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Audiotech and The Lighthouse Flies High with Virgin Vie

Lighting and sound design specialists Audiotech and The Lighthouse supplied sound and lighting design, equipment and crew to Manchester-based production company With, for the annual Virgin Vie sales conference, staged at the NEC, Birmingham.

The high energy one day event – ‘The Big One’ - saw 5,200 Virgin Vie Cosmetics & Jewellery consultants and managers gather in the NEC’s main arena for the fast moving conference that featured numerous theatrical moments, dance sequences, motivational speakers, presentation of the upcoming season’s new cosmetic and jewellery products and live performance by a Robbie Williams look-alike to launch the new range of Rock Star cosmetics. It also included the highly popular ‘car draw’ for the top performing consultants, ‘recognitions’ for those achieving outstanding sales, the awarding of luxury incentive holiday packages and the encouragement of “guilt free indulgence”.

Lighting was designed by Phil Wiffen from The Lighthouse – the visual side of the company. He was given a completely free creative rein for the design. His brief was to produce an up-tempo show suggestive of the themes of opulence, glamour and the kind of lifestyle that successful Vie consultants might strive to achieve.

The Rock Star collection in particular is aimed at a younger audience, so the production, design and operational elements all had to reflect this as well as having continuity with the various PowerPoint presentations happening onstage.

The show was produced by Sam Pole and Jenny Hazelhurst, with set design by Tim Wilding. Wiffen designed a U-shaped truss overhead at the front and two gently angled mini-beam trusses at the back that formed a subtle ‘V’ over the stage. There was also a practical truss that flew in for the Robbie Williams piece, rigged with four Martin MAC 500s.

The rest of the lighting was primarily scenic. Wiffen also had to ensure that the lectern speakers were appropriately lit for camera, as there was a live camera mix and PPU happening throughout.

Fixtures included 12 MAC 2ks, 18 MAC 500s and 18 MAC 600s plus 14 MAC 300s primarily positioned within the set, plus a row of six on the bottom rail of the upstage trusses tightly focussed to pick out the tops of the set columns.

The generics consisted of eight bars of four PARs on the front truss for a two-colour cross-stage wash, 12 2k Fresnels for a centre stage wash, 12 1.2 kW Fresnels and 12 profiles, mainly used for lectern lighting. The middle panel of the stage was Perspex and was underlit with 1k and 500W cyc units.

“I designed a system that was colourful and versatile,” explains Wiffen, who said the biggest challenge was – as is often the case - the tight timing. They got in on the Thursday and were ready for rehearsals on Friday afternoon, so it was a short rehearsal slot for such a busy show. This was followed by several hours of programming on the Friday night.

Lighting was run by Max Conwell using a Hog 1000 console.

Audiotech and the Lighthouse have been working together as a team for about five years. The sound side of the Barnsley-based business is run by Des Ward, who was also mixing sound for ‘The Big One’.

It needed to be a relatively raucous sound level throughout for the spirited 98 per cent female audience. Audiotech owns substantial amounts of d&b, so this was the system they used. The main house sound was a mix of the new d&b Q1 line array system – three elements in a centre cluster - and two drops of sixteen d&b C4s each side. The subs were d&b B2s. They used Q7s and Qsubs for downfills each side, and the whole system was powered by d&b D12 amplifiers.

The key was to obtain a nice even room fill – not an easy task in the echo-ey barn like environs of the NEC Arena! The system also had to sound equally as good for voice and speech as it did for music – a wide range from R ‘n’ B to rock ‘n’ roll - so there were plenty of dynamics to encompass with the one system. “The d&b works wonderfully for this type of event,” said Ward. “It’s smooth and rich when you want it to be and also raw, edgy and kicks ass when needed.”

System control (EQ, crossovers, compression etc) was all done utilising a Yamaha DME64 digital signal processor. This made a very compact FOH set up along with the Sony R100 digital mixing desk. For playback they ran a combination of Steinberg Wavelab on a laptop and various CDs. For stage foldback, the low profile d&b E9s were in action, and d&b E3s were used for the show relays. The lectern mics were AT 935s, and they ran 12 channels of Shure radios for the various other presenters and performers.

The adjacent Forum was used as a pre-show meeting and warm up point, featuring a DJ to get everyone in the mood. In here Audiotech supplied a C4 system, complete with Pioneer DJ mixer and dex. The system was mixed by Pete Turner using a Yamaha 02R console. The Lighthouse lit the area with Robe Colorspot 1200 ATs run by Derek Jones using an Avolites Pearl.

Phil Wiffin comments: “Virgin Vie in collaboration with With have always left us the space to create something a little different. We always look forward to the launch and the challenge of delivering a show with the level of expertise and creativity expected by Virgin Vie.”

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Audiotech and The Lighthouse Flies High with Virgin Vie

15th September 2005

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