AMG’s Global Gathering

Since its inception in 2001, Global Gathering’s annual rave-athon has arguably grown to become the UK’s biggest dance event. With a worldwide festival brand behind it, attracting around a quarter of a million fans each year, it’s a seminal force in its relative music sector.
Whether it’s big commercial crowd-pullers like David Guetta, Fedde Le Grand and Paul Van Dyke, or refined underground acts such as Tiga, Sasha and Richie Hawtin, Global Gathering is a magnet for the top titles in trance, techno, house, drum’n’bass and hard dance.

    Aside from the obligatory fairground rides and retail stalls, the entertainment at the Long Marston Airfield site in Stratford-Upon-Avon is highly centralised to the eight stages. The youthful crowd, in their various social tribes, are not there for a casual wonder about, but are more often seen storming from arena to arena, with a pre-planned line-up in their sights and high expectations on the sleeve.

    Such discerning dance lovers place great pressure on the festival’s organisers and production team to deliver optimum sound quality, unrivalled visual spectacles and an overall bloomin’ good show.

    This year’s event on July 24-25 saw 55,000 people enjoying the music across the main stage, five indoor arenas (Global Gathering, Godskitchen, Spectum/Polysexual vs HTID,
M_Nus Floor/Bedrock, Toolroom Knights/Random Concept) and two outdoor terraces (Fantazia and Tuborg live stage).

    VIPs were treated to a special area with its own small arena, bars and outdoor jacuzzis, which were relished during the sun-blessed weekend. They also had access to a new viewing area at front left of the main stage, which was sectioned off from the rest of the masses via a barrier. Hoards gathered here for the hair-raising Friday night performance from The Prodigy and Saturday’s highlight, Orbital.

    Whilst budgets were unsurprisingly tight this year in the face of the recession, the production team overcame this challenge to produce an innovative event that was a first on several fronts; namely for the UK debut of Godskitchen’s spectacular visual structure Boombox, the main stage adopting SSE’s newly-acquired L-Acoustics K1 sound system, and one of the first outings for the Martin Professional LC2140 Plus LED panels.

    All these components came together via the teamwork of the festival’s core personalities — production manager Neil McDonald (Clockwork Production Ltd), event manager Dave McCalmont (AMG), Star Events Group’s Pete Holdich, Electric Fly Productions’ Nick Jevons and Philip Winward, and Miles Hillyard of SSE Audio Group — who began planning in December 2008.

    McDonald, who took up his role as production manager for the second year running, said: “We brought in several new production contractors in 2008 and continued with them this year. We never get everything completely right, so every year is a process of review and improvement. There are no new stages this year, but there are some new designs and video products.”

    The main production suppliers for this year’s event were SSE Audio, Electric Fly Productions, HSL, XL Video, Star Events Group, Artist Needs, G4S Events and STS Touring.

GODSKITCHEN BOOMBOX
Taking visual stage technology to new heights, and the subject of much media hype, was the Godskitchen Boombox, a colossal rectangular cube structure that has a central DJ window, dance podiums left and right, and is clad with white projection material that displays visuals in time to the music.

    Headliners Armin Van Buuren and David Guetta played from the Boombox to the 15,000 people in the Godskitchen arena, which ran over both nights for the first time after 46% of festival-goers said this was their favourite arena.

    Global Gathering was the Boombox’s UK debut, halfway through its worldwide Godskitchen tour, after organiser, AMG’s James Algate, secured a two-year contract with its creator, French creative-label company 1024.

    Some of you may recognise the concept from French DJ/producer Etienne de Crécy’s Square Cube structure that he toured with in 2008. Its creators, François Wunschel and Pier Schneider, have developed the idea further specifically for Global Gathering festivals.

    The Boombox is causing such a stir in the event industry that more shows are continually being added. Algate explained: “This year for Godskitchen, which we tour around the world, we wanted to have a concept that would really set ourselves apart from other club nights, events or arena shows.”

    Schneider and Wunschel are founders of Parisian based design collective Exyzt, which pioneers art and cultural design installations across Europe. An off-shoot of Exyzt, 1024, is a creative label-company that works on the interaction between space, sound, visuals, light, the body and architecture.

    At Global Gathering, the structure, which is essentially made up of cubes, measures 16m wide x 8m high x 6m deep (two cubes deep), taking two days to build and one day to load out. Three flat layers of fabric are stretched across the structure, with one across the front, and two staggered evenly towards the back.

    One image is thrown by two projectors on to the fabric and scaffolding; as the image hits the shiny metal it creates bright lines, similar in effect to LED. Together with the three layers of fabric, this tricks the eye into seeing a 3D image.

    Said Schneider: “The visuals are derived from the matrix of the Boombox, whilst the game is to create a physical interaction between real and virtual spaces, and visuals, while interacting with the sound. Obviously therefore, we are the creators of all the images projected onto the structure. Some are video files, others are directly coded into the program.”

    Godskitchen’s in-house production team manage the lighting and visual show for the Boombox, touring with it all over the world; Simon Barrington (of Manchester-based Production Eye) is the production manager and lighting designer for the Boombox, whilst Ed Shaw of Ne1co operates the visuals live.

    Wunschel has created a specific program, called the Boom-Boxer, to handle both the visual of the matrix on the structure, and its interaction with sound and light. The system includes a MacBook Pro, running through a Dual Head video card, distributing the signal to two 20,000 lumen video projectors.

    Shaw, who has worked for AMG for around seven years at Godskitchen’s club Air and other Global Gathering festivals, claimed this is the most exciting project he’s ever worked on. He said: “We sit down and figure out how many DJs there are so we have a different style for different performers and there’s a wow factor for each. So we can progress from 2D, to 3D, to 3D travelling stuff.”

    Barrington uses a Chamsys console, which he prefers for its lightweight and compact qualities, to control lighting on the show, which was supplied by site-wide lighting supplier HSL.

    Surrounding the Boombox, frame style, were 22 Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs. Twenty-six Atomic strobes and four linear 4-lites were incorporated into the BoomBox and the DJs, and dancers were illuminated with seven i-Pix Satellite LED brick lights.

    Barrington spoke of his first impression of 1024’s work: “I saw the Etienne show and was absolutely blown away, I thought it was a fantastic, very original piece of visual art, which is one thing this industry is starting to get hold of at last.

    “People in the production industry over the years have regarded it as a joke that the dance industry doesn’t take it seriously, but it’s things like the Etienne show and the 1024 guys that have started to push the boundaries and come up with really good shows.”

    Whilst the Boombox demands a very specific structure, only the fabric and control equipment go out on the tour, so it’s down to local suppliers to deliver the rest of the components. Star Events Group provided Layher scaffolding for the exact specification, and supplied all stages for the festival.

    XL Video, led by Tim Riley on-site, provided four Christie 20k projectors to Electric Fly. These were double-stacked and mounted on their own scaffolding platforms. XL Video also supplied a five-way remote camera system producing an I-Mag mix for two side projection screens, which was mixed by XL’s Dean Ruffy.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING
Another notable first for the festival was Electric Fly’s application of the new Martin LC+ panels over on the main stage. The company’s Nick Jevons and Phil Winward created the lighting and show design for all areas of the festival, calling on HSL to supply lights.

    HSL’s Mike Oates managed the project,  with Tim Fawkes representing on site. He worked alongside Electric Fly’s hand-picked crew of 14 lighting technicians/operators, and eight riggers.

    Said Jevons: “We got involved with Global last year, as Dave McCalmont wanted one show designer to oversee all the design elements for the event, we in turn wanted one supplier to handle all lighting production and for that we went straight to Mike Oates as his commitment to the cause is legendary! For the video production we went to Des Fallon at XL as it is always a pleasure to work with him.”

    With a tight budget, the loss of two days during build up and fewer crew to think of, Electric Fly went with the ‘less is more’ approach to the event’s design. In particular for the main stage, along with Barrington’s input, they went for an uncomplicated design because both headline acts brought in floor packages.

    Jevons said of the main stage: “As most of the action was in daylight, I needed to have a product that could be seen, so I went for the new Martin LC+ panel and it is a stunning bit of kit. I made a broken up video screen out of it and as most of the acts were DJs, I had fast paced, kaleidoscopic images that could easily be seen during the day. I had my own Maxedia media server running the visual, which gave me the flexibility to put any artist’s logos or videos onto the screen within minutes.”

    The main stage was a Star Events-supplied VerTech stage/roof, that featured three straight trusses raked at 7m and 9m in height and the Martin LC Plus LED screen panels (supplied direct from Martin) formed the impressive backdrop in seven columns. HSL made up four special custom pre-rigged truss pods, each loaded with lighting fixtures and flown at 3m, two each side of the stage for lower level cross stage illumination.

    The moving lights were 24 Robe ColorSpot and 18 ColorWash 1200E ATs, the strobe count was 24 Atomics and the fixture-count was completed with 18 4 and 8-lite blinders.

    Headliners Prodigy (LD Andy Hurst) and Orbital (LD Jonny Gaskell) each brought in their own floor-based specials packages, as did Steve Angello and Eric Prydz, who played before Orbital with two bespoke designed sets also supplied by HSL.

    For these DJs, HSL built two special stage sets, including DJ booths, complete with inbuilt digital and conventional lighting. The company was approached by Duncan Holmes from BPM Special Effects just 10 days before the event to carry out this project, which was managed by Mike Docksey.

    Lighting for the main stage was run by Nick Jevons using an Avolites Diamond 4 Elite console fed via an ArtNet network, with six lines of DMX available for hooking guest consoles into the rig.

    Elsewhere at the festival, Electric Fly produced some superlative and highly individual dance lighting concepts, from the classic and old skool  — such as moving mirrors — to the very contemporary, with LED screen backdrops and an abundance of strobes, smoke and lasers.

    He leaned towards Robe fixtures because he finds them “bright and tough as old boots”, and Avolites control desks as “they are a great desk for this type of event where you are busking and need to be constantly changing the look and feel”.

    The Global/Carl Cox Arena is a 10-poled tent and the largest arena, with a capacity of approximately 12,000 and lighting operated by Nathan Wan. HSL supplied two audience trusses loaded with Robe ColorWash and ColorSpot 1200E ATs and Atomic strobes. The stage end featured 48 panels of Martin LC 2140 LED screen supplied by XL Video, configured as 12 columns of four panels, stretching 23m, introducing a real widescreen feel to the space.

    In the air above this was a 22m run of Litec QL76 pre-rigged truss flown from two tonne motors off the last two tent poles. Lighting fixtures were a mix of i-Pix BB7s, 4-lite Moles, Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs and Atomic strobes.

    The other three smaller arenas were M_NUS/Bedrock, Toolroom Knights/Random Concept and Spectrum/Polysexual, and again, each contained their own individual lighting design. It was back to Old Skool basics in the Toolroom Knights/Random Concept, with Jevons paying tribute to the roots of rave lighting and specifying a rig of 18 Cyberlights.

    “I had to have some moving mirrors in there somewhere,” he said. “There is nothing to beat their speed in this context or their historical importance in dance lighting.”

    In the M_INUS/Bedrock tent, XL Video’s Tim Riley — who was assisted by Stuart Mercer and Tim Bolland throughout the weekend — opted for XL’s brand new lightweight Pixled LED screen. He explained that the arena didn’t have any heavy duty rigging, so the lightweight qualities of the product made it perfect for the installation. He provided a fibre link at FOH with a Fulsom Image Pro, one of many throughout the site, which Riley says are “simply brilliant”.
 
ALL THINGS AUDIO
On the audio front, SSE returned once again to supply sound systems, control and amplification across all stages; a task that required seven arctics, 23 SSE crew and around 24 local crew (local crew provided by Stagecraft), managed by crew boss Nick Pain.

    A tight time frame meant load in began Thursday morning, ready for the next day’s start, and load out took just three hours. SSE’s Miles Hillyard was responsible for designing all the sound systems and ensuring the noise limits set by the local council and monitored by Vanguardia, were kept to.

    Similar to last year, the bulk of the sound spec was L-Acoustics V-DOSC line array, but the event was also one of the first outings for SSE’s newly purchased L-Acoustics K1 system, after its festival debut at Download. Hillyard used the K1 system for the main stage. To provide sound for the 100m-long field, Hillyard flew 12 x K1, three x K1 subs and 12 x SB28s per side, with 12 vDOSC per side for front fill. Left and right delays consisted of six V-DOSC.

    The system was controlled via a Soundcraft Vi6 digital console at FOH and amplification was through the associated L-Acoustics LA8 amplification. Said Hillyard: “The Vi6 is an easy choice to make at a festival as it’s so easy to use, even if you’ve never used it before.”

    He spoke of the K1 system: “The instant response is that it’s not just another line array. It does sound a lot fuller than most line arrays, probably because of the extended line of the K1 subs. It’s very coherent, has fantastic dynamics, but tonally over 100m it’s very controllable so you can get it sounding the same front to back, which is a massive bonus. It’s a big improvement all round, they’ve improved the rigging system and the amplifiers, so it’s not just the sound they’ve concentrated on.”

    The monitor system featured 18 of SSE’s own MB4 wedges, with three Arcs and three SB218s left and right for side fill, an MB4 and DV sub per side for drum fill and Arcs and DV sub for DJ fill, all controlled by a Yamaha PM5D desk.

    All visiting engineers chose to use the Vi6 desk, except for Prodigy’s FOH sound engineer Jon Burton, who brought his own Midas XL3.

    Burton is a die-hard analogue fan: “I have been so unimpressed with digital consoles and the use of them that I went out and bought myself an XL3, it sounds much better than any digital desk on the market, and for what I want to do it’s a lot more efficient use of my time.”

    Both Burton and Prodigy monitor engineer Joe Campbell (who has worked for the band since 1984), were in the midst of a worldwide tour. Burton explained: “They’ve been adopted as a metal band as well as a dance band, so we have a slightly rockier set too to adapt to the crowd.”

    Campbell added: “With the A rig we have a Midas XL3 each and a large d&b monitor system that we use especially for Liam — we use that on the A and B rig — and we have full stage wiring and mic up kit. So we just use wedges and sidefills usually wherever we go from the local provider. What we normally do is find out what they’ve got in the way of sidefills and ask them to double it and that’s usually a good starting point!”

    The guys take with them an extra eight of the new d&b triple 21” infra subs to festivals, which they add on to the PA to “Prodigy rise it”. The Prodigy are amongst the first major artists to adopt the new Sennheiser ew 500 G3 wireless microphones (see sidebar).

    Unfortunately Burton had a sub standard show due to strong winds offsetting noise level measurements and the added challenge of a lengthy 65m delay position, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind when they were set into a frenzy by big hitters ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Smack My Bitch Up’.

    McDonald said: “Like most festival sites nowadays, management of noise levels takes a lot of attention from the team, especially when you have one of the loudest bands around on the bill. Anyone would appreciate that a band such as The Prodigy need headroom volume in order to create the overall effect.

    “As a production manager I can see it from all sides, but these shows will only continue if everyone works together to achieve reasonable targets. Global has eight stages, so managing the levels from all (both in terms in internal and external site levels), whilst keeping the audience happy and not annoying the residents is a tough challenge. SSE and Vanguardia seemed to get it right this year.”

    Elsewhere on site, Pendulum’s preference backed up Hillyard’s decision to go with a V-DOSC system in the Global Gathering Arena, where the main hangs and delay hangs consisted of two clusters of six V-DOSC, with 30 CD18 subs run by a Digidesign Venue console. Once again a Yamaha PM5D desk controlled SSE’s own monitor wedges.

    Godskitchen, on the other hand, specified a Nexo Geo T rig for its arena to complement the Boombox and provide sound for DJs Paul Van Dyke, David Guetta and Josh Gabriel, controlled by a Vi6 console. Hillyard commented: “The Geo T works quite well in those types of structures because it’s difficult to get any weight loading or rigging points, and the rigging system works well for those types of situations.”

    The 60m x 25m M_Nus Floor arena, where Richie Hawtin, Dubfire and Madga banged out the techno, featured a V-DOSC system run by a Yamaha LS9 16 console. The Toolroom Knights/Random Concept stage, which was stage managed by Chris Hanley, featured a similar system, with a 24-channel Midas desk at FOH. Both the Polysexual/Tuborg stage and the Fantazia/Dubstep stage used a Nexo Alpha sound system, with Yamaha desks FOH. Backline kit for the Tuborg live stage was provided by STS Touring.

    Matt Cheshire’s Artist Needs handles all the artist supplies and wireless networking for Angle Music Group’s festivals, as part of its hectic summer festival workload. Cheshire, together with Redtech, created a unique wireless network specially for the Prodigy, and provided the dressing rooms, furniture, food requirements, and all the artist riders, from helicopters to access to the site.

    Despite financial and time constraints, this year’s festival proved AMG can consistently stage a world class electronic dance event. By one company approaching the lighting and visual design for each stage this year, the festival has developed a strong sense of its own identity that will no doubt continue to evolve in future.

    The event demonstrated the genre’s growing awareness of how stage technology and visuals can bring added content to an otherwise visually static show — an aspect that grows ever more important as DJs become to rely more heavily on live shows for their income.
TPi