The three-day event culminated on the August Bank Holiday Monday with six stages in and around the city centre, featuring top live performers from all over the world. Liverpool Culture Company's general manager of events, Lee Forde explains that the Culture Company took over full control of this year's event: "It was an absolutely essential move to keep the festival progressing and diversifying."
Two stages were installed at the Pier Head for the first time - North and South. The North stage was effectively the main stage. On the Sunday, it featured The Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, Tony Christie, The Christians, Liverpool Express and Neville Skelly among others. The South stage, also operational for all three days, specifically showcased the very best of new local talent which was a great success.
Last year was a major step forward for the event's technical production, and this year saw the introduction of live video. An onstage LED screen and a delay screen midway between the two stages relayed main stage IMAG and action at the Pier Head. Video equipment was supplied by touring music video specialists, XL Video and included one of its compact PPUs and a four camera live mix directed by Ruary MacPhie.
Onstage was a 7 x 5m Unitek V9 LED screen. The two Sony D50 cameras were positioned at FOH and in the pit, and they placed two Toshiba 3-chip mini cams onstage. The show was mixed using a Sony DFS 700 swticher. Playback facilities for sponsor's logos were a laptop and a Sony A50 tape machine. The screen between the two Pier Head stages was one of XL's 24sqm trailer screens.
Capital Sound Hire supplied the two Pier Head stages. The Main stage was a flown Meyer "Milo" line array system, with nine 90 degree cabinets and one 120 degree cabinet per side plus five Martin W8 LS subs per side and four Meyer UPAs for front fills. For the first two days of the event, the system was run without the top two boxes powered up. When the crowds swelled on Monday, the top two elements were also brought into the mix to boost the volume.
With 200m between the two stages, containment was a tricky issue, specially for the lower frequencies. FOH babysitter Tony Szabo used a Meyer LD3 line driver for system control. Monitors for the main stage were Martin LE700s, the FOH desk was a Midas XL4 and there was a Midas Heritage H3000 onstage. The South Pierhead stage had nine hangs of Meyer "Mica", the medium format line array, four Martin W8 LS subs per side, and low profile Martin 12J monitors wedges.
Capital also supplied four IEMs and four radio mics to cover all eventualities. The company didn't receive many tech specs in advance, so it was a question of ensuring it had a heterogeneous enough selection of gear to cover anything that might occur on the day. A shared backline was supplied to both stages from the Music Bank, and trucked up from London with the sound gear from Capital.
Sound for the four additional Monday stages was supplied by locally-based ADLIB Audio, who've supplied sound to the festival since it began. The Strand stage featured a flown JBL VerTec line array system and was mixed by Dave Kay using a Midas XL3. The Water Street Stage was a Nexo Alpha system as was the Derby Square stage. Woodside on the Wirral was an ADLIB FD system. All ADLIB's stages featured the company's own ADLIB wedge monitors.
All stages were mobile 'truck' stages supplied by SRC apart from the Main Pier Head, which was supplied by Sheffield-based 3D Productions and constructed from James Thomas trussing. Power was supplied for all the various suites by Buffalo Power. For the first time SES Security were brought in to run the Pierhead pits, stages and backstage security, separate from the stewarding and general event secur
