On the Beach By: Mark Johnson

Transcription

1 Copyright Lighting&Sound America January On the Beach By: Mark Johnson The DeLuna Fest offers plenty of music, plenty of gear, and plenty of load-in challenges In the summer of 1559, Tristán de Luna y Arellano, a Spanish conquistador on an expedition to conquer the territory now known as Florida, anchored his fleet of ships in what is now known as Pensacola Bay. The trip had been particularly perilous, and de Luna and his crew celebrated their safe arrival with what was probably one of the first beach parties to be held in Florida. The celebratory spirit was short-lived, however, when, in September, a hurricane destroyed much of the encampment. Fast forward to 2010: In an effort to help jump-start tourism on the Gulf Coast following the infamous BP oil spill, Scott and Emily Mitchell, of the Five Flags Tourism Group, broached the idea of a music festival as a way of bringing people back to the area. Morphing from what was originally conceived as a one-day, three-band festival, the 2012 iteration of DeLuna Fest spanned three days with four stages and 70 bands. Headliners and notables for the 2012 DeLuna Fest included Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, and Zac Brown Band on the main stage Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, respectively. Also appearing on the main stage were Jimmy Cliff and The Wallflowers. The second stage featured Dwight Yoakam, 12th Planet, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ben Folds Five, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Diplo, Band of Horses, Paper Diamond, and Florence and the Machine. The DeLuna stage is a 60'-wide-by-40'-deep-by-48'-tall tower grid stage with 30' work wings and 20' wide upstage extension. 62 January 2013 Lighting&Sound America

2 Staging a large-scale concert event is challenging enough without adding in an outdoor setting in a normally well-populated area, a beach with impeded access, and environmentally-protected sand dunes. You ve got tons of staging, sound, video, and lighting equipment and band backline that somehow must get over the dunes, and no readily available power for the systems. These were just a few of the challenges left to production manager Clint Aull, who has been involved with the festival since its inception. He says, I started out as a production assistant and FOH on the main stage the first year, and I was promoted to production manager in early Now I m fulltime as the operations and production manager. Load-in challenges Aull details the setup: Stage 1 [the DeLuna Stage] is a 60'-wide-by-40'- deep-by-48'-tall tower grid stage with 30' work wings and 20' wide upstage extension for a work area. It requires 3.5"-thick crane matting in order to create a lane to unload trucks. This stage took three days to build and two-and-a-half days to tear down, mainly because of having to load and unload one truck at a time. Jamie Grossenkemper, of gear supplier Premier Global Productions, has a lot of experience building this stage on the sand, which is one of the main reasons I hired him. He is also very good at paying attention to labor budgets, which, of course, I greatly appreciate. The Heritage Stage, he says, is a small Stageline SL100. The bands playing on it share house backline due to the fact there is no loading dock. We have to fork[lift] out all production equipment and hand-carry artist s instruments in order to accommodate its location. Sounds tough, but, at the end of the day, it only adds a small amount of extra time. Aull continues, For those two stages, it s impossible to keep out all sand out of the gear. Blackhawk Audio, our main stage and second stage audio provider, told me last year they were cleaning out sand for months. It is also a lot more work to walk around in the sand; you feel it for weeks. Rick Shimer, owner of Blackhawk Audio, of Whitehouse, Tennessee, concurs: Sand, salty air, wind, and sand make load-in a bit of a challenge, but it was well-handled by the event with special vehicles and ramps for trucks. However, the The DeLuna and Heritage Stages presented load-in problems, as they were located across sand dunes protected as turtle habitats. January

3 Production manager Clint Aull. The levels and throw of this system are nothing short of amazing. We measured over 103dBA at 500' during one of the performances, and we didn t have any delays. The LEO and 1100s have the tonal quality you would expect a Meyer Sound system to have, with an amazing amount of headroom; the linearity of this system gives it impact like no other system I have ever heard. Shimer on a paved parking lot, which made access easier. Providing the sound gear for two large stages at a festival can create many other challenges; as a result, Shimer takes the divide-andconquer approach. We treated the two systems and crews as totally selfcontained, all the way to the tractor trailers for transport of equipment, he says. In essence, for us it was two separate events. We might have been able to do some cost savings by integrating parts of the crew or systems, but the additional expense has, over the years, proven worthy for the flexibility it allows both systems and crews to have. Adding to the logistical challenges were those previously mentioned environmentally protected sand dunes. As Aull notes, We are very careful to work around, and to protect, the sand dunes. On the main stage, it is a bit of a chore. We only had room to unload one truck at a time. Fortunately, there was enough room to fit a flatbed trailer to form an ersatz bridge/loading dock over the dunes. Backline equipment for the day was loaded onto the dock via a snorkel forklift and stored in a trailer backed up to the flatbed. The challenge of available power was easily solved by providing dedicated generators for each stage, two generators in the case of the main stage. All of our power is fed by Sunbelt Generators, Aull says. We have a twin 500kW generator on the main stage feeding one 600A lighting panel, one 200A isolated audio panel, one 200A video panel, one 400A guest panel, and one 200A guest panel. I had a 320kW generator on stage, two feeding one 600A lighting panel, one 200A isolated audio panel, and one 200A video panel. Kenny Sellars, Lloyd Ellis, Kent Margraves, and Mike Groenke, of Blackhawk Audio. positives are a lovely view and flat coverage area. The remaining venues, the Windcreek Stage and GoPensacola.com Stage, were located Launching LEO The DeLuna Fest was part of Meyer Sound s soft introduction of the new LEO-M large-scale line array system. Meyer has been working closely in collaboration with a few sound companies worldwide, deploying Leo for select tours and events. For DeLuna Fest, Blackhawk Audio provided 32 Leos (16 per side) with two MICAs per side as downfill for the main stage. 64 January 2013 Lighting&Sound America

4 The Windcreek Stage and GoPensacola.com Stage were easier to load in, as they were located on a paved parking lot. The development of Leo took advantage of advancements in driver technology, which enables the units to handle much more power. The design of the system was a joint effort between Shimer and Brian Bolly, Meyer Sound s cinema and live sound project manager. Shimer had specific performance criteria, which included eliminating the need for delay towers. Because of the positioning of video walls, the system was rigged on stage more than originally anticipated. However, Bolly was able to redo the predictions using Meyer s MAPP Online Pro, recalculating the array setting and making adjustments. The system was loaded in on Wednesday and up and running that evening. The arrays were off the ground and in the air in about 35 minutes, Bolly says. Luke Jenks, Meyer s product manager for loudspeaker products, worked with Shimer to assist in the array configuration and alignment process. Twenty-four (12 per side) of Meyer s new 1100-LFC low frequency control elements provided the low-frequency reinforcement. Shimer also had the advantage of using the system just a few weeks prior for WE Fest, a large country music festival held every August at the Soo Pass Dude Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. The main loudspeaker system looked small compared to the size of the stage and the required coverage area. The performance was impressive, to say the least. As Bolly notes, Because of the nearby Heritage Stage and hotels farther down the beach, we were asked to cover 400' 500' with the Leo system. Shimer adds, The levels and throw of this system are nothing short of amazing. We measured over 103dBA at 500' during one of the performances, and we didn t have any delays. The Leo and 1100s have the tonal quality you would expect a January

5 Luke Jenks, Jamie Nixon, Lee Moro, Rick Coleman, and Brian Bolly, of Blackhawk Audio and Meyer Sound. Meyer Sound system to have, with an amazing amount of headroom; the linearity of this system gives it an impact like no other system I ve ever heard. Consoles for this stage included an Avid Profile for front of house and a Yamaha PM-5DRH for monitors. The crew for the main DeLuna Stage included Lee Moro at the front of house and John Smajda as the stage tech. The monitor engineer was Charlie Klein, and the monitor tech was Ted Daniels. Over at the Windcreek Stage, Kenny Sellars, the system tech, manned the monitors during the festival. Lloyd Ellis and Mike Groenke covered the stage, and Kent Margraves manned the front of house. Avid Profiles were used at both the front of house and monitors. The main system was Meyer MILOs (12 per side) and Meyer 700-HP for subs (12 per side). In addition to production management of the event, Aull also called on his lighting design skills for the lighting systems on the DeLuna and Windcreek Stages. Aull says, I used Pearl Jam and Foo Fighter s design as the basis for the main stage. I also used Florence and the Machine s plot as the basis for stage two. Lighting equipment for both stages was provided by Premier Global Production, of Nashville. Sound Associates, of Theodore, Alabama, provided sound and lighting support for the Heritage Stage, and Soundscapes, from nearby Pace, Florida provided sound and lights for the GoPensacola.com stage. Insofar as video was concerned, Orlando Productions provided a fivecamera HD shoot at both the DeLuna and Windcreek stages, and Solotech provided Pix2o screens for the main stage, which, according to Aull, are really nice. They roll up like garage doors and take 45 minutes to load in. For the Windcreek stage, Solotech provided two Everbrighten screens. Aull is quick to give praise to all the service providers for DeLuna Fest regarding the success of the event as well as to his stage managers for the event; John Lafferty, Greg Aull (my dad), Freddy Esposito, and Steve Robertson. The old saying: A good manager hires the right people is especially true here. The only thing I had to do was hire the right people. Everything else was easy. After a Decade, We re Still the BEST Choice In Used Lighting and Sound A full service online marketplace where listings The World s Marketplace for Used Lighting, Pro Audio & Stage Gear GEAR UP with GearSource Toll Free: GEAR sales@gearsource.com