Star Events’ X Stage highlights the creativity at AEG Presents’ first All Points East festival in Victoria Park, where sets from LCD Soundsystem, The XX and Bjork drew huge audiences this Bank Holiday weekend.
Working with Loudsound and LarMac Live, Star Events supplied the festival’s four principal platforms, including the main East Stage, a 20m VerTech, the North Stage, with its concentric arches, the West Arena and all the requisite support structures.
An ambitious in the round experience, with a hovering DJ platform, the X Stage puts the finest electronic talent into the heart of the audience.
Star Events’ design team joined two 5m wide/38m span arches at the apex to bring the X Stage to life, using the kit from the yard together with ‘specials’ built for the project.
Alongside its stunning lighting capacity, each leg of the structure houses an inward facing speaker configuration, which delivers a truly immersive audio experience.
Gavin Scott, Star Events’ Project Manager, commented: “With a lot of work behind the scenes, the X Stage came together brilliantly. There were significant structural challenges, everyone involved with the design played a part in bringing it to fruition, and it’s a great achievement.
“AEG Presents, Loudsound and LarMac Live have been a pleasure to work with. The vibe on site has been really good, a collective of people working to achieve something special, and safety levels have been noticeably high, which is great to see.”
Ian Greenway, Director at LarMac Live, managing technical production for All Points East, said: “There are some quirky things here and Star Events was the perfect fit. When you experience The X Stage first-hand it’s like nothing else. It’s indoor/outdoor; it’s in the round, a really interesting DJ experience.
“All Points East isn’t a two-day staging load-in, it’s a really complex project and Gav has been absolutely fantastic. Running a project like this takes a certain approach, a certain eye for detail, and nothing is a problem for him. He can chip off and tick a lot of boxes before we even clock there’s a problem because he knows what we are trying to achieve.”
Currently hosting In The Neighbourhood events for the local community, the All Points East site is subject to a few modest changes ahead of next weekend’s APE Presents shows featuring Catfish And The Bottlemen, The National and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.