SSE Sales
K1 used again for expanded Download 2010
Download, Donnington Park 11-13 June 2010
This year’s Download festival celebrated the 30th anniversary of Donington as a rock music site, with AC/DC headlining to an expanded audience of 95,000 people.
Festival goers enjoyed three days of sunshine until rain on Sunday afternoon made for a muddy load out. The other headliners were Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith.
Once again SSE Hire used the L-Acoustics K1 sound system, after its debut at the festival last year. Production Manager Neil McDonald believes the K1 is phenomenal:
“It’s the lastest state-of-the-art technology and it sounds amazing”.
The main left and right hangs comprised: six K1 subs, 14 K1 line array cabinets, three dv-DOSC line array cabinets and 16 SB28 subs per side. Infill was covered by eight SB28 subs; the outer hangs had 10 K1 line array cabinets and three dv-DOSC cabinets per side. In addition, three outer delays comprised 14 V-DOSC line array cabinets - all powered by LA8 amplifiers.
Monitors
SSE supplied two Yamaha PM5Ds, controlling 22 SSE MB4 wedges, one L-Acoustics dv-Sub and an MB4 for drum fill, plus three L-Acoustics ARCS and two SB28 subs for sidefills. Monitors were looked after by Jay Hattams and Andy Yates.
“We made a conscious decision to go digital with monitors at this year’s festivals” says SSE Hire’s Pete Russell. “Pretty much everyone knows how to use the PM5D now, our crews are very familiar with it and engineers can turn up with show files and download them on to the desks.”
FOH
Out front, SSE provided two Midas Heritage 3000 consoles and one Yamabha LS9-16 for visiting engineers, along with one SSE drive rack and a range of insert and FX racks, all looked after by James Gebhard and Detlev (Willie) Klein.
“At FOH, we thought we’d stay with analogue for at least another 12 months for festivals” continued Pete Russell. “If you’re not familiar with digital formats and you’ve only got 20 minutes to put yourself a mix together, it’s easier to get round on an analogue board.”
The SSE team, led by crew boss and lead system tech Nick Pain, also provided two delays of 12 V-DOSC to add to AC/DC’s rig (they performed on a separate, off-set stage) on the Friday night, which meant an overnight changeover to reconfigure the delays for the rest of the weekend, handled by SSE’s overnight crew of Pete Austin, Toby Donovan, Dave Douughty, Jen McCormack, Richard Mitton, Steve Mottram and Arron Smith.
Ollie Hudson, Miles Barton, Pertuu Korteniemi and Ray Breen were SSE’s stage technicians, with Chris west on the Acoustic Stage.
Pictured above: SSE Hire's Project Managers Miles Hillyard, Dan Bennett and Pete Russell with SSE MD John Penn (2nd from right).
