The event featured plenty of award action plus live performances from six acts including Dirty Pretty Things, Pete Doherty; Razorlight; The Sugababes; Plan B and Ian Brown.
Fleetwood recorded the show 'as live' and it was broadcast 90 minutes later to E4 viewers and re-broadcast n Channel 4 the following day. The audio team was led by Fleetwood's operations director Tim Summerhayes and Dave O'Carroll looked after any musical fixes and the Audio Dub. The OB Scanner for the event was supplied by Andrew Jones of 021, while Tony Gregory directed the show for Remedy.
Emma Sheldon, production manager for Remedy Productions, which commissioned Fleetwood, says: "This was the biggest Awards show NME had ever hosted, so there was even more pressure than usual to contend with. A lot of pre-planning was done during rehearsals and sound checks to make sure everything ran smoothly. The show has such a quick turnaround that you have to get things right first time around; there is very little time at the end to fix anything."
Sheldon adds that she chose Fleetwood for the project on the basis of good experiences in the past. "We've worked together on many occasions and I have always been happy with the results," she says. "Ian Dyckhoff is brilliant at organising everything so that there are no nasty surprised on the night, while Tim is one of the industry's most respected live sound engineers and a pleasure to work with because he's so calm and unflustered.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
