TRNSMT 2019

Adlib enjoyed another bumper, busy and successful summer festival and event season, from which recent highlights have included supplying full technical production – lighting rental, audio rental, video rental and rigging – for the third hugely popular TRNSMT Festival, staged by DF Concerts over three days at Glasgow Green, Scotland.

It was the first time that Adlib had supplied all four primary technical disciplines – including a production rigger – having been the lighting and audio contractor since the festival started in 2017.

The three-day event headlined on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday by Stormzy, Catfish & The Bottlemen and George Ezra respectively was serviced from the company’s Glasgow office and project managed by Chris Neary assisted by Graham Cochrane and Craig Hamilton.

Chris comments, “It made sense for everyone to have one locally-based technical solutions provider this year, which ensured the whole process ran smoothly and efficiently.”

‍Lighting & Video

The stage was a Serious Stages 25m Space Roof, and below this, production rigger Jimmy Johnson – who has also been involved with the event since the start – flew a series of trusses.

The ‘house’ lighting rig was flown on four straight trusses and two side trusses. This setup emanated from their knowledge and experiences of the last two events and was designed by the Adlib team to work optimally for all the major acts, so they could each enjoy a great show.

So much was this thought-through … that any massive overnight de-rigs and re-rigs were avoided this year, which was one of the “fundamental goals” explained Chris who worked closely with lighting crew chief Jon Barlow.

The overhead and side trusses were populated with over 90 moving lights – including Martin Viper Profiles, Claypaky Mythos hybrids and MAC Quantum Washes, 30 of each – giving all the incoming LDs a premium ‘top rig’ underneath which they could integrate their floor-based specials packages.

The two headlining bands each night brought in their own floor set ups which – in addition to those mentioned above – were Gerry Cinnamon, Bastille and Lewis Capaldi, two of which (Gerry & Lewis) are existing Adlib clients so they also provided their specials for LDs Pete Hutchison and Gary Wilson.

The house lighting console was a grandMA3 plus a hot backup, and a WYSIWYG suite was provided at FOH, so visiting LDs could tweak their shows as necessary and maximise any additional time.

The upstage ‘house’ LED screen was a 15-metre-wide by 8-metre-high wall of Adlib’s new Roe V8 (Vanish transparent) LED video wall rental product, which was utilised by the final two / three acts of the day, as dusk fell into darkness.

George Ezra’s production was a festival version of his distinctive touring set with the windows which was built upstage of the house LED screen for their Sunday night slot. In the changeover, Adlib flew in and de-rigged their screen in 18 minutes, re-revealing Ezra’s full set. A move that was “pretty impressive even by our exacting standards,” exclaimed Chris, clearly proud of the achievement and combination of good organisation and engineering.

The side screens were two portrait-oriented 6-metre-wide by 8-metre-high surfaces constructed from Unilumin 5.9 mm, another Adlib stock LED product.

A full 4K camera package included three Sony HDC4300 broadcast cameras which were positioned at FOH, in the pit and / or hand-held onstage, with Adlib also supplying dedicated operators.

These were supplied with one of Adlib’s custom PPUs which included a Panasonic AV-HS410 switcher. This new investment by Adlib has been a massive success so far for the festival season. The TRNSMT video elements were coordinated by crew chief Rob Bickerstaff.

A media server was supplied for the playback of ad stings, sponsor messages, public announcements and safety messages. Visiting artists with video content all brought in their own media servers and hooked into the Adlib system.

Audio

When it came to audio, Adlib reverted to one of their fine-tuned festival systems which is a combination of L-Acoustics K1 and K2 speakers, hung in a variety of configurations. This has a proven track record for covering a range of regular festival scenarios over the last few summers.

Here, the set up was left and right main hangs plus side hangs either side of the IMAG screens, utilising a total of 24 x K1 and 24 x K2.

The subs were L-Acoustics KS28, 36 in total, all ground stacked in columns in front of the stage. Twenty-two boxes of KARA were used for infills, outfills and lip fills.

Four delay hangs were built either side of and parallel with FOH on two towers 20 metres apart, and these utilised a total of 28 x K2 elements.

The ‘house’ consoles were DiGiCo SD12s for FOH and monitors – with five supplied in total including a spare system.

Most of the bands brought in some sort of audio package of varying sizes and complexities, all of which were accommodated with minimum fuss, and for those utilising the house monitor system,12 x Adlib MP5 wedges were available.

Adlib’s audio crew chief on site was Aaron Greig, and he also spent a lot of time advancing the PA requirements of all the artists. Several multicores were provided for bands so they could simply rock up and hook their own consoles swiftly and painlessly into the Adlib line system.

Aaron worked alongside eight audio techs and engineers spread between the stage and FOH, and they made up part of the 24-strong crew covering lighting, video, audio and rigging, plus Chris, Craig and Graham.

“Being the third year, we knew what to expect which made certain things a lot easier and enabled us to refine some elements,” stated Chris, explaining that the goal was to make the house systems as seamless as possible for visiting crews and in doing so, offering fully specified technical packages to meet their expectations!

Considerable thought and planning went into reducing the need for overnight rigs this year. “Having a fully Adlib technical team also had many advantages, and everything worked out well including the weather,” concluded Chris. “We enjoyed all the teamwork and camaraderie between ourselves and with the visiting crews and we’ve received some excellent feedback!”

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