Tradition Keeps Reading On Top Of The Rock Festival Radar

Reading and Leeds Festivals are both three-day events run by Festival Republic that take place every year, simultaneously on the August Bank Holiday weekend and feature the same billing. Reading, the older of the two, stems from the National Jazz Festival, and has been running since 1961. After a decade without a fixed abode, it finally found its home in 1971, and has been there ever since.
    This year, a particularly strong line-up saw My Chemical Romance, the increasingly popular 30 Seconds To Mars (fronted by ex-Hollywood actor Jared Leto), The Strokes, Pulp, Madness, Elbow and Muse take to both festivals, playing main stages across the course of the weekend to a combined audience of 162,000 people (87,000 at Reading; 75,000 at Leeds).
    Dick Tee, Managing Director of EnTEEtainment Ltd, worked at the festival in its earlier days, and was invited back by Festival Republic’s Managing Director Melvin Benn in 2008 to take over stage production management for the main stage.
    “My role is really to oversee the installation of the sound, lighting and screens and coordinate the local crew,” said Tee, who has more than 30 years experience in the field, and is also Production Manager at Glastonbury Festival. “I also work with Festival Republic on the advancing of the headline artists in particular and basically make sure everything is in order throughout the day.”

A DIFFERENT BEAT
Tee described Reading as “a very different beast to Glastonbury” as the latter is far bigger and caters for much more than just the music. “Reading has a bit of everything really. Being one of the oldest festivals, it’s particularly well established, and it has much more of a specific focus than Glastonbury,” he explained. “Glasto caters for theatre, kids’ entertainment, all sorts, but Reading and Leeds are totally music-orientated.”
    Tee says Festival Republic’s MD, Melvin Benn, can often be seen walking the festival site, checking for sight lines and keeping an eye on the crowd. He is particularly hands-on, especially when it comes to the safety of his audience.
    “I think all responsible festival promoters should be revisiting and re-evaluating crowd movements; and Melvin is very aware of this,” Tee insisted. “His decision to try a new barrier configuration this year means he is able to more accurately analyse crowd movement using sensors. There are so many different types of crowd management these days because it’s such a huge issue, of course.”
    What Tee refers to is an improvement on the festival’s existing BLMS (Barrier Loads Monitoring System). Mojo Barriers brought the system in five years ago. It was introduced to Reading and Leeds to monitor crowd pressure as Benn was keen to understand the dynamic of the crowd, and this year, with the help of Mojo’s UK Managing Director Jim Gaffney, a new version was deployed.
    A significant change was made to the front barrier, which is now unique to Reading and Leeds: a ‘V’ was added in the middle of it, right in the centre in front of the stage that juts out about 15-20ft towards the audience, which prevents lateral movement in the crowd. This new layout was cleverly utilized by 30 Seconds to Mars, who built a ‘V’ shaped custom-made stage within the thrust in front of the stage while they performed, creating an intimate and closer audience experience.
    Gaffney explained: “We are always looking for ways to make improvements to deliver the safest festival environment which offers the best possible experience for the audience, which is very important to the organisers.
    “Extensive planning and consistent liaison with Melvin Benn and Luke Cowdell at Festival Republic enabled us to develop these completely new barrier designs to minimise the impact of the crowd surging - in particular lateral (or sideways movement) and audience collapses.
    “The thrust in the centre was introduced primarily to counteract the lateral movements that had been observed, in particular at Leeds Festival. It’s the first time this configuration has been used at these festivals and we have received positive feedback from the security company in the pit, along with the organisers, on its effectiveness of reducing sideways surges.
    “It completely stopped any audience collapses and gave all working personnel far greater access to the audience than previous years. With the extended secondary system behind it, we have definitely created a safer event without compromising enjoyment,” highlighted Gaffney.
    SSE Audio Group provided all the audio to both festivals’ main stages. L-Acoustics K1 was at the helm, a favoured SSE system, and one that SSE’s Senior Project Manager Miles Hillyard redesigned earlier in the year in preparation for a move from analogue to digital at FOH.
    “Changes had to be made to our existing system when we made the decision to go digital at FOH,” Hillyard explained. “The broadcast side was also moving digital, and actually the transition was seamless. All of the freelancers received it well.”
    SSE has a history of providing PA equipment to both Reading and Leeds, and although it lost the contract temporarily to RG Jones a couple of years ago, Hillyard and the team secured it when it became available again last year.
    “At the beginning of 2010, Reading and Leeds went out to tender, and the brief was to get it as loud as possible onsite, and as quiet as possible offsite,” he added. “Thankfully, my design came out on top, so SSE secured the two jobs, plus all of the other Festival Republic work.
    “In previous years, headliners have been hitting around 96dB, and last year we had them up at 102dB, which was much better. This year though, after fine tuning the system with Vanguardia, we had up to 108dB at FOH. Bearing in mind FOH position is 70 metres back from the main stage, not 50 metres, like many festivals, that is as good as anyone can get – certainly in a city centre location.”

A VAST COMBINATION
The combined Reading and Leeds box-count was vast. It included 71 K1 line sources, 24 K1 SB subs, 60 SB28’s subs, a total of 52 (SSE’s own) MB4 wedge monitors, four DV subs, 30 KARA line source systems, 24 d-VDOSC line arrays, 24 ARCS systems, 16 KUDO arena line sources, 64 V-DOSC - used for stand alone arena applications - and 12 12XT cabinets.
    For consoles, a total of four Avid VENUE Profiles were deployed for FOH duty, and four Yamaha PM5Ds were assigned to monitors.
    SSE is an official UK reseller of Avid’s VENUE Profile console, and after a recent investment in a further four Profile systems and two stage boxes, now has the capability to put out over 20 Profile systems. Hillyard says it was the natural choice for FOH, due to the manufacturer’s significant coverage worldwide, and the VENUE’s platform being ‘a very good one to mix a show on’.
    “To many engineers, the VENUE is probably the most accepted digital console on the market, to be honest,” Hillyard said. “In using the VENUE - and its plug-ins in particular - I think engineers feel they have more than enough tools as standard to put the right amount of colour into their mix and add plenty of creativity, without the need for any outboard.”
    SSE deployed Lake LM 44 processors for both festivals, routing the audio through a digital network thanks to the Dante capability, thus eliminating the need to insert the usual 150 metres of copper into the signal path.
    “This technology was adopted after lengthy group discussions, and we don’t have any regrets whatsoever; it delivers great sound and is also very reliable,” explained Hillyard. “The amps and processors were used at every festival after Download this year, and we are continuing with it in the 2011 winter touring season.”
    An abundance of microphones from Audio-Technica’s Artist Elite and Artist Series were in use at both festivals. The AE6100 hypercardiod dynamic mic was favoured by The Blackout’s vocal duo Gavin Butler and Sean Smith and Bombay Bicycle Club, who performed tracks from their new A Different Kind Of Fix album in the NME tent.
    The AE2500 dynamic / condenser mic was the instrument of choice for Mona and We Are The Ocean, but it was the The Pigeon Detectives sported the largest selection of Audio-Technica kit: an AE4100 cardioid dynamic on frontman Matt Brownman’s vocal, and a selection of AE3000 large-diaphragm cardioid condensers and AT4047 dual-diaphragm condensers on the guitars and drums.
    Neg Earth provided all of the main stage lighting, trussing and control systems. Crew chief for the Reading site was Andy ‘Fraggle’ Porter, and for Leeds, Barry ‘Big Tours’ Branford took the reins.
    The generic lighting was achieved using two bars of six Par 64’s, four 5k Fresnels, and 10 8-Lite Molefays. A plethora of moving light fixtures encompassed 34 Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX, 24 Martin MAC 301 LEDs, 32 Martin MAC III Spots, and 43 i-Pix BB4’s. Effects consisted of 30 Atomic 3000 Strobes, 12 Atomic Colour Scrollers, four DF50’s, four Breeza Fans, and a set of black PUFC drape. There were also four Supertrouper 2000 followspots. Control was via a WholeHog III console with a High End Systems WholeHog Rock Expansion Wing, and a full size GrandMA console.
    On top of this, some of the headliners had further requirements. For Muse, Neg Earth deployed a Kinesys system which consisted of 12 1Ton Kinesys enabled Lifkets (duplicated to assist overnight rigging in Reading), controlled by a Kinesys control system, plus 14 more Atomic 3000 Strobes and a host of moving lights including eight High End Showbeam 2.5’s and eight Showgun 2.5’s, 16 Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX, 11 Martin MAC III Spots, 33 Martin MAC 301 LEDs, and eight Thomas Pixel Line 1044 LED Battens.
    Pulp requested six more Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX, 10 4-Lite Molefays, and 11 Atomic 3000 strobes. The Strokes required eight High End Showgun 2.5’s, six Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX, 28 ColorBlaze 72’s, six 8-Lite Molefays and six Atomic 3000 Strobes and Colour Scrollers.
    One thing notable about Reading 2011 was the average age of the punters, which seemed younger than in recent years. Hillyard confirms that while this may be the case, it’s generally been the same at all UK festivals throughout the summer season.
    “The crowds are very different these days. Six years ago, there was a definite Reading crowd, in the same way that there was a definite Download crowd and a V Festival crowd,” he explained. “Some of the smaller festivals are still very genre-specific, but the mainstreams have become very similar in that sense. What also stood out for me at this year’s Reading was how the much younger crowd went absolutely ballistic when Madness took to the stage. It was fantastic to see that interaction between two completely different generations.”

HISTORICALLY RESPECTED
Hillyard also believes that because the quality of the line-up is always so good, and the event is so well respected historically, when a band plays Reading or Leeds, they have this instant feeling that they’ve really made it. Melvin Benn agrees, and suggests that picking the right line-up can sometimes define an event entirely.
    “The core for Reading is to make it socially relevant for the audience, and that’s something we do a lot of at Festival Republic,” said Benn. “Neil Pengelly is the person who brings in the acts and books the stages, and we are just constantly trying to maintain the best line-up throughout the course of the year.”
    A lot was said about Reading tickets taking a lot longer to sell out this year than in previous years, which, arguably, could be down to the influx of festivals popping up all over the UK. It could, of course, just be down to the current financial climate.
    In a different light, however, many music fans across the UK have ditched their routine seven days or so in Marbella this year, preferring to invest their holiday funds in a long weekend traipsing about in mud listening to live music in the pouring rain. Surely that’s a big thumbs-up for the UK’s live music sector, and its festival scene? Benn agrees, it seemed: “There is always room for the smaller festivals, I’m absolutely certain of it,” he concluded. “And if you think of what you can get from a major festival compared to a holiday, it’s amazing value for money. You’ve got as many as five or six days of camping on some occasions, and all of the best bands that exist playing at the same venue. Why wouldn’t people opt for the festival?”

Why not, indeed?

TPi

Photo: Blacklisters by Bart Pettman

www.readingfestival.com