The venue is the brainchild of Big Chill Festival promoters, Pete Lawrence and Katrina Larkin, who merged with the Cantaloupe Group at the end of 2002. First they converted The Peacock in Brick Lane to the Big Chill Bar before raising the stakes with the £1.2m development of three original town houses (which had variously operated as The Crossbar, The Bell and Sahara Nights) into the 550-capacity Big Chill House.
Marquee Audio installation manager, Scott Wakelin, who has overseen all three sound installation projects for Cantaloupe/Big Chill, says: "The GB4 was easily the most suitable console for the market area the Big Chill House operates in. It is hugely cost-effective, compact, packed with features, easy to operate and funky to look at. It is the clear market leader in this sector."
Wakelin's praise for the desk is echoed by the Cantaloupe Group's production manager Matt Smith, who picked up on the desk's solid construction and space saving attributes, since the mixing booth is which he spends much of his time, and it is severely constrained.
"Fortunately Soundcraft know the difference between an installation and a concert touring desk," he said. "This has been very well designed for a cramped environment such as this. The insert points are readily accessible and the internal PSU's are a major space saving attribute." He says that Soundcraft has long been his desk manufacturer of choice. "I love their desks and as a freelance sound engineer I will always specify MH3's or MH4's on shows I produce."
The GB4, which shares the same dual-mode design as the MH3 and MH4 desks (allowing them to generate either a FOH or monitor mix), was part of a complete audio infrastructure carried out at Kings Cross by Marquee Audio, where all the signals are routed via BSS Soundweb London devices.
On stage they have made provision for 24 mic inputs with hardwired eight returns, and have wired four tie-lines to the stage box, two tie-lines to the ground floor DJ and two to the VJ station.
(Chris Henry)
