting effects or video effects, to accommodate this is imperative,” explained Harris.

Traditionally, the John Peel Stage has been a platform for showcasing up-and-coming artists, and Green Hippo have aimed to emulate that with a system which doesn’t intimidate budding LDs. The company actively encourages in-house lighting video and lighting operators, as well as any of the bands’ own engineers, to use the video equipment they provide. Harris plays a key role in upholding this commitment: “Once the system is up and running, I assist in teaching the in-house video and lighting team how to use it, get the most out of it, and import media.”

The idea behind this year’s design was to focus on a really interesting video design to eliminate the reliance upon custom content. As with any festival, the budgets at Glastonbury are tight, and using video in this way is a costeffective way of producing a spectacle. “My personal feeling is that this year, more than ever before, we had a design capable of creating a powerful look by using only block colours. This gave operators and designers the freedom to experiment with different aspects of Hippotizer,

© TPi

as opposed to just playing clips,” said Harris.

The team from Bryte Design were charged with visual design for the John Peel stage, which was achieved by Cate Carter and Michael Smith, while the company’s Paul ‘Pablo’ Beckett focused on video. Pablo’s design incorporated seven columns of Element Labs Steal Screen across the back of the stage. Some of the panels were removed, whilst others were covered with a filter, to give the entire screen more of an analogue feel.

Media Server Technician Nick Ashcroft created presets using Hippotizer’s Preset Manager, enabling the smooth operation of each show. When incoming LDs opted to not run the video themselves, they worked with Ashcroft to create presets that complimented the lighting, which he was able to effortlessly recall using Hippotizer’s X-Fade mode.

Lighting and rigging supply was down to IMAX Lighting, while South West Group Events

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

supplied sound. Michael Smith acted as LD at FOH, working alongside Media Server Technician Ben Miles of Mixed Emotions London. Video Crew Boss was PJ (Paul Maddock-Jones), with Phil Tickle as Production Manager and Head Rigger, and Jonathan Badger as Site Manager and Chief Electrician.

For Harris, Glastonbury is not only a unique cultural event, but also an opportunity to introduce nascent talent to real-life working environments by giving them practical, hands-on experience of the industry.

If young people are looking to gain experience in a festival arena, the John Peel Stage is a good starting point: “The John Peel Stage has a particular community vibe, from the admin people and caterers all the way up to Area Manager Jim Fox, the only person fit to look after John Peel’s legacy.

Jim has been the Area Organiser for quite some time, and has been instrumental in the organisation of the stage since before John Peel passed away, when the stage went from being known as ‘New Bands Stage’ to the ‘John Peel Stage’ in his honour.”

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Audio rental company, Stagecore had its first Glastonbury experience in 2005, when it supplied audio for Trash City. Since then, the late-night areas in the southeast corner of the festival have grown dramatically, and so has the company’s involvement. Now the providers of audio to 16 late-night stages in The Common, Block9 and the Unfairground, Stagecore also has a 17th outdoor arena in the Theatre and Circus field for Joe Rush’s show, A Kiss on the Apocalypse.

Across these areas, the company provides 35 crew and engineers. All of the loudspeakers are from Noise Control Audio with Noise Control’s own digital processing; these work in concert with the company’s own branded Full Fat Audio amplifiers. Technical Director Bertie Hunter took charge of audio on all stages at the festival, closely supported by Tom Barton.

In total, Stagecore provided 48 VSB218 and 30 VSB215 subwoofers, along with 32 stacks of its I-Fly system, 20 ASYM2D2 double 12-inch mid / tops, 21 ASYM2 single 12-inch mid / tops, 19 SM15 15-inch stage monitors and 16 CX12 12-inch coax monitor speakers. From Full Fat Audio, it supplied 24 FFA-6004 amplifiers, four FFA-4004 four-channel amplifiers and 14 FFA-3600 two-channel amplifiers, along with 18 FFA-6000, four FFA-8000 and 17 FFA-10000 dual power dual mono professional amplifiers.

“We have worked with Full Fat Audio since they formed. Their amplifiers have a fantastic sound and pack an amazing punch for such a lightweight product. The new four-channel options have been a great addition, both for our bi-amp speakers and for our smaller systems,” said Hunter, explaining why Full Fat Audio products were used to kit out so many stages at Glastonbury.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Glastonbury 2014

CHAUVET PROFESSIONAL

WWW.CHAUVETLIGHTING.CO.UK © Sarah Rushton - www.thefifthestate.co.uk

The characteristic power and colour of Chauvet Professional’s lighting range let its presence be known across several music stages and live production areas at this year’s Glastonbury festival.

At the Temple stage on The Common, Lighting Designer, Paul De Villiers provided a set to complement the video-mapped exterior design of the stage structure using the popular, powerful and versatile, Chauvet Professional Legend 412Z wash fixture and the full extent of its 8° to 33° zoom range to create a very wide beam stretching across the crowd - adding vital contrast with depth, colour and strobing to the overall lighting display in this Chichen Itzainspired DJ zone.

Offsetting the intense colour of the structure’s exterior, de Villiers counterposed the warm white wash of the Chauvet Professional Nexus 7x7 Aw LED panel wall system on the back of the DJ booth area. The Nexus 7x7 panels provided simple pixel shapes, blinder effects and also shot out aerial effects which ‘punched out’ the colour from the very wide colour beams of the Chauvet Professional Legend 412Z fixture, which were all mixed through an Avolites Tiger Touch lighting console.

Paul de Villiers was full of praise: “We had a lot to play with just using the effects of those two different fixtures. The Chauvet Nexus and Legend worked together really well. The strobing was good fun, the zoom was a pretty amazing effect - very wide. The reaction time was really quick, the lights were easy to operate and the colour mixing was very good. On the Nexus, the open white quality is amazing and the dimming curves on the LEDs again are really good.”

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Over at the Mutoid Waste Co., founder and British Artist, Joe Rush presented A Kiss on the Apocalypse where the feelings and intentions of the created mutant machines (half animal, half machine) as they roll towards the final moments of earth, were accentuated in LED by the lighting artistry of Nic Romanini, via Chauvet DJ COLORrail IRC IP battens and recently-launched Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Beam units.

Told in eight mechanical tableaux, the story unfolds of machines feeding on the carcasses of our civilisation in metal forests of smoking and firing exhaust pipe trees, through to the re-creation of a universe where love and music pulse in the veins and the cogs of the mutants.

Romanini positioned 48 COLORrail outdoorrated multicolor strip light units around the ground level production area to create a low-level glow for the scenes acted out by the converted-truck-mutants. The coloured glow changed with the action, so as the ‘aquatic’ beasts arrived they were highlighted in blue and aqua light, accompanied by fish-like gobo effects in similar colours from the 20 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Beam fixtures positioned amongst the COLORrails.

The beasts from the hot, dry land converged and were favoured in arid palettes of orange and red-brown, supported by suitable selections from the Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Beam fixture’s 17 inbuilt gobos with their continuous variable-speed wheel scroll.

The Rogue R2 Beam fixtures were also positioned to surround the action, facing inwards towards the stage so the aerial effects were used almost as searchlights - from the Osram Sirius 230W HRI lamp boasting an intense 133,200 lux at 15-metres - across an

eerily-glowing no-man’s-land of war zone.

The final scene depicts the once-truck animals finding love and music and the previous disillusionment of the impending Apocalypse is lifted and hope comes in vibrant shades of red and pink across the performance area.

For Romanini, the Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Beam light cannon represented a great investment: “I was very impressed with the R2 Beam, which was really powerful. The effects were easy to configure and use - I had everything I needed in that one unit. The R2 Beam matched my expectations and went further. The COLORrail battens were perfect the colours were intense and had I needed more power it was there.”

Amongst the sensory experience created by LD Chris Bushell on the Pyramid Stage for firstnight headliners, Arcade Fire, was the latest, must-have lighting fixture and 2013 Parnelli Award winner for Indispensable Technology in the lighting category, the Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4.

The Nexus 4x4 is a versatile unit offering both a bold eye-candy and a tour-ready wash light, capable of delivering at once the sizzle of a pixel mapping display and a robust light output afforded by 16 27W RGB COB LEDs. Bushell had the Nexus 4x4 units positioned either side of the stage, mounted in the wings to provide wash from a lower level to enhance effects created around them. They also created pixel shapes and contributed pixel effects at the stage level.

As the reflective grid ceiling moved down towards the stage creating a more intimate environment to the set, the Nexus 4x4 panels gave the wash which reflected onto the stage.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

MILEY CYRUS: BANGERZ MILEY CYRUS’S BANGERZ TOUR IS RISQUÉ, FUNNY AND IRONIC IN BOTH DESIGN AND DELIVERY. THROUGHOUT CYRUS SPORTS A DEVILISHLY ANGELIC SMILE WHILE EFFICACIOUSLY STICKING TWO FINGERS UP AT ANYONE WHO MIGHT FIND HER UNSAVOURY. LIVELY AND ENGAGING, SHE BOUNCES AROUND THE STAGE IN A SERIES OF POPTASTICALLY REVEALING, CARTOONISHLY WITTY COSTUMES WHILE PSYCHEDELIC VIDEO PLAYS AT FULL SATURATION ON AN EPIC VIDEO BACKDROP. SWEARING AND CHATTING EFFUSIVELY, SHE STORMS THROUGH AN ECLECTIC SET THAT EMBRACES HIP HOP, CLASSIC ROCK COVERS AND EVEN A PEPPERING OF COUNTRY AND WESTERN. FROM BIRMINGHAM, UK, SARAH RUSHTON-READ REPORTS ON THE PRODUCTION. Throughout the technically complex show the stage morphs from one bizarre physical manifestation of Cyrus’s imagination to another. Visually stunning, the design comes from a team of creatives led by stage design diva Es Devlin and Music Video Director Diane Martell. Both women offer a perfect foil for Cyrus’s ebullient approach and both are equally recognised for their controversial and risqué style.

Devlin’s ‘out there’ 3D pop art stage design is supported by Lighting Designer Rob Sinclair’s punchy, perfectly timed lighting, as video content, created by John Kricfalusi - the mind behind 90s animated TV series The Ren and Stimpy Show - dominates the back wall.

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At 12-metres by 12-metres, the video screen displays everything from psychedelic dancing kittens to the show’s opening gambit, a giant Miley Cyrus face replete with a massive tongue from which she makes her dramatic entrance. This vibrant visual feast works in synchronicity with Cyrus’s relentless parade of brightly coloured, scanty, yet fun, collection of statement costumes, dreamt up by designer, Simone Harouche.

“Miley is a true artist,” affirmed Bangerz’ Stage Manager and Prop Director Stryker Christensen, who’s worked with Cyrus since her Disney teen Hannah Montana days. “She’s totally in control. Everything you see is the result of her own powerful creative drive.”

Stryker, and Assistant Tour Manager Joe Rogers handle everything from trucking to getting the show built everyday. “We handle the talent, including a full cast, the band, special guests and of course Miley herself. For us show quality and safety are our uppermost concerns.”

Working alongside Christiansen and Rogers in Europe is Head of International Production for Live Nation, Andrew Craig. “I work closely with Production Manager Omar Abderrahman and Head Rigger Art McConnell to ensure the best version of the production goes into the scheduled venues. Our preference is that we get the full production into every venue, however it doesn’t always work that way so we also have a B and a C show.”

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

PROJECTION MAPPING Perhaps two of the most talked about elements of the show, besides Cyrus herself, is the giant

inflatable monkey and the huge inflatable husky dog, a homage to the star’s own dog Floyd, who died recently.

Netherlands based AirWorks built the inflatables, a company respected for its ability to design and build inflatables that don’t actually look like inflatables.

Creative Technology handled the projection infrastructure and projectors for the gag, while VYV supplied the Photon media servers and tracking system.

CT provided 14 OptiTrack cameras and six HD projectors and placed custom made infrared (IR) emitters on the projection surface, tracked via the cameras to perfectly cover the 210° of the inflatable figures, including when they were being inflated and deflated.

More than 26 sensors were used with five Photon media servers running the entire project and utilising Realtime Vertex Tracking development. The inflatables were tracked in realtime, and the projection warps in real-time based on the deformation of the inflatable. CT’s Stuart Young project managed this part of the show working closely with the team from VYV and main tour

?

In a technical sense this show appears to have it all - a flying hot-dog, video mapped giant inflatables, gold plated car and the phenomenal 12 by 12-metre LED video wall. “It’s a hell of a set-up,” said Stryker.

Production Manager, Abderrahman agreed: “It’s huge, and its success hinges on the collaborative effort between the vendors, the tech team and everyone else that makes it work.

The kit fills 25 trucks and 14 buses are carrying a total of 115 people.”

Trucking is via Trans-Am and Mick Anderson is the tour’s trucking Coordinator extraordinaire. “Managing 25 trucks is a job in itself,” said Abderrahman. “Just keeping them rotating during load in and load out is challenging. Buses are by the trusty Beat the Street and catering is from Eat your Hearts Out. Kim Davinport and her gang are fantastic. When we go to a restaurant I often say that the food wasn’t nearly as nice as what we had from catering the day before!”

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Opposite: Melissa Agee and Skylar Christensen provided over 200 costumes for the shows dancers and band members, including 10 extravagent costumes for Cyrus alone. Below: The tongue slide pivots out of an eight by six metre gap in the production video wall.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Cyrus dances on top of a custom-made gold car, with video-mapped giant inflatables in the background.

video contractors Colonel Tom. “The Photon media server, developed by VYV in Montreal, combines the use of Optitrack high speed tracking cameras and infra-red emitters to project on complex deformable projection surfaces,” explained on-tour Photon Engineer Frederick Le Blanc. “The cameras and projectors are automatically aligned using an onstage 3D grid made of infrared emitters, which are installed during the load-in.”

Photon can determine the cameras and projectors precise position and orientation in 3D space - according to the stage, so the hanging positions can change from day to day.

The cameras allow Photon’s real-time tracking and rendering system to precisely follow the inflatable projection surface and compute all images to be projected from each projector.

If the inflatable is moving, then the sensors embedded within its surface will serve as 3D reference to determine the exact position and orientation of the surface. The cameras run at 180 frames per second, so it’s pretty fluid.

VYV also wrote custom software for the tour: “When we started on the project we didn’t know if the inflatables were rigid or moving,” explained Le Blanc. “VYV’s team developed a new algorithm - the mesh deformer - which, as the inflatable deflates, estimates the shape deformation and the projectors will continue to project correctly aligned images on to them as they go down.”

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VIDEO SCREEN “The 12 by 12-metre modular video screen, provided by Colonel Tom Touring from Nashville, is a key element in the stage design. “The screen comprises 576 individual Viper v1 video tiles, each at half-metre increments,” explained Video Crew Chief Paul Maddock-Jones. “However, for venues with low trim heights we can go down to the B size of 9.5 by 9.5 metres.”

Mixed in with pre-recorded content are seven live video feeds as Video Director, Rob Darcy, discusses: “We can’t run the show cueto-cue style, the biggest variable is Miley herself, she’s incredibly spontaneous and interacts with the crowd a lot.”

Darcy and his team run a mix of seven Sony HDC 1500 cameras shooting NTSC 10:80: “They’re great cameras, we have a couple of the new Sony BRC-H700 ROBOCAMS too which we use on the C-Stage.”

LIGHTING DESIGN LD Rob Sinclair’s collaboration with Es Devlin has delivered a high energy, super symmetrical, pop-art style lighting concept. “The brief for the lighting was that it needed to be striking but fun,” explained Sinclair.

The result is a symmetrical rig, consisting of four battens of flown LED light boxes per side, which give the roof structure and purpose.

These are interspersed with bars packed with Clay Paky Sharpys and SGM X5 LED

Strobes. “This tour is larger than life in every way,” continued Sinclair. “Everything is either oversized or very tall. I needed super bright fixtures that could deliver drama from trim heights of over 40ft. Not only that, they had to have an impact even when the show’s video wall is in full swing. Sharpys were the natural choice and provided endless aerial effects. I also used a floor package of Sharpy Washes to reflect what was in the roof and highlight Miley’s dance troupe.”

In addition to the copious numbers of Sharpys, Sinclair specified a mix of SGM X-5 LED Stobes and Martin by Harman Atomic Strobes, chosen because Devlin likes the contrast between the LED and traditional bulb strobe.

“It’s the first time I’ve used the SGM X-5 LED strobes. When John Huddleston from Upstaging told me about the X-5s we set up a demo in London. I really like their ability to hold a ‘thermal’ look for longer than a conventional strobe and to repeat it without having to recharge.” Adding to the superbright package were a number of Martin MAC Auras and MAC Viper Profiles positioned behind the video screen while an army of Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FXs provide key light.

Controlling the on-tour lighting is Lighting Director and Programmer Sean Burke who spent many hours programming the beat perfect show: “I’m using two High End System Full Boar 4 consoles,” explained Burke. “I’ve always been

WE ARE PR OUD TO BE IN VO

// D E LV

RUS BANGERZ TOUR EU Y C ROP EY MIL E

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Showrig deployed 32 winches with 32 axis, which moved - amongst other things - the ride-on hot dog.

a Hog user. The new software is bullet proof and there have been zero problems on this tour.”

“Sean did an amazing job programming and tolerating my sometimes OTT attention to detail,” added Sinclair. “We programmed for hours every night for a month.”

“This show is a handful,” admitted Burke.

“Primary lighting supplier, Upstaging, partners with UK based Neg Earth. Because we came into the UK without any pre-production, I decided to keep half the American crew on board, including crew chief Jerry “Hodge” Vierna, Mark Weil who builds the lighting grids and Thomas Walls on dimmers. From the UK I have Ben Morgan from Neg Earth, who visited the show in the US to see how things get built. This meant that when we arrived here in Europe we had an identical rig waiting to go. I also have Aidan McCabe - a great Vari-Lite guy plus Dave Prior, moving light technician and Gareth Morgan on follow spots. I could not ask for a better, more professional crew and both Upstaging and Neg. Earth have done a fantastic job with both lighting systems.”

The show is very busy in terms of playback as Burke explained: “All the faders are on the go all the time. It’s a great fun show to program and operate, it’s very hands on. The Full Boar consoles are doing a lot all the time and they deal with this really well. We don’t use any 40

timecode in the show so you really have to pay attention.”

LASERS Satisfying the show’s laser needs and working closely with Sinclair was Marc Webber of London-based ER Productions. Webber programmed the show during rehearsal period before handing over to the touring crew. Laser Chief on tour Lawrence Wright discussed: “We have lasers rigged on overhead trusses, the sides of the video screen, the back truss wall and the floor. We have over 50 units, including eight Tripan OPSL scanning lasers and 48 of ERs new Burst Boxes. Equipment links into our ESTOP safety system, which can stop all units simultaneously, should the need arise. We have an exciting challenge each day; focusing and rigging and most importantly, making sure the whole laser installation is safe.

With 48 of our units solely designed for safe audience exposure by diffraction gratings, once the focus is completed we meter laser radiation.”

Supporting the lasers and creating the necessary atmospherics are six Viper Deluxe and two Unique hazers.

STAGING AND AUTOMATION “You really couldn’t do this tour without a rolling stage,” explained Production Manager

Abderrahman, “US outfit Show Group Production Services (SGPS) built and supplied it and it’s fantastic - modular and really strong.”

SGPS also deployed its specialist automation and rigging operation, ShowRig. On-tour Automation Operative, Colin Nevins, said: “We’re using 32 winches with 32 axis, all controlled by Navigation system software.

Most of the winches are within the stage itself, moving set pieces across the floor. In terms of flying, the main items are the ride-on hot-dog and the tongue slide, which pivots out of an eight by six-metre gap in the production video wall.”

Navigator is the control system of choice for both SGPS and ShowRig. “The system is incredibly intuitive,” added Nevins. “Very precise and able to position winches within a 1000th of an inch at all speeds.”

RIGGING Working in close collaboration with Nevins is freelance Head Rigger Art McConnell who heads up a team of four. “The rig on this tour is substantial, we have 142 CM chain motors in action, so it’s imperative to keep on top of things.”

To that end McConnell works at least two weeks in advance: “I plan as far ahead as possible to avoid potential issues. This is vital on such a busy and complex production. Our tour

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Kyle Ronan, Assistant and Vish Wadi, Monitor Engineer.

team arrives at each new venue knowing exactly what needs to be done, the issues they’re likely to face and with the means to achieve it.”

LOAD CELL SAFETY Fresh from Katy Perry’s Prismatic tour, Colin Luke of Load Cell Rental visited Miley’s tour at Birmingham’s NIA. Knowing the benefits of LCR, Production Manager Omar Abderrahman,

42

requested the service be completed as soon as possible for the Bangerz production.

Within 48 hours, Luke and colleague Rupert Sherston flew in to Dublin to join the tour on the Belfast and Dublin concerts. During these gigs, a broad weigh wireless Load Cell was placed on every point of the show and the accurate weights were recorded for every point, alongside a full description of the loading for

each point. Said Luke: “Over two days a weight report was completed and therefore available for all future venues, should there be any query about weight loads, and removes any ambiguity about the show weights.

“In the event of an incident the weights can be confirmed as accurate with a full audit trail from method statements and staff training records to calibration documentation for every

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Cyrus and her backing singers used Sennheiser’s latest 9000 Series with SKM 9200 handheld transmitters and 9235 capsules.

cell used. The value of LCR has been recognised by Doodsons Insurance to provide, ‘increased defensibility in the event of an incident’,” he stated.

FOH AUDIO FOH Engineer Paul David Hager, like many of the crew, has been with Miley for eight years. “The sound is a satisfying mix of rock and hip hop, which is great for me because usually a show is either one style or the other,” he said.

Delivering that sound is a stacked L-Acoustics K1 and K2 system from Clair Global and JPJ Audio - audio suppliers for the entire tour. “We placed the K1 on top of the K2 and didn’t use any Kara in the main array, just for front fill,” added Hager. “This creates a bigger, more complete sounding system, which we then tip forward to overcome the stage’s 40ft thrust.”

Hager uses an analogue GML EQ across the PA in order to achieve a more analogue sound with depth and thickness.

“There are not many effects across

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: The 12 by 12-metre modular LED screen was provided by Colonel Tom Touring; Pre-recorded content and seven live video feeds made up the shows video; Dillan Esco, Production coordinator, Lauren “LT” Temple, Production Coordinator, Omar Abderrahman, Production Manager, Courtney Keane, Venue Coordinator ; Lighting Designer, Rob Sinclair.

the production’s audio,” continued Hager. “I’ve added extra GML EQ with a distressor and an old BSS DPR 901 dynamic equaliser, which I use across Miley’s vocals. For the band I run the guitars through some FATSO JRs by Empirical Labs Inc. They act like a compressor and whack off some high end.”

On drums Hager uses a couple of old SSL old E Channels channel strips and for the bass and an old Moog three-band EQ and some outboard reverbs, two Bricasti reverbs and a TC 4000. Also has two Eventide H3000.

Hager uses a DiGiCo SD7 console, “I need a flexible desk with plenty of channels.”

Continued Hager: “I’ve used DiGiCo before and always found it powerful. This console can run at a high sample rate, which makes everything sound a little more real.

“The added mix of my hardware plugins and what’s already in the desk makes everything sound 3D. It’s also less taxing on the desk as it is not using all its DSP. This means 44

I can use the desk for fader moves and the summing amp. The only tricky bit of balancing is when the band comes up from under the stage, while playing. There’s a lot of metal under that stage, which has a strong effect on the sound output.”

In terms of microphones Hager, and his colleague - Monitor Engineer Vish Wadi - have selected an eclectic mix that covers everything from 1970s vintage to the latest in Sennheiser technology.

“Miley and the backing singers are using the new Sennheiser 9000 series with an SKM 9200 handheld transmitter and 9235 capsule,” Hager revealed. “It’s a great mic as it has an uncompressed digital audio transmission so the sound remains clear no matter how quietly she’s singing. Voices sound more natural so there’s less EQ-ing for me to do at the other end.

“The signal also reaches all the way to the C-stage at FOH position without a dropout. It works on two channels so if one is a bit flunky

it will let you know and move on to the other automatically. This makes it super reliable and user friendly.”

Moving on to the instruments Hager continues his eclectic approach. “For the drums I use AKG D12 E for kick and a bunch of Neuman U87s for the overheads. Then for the snare and toms I’m using these 1970s Shure 548 microphones - the ones you see in all the old Zeppelin and Who videos! They’re great, really solid, you can see why they’ve survived for the last 30 years.”

On guitars Hager uses Palmer PDI 03 speaker emulators: “In the arenas it’s better that direct sound goes to the speakers. The trick is to ensure that the first thing that the band hears comes from their in-ears rather than the speaker cabinet.”

MONITORS Monitor Engineer Vish Wadi’s Assistant is Kyle Ronin who, among other things, is responsible

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Fred Le Blanc, VYV Photon Operator; Mick Anderson, Trucking Coordinator; Lighting Director, Sean Burke ; AirWorks of the Netherlands built the inflatables, including this inflatable Husky - a homage to Miley’s own dog Floyd, who sadly went to doggy heaven recently; Stryker Christensen and Joe Rogers, makers of the famous gold car; Art McConnell, Head Rigger.

for looking after 11 in ear mixes. Like Abderrahman and Stryker, Wadi has worked with Miley since her Hannah Montana days.

Such longevity means that Wadi has a great working relationship and a strong professional dialogue when it comes to her on stage audio needs: “Miley likes to work with one ear. She uses this in combination with on-stage side fills and wedges, with the exception of when she sings on the C Stage, there she uses both her in-ears. Personally I respect artists who work with one ear, they’re far more connected to the show.”

Wadi and Ronin use an Avid Venue Profile.

Onstage foldback is a mix of R4 III, a full range, three-way loudspeaker system for side fills along with Clair’s own CM-22 wedges. “Miley and her band all use JH Audio in-ears,” continued Wadi. “I have direct control over both their 46

mixes. For Miley it is a pretty standard, her vocal is dominant and then depending on the song we might add in a bit more keyboard for pitch reference or a more mellow mix of instruments.

“The band is pretty good at saying what they want. I have a direct microphone to the MD Stacy Jones who lets me know if and when they need adjustments. To keep everybody in time they receive a standard mix plus a pre-recorded sound they play along to as well as metronomes and count-ins.”

PROTOOLS In charge of the audio Playback on the show is Maurice Williams. “We use pre-recorded audio to fill in any gaps in the band’s output,” explained Williams. “These are mainly things like effects, samples and some recordings from artists that did cameos on the record, but

that can’t be on the tour live. Basically just a sprinkling here and there.”

COSTUME “It is a long day for wardrobe,” smiled a weary but cheery Skylar Christensen. “Our day begins at 7.30am and we leave around 2am. We don’t have the kind of day where we can nap on the bus either, we have to power all the way through.”

Christensen, Melissa Agee and Arleisha Randle are in charge of over 200 costumes for the show’s 15 dancers, seven band members and Miley who alone has over 10 costume changes. “All together you’re looking at a couple of hundred costumes all that need to be laundered, fitted and constantly repaired,” continued Christiansen.

The Bangerz show is gleefully provocative

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Miley Cyrus

Below: Although the full stage show could be executed in Birmingham, the production team also have a B and C show ready to cater to different venue sizes; The wardrobe crew: Melissa Agee, Skylar Christensen and Arleisha Randle; Video Crew Chief, Paul Maddock-Jones; FOH Engineer, Paul David Hager.

and brilliantly executed. A delightful cross between a living piece of pop art and a teen party that is about to descend into anarchy!

Cyrus executes it with a cheeky sense of satire and obvious delight, which is reflected in the design and technical delivery of the show from beginning to end.

As dramatically as she entered, Cyrus leaves the stage mounted on a giant flying hotdog. As the mega video screen morphs into the perfect Disney blue sky, replete with fluffy clouds, she rises into the air. The image then transforms

into a giant pair of dock style doors, and the video screen opens up to allow Cyrus - and her hotdog mount - to pass through. Perhaps signifying a departure from one stage of her life and the beginning of another . . . whatever next?

TPi Photos: Sarah Rushton-Read www.mileycyrus.com www.livenation.co.uk www.transamtruck.com

www.beatthestreet.net www.eat-your-heart-out.com www.airworksinflatables.com http://uk.ct-group.com http://www.sgps.net www.cttouring.com www.vyv.ca www.negearth.com www.er-productions.com http://clairglobal.com/clair-uk www.upstaging.com www.jpjaudio.com.au

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Parklife Weekender

PARKLIFE WEEKENDER THE PANTHEON OF DANCE: PARKLIFE’S TEMPLE STAGE IS THE EVENT’S FIRST BESPOKE STRUCTURE, LEADING TO A CREATIVE FLURRY OF FUTURISTIC AND CREATIVE DESIGN TECHNIQUES THAT HAVE TRANSFORMED THE LOOK OF THE FESTIVAL. TPi’S KELLY MURRAY TALKS TO THE THINKERS BEHIND GROUND CONTROL’S LATEST PRODUCTION FEAT. Last year, Manchester’s Heaton Park played host to Parklife festival for the very first time. For 2014’s edition of the weekender, the festival and individual stages increased in size once more. In line with its growth, the festival’s organisers opted for a new and exciting addition to its stage inventory: the Temple Stage, a 20,000-capacity outdoor dance arena.

Designed by Paul Atkinson for the Warehouse Project, its sponsors, the Temple Stage was conceived to be a space-age take on a Mayan temple which had recently emerged from the ground at Heaton Park, hence its rusty, beaten-up exterior; a mixture of industrial, time warp and lost in the jungle themes. According to Ryan Esson, Senior Production Manager at Ground Control Productions, the company who took care of all event, site and production management at Parklife, the inspiration to build a bespoke structure came from festivals like Tomorrowland and Boomtown Fair.

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PRODUCTION DESIGN Other than creating a unique, custom-built structure, there was no strict creative brief given to Atkinson in designing the newest addition to the Parklife line-up, the Temple Stage. It was Liz Madden, Director at NoNonsense and the team there who were able to turn these plans into reality. Esson had previously worked with her team on other successful projects.

“She’s always been really efficient with delivering projects for us and helping us in the past. She led the project from the structural side, advised on the supporting framework that was needed, the team dealt with all the structural calculations and engaged structural engineers,” he explained. “They took care of all of the precision cutting and drilling of the metalwork to be clad onto the support structure.”

For Ground Control, integrating production into the new structure was paramount to its success; they wanted to incorporate not only

the video, lighting and sound elements of show production, but also practical features such as dance platforms for VIPs so that the stage worked in harmony with the festival experience.

As with many elements of event production, the original design had to adapt to the requirements and obstacles posed by the various teams who would need to make it into a viable performance space. Designer Paul Atkinson worked with structure providers NoNonsense and the people who would take charge of lighting, video and audio design and operation to incorporate their ideas into the actual structure.

“In the end, the people responsible for delivering the final, finished product in its entirety were the guys on video and lighting. I was keen to give them as much of an influence as possible. Jonny [Godsmark, Lighting Designer for Audile] did a great job of specifying exactly what he wanted; he’s a lighting designer who obviously knows what he wants, and that’s why

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Parklife Weekender

Opposite: NoNonsense created the fabrication for the Temple stage, which took on both a rustic and futuristic look.

Below: The Parklife Weekender was at Manchester’s Heaton Park for the second year; Lighting Designer, Jonny Godsmark.

he was perfect for the job,” said Esson.

“Jonny wasn’t just LD on the day. He did the design, the planning of the fixtures, and even the cable runs; simple things like that, which you take for granted on traditional stage roofs and trusses, have to be thought about in immense detail because of issues with access and lengths.

He was very hands-on with the design and delivery of it. Quite a lot of the creativity came from conversations between him and the Stage

Designer Paul.”

The unique nature of the construction, designed to look like shipping containers but built out of framework and cladding, created an element of unpredictability. The effects of external pressures, such as wind, or internal ones, such as movement within the structure itself, were unknown until the later stages of its development.

NoNonsense ended up turning to steel

framing to reinforce the structure from behind, none of which was in the original plans. The team even had to resolve an unforeseen rigging issue onsite at last minute, although Esson recognised that the swift resolution of problems such as these was down to the professionalism and efficiency of Madden’s crew.

Involved in the process from start to finish, Esson watched the design transform from a CAD image on a screen to a fully-fledged,

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Parklife Weekender

Opposite: The Temple Stage was adorned with a very precise lighting design for which Audile supplied fixtures from Martin by Harman and Clay Paky while control was handled via an Avolites Pearl Expert desk.

life-size structure. Based upon the reactions of crew members who saw the stage during the built, and progressive build photographs, it seems that the impression it left was a deep one. “It wasn’t until I saw it the first time it was being programmed for lights and video on the Thursday night that the sheer scale of it and the magnitude of the build and the production really came to life,” he conceded.

Looking forward, the team at Ground Control and Parklife are expected to hold next year’s festival in Heaton Park once more, a decision which Esson attributed to a strong, positive relationship with the local authority in the area. Sam Kandel, founder of the Warehouse Project and one of Parklife’s Directors, is the “creative mind” behind much of what goes on at the event, including stages.

On the back of the success of the Temple Stage, Esson hinted that Kandel and the creative team might look to replace traditional big-tops with further bespoke structures in the future.

THE STAGING AND FABRICATION When Edwin Shirley Staging went into administration three years ago, Liz Madden and her Partner, Steve ‘Jumbo’ Richards set up NoNonsense to offer logistical expertise and staging solutions for events. Earlier this year, Parklife Site Manager Ben Johnstone got in touch with a challenge; he wanted the team at NoNonsense to turn plans for the festival’s Temple Stage, designed by Paul Atkinson, into reality.

As it turned out, the initial design wasn’t entirely practical. “His original concept centred on it all being built out of shipping containers, but this proved to be structurally impossible,” 50

explained Madden. To reproduce these plans as closely as physically possible, the company opted for a structure comprising six 20ft containers, stacked three apiece on either side of the stage, with a single 45ft container spanning the top of the stage. “The rest is scaffolding, which is clad with steel structures to look like containers,” she added.

While NoNonsense provided its own scaffolding, they looked to Manchesterbased Universal Containers for the seven metal containers. The team at NoNonsense constructed the separate parts of the structure offsite and transported them to Heaton Park.

After the event, an inventive storage solution resulted in the the seven shipping containers at the heart of the design being used as storage for all the bespoke elements constructed for the project. Should the structure be required elsewhere, this will facilitate the movement of the kit.

Throughout the construction process, Richards and the team worked with Atkinson to produce the finished product, as well as rental company Audile which supplied sound, lighting and video. “We also collaborated with Lighting Designer Jonny Godsmark, who wanted to cut holes in panels to put the lights through,” said Richards. “We had to make sure that we could bring his vision to life while maintaining the integrity of Paul’s design.”

Accommodating the demands of the various parties involved was not always easy, as she explained: “We needed to keep the look that our clients wanted, the versatility that audio and lighting needed and the Health and Safety that everybody needed. Ground Control had an independent structural engineer on site, and she

was very happy with what we’d done.”

The stage not only had to be structurally sound, but adhere as closely as possible to Atkinson’s original plans while making Godsmark’s lighting design feasible. Richards is a specialist in being creative with unusual types of structures. Putting holes in the panels could potentially have created structurally weaknesses within the structure. The solution devised by Richards was to insert a steel frame behind each opening to mirror the structure, adding necessary reinforcement.

“The scaffolding system we use is a Layher one, which allows you to be very flexible and gives us the weight loadings we wanted when used in conjunction with our own event deck.” said Richards, explaining how they were able to overcome structural difficulties. “It’s a type of lightweight steel scaffolding; it gives us the weight loadings that we wanted.”

Madden conceded that Temple Stage has been the company’s biggest challenge since its conception, but the end product has been well received. “It’s crazy to think that it’s the DJ / dance area and not the main stage!” she said.

On the back of such positive feedback, the plan is to resurrect the structure at future Parklife festivals: “We want to use this design for the next couple of years, but with a different twist.

The bespoke elements will be stored inside the containers, and the containers will be kept in the Universal Containers’ yard in Manchester.”

The Temple stage project also resonated with Serious Stages - which supplied seven stages in total - along with a lot of supplementary site structures, all of which arrived in nine, carefully scheduled trucks of equipment.

Serious Stages Managing Director Stephen

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Parklife Weekender

Opposite: AC Lasers provided flame effects for the stage while L-Acoustics V-Dosc was the PA of choice; The dance orientated stage saw top acts perform, such as Disclosure.

Corfield commented: “We’ve liaised with Ground Control closely on this project through the winter, as Ben was keen to introduce a design led stage. We supplied the main stage and front of house while NoNonsense created support for the cladding and dressing in line with the design. We all planned and shared information for months to ensure the engineering and look of the stage, which was spectacular, was in line with the aspirations of Festival Director Jon Drape and others. It’s a great looking 3D facade with performance platforms at different levels and LED lighting technology incorporated into the ‘container’ cladding.”

and also recesses in the lower structure to accommodate the curvature of the arrays.”

Audile also provided a Midas PRO2 console at FOH and a Yamaha M7CL desk for monitor duty. Despite the logistical difficulties presented by the stage, Ashworth added that the team enjoyed working on such an unusual structure, which was “certainly a hit with the crowd”. “The structure, lighting and video came together to make a true spectacle, and the sound benefitted from the location of the stage with the surrounding hillside and treelines providing enough containment to really open the system up,” he concluded. “The enormous crowd for Disclosure was truly something to behold!”

RENTAL MANAGEMENT On board with Parklife since its inception in 2010, live event rental company Audile’s role in the festival reinforced long-term relationships with Jon Drape from Ground Control, and Warehouse Project’s Sacha Lord and Sam Kandel. TPi spoke to Director Rob Ashworth, who explained that this year they provided both sound and lighting equipment for the Temple Stage. A substantial L-Acoustics V-DOSC rig covered audio, while more than 230 lighting fixtures worked in concert with LED fixtures from Studio Due to achieve Jonny Godsmark’s lighting design.

Alongside Godsmark, Audile had over 40 crew members on site. One of these was Steve who project managed the audio element of the task across all eight stages, including the Temple Stage. Providing high-quality sound and lighting for the stage, however, wasn’t always straightforward. “The main challenges were rigging and waterproofing equipment on the structure. Audio and rigging required some thought because the structure was far too wide to place conventional PA masts on either side,” Ashworth explained.

“We did consider hanging the PA high over the structure from cranes, but this would have spoilt the overall visual, so a way had to be found of incorporating the PA hangs into the structure,” he continued. “Ultimately, NoNonsense were able to incorporate sizeable cantilevers into the structure to fly from,

LIGHTING Last year, LD Godsmark took charge of Stage 5 at Parklife but this time around, he worked on the Temple Stage to design and manage lighting, as per his own request. Into the set design, a futuristic twist on a Mayan temple, he incorporated the 236 lighting fixtures provided

by Audile. These included 30 Atomic 3000 DMX strobe fixtures from Martin Professional, 48 Clay Paky Sharpys, 50 generic molefays, 20 Sunstrip Active DMX fixtures from Showtec and 60 panels of LED arranged in a fan shape.

On top of the structure itself, 28 Sharpys were placed in solid waterproof domes; according to Godsmark,“they will work no matter what the weather, if it’s cloudy or raining, and they work great at night.”

These were accompanied by Robe Robins, chosen for their quick movement, and Robe 600’s, which he selected for the face they offer, while the molefays and strobe fixtures were installed to work well at daytime and night.

At the helm of the Temple Stage’s illuminations, Godsmark relied upon an Avolites Pearl Expert desk to control the lighting show, utilising eight universes of DMX. “It’s my desk of choice because of the layout; I can use all the buttons I need very quickly,” he explained.

“I actually used to play the piano as a kid and I’ve brought that kind of technique into how I operate; I push a lot of buttons all at once and get sore fingers by the end of the day! It’s got such a nice control surface so, for me, Avolites

52

is great. I have everything where I want it to be without the sub-menus.”

VIDEO The visual element of the Temple Stage was completed with Hartwell Media 18mm pitch LED screen from dbn. Video panels were embedded into the steel structures, which formed the exterior of the stage edifice; their content was integrated into the lighting scheme to realise the overall visual effect.

PYROTECHNICS According to Alex Jarrett of AC Lasers, the special effects company was chosen as the stage’s suppliers based upon the working relationship that had already been established with production company Ground Control, who specified their exact requirements.

For the stage, AC Lasers had a crew of four led by Andy Thompson. The special effects company made use of two five-way flame heads on both days of performances. Elsewhere on site, AC Lasers employed DMX-controlled CO2 jets and lasers for other artists over the course of the weekend. The company’s onsite crew comprised two on the Temple Stage and two on other arenas.

In exposed arenas like the Temple Stage, there was always scope for the weather to create problems for AC Laser’s pyrotechnicians: “Outdoor effects always require additional attention due to the potential for wind to change direction. With a technician supervising the units on each side of the Temple Stage structure, both with the facility to stop the system if required, we could ensure the system was operating correctly and did not pose a hazard,” Jarrett explained.

TPi Photos: Jody Hartly & Kelly Murray www.parklife.uk.com http://groundcontroluk.com www.nononsensegroup.com www.audile.co.uk www.dbn.co.uk www.stages.co.uk www.ac-lasers.co.uk

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03/07/2014 09:27

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL: BIG BOLD VEGAS STYLE ORIGINALLY A ONE-DAY EVENT BASED IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, THE ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL (EDC) HAS GROWN INTO A SERIES OF THREE-DAY FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN CITIES ACROSS THE AMERICAS, AND AS OF THIS YEAR, EUROPE. TPi TOOK A LOOK AT SOME OF THE KEY PRODUCTION ELEMENTS OF 2014’S EDC IN LAS VEGAS, A SOLD-OUT AFFAIR THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE 1,500-ACRE LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY COMPLEX. Enticing over 390,000 electronic dance music (EDM) fans to the middle of the Nevada desert in the height of summer, when temperatures can surpass the 100ºF mark, is no easy feat but for event organiser Insomniac, based out of LA, California, by combining enhanced state-of-the-art lighting design, large-scale art installations, interactive circus and theatrical performances, along with audience participation, the task is made that little bit easier.

Founded by Pasquale Rotella in 1993, Insomniac has, over the years, produced hundreds of music events for more than two million concertgoers across the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the UK and its premier annual event, EDC Las Vegas is considered by many as one of the biggest EDM festivals in North America. This year, key suppliers in Las Vegas included Screenworks 54

(video), tenfeet (video mapping), Felix Lighting (lighting), 3G (audio), Gist Decor (scenery), Vision Impossible (video content), Lasertainment (lasers) and Pyro Engineering (pyrotechnics) and a top notch production team led by touring legend Jake Berry as PM. LIGHTING DESIGN Acting as the show’s Designer and Technical Director, Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting has worked with the Insomniac team from the very beginning in 2001, and for this year’s EDC Las Vegas has pushed the lighting and creative boundaries to the next level, as TPi discovered when we met up with him in the run up to the big event.

While we scooted about the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in an electronic buggy, Lieberman explained how this enormous site, featuring

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Opposite: The BassPOD stage is Show Designer and Technical Director Steve Lieberman’s favourite; Dutch specialist AirWorks manufactured two large inflatable owls for the event. Below: Californian-based Elation Lighting featured heavily at the event covering four stages with a whopping 421 lighting fixtures.

eight stages, comes alive year-on-year: “With Insomniac we never do the same thing twice.

So last year, for the BassPOD stage for example, I built a spaceship - affectionately dubbed the ‘space burger’ thanks to its design. Because this stage has more of a subculture vibe and features underground music, I’m given the latitude to be more creative and I don’t have to do a traditional stage design because you’re not getting the mainstream names in EDM acts that naturally force me into a corner as to protocols and structures that have to be in place.”

While admitting that: “it is like being asked which of my children I love the most,” for Lieberman, the BassPOD is his favourite out of the eight stages, for this very reason - the freedom of creativity. “My philosophy on design is monolithic and simple geometry,” he added. “I love the BassPOD stage because it’s a subculture environment and the pyramid is such a classic shape. It’s overwhelming to me, when you walk up to the stage and see the kids in front of it. They’re hardcore, they don’t care about the ‘super name’ acts and they stay at this stage all weekend.”

As part of Lieberman’s design for the BassPOD stage this year, 82 Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4 COB LED panels were used to highlight the 200ft wide by 80ft high pyramid-shaped truss rig, as well as 138 Barco LED Versa Tubes, Martin by Harman MAC Viper Profiles, MAC III Profiles, Atomic 3000 DMX strobes, Elation Platinum Beam 5R’s, and Elements KR25’s, as well as 783 video tiles. All

the lighting and video kit used on the BassPOD stage was supplied by Visions Lighting, with Brandon Dunning programming the shows using an MA Lighting grandMA2 console.

Miguel Vega worked as VJ during the event, while Vision Lighting’s Crew Chief Todd Roberts acted as Video Lead, and Master Electrician for the stage was Colin Johnson.

“EDC has a carnival vibe to it,” continued Lieberman, “it’s different to other festivals in the US - you’ll get art installations, performers walking through the crowds, carnival rides and a lot of interesting costumes - so it’s a very interactive environment and the stages have to reflect this.”

To bring his overall vision for the festival site to life, Lieberman called in the lighting heavyweights and brands including: Philips Vari-Lite, Color Kinetics and Philips Showline, Chroma-Q, Coemar, PRG, Elements, and Eurolite were specified along with almost 900 Martin

by Harman lighting fixtures, which were used across all of the eight stages. A combination of models from the MAC range were specified, including: the Viper Profile, 2000 Wash, MAC III Performance, MAC III Profile, MAC 101 RGB, MAC 2000 Wash XB and the Quantum Wash, as well as the Martin by Harman Atomic 3000 DMX strobe, which featured on five of the stages.

California-based Elation Lighting also featured heavily at this year’s festival, covering four of the stages with a massive 421 fixtures - a combination of the CuePix lighting panel, the Platinum Spot 35R Pro moving head, and the

Platinum Beam 5R moving head.

A favourite with the touring industry and considered by many as the Italian standard, Clay Paky’s famous Sharpy was called upon to bring four of the stages alive - including the main stage, also known as KineticFIELD. Providing stunning, sharp, bright beams, a total of 360 units were supplied to the event, with 86 dedicated to the Circuit Grounds stage, which saw the likes of Calvin Harris and Afrojack graced the stage. A heavy production area, the design was crucial as Lieberman explained: “The structure used for Circuit Grounds is one I’ve been using for a good few years now. We call it the ‘Mega Structure’ and you’ll see it on a lot of shows in the US as it’s owned by AG Production Services. It was originally built because there was a different structure to the one seen in place today - featuring towers. Andrew Gumper and I discussed different options and I told him I wanted the structure to feature an arched roof so that it looked like the roof of a plane hanger I didn’t want there to be any vertical towers, just a classic arch.

“Andrew developed this design and as well as EDC, we’ve used it at Coachella and other US-based festivals. All the pods move up and down and articulate; last year I took the ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign as my inspiration for the design, this year I created extruded chevrons as the apexes lend themselves to the arch of the roof.”

Another interesting element to EDC is the Discovery Stage, which is the result of a competition for a member of the general public 55

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: While the desert conditions didn’t give any chance of rain, the festival site - the Las Vegas Speedway - is threatened regularly with event-postponing 90mph winds; Solar blankets protect the equipment from plus-100 degree heat during the day; Thanks to its vibrant cultural appeal, the EDC is now popular all accross America and Europe; The site covers 1,500 acres.

to design one of the stages. “I work as stage design mentor for the winner,” Lieberman explained, “and spent a few hours with this year’s winner Marcus Martinez, talking about the stage design and giving him some insight into what it takes to work in this kind of environment. It’s a really great opportunity and we walked through the whole thing.

The designs he submitted compared to the end result aren’t that dissimilar - I thought his design concept was pretty slick, he’d used basic geometry but with a cool perspective.”

To bring Martinez’s design to life a combination of 45 Martin by Harman MAC 101 RGB moving heads; 16 Sharpy Wash 330 moving heads; eight Halo 25 v2 Matrix Emissive fixtures; and 36 Eurolite PMC-16 COB RGB lighting fixtures were used.

One of the biggest attractions from a production and creative standpoint, is of course the massive KineticFIELD stage, which features some 700 lighting fixtures and is the biggest stage for Insomniac and all of its shows.

For the scenic design alone, there is a whole team working alongside our design team from The Netherlands, which also developed all of the video content as well. Lieberman’s responsibilities for this stage lay with designing 56

all of the lighting and programming all of the lighting and Timecode, as well as running and operating the stage and all the guest LDs that worked over the three-day event. With the biggest of EDM acts gracing the stage, anywhere between 65,000 to 75,000 people congregated in front of this stage alone and so it was paramount everything was done to perfection.

“Pasqual has always had a vision for these big, scenic environments that are very organic,” said Lieberman. “We’ve tried before with other scenic designers and they’ve been deficient in that area, this is the first company that’s come as far as they have done, to produce something like this, that feels a little more natural.”

The concept of this year’s stage was a cathedral featuring the Insomniac mascot owl, a feature that ran throughout and was very present in the entire environment. “There’s a lot of live performance artists going back and forth on this stage,” said Lieberman, “and the DJ plays in the pipe organ with video all around the stage, on all the towers, lighting and the daisies - it’s pretty intense.”

One of the main challenges with EDC Las Vegas is the very fact that it’s based in the Nevada desert. While the festival’s organisers

might not have the problems associated with wetter climates, the desert has its own set of unique problems as Lieberman explained: “With outdoor festivals there’s always a variable, so it’s never perfect conditions - meaning you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. In Las Vegas, there’s always a concern about the heat and the wind. While there’s no chance of it raining, there’s a very good chance there’ll be 90mph winds blowing through and shutting the site down. High winds in my opinion, are much more dangerous than rain - equipment could get knocked over, lose kit lying around could end up flying into the crowds and injuring someone… Stuff that the kids don’t think about.”

In fact, just two nights before the festival was due to open its doors Las Vegas was subject to gusts of wind up to 91mph, which is considered beyond dangerous for a festival site. With this in mind, measures are put in place to contend with such conditions as Lieberman explained: “Everything is rated to a minimum of 60mph winds, but we’ll still close the stages if there are sustained winds at 35 or 40mph and we’ll stay shut for at least 30 minutes and until we can’t see a gust over that speed for another 30 minutes. We do have one stage that is our ‘if

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: Lasertainment provided a combination of RTI Nano and Piko Series lasers for the KineticFIELD main stage; StageCo US built KineticFIELD’s ‘Cathedral’ stage; 390,000 fans were accommodated for over seven stages; three Avolites Ai S6 media servers ran through MA Lighting GrandMA2 consoles for the VJ’s.

all else fails stage’ and this is rated somewhere between 90 and 100mph and can fit 35,000 people in front of it - it’s not the full capacity of the festival but it does mean we can keep the park open.”

Scorching temperatures are also a massive consideration for the production team and while the thermometer might read an already sweltering 100ºF, the reality is more like 115120ºF because of heat coming off the earth and the fact you’re working with black top kit - things can quickly get intense. “We use solar blankets to protect the equipment and we don’t turn anything on during the day,” said Lieberman. “Over the main stage we’ve built shields that are white on the top and black on the bottom so they reflect and direct some light off the top. Lighting fixtures are made out of metal and plastic so you have to be very careful about where the lens is pointed, if the sunlight comes into the lens then you’re condensing the sunlight right into your fixture and are going to destroy it - especially with a beam fixture like a Sharpy or MAC that has a big aperture, you can literally destroy a light and not even realise it.”

58

As our tour of the grounds came to an end, Lieberman reflected on his time with Insomniac over the years, telling TPi: “I have been with these guys for 14 years or so now and we’ve all grown together. We’re a family and they have definitely granted me the latitude and privilege to express myself - they have trusted me to do what I do. The scale of what we do now is significantly larger than what it was many years ago, but the concept of what we’re doing has remained true and our beliefs have remained the same. This has truly been a gift, the core group of us that have been together for so long, and obviously, while we’ve expanded and there’s more people in the family now, along with a lot more vendors - it’s nice to be part of that.”

VISUALS From its modest beginnings years ago, Visions Lighting has been involved with EDC. Company Founder Todd Roberts recalled one event of the Carnival’s first appearances, when it was held in the World Agricultural Expo in Tulare, California.

Back then, in what Roberts describes as the

“good old days”, the event was illuminated with Intellabeams, Color Pro and Dataflash fixtures.

For this year’s edition of the EDC, he acted as Production Manager on Stage 5, supplying the lighting, staging and video. For the stage, known as BassPOD, Visions provided 92 Platinum Beam 5R Extremes, 287 Level Q7 LED pars and five eNODE 8 ethernet / artnet nodes from Elation Professional, along with 82 Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4 fixtures. From Martin, they supplied 30 Martin Mac Viper Profiles, 20 Mac III Profiles and 23 Atomic 3000 DMX strobe fixtures. There were also 10 LED Matrix Blinder 25 fixtures from Taurus Light, four Antari Z-1500II smoke machines and four Antari HZ-500 hazer units, with a GrandMA2 full-size and a GrandMA2 light from MA Lighting for control.

For video, Visions looked to 280 of its own 6mm Vision Tec LED tiles in combination with another 550 15mm Vision Tec FLEX LED tiles, all run through four Folsom ImagePRO-II series HD unit from Barco.

For lighting console operation and lighting technology specialists tenfeet, EDC Las Vegas

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: Pyro Engineering supplied flame effects for the KineticFIELD Stage.

was their first experience of working with Insomniac. Approached by Jora Entertainment to develop and carry out the video control side of the EDC Las Vegas kineticFIELD area production, Netherlands-based tenfeet specified the live camera rig, video routing and video hardware. “We’ve been doing a lot of dance productions in the past 10 years,” explained tenfeet’s Rik Schoutsen. “In the Netherlands, dance culture is a big part of the entertainment industry.”

Using technical CAD drawings supplied

by Jake Berry, EDC’s Production Manager, they constructed an Ai Media show patch, including 3D set pieces and video screens, to visualise the 180-metre wide stage; from this, the tenfeet team could do pre-production and pre-programming at the company’s studio in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Several custom patches were created within the Ai Media software to run the show file.

Together with the content creators (Vision Impossible), who did the actual VJing on the show nights, tenfeet produced a 6K content map, which was sent to all of the screens in the KineticFIELD area. Four 6K content clips could be used at the same time to live mix the visuals, while the Region Sample Texture mapper enabled them to chop up the 6K content and send it to one of the 11 DVI outputs. Guest VJs could send a dual 1920 x 1080 feed to be live composited over or under the EDC VJ content, and a dual live 1920 x 1080 feed from cameras positioned around the stage could be sent to any of the 28 LED screens.

“On the grandMA2 we made a visual layout so that EDC VJs running the content off the Ai servers would feel familiar with the way they normally use their own VJ software,” said

Schoutsen. Onsite, a pair of grandMA2 full-size desks from MA Lighting were used. One was provided for the EDC VJs running all of the content, while the other was used to cut live camera feeds, guest VJs input and to manage the overall balance on the screens. The EDC kineticFIELD show production was divided up into seven show elements, each with their own custom-made content. All of the audio intros for these show elements produced timecode to synchronise video, laser, lights and pyrotechnics.

Along with the grandMA2 desks were three Avolites Ai S6 Media Servers with four HD-SDI inputs through a Datapath input card, two Folsom ImagePRO-HD all-in-one video scaler, scan converter and switcher units from Barco, a Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub 20 x 20 compact router and an MX 32 x 32 DVI-PRO matrix switcher from Lightware, all of which had to be rented from a company in Miami, who shipped the equipment to Las Vegas.

For live cameras, tenfeet specified four LDK 4000 cameras from Grass Valley, two handheld onstage and two with long lenses at FOH position, as well as a pair of Sony BRC H700 HD robotic cameras for the DJ booth, and a single Grass Valley Kayak HD Digital Video Switcher to cut live camera feed, also from Grass Valley.

Both live cameras and screens were provided by Brad Reiman and Ritesh Patel at Screenworks.

Along with Schoutsen, who acted as Live Screen Director at EDC Las Vegas, tenfeet’s crew comprised Fabian Fisniku as Graphic Content Operator and Ruben Laine as Ai System Engineer. For Schoutsen, the project was certainly worth the effort: “The reaction from the crowd and the production team at EDC was overwhelming; the kineticFIELD stage played host to the first US production to embrace a 59

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: Netherlands-based Jora Vision designed the magnificent kineticFIELD ‘cathedral’ stage, which proved to be a huge success.

complete storyline for an entire night.”

LASER TECHNOLOGY At this year’s Carnival, organisers Insomniac Events brought in Lasertainment to be the exclusive laser show provider for the kineticFIELD main stage. The task of supplying a laser show on this scale was a complex one, further complicated by the need to implement Timecode synchronisation and have systems operated live.

Individual control of each separate unit was paramount to producing a spectacle with the high-end laser systems provided, so Lasertainment brought in a crew of experienced laser show operators from Europe to manipulate the set-up. For laser shows of this kind, it is also important to create an even fog to create a platform for visual effects; the company set up more than 60 fog machines in the main stage area to ensure sufficient coverage of the arena.

Nonetheless, the natural environment posed significant challenges to the implementation of a laser show. According to Francis Oliveira, Director of Operations at Lasertainment’s partner Laserworld USA: “The very low humidity of only 5%, the continuous wind and the dust in the air were a big challenge. Lasertainment requested the most durable systems for such condition.”

Lasertainment supplied a combination of RTI Nano and Piko Series laser light systems, each of which was controlled by a Lasergraph 60

DSP controller and the central grandMA2 console from MA Lighting for live control. Along with this set-up, there was also an hour-long, Timecoded show for nine DJ introductions implemented during the performances. With FOH positioned around 260ft from the stage itself, the signals for the entire laser control system were transmitted via glass fibre and CAT6 cables to prevent unwanted disruption.

SENSATIONAL STAGING kineticFIELD, EDC’s traditional main arena, saw its stage transformed as Insomniac’s largest so far - and reportedly one of the biggest ever built for a North American festival.

Provided by Stageco US and referred to as ‘The Cathedral’, the structure’s chapel-style pillars were accentuated by animated waterfalls, and bookended by two heavily-detailed inflatable owls sporting enormous wingspans.

For Stageco, the EDC project began in March with a test build at its Belgian HQ, instigated

by Production Manager Jake Berry who led a successful presentation to Insomniac Events with Project Manager and Engineer Tom Frederickx of Stageco US. “Up until this year, Insomniac’s team had been putting up large scaff-based stages that were very labour intensive, and in the end, no matter how you dress it, you can’t escape the fact that looks like a big, old scaffolding structure,” said Berry.

“But this year’s set design by Netherlands

company Jora Vision was going to make a big feature of towers and this led everything. It meant that we would save so much time; we’d use less climbing personnel, generally cut crew requirements by around 50% and, ultimately, reduce outgoings. So it was a huge step forward for the organisers. It went up quicker, it looked neater and came down much faster.

“It’s very difficult to explain to someone how a tower system works if they haven’t seen one before, but Tom Frederickx and I planned this presentation down to the finest detail, and they went away satisfied that we had a good plan.”

In the weeks leading up to the June 20 kickoff, the steel systems were fabricated in Belgium and shipped in containers across the Atlantic.

Seven containers arrived at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway site direct from Belgium, while 27 trailers came from Stageco US’s Colorado Springs base ahead of the seven-day stage build.

A crew consisting of 14 Stageco supervisors headed by Farley Gross, James Ramacus and David Lanosga, and aided by up to 50 local crew at the busiest point, worked through the evenings and early hours to construct the monstrous stage structure, the front of house mix riser (minus roof) and 11 delay towers including two for another of the seven stages.

The main stage measured 120-metres wide in total with its height rising from 22-metres at the sides to 30-metres at the centre - notably taller than the 2013 stage. The centre portion

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: Although the KineticFIELD arena was built by Stageco US, a test-build - instigated by Production Manager Jake Berry - was first mounted at its Belgian HQ.

featured 10 lines of columns, with six towers on one side and seven on the other. With support from its trademark black steel, Stageco’s only scaffolding on the main stage was a 20-metre high row on to which the two inflatable owls - manufactured by Dutch specialist Airworks were attached.

Frederickx explained: “It would have been completely impractical to work under the unforgiving heat of the desert sun. You can’t even touch the steel during the day out there so everything was done overnight when the site cooled down to 30°. It was one of the few shows we have done where we didn’t provide a roof, but that’s the Vegas climate for you.”

This was Stageco’s début for EDC and, as Frederickx admitted, making the best possible impression on Insomniac was a big priority for the company. “It’s something we felt very passionate about. When you’re building something that’s new like this, you expect to negotiate a few practical issues, but I think we did very well.

“We certainly had to develop a faster means of loading in and out, and Jake Berry’s involvement was crucial because his experience with tight scheduling in high level productions is pretty much unrivalled. It was the first time I’d worked directly with Jake and it was a huge pleasure.”

Berry commented: “The idea of using a lower sub-deck at truck height to help speed up the process of getting things on and off the stage is something I’m accustomed to on the bigger rock tours, so it was just a case of applying that for a few nights instead of a year.”

Was Stageco the natural choice of staging 62

vendor for Berry? “Put it this way, there’s Stageco and then there’s everyone else who are at least a lap behind them. I’m a great believer in Stageco; I’ve loved their work and been a big fan for years, they have some seriously talented people and [CEO and Founder] Hedwig De Meyer is a fabulous guy. Yes, they would have been my choice but most importantly they were the right fit for this show and we showed the organisers what could be done.”

As 33 Stageco trailers headed back to Colorado Springs, Jake Berry claimed that EDC was one of the “most profoundly enjoyable” experiences of a career that is now almost 40 years old. He said: “EDC is the jewel in the crown of the electronic dance movement and events like this are the way of the future. I’m a jaded old rocker and I really wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a breath of fresh air. It was such a beautiful vibe and packed with excitement from beginning to end. For me, it’s the heavy metal of the 21st century.”

Milton Keynes Bowl hosted the UK edition of EDC on July 12 and, once again, Stageco handled the main stage requirements as Avicci, Bassjackers and Calvin Harris starred amongst the headliners.

AUDIO PROS This year wasn’t the first time that Las Vegas / Los Angeles-based 3G Productions has provided audio equipment for the carnival.

On the CosmicMEADOW stage, the company brought in a Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker system, which comprised 16 MLA and two MLD enclosures on each side. There were also 12 MLA Compact enclosures implemented either

side of the stage, providing side fills, along with another three MLA Compact enclosures per side for front fills. For FOH mixing and monitors, 3G Productions looked to a Yamaha CL5 console and PM5D desk respectively.

According to 3G’s Keith Conrad, the Martin Audio system was able to provide the power and low-end necessary for the shows. “Because CosmicMEADOW stage was facing out towards the speedway and wasn’t competing with any other stage, we got the full impact and power of the system, which was amazing,” he explained. The MLA system provided by 3G was able to offer a level of coverage that eliminated the need for delay towers, an aspect of the set-up attributed to Martin Audio’s Display 2.1 modelling software.

“What makes EDC unique from other music genre festivals is the incredible amount of bass that’s required for electronic dance music. The MLX subwoofers were so powerful the artists and their crews were smiling from ear to ear as soon as they turned it on,” said Conrad. Both 3G and the artists at the Carnival were able to make the most of the system with the help of the company’s FOH Engineer Manny Perez, a veteran with Martin Audio’s MLA enclosures, whose experience with the system enabled acts to accurately manipulate the set-up at both high and low frequencies.

Elsewhere on the site, 3G’s Julio Valdez explained his choice of d&b audiotechnik rigs.

“It’s a numbers game essentially, but the math is simple enough: loudspeakers over people equals emotion,” said Valdez, who doesn’t usually resort to the metaphorical but then, “There’s something magical and mysterious about

Sonic harmony through a TFT touchscreen or the sophisticated d&b trilogy: ArrayCalc simulation software, R1 Remote control software and the pristine D80 ampliďŹ er make for quick access to all system settings.

www.dbaudio.com

D80

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Electric Daisy Carnival

Below: Las Vegas / Los Angeles- based 3G Productions provided audio equipment for the carnival, supplying both Martin Audio’s highly precise MLA System and d&b audiotechnik loudspeaker cabinets; With art installations, performers and carnival rides dotted around the festival site, the festival has a definite carnival vibe; Vision Impossible created the shows visual content; Clay Paky, Martin by Harman, Chauvet Professional and Elation Professional fixtures made up a large part of the lighting rig.

Electric Daisy Carnival. The ecstatic exuberance of the crowd is in inverse proportion to the energy consumed.”

Valdez is the system sound designer and engineer for 3G Productions which provided audio equipment at a total of five out of the seven stages for the three day mega event that is EDC in Las Vegas. He knows a thing or two about channelling energy. “We’ve been servicing EDC for many years now and know that all those top-draw international DJs really value the attention we focus on sound. This year we installed almost seven hundred cabinets from d&b audiotechnik and believe me, when you have nine delay towers for the main stage alone, the focus on time alignment is acute.

That calculation became a whole lot easier this year since we invested in the new d&b D80 amplifiers. From ArrayCalc, through R1 remote control, to amplifier, all my predetermined settings were implemented the moment we first switched the system on. When it’s 95 degrees at 2am and you need to walk almost two miles to measure all nine towers plus main arrays, that simple one, two, three step procedure saved a lot of hot tired legs.”

With one hundred and forty thousand revellers for each night of EDC there were arguably more tired legs than Valdez’s to worry 64

about. “Yet even with so many people this remains a blissful event”, he added. “We might shake the earth, but we don’t damage it. In fact this year we used more loudspeakers but less power. I’ll leave you to figure out how that happened!”

PYROTECHNICS Pyro Engineering supplied Pyrotechnics for the EDC for the second year running. Pyro Technician, Luis Torres commented: “Over the last few years we have made an impact in the EDM world working with a wide array of artists creating new and innovative ways to brand there individual styles through the use of special effects.

“Two years ago we worked with Forrest Hunt and the Insomniac camp presented itself. In 2013 we were invited to handle all of the effects on main stage at EDC Vegas which proved to be very well received by the production staff and fans alike. So as you can imagine, we were very excited to be back at it again in 2014 to continue what we hope to be a long creative and exciting relationship.

“We provided all the Pyrotechnics and effects for the KineticFIELDoutdoor area, which included 10 two-inch propane cannons, eight one-inch propane cannons, 9600 lbs

of propane gas, 12 hurricane flame units, 220 gallons of isopar, in addition to 5200 (+ /- depending on the night) Pyrotechnic pieces from 55 Pyrotechnic stage Locations, 1400 (+ /depending on the night) Aerial Firework pieces from three aerial firework locations, 12 confetti blowers with roughly 500lbs of confetti per night and 12 stadium shots with roughly 600 sleeves of streamers per night.”

With worldwide success in 2014 and a reputation growing year on year, we can be sure that EDC will be back even better and more spectacular in 2015.

TPi Photos: Adam Kaplan - ASK Media Productions Helen Fletcher, Stageco US, Lasertainment and Aldo Parenti. http://insomniac.com www.airworksinflatables.com www.stageco.com http://visionslighting.com www.vision-impossible.nl www.lasertainment.com www.joravision.com www.thescreenworks.com http://felixlighting.com www.sjlighting.net www.tenfeet.nl, http://3glp.com www.peifx.com

www.festivalawards.com SUPPORTED BY

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Hove Festival

A HOVE LOT OF FUN HOVE FESTIVAL BROUGHT TPi TO TROMOY, A BEAUTIFUL ISLAND OFF ARENDAL FRAMED BY THE STUNNING ICE-AGE COASTLINE OF SOUTHERN NORWAY. OVER 15,000 FANS ENJOYED A COMBINATION OF NEARLY 100 INTERNATIONAL AND NORWEGIAN ARTISTS, ARTS EXPERIENCES AND ORGANIC FOOD. THE CHILLED VIBE EXTENDED FROM THE CROWD TO ONE OF THE MOST RELAXED PRODUCTION TEAMS WE’VE EVER ENCOUNTERED. When Hove Festival Operations Director Ian Donaldson gave TPi a tour around the idyllic site, we soon fell for the charms that undoubtedly attracted Melvin Benn, and led to Festival Republic buying the festival in 2009. “This is our sixth year here and it’s been an interesting journey. To work on a festival in another country with a different culture has been a great experience and it is a really beautiful festival,” Donaldson explained.

“There was already a team of people here, so we redefined their roles and gave them different responsibilities; there are still people that were here the very first year. I am the Festival Republic person that comes out regularly to do the organisation and the planning, then we bring out our ticketing department and our stage production team.

“The artists’ beach makes the festival truly unique, and when the bands come here we give them the option of bringing them in from 66

the town in boats. This is a hangout area with a bar where they can have dinner. We offer to take the bands out fishing then the chef will cook their catch - I don’t think there is another festival which does!”

Hove also benefits from being a mid-week festival, running from Monday to Thursday inbetween Glastonbury, Roskilde and others. The combination of timing and location means that the promoters can attract and afford acts that are beyond what would be achievable anywhere else. In recent years headliners have included Muse, Snoop Dog, Kings of Leon and Jay-Z. This year’s line up featured Ellie Goulding, The Offspring, Imagine Dragons and Rudimental, with up and coming artists such as Bastille, Bring Me the Horizon and London Grammar, along with dance acts from Disclosure to Martin Garrix and a host of Norwegian talent.

Donaldson continued: “The stages that they had before we took over were the old-fashioned boxy-type stages. There wasn’t anything

suitable on the Norwegian market, so Serious Stages, who we work with a lot in the UK, got the call.”

“Serious Stages came out and built the main stage. We use their Super-Nova, which is a great stage for a festival of this size. We identified that it would be great to invest in a second permanent ‘Amfi’ stage, which we’ve done in collaboration with the county council and the local council. They have been enthusiastic about having it to use for other shows, something that would be unlikely to happen in the UK. “It’s an 18-metre Orbit stage, and we’ve built a shadow arch over it to create a façade that really gives it a dynamic look. The actual stage is the same, and we put in the concrete footings and the wings.

“This is just one of many initiatives to reduce carbon footprint at the festival; it’s one stage that won’t need trucking every year. We also did some landscaping in the Amfi Stage area to reduce the gradient because it used to be

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Hove Festival

Opposite: Serious Stages supplied an 18-metre orbit stage to Hove Festival in Norway. Below: Hove attracts artists from all over the world in its mid-week slot; Serious Stages’ Danny Clark; The festival lies on the picturesque shores of Norway’s southern coastline; Hove’s Operations Director, Ian Donaldson.

very steep here. Now, it is a lovely amphitheatre shape, which can accomodate about 8,000 people.”

The third ‘Kasino’ stage is a smaller, arched Space Roof, also from Serious Stages. A local supplier provides the PA, lighting and decking.

Again, this area has sloped perimeters for optimum viewing. During the afternoon, it hosted presentations and later on featured artists, including John Newman, as well as DJs until 4am.

“It’s become a visually unique area thanks to the creative use of locally sourced IBC water ballast containers with colour changing lights simple but effective,” continued Donaldson.

A SERIOUS BUSINESS Serious Stages’ man on the ground was Danny Clark. He talked to TPi: “We arrived earlier than usual on 17th June, just as they were finishing the new concrete footings to make this Amfi Stage a permanent structure. Having worked with Festival Republic on the design and calculations through the winter, our Structural Engineer came out and made sure the steelwork was fitted accurately into the new concrete bases. The roof is pretty much the same as provided last year, but now it is bolted into the ground, along with the PA wings. Once the festival is over we’ll remove the skins and leave the steelwork in place.

“There is also a ‘solar arch’ fitted outside of the stage roof, which we’ve built this year, and they have plans for some special cladding and a branded header to be fitted onto that in time for next year’s festival. In future, the steel won’t need to be shipped, which is a worthwhile saving. When they want to use the stage in between festivals, all we’ll have to do is come out and fit the skins.

“The main stage is one of our proprietary 24-metre wide SuperNova Arch systems; 14-metre high, configured with six bays plus a cantilever. It’s a 2.5-metre deck height at the front facing the audience, falling to 1.5 metres at the rear due to slope of the site. They’re using three lighting trusses with some off the cantilever, but we’re nowhere near loading capacity of six tonne per arch. There are the usual side bays for sound and a big loading dock to take four trucks with the goalposts either side, which we put the Hove Festival scrims onto.

CASHLESS FUTURE The main gate that everyone walks through into the festival leads into a food court, operated

by Festival Republic, which includes the main outlet where people collect and charge-up their cashless cards. The festival, like others in Norway, has embraced a cashless culture.

Everybody loads credit from their bank cards

onto a festival card, and every transaction on site is achieved by a card reader, all connected through a local network, as Donaldson explained: “This cashless system improves our security on site, because there are no security vans carrying cash for transfers. There is also a reduced risk for theft or loss for the audience if they lose a card they can immediately go and cancel it - and at the end of the festival they can redeem any balance on the card. It also allows us to monitor sales in real time, and make sure all our outlets are kept well stocked to meet demands.”

Festival Republic’s Nick Davies has been the Production Manager, working with Donaldson at Hove for six years: “We have combined a mixture of UK-based suppliers who we work with on other festivals, such as Serious Stages, and then we sourced locally where possible.

“We use a Norweigian supplier, Bright, for all of the sound and lighting equipment, but for our main stage we bring in UK-based Siyan Lighting to design the lighting rig. Steve Finch designs the main stage lighting rig here, and then he liaises with Bright over all the technical elements. He knows what the expectations of the international lighting designers are.

“I liaise with all the incoming bands. You try and achieve technical advancing as early as possible, since artists now often bring a 67

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Hove Festival

Below: Dan Macbean, Dougie Murphy, Mark Sunderland, Andrew Sween; Sustainability Coordinator, Fredrik Eive Refsli with some of his team; Festival Republic’s Nick Davies; Per Marius Larsen of Bright Group; Siyan Lighting’s Hove festival crew.

considerable festival touring set. The great thing here is we ‘flip flop’ between the stages so the crews have at least an hour and three quarters on changeovers.

“This year Bright have talked me into changing to Meyer Sound boxes and they have worked out well,” said Davies.

Heading a team of six at Hove, Siyan’s Steve Finch coordinates between Festival Republic, Nick Davies and all the incoming acts to adhere to their lighting and rigging requirements. He told TPi: “It’s more economical to source the equipment locally through Bright Group. If they haven’t got exactly what we want, they come back with alternatives and we find a happy medium of what we require for the show to work.

“I produce all of the technical drawings for the artists for the fixtures and deal with some of their requests, then coordinate between us and the bands to make it work.”

Per Marius Larson from Bright Group added: “For sound here on the Amfi stage, we have 16 Meyer Sound Lyon cabinets per side along with 1100 LFC Meyer Sound subwoofers. We also have an Avid Profile console at FOH, a Soundcraft Vi6 console on monitors, and a Turbosound TFM-450 for cabinets onstage.

On the main stage we have 32 of the new Meyer Sound Leo cabinets, with an Avid Profile console and the same monitors, and we use Lab.gruppen PLM 20,000Q amplifiers throughout.

“We have a lighting kit list based largely on last year, and adapted to what’s coming in. On the Amfi Stage we have BL3000 spots and we have the new Martin Quantum wash, which they are lending to us for testing. I’m 68

very happy with them. On the main stage we have 20 MAC Viper Profiles, 16 MAC Aura LED fixtures and eight Atomic 3000 DMX strobes from Martin, along with 14 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 washes, 16 Clay Paky Sharpys, eight ETC Source Fours and 14 Blinders from James Thomas, all controlled by a GrandMA2 light from MA Lighting.

“We have quite a lot of gear but obviously it’s been high season, and we’ve got lots of other festivals too, not just Hove. Getting late requests for equipment can be really difficult.

I got a request from a band last Thursday for equipment that came from Sweden, which isn’t that easy.”

A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Frederic Eive Refsli is the Sustainability Coordinator at Hove, responsible for the environmental initiatives and raising awareness through communication, both inside and outside the organisation, that remain a central ethos. The festival has ‘environment stands’ where the audience can ‘sell their recycled waste’. Eive Refsli explained: “Over the past three years we have made the stands more prominent, raising the issue of reducing our carbon footprint and keeping this island clean.

We have been able to market the environmental stands much better by creating ‘wheels of fortune’ to act as an extra incentive for people to hand in their rubbish. The ‘wheel’ works in this way: people hand in their green sacks of recycled waste and in payment they are allowed to spin the wheel of fortune. You can win a range of gifts and experiences, such as back stage tours, which are the popular ones.”

Eive Refsli continued: “Having

knowledgeable, passionate people creates a much better experience for the guests to come to the environment stands, plus they’re proactive on getting off the stands and encouraging recycling.

“I think one of the other things that I have been contributing to the organisation is a wider awareness; I don’t have to be the watchdog all the time. Across the festival organisation, people from all sections have come to me with ideas and to discuss new initiatives much more than they used to.

“In 2009 we started working on connecting to the national grid, and slowly started phasing out diesel generators, so that by 2011 we were able to ban diesel generators from the site; there are no diesel generators onsite now.

Given that Norway’s electricity is the cleanest in Europe, produced via hydro electric generation and burning rubbish, Hove’s fuel footprint is tiny. So being off the grid is huge.”

“This year we welcomed the Government Minister for the Environment, along with heads of business and environmental organisations, for a discussion at our Flekken stage site in the forest. These discussions not only inform but bring together different sides of the community to challenge and debate. Having the minister here this year meant that we also attract even wider interest outside of the festival in the national media, so the issues are being publicised very well. Awareness is a key goal.”

TPi www.hovefestivalen.no www.stages.co.uk www.festivalrepublic.com www.siyan.co.uk http://brightgroup.dekodes.no

CLOCKING OFF: Lewis Wares Below: L-R: Lewis putting Captain America out of a job; Kate Hudson (nope, he didn’t mind her playing with his favourite toy!); With mother, ex Popcorn Catering chef, Emma; With Stage Manager father, Brian; With big sister, Lily; 1D’s Harry Styles and Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith promoting the cause; Ed Sheeran and TLG; Matt Bellamy, who wanted a go after Kate...

WHEN YOU WORK IN THE HECTIC WORLD OF LIVE PRODUCTION, SOMETIMES HAVING A MINUTE TO YOURSELF SEEMS LIKE A BIG ASK, LET ALONE A MOMENT TO STEP BACK AND BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR GOOD HEALTH, SHOULD YOU BE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE IT. THIS MONTH’S COLUMN TURNS TO TOURING PARENTS, EMMA AND BRIAN WARES, WHOSE SIX YEAR OLD SON LEWIS IS BATTLING SOMETHING MOST OF US TAKE FOR GRANTED: THE FREEDOM TO USE OUR LEGS. Many of you will know TPi Award winner, Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith, from her presence in the industry. She recently brought to our attention, her involvement with 3ft wonder, Lewis Wares. Lewis lives with his big sister, Lily, and parents; ex Popcorn chef Emma and Stage Manager father, Brian who has most recently finished touring with Robbie Williams. The reason Helen got in touch was to inform us of Lewis’ life with an incurable - but manageable - condition which presents itself like Diplegic Cerebral Palsy. This means his legs don’t work as normal and he is unable to walk unaided. His speech and movement is also limited. Despite his condition, Lewis is plotting a future career as a superhero and aims to challenge The Incredible Hulk to a battle of strength.

In order for this mighty feat to begin, a few things needed to happen and the first goal involved raising £50,000 to travel from his home in the UK to the US for an operation that would allow Lewis to discard his wheelchair almost entirely and instead rev up his first walking aid (or Captain America fighting shield, we’re not sure which comes first). After a lot of hard work from friends and family in the 70

industry, the goal was hit and one year after his operation - Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy to give the procedure its exact title, Lewis is now enjoying life at school a little easier, even fitting in time in his busy schedule (where he’s excelling in spelling) to chat up the ladies. The aftermath of the operation meant a lot to Lewis and his family. Although he needs intensive physiotherapy five days a week, he takes it all in his stride thanks to his bubbly character.

Lewis is described as “an exceptionally happy little boy who is rarely seen without a smile on his face”, but of course his situation has been difficult for those close to him. His mother Emma told TPi: “It was a hugely emotional and hard thing to do, putting your five year old through such a life changing operation, but the results so far have been amazing,” she said. “Lewis is now able to put his feet flat on the floor and can stand holding bars to have a wee... a massive achievement when you’re a boy! He is a little hero and inspiration to many, but there is still a long way to go and he’s been given a great chance to improve and hopefully become an independent walker one day. This all comes at a huge cost though so we are still trying to raise money so Lewis has the chance

he deserves to be independent.”

Emma has stopped touring in order to look after Lewis and Lily while Brian keeps the likes of Radiohead and Pink’s stages in working order.

To keep momentum up on the road, family friend Helen had the idea to take one of Lewis’ toys - now known as TLG (The Little Guy) - to productions with her. Just to prove that no one ever really grows out of wanting to play with action figures, you can see from the photos above that Lewis’ TLG is a popular mascot with some rather famous faces.

And, that’s not all, to continue to raise money and hope for Lewis’ daily needs, his big sister Lily had a Christmas single recorded in his honour entitled Happy Birthday JC. She even managed to pursuade British singers Tony Hadley and Paul Young to sing on it. (She must also have those superhero genes).

Emma concluded: “Thanks for reading and donating; it means a huge amount to me, his mum, our family, and Lewis who is still saving the world, one day at a time…”

TPi www.justgiving.com/lewiswares www.happybirthdayjc.co.uk

Sponsors & Supporters

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: d3 Technologies

d3’S NEW PRO RANGE IF YOU’RE CREATING A SHOW OR INSTALLATION WITH ELEMENTS OF VIDEO, PROJECTION AND LIGHTING; CHANCES ARE YOU’LL BE NEEDING A MEDIA SERVER TO COORDINATE YOUR CONTENT TO WHATEVER OUTPUT DEVICES YOU’RE EMPLOYING. WITH SEVERAL HIGH-END MEDIA SERVERS ALREADY ON THE MARKET WHAT DOES LONDON, UK-BASED d3 TECHNOLOGIES’ NEW FLAGSHIP PRO RANGE BRING TO THE EQUATION? d3 FOUNDER CHRIS BIRD IS CONVINCED THAT THE PRO RANGE IS NOT JUST DIFFERENT FROM THE REST; BUT PERHAPS MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, “FUTURE PROOFED”. PATRICK MCCUMISKEY WENT TO d3’S HQ TO FIND OUT MORE. The Pro Range consists of two ‘flavours’: the 4x4pro with four 4K outputs, and the 4x2pro with four 2k outputs. The 4x4pro has been created with the most complex touring productions in mind, the four 4K outputs comfortably capable of handling everything from huge multi-projector shows in the most demanding venues to broadcasting and one-off installations. The 4x4pro enables up to eight layers of uncompressed HD or 4x4K (DXV / HAP) to be played simultaneously in real time.

The 4x2pro, the little brother of the 4x4, is a fully revamped version of d3’s popular 4U v2.5 - the tried and tested bestseller which has made a name for itself at shows such as the Eurovision Song Contest and Glastonbury. The d3 4x2pro features the same custom case, low-latency video capture, genlock and lockable connectors as the d3 4x4pro, making it an improved robust solution for concerts, theatres and projection mapping shows. Despite being a faster and more capable system than the 4U v2.5, the d3 4x2pro still ‘plays nicely with others’ - the machine can be configured to work alongside the existing d3 4U v2.5 or a new d3 4x4pro.

With matt black aluminium and steel casing and a sleek white OLED screen interface, the d3 Pro Range certainly looks the business. “We call it the pro range because, functionally, the machine itself is housed in a proper industriallydesigned rugged case, designed specifically for touring and fixed installation purposes,” explained Bird. On opening the bonnet of a 4x4pro, it was clear just how much thought has gone into designing the inside of the machine.

72

“The cooling fans at the front of the box are deep so they are able to scoop large volume of air into the machine. This, in tern, means that the fans can spin much slower which means the machine is quieter. The cool air is then channeled aerodynamically through the hardware in the machine and forced out the back.”

The Pro Range has been created with practicality in mind. If somebody trips over a network cable hanging out from the back of the machine, in other servers, normally you will break the network card and have to take the machine back to the manufacturer to replace the expensive elements. The Pro Range has been designed so that the connecting input / output jacks are separated from the computer to avoid major breakages, making it easy to replace damaged parts. Continued Bird: “The Pro range has been produced with the intention of making the hardware and software as easy to use for people working on-site.”

Perhaps one of the most significant developments for potential investors of d3 hardware is the Pro Range’s adaptability with regards to the future. Bird furthered: “Everybody is going 4k mad at the moment but nobody knows what kind of interface they need to put on their displays. Some manufacturers will go with DDI (Dual Digital Input) or quad HD-SDI, wheras others will go with HDMI 1.2a. Some prosumer 4k displays have gone DisplayPort 1.2 - the standard developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). So, there isn’t a clear consensus on outputs. The way people navigate this normally is by putting

in some sort of signal converter like an Image Pro transcoder. They’re necessary to do up / down scaling and signal format conversion, but they make your rack more costly in terms of physical space which means you need more trucks, which equates to more space - and on the technical side they introduce delay.”

As a solution to this problem, the d3 4x4pro has been developed with the ability to slot in video format conversion cards, which effectively convert the signal to its respective output directly ‘out of the box’. “The best thing is”, continued Bird, “as new formats inevitably become adopted, we will be able to produce new cards to accommodate new standards, making the box relatively future-proofed.

‘Both machines are rated to Push Every Pixel.” Bird continued: “Push Every Pixel is our benchmark for playback power in the industry.

It means that each machine has enough power to fill every physical pixel of its outputs with two simultaneous layers of content. So now people can confidently drive two channels of content at the same time.” Each machine has enough power to fill every physical pixel of its outputs with two simultaneous layers of content. Continued Bird: “If you are running four outputs of 4K, you need to be able to play eight 4K content layers, or up to 32 HD layers to Push Every Pixel. With four single-Link DVI outputs, you need to be able to play up to 16 HD layers, and so on.” With powerful Xeon processors, workstation-grade GPUs, terabytes of RAID-0 SSD storage and lighting- fast 10Gbits / sec ethernet, the d3 Pro Range is designed from the ground-up to meet this challenge.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: d3 Technologies

Opposite: Perspective Mapping is just one of the many features that designers can use to design an entire show using the d3 Designer software; Both models come with sleek matt black aluminum casing.

“With the 4x4pro, that means that if you’re pushing outputs of 16 HD you can to play 32 layers of HD simultaneous content. Similarly the 4x2pro can do 16 layers of HD. So if you’re into numbers, these figures stack up pretty nicely!”

SOFTWARE “Although the machine itself is market-leading in terms of components, design and reliability; the key thing for us is the software package,” Bird continued: “d3 is not really all about the hardware. The hardware is a means to an end we built the hardware around the capabilities of the software. For us, the key is the software” Bird explained the advantages that d3 offers designers: “Our software has been made specifically with the Creative Designer in mind.

I’ll give you a real world example. David Bajt was the d3 Video Consultant on the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen, Denmark working with Martin Professional and Mediatec. His job was to ensure that all the media content from the competing countries was running through the d3 media servers and feeding into the mass of projectors and LED video screens.”

He continued: “The individual media houses working on 3D content creation for the performances didn’t require any d3 hardware to do their jobs; they simply took the basic

d3 Designer dongle and could create all their content remotely, test it, authorise it and get it all signed off by their people before they took it to Eurovision. David and his team then merged all the content together on d3 4U v2.5 hardware on site, from which the show was built upon.

We consider this process of working to be a massive advantage.”

From conceptual pre-visualisation through to technical specification, sequencing and content compositing all the way to technical set-up, d3 Designer is both a flexible and powerful tool for show designers. The new r11.2 software supports the SockPuppet DMX feature, which enables d3’s powerful mapping, playback and projection features to be controlled via the users preferred control surface. Furthermore, SockPuppet layers can be freely combined with d3’s advanced timeline for increased show control. Practically, this SockPuppet feature really opens d3 up to a whole new user group that prefer lighting consoles.

Bird added: “All d3 features aim to help the user with significantly reduced production times, based on the principle of preparing the show to best ability ahead of tech set-up.

By letting the user focus on creating a great show instead of wasting time on last-minute technical implications and changes, everyone

benefits. Not just operators, but also clients, programmers and content designers: it’s collaborative.”

One aspect that Bird was keen to stress was that - unlike most media servers on the market everything comes in the Pro Range as standard.

“We don’t do different versions,” affirmed Bird.

“For some people there’s more than you need, but for others there’s everything. The reason we do that is because we don’t want people to buy different versions of the same machine, only to find that when they cross rent it from another company that it isn’t the same bit of kit, so you end up struggling to find the right kit.”

The d3 Pro Range has been on the market since mid-June. Significantly, a huge number of impressive show productions in 2014 have been made using d3’s 4U v2.5 media servers - the predecessors of the Pro Range - handling quite comfortably demands such as Eurovision, the Marvel Universe stage show and the visuals at several Glastonbury performances including Massive Attack and Kasabian. With the Pro Range, the next generation of media server is most definitely upon us. The possibilities with which one can exploit its features are limited only by the imagination.

TPi www.d3technologies.com

it’s what you do with it that counts.

the new pro range is here. www.d3technologies.com

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MARKET FOCUS: Lighting Consoles

LIGHTING CONSOLES ADB LIGHTING

www.adblighting.com

The latest Freedom and Liberty lighting control desks from ADB Lighting introduce a new generation of intuitive and creative control for every type of light. The compact but powerful Freedom integrates generics, moving lights, LEDs, video servers and more. Freedom can support up to 2,048 channels and 32 universes, while Liberty supports up to 1,024 channels and 16 universes. Up to four external touch screens (Freedom) or two (Liberty) can expand the capacity of the built-in touch screen. An array of interfaces makes working simultaneously with different network protocols simple. The 24 physical subfaders (192 in total, organised over eight banks of 24) with flash and assign keys, allow the user to load or select content without confusion.

AVOLITES

www.avolites.com

The Avolites Tiger Touch II offers a combination of power and portability. With features such as ‘Quicksketch’ legends, unique to Avolites, and pixel mapping, this third-generation console is packed with enough power for large and complex shows, yet is small and light enough to fly in standard hold luggage. The console now boasts a 100% brighter screen with improved viewing angle, SMPTE timecode support and a button layout which matches both the Titan Mobile and Sapphire Touch. The Tiger Touch II hardware is Titan 8 and ‘multiuser’ ready, and includes two network ports to simultaneously support Titan Net and Art-Net / S-ACN.

CHAMSYS

www.chamsys.co.uk

One of the latest offerings from Chamsys is the MQ60 Compact, weighing in at just 6.5kg. The MQ60 Compact is a lightweight, powerful and compact console with high build quality, reliable components, in-built UPS and is fast and easy to program. The MQ60 is a next generation powerful, affordable, fully featured console. With 12 universes, 6,144 channels, fixture editor, fully featured theatre stacks, morphing and cloning capabilities, in-built 3D visualiser, external monitor support and audio input, to name a few features, the MQ60 has it all. Used on many of the UK festivals this year already, the MQ60 is becoming popular with discerning LDs and operators.

COMPULITE

www.compulite.com

Vibe integrates conventional buttons and wheels with an innovative and dynamic touchscreen graphical user interface, incorporating the latest computer and touchscreen technology in an ergonomic and adjustable control surface. Vibe is syntax free and will prompt the user to enter any information they have missed. It has a minimum of physical buttons; the touchscreen environment gives the user the flexibility to layout their desktop exactly how they want it with buttons, display windows and playbacks wherever they want them.

Different desktops can be configured for different parts of the show or for different users. There are no theoretical limits to the number of playbacks of desktop layouts, the user is not constrained by conventional physical hardware, and they can design their own control surface to suit the needs of the show and their creativity.

ELATION PROFESSIONAL

www.elationlighting.eu

The MidiCon Pro from Elation Professional is a MIDI controller designed to be used with any midi-compatible lighting control software, such as Elation’s Emulation Pro. Features include large, high-quality backlit buttons, aluminium wheels and motorised faders. The playback section contains eight 100mm motorized faders, command-line keypad, three spring-loaded backlit buttons above each fader, and 32 pages of playbacks.

The Midicon uses MIDI over USB for all communication with the host software with no drivers needed (Windows / MAC / Linux).

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THE HOG 4 FAMILY Hog 4 is the flagship of the most complete line of consoles and accessories in the industry.

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MARKET FOCUS: Lighting Consoles

ETC

www.etcconnect.com

ETC’s Cobalt control desk was recently used for a live event in the Russian city of Petrozavodsk, lighting a 100-metre wide stage for use with live entertainment and music acts. The Cobalt 20, which was rented from agency SMK, controlled a range of intelligent and traditional fixtures as well as media servers. Cobalt’s direct access style made it possible for the operators to use preprogrammed elements and create new looks on the fly in blind during the show with ease. The Cobalt line, which was launched at PLASA 2013, was designed to use as short and simple syntax as possible, with extensive use of touch screens, making operation quick and direct.

GLP

www.glp.com

The Creation II–4096 is the largest controller in GLP’s Creation II Series. Suitable for shows using up to 4,096 DMX channels it features an intuitive interface, including a 5.7-inch full colour touchscreen, 10 playback faders, a dedicated media section, multi console networking, and timecode input and output amongst its many rear panel connectors. Software functions include a comprehensive effects generator, a powerful fanning engine, full HTP / LTP configuration, individual parameter timings, fixture cloning, and touch screen colour picker making it a flexible and powerful lighting control solution. Accessories include a fader wing and button wing which connect directly via USB, along with a free to download offline version for PC or MAC, and a smaller 1024 channel desk.

HIGH END SYSTEMS

www.highend.com

Four Platforms, one OS: the Hog 4 line of consoles, developed by High End Systems, provides state-of-theart hardware coupled with a tried and tested backbone. Building on user friendly and intuitive GUI based software, the Hog 4 line is built for the future. 10-point multi touch displays, motorised faders, solid state hard drives, User Kind keys and extremely fast load times allow for a superior user experience. The Hog 4 systems are fully scalable, fully network-compatible, and offer full network failover. Already controlling large shows, version 2 software is around the corner, which includes access to thumbnails, DMX merging and test, timing palettes and additional effects engine functionality amongst others.

JANDS

www.jands.com.au

The Vista L5 is designed to cater for the ever increasing use of both media and LEDs in shows. Featuring a massive 21-inch HD TFT screen, the Vista L5 provides all the space needed to translate ideas into reality.

Like other consoles in the popular Vista range, the L5 features a huge selection of live controls, big LCDs, 25 playbacks, four DMX outputs, time code input, and three encoder wheels. The Vista L5 comes with the world-renowned Vista v2 software, which is known for being innovative, intuitive, powerful and easy to use.

This lighting and media control system has been embraced by designers, companies and venues all over the world on a wide range of shows.

LSC LIGHTING SYSTEMS

www.lsclighting.com

The Clarity LX-Series is the world’s first multimedia console, allowing seamless integrated control of conventional, LED and moving lights, media servers and even audio playback from a single console. Designed with over 30 years of experience by LSC Lighting Systems and OpenClear, it provides an ergonomic work surface with powerful software, placing emphasis on quick and logical workflow to allow the operator to achieve more in less time. Now running V2.2 software, Clarity introduces a powerful feature called ‘proglets’ whereby users can create virtually any app / scripts they want to be utilised and shared on-line amongst the lighting community. Other features like smart fixture cloning can save hours of programming per gig, allowing more time for creativity whilst reducing costs.

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MARKET FOCUS: Lighting Consoles

MA LIGHTING

www.malighting.com

The grandMA2 full-size represents MA Lighting’s most powerful console and offers the control of conventional lights, moving lights, LED fixtures and media from one platform. Equipped with the most upto-date technology and even some special features, such as keyboard drawer and multi-touch command screen, the grandMA2 is suitable for all lighting segments, supplying an intuitive and fast control of all connected fixtures and channels. Furthermore, the grandMA2 fader wing provides up to 60 extra motorised executor faders for an almost unlimited number of pages. grandMA ‘Series 1’ showfiles can be converted to be used with the grandMA2. For easier operation, all command keys can be found in the same place on every console of the grandMA2 Series.

MARTIN PROFESSIONAL

www.martin.com

The M6 is a state-of-the-art lighting console that functions as a highly advanced visual control surface.

Designed to control everything from conventional and moving lights to the most advanced media server, the M6 has been designed for today’s demanding multimedia shows and tomorrow’s challenges. Based on the proven M-Series software platform, the M6 provides users a control surface ideal for fast programming and extensive playback control all from one console. Incorporating the latest available technologies with an industrial multi-core processor, solid-state drives and custom-designed high-brightness touch screens, the M6 is capable of delivering up to 64 DMX universes directly from the console’s network ports without using costly external processors.

PHILIPS STRAND LIGHTING

www.strandlighting.com

Philips Strand Lighting’s Neo expandable control system has been billed as “a new chapter in the evolution of control”. Sleek and modern, Neo is designed to make a strong statement of Strand Lighting’s commitment to creating forward-thinking, powerful consoles catering for the needs of the most demanding lighting design projects. Neo includes an array of features including a fully-featured graphics display, an effects ‘timeline’ feature allowing drag and drop to create perfectly timed sequences and floating windows allowing the operator to configure views efficiently. Shows are secured on a ‘Mission Critical’-grade SQL server, ensuring no data loss in critical moments. The Neo console is ideal for robust touring use. The Philips Entertainment team has launched a YouTube channel for Neo called Neocontrol and website, www.neocontrol.net.

PRG

www.prg.com

The V676 control console is an elegant programming and control solution, offering high speed, both in programming and responsiveness, as well as innovative interface advancements in hardware layout and software design. V676 provides control for 4,000 multiple parameter luminaires. Using an on board dual Mac Mini as the processing system means V676 takes advantage of superb graphics, faster processing, and can be efficiently updated. The V676 is optimised for an array of work environments featuring backlit buttons, 10 motorised faders, seven full-colour touchscreens and MIDI and SMPTE capability, as well as copper and Fibre Optic Ethernet connection.

ZERO 88

www. zero88.com

For Eaton’s Zero 88 Series, ease of use is high on the priority list. All Zero 88 lighting consoles are designed so that new users can quickly get up to speed and more experienced lighting professionals can easily program more complex lighting effects. Products feel instantly familiar through the use of industry standard syntax and uncomplicated menu structures, allowing instant access to the information or commands you require.

Creative user interface design allows even complex lighting commands to be executed with the minimum of key strokes. Zero 88 lighting consoles are robust and reliable, designed to withstand the demanding environment of live performance, including heat, dust, humidity, limited space and rigorous touring.

Designed to last, they are supported by an industry-leading, three-year warranty.

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THE BIGGER PICTURE

THE BIGGER PICTURE PARTNERSHIP, NOT OWNERSHIP Like-minded people can achieve more by working together; that’s how the PSA came to be.

Whether it’s us supporting smaller, specialist groups or joining with other groups to form a representative voice, we’re all for partnership. Here are two at both ends of the spectrum.

THE RAISE IT RIGHT INITIATIVE Hotel bar, catering, bus, airport lounge; so many opportunities to discuss the problems with life, the universe, everything, lifting / rigging and riggers. All too often the phrase ‘you know what the problem is’ isn’t followed by ‘we should work out a solution’.

GRAVITY FRIEND OR FOE? Is a rigger an expensive luxury or an important part of any team? In these days of hanging everything, from lighting to people, in order to create exciting effects for bands and audiences, gravity and increasingly weight-intensive shows are a challenge to be overcome. Truss, chains, slings and motors have been designed or modified to help us rise to the challenge and that special breed, the rigger, has also evolved to allow us to rise to the challenge, or at least put it all together in a manner that ensures it doesn’t fall down. People who can achieve that are generally worth listening to, but it seems far too often that they are not and are generally the last to be employed. The age old adage ‘a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing’ comes into play more than maybe we would care to admit.

And so it came to pass, as a result of those down time conversations, that a handful of exponents in the art of rigging set about looking at the issue and the rather shoddy practices when it came to lifting kit up to their carefullyplanned grids. Not so much asking and getting confirmation that your kit isn’t too heavy for a particular point, but what effect will the actual lift have? What happens when you play morse code with a motor? Is there an extra load imposed on the carefully planed top rigging when a motor is towing? Do enough people 80

know the answer to these questions? Some people felt the answer was no; they decided to do something about it and the Raise it Right Initiative (RiRi) was born.

After years of listening to the same conversations on and off the work floor Andi Flack took up the challenge of looking at a solution to the problem. “The task ahead is challenging and a little daunting. We have set out to educate and improve the safety of the industry as a whole. Rigging is still a young industry and has had to grow up fast, the bad practices and ‘we have always done it like this’ attitude has allowed the industry to get away with a lot in the past, but with shows getting bigger and heavier our job has become more important than ever to keep people safe in their work environment. No one wants to come back from work in a box!”

Andi spent the first two weeks trying to wrangle all the issues into some sort of order and decided to form the Raise it Right initiative.

He enlisted the help of those people with the same ideals towards rigging with the skill and knowledge to back it up. The first port of call was Alan Beechey.

Alan has worked in the live event industry since the early ‘80s, starting off as local crew moving on to stage building and then rigging.

Over the years Alan has been involved with most aspects of the industry, working on many different and varied events, live touring shows made up the majority of his work which has taken him all over the world. “During this time I realised how vast the knowledge base of other people in the industry is, and how you can always learn something new if you are open and receptive to it. It is my hope that RiRi can be an

accessible conduit for all the knowledge that is out there and make it available to other industry workers, whether they are just starting out in the business or just need to catch up on new or changing legislation affecting their day to day work.”

Andi’s next port of call was Ricky Hopkins.

Ricky is another industry practitioner who had the same view as Andi and Alan and was keen to get on board. Ricky started in the industry in 1992 working for DJs. He then moved onto working as a production assistant and this is where he got his first glimpse of rigging. Ricky now works as a full-time rigger, splitting his time between moving touring theatre shows around the country and working as a local rigger and rigging crew boss in arenas.

“When Andi first approached me about the plan to set up the Raise it Right initiative I was more than happy to get involved. I see RiRi as a great way to make our working environment a safer place as well as being an asset in raising awareness of the work involved in the rigging industry, not just top rigging, but below the hook rigging too.”

Of course, all great initiatives need someone to drive and support them; the support of like minded people in the same area of business.

Gathering those people and getting them to contribute in one way or another is a challenge in itself, these things take time and money. The wider you cast the net, the more the burden is shared. We have a membership of 1,400 that gives us the voice and resources to support initiatives rather than claim ownership of issues for commercial gain. The PSA is a not for profit organisation, we don’t have a trading arm. If it’s within the scope of our membership i.e.

www.psa.org.uk

providing production services to live events, if it’s in our members’ interests, we’re interested.

How’s that for focus?

WHAT NOW FOR RIRI? Anything is possible, but there are priorities.

As we write, there are bent bits of metal, probably on their way to a scrap yard, caused by either negligence or lack of competence.

No people were damaged in the making of the scrap, but it highlights RiRI’s primary goal of improving training and knowledge of lifting

operations in our line of business. There may be the need to write a course, there may be a need to look at what’s out there already and make improvements or it may simply be a case of pointing people at existing training and ensuring that anyone involved in lifting actually knows what’s going on; the right people doing the job in the right way. With new methods of delivering apprenticeships on the horizon, giving employers control of what training is delivered to apprentices, an agreed grounding in basic rigging and lifting in all disciplines would fit very

nicely too.

Who better to do that than the people at the coal face? Who better to support that than their trade association?

Of course, riggers do have a certification scheme already, and RiRi is keen to work with any existing provider and organisation, bringing back reports from the front line to aid improvements and developments.

TPi www.psa.org.uk www.riri.org.uk

BVEP WELCOMES PSA TO PARTNERSHIP Great partnerships become greater than the sum of their parts, as we’ve already shown in our membership of UK Live Music, joining a single voice for the UK’s music industry has confirmed our place as an essential contributor, even going so far as calculating our part of its contribution to the UK’s coffers. Of course, music isn’t our only area of business, so the PSA has become the latest association to join the Business Visits and Events Partnership (BVEP). We will join the 30-strong partnership, extending the reach and influence of the BVEP and representing our wide range of members across the outdoor and indoor events industry.

Our membership of the BVEP will pool the knowledge of the entire industry and provide a central resource for its members; many of whom play key roles in the production of some of the UK’s largest events. Becoming a partner of the BVEP ensures that our crucial element of Britain’s events industry gets the recognition it

deserves and, in turn, plays its part in ensuring the health of this vital sector. Let’s face it, we have some of the finest production talent in the world, if BVEP is about attracting events to Britain, we’re part of the attraction.

“We’re delighted to welcome the PSA to the partnership,” comments Michael Hirst OBE, Chair of the BVEP (pictured). “Their addition to our ranks represents an important sector to the organisation and responds to the recent All Party Parliamentary Group report that the Partnership should be more inclusive in representing the whole events industry. We are always looking to expand and strengthen our ties within the industry and this is certainly another move in the right direction as we hope to welcome more representative bodies within production to the partnership over the coming months.”

TPi www.psa.org.uk www.businesstourismpartnership.com

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A.C. Entertainment Technologies (ACET) has been appointed the exclusive UK distributor for the LumenRadio range of high performance wireless DMX lighting control solutions. With immediate effect, LumenRadio will be available from and supported by AC-ET to its customer base of entertainment technology dealers and end users.

AC-ET’s Brand Development Manager Neil Vann commented: “We are extremely pleased to be appointed the exclusive UK distributor for LumenRadio. The wireless DMX control range perfectly complements the many leading lighting brands in our portfolio, and offers a level of performance and reliability which is second to none.”

Loudspeaker system manufacturer d&b audiotechnik has appointed Amnon Harman as CEO. In this newly created position, Harman will drive the continued success of the German premium provider, taking responsibility for the further development and implementation of the company strategy.

Explaining his appointment, Harman said: “d&b has an admirable reputation in the market for professional sound reinforcement systems and is uniquely positioned to benefit from the growing requirements for cutting edge technology at concerts and large events.

The product portfolio has been continuously expanded in recent years and combined with the founding of subsidiaries in Europe, the USA and Japan, has paved the way for the internationalisation of the company. I look forward to being a part of this development, supporting the growth strategy and contributing to the further success of the company.”

As part of its ongoing internal restructuring, POLARaudio has promoted Technical Support Engineer Liam Richards to the role of Technical 82

Support Manager. Appointed to his original position in 2011 from a background in stage management and live sound, Richards has played a key role in delivering a high level of customer support across POLARaudio’s range of brands.

POLARaudio’s restructuring demands that the talents of its staff continue to be employed specifically and insightfully towards offering the best possible service to its customers - a theme taken up by Managing Director John Midgley: “Whilst we have sought to strengthen our team by bringing in some new faces, I believe it is crucial that we are careful not to overlook the strengths we possess in-house.

“Richards came to us with a wealth of knowledge and experience of the ‘live’ arena and has channelled that expertise over the last few years to the undoubted benefit of our customers. His elevation within the company will come as no surprise to anyone who has come into contact with him and I’m confident that he will meet his new responsibilities with his customary flair.”

Rosco, a manufacturer of products for the entertainment industry, has welcomed a new member to its EMEA Sales team. Canna Gray has been appointed Senior Account Manager focusing on the UK Photographic Market as well as key accounts in the Balkans, Cyprus, Malta and Moldova.

Cristian Arroyo, Director of Sales EMEA, commented: “Canna’s industry experience and wealth of knowledge for the extensive Rosco range of products has already made her a key addition to the Rosco family. Having previously worked with her as a supplier, we were impressed with Canna’s ability to hit the ground running and successfully build strong relationships with her customers. I’m confident that Canna will play a key role in providing and implementing high quality support for our customers.”

Sennheiser UK has announced that Simon Holley has been appointed to the position of Commercial Sales Manager for its Pro Systems division. He joins from his previous position as Sales Manager at Bose UK, and will work closely with and manage Sennheiser UK’s extensive pro audio sales team. Holley will also liaise with key accounts and partners in each sector, helping to serve them and, in turn, Sennheiser’s end users better.

“Originally coming from a background of B2B and B2C sales in the aftermarket automotive industry, and then spending the past seven years in the pro audio industry heading up the professional systems division for Bose UK, has given me a wealth of experience in sales and sales team management,” said Holley. “My experience in the Pro Audio market spans a multitude of market segments and customer/ account types. I will draw on this experience in leading the Sennheiser Pro Audio sales team forwards to even greater success.”

The company has also announced a significant change to its Sub Distribution model in the UK as a direct result of an increase in business and market share within the Sub Distribution network. The change has dictated the need for dedicated internal sales person; with over 15 years experience in the pro audio market, David Atkinson has joined Sennheiser from his previous position at Avid to take up the position of Order Management Co-ordinator.

Atkinson’s role will be to assist Channel Sales Manager Simon Druce in continuing to support the strong growth that has been seen since Sennheiser’s SDA (Selective Distribution Agreement) was introduced. uTRAC has announced the appointment of Kate Connolly as Director as part of its drive to become the go-to workforce management application for events. In her previous roles

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Opposite: POLARaudio has promoted Technical Support Engineer Liam Richards to Head of Technical Sales; Canna Gray has been appointed Senior Account Manager for Rosco’s EMEA Sales Team; Sennheiser UK has brought Simon Holley in as Commercial Sales Manager for its Pro Systems division; Amnon Harman has taken on the role of CEO at d&b audiotechnik.

as a Consultant at Deloitte and a Lecturer of Engineering in Trinity College Dublin, Kate’s experience includes the development of new technology, marketing, globalisation and supply chain management.

Connolly will oversee uTRAC’s growth into targeted areas beyond the UK and Irish events sector. “It is an exciting time to join the uTRAC team,” she explained. “The advantages to any business that use ad-hoc staffing are so obvious.

As the company has grown, the product and service has developed and it is clear that uTRAC has benefits for companies in a range of industries, in markets around the world.”

Cadac has announced the appointment of industry veteran console engineer Mitch Mortenson as Technical Support Manager. Mitch is a renowned pro audio industry personality in the US, having spent some 20 years in the industry, in recording studio and sound touring engineering, and technical sales, including nine years in front line technical support roles for Midas consoles in North America.

Welcoming Mortenson onto the team was General Manager Paul Morini, who worked alongside Mortenson at Midas, and described him as “uniquely qualified within our industry to

take on this role for Cadac. He has long been known in the US as Midas’ technical troubleshooter, in providing pre and post sales support, and as the in-the-field concert touring tech, as well as having established comprehensive training programmes. He is going to be a very major asset to our new operations in the US and Canada.”

PRG Nocturne has kicked off its UK expansion with the establishment of an experienced UK team including Chief Sales Officer Rich Rowley, Account Director Stefaan Michels, and Head of Video Services Mark O’Herlihy. With 25 years of experience, Rowley looks forward to the opportunities that having a fully stocked and staffed PRG Nocturne operation in the UK will offer customers.

“With the warehouse in Longbridge and the core account management team in our Covent Garden office, we will be able to optimise the way we do business with designers and production,” he said. “PRG Nocturne is completely committed to ensuring that we offer all our customers the innovative products, solid solutions, and convenient, timely response they need. We will expand our client base across markets as we apply our knowledge from years of touring to

elevate the video experience for other markets.”

Michels and O’Herlihy are ideal choices to help develop the UK operation’s expansion, having both originated from PRG Nocturnes US operation. “What’s great about PRG Nocturne is they invest in people,” said Michels. “We plan to keep working as a team to drive the industry and PRG Nocturne in the UK forward with new gear, new markets, and new people.”

Elsewhere, Clay Paky’s Sales and Marketing Director, Pio Nahum, has decided to give a new boost to promotion activities on the field and work with greater commitment to support end-users and distributors; as part of this drive, the company has appointed a new Head of International Sales, Alberico D’Amato. He will be responsible for coordinating all internal Area Sales Managers and external Regional Sales Representatives in their dealings with distributors and customers.

“I’m sure Alberico will inject new energy into our market activity,” said Nahum. “With his skills, personality and determination, he will lead our sales team with firmness and win our customers’ respect and trust.”

TPi www.tpimagazine.com/jobs

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VITAL STATS

VITAL STATS 161 PAUL BAUMAN Profession: Associate Director of Tour Sound, JBL Professional Date & place of birth: 31 July 1961, Ontario, Canada How did your career in sound begin?

With a passion for music and a fascination with the equipment that reproduces sound. I joined the University of Waterloo’s Audio Research Group (ARG) as a physics graduate; Dr. Stanley Lipshitz and Dr. John Vanderkooy were doing research into digital audio, recording techniques and loudspeaker design / measurement. They had one of the first portable digital recording systems in Canada, the Sony PCM-F1, and the only Calrec Soundfield microphone in North America. When The Dik Van Dykes, a band I worked with at Waterloo, started playing shows across Canada, I starting doing live sound for them and got bitten by the PA bug.

I worked as a Research Engineer at McMaster University and then for Maryland Sound International, where I worked on proprietary loudspeaker system designs. I went to L-Acoustics in the early days of V-Dosc to be responsible for product and preset development, training and documentation. After eight years at L-Acoustics, I moved to JBL Professional in 2006.

“I had a desire to push the technology further, to create the best sound reinforcement experience possible...”

You’ve worked for various loudspeaker manufacturers. What has kept you rooted in this sector?

First and foremost, it’s still a passion for music and live performance.

Why not earn a living doing something you enjoy doing? I had a desire to push the technology further, streamline the sound design process and refine modelling / control tools to create the best sound reinforcement experience possible.

JBL was founded in 1946 and has managed to maintain a consistently strong reputation for quality products both in the consumer and professional markets.

What has been the key to JBL’s success?

Transducer technology has traditionally been at the heart of JBL’s success, but nowadays we’re developing an integrated tour sound system solution.

JBL loudspeaker technology combined with Crown amplification and BSS Audio processing is a powerful combination. Version 5 presets, Crown VRack and JBL HiQnet Performance Manager are all examples of system-level developments that have taken Vertec to a higher level of performance, while laying the foundation for VTX. You often hold educational seminars and present training programmes. With your educational background, you’re clearly passionate about technological developments in pro audio, what kind of emphasis does JBL put on education?

We put a strong emphasis on training at JBL. Having founded the V-Dosc training program early on at L-Acoustics, when I left L-Acoustics 86

approximately 3,000 people had been through the training program.

Many training concepts and sound design techniques that have evolved over the past 16 years have been integrated into JBL HiQnet Performance Manager; the software workflow is specifically designed to steer people towards good working practices in order to get the best results.

You’ve been responsible for the development of the JBL Professional’s coveted VTX Series. With so many line arrays in the market place, what features differentiate the new VTX V20?

VTX V20 features the technology of the VTX V25 in a smaller format, high power density three-way system with a new suspension system. The key differentiating feature is a new, small-format version of the patented D2 Dual Diaphragm Dual Voice Coil High Frequency compression driver.

Two annular ring radiators with separate voice coils and magnetic motor structures provide twice the power handling, extended HF response and significantly reduced distortion above 10 kHz. Three small-format D2 drivers combined with four-inch Mid Frequency and 10-inch Differential Drive Low Frequency transducers comprise V20’s three-way system design.

What has been the greatest achievement in JBL’s loudspeaker product development to date?

If I had to pick one thing, it would probably have to be EON for its groundbreaking technology and the sheer number - more than one million and counting - EON loudspeakers sold since its introduction.

What live events can we hear the VTX Series live over the course of the summer?

VTX V25 is being used on many festival dates across Europe and America and is currently on tour with Linkin Park, Rascall Flatts, Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley and Jimmy Buffet to name a few. The first VTX V20 tour recently started up with Crosby, Stills and Nash following a successful field test run throughout February and March 2014.

L-ACOUSTICS WST® technology is now packaged in two enclosures perfectly arrayable into a constant curvature line source with no destructive interference typical of trapezoidal cabinets. Treat yourself to just one pair, first. And as your appetite for coverage grows, you can come back for seconds, thirds, or more, adding slice by slice, until you’re sound-full. Serve your audience the legendary L-ACOUSTICS sonic signature and rider friendliness. The icing: the price is tailored to medium-sized productions.

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18/03/2014 17:18:53