SSE Audio, part of the Solotech UK Group, selects a Shure Axient digital wireless system for C2C 2022 Festival.
C2C: Country to Country, is Europe’s biggest country music festival. Initiated in 2013 and taking place each March simultaneously at London’s O2 arena, Glasgow Hydro and Dublin 02, with three days of the best in country music and programming. Performances come from the world’s best country stars including Keith Urban, Luke Combs, Ashley McBryde and Darius Rucker as well as emerging talent from Nashville, UK and Europe.
For the headline bands especially, the artists and musicians needed to be able to move around the stage freely without being tethered down by a cable. The same applied for the backline and monitor tech crews that need to be able to move around the wing and backstage area with ease, meaning a wireless microphone system was essential for this production.
Twelve Shure Axient Digital microphones with a mixture of handheld and lavaliers, along with 12 ways of PSM1000 IEM’s, and an Axient spectrum manager were selected to offer the best quality sound available. John Reynolds, RF Tech commented: “SSE/Solotech wish to provide the best standard of product available which is currently the Shure Axient range. Axient Digital allows more channels to be allocated into a frequency range than with previous analogue systems, which increases the ability to fit more channels into a coordination than before.”
Frequency coordination was highlighted as a main hurdle to overcome on this project – this was all planned in advance by the SSE/Solotech office so the technical team can confidently go to each site knowing that everything would work together seamlessly. Reynolds added: “An additional challenge on this festival was antenna placement – ensuring antennas had good coverage of the entire stage whilst avoiding a large amount of LED screens took some thinking about.”
With multiple acts at each venue across the three days, some acts specified microphone and IEM transmitter gain/sensitivity settings which reflect settings in their show files. “With Axient Digital, it was super easy to change these quickly, on an act by act basis, as required. My favourite feature of the system is the ability to monitor all receivers from one. Using the Dante feature is extremely useful, less time is spent plugging and unplugging headphones in!” said Reynolds.
The backstage team found the active frequency management of the spectrum manager and Show Link enabled them to sort issues ‘on the fly’ without the artist even knowing there was ever an issue, whereas previously there could have been a need to go onto stage to swap a mic out that was suffering interference. This can now be done from backstage which they found invaluable.
Commenting on the PSM1000’s Reynolds added: “These are my favourite IEM’s to use on the market, with low noise floor, high volume output and good diversity with the receiver on the beltpack. The rechargeable batteries also reduce the previous waste from dry cells that used to be used.”
The wonderful British weather brought a unique set of challenges to C2C this year: with ferries unable to run between Ireland and England, the bands that played Dublin on the Saturday night and London on the Sunday had none of their equipment. Thankfully using the house festival RF system, the team were able to accommodate each band with all the requirements they needed to make the show happen. Reynolds commented: “It made for an interesting and at times challenging day but it was a great feeling at the end of the day knowing we’d pulled it out of the bag and the show went on without issue. This was the only challenge – due to the capabilities of Axient Digital, a lot of the previous challenges are less existent than before! Stability of RF is far improved with the Axient Digital systems, that certainly gives you a better sense of confidence, especially when the artist may decide to leave the stage and enter the audience!”
Reynolds continued: “Wireless workbench, along with Spectrum manager, really does make scanning and frequency allocation a breeze. The speed at which the packs sync nowadays is excellent, even more so if a Show Link is deployed. Super easy to configure, super reliable, we had no dropouts or issues with the equipment over the duration of the festival at all – audio quality is second to none. I rarely have issues with Shure systems so I can’t say I’ve had much interaction with the support team, which says it all really!”
“It’s a great compliment to Shure technology and the teams behind Axient and PSM that RF on C2C worked flawlessly – the work that John and the team at Solotech provide is greatly appreciated by all the team here at Shure. We continue to provide support and training wherever is necessary and will continue to do so as we head into what will hopefully be a full summer of events in 2022 and beyond” concluded Stuart Moots, Director Pro Audio, Shure UK.