Adlib Enjoys a Summer Full of Festivals posted: 28/09/2015 Creamfields UK
Liverpool UK based Adlib is full of festival spirit following a highly successful summer of shows and events covering a rich and diverse cross section of concerts and music performances - from Latitude to Leeds/Reading - with lighting, sound, their infectious enthusiasm and characteristic humour!
Here's a roundup of a few of the highlights capturing the energy, spirit and vibes
Creamfields Lighting
This is always a special event for Adlib. The company has been involved with various Cream live activities since the superclub exploded onto the dance scene in the early 90s and has continued to be a major influence right at the epicentre of rave culture.
This year Adlib supplied sound and lighting to three arenas, CF03 the 15,000 capacity Cream Mega Arena; CF05 The Curve Arena - complete with wrap-round production design and CF12 Hospitality, with production overseen by Ian Greenway production manager from LarMac LIVE.
Adlib's Ian Tomlinson opened his imagination-bank and designed three stunning, dynamic and flexible production house' lighting rigs for the three areas each to bring a different ambience to the respective space.
The event organisers again upped the production values site-wide this year, and the enormous Cream Mega Arena was headlined by Armin van Buuren on the Friday, Knife Party and Alesso on Saturday and Axwell & Ingrosso on Sunday. The lighting design incorporated over 200 moving lights including Martin MAC Vipers and Quantum Washes, Clay Paky Mythos and Stormy LED strobes and the massive audience was involved in all the action throughout by lighting on two 200 metre long trusses traversing the length of the venue.
Ryan Hopkins was Adlib's lighting operator, running a grandMA2 full size. Adlib's crew of 12 included a changeover team who re-rigged Saturday / Sunday to accommodate a complete new incoming rig for Axwell & Ingrosso on the Sunday, designed by their LD Rob Lister.
Adlib's overall crew chief (lighting & sound) was Kevin Byatt, the lighting crew boss on site was Rob Starksfield and they all worked closely with Mike Oates from LCR, who was technical production manager.
The idea in CF05 was to curve the production around half of the tent, following the contours of the venue and the imposing video wall. Lighting comprised Robe LEDBeam 100s and CP Sharpies together with LED battens, all rigged on the scaffolding structure also supporting the LED video wall. Four audience trusses were fully populated with MAC 700 washes and spots, all run by Charlie Rushton and Paul Crompton utilizing the two Whole Hog Full Boars and two Avo Pearl Experts supplied for control.
The Hospitality area comprised three saddlespan tents with the mouths butted up together, an interesting space when it came to working out a coherent lighting scheme! Ian's design was based around a circular truss flown in the centre, supported by all three roof structures. On this they hung Robe LEDBeam 100s and MAC Quantum Washes. The tent roofs were illuminated with LED Pars, and haze machines provided additional atmosphere. Lighting was programmed onto an Avo Tiger Touch console.
Creamfields Sound
These same three arenas also benefitted from three excellent sound systems designed by Adlib's Phil Stoker, all optimised to portray the fantastic line up of EDM genres.
The system in the Cream Arena was Coda LA-12 with SCP-F subs and ViRAY delays and infills, which filled the tent beautifully giving a rich and resonant sound with plenty of body. It was specified by Phil and based on the system that has been provided for this venue over the past four years which has been hugely successful with artists, visiting engineers and the public.
The lightweight Coda boxes are ideal for flying in tented environments like this.
The FOH console was a Soundcraft Vi3000 mixed by Otto Kroyman who brought his fund of dance extravaganza experience to the party. Onstage a DJ monitor system comprised L-Acoustics dV-DOSC speakers and dV-SUBs for plenty of air movement and atmosphere.
In CF05 the audio system was curved around the room to match the aesthetics, a substantial stack of ViRAY and SC2 subs were positioned either side of the DJ centrepiece to cover the near field with rear fills of Coda LA12 and SC8 Subs placed at the end of the arc the system was picked for its ability to be easily ground stacked and still sound awesome.
Another Soundcraft Vi3000 console was used here, run by Steve Norman and Billy Bryson, with Adlib's MP4 wedges onstage for DJ fills.
In Hospitality another Coda system was installed, modelled on last years' system which worked extremely well. This was also ground stacked LA12, with some smaller ViRAY boxes distributed around the tents for outfills.
Cornbury Lighting
Cornbury 2015 was staged in the attractive leafy environs of the Great Tew Estate in Oxfordshire, with Adlib supplying lighting for the main and second stages.
Production was generally stepped up this year with a 15 metre Orbit main stage from which Adlib sub-hung their lighting trusses The lighting scheme itself was designed around headliner Tom Jones, who had his own lighting requirements featuring four upstage / downstage trussing fingers, which were slightly adapted to fit this specific event.
This was the big challenge providing a good match for Tom Jones' LD that would also work for all the rest of the artists appearing over the weekend and using the house' rig.
Sixty moving lights were a mix of Clay Paky Mythos and Martin MAC Aura washes, plus 20 x new RGB Stormy strobes. The console was a grandMA2 with another running in full tracking backup and the five Adlib crew were chiefed by Rob Starksfield.
The second stage featured a smaller system comprising of front and back trusses on wind-u
