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Sennheiser Leads the Way at the Brit Awards 2008
Sennheiser microphones, in-ear monitoring and personnel were at the heart of the production at this year’s Brit Awards; the sixth year in a row they’ve been present. Having been invited to support the event by The Brit Awards’ sound designer Derrick Zieba, many performers and award-winners chose Sennheiser as they worked their magic in front of the sell out crowd at Earls Court and an audience of millions on ITV.
Kylie Minogue sang with a silver customised SKM 5200 mic and used ew 300 G2 in-ear monitoring. She wasn’t alone. All the IEMs used on the entire show were ew 300 G2s, and aside from Kylie, they were crucial to the performances of Leona Lewis, Mark Ronson and the Kaiser Chiefs.
Not to be outdone X Factor winner Leona Lewis (pictured) had her SKM 5200 customised in black, while Ronson used a number of SKM 935 radio mics and Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs used an e840 for his lead vocals. Amy Winehouse was also spotted using an e935 wired mic.
Not all Sennheiser users performed on the night. Some were merely content to pick up Brit Awards, including Take That, The Foo Fighters and Arctic Monkeys.
One of the men in charge of ensuring all the radio mics ran smoothly was Josh Lloyd, RF specialist for the hire company on the night, the aptly named Brit Row, ably aided by seven Sennheiser NET 1 multi-channel wireless hub systems.
“This year we decided to coordinate and run all the RF from one area at the Brit Awards,” explains Lloyd. “The use of the seven NET 1s was invaluable as it allowed us to leave the in ear systems in the monitor areas and still be able to have full control of their parameters. The units allowed us to quickly tune and make changes to the 70 units of Sennheiser equipment they were controlling, whilst co-ordinating over 100 frequencies. This equated to a huge amount of time saved where previously we would be tuning in duplicate in-ear packs, or making changes to handhelds.
“Whilst the show ran we were able to monitor all the RF and also the particular units in use at any one time via the use of the scene facility. The NET 1 software could be viewed either on our show computer or via a wireless tablet or laptop. Thanks to that we had the ability to walk test and monitor the RF levels on a piece of equipment – something previously not possible.
“The network worked flawlessly throughout the show. A huge thanks to Mark Saunders and Andrew Lillywhite from Sennheiser for all their support. The combination of Sennheiser’s fantastic RF equipment and this new unit is something that’s always first choice for these events and out on tour.”
Becky Pell, monitor engineer for both Kylie Minogue and Leona Lewis on the night, was delighted with the end results.
"I used Sennheiser mics and in-ear monitoring for both Kylie and Leona,” she confirms. “So it was great to have Sennheiser working alongside the sound hire company team at the Brits looking after the radio systems. Their equipment and support has always been fantastic and everything ran as smoothly as I have come to expect from Sennheiser!"
13th March 2008
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