More familiar with the essentially chilled out relaxed Spanish audiences, the organisers of FIB were not prepared for the huge influx of UK music fans or their resolute desire to be at the front of the crowd. This nearly had a devastating outcome. On the first night, 25 minutes into the Pixies' set, the front barrier that separates the stage and the audience gave way. The traumatised Pixies left the stage. Thankfully, no one was hurt and 20 minutes later organisers Sold out Productions had rectified the situation and the band played the remainder of its set.
Sold Out production manager, Joseti Rosillo, comments: "The most important thing for us is that our staff reacted quickly. New barriers had to be constructed and the crowd controlled. It's a much bigger festival this year, the crowd is more international and we did not expect this rush to the stage, it has never happened before."
Over four steamy, hot nights, every type of contemporary music from electronica to rock, plus alternative theatre, fashion shows and films feature at the newly and specifically constructed site just outside the town of Benicassim. For those providing lighting, sound, AV and production services to 120 acts and an all-night party, this is a challenging event with a decidedly Spanish schedule: bands play throughout the night. Few play before 9pm, with the headliner on at midnight and the last main stage act starting around 4.30am. The club tents bang through past 6am. This has to be one of the wildest festivals of the year.
Two main PA hire companies service the festival; Madrid-based Fluge Productions on the main Escenario Verde stage and LSL Madrid (Logistica de Sonido y Luces) on the slightly smaller Escenario Electronico stage. Both companies provide a Meyer PA/DiGiCo console combination. Two further club tents also feature smaller Meyer systems.
At the main stage, there's a Meyer M3D line array - 16 cabinets per side with 26 700-HP high-power subwoofers spanning the floor in front of the stage. In addition, two delay towers of eight M3Ds each are positioned about 100m from the stage. Two DiGiCo D5 live consoles take care of FOH, with two Yamaha PM5Ds on monitors.At Escenario Electronico, FOH is taken care of by two DiGiCo D1 Live desks with two further D1s on monitors. PA is a hang of 10 Meyer Milo cabinets left and right, with 16 HP-700 subs across the front. Front-fill is provided by Meyer UPAs and stage monitor cabinets are UMIs.
At all stages, visiting engineers were treated to a multi-lingual, or at the very least enthusiastic team of system engineers and FOH babysitters! Meyer Spain, being sole distributor for Meyer sound systems and DiGiCo consoles in Spain, also had a team of experienced engineers on hand. In charge was Fernando Delgado, head of technical support for DiGiCo.
He says: "We have taken care of the logistics in supplying enough Meyer cabinets and DiGiCo consoles to FIB.I assist the band FOH engineers to set up and programme their shows. Feedback so far has been very positive, FIB has been entirely digital for around five years - all the engineers are aware of this well in advance. Many have expressed their respect for the support provided by in-house engineers."
FOH on the Verde stage, engineer for the Rakes, Paul Hussey, had neither played FIB before nor used a DiGiCo console, although he had used plenty of other digital platforms. He says of the D5 Live: "I really like it. Digital desks
