Incorporating ten 5000 capacity green-field sites, the 21 concerts over 10 weekends feature four different formats of entertainment - a Queen / Abba tribute night, the Blues Brothers party, a Rat Pack tribute and a Glenn Miller Band. The shows are tailored to attract families and holiday-makers across the region.
Tour production manager John Radford is working with a team of up to 28 people and three 45 trailers of equipment plus a selection of site vehicles, landrovers, people carriers and cars. Other key personnel include Jono Rose (technical project manager/lighting designer) Jon Rimmer (site manager), Chris Vass (sound design), Brian Cleary (health & safety) and Robbie Burns (marketing).
Radford says: "Stage Electrics' ability to offer the complete event package - from the equipment to the licensing and health and safety makes the operation extremely streamlined, efficient to run and cost-effective."
He adds that the major challenge is dealing with 10 completely different sites - each with their own idiosyncrasies and different topographies - onto which the entire event infrastructure has to be built and installed from scratch - from the electricity to the toilets and everything in between.
"The key is good advanced planning," he says, which has been ongoing for the last 10 months, "plus good communications and co-ordination between us as the management team and all our partner companies in the project."
The stage is a 12 x 12 metre Slick Flatback tunnel stage, including two PA wings for a ground stacked audio system, roof, ramp, steps, decking at 1.5 metres high and a 6.5 metre high apex, giving plenty of headroom for lighting.
The design is flexible and dynamic to deal with four very different genres of musical entertainment. There's 16 Martin Professional MAC 500s and 600s, plus 48 PAR cans and six floor PARs, 30 lamp Birdie battens, 4-lite blinders, hazers and smoke. Dimming is Avolites ART 2000 racks all lighting is controlled by an Avolites Pearl console, run by operators Rob Woodley and Mike Rothwell.
Some sites also have an element of feature lighting - illuminating the trees and any naturally aesthetically pleasing backdrops that might be present.
Stage Electrics are supplying an EV X-Array line array system, complete with L-Acoustics monitors and a Yamaha PM2000 digital console at FOH which is also running the monitor mix. Amplification is Labgruppen. The flexibility of the PM2000 has proved invaluable for the tight turnarounds and the diversity of the different entertainment troupes. Lots of time and hassle is being saved each weekend with each show having its own settings. These are loaded into the console and need only tweaking, rather than starting from afresh at each gig. Sound is being operated by Paul Turner.
For generators and site wide power distribution, Stage Electrics is working with its Bristol-based neighbours Power Electrics, who are supplying two synched 200 KVA generator sets for the main production power. There's also additional 60 KVA units around the site for the bars, catering, concessions, site and security power, etc.
Power is fed into a series of Stage Electrics production mains distro units and then out to the various areas needing it.
On the health and safety and licensing front, Stage Electrics' own in-house Safety Services unit worked closely with Sygma Safety. They are also working with TS.com who are supplying the online and phone management systems for the ticketing. Safe & Sound from Trowbridge are supplying the security and stewarding, and Skyburst are providing the fireworks for each evening's finale.
(Chris Henry)
