Children In Need Rocks Sennheiser UK

Coldplay, Lady Gaga and Barlow himself were amongst a host of stars who performed on the night, many of whom used Sennheiser radio equipment.

Audio provider for the event was Delta Sound, who supplied a comprehensive array of Sennheiser products. However, such were the demands of the show that Sennheiser UK was happy to loan further equipment, providing additional support in the form of Mark Saunders and Andy Lillywhite.

Project manager for Delta was Steve Lutley who, together with Simon Hodge, had spent the summer manning the monitor consoles on Take That’s Progress tour and was doing the same for this event.

“Sennheiser had provided such great support for the Take That tour, and for the 2009 Children in Need concert at the Albert Hall, that it made perfect sense to ask then to help with this year’s event,” he said. “We had 23 artists performing 25 songs, along with four presenters, a 10-piece house band, and 24-piece orchestra. The entire show was virtually live to air, there was only a 10 minute delay from the start of the show to the start of transmission.“

"When the brief came in about the content of the show, Steve and I knew that we would need to be well insured in terms of RF gear and management,” added Simon. “I'm sure that Mark was both expecting and dreading the call to talk about it. Luckily he still said yes and offered us a great deal of equipment and support.”

Working closely with Steve and Simon, Andy Lillywhite played a key role in what turned out to be one of the year’s biggest RF challenges.

“The frequency planning ended up being something of a team effort,” he said. “Preliminary work was done by Simon but, as he had to concentrate on the operational matters once the production rehearsals got under way, the frequency planning baton was handed over to Paul Carter and I at quite an early stage.”

“We were also helped out by Ali Viles who was looking after RF for Coldplay,” added Steve. “They, Lady Gaga and Snow Patrol all came with full production, so careful planning had to be agreed in order that they could all slide into the RF spectrum that we had available.”

“With Coldplay, Lady Gaga and Snow Patrol all having their own substantial RF requirements, in addition to the needs of the 'house' band, BBC orchestra, presenters and all the guest artists, the final list of radio microphones and in-ear monitors topped out at 113 separate UHF frequencies,” continued Andy. “We somehow managed to accommodate everybody's needs, with extensive use being made of frequencies in the soon-to-be-auctioned upper and lower cleared UHF bands, so we might not be able to do it quite the same way in a year or so!”

“Things got quite busy at the end,” confirmed Simon. “But with Paul and Andy’s excellent skills available, they managed to figure it all out.”

The Sennheiser radio mics used on the show included an SKM 5200 with MD 5235 head for Gary Barlow and Lady Gaga, SKM 5200 with KK 105 head for Snow Patrol and the presenters, plus SKM 2000s with 935 heads for various members of The Collective. This included Ed Sheeran, Tinchy Stryder, Labrinth, Wretch 32 and also Tulisa using her custom CrystalRoc SKM 500-935.

All in-ear monitors for the ‘house’ band were Sennheiser 2000 series, with some of the visiting artists using G3 systems.

“Steve and I used the SR2050 high-powered IEM system very successfully on the Take That tour earlier in the year and it was put to great use again, especially as the artists from 'The Collective' were singing from the back of the arena,” said Simon. “Luckily both the IEMs and handheld mics delivered perfect performance, even from over 60 metres away.

“During the show Mark helped out Paul Carter to provide the artist interface by handing out and managing packs and mics, which was a massive help.”

“Production rehearsals were in West London with only a 'dress run' in the afternoon of the show day in Manchester to find out for certain if the plan was going to work,” added Andy. “We were really pleased that it worked perfectly and that we were able to help Gary and all the artists raise much-needed funds for, and awareness of, this most worthy cause.”

“We had a fantastic team that also included Tom Boothby, Pete McGlynn and Martin Dineley, but the support of Sennheiser on an event like this - not only with equipment, but with personnel - really is invaluable. It is a very comforting sight for all guest engineers,” said Steve.

“It's always reassuring to see helpful friends in Sennheiser (along with Delta's Paul Carter) present on any major multi act show such as Children In Need Rocks,” concluded Bronksi, Monitor Engineer for Tulisa and Dappy. “Knowing that RF is going to be locked in and that Dappy and Tulisa's blinged mics are going to be totally taken care of is welcoming. I wouldn't choose any other IEM product over Sennheiser, and they completely show off their stability and reliability on an event like this that has so much RF.”

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