Created, organised and managed by Get Live, a group formed by Clear Channel Entertainment, Four One Music and Set Up, the venue featured the combined work of designer Italo Rota, art director Roberto De Luca, executive producer David J. Goldberg, Italo Lupi, sound designer Daniele Tramontani and lighting designer Giovanni Pinna.
Before the medals ceremonies, the stage hosted the Torino Festival, featuring two bands each evening and three on the final night. The ceremonies were followed by shows by top Italian names such as Andrea Bocelli and Ennio Morricone and international headliners including Duran Duran, Jamiroquai, Anastacia, Whitney Houston, Avril Lavigne, Ricky Martin and Lou Reed.
Agorà of L'Aquila, contractors on the Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, was also called in to supply the large audio system for Piazza Castello and nearby Piazza San Carlo, linked with an AV fibre optics feed to enable the crowd to follow events on the main stage via a huge video screen, which showed RAI TV coverage of the games during the day.
For the tight schedule involved in the Torino Festival, Agorà used two of its Digidesign Venue mixing environments, entrusted to the capable hands of Gianmario Lussana (FOH) and Mimmo Lettini (monitors), both of whom were enthusiastic with the results.
Lettini, who also works as FOH engineer, was on his first outing with the Venue, but is no newcomer to digital consoles: in fact, one of his recent high profile mixing jobs was at the Rome concert for Live 8. Aside from the D-Show console, he had also spec'd a couple of heaters alongside the stage, as temperatures were regularly below zero. "In spite of having a very short induction at Agorà's HQ before going up to Turin, I really enjoyed working on the Venue - it's a very practical, functional system, and extremely intuitive. I made wide use of the snapshots, and the plug-ins is an aspect I'd like to go into in greater depth, as they're really useful and offer very wide possibilities."
Lettini prepared a standard mix based on the riders received from Tony Soddu (senior stage manager at the event, along with Diego Spagnoli) with the line-ups of the various bands. "We had 16 mono feeds and, apart from the vocalist with one of the bands who wanted IEM, only used wedges; the radio frequency range was very limited, so it was decided that it was better to use a more conventional set-up rather than risk RF problems."
Lussana on the other hand already had some experience with the Venue, as he's currently using it at FOH with Francesco DeGregori, one of Italy's best-known singer/songwriters. He explained: "I've worked with Francesco - both in studio and on tour - since 2000, and Agorà, who provided the audio set-up for a tour that began in April 2005, decided to upgrade from an analogue desk at the end of the 2005 summer leg. Venue greatly facilitates my work with DeGregori - there's more time between the winter dates, so being able to save all the settings and recall them when we go out on the road is a really valuable time-saver!"
Lussana really enjoys working with the Venue. "It's got a very nice sound, is very easy to use and I much prefer it to other digital consoles I've used. The very fact that it implements the whole Pro Tools aspect makes me feel a lot more secure when I'm working, as it's technology that I, and the majority of present-day engineers, are very familiar with."
(Lee Baldock)
