McDonald's I’m Lovin’ It Live 2020

We could not have been more pleased with the professionalism shown by the team at Adlib on this project. From start to finish the team took a proactive approach to all the technical challenges and delivered a seamless streaming for both us and the client.

- Caroline Harrington, High Scream

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The Requirement

As 2020 saw the cancellation of the majority of live events across the UK, McDonald's committed to putting on a series of free events designed to “give a little lift” to their UK and Ireland communities.

Working alongside artist management and production company High Scream who co-ordinated the design and onsite delivery, and M&C Saatchi, Adlib supplied full technical production for the finale to McDonald’s UK “I’m Lovin’ it Live” – the biggest free music event of the year.

Over three days, artists including Becky Hill, Jess Glynne, Kaiser Chiefs, Olly Murs, Craig David, Lewis Capaldi and Stormzy performed live via the My McDonald’s App.

The Solution

Live Streaming

A six-camera system was supplied for the broadcast including four manned Sony HDC-2500 camera channels (two on dollies left and right of the stage, two at FOH), and two PTZs (one on stage, one off stage). High Scream brought in Jon Shrimpton to cut the live edit on a ROSS Carbonite 2ME system.

In addition to live and backup recordings of the TX feed, Adlib delivered ISO records of every channel to allow for use in future edits.

Stage Lighting & Video

High Scream produced custom content (including the McDonald’s golden arches) that was played out on the upstage Absen A3 LED screen from Resolume main and backup media servers via a Barco S3 screen management system - all supplied by Adlib's in-house video and LED screen rental teams.

Lighting was designed by High Scream, who specified Portman P1 and P2 fixtures alongside Ayrton Diablos to frame the video wall.

Stage lighting was augmented with architectural lighting throughout the building to light the print machine and balconies – highlighting the scale of the space on camera.

Lighting equipment was supplied by Adlib's lighting rental department, with James Betts-Gray of High Scream looking after front-of-house for any incoming operators.

Audio

Adlib supplied a substantial control package designed to meet the varying riders of the incoming artists, complete with independent broadcast mix from a dedicated backstage space—again, all supplied by Adlib's audio rental department.

Inside that broadcast space, a DiGiCo SD10 console, complete with external redundant Waves servers, took care of mixing duties and processing / monitoring. This sat on a fibre loop with 1 x SD Rack at stage picking up artist inputs along with a Mini Rack in video control picking up and sending back various mixes. Next door an additional position was setup tracking everything via MADI to a redundant Pro Tools setup.

At the stage end another Digico SD10 with SD Rack was positioned alongside an Allen & Heath S7000 with DM64 to take care of monitor mixing. This was coupled with L-Acoustics X15 wedges / SB18 subs on stage, and a substantial wired mics / stands package to suit the multi band bill.

The RF package on site consisted of 6 x Shure Axient, 8 x Sennheiser 2000 & 8 x Sennheiser 6000 mic channels, along with 2 sets of 12 x Sennheiser 2000 series IEM systems c/w with duplicate packs. This high count allowed for no sharing between artists, minimising contact between people. That being said, a very robust cleaning process was also in place (alongside the use of face masks, hand sanitising and distancing) should it have been needed.

Six discrete comms rings were supplied via a mix of wired and wireless digital GreenGo systems, to allow communication between all departments and the director.

The Result

Commenting on the support received from Adlib, Caroline Harrington from High Scream said: “We could not have been more pleased with the professionalism shown by the team at Adlib on this project. From start to finish the team took a proactive approach to all the technical challenges and delivered a seamless streaming for both us and the client."

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