The launch of the cruise ship Tui Discovery at the beginning of June saw the start of a steady run of interesting projects.

As audio crew chief for Capital Sound, I flew out with the d&b king, Adam Dickson to Gibraltar with a team from All Access and STL Lighting, along with the Production management team, where we drove up the coast to the Navantia Docks in Cadiz.

Boarding the ship, we immediately set about loading the production kit via a 12 storey crane. This was all locked down on decks 10 and 11 and we set sail for Palma de Mallorca, via Gibraltar to pick up the talent.

We had 3 days to rig the system, a main left right on deck 10 with some outfills and delays, plus a ring of Y series cabinets on custom built clamps and poles on the deck 11 mezzanine.

Adam tuned the system to perfection and the performances leading up to the bottle smash ceremony, and the headline performance by Jess Glynne were sonically superb.

My first cruise, and hopefully not my last! A fantastic experience!

 

After a quiet start to 2016 for me, it was great to hear from Martin at Capital Sound, who asked me to Crew Chief the We R FSTVL event at the end of May.

I jumped at the chance, not having worked on this event before, and after a couple of prep days in the warehouse at SW19, we headed to site on a tour bus to set up on the main Stage, as well as Arena 1 & 2.

The usual traditional British bank holiday weather held off for us for the rig day and both show days, leaving us nice and dry with a full complement of Martin Audio MLA on all three stages providing the SPL demanded by the 25,000 crowd.

Headlined by Fatboy Slim and Steve Angello on Saturday and Sunday respectively, and each day providing 12 hours of ‘bangin’ tunes’ from a host of DJ’s including Mistajam, DJ Fresh, Son of 8, Sigma, Disciples and Armand Van Helden the event passed off without a hitch.

Thanks to Luke Dyson for some of the following pics.

Main Stage

View from downstage centre

Arena 1

Arena 2

Fatboy Slim

Setting up for Steve Angello

Stage Manager Kevin Thompson

Yours truly checking the decks…..

Steve Angello

For more pic, videos and info head to We R FSTVL

Huge thanks to Martin at Capital and to the crew on site, Joseph, Jake, Adam, Sam, Dan, Ben, Tom, Marek who all put in the hours to make sure all the acts were well catered for audio wise. And thanks to Simon, Kevin and all the on site production teams that made the event work so smoothly.

We look forward to 2017.

 

 

 

March 2016 saw me take on my first Production event in France for Texas based Kenneth Copeland Ministries along with Eagle Mountain International Church and the French hosts, L’Eglise La Bonne Nouvelle.

Having site visited a number of venues in January, we reconvened on the 29th February at the beautiful Boscolo Plaza Hotel to load in the audio, lighting, video and set.

With up to four prayer sessions per day, the whole event broadcast live via Livestream and to KCM’s own broadcast TV studio near Fort Worth, Texas, the event was beamed live via satellite to an audience of millions.

 

 

 

 

The first Centrepoint Awards took place on the 19th November 2015 at HSBC Private Bank in St James’s, hosted by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and it was a fantastic success for Centrepoint, raising important significant  funds to support the homeless and specifically homeless young people.

Speeches and introductions by Seyi Obakin, Jonathan Ross, Sara Cox, Lisa Maxwell, Evgeny Lebedev and a wonderful performance by Keesha Simpson supported by the Aaron Liddard jazz trio.

Thanks to Richard, Jon and the whole team from Centrepoint plus the suppliers and all the crew from Capital Sound, STL Lighting, KD Productions, Acre Jean for a very successful event.

Please click on the following link to read more about some of the young people supported by this fantastic charity.

Centrepoint Young People

 

 

13 Novembre 2015

 

Two event sites and thousands of Londoners mingling with endless celebs all raising money by willingly Sleep(ing) Out on one of the coldest nights of the year!

West India Quay, in the heart of the Canary Wharf business district, 500+ heavy duty 6 foot long paper bags and sheets of cardboard to sleep on on the dockside and an entertainment marquee featuring the Hootchie Toots, the Centrepoint Young Person Latricia, Nerina Pallot, a fantastic performance by Jodie Abacus and the legend that is Brandon Block rounding things off with a great DJ set.

The other event site, 93 Feet East, looked after for me by the fantastic Matt Gurney (Goodwood Festival of Speed, Pet Shop Boys, Warner Brits Aftershow 2016) featured Nerina Pallot and Jodie Abacus too, with other amazing performances by Dan Gillespie, White Room, DJ Roman Kemp, all rounded off by the superb Vangoffey.

Thanks to everyone involved, Richard, Jon, Anna and Lucy at Centrepoint, West India Quay, Luca and everyone at 93 Feet East and all the suppliers and crew from including Capital Sound, STL and KD Productions.

For more information please click on the following link

Centrepoint Sleep Out

 

A powerful emotional project to be involved in.

The 2 minute silence on Trafalgar Square in the heart of London for the Armistice Day commemorations is not to be missed. What can only be described as the most deafening silence at the stroke of 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, combined with great performances by The Overtones, Seth Lakeman, The London Community Gospel Choir, The Shires and the wonderful Danny McCrudden, a 91 year old WW2 Vet turned recording artist and performer made for a most memorable day!

Thank you to everyone involved in making this event such a special experience, the Royal British Legion of course, and the Greater London Authority team, SFM Security and the Heritage Wardens for looking after us on site, all of the volunteers raising money for a wonderful charity, the performers, all the production suppliers and every member of crew who work through the night to be ready so we arrive in the script perfectly on time to hear the moment Big Ben sounds 11am, and the one of the busiest traffic junctions in Central London falls utterly silent for two minutes.

The Royal British Legion

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the following for a spectacular night.

Hannah Walker at One Events, Tom Walsh at Hawthorn, Bonnie May and Katy Turner at Global Infusion Group, Jon Bell and Mark Sawyer at Delta Sound, Marc Webber at ER Productions, Matt Gurney for Stage Management, Nastassja Keenes at Options, Martin and Felix at Stage Miracles, Helen Lloyd at Table Art, Alistair Gregson at The Powerline and lastly David Marriott Photography Ltd for the pics.

 

The Electric Tour rolls on

Having covered for Thomas Stone, Pet Shop Boys’ Production Manager, back in December 2014 for their shows in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, I was delighted to be called up once again to cover their shows through June, July and August 2015, across Spain, Italy, Slovenia, UK and Scandinavia.

I just got back from three successful sold out shows at the Contempopranea Festival in Badajoz, Tres Sesenta Festival in Pamplona, and we played the opening night of the two months of the Festival Pedralbes in the beautiful surroundings of the gardens of the Palau Reial, Barcelona.

The festival in Badajoz was in a stunning location inside a 12th Century Arabic Fort.

An overnight load in meant bedtime in the hotel was at 5am, but with everything ready on stage, we returned to site at lunchtime to sound check and test everything was working since it was last out of the box in Durban back in December.

With DJ’s playing till 6:30am, we loaded out once they were done, and with the sun already up, we hit the sack on the bus to travel 8 hours to Pamplona.

Another Fort, this time 16th Century, in Pamplona, the Ciudadela, which provided the backdrop for the Tres Sesenta Festival Main Stage and another busy day for the crew.

Great show to a packed house and then we were off to Barcelona overnight to make a load in call of 10am.

The Palau Reial is the Royal Palace surrounded by beautiful gardens just of the Avenida Diagonal and every year they host two months of concerts through June and July and Pet Shop Boys were booked for opening night.

Following a speech by the festival owner to welcome everyone to the Festival, we cracked on with a fantastic show with a great response from the crowd. Rome and Ljubljana next.

I’ve been working with The Royal British Legion now for six years, managing the Production of the Poppy Appeal Launch and the Armistice Day events every year, and I was delighted to be approached to quote on the Conference for 2015 taking place at the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre on the 16^th and 17^th May 2015.

I invited Tom Walsh from Hawthorn Theatrical and Robin Conway from Capital Sound to come with me on the site visit and they quickly covered the ground and came up with a venue plan for the Theatre on the day itself.

An 18 metre long set wall containing a 20K rear projection high contrast black screen formed the main part of the set, with two 80” LCD screens stage left and right ensuring full coverage for all the delegates. A 6 metre long top table and main lectern was installed and dressed in the ‘Live On’ brand for 2015 for the Board of Trustees.

Capital supplied a crystal clear flown Meyer Mina rig, 8 per side, with a single Meyer 600HP per side for PA with five Mina as frontfill, controlled from a Digico SD9 with DPA table top mics. All foldback was entirely discrete with all the monitoring at tabletop level using Yamaha MSP 5’s.

Exhibition shell scheme stands supplied by H2 Events in Manchester covered both the Floral Hall and the Waterfront Suites allowing all the exhibitors best possible brand impact with the 650 delegates.

For Capital Sound, George Breaker at FOH with Steve Bunting covering Theatre stage plus Waterfront Suite breakout rooms, and Charlie Bryson at stage end in the Theatre made sure everyone heard every word of the Conference.

For Hawthorns, Tom Walsh and his team including Dave Laurence, Adam Henderson, Matt Heard, Peter Hume, Oli Moores, and Drew Lane covered the set build, video projection and lighting, and liaised with Ryan Wilkins for Powerpoint and Camera inputs to the screen.

Click to donate to The Royal British Legion here