The K1 was tuned by KSE & systems engineer Tony Szabo, who was joined by an Adlib crew of 16 including crew chief Marc Peers, and Dave Kay who worked as RF Co-ordinator.
Ian Nelson operated the presenter console, Michael Bernard Flaherty supervised the patch while Adlib's project manager Phil Stoker collaborated closely with the event's technical producers Production North, specifically their sound supervisor Andrew 'Baggy' Robinson and production manager Sarah Hollis, on the logistics.
Time was super-tight. The schedule followed the format of a large scale live TV show, kicking off at 4 p.m. and running until 10.30 p.m. with an average between-band changeover time of two minutes, and the shortest being a blink-and-you-missed-it 30 seconds!
The front hangs comprised 16 x L-Acoustics K1 speakers run in conjunction with side hangs of 15 x V-DOSC and an upstage hang of six Kudo. There were two delay hangs of 10 deep K1s, with Karas used for stage front-fills.
16 x L-Acoustics SB28 subs per side were stacked four high, arranged in cardioid mode and end-fire configuration.
The system also utilized numerous Adlib passive fill speakers to cover a plethora of under-stage people lifts and backstage areas and to generally aid the cueing process.
Kara fills were also positioned at the rear of the FOH tower to cover the area behind the stage above FOH position which was new for this year, together with two small stages behind FOH and closer to the edge of the field-of-play.
The L-Acoustics speakers were all powered by L-Acoustics LA8 amps running on an L2 Network Manager. Labgruppen PLM 10k and 20ks were used to drive the monitor speakers and various backstage fills.
Control and processing was done using the trusted Lake LM44 and LM26 system running Dante protocol over fibre. The FOH LM 44s were set up as an 8x8 matrix that received both AES and analogue backup from the consoles.
Everyone bar Robbie Williams came through the presenter console, and all consoles were synced using an Apogee Big Ben Master Word clock. The LM 26s at the stage end distributed the signals to the various zones of the sound system.
For FOH 'house' consoles Adlib supplied two Avid Profiles run as an A/B line system, plus a third one for the presenter desk. Robbie Williams' FOH engineer Nick Allen brought in their own customised Avid Profile and Taylor Swift's engineer brought in a DiGiCo SD7 to mix her performance.
The Shout system was mixed via a Soundcraft Si Compact coupled with a Compact Stage Box at FOH.
Phil Kielty, Adlib's client manager commented, "It is mind blowing to see all the logistics, planning and stunningly quick changeovers for a show of this size . With Adlib and Production North's team in sync, it all came together seamlessly. We received some amazing comments on how good our K1 rig sounded, which was nice to hear."
(Jim Evans)
