37th FIPP Congress : Old Billingsgate
FIPP World Magazine Congress is the largest and most high profile magazine event in the world and I was contracted by Whitespace Productions to design and manage the installation of all the sound systems used for this two day congress.
The venue for this event was Old Billingsgate fish market building in heart of the city of London. This unique space is highly reverberant and the main auditorium required a sound system which could deliver high quality speech and music playback without sound spillage into the surrounding meeting and exposition areas.
I had attended a demonstration of the new D&B T10 loudspeaker system and decided that it would be ideally suited to this design brief. The system was configured as two main left right line arrays with additional small delay hangs running down the length of the room on a central truss.
This was my first time using this system which produced an incredibly smooth warm sound throughout the audience area while its small size and low weight allowed me to position the arrays in locations which wouldn’t be possible with a larger system. Mixing the show on a Digico D1 at front of house was Paul Stannering ably assisted by Alison Dale who fitted the main presenters with their radio microphones.
In addition to the main conference auditorium I also designed a system for the expo area which utilized D&B Q arrays for the left right system with Q10 loudspeakers used for delays. This system provided sound for a large screen relay of the main presentation and also handled all the music elements of the Tuesday night entertainment including a live band.
Two further system were also needed for the breakout rooms and these were a mixture of more D&B T10’s this time in point source mode and the smaller D&B E3 loudspeakers. All the sound equipment was supplied by Dobson Sound Productions Ltd.
Tools of the trade
While my main work is based on my own skills and experience I have recently invested in a few select bits of useful audio kit and tools of the trade which make my life easier and give my clients a better end result.
While I don’t want to end up running an equipment hire business if you have a use for any of the following gear please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
DJ Rig – Based around the Pioneer DJM800 mixer this system is fully flightcased and comprises of 2x CDJ1000 Mk3 CD players, 2x Technics 1210 Mk2 turntables fitted with either shure white label or stanton trackmaster cartridges. I can also supply two spacetek stands for the CDJ’s which make this a very tidy set-up indeed.
Yamaha LS9 Digital desk – With 16 on board input channels and all the processing you can shake a stick at this little desk is a real workhorse. I have used the LS9 for a wide variety of different applications which range from front of house at award shows at the Grosvenor though to controlling the “shout” communications system on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury. By expanding the desk using an additional 16 channels of outboard pre-amps this little desk proves again and again to be a very versatile bit of kit.
Drive Rack – Comprising of a Carlion rack mount PC a Bss 9088mkii soundweb & a Gemview touch screen this rack can be deployed in a variety of different guises depending on the application. The PC is fitted with a RME Madi card which allows multichannel interfacing with digital desks. Software loaded onto this machine include Reaper multitack recording, Adobe addition for audio editing, Yamaha studio manager for remote control of Yamaha digital desks including my LS9, SCS show control and playback software & Bss soundweb designer for control of the 8 in/8 out soundweb DSP unit.
Glastonbury
Looking back at the summer of 2007 one thing sticks in my mind and on my boots mud !
I started last years festival season of with my first visit to Glastonbury where I headed up the stage team for RG Jones on the Pyramid stage.
Having seen the festival coverage on the television in the past I was aware of the hype that surrounds this festival but nothing had prepared me for the shear scale of it all. It really is immense!
We had two days of glorious sunshine for the get in then sure enough as the first punters arrived so did the rain but with true Glastonbury sprit the show carried on regardless with blinding set’s from the Artic Monkeys, Kasabian, Kaiser chiefs and my favorites the Marley brothers for whom the sun shone from the moment they took the stage.
From a technicial point of view all the stage change-over and line checks went with–out a hitch with lots of positive comments from bands,engineers and broadcasters alike.
RG Jones have just been confirmed for this years Glasto and I will be handling the pre-production as well as being on stage again .
I’m off to millets to buy some new wellies so bring it on !
3GSM World Congress & Awards 2007
Held in Barcelona this event attracts over 60,000 visitors and for the second year running I was responsible for the sound design and audio production in all the conference venues and at the gala awards event. Click here for a full case study of the awards event
For more pictures click here
Archive
37th FIPP Congress : Old Billingsgate - 277 days ago
Tools of the trade - 318 days ago
Glastonbury - 629 days ago
3GSM World Congress & Awards 2007 - 1090 days ago
