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VE Celebrations a Success for System Sound
A near-capacity 15,000 crowd thronged Trafalgar Square for the recent A Party To Remember Live — a two-hour concert celebrating the 60th anniversary of VE Day.
Presented by Eamonn Holmes and Natasha Kaplinsky, the event saw appearances by Will Young, Katie Melua, Katherine Jenkins, Sir Cliff Richard, Dame Vera Lynn and more. With a strong presence by the Royal
British Legion, and the event televised live on BBC One, memories of victory in Europe 60 years ago were strongly rekindled.
But the contracted sound company, System Sound had their own challenges to face as they rigged a powerful Martin Audio line array system for the occasion.
Working for production company Mantaplan (with Martin Vanstone as site manager), System Sound director and event sound designer, Simon Biddulph, said that the Martin line array system was always in his mind when the classical event specialists — no strangers to working at Trafalgar Square — were awarded the contract.
However, the originally projected sound-field — designed to carry the concert down the Mall — was reduced to a barrier point between the Mall and Trafalgar Square, set at a distance of 110 metres from the stage.
“Fortunately this was set at low level, so there was no bounce-back,” reports Simon. “There was no scope for delays and I was initially concerned about fielding a straight Left/Right PA. But we rigged ten W8L’s per side, with a pair of W8LC’s at the bottom of the hangs for downfills — and the sound carried without difficulty.”
But there were other logistical problems to contend with. Since the ground slopes downwards System Sound had to put a greater splay angle than usual on the bumper bar.”
The PA was set up using the BSS Soundweb, which resided in a mixing position, oddly set at 5m in the air. “I controlled everything through Soundweb, which gave me easy remote access, and modified the rig,
putting a computer under the seating block.,” says Simon. “The sound had to be carefully directed to keep it away from as many buildings as possible.
Summarising the production, Simon Biddulph said: “Because of the wide sweep of the BBC’s Jimmy Jib (camera crane system) the rig had to be trimmed higher than we had hoped — but thanks to the downfills it worked tremendously well.
“Also, because there was a big band playing throughout I wanted to avoid lots of subs — and the Martin system really showed its capability as a full range system.
“Finally, the system went up and down in seconds — Shirley’s put us some great rigging points in, which made it simple.”
Simon praised his system technician, Chris Coxhead, backstage co-ordinator Pete McGlynn and the support given by Martin Audio’s senior project engineer, Jim Cousins — while the experienced FOH engineer Richard Sharratt ensured a consistent mix throughout, despite some turbulent winds, and Chris Vass looked after monitors.
19th May 2005
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