Lighting Operator, James Scott & Lighting Designer, Tim Routledge; Really Creative Media’s Nick Dew & Jack James;
Creative Technology’s Will Harkin; RG Jones Project Manager, Ben Milton; CT’s Alana Coyne and Graham Miller.GLASTONBURY
of the MLA system. On site to cover a selection of engineers was the DiGiCo
team to oversee a range of its consoles supplied by RG Jones including
SD12s, SD10s and an SD7 Quantum. All desks were spec’d by Project
Manager Ben Milton.
Another brand also getting its place FOH was Soundcraft, with
the Vi Series being used by FOH Sound Engineer Raphael Williams for
Stormzy’s headline set. To mix the show, Williams used a pair of Vi2000s
at FOH connected together in Mirror Mode, provided by his own company
Bethel Productions. In addition to the two consoles, he also carried two
Soundcraft Realtime Racks, augmenting the consoles’ world-class on-
board processing with the full suite of UAD-2 Plug-Ins.
“The Vi2000 is easy to use,” commented Williams. “As a generic sound
engineer you can walk straight up to it. The functionality is great, as are the
preamps, and sonically you don’t argue with it.”
Martin Audio’s unique MLA technology enabled fine control of how each
array covered its designated audience area. Acoustic cells housed within
each cabinet were independently controlled by their own amplifier and DSP
channel – a total of six in each MLA.
This control allowed RG Jones 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.
As Milton commented: “This amounted to just a 3dB drop off over the
200m-long audience area, with incredibly even frequency response.”
The results overall were stunning, and for headliners The Killers, in
particular, it was a resounding triumph. The Killers FOH Engineer, Kenny
Kaiser had nothing but praise.
“I’ve been touring with MLA for the past five years, but I’ve not had much
experience with it outdoors and I was a little scared,” he began. “But this
system was phenomenal, ever ything was there, and MLA still has a ver ylong lifespan in my opinion.” For The Killers, it was a resounding triumph,
putting to rest their previous headline set in 2007 that was marred by sound
problems and ultimately led to RG Jones and Martin Audio being installed
as the audio providers for the Pyramid stage ever since.
Providing stage infrastructure for the Pyramid was Serious Stages. With
a histor y spanning over 35 years, this year Serious brought the Pyramid’s
iconic steel frame to life once again, providing all of the stage decking and
loading bays, broadcast camera runs, VIP viewing platforms – all flanked
by giant PA and screen steel truss goalposts. In front of the stage were
broadcast camera platforms, eight PA delay towers, two front of house
structures, two spot pods, and an assisted viewing platform (AVP).
The Next Stage were pleased to work closely with Stephen Reeve
of Pull the Pin Out and Show Designer Rob Sinclair to manufacture and
supply the stage set for the Kylie Minogue’s long-awaited Glastonbur y
performance as part of the legends slot on the Pyramid Stage.
Called on for the first time to provide crew for the Pyramid Stage
was Showforce. The company was awarded the contract by the stage’s
Production Manager, Emma Reynolds, who has worked with the Showforce
team on several events in recent years. Showforce’s in-house operations
team made certain that they had the correct personnel in place at ever y
stage of the project and ever ything was planned to a tee, from allocating
crew to appropriate roles based on their expertise, to ensuring they were
correctly accredited prior to arriving onsite. Showforce’s Operations
Manager, Laurence Jones, was on site for the duration of the project,
liaising with the client and crew chief, managing the crew and generally
making certain that ever ything ran smoothly.
Onsite from 24 June, Showforce’s initial presence included two teams
of crew, each headed up by a highly experienced crew chief and assisted by
forklift drivers to support the install of lighting, sound and video equipment