The Culture Company was responsible for staging the event, co-ordinating and designing the complete technical infrastructure, booking and liaising with all artists and scheduling nearly 100 performances across five stages over the period.
Liverpool Culture Company's team was divided into three areas - Operations managed by Susan Lees, Site and Traffic Management managed by Alastair Stott and Production/Artist Liaison managed by Kirstie Blakeman. While Blakeman oversaw all production and artist liaison, senior stage manager Phil Murphy ran a team of six people ensuring everything kept to schedule and Neil Marcus from Red Man Events was brought in as production manager, overseeing a team of 15.
All 5 stages were supplied by SRC. The main stage measured 12.6 metres wide by 13.6 m deep, with a 2 metre thrust on the front. Because of the building work currently being undertaken on the Pier Head site, there was less available space than in previous years. Also because they had to vacate the site quickly at the end to minimise any hold up to the building work, the main stage this year was an Alpha Stage mobile truck. The 10 metre high PA towers were supplied by Upstaging from Nottingham.
The usual manic Sunday overnight get-in to build the downtown stages and rig the PAs in time for the morning was eased this year. Both Derby Square and The Strand stages were built on paved areas, so stages and audio could be rigged on the Sunday, leaving only Dale Street to be built overnight for the Monday.
Locally based ADLIB Audio supplied sound for all five stages. They are also the RLPO's preferred supplier. The main stage was run by Tony Szabo and featured a JBL VerTec 4889 line array system 12 elements a side, complete with eight VerTec subs a side and Adlib FD speakers for front fills. FOH was driven by Lake processors and a Midas H3000 console resided at both ends of the mulitcore, together with a selection of standard outboard effects. Several bands brought their own engineers and Szabo mixed those who didn't.
Onstage, Rob Coles ran monitor world - consisting of an Adlib MP3 system, while Marc Peers looked after the stage. For the orchestral performance, Adlib moved the monitor desk to the FOH position to provide sufficient inputs, and also supplied plenty of specialist DPA and Schoeps orchestral mics.
The second stage was run by James Neale, Kenny Perrin and Tristan Bryant with another JBL VerTec system - five elements per side, complete with three Adlib DF subs a side, all powered by Camco amps with Crowns on the subs. ADLIB supplied two Midas XL 3 consoles (FOH & Monitors) and an MP3 monitor system. They also rose to the challenge of mixing FOH from the side of the stage inside a 3.5 tonne truck. This was due to space restrictions in the front of stage area.
For the city centre stages Adlib supplied three Nexo Alpha systems, complete with Soundcraft and Yamaha FOH and monitor consoles. The Derby Square system was flown.
The FOH mixing positions on the City stages were also all positioned at side-stage - to aid a quick breakdown after the conclusion of the event, allowing roads to be re-opened as soon as possible, ensuring the City's traffic stayed moving.
Site-wide power was supplied by Buffalo. A synched pair of 300KVA sets ran the main stage and a single 100 KVA set powered Stages two and three. Stages four and five each had a 63A single phase supply to power sound and backline as none of them had any lighting.
Dotted around the site were approximately 14 ot
