For Firehouse Productions, the annual iHeartCountry Festival in
Austin’s Frank Erwin Center was a great gig. Overall audio and communications
coordination for the one-day festival requires plenty of advance preparation
and on-site work, but the task is simplified because most of the 12 artists
performing use their own touring backline.
The festival lineup included some of the biggest names in
country music, including Shure endorsers Little Big Town, Dierks Bentley,
Rascal Flatts, and Kelsea Ballerini. The rest of the bill featured a mix of
familiar stars as well as up-and-comers. For Vinny Siniscal of Firehouse, the
show was an interesting barometer of the wireless preferences of touring
country bands.
“We’ve been helping out on the iHeartRadio concert series since
its inception, and one thing that was noticeable at this show is how dominant
Shure wireless has become,” notes Siniscal. “That’s always great news for us,
because for major live events and award shows, Shure UHF-R and PSM 1000 RF
models have never let us down.”
Siniscal’s role is coordinating wireless and communications for
the festival, working with on-site RF curator Luis Espinal and audio
coordinator Simon Welch of Firehouse to confirm and implement the frequency
coordination, and working directly with the bands to ensure all frequencies are
clear and properly tuned.
The festival uses a turntable stage to minimize delays between
acts, with one artist performing while the crew dresses the stage for the next
performance. All artists come in a day earlier to rehearse, enabling the crew
to get familiar with each artist’s stage setup.
According to Siniscal, the key to success is advance
preparation. “We contact all the bands to find out what everyone is bringing,
especially for wireless,” he says. “We also do an RF site survey in advance.
That allows us to do almost all the frequency coordination in the office. We
assign frequencies to all the bands and send them out in advance. That way, all
we have to do on site is to confirm that our frequency plan is solid, make any
needed adjustments, and make sure everyone is properly tuned up. With the
round-robin staging, we have limited time to get the next band ready. So in
some ways, the performance is actually the easy part once it’s all rehearsed.”
At this year’s iHeartCountry Festival, more than 85 percent of
the wireless microphone and in-ear systems in use were Shure. Siniscal also
reports that there were no RF failures or complaints throughout the day-long
show.
“Channel
counts for wireless were really high, because this is country music. Everything
is live. When you include production comms and IFB, including all the
iHeartRadio production for live streaming and capture, we had 420 wireless
channels in use that day,” he says. “Of those, roughly 190 were on the air
constantly throughout the production. Even in the best-of-conditions, that’s a
challenge. But with good advance work and lots of Shure wireless, everything
came off without a hitch.”
