Staged by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) and WOMAD (World Of Music Arts & Dance), the multi-cultural festival opened on the North Stage with Zimbabwean group Siyaya, accompanied by children from schools in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, while the South stage opened with South Korean act Dulsori .
Three days of spectacular performances from over 20 award-winning artists from around the world followed, including Khaled, Youssou N'Dour, Trilok Gurtuj, Egypt's Mohammed Mounir and special guest Robert Plant, on three stages at Abu Dhabi Corniche and Al Jahili Fort, Al Ain.
Ampco, who have worked with WOMAD for over a decade worldwide, were brought in by production manager David Taraskevics of Judgeday, and supplied audio control systems and crew for the North and South stages, under crew chief and audio production manager Natsja Geerdink. It was the first major festival to benefit from Ampco's newly introduced Lake Drive Rack.
Ampco's control equipment on the North stage, with FOH engineer Ronald Koster, included a 48-channel Midas Heritage 2000 and an effects rack comprising Lexicon, TC Electronic and Yamaha effects units, and insert racks with Klark Teknik DN 3600 digital EQ, XTA GQ 600 2x30 graphic EQ, Avalon and dbx comp/lim's and Drawmer noise gates. Intercom was an ASL PS 278/279 dual channel series with Beyer DT109 headsets.
Ampco's new self-contained Lake drive racks controlled the overall equalisation of each loudspeaker sytem. Ampco's Dieter van Denzel explains: "This 8x8 matrix drive rack is very useful control tool for system engineers during a festival situation, where various speaker systems and/or sound areas are in use. The system runs on an embedded Windows computer with a wireless tablet to operate the Lake Processors, XTA processors and SMAART analysis software. The rack also includes a 19" packable SlimVision TFT screen, M-Audio FastTrack Pro Audio Interface and XTA D2 stereo dynamic EQ. The rack enables fast and accurate control over the entire loudspeaker system."
Monitors were mixed by Koen Benschop on a 48-channel Midas Heritage 3000, accompanied by 16 channels of Klark Teknik DN3600 with wireless remote, dbx compressor/limiter and Drawmer noise gates. Effects units were Lexicon and TC Electronic. Stage technician Remco Verhoek was in charge of Ampco's festival stage infrastructure and a microphone package that included more that 60 various microphones, featuring a mixture of Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, Neumann, ASL and various 'specials' for various ethnic acoustical instruments.
Wireless systems were Shure UR4D R9 wireless microphone systems with various mics and assesories, while in-ear systems were Shure PSM700s with active 8-into-1 antenna combiners.
The South stage featured a broadly similar package, with a Midas Heritage 1000 at FOH, mixed by Steve Watson, and a Midas XL3 on monitors, in the hands of Richard Procee with stage technician Koert van den Bosch.
The final evening drew the largest crowd of the weekend with 30,000 people enjoying 'The King' of Egypt, Mohamed Mounir, as he headlined the festival to fireworks that brought WOMAD Abu Dhabi to a spectacular close.
(Jim Evans)
