For the third
consecutive year, leading UK technical production specialist Adlib Solutions
supplied an L-Acoustics K1 PA system for the popular Capital FM Summertime ball
event, staged at Wembley Stadium, London, which this year seriously upped the
ante with a truly stellar line up hosted by Justin Timberlake, and featuring Robbie
Williams, Taylor Swift, Lawson, Jessie J, Disclosure, Rudimental, Ellie
Goulding and more.
The K1 was tuned to
perfection by KSE & Systems Engineer Tony Szabo, who was joined by an Adlib
crew of 16 including Crew Chief Marc Peers, and Dave Kay who worked as RF Co-ordinator.
Ian Nelson operated
the presenter console, Michael Bernard Flaherty supervised the patch while
Adlib’s Project Manager Phil Stoker collaborated closely with the event’s
technical producers Production North, specifically their Sound Supervisor
Andrew \’Baggy\’ Robinson and Production Manager Sarah Hollis, on the logistics.
Time was
super-tight. The schedule followed the format of a large scale live TV show,
kicking off at 4 p.m. and running until 10.30 p.m. with an average between-band
changeover time of two minutes, and the shortest being a
blink-and-you-missed-it 30 seconds!
The front hangs
comprised 16 x L-Acoustics K1 speakers run in conjunction with side hangs of 15
x V-DOSC and an upstage hang of 6x Kudo. There were two delay hangs of 10 deep
K1s, with KARAs used for stage front fills.
16 x L-Acoustics
SB28 subs per side were stacked four high, arranged in cardioid mode and
end-fire configuration.
The system also
utilized numerous Adlib passive fill speakers to cover a plethora of
under-stage people lifts and backstage areas and to generally aid the cueing
process.
KARA fills were
also positioned at the rear of the FOH tower to cover the area behind the stage
above FOH position which was new for this year, together with two small stages
behind FOH and closer to the edge of the field-of-play.
The L-Acoustics
speakers were all powered by L-Acoustics LA8 amps running on an L2 Network
Manager. Labgruppen PLM 10k and 20ks were used to drive the monitor speakers
and various backstage fills.
Control and
processing was done using the trusted Lake LM44
and LM26 system running Dante protocol over fibre. The FOH LM 44s were set up
as an 8×8 matrix that received both AES and analogue backup from the consoles.
Everyone bar Robbie
Williams came through the presenter console, and all consoles were synced using
an Apogee Big Ben Master Word clock. The LM 26s at the stage end distributed
the signals to the various zones of the sound system.
The two rear stages
(left and right) had their own separate FOH position with its own RF and Digico
SD10 console … which was 430 milliseconds away from the main left and rig K1
hangs. The SD10 had an SD rack for all local inputs, and another SD rack at the
main FOH position was in its fibre loop.
This enabled all
signals to and from that stage to remain digital, and also supplied a broadcast
split for that console.
With these new
stages, the back of the stadium floor had to be well covered as what is often a
more sparsely populated area of the venue was a prime location for watching the
action on these additional stages. To achieve this, the focus of the K1 arrays
were carefully adjusted to move energy into these spaces.
For FOH \’house\’
consoles Adlib supplied two Avid Profiles run as an A/B line system, plus a
third one for the presenter desk. Robbie Williams\’ FOH engineer Nick Allen
brought in their own customised Avid Profile and Taylor Swift\’s engineer
brought in a DiGiCo SD7 to mix her performance.
The Shout system
was mixed via a Soundcraft Si Compact coupled with a Compact Stage Box at
FOH. The Shout system provided
communication to patch personnel and all consoles, including the two broadcast
trucks. Expanding the Si with the Compact Stage Box also facilitated the use of
this small console to back up the presenter console.
The challenges of
making it run smoothly and seamlessly on the day – a Thursday morning get in,
where everything had to be up and running 24 hours later for inspections,
followed by a Sunday show – lay in meticulous planning and advancing, Szabo
explained.
The first emails
were exchanged in January and soon after,
CAD files of the design and layout were drawn up and updated constantly
with Sarah Hollis, leaving nothing to chance!
While Szabo looked
after all the system related parts of the equation, Marc Peers took care of
co-ordinating and advancing everything at the stage end, including mic lists,
stage plots and show files. Peers\’ advancing ramped up much closer to the event
and became intense as most of the creative aspects and fine tuning were
finalized in the immediate run up to show day. With over 170 radio frequencies
to manage, the advance planning was critical. Dave Kay worked closely with
Sennheiser’s technical team Tim Sherratt and Mark Saunders to facilitate the
requests of every artist.
Phil Kielty, Adlib’s
Client Manager commented, “It is mind blowing to see all the logistics,
planning and stunningly quick changeovers for a show of this size . With Adlib and
Production North’s team in sync, it all came together seamlessly. We received
some amazing comments on how good our K1 rig sounded, which was nice to hear.
“The running joke
now is that Adlib get to Wembley Stadium more than Everton FC … and I’m sure
Steve Levitt will confirm this !!!” he quips.
http://www.adlibsolutions.co.uk
Photo captions :
2401 : ADLIB Summertime Ball Crew L – R . Kenny
Perrin , James Petch , Ben Booker , Dave Kay , Michael Bernard Flaherty , Tim
Sherratt (Sennheiser) John Fitzsimmons , Otto Kroymann , Rhys Roberts.
2384 : L- R . Adlib\’s crew chief Marc Peers
,talking to Production & Sound Supervisor Andrew \”Baggy\” Robinson
onstage pre-show at Wembley Stadium.
