Europe’s Talent Hub

April 2010 Issue 128

A four-day combo of live music, conference sessions & awards in the north of Holland sees festival bookers clamouring for space...

EuroSonic-Noorderslag is an event that can fairly lay claim to the overused boast ‘unique’. For four days in late January, the picturesque northern Dutch university town of Groningen, a canal-webbed delight, rocks out to a unique combination of two multi-venue festivals that form a talent-spotting fiesta where European promoters vie to sign up new bands to the coming summer’s festivals.

    Running alongside this is a live music industry conference with a full-blown music awards ceremony (the European Border Breakers Awards or EBBAs) on the first night. All of this calls for some serious stamina, as the event parties hard far into all four nights.

    Of the 28 venues that range in scale from the city’s opera house through a circus Big Top to tiny clubs, with several leading Dutch promoters involved, Ampco Flashlight Group companies Ampco and Metam@all supply sound and lighting to the eight largest music venues, as well as conference audio for five meeting halls and rooms.

    The city’s Oosterpoort convention centre and theatre hosts the 1,000-delegate, four-day EuroSonic conference, plus a live music stage in the foyer and, on the first night, the EBBA Awards (cap. 1,000). Meanwhile, the music venues, which attract some 300 bands and a total audience of around 20,000, are all located within a 10 minute walk throughout the small city centre — very handy in the sub-zero winter. One thousand people work on the festival including 60 Ampco crew.

    Peter Sikkema, the festival’s head of production, summed up its history: “It all started 24 years ago as a one-night gig in the Grand theatre, which was a kind of battle between Dutch and Flemish bands. It worked really well, it sold out and got a lot of press attention.

    “The year after, a lot of record companies, agents and press came, and after four years we decided to start a small conference, three hours or so with some band interviews amongst other content. Then more people started coming from abroad and enjoyed the laidback atmosphere.”

    Because of its winter timing and concentration of new acts, Groningen quickly became seen as a key opportunity to sign up bands for summer festivals. As it developed, the expanding flock of agents and managers led simultaneously to the conference growing, a snowball effect that led to the vibrant (and still growing) event it is now.

    Sikkema added: “The two showcase festivals are mostly for new bands, who don’t play for a fee but for the exposure they get; and we feature some established acts as well. EuroSonic is for three days and features 250 diverse bands, and Noordeslag is a one-day, multi-venue festival for 50 Dutch bands on the Saturday.

    “For the bands it’s a great opportunity to play here, because 25 radio stations from Europe come to check the bands and to choose records. The European Broadcast Union (EBU) became involved and then seven years ago we started the ETEP (European Talent Exchange Programme), and now all the big festivals of Europe — Glastonbury, Roskilde, Pink Pop, Pukkelpop — come to see what’s hot and to book bands.

    “Franz Ferdinand played here years ago and did a really wonderful show; all the festivals booked them and when the record came out it was a huge success. Same thing with The Ting Tings two or three years ago.

    “Last year, the British band, Baddies were totally unknown in Europe but after a really good show here they played at least 15 ETEP festivals and ended up touring all over Europe — it’s a good start to the year!

    “A big factor is that the bands play with the best sound and lighting equipment, and the Ampco, Metam and backline crews really look after them. Overall it’s a huge production job with so many venues to co-ordinate and the whole technical side.”

    The same holds true for the hard rock Noordeslag which, laughed Sikkema, “doesn’t translate too well in English!” It’s a one-day showcase at which Dutch festivals seek out the best new local talent. It culminates in a Saturday night grand finale, which this year starred The Kiteman and the Hip Hop Orchestra.

FOUR NIGHTS, SEVEN VENUES
Among the most striking venues is the ornate Opera House, where the audience and stage areas are reversed for the occasion, the bands playing against a backdrop of gilded balconies. Other venues include the Music School auditorium and the Grand Theatre.

    In charge of production at all eight larger venues is Ampco’s audio production manager Dieter van Denzel, who constantly does the rounds of Ampco and Metam’s venues throughout the four days.

    “It’s an amazing experience,” he said, “because you get to see so many great new bands, and network with all kinds of live music industry people. I’m constantly on the run here, meeting and greeting, checking things are OK. But we and Metam have our best people on the job so technically it all goes smoothly.”

    To list each venue’s equipment individually would take an extra page, but a brief audio summary includes Midas Heritage 1000s and 2000s for FOH with XL3s and Heritage 3000s on monitor duties, complemented by Crest LMX-40s.

    PA for all venues except the EBBAs was exclusively the Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System, with Synco Touring System subwoofers. Monitors for all venues were Synco CW 152A active wedges with Synco processors; rack effects were a mixture of Aphex, Behringer, Lexicon, TC Electronics and Yamaha, with XTA, dbx and Drawmer inserts. Mics included Shure, Sennheiser, AKG and Electrovoice and all intercom was ASL.

    The lighting complement (including the EBBAs) totalled 37 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots, 34 VL2500 spots, 16 VL3500 Washes, 52 Martin MAC 700 Profiles, 64 PAR six-bar sets, 42 4-lite PAR bars, 18 generic moving heads, four High End DL1s, 22 Studio Color 575s, four Studio Spots, 42 Desisti 2kWs, eight 2kW Zooms, 28 Atomic strobes, 24 Schnick Schnack LED 60x60 fixtures, 16 RGB LED Colourstrips, two Catalyst Media Servers and assorted oil crackers.

    Control was by four grandMA desks, four grandMA Ultralights, three grandMA Lites and two MA Lightcommander 12/2s. There were also 12 sets of MA Lighting dimmers.

AWARDS NIGHT
The EBBAs has grown over several years into a major event, with TV and radio co-ordinated across Europe by the EBU. In Holland, it makes three hours of prime-time TV with presenter Jools Holland.

    In front of a two-stage set in the Oosterpoort Main Hall with a broken-glass theme made highly effective with ‘shards’ of LED screen, Ampco deployed an all-DiGiCo console line-up, with an SD7 and SD8 at FOH and a pair of SD7 56EX desks in the stage left and right balconies for monitors.

    PA in the Oosterpoort’s main theatre was a Synco W8L by Martin Audio line array with Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System subs, Lake processing, a Lexicon PCM91 and XTA system EQ.

    Metam’s Mickey Dordregter was LD with Martin Beekhuizen on television lighting. The EBBAs’ video content was operated via Metam’s Catylist media server. “It’s an incredible event to work on,” summed up Dieter van Denzel. “In four days I go through more pairs of shoes than all the rest of the year!”
TPi

www.ampco-flashlight.com