On what was a highly anticipated New Year’s Eve after an extremely challenging year for all, ABC held their spectacular live concert on the Boardwalk of the Sydney Opera House.
The theme for the evening was We Are One and this year the show was broadcast live from the Sydney Opera House as well as Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
The guys at Eighth Day Sound have worked closely with Production Manager Haydn Johnston for a few years now on the NYE live broadcast; a 3 ½ hour live telecast that requires careful planning to get it right on the night.
Normally Eighth Day rely on the trusty hands of Paul Bailey to mix the FOH but as he could not travel interstate Matt Landers kindly stepped up to the plate at the 11th hour this year.
“When it comes to the choice of consoles, I let the engineers decide as the show brings a certain amount of pressure due to how long the live broadcast runs for,” added Damo Pryor of Eighth Day. “This year we used DiGiCo consoles.”
Eighth Day employed a d&b PA system on array processing as it’s the preferred brand the SOH use inhouse. With a minimal audience, they reverted from KSL to V series this year.
“We only have one chance to get it right so we rely on rehearsals,” said Damo. “Everyone enjoys Christmas Day and Boxing Day, then we have a few days at ABC studios from 27th and two days of rehearsals onsite.”
Monitors are usually mixed by Rod Matheson or Cam Elias but again due to border closures, the equally talented Paul ‘Kenno’ Kennedy stepped in and did a great job, with Dano describing mixing the monitors as definitely the hot seat! This year, they primarily ran with IEMs which is preferred for live broadcast and all the musicians seemed happy with this option.
Haydn Johnston did a great job planning rolling risers on a very tight stage with limited changeover time. All the house band and guest artists were provided with their own designated IEM or RF mics, that were cleaned using UV cleaning stations, as per Covid protocol.
“It’s a long broadcast so the guys need to be on the ball for the duration,” commented Damo on the challenges the gig poses. “Cam McCauley does a great job ensuring the inputs are at a reasonable number and don’t blow out. The prep needs to be right and we allow a couple of extra days in the shop for this, and the production kindly ensure we have enough rehearsal time with each artist.
“We would have loved to have some front line workers in front of the stage but sadly it was not to be.”
