New Wine originated as a Christian festival, established in 1989 by members of the Anglican clergy. It now appeals to the largest network of Christians open to the charismatic movement in the UK, running a number of week-long festivals in England, Scotland and Wales and currently attracting around 30,000 delegates per year. Its success has spawned the well-known Soul Survivor event for teenagers.
Wigwam has provided sound reinforcement services for the twin festivals for several years, using the residential events as a training platform for aspiring engineers, both on their own staff and volunteers from churches around the country.
Rory Birch, 21, who graduated from Manchester's School of Sound Recording under Wigwam's own scholarship programme, has been put in charge of his own venue at the NewWine North conference in Newark. In the Fuse tent, he presides over a week-long programme of speech and live bands, using an all-digital Roland M-380 console/Martin Audio system with Roland's M-48 personal monitoring mixers for stage sound.
Birch and his co-engineer, volunteer Ben Watson, "have to learn this console and those loudspeakers inside out" according to Wigwam's technical production manager Dave Hopkinson, who explains that the Wigwam team is augmented by lots of young lads who come in from churches to work as runners and assistants at the festival, learning the ropes and the etiquette of the job.
"This compact Roland console - the M-380 V-Mixer - has been the subject of much interest," Hopkinson reports. "It has a simple intuitive interface that all the rookie engineers can get to grips with very quickly. A lot of the delegates are also asking about it for their own church systems; the facilities are extensive, yet it can be set up so that even the vicar can operate it using basic settings."
Wigwam is deploying a variety of Roland gear, M-400s and M-380s for front-of-house tasks, and M-48 personal mixers for performers on stage. "The M-400 has all the facilities of a top-end board, but the smaller M-380 is absolutely fantastic, a great console for installation as well. Lots of church buildings have terrible acoustics so the M-48 systems offer them the benefits of being able to mix themselves, as well as giving them a quiet stage. These systems have so much potential that, speaking as a monitor engineer myself, I'm worried they could put me out of a job."
Rory Birch comments: "I've always liked Roland's creativity, so I really like the effects on the M-30. It's very easy to use; the fact that it doesn't have a touchscreen means that you can't make clumsy mistakes, and I can control all the EQ and gain off a physical control. For the bands playing this stage for evening worship, I've been running 24 channels off the stage and the M-380 has proved perfect for the job."
(Jim Evans)
