The resulting BBC TV special include highlights of events across the country, the winners of the Ballroom Blitz talent search and the Big Dance Class record attempt. Hosted by well known UK TV personalities Bruce Forsyth and Zoe Ball, the event finished with The Big Dance in London's Trafalgar Square, featuring around 800 dancers and over 45 different dance styles - all broadcast live.
Those who assembled in and around Trafalgar Square were able to hear the action from a Martin W8LC Compact line array fielded by System Sound. The PA company were contracted to BBC Documentaries and Specialist Features, and their sound designer, Simon Biddulph's line array of choice is the Martin W8LC.
Because of the restrictions placed on production by the television requirements subwoofers had to be kept to a minimum. "But such are the full range capabilities of this system that we are able to do that," said Biddulph. He added that the event required a complicated rig design, set in several positions (including the presenters' positions at the side of the stage). While eight W8LC's were hung each side of the stage from a 10ft Pam Mast, specially developed for the Martin Audio line array system, four separate W8LC's were flown in similar fashion in front of the National Gallery's North Terrace, with a further speech PA facing back towards the stage for broadcast purposes. The system was correctly set up and optimised using Martin Audio's ViewPoint software.
"For the music coming off the stage, however, we made a complicated routing matrix using a BSS Soundweb, and that was delayed," explained Biddulph.
Among the bands appearing was Laurie Holloway's Orchestra and there was also a performance by the cast of the Rocky Horror Show and dancers such as the Jiving Lindy Hoppers. The BBC produced the whole event themselves with no external personnel. The event culminated in The Big Dance world record attempt, which was produced by GDF.
New Guinness Book of Records achievements included: 8,962 dancers in The Big Dance class; Russell Sergeant from the Jiving Lindy Hoppers doing 33 swing flips in a minute; Breakdancer Punisher achieving a new record for ten consecutive 1990s - spinning round in the air balancing on one hand; B-Boy Steady achieving 42 windmills in 30 seconds; 116 Children from London's Irish Step Dance clubs dancing the longest ever Riverdance line; 800 dancers performing the Big Dance itself - a new world record where 45 styles were performed to the same piece of music. The dance styles included belly dancers, salsa, swing, flamenco, African, tango, bhangra, and even synchronised swimmers in the Trafalgar Square fountains.
While System Sound provided the PA, the BBC supplied the mics and splits between the monitor/FOH positions and OB trucks. Simon Biddulph said sound restrictions were also imposed, resulting in them running the Martin Audio system to around 40% of its capability.
"The W8LC performed magnificently," he said. "The BBC loved the sound in the Square and it caused no colouration of the broadcast. It was easy to rig and provided good coverage right across the frequency spectrum."
Biddulph himself mixed the show from a Yamaha M7CL while the remainder of the sound crew included Pete McGlynn (crew chief), Mark Isbister (system tech) and Chris Vass (mixing monitors on a Yamaha DM2000) BBC's Tim Davies was the overall sound supervisor and the BBC's production manager was Emily Samson.
(Chris Henry)
