ADLIB Audio and sister company ADLIB Lighting supplied sound and lighting production to the Manchester v Cancer show at the MEN Arena.

The star-studded line up included New Order, The Doves, Johnny Marr & The Healers, Elbow, 808 State, Nine Black Alps, Badly Drawn Boy, and the tightly packed evening also included DJ sets from the Utah Saints, Tin Tin and Mr Scruff plus other local talent and acoustic artists during the change-overs.

ADLIB fielded a total crew of 19 who worked in two shifts to separate the load in crew from the event crew. The get in started at 6 a.m. that morning, and the show commenced at 6.30 p.m. in the evening. With doors at 6, this left 12 busy hours to rig, set up and sound check 8 headlining live acts. To make sure all their engineers and lighting designers were happy, plus sort out the DJs and other performers “It was effectively a extremely hectic one day festival scenario” says ADLIB crew chief Dave Kay (recent winner of the 2006 TPi Award for Sound Engineer of the Year).

For audio, ADLIB supplied a JBL VerTec line array system configured in two main hangs of 16 elements a side and two side hangs of 14, with 8 ADLIB DF 418 subs a side.

They had four consoles at FOH and four onstage – a mixture of digital and analogue - to deal with the incredibly tight changeover times and to satisfy many different tastes - with all bands bringing in their own FOH and monitor engineers. AT FOH were two Midas H3000s which were paired with 2 XL3s onstage. Digico supplied ADLIB with a Digico D5 which was complimented by a Yamaha PM5D onstage, and ADLIB also supplied a Soundcraft MH3 for the DJ mix and other artists.

They switched between desks using a TC EQ Station run in ‘Mix / Matrix’ mode.

The monitors were ADLIB’s proprietary MP3 low profile wedges all processed by  dbx Drive Rack and powered by Crown amps, together with Nexo Alpha side-fills and a selection of Shure PSM 700 IEMs supplied by Handheld Audio. With four drum kits onstage at the start of the show, a prolific and varied selection of mics included Sennheiser, Shure, AKG and Beyer – a mix of radio and standard units.

The front of house team was led by Steve Cole and Steve Pattison and monitor duties were ably attended to by Dave Davies and Ben Booker.

On the lighting side, ADLIB’s Pete Abraham and Ian Tomlinson were at the helm, they designed a generic system in conjunction with Dave Reason (DVD LD) to satisfy both the requirements for the DVD and to cater for a multiple high profile headliner situation. Some specials were added by New Order’s LD Andy Liddle to give an extra dimension for the headline act .

The moving lights were a mix of 26 High End Studio Beam PCs and 25 Martin Professional MAC 550s, plus 8 MAC 2K profiles on the floor. These were joined by 8 Atomic strobes; 12 PixelLine battens on drop down trusses either side of the upstage LED screen. 8 Studio Spot 250s on the front truss and 12 repositionable floor PAR cans were available for band key lighting. Four 8-lite Moles on the front truss and four 4-lite Moles on the mid truss were utilised for audience illumination.

The first half of the show was run by Tomlinson using a Hog iPC console, and the second half was run by Liddle using a WholeHog II. ADLIB also supplied an Avolites Pearl for Dave Reason to control the key lights. Other visiting LD’s were Andy Emmerson (Elbow) and Simon Watson (Nine Black Alps) who was also on the ADLIB crew.

Dave Kay sums up, “It was a challenging event for both sides of the company and timing was critical for the success of the whole event. Most band sets were only 15 minutes long with very strict 10 minute changeovers. Thanks to the professionalism of all of the crew and artistes working on the day we kept within 5 minutes of our seemingly impossible schedule. Thanks must also go to all visiting engineers, suppliers and the production team for maintaining a sense of humour and making the event something that we were all proud to be a part of. ”