"Over the many years in which we were in Earl's Court, we had pretty much the same technical team putting the show together and we'd honed set up time to a minimum, thereby maximising what we were doing and giving real value for money," says Zieba.
This year, the Awards moved to The O2, acquired a new designer and many new team members. Also, because The O2 has such a busy show schedule, Derrick and his crew found themselves with 24 hours less in which to get everything ready.
"Adrenalin was running high," he says. "However, I was lucky enough to have the same audio team, stage team and carpenters as before - and that was why we were able to pull it off. In fact, I think we produced one of the best shows we've ever done."
It was a year of change in other ways, too. "After many years of Sennheiser supporting us with pretty much the same package of equipment, which has always been great, this year I was pleased to see two things that immediately struck me," Zieba continues. "Firstly, I had 2000 Series IEMs and developments in that model, including the wider tuning range, really helped during the show. To bring those new items to the table makes a great deal of sense in terms of flexibility and means that Sennheiser has a product at the very top end. It was great to be able to offer that to the artists."
Hosted by James Corden, the show featured live performances from Take That (four of whom used Sennheiser SKM 5200-IIs with MD 5235 heads), Adele (SKM 5200-II with a KK 105 head), Rihanna (SKM 2000 with e 965 head), Mumford & Sons (Neumann U87), Tinie Tempah (SKM 2000 with e 935 head) and Cee Lo Green featuring special guest Paloma Faith (both using SKM 5200-IIs with KK 105 heads). All in ear monitoring was 2000 Series, the presenters used SKM 5200 with KK 105 heads and, along with the performers, utilised EM 3732-II receivers.
An out of the ordinary microphone choice was Mumford & Sons use of a limited edition 40th Anniversary Neumann U 87 studio microphone. "It was a brilliant performance, with all of the band members balancing their voices into just one U 87," says Zieba. "We had level limitations in the hall, but it sounded beautiful both in the venue and on broadcast. The band were very pleased themselves and their management was delighted that they were using something that sounded great and also looked fantastic."
Another new advent was that all racks of radio receivers and IEM transmitters were fitted with a 5GHz network access point, configured to provide a mesh network. This allowed a wireless secure data network to be created between all racks without a cabled connection.
There will be more on the production behind the BRITs 2011 in the April issue of LSi Magazine, out soon.
(Jim Evans)
