Some shows have months and months in the planning. With this one we had just a few weeks.
When Blackpool Council and Piper Music began planning The People’s Stage at the Winter Gardens Opera House, the brief was clear, create a concert worthy of launching Blackpool’s bid to become UK City of Culture 2029. Bringing together headline artists, local performers and the Hallé Orchestra was always going to make for a special evening, but it also meant delivering one of the most technically demanding productions we’ve worked on this year.
dBS Solutions was proud to provide the complete technical production for the concert, supplying audio, lighting, rigging and the infrastructure needed to support a constantly changing line-up of performers throughout the evening.
Load in started at 8:00am. As soon as the trucks arrived, the rigging team was in the roof while lighting trusses were being built on the floor. At the same time our audio crew were flying and tuning the Martin Audio WPS and WPC PA system with SXCF18 subwoofers and FP8 front fills before running multicores and network infrastructure across the stage & to FOH
Once the stage was clear, the Hallé Orchestra’s team moved in to build the orchestral layout while our technicians dressed the stage with microphones, stands and cabling, ready for the orchestra to arrive. By 2:00pm rehearsals were underway, giving us just six hours to take the Opera House from an empty stage to a fully operational concert production.
Front of House was mixed by dBS Director Chris Bogg on one of our DiGiCo Quantum 225 Pulse consoles, handling 96 inputs across the show, while Greg Ashton mixed more than 22 monitor mixes from our DiGiCo Quantum 326. Performers were looked after with 16 channels of Shure Axient Digital PSM in ear monitoring and 16 channels of Sennheiser EW-DX wireless handheld microphones, with Fourier Transform Engines providing reverb throughout the production.
Lighting Designer Dale Land chose a rig of Ayrton Rivale Profiles, Chauvet Outcast 2X Washes and Elation SOL I Blinders, flown from our three-truss pre-rig system. The brief wasn’t simply to make the show look impressive. The lighting had to work equally well for a full rock band, solo performers and a 39 piece orchestra, creating different moods throughout the evening while ensuring every performance felt at home on the same stage.
“The biggest challenge wasn’t the equipment,” says Chris Bogg. “It was the time. Everyone had to know exactly where they needed to be and what came next. There isn’t room for hesitation on a show like this.
“We had our monitor engineer in rehearsals the day before and much of the team had already spent days preparing the show before we even arrived in Blackpool. That’s how we work. Good preparation makes days like this possible.”
The concert featured performances from KT Tunstall, Jack Savoretti, Little Boots, Rae Morris, Tom Burke, Darrell Smith, John Robb, Nathan Parker, Harry Clayton-Wright, Blackpool’s Electric Pink Voices LGBTQ+ Choir, BMS Contemporary Choir and an all-star house band featuring members of James, The Stone Roses and The Courteeners, all performing alongside the Hallé Orchestra.
Our relationship with the Hallé Orchestra goes back more than 20 years, so it meant a great deal to be asked to support another landmark performance together.
A huge thank you to Blackpool Council, Piper Music and the Hallé Orchestra for trusting us with such an important event, and to every member of the dBS crew whose hard work before and during the show made it all possible.
When the audience stood for the final performance of Heroes, it was one of those moments that reminds everyone why live events matter. We’re proud to have played our part in a fantastic evening for Blackpool and wish the town every success with its City of Culture 2029 bid.
