T4 ON THE BEACH

On July 20, the beach at Weston-Super-Mare on England’s south-west coast once again played host to the annual T4 event and attracted its largest live audience to date.

    Around 45,000 people grooved to a line-up of 30 artists, including ex-Destiny’s Child star Kelly Rowland, Duffy, The Feeling, McFly, The Hoosiers, Guillemots, The Pigeon Detectives, Scouting For Girls, Basehunter, Sam Sparro and The Ting Tings.

    The show was produced for Channel 4 by production company Done & Dusted who generated over 30 hours of TV programming across C4 and E4.

    Two main music stages battled for audience attention while event sponsor Toyota hosted a third ‘disco’ stage with DJs, band interviews and TV celebs making guest appearances.

    ELP supplied lighting for all the T4 stages and for the TV interview suites across the site but as project manager Tony Slee explained: “With two separate LDs looking after the two main performance stages, the lighting approaches were quite different.”

    Mike ‘Sooty’ Sutcliffe was at the helm of the T4 stage on his sixth annual trip to the seaside destination, and Gurdip Mahal was responsible for the 4Music stage — 4Music is a new, soon-to-be-launched music TV channel.

    “This year I steered clear of the LED look,” explained Sutcliffe, “partly to mix things up and partly because Bill Laslett’s set design featured such a huge video screen. About 70% of the stage was taken up by screens and so I wanted to incorporate some intense light beams to punch through, frame, and generally complement the video walls.”

    He continued: “ELP’s new Vari*Lite VL3500s were ideal for this task and I used 21 of them — some at ground level and the rest rigged above the screens. They provide an amazingly strong beam and even at 30m with Kelly Rowland on the very front of the thrust and in bright daylight, the colours were reading.”

    The whole show took place in daylight and so there was only so much the lighting could actually achieve. Therefore, ‘Sooty’ and his board operator Svend Pederson (who used his own Whole Hog III desk) viewed their lighting role as more about creating rhythms and pulses to match the beat of the music, whilst capturing the fun and energy of the performances for the crowd and for TV viewers.

    Sutcliffe also singled out ELP’s Martin MAC 600s. “We ‘sprayed’ them into the audience to give a bigger look to the stage, twinkle into the various camera angles and provide greater three-dimensional form to the acts as they performed in front of the giant video wall. They’re also quite cost effective to hire!”

    The LD was also full of praise for Digital Insanity who supplied the video content and control system elements of the show. “They are such easy people to work alongside. With only one day of rehearsals we were able to create 57 looks. Each band did between two and four numbers and there were 19 acts just on our stage.”

    Digital Insanity’s creative director Kate Perring, who partners with Richard Bagshaw on this and has also worked with him on the last few TPi Awards, explained: “We used Hippotizer media servers to drive the content and the Edirol V440-HD multi-format video mixer/switcher for the final screen mixes. It was possible to push high definition content and with high bandwidth switching we were able to maintain high quality video output at all times.

    “Although the screen array seemed simpler than previous T4 On The Beach events, what it did enable us to do was play around with the shape and movement within the set.”

    Perring continued: “We were given full creative control when designing a look for each track, rather than working to a specific brief. We took each track individually as the inspiration for the creative, and tried to keep a constant textural contrast going throughout the show. Looks needed to be simple and not over fussy, providing a punchy background in the bright daylight conditions.

    “The addition of the director supplying us four switching panels and full use of any of his camera shots for some tracks along with crowd shots, live satellite links to the Big Brother house and backstage areas added to the diversity of the show.”

    Creative Technology supplied four columns of Unitek 25mm LED on the T4 stage, giving a total video screen area of 104m2 — two centre colums measured 8.5m high x 3.2m wide, while the two outer columns were 7.3m high x 3.2m wide. There were also two 20m2 Mitsubishi OD10 I-Mag screens in the wings, an additional 20m2 OD10 for delay I-Mag, and four 42” plasmas for backstage viewing in the green room and press tent.    

THE 4MUSIC STAGE
In contrast to the multi-coloured and video-rich T4 stage, the 4Music stage took on a retro and highly stylised design. The stage was decorated with 350 ETC Source Four PARs and square mirrors... nothing else.

    LD Gurdip Mahal is a big fan of tungsten. His training as a professional photographer gave him an in-depth understanding of colour temperature and how tungsten lighting behaves both on- and off-camera.

    “I like to experiment,” said Mahal. “Many shows tend to look the same these days and sometimes I feel the audience can get LED overload.

    “I’ve created this look deliberately with Source Four PARs which have a wide viewing angle so that wherever your audience position, you get hit by the beam. It’s a daytime show so I wanted to make the most of the light source.”

    Mahal specified ELP’s Source Fours with narrow lenses because the lens is much closer to the front of the lamp and provides a reflective surface. He also used square mirrors within the set to complement the mirror-like effect of the Source Fours.

    This simple but visually effective idea reflected the shapes, colours and movement of the bands and the audience. “Sometimes a low tech design can be just as effective,” remarked Mahal.

    By focusing on creating alternative chases and sequences, Mahal and his board operator Ross Williams were able to impressively create 20 alternative looks from this minimalist Source Four configuration. The show was programmed on Williams’ own Whole Hog III desk.

    To help Mahal achieve the look he was after, ELP’s crew headed up by Greg Fitzgerald rigged the majority of the Source Four PARs on vertical free-standing trusses alongside the square mirrors.

    “It’s the first time I’ve worked with ELP and I’ve been very pleased. The crew [who also included rigger Ian Day and techs Craig Broughton, Mathew Mountier, Simon Deary, Glyn Owen and Natasha Vinogradova] have been brilliant,” concluded Mahal.

SOUND MATTERS
Under the guidance of crew boss Kevin Sparks, SSE serviced the audio requirements for both stages.

    A Nexo Geo T system with CD 18 subs took pride of place on the T4 stage, with Craig Pryde mixing at FOH with a Digidesign D-Show Profile console. Kevo Moran engineered monitors with a Soundcraft Vi6, sending mixes to SSE’s newly-acquired Adamson M15 stage wedges.

    Also new in the SSE inventory is L-Acoustics’ KUDO system. The Midlands rental company recently took delivery of 32 cabinets powered by 24 LA8 amps, plus associated control, and T4 On The Beach was the first outdoor event on which it was used as a main PA — on the 4Music stage where Dan Lewis piloted a Digidesign D-Show at FOH, and monitor engineer Jasen Hattams ran a Yamaha PM5D.

    Said SSE production manager Miles Hillyard: “KUDO was chosen due to its directivity as the second stage was between the main stage and a row of houses. It worked brilliantly and I believe it did a better job of solving the spill problem than any other product on the market.”

    Hillyard’s colleague, SSE operations director Spencer Beard, added: “It’s is much more compact than V-DOSC and we have been impressed with its power and flexibility. The interesting aspect of this system is that the horizontal dispersion of the array can be changed and therefore optimised to suit each environment by using the inbuilt louvers to tailor the dispersion.”

    Along with Technical Earth, SSE managed the RF for the site with SSE supplying 32 channels of radio mics and 16 channels of IEM. SSE also supplied six Teepee structures — four as main stage delays and two as second stage PA structures.

POWER
Done & Dusted brought in production manager Tony Wheeler of Nine Yards to look after all aspects of the live production. He said: “This year’s event grew most significantly in the areas of sponsors’ areas and new TV studios backstage to accommodate the multiple broadcast formats coming out of the event.

    “We like to keep our team consistent and once again entrusted Power Logistics to ensure there was uninterrupted power, particularly important for an event driven by its live television show. As ever, they have been exemplary and taken all of the late changes an event of this nature throws up in their stride.”

    Tony Harpur led the Power Logistics team, providing all the power for the site that went from the main arena on the beach across the promenade, the road and on to the adjacent grassed area.

    Two 320kVA twin pack generators fed the stage lighting and a 450kVA twin pack generator fed the screens, PA, TV studios and broadcast trucks. Additional generators powered the temporary production areas, artists’ dressing rooms, hospitality areas, press tent, First Aid points, VIP bar and sponsors’ areas.

    Said Harpur: “Under the scrutiny of TV cameras, this event looks great, but there are always last minute additions to the site as TV producers come up with ideas that require electricity, so we have a contingency surplus to ensure we can match their requests.

    “This is always a very busy site that’s built in public areas, so great attention has to be taken with health and safety at all times.
    “Tony Wheeler and the team all work to the highest standards, which makes this event a real pleasure to work on.”

TPi