Liberty Parade 2011

On the last day of July, while the majority of Britain was busy holidaying in warmer European climates than the UK could ever offer, the sun-drenched Black Sea Coast of Romania was turned into a hot spot for the locals. Not as a typical tourist destination thanks to its white sand and endless sea, but rather, as the go-to place for a special kind of festival atmosphere.
    The seaside resort of Saturn became home to over 80,000 house, trance and techno fans that gathered on the beach for 12 hours of hard-hitting dance euphoria. With more than a decade of experience, the Liberty Parade event is a clear source of pride for the Romanian people, most of who make the five-hour car ride from the bustling capital city of Bucharest, to attend. And it’s not just an evening event (8pm - 8am) that occurs, from 4pm, a very literal parade passes through the streets of Saturn, and neighbouring resort, Jupiter. It’s a big task for a big client - Romania’s national radio station - Radio 21, whose Events Manager Alexandru Baculea was present as General Producer. The event was Executively produced by Gabriel Constantinescu, the Managing Director at Publicis Events.
    You might not associate Romania with high profile event producers, dance remixes, house classics or huge outdoor productions, but that’s simply because you haven’t taken the time to explore the country’s admirable progress on the world touring circuit.
    Since 2006, it’s been the job of home-grown Romanian sound and light rental company, Five’s, to make Liberty Parade’s production not only happen to an excellent standard, but to become more successful and exciting than each previous year. Five’s is also a well-known distributor, with Pulsar (LED lighting), and Le Maitre (pyrotechnics) solely using the company for distribution.
    Formed in Bucharest in 1994, Five’s co-founders Liviu Stanescu and Sorin Danescu started the company completely by accident. If you ever have the pleasure of drinking in a bar with Stanescu, you’ll soon hear his life story, a true tale of how all of his business ventures started by fluke, bet or pure romantic dreams, derived from wanting to start something that would make an impact in his homeland.
    His jobs to date have included being an English interpreter (he got the job despite not speaking a word of English at the time), owner of the first Indian restaurant in Bucharest (he cannot stand the taste of Indian food), and creator of the city’s first live rock music club, BackStage, (he does however, love live music) the place you’ll still find a cold beer and great live band.
    Today the club sits pretty in the city’s old town but Stanescu’s attention (he no longer owns the bar) has been firmly planted in the Five’s operation since its inception 14 years ago. The name, in case you were wondering, was decided when Stanescu and Danescu had five minutes to register a domain name. It’s stuck ever since, but has grown into a brand the country relies on to secure international tours.
    In 1997 Five’s became a rental contender with the acquisition of two RCF ART 500 cabinets (which are still working today). Danescu has since become a silent partner, leaving Stanescu and third partner - and Five’s General Manager - Andrei ‘Mac’ Popea, to run the company, which currently employs 40 full time staff. In 2009 Five’s was named Company of the Year by the National Council of Small and Medium Enterprises of Romania. The 11th Liberty Parade is the sixth in its history to solely use Five’s for its sound rental. If you met the team behind the production, you could quite easily see that the event hasn’t become the biggest dance event of its kind by luck; there is a clear degree of determination and dedication - albeit in that effortlessly relaxed, yet passionately Latin manner - that sees both Five’s and Liberty Parade grow year upon year. And while growth may be important, so is a unique element. Liberty Parade is certainly memory serving; its stage is built directly into the sand that marks Saturn, just yards from an ocean full of holidaymakers.

SYNCO SAVIOURS
As part of the Synco Network, a system that lends support and technical experience to professional touring PA and theatre sound profesionals, Five’s benefit by being a valued member. The unique integrated technical package provides precisely matched loudspeakers, stage monitors, amplifiers, controllers, racks, system accessories and flying systems, and every owner of a Synco package is member of the international Synco Network  which provides a comprehensive range of training, service and maintenance. Synco Europe Network has recently announced the appointment of Marcel Albers as its new Commercial Director.
    Five’s is securing Romania’s top-ranking tours. Liberty Parade’s Production Manager, Catalin Davidescu, joined the industry in early 2000 and began working for Five’s in 2004.
    “This is the first year where the production design has changed a lot, usually the stage is facing the sea so we always needed to have quite a wide setup,” said Davidescu. “The initial discussions for Liberty Parade 2011 started with the need for more audience space. The only choice we had was to rotate the set up at a 90° angle. This brought us another challenge: the delay towers and video coverage for the entire arena. After a few meetings, we worked it out successfully with this year being the best Liberty Parade production to date.” 
    Five’s services now cover a very wide range of rental markets including staging, trussing, sound, lighting, pyrotechnics and video. Davidescu continued: “We succeed to choose from the market-only professionals, those who understand the importance of time, flexibility, quality, client satisfaction and partnerships.”
    Suppliers were all locally sourced, with Kasper Events and Power Rental providing power generators and Dumagas Transport supplying trucks. 
    The purpose-built outdoor arena is quite an unusual location - especially if you’re used to the muddy festival fields of the UK. During the stage construction, the Saturn resort reaches highs of 40°. “It is really hard to keep track of all the needs,” confirmed Davidescu. “It’s a must for us to be perfectly organised, otherwise it affects the entire production. We appointed Crew Chiefs for every department involved, from the package to the load-out. A very important advantage is the rental management software that Five’s implemented five years ago, it keeps a complete track on every item.”
    The most important aspect of this production is not only the standard Health & Safety regulations, but also an awareness of the difficult working environment. “Set on the beach at a minimum 30° heat with a humidity of over 80%, the first thing you have to plan is the crew and the transportation very wisely,” said Davidescu. To set up a production of this standard when battling the sand, wind, heat and remote location is no easy task. His expertise with the festival site however, allowed Davidescu to remain undefeated: “Maybe Liberty Parade strains just a bit more than a typical festival, taking into account that it is held on beach, but the issues raised by the premises were never insurmountable.”
    Chief Rigger Serban Tomescu of the Escape Group has worked on the Liberty Parade since 2003 and joined the Five’s production crew in 2005. “I would say that [working for Fives] was a huge changeover in the approach of productions; everything grows from year to year, and for me as a rigger, it is a really big challenge.”
    Tomescu works on all the major tours that pass through Romania, rigging for the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica, Madonna, Shakira, Elton John, George Michael, Sting, Enrique Iglesias, and festivals such as the Romanian jaunt of Sonisphere but to name a few. Cutting to the chase, if you were going to trust anyone in Romania to rig an arena built into the sand, within spitting distance of the lapping ocean waves, you’d be hard-pushed to find a more competent rigger. “We started designing the arena setup in January, and had a few good brainstorming meetings together with Catalin [Davidescu], and Ionut [Dolanescu] - the Lighting Designer.  To load 12 trucks of equipment and finish the setup in three days on a delightful beach was a hard thing to do,” reflected Tomescu.
    This world of entertainment production doesn’t leave much time for the in-demand crew at Five’s, who had less than 60 hours to get the equipment re-loaded and on to the next job.
    Tomescu is a seasoned pro, choosing his trussing with the same expert knowledge that Five’s instills throughout its staff. As a distributor of Dutch trussing titans Eurotruss, headed up by Sales Director Martin Kuyper and Operational Manager Frank Schrage.  Five’s exclusively uses Eurotruss because of this strong connection. “For Liberty Parade,” said Tomescu, “We used a special construction based on a standard ST 50 18 x 14 roof and reinforced the back with two extra towers to enable more load-out from the roof, as we had a 3,000 kg LED wall hung on the back of the structure.” 
    He continued: “I need to be familiar with all the trusses, or at least with the ones used for touring, so I choose Eurotruss over other brands for the wide variety of trusses they sell. It makes it very easy to choose the appropriate one for the load I need to rig. Also, the fast coupler is very easy to use.” Eurotruss’ unique, fast coupling system to TüV specification is a 25cm triangular shaped truss boasting optimum strength. “My personal production highlight were the dynamic V-shape trusses that we used on the roof for movement during the show,” confirmed the rigger.
    This year, with the aforementioned design change at a 90° angle, the main challenge the rigging team faced was to build on the very deep and instantly moveable sand. Tomescu explained: “At 12 metres away from the sea, we had to have steel plates under the towers to avoid sinking.” Health & Safety are at the very top of Tomescu’s priorities. “Because we really care about our people, we need them fresh all of the time; energised in the mind and happy - not tired and bored. Even though the temperature was high, we planned work accordingly, and above all, we took extra care on the scaffolding to protect the audience too.” 
    Ah, the audience, well over 100,000 excited feet, pumping dance moves out like it’s a TV competition to the beats Romania’s best DJs have to offer. Laurentiu Stanga (assisted by Alex Serb) was the FOH Engineer during Liberty Parade 2011, the first time he’d worked in this role at the event. Stanga used Synco Network’s Martin Audio W8LC line array and CW318 subwoofers with a Crest Audio XR-20 desk using 12 inputs.
    “Since Five’s joined the Synco Network, sound engineers in Romania really understand that this sound system is a very versatile one, meaning and you are able to use it on almost every type of show. For instance, Big Mick - Metallica’s FOH Engineer, told me that at the end of his first performance with this system, that he was very impressed with its clarity and power. Rock bands are always very satisfied playing through the Synco System. We had a similar good experience with Tiesto, the DJ as well; you can produce any kind of show with this system.”
    There were minimal channel lists to work with: four each for the DJ sets and video, with two channels for MC mics and two spares. For the dynamics, Stanga used dbx, while Dolby and Lake was employed for processing. The big obstacles for FOH came when the noise level needed to be approximately 110dB over several hours. If you think that sounds loud, attend next year and every part of your body will more than likely confirm your suspicions. Although there were no vocals, Shure’s UHF-R system was used for mic requirements.

VISUAL VERSATILITY
It could be argued that the video element of Liberty Parade 2011 composed the entire show, as all the visuals were specially designed for the purpose of syncronising visuals with lights and music for an effortless rave-inducing surrounding.
    Supplied as a team effort between Five’s and Paradigma, all LED screens were Barco S-Lite10’s and I-Lite 6’s. Two screens were placed on each side of the stage; one rigged and the other stacked on various vertical layers of trussing, which enabled a bigger and better view for the vast audience. Towards the back of the arena, a further two screens were rigged to broadcast the show for the furthest members of the audience, and the people who lined the streets in party mode. The control system used for video was an Edirol P10 player for commercials, an Edirol mixer and some up-scalers and matrixes, plus the VJs controllers and outboards. Video Engineer and Director, Alin Gheorghe, is another part of the Five’s family. 
    If house music isn’t your idea of nocturnal bliss, you could still probably have a great time at this event. Perhaps not for the soundtrack, but potentially, for the appreciation of an incredible laser display, masterminded by Lighting Designer, Ionut Dolanescu. “Initial ideas for the lighting design were actually just the one: that the light design should emphasis the video,” confirmed Dolanescu.
    “When it came to such a large amount of lumens coming from LED screens, the first priority was to get enough light on the DJs, and then to position fixtures that go together with the video.”
    The angular, almost scientific feel to the lighting design was something that could be seen from a huge distance, as mammoth amounts of laser technology beamed into the black night sky. “When it comes to dance music,” said Dolenescu, “I always say that mathematical symmetry is needed. In this vein, I built a very symmetric lighting plot using nothing but rectangular shapes - no curves at all.”
    Dolanescu’s rider was a powerful one, comprising a variety of Martin Professional’s MAC 2000 Performance, MAC 500’s, MAC 600’s (a staggering 100 pieces), Vari-Lite’s VL 3000 Spots and 30 High End Systems’ Studio Command automated luminaries.
    Said Dolanescu: “I used the MAC 2000’s to emphasise the DJs, and the MAC 500’s and 600’s for creating the geometrical shapes on the dynamic trusses, on the straight trusses that closed the arrow shape of the roof and for the stage’s side walls.”
    A High End Systems’ Wholehog iPC was the lighting control console. As a small, mid-range controller, it offers maximum flexibility for programmers. Dolanescu explained further: “The secret of programming a dance music show, is to store as many presets as possible (positions, colours and FX) and then mix them live.”
    In pre-programming, presets were stored to help Dolanescu follow certain parts of the music, before saving cues as the show came to an end. Yet, sometimes, at events like Liberty Parade, the music is secondary to the experience of being in the midst of a laser show with such a large volume of people. “Audiences do expect to enjoy this kind of show to deliver much more than usual in terms of visual production,” the LD commented. “To the point where we make jokes about it, saying that for the future we promise an outstanding production, full of lasers and LED walls, but no artists!” Bucharest-based Laser Shows - run by Mancunian born Andy Faulkner - brought on board lasers for a spectacular outdoor club vibe.

WISE WHISPERS
LED may have been the central point of the lighting design, but more central still, was the friendly, welcoming and free-spirited atmosphere at Liberty Parade 2011. At the not-so-secret place by the sea, where the crunch of fierce midnight waves were left voiceless next to the rib-shaking thud of 80,000 cheers, it was Five’s Partner, Stanescu, who had the biggest smile. “I shouldn’t really tell you this,” he whispered, “but I am very proud of our involvement here.”
    Stanescu is a modest man, but you only have to look at the side of a Five’s truck to see the vision the company has, the desire to constantly evolve.
    The motto printed on the side of the truck reads: “We are sorcerers. Sorcerers of modern times. As our ancestors, we have total control of fire, lights, sound and images. However, unlike them, we rule all this power through our technology. Everything we do is still magic, magic technically improved.”
    Leaving the Saturn resort for one more year, the trucks have departed and Five’s, Synco Europe Network, Eurotruss and what seems like an entire city of ravers confirm yet another safe and secure result for Romania’s growing live event needs.
TPi

Photos courtesy of Radio 21

www.libertyparade.com

www.synco-network.com

www.fives.ro

www.eurotruss.nl

www.radio21.ro