BANGOR, North Wales, U.K. – The temperatures soared to sizzling for the BBC's One Big Weekend in Vaynol Park, kicking off the 2010 Festival season in the U.K., with Adlib supplying sound for five areas of the festival and lighting for two.
"It's always a great pleasure to be involved in this event, which has its own unique vibe," noted Adlib account handler Phil Kielty. "One minute you can see an act play an unplugged set in the Live Lounge, an hour later you can see them headline the main stage – it really is a very special event."
The Adlib crew of 14 was chiefed by Richy Nicholson, who also worked on the In New Music We Trust stage, the second largest of the event, headlined by Faithless on Saturday and Vampire Weekend on Sunday.
In New Music We Trust
The system was a JBL VerTec, chosen for its light weight – it was flown off a ground support system – and dynamic range of music which featured up to nine international artists per day.
They flew six VT4889 boxes a side – as many as possible with the height of the ground support, and also supplied a left and right stack of 3 dV-DOSC infills per side plus six VerTec 4880A subs, ground stacked per side.
The FOH console was a Midas H3000 – an analog console familiar to most of the guest engineers turning up to mix their bands.
With this was a standard Adlib outboard rack which included three SPX Yamaha 2000s, a TC M2000, Lexicon PCM 91 digital reverb and a TC D2 delay, together with a mix of Drawmer gates and BSS and dbx compressors.
Faithless brought in their own FOH console, and for Vampire Weekend, Adlib supplied a Soundcraft Vi6 spec'd by their engineer.
Camco Vortex 6 amps drove the VerTec 4889s with Lab.gruppen PLM14000s for the subs and L-Acoustics LA8s with inbuilt processing for the infills.
The system was zoned, EQ'd and delayed from a FOH rack of Dolby Lake Processors, looked after by Chris Leckie.
Onstage, another Midas H3000 was used for monitors, with an identical outboard/FX rack to FOH, plus XTA graphics, gates, comps and a couple of reverbs.
The PLM10000 amps (with inbuilt Dolby Lake processing) drove a total of 16 Adlib low profile MP3 wedges, two stacks of L-Acoustics ARC and SB28s were used for sidefills and two dV-SUBS were used for drum fills.
The half-hour changeovers ensured that each day ran smoothly and to time (and even gave patch/mics guru Simon Lawson enough time to make tea.) Mics included Sennheisers, Shures, AKGs and Shure radio mics for the compares, plus a set of six Sennheiser G3 in-ears for selected acts. Sennheiser also had on-site technical support and extra equipment available to ensure the whole event went without a hitch.
At the end of each band, the physical graphics were left flat and the main system EQ was already set up, giving a good starting point to all the visiting engineers, who only had to set their own graphics on the desks.
BBC Introducing Stage
Showcasing upcoming talent, this stage was overseen by Chris Smethurst.
The crew ran a standard Nexo Alpha system including four M3 mid-highs per side, two B1 bass cabinets and two SB2 subs, all ground stacked, and running off Camco & Crown amps.
The combined FOH/monitor desk was a Yamaha M7CL on which the onboard processing was used. Kenny Christiansen oversaw the stage and patch.
The wedges included eight MP3 wedges and Adlib's own drum fill cabinet.
Live Lounge
Adlib also supplied both PA and lighting for this area, including an Adlib speaker system with two FD2 hi packs and four Adlib DF315 Subs, complete with a Yamaha LS9-32 channel console, eight wedges, Denon Mini Disc and Twin CD players and all necessary mics and stands.
The lighting system was controlled by another Avolites Pearl Expert operated by Charlie Rushton, and featured 12 JTE LED PixelPAR 90s on T-Bar stands which were perfect for the small stage with almost no heat emissions, and 6 Selecon 650W Fresnels.
5.19 BUS & Artists Garden
This area featured another Adlib FD system, a Yamaha LS9-32 channel digital console, Denon playback, six wedges and FD amps. Finally, they also catered for the tent in the Artist Garden with discreet Adlib 122 speakers on stands, a 16 channel Allen & Heath Mix Wizard, Yamaha Rev 500 Multi FX and DJ Equipment plus staging risers.
For more information, please visit www.adlibsolutions.co.uk.
