The recent return of the popular BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend music festival at Memorial Park in Coventry, England — playing across two nights for an audience of about 40,000 who were on hand for performances by artists that included Harry Styles, George Ezra, Ed Sheeran and Calvin Harris — saw the main stage outfitted for the first time with a system headed by Martin Audio MLA arrays.
The show was new to sound provider RG Jones (based in London), which tendered successfully for the event. The production company re-connected with long-standing clients Dick and Frankie Tee from EnTEEtainment and worked with event manager Festival Republic.
Being an urban site, noise management was of the highest priority. An offsite limit of 75 dBA Leq15 was relatively straightforward to achieve for the sound team in utilizing MLA and its ability to control offsite noise, despite some strange acoustics surrounding the nearest houses.
Main PA hangs of 14 MLA elements were boosted by a central cardioid subwoofer array of 22 MLX cabinets, asymmetrically steered to help with offsite C-weighted levels. In addition, MLA Mini and DD12 provided frontfills, MLA Mini and MLA Compact outfills, and there were two delay positions of 12 MLA Compact, and a single central position of eight MLA.
The RG Jones crew featured a blend of seasoned A-team regulars and some newbies. “It’s so crucial to have the right team on these shows and bringing some new faces into the circle of trust is both exciting and invaluable,” explains Simon Honywill. At FOH were RG regular Damion Dyer and the experienced Chris Pyne running the twin DiGiCo SD12 A/B desk system. System tech was Matt Besford-Foster, who was fresh off MLA training, having spent many years traveling the world with Muse and Elbow.
“I was very impressed with the tonal signature across the MLA range,” says Besford-Foster. “MLA Mini seemed to defy physics with their ability to sit alongside MLA as a side hang and hold their own.”
On stage were Mark Isbister in his regular role as patch master and interface with the BBC, assisted by Chris Lambert and RG’s own Rosie Tarrant. Looking after monitors were Martin Dineley and Sam Manigley.
Simon Honywill was responsible for system design and used Martin Audio’s new 3D prediction software – DISPLAY 3 — to generate a series of plots for environmental sound consultants Vanguardia. “For me it was interesting to actually deploy a system that was mapped in DISPLAY 3 for the first time,” Honeywill says. “I worked hard to design a system that would deliver the best possible experience for the audience of course, but also looked into restricting coverage on the house right side of the arena, where there was a large bar and toilets, and beyond the perimeter fence was the closest noise monitoring point.
“I had some reservations about using 12 MLA Compact on the outfill that covered that area, but in fact it was the right choice as the crowds thinned out significantly there and we were able to control coverage very effectively and run the headliners at a comfortable 98 dBA.”
Frankie Tee adds, “It was a real pleasure to be back working with RG Jones again after so many years. We knew they would deliver a great service to the Radio 1 event, and we only had positive feedback from the clients, broadcast and artists, proving we were in safe hands.
“The site faced some challenges with nearby properties, but Simon and the team were able to very accurately not only predict offsite noise levels, but stick to them too. I very much look forward to hopefully many more events together.”
