Having been part of the audio team for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee last year, Milton was delighted to once again be part of such a historical occasion.
We were fortunate to have the same tried and trusted creative team for this event, he says. The continuity was invaluable and gave us a well - established methodology for this complex production, says Milton. Under the direction of Julia Knowles and with Mark Sidaway as the Executive Producer for the BBC, Nigel Catmur as LD and Set design by Stufish, I had the privilege of reprising my role as Sound Designer. Returning for a second time was an incredible experience, one which I owe to the close collaboration with Kev Duff and Andy Deacon from Zen Broadcast Ltd. The three of us approached the project with a cohesive audio strategy, creating a harmonious blend for the entire show. With the concert being both live and televised, our aim was to make it sound good for television viewers, as well as sounding magnificent at the venue.
The circular stage featured two iconic motifs that highlighted the event's significance, with elements forming the Union Jack, and a halo-like screen suspended on four upright pillars, enveloping the roof and symbolising the Crown.
I had a lengthy collaboration process with the immensely talented Zarya Vrabcheva Set Designer from Stufish, and Nigel [Catmur] LD to shape the stage design, striving to make it beautiful, continues Milton. The backdrop of Windsor Castle made it all the more important to make it look and sound as special as we could.
Milton worked with Vrabcheva to conceal the main PA, seamlessly integrating the system within the pillars, which were clad in reflective mirrors, making it virtually invisible. This attention to detail created a masterful illusion, ensuring pristine audio while preserving the stage's visual integrity.
The final stage design guaranteed that the audience would hear everything they needed without any difficulty in discerning the performers and presenters speaking from its farther reaches. It aimed to minimise sound spillage and colouration, ensuring the audience experienced synchronised audio across all aspects, he explains.
Milton further notes that the BBC's provision of an extensive pre-production period ensured the design aligned with the budget and catered to all performances, from Lionel Richie and Andrea Bocelli to Take That, as well as the presenters and various speakers, including HRH The Prince of Wales.
From a technological standpoint, with 400 inputs and several hundred outputs, the consoles had to be DiGiCo Quantum 7s, Milton says also recalling how Take That's special rendition of Never Forget, performed alongside the choristers of St George's Chapel and hundreds of other singers and dancers, gave the show an uplifting finale. At that point, we had 400 performers on stage including Take That, the choir, military drummers, and all other singers and dancers on the parapets - it was the absolute maximum we could have. To achieve that level of complexity was undoubtedly a technological feat, expertly managed with the Quantum 7 consoles, Milton adds.
Being asked to supply all aspects of audio and RF was going to bring some unique challenges and opportunities, adds Terry Tew. Having worked closely with Zen Broadcast and Ben Milton for many years gave all parties the confidence that we were in each other's capable hands. The consoles and racks were connected via 4.7km of Neutrik Opticon fibre. The Quantum 7s were invaluable and a genuine necessity, ensuring we could cater for the ever-evolving spectacle that we wanted to deliver.
Two Quantum 7s and five SD-Racks on an optical loop were dedicated to monitoring. One Quantum 7, manned by Toby Chester, handled the two 40-piece choirs, orchestra and the house band, while also sending sub-mixed orchestral stems to Seamus Fenton on the second Quantum 7, which was dedicated to the artists. A third Quantum 7 was in place as a backup.
The orchestra was on one ring of Aviom mixers, the band were on another ring and the choirs were on IEM mixes. I took the band and several sub-mixes of the orchestra and choirs from Toby - a whopping 300-plus channels and I gave him all the artist vocals, backing vocals and the Steinway, explains Fenton. I sub-mixed the Steinway down to one stereo stem with reverb and had 15 in-ear monitor mixes, spread across the artists, as well as several mixes of floor monitors positioned all over the stage and up on the castle garden ramparts.
With tight change overs between artists and little time to do line checks, Fenton made good use of the Quantum 7's Snapshot feature. I always try to have a reverb per artist for the entire show, but this show was too big to achieve that, so I had to Snapshot. I had a Snapshot for everything to allow me to share reverbs and make sure I could send Toby the right vocals so he could distribute them across all the musicians, Fenton notes. It required a lot of housekeeping, so we set up a talkback buss on the consoles so Toby and I could talk to each other in our ears, and make sure that what we were doing was aligned.
Fenton is also a big fan of the Mustard Compressors, particularly the optical compressor. It's like an audio iron and just takes the wrinkles out of things, he smiles. The All Pass Filter also came into its own.
I got a presenter mix from Chris at FOH, which is quite normal on televised shows. With the All Pass Filter engaged on the presenter mix from Chris there could safely be one fader to rule them all', so when a presenter came on stage, that channel came up everywhere as the presenter channel was routed to the matrix that was going to the on stage speakers. That allowed Chris to simply fade things up into the PA and on the stage, irrespective of what I was doing. Things li
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
10/06/2026
Production and Development Funding supports the creation of compelling, commercially viable, artistic and culturally relevant South African screen content. Deve...
10/06/2026
Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...
10/06/2026
Accedo, Humans not Robots, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) have announced the launch of Ecoflow X. Formerly an IBC Accelerator project, ...
10/06/2026
Frequency, the engine powering the world's leading streaming television channels, today announced that James Smith has joined the company as General Manager...
10/06/2026
At the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Lisbon, Riedel Communications provided the communications infrastructure for live medical procedures s...
10/06/2026
Globecast, a leading provider of broadcast, media, and entertainment managed services, today announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform powered by Or...
10/06/2026
Klvr will showcase how venues, integrators and production teams are rethinking disposable battery usage at InfoComm 2026 (Las Vegas, June 17-19, booth #N6311). ...
10/06/2026
The Video Services Forum (VSF) has further enhanced the Reliable Internet Streaming Transport (RIST) protocol by incorporating a new feature, RIST Satellite-Hyb...
10/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Showcases New Mobile Experience, Collections and Games Vision in APAC
Product
10 June 2026
GlobalSouth KoreaJapan
Link copied to c...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Ready to Join? The Netflix Fan Club Arrives at Cannes Lions
Business
10 June 2026
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Download all assets
N...
10/06/2026
Chemists snap together complex 3D molecules from highly reactive radicals-without losing their shape Scripps Research team develops stereoretentive radical-radi...
09/06/2026
Kiswe announces an expanded long-term partnership with ONE Championship (ONE), t...
09/06/2026
SiriusXM will broadcast FOX Sports' English-language commentary for all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 matches from June 11 through July 19, available to subscribe...
09/06/2026
EVS has announced it is changing its corporate name from EVS Broadcast Equipment to EVS, reflecting the company's expanded portfolio beyond broadcast equipm...
09/06/2026
Fox Corporation and the NFL have announced a multi-year agreement to bring NFL c...
09/06/2026
FOX Sports and ReachTV, an airport media network, have announced an agreement to...
09/06/2026
Cosm Atlanta, a 70,000-square-foot, three-level immersive entertainment venue located within Centennial Yards adjacent to State Farm Arena and Mercedes-Benz Sta...
09/06/2026
NESN captured five awards at the 2026 Boston/New England Emmy Awards, including four program honors and one individual award.
These awards reflect the passion...
09/06/2026
Ateme has announced that its support for Apple Immersive Video workflows was referenced by Apple during its 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC26).
Atem...
09/06/2026
Bitmovin has announced that Axel Springer SE has deployed Player Web X, Bitmovin's web video player, to power audio readouts of news articles and an audio-o...
09/06/2026
Grass Valley and Lawo have announced a technology collaboration to validate orch...
09/06/2026
LiveU has announced a deployment with the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) t...
09/06/2026
Globecast has announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform, powered by ...
09/06/2026
NBC Sports will present live coverage of Overtime's OT7 football league Championship Weekend from Sullivan Field at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angel...
09/06/2026
We're in three different locations, three different production teams. Coveri...
09/06/2026
The intro video for Men's Basketball won Outstanding In-Venue Video in the C...
09/06/2026
Today is match day minus two for FIFA and HBS. On Thursday, there will be two ma...
09/06/2026
Since their debut, the clock-and-score graphic has drawn the affinity and ire of...
09/06/2026
Last month, Spotify hosted PURE FLOWERS LIVE, a special event celebrating the re...
09/06/2026
Last month, RADAR U.K. artist Skye Newman took the stage in East London for a sp...
09/06/2026
Company to cease operating on 30 June 2026
Australian loudspeaker and amplifier manufacturer Wayne Jones Audio have announced that after much consideration,...
09/06/2026
Increases low-end weight and character
The latest plug-in release from Sheffield-based fedDSP aims to offer an all-in-one solution for users in search of mo...
09/06/2026
Introduces AI Studio Assistant, Moises Studio integration & more
Fender Studio have just announced the launch a significant update that brings an array of n...
09/06/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is a statutory body mandated to spearhead the equitable growth and development of the South African film and video...
09/06/2026
The BBC has found its Hercule Poirot.
After Deadline revealed last month that t...
09/06/2026
Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
A project aimed at modernizing scheduling operations across Mediaset's channel portfolio
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitab...
09/06/2026
tvONE, an ACT Entertainment brand, debuts its most powerful video processor ever built: the 4RU CALICO PRO (C7-PRO-4200), at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N6813). Engine...
09/06/2026
Composer and Conductor Eric Whitacre to Receive Honorary Doctorate at Berklee Va...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
09/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Having been part of the audio team for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee last year, Milton was delighted to once again be part of such a historical occasion.
