Furthermore, Venue's D-Show console was the only digital desk used anywhere during the festival (SSE's main production system being a pair of analogue boards in the monitor and front-of-house positions).
The Friday night headliners were Scottish chart toppers Franz Ferdinand, where Parker was piloting the mix. The following night classical festival band Muse closed the show as a curtain raiser to their Autumn European tour. Marc Carolan, already a Venue veteran, was at FOH on a Skan PA-supplied D-Show while a second desk was at monitor city, under the command of Adam Taylor.
On Sunday Digidesign went one better. With Greg Nelson mixing headliners Pearl Jam, it was left to Ian Nelson and Charlie Bradley (at FOH and monitors respectively) to produce the soundmix for penultimate band Placebo. Two Venues have been out with them for much of the year, courtesy of sound production company Canegreen, before arriving in Reading.
Nelson himself commented that Digidesign's proprietary Venue live sound environment had been the unqualified success of the festival season. "Wherever we've been it's all the PA crews seem to have been talking about," he said. "It's certainly the digital desk that has made most progress."
European live sales manager Mike Case, says: "The take up of Venue across the European festival circuit has been unprecedented; an overwhelming number of engineers, confronted with the console for the first time, walked away at the end of their show delighted with the sound quality and ease of use.
"With the number of Venue users growing the system looks set to become a standard fixture at all major live sound events in the near future."
(Chris Henry)
