CASTAWAY and VenuesWest presented the first “post-restrictions” major concert, to be held at HBF Stadium on Saturday 18th July. UNLOCKED was the first-ever major live concert event in Western Australia, in fact in Australia, since the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions came into place back in March.
The concert featured an all Western Australian line up including Crooked Colours, Shock One with Reija Lee, Slumberjack and Tina Says.
Audio Technik was asked to supply audio for the event which Zaccaria Concerts hosted at HBF Stadium with 50% capacity.
Creating new SOP (safe operating procedures) for an event during COVID times, working within a venue at 50% capacity while still covering the full venue and minimising reflections etc due to a known reduced capacity was challenging for Audio Technik.
As a result, Audio Technik deployed a larger than normal amount of microphones and IEM systems. As part of their plan, no microphones were shared at all, including all communications between FOH and monitors. This made simple things like checking microphones more challenging, but each artist understood the restrictions and worked with the sound crew to keep all equipment isolated.
A d&b audiotechnik PA was deployed with 12 x d&b J-Series Array Processed for the main hangs, six d&b V-Series Array Processed for side hangs, eight d&b J-Sub and six d&b J-Infra in a mixed sub-array, four d&b Y10P for front fill and four d&b V7P for cross fill.
Audio Technik realised that Array Processing was going to be a big feature in this particular setup because the arena had some large walls due to retractable seating being stowed as well as having a lot of large open spaces due to distancing. For this reason, a PA design that would fire right up to the wall to cover the whole arena, but have the ability to stop coverage at very precise locations would be incredibly important. The site was re-measured in high detail and 3D mapped before importing the data into ArrayCalc to design the system. Array Processing enabled the system to do this easily and lose a lot of reflections typically found in that type of situation.
Andy Walters was Audio Technik’s System Engineer and also mixed Slumberjack and Tina Says whilst the other acts had their own operators. On FOH a DiGiCo SD10 with Waves Super Rack was used. SD10’s were chosen for both ends to test out the new Super Rack system in a show environment. Mitch Tinsley operated monitors for all acts on a DiGiCo SD10.
Audio Technik had to keep a few extra things in mind, where consoles were shared in the past without a thought, keeping distance from each other, and keeping equipment sanitised required new processes and a higher attention to detail. Where possible, all equipment and tools supplied were isolated, sanitised, and only used by the people allocated to them. In fact, the only item of equipment that was shared was the FOH SD10 which was shared between two people and was sanitised whenever the console changed hands. Even though WA has had no community transmission for over three months, no one was willing to take any chances. Face masks, gloves, ISO spray, and hand sanitiser, were also added to the kits at FOH and monitors for anyone that needed them.
A standard microphone kit was supplied with a cross selection of microphones to cover the artist’s needs. Radio systems were Shure Axient, 12 channels.
Audio Technik supplied both wedges and IEM: 10 x M4, DJ fill (M2 on V-Sub) and Side fills (V7P on VSub) as well as PSM1000 for IEM.
Lighting and vision was supplied by Showscreens who were fortunate enough to have an open brief, in which their inhouse design team created a unique and very efficient rig for the artists on the bill. Being in an arena setting, it was important that they gave the rig the depth and stagger to fill the large stage and room allowing for some big lighting looks while also creating an intimate vibe.
“As we are an experienced production company, we didn’t really have many challenges on the install,” commented Ryan Varley of Showscreens. “We used the downtime over the past few months to update our Occupational Safety and Health policy, moving from a paper-based system to a mobile-based Application. By using this App, we are able to conduct and record all of our Prestart Inspections, Toolbox Meetings and Hazard Reports in one place. We used this first show back as an opportunity to implement this new approach. This involved a toolbox meeting conducted by Michael Monaco our Safety Officer, where he covered a number of issues including how to observe social distancing while working. The venue’s Safety Representative actually sat in on our Toolbox Meeting and gave us positive feedback afterwards saying the meeting was very engaging.”
Showscreens decided to utilise their large Robe inventory, creating a fully Robe orientated lighting setup on their new Pre-Rig truss that rolled seamlessly into the arena. There were 20 x Robe BMFL Spots, 24 x Robe Spider and 20 x Robe MegaPointe as well as 17 x Claypaky Stormy CC and 14 x 4-way DWE Linear.
“We love our Robe gear, as once again, we had zero issues from the fixtures all show and our newly acquired MegaPointes set the stage with an impressive output to match our BMFLs,” added Ryan.
Atmosphere was by two MDG ATMe and two Antari F-7 Smaze. MA Lighting grandMA2 full-size with a grandMA2 light as a tracking back up ran the expansive rig through two Luminode 12s, the new flagship of nodes at Showscreens. This system allowed for full redundancy and allowed for stress-free operating, as the event was live-streamed.
“We knew thousands of viewers could tune in and there would be no errors on our end due to the system we put in place,” said Ryan confidently.
With Rio Hall-Jones (operator for Shockone and Crooked Colours) and Kale Tatam (operator for Slumberjack) taking advantage of pre-visualising the rig on MA 3D in the factory, it allowed them to ensure that all key moments in these artists sets were executed exceptionally well. Both operators appreciated Slumberjack and Shockone paying tribute to another WA music icon, Pendulum, by using their songs during their sets and inspired some exciting lighting sequences from the boys.
Showscreens supplied and installed an 8m x 4.5m Yestech MG7 4.8mm Black LED Screen running on a NovaStar NovaPro UHD Jr 4K Processor (one active, one backup) with a Barco ImagePro 4K for control. This was a good opportunity for the Showscreens screen technicians to utilise the skills they learnt during their recent Novastar training supplied by ULA Group, done entirely online.
Photos: Brendan Cecich / Thomas Davidson
