Taking place at The BRIT School’s Obie Theatre, What’s Going On was a showcase of protest music in a variety of eclectic styles, performed and written by year 12 music students, amplified by AED Audio, which provided a range of equipment to help bring the students’ creations to life.
This included two line arrays consisting of eight FLEX6 speakers and one SOLID15 low cabinet/subwoofer, as well as a ground stack of SOLID28 and SOLID15 subs with a FLEX6 in point source to provide infill to each side.
The AED Audio system integrated with the Obie Theatre’s existing Dante network, meaning it could offer great sound quality while remaining intuitive and easy to use.
The FLEX6 is an all-in-one speaker that offers high-quality audio alongside a large degree of flexibility. It is designed so that many different setups and arrays can be easily configured using just one speaker type. The front-loaded SOLID15 cabinet is equally flexible, and can be configured as a standalone unit, flown, stacked or included in a FLEX6 array. As well as the performers onstage, all the backstage elements of What’s Going On were handled by students.
Sound at front of house and monitors were both operated by year 13 Production Arts students, while the AED Audio team was on hand throughout to assist with setup, support, and demonstrate how the system works.
“The Production Arts course at The BRIT School, like all our other courses, is completely free for young people to attend. It covers all technical and creative disciplines within production giving students the option to specialise in stage management, costume, lighting, sound, set design and construction,” explained Andrew Smith, Technical Manager at The BRIT School.
“We pride ourselves on giving our students access to industry relevant equipment and expertise. We are grateful to AED Audio for giving our students the opportunity to work with their products and use the FLEX6 system on one of our music concerts. AED UK Commercial Manager, David Baker said: “AED Audio was delighted to support The Brit School, which is a cornerstone of the UK’s live music industry. The next generation of on-stage talent are gaining the crucial live performance experience they need with shows like What’s Going On, and we’re pleased that they’re doing it with AED Audio equipment.
“Our FLEX6 speaker was a perfect fit for the Obie Theatre due to its plug and play flexibility, which allows it to be deployed in a variety of different configurations.”
AED Audio Consultant, Sam Vincent added: “As a former BRIT School student, it was great to be involved in this project and give something back to a fantastic institution. If anyone is interested in trying out the FLEX and SOLID series, get in touch and request a demo – we’d be delighted to showcase the power and flexibility of the system.”
This article originally appeared in issue #270 of TPi, which you can read here.
