The 35 minute show was hosted by Jo Guest, Mark Parmeter and Olivia Springer, featured live sounds from up-and-coming Fuel Records DJs The Law Givers and the best of UK stunt driving from the likes of Terry Grant, Russ and Paul Swift and Jason Finn. The show was attended by 17,500 people a day, and directed and produced by Simon Aldridge for PMI Partnership.
It's the fifth year Beat Audio has supplied sound for the event. The intense Cruise Strip live show ran seven times a day for two days, and was choreographed to a techno soundtrack. The main challenge was getting both music and the presenter's voices audible above the stupendously loud background noise of the turbo-charged cars.
Kelly used two clusters of four Resolution speakers, two wide and two high, 30m apart on the lighting truss. The speakers were precisely angled to reduce the sound image bouncing off the walls. This gave uniform coverage across the whole area and Kelly was delighted with the results. The company supplied four Shure UHF radio mic systems - subbed from Skan PA and hid six 2 x 18" Function One subs below the grandstand to produce a sinister bottom end growl that shook the whole structure! At various points in the show Kelly sought to reproduce the same feeling, effect and SPLs achieved by car ICE-heads (in-car audiophiles), who compete to produce the loudest in-car sound systems.
Kelly mixed using a Soundcraft K3 FOH desk, and the whole system was processed using DBX compressors, Funktion One's proprietary control system and driven by QSC Powerlite amps. Lighting was designed by Steve Sinclair and directed by Peter Barnes, with equipment supplied by LSD Fourth Phase.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
