ADLIB Audio & Lighting supplied equipment for the high profile versus Cancer show at Manchester Evening News Arena. The line up included 9 leading artists including The Enemy, The Fratellis, Happy Mondays, Fun Loving Criminals, Athlete, The View, Inspiral Carpets, The Farm, and the XFM winners All Bar 3.

ADLIB’s new V-DOSC system was utilised for the PA, with front hangs of 12 V-DOSC per side, complete with 4 dV-DOSCs per side for downfills and side hangs of 12 dV-DOSCs elements. For front fills, they used 8 ARCs cabinets.

The subs totalled 16 of the new high-powered L-Acoustics SB28s and 8 SB218s – all ground stacked.

The front hangs and subs were driven by the new LA8 amps, with the side hangs and fills powered by the Lab Gruppen standard, complete with ADLIB’s speaker cabling and infrastructure to make it work.

At front of house they provided two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles which were set up festival style as A & B systems and flip-flopped for the 9 bands, all of whom received exactly the same facilities via the on board dynamics and effects. ADLIB’s Vi6’s have just been upgraded to Optocore fibre multicores.

Both FOH desks were babysat by Dave Kay, and the system was looked after by ADLIB’s Tony Szabo. Most of the bands also brought their own engineers, and any that didn’t were mixed by Kay.

The system was driven by 5 Dolby Lake Processors, one of which was set up as a matrix input switcher for the consoles to keep the signal digital all the way from the console to the outputs. Szabo also utilised a Meyer SIM3 to align the system and aide with the system tuning.

In monitor world, ADLIB’s Marc Peers also approached the gig as a high intensity festival situation. The 10 minute changeovers allowed absolutely no margin for error “so the prep really had to be rock solid” he explains.

Hardware wise, they supplied a total of 18 ADLIB MP3 wedges, flown Nexo Alpha sidefills all run from Crown amplifiers and two Yamaha PM5D consoles – also run in ‘flip-flop’ mode with no outboard equipment. The PM5D monitor consoles were manned by Ben Booker and Richy Nicholson.

The ADLIB crew worked very tightly with the stage managers in setting up the show to make sure there were no nasty surprises, and ADLIB touched base with the band's own engineers to get console files wherever possible, enabling them to step up to pre-set consoles and maximize the brief soundcheck time.

Again, due to quick changeovers, there was an unusually large inventory of mics – Shure, Sennheiser, AKG and Beyer - stands and cabling in order to leave as much as possible set up after soundcheck. The smooth running of the show was greatly aided by those “unsung heroes at the sharp end” says Peers referring to the mics and stage cables team of Walter Jaquiss, Declan Fyans and Laura Davis, who did an excellent job under much pressure.

Lighting

Andy Liddle came onboard again as LD, working with Dave Reason who was looking after the lighting for the DVD record by UK One Productions Ltd. Liddle designed a DVD-friendly rig that would offer enough scope and flexibility to light all the bands and make each one look a bit different.

UK Rigging supplied all the rigging, truss and motors for both Audio and Lighting. Over stage were 3 lighting trusses in a flat U shape, this was mirrored directly behind to incorporate all the L.E.D and video equipment. Two further trusses were in the rig, a front truss and an audience truss.

The main lighting system was a mix of 20 MAC 700 Profiles, 20 MAC 700 Washes, 16 Atomic strobes and 16 linear Moles. 12 Studio Beams and 16 MAC 550s were used on the front truss along with a further 6 linear moles.

On the floor were 8 MAC 2K Spots and 8 MAC 250 Washes. These were positioned behind the ColorWeb (supplied by HSL) which gave some great effects. 12 floorcans were positioned around each of the bands to provide key lights for the cameras.

ADLIB also supplied 8 bars of 6 parcans hung on the audience truss. These lights were focused around the Arena to give the audience a glow for the long camera shots.

Console-wise, Liddle programmed and operated the show using a WholeHog II, and Dave Reason’s key lighting was all run off an Avolites Pearl Expert.

ADLIB’s lighting crew consisted of crew chief Tim Spillman, Charlie Rushton, Neil Holloway and Richard Babbington.

XL Video supplied 9 onstage drops of Barco I-12 screens. Graphics content for these and the ColorWeb were driven by ADLIB’s Catalyst digital media server, run by Hugh Davies-Webb through another Hog II desk.