Night of the Proms 2005 - a spectacular arena-sized combination of classical and pop music - celebrates the show’s 21^st year, once again proving it’s the most popular and most visited live performance in Europe. NOTP is on a 3 month sold out tour of Belgium, Holland and Germany. The show - with large format projections supplied by E\T\C UK and sound and lighting equipment and crew supplied by Belgian based EML - kicked off at its traditional ‘first stop’ venue - Antwerp Sportpaleis. Here it plays 18 nights to 15,000 plus people before moving on to Rotterdam.

This year the action-packed Antwerp line up features Roger Daltry, Donna Summer, John Miles, Ace of Base, Safri Duo and Fine Fleur plus a 48 piece choir and a 67 piece orchestra conducted by Robert Groslot. Production manager Phillip Lengele is once again overseeing all the technical and staging elements, and ensuring that the traditional, friendly NOTP vibe is maintained throughout among crew and performers.

Last year NOTP upped the production ante and changed the look of the show dramatically with the introduction of large format projection on a widescreen backdrop. This year E\T\C UK was once again back onboard, supplying two PIGI 7 Kw projectors with double rotating scrollers and special artwork. The machines are front projecting and are fully optimised for maximum visual impact.

Projection was originally introduced into the show by lighting designer Geert Vanhout. The concept proved incredibly successful in 2004, so it was definitely back on the agenda this year. However they also needed to move the show onwards and make it look different.

This time around, Vanhout came up with the idea of a series of strips of electric rolling screens, that could be utilised either as one upstage uniform projection surface, or could be shaped and broken up into different combinations. The material is a special mesh which takes the projections perfectly. The screen is made up of eight 4 metre wide strips, each 12 metres high, in a DMX controlled system that was specially designed for NOTP by EML’s engineering workshop. For the show it is operated by Olivier Demoustier from his WholeHog 2 console, which is also controlling all the moving lights.

Vanhout again worked closely with E\T\C UK’s Ross Ashton to produce the projection artwork which was all specially originated for the show. It involves a miscellany of images from sunsets and landscapes to children’s drawings to abstracts, skin and fur texturings to flowers. Projection runs for 85 per cent of the show, with most songs featuring several different images. Vanhout comments, "Once again it was a really good experience collaborating with Ross Ashton. The projection brings another perspective and dimension to the stage, really boosting the dynamics and visuality of the show".

Lighting

On the lighting front, Vanhout once again chose a large moving light rig - he has a busy show containing a vast array of different styles and genres of music - from d ‘n’ b to classical! His moving light rig consists of twenty VL4s, twenty-four VL3000s, twenty-four VL2500 Spots, five VL2416s and 28 VL2Cs to lighting the audience. With the VL4’s and the 2Cs being quality antiques, Vanhout maintains "They still have something very special - including their own personalities!"

Aside from these, there are 72 PARs, some Moles and scrollers, 20 strobes, some smaller "Batman eyes" 500W blinders and several strings of ACLs for audience illumination. Eight straight trusses move up and down during the show, draped with custom triangular shaped pieces of "Tiger Net" LED cloth. These fly in to form an LED ceiling over stage at one point, moved using the German Batalpha motor control system and half tonne Lodestar motors.

EML has made some serious investment in LED for the 2005 show. A 36 metre wide colour changing LED starcloth fills the ear of stage, which EML commissioned from Showtex in Antwerp. The cloth is supplied in 3 metre wide sections and is inlaid with thousands of twinkling LEDs consuming 1600 DMX channels! The music stands onstage are also under-lit with LED strips that can be dimmed and colour changed from the lighting desk.

All the moving lights, the LED sources, strobes, projectors and the rolling screens are controlled by Olivier Demoustier’s WholeHog 2. Vanhout meanwhile runs a trusty Avolites Sapphire console which controls all the generics. "As always" says Vanhout, "The challenge is doing something different each year. The new show is just 9 months after the last one; the time passes very quickly and as well as expecting some familiar elements to the show, the public also expect new and exciting parameters - particularly with the visuals"

Audio

This is also supplied by EML. One of the great advantages of supplying both audio and visual equipment and crew is the continuity that EML can offer to the production. Once again Patrick Demoustier (brother of Olivier) returns as sound designer. As with lighting, the audio department improves and streamlines each year, and the unconventional nature of the line up - containing both classical and rock musicians - has seen them develop their own unique systems and techniques.

Instrumental to getting a good NOTP sound is finding a workable mic system. They now have a mic built into every string instrument. The DPA 4062 - one of the highest spec mics available is used for the strings, "No-one could believe that we measured 140 dB peaks in a viola but we have" explains Demoustier. For the woodwind and brass section, they rebuilt some existing mics, and for the 50 piece Choir, they developed a headset mic combination with both individual level and total level controls.

While for rock bands it might be obvious to go with an IEM system, for an orchestra it’s a different prospect. Each NOTP musician has their own IEM mix and control so they can tweak any of three options - their own instrument, their own group or a specialised mix for their group. These are all supplied from a Digico D1 desk at the side of the stage, mixed by Igor Docks.

Backstage there’s two Midas Legend consoles which deal with the strings and choir pre-mixes - 8 stereo mixes for FOH and 9 mono for monitors. These are engineered by Marc Iven. The band monitors are mixed by Tom Vuerstack using a Digico D5, who has 38 mixes, all IEMs, apart from one or two artists who prefer wedges.

The woodwind, brass and percussion pre-mixes are all taken care of by Xavier Lecompte using a Yamaha DM2000 at FOH positioned alongside Demoutsier’s own Digico D5. There are too many solos happening for him to be backstage. He feeds 22 mono mixes to monitors and 4 stereo mixes to Demoustier’s D5.

With 130 mics onstage, it was vital they had a speaker system that would minimise spillage … and so Demoustier decided on Adamson as the best system available for the job at the moment. He’s using twenty-four Y18 elements in total for the and left and right arrays, plus 8 Adamson Spectrix as downfills and a further 8 stacked Spectrix for front fill. It’s low profile is ideal for sightlines. There’s a total of 14 EML S318 subs, then 16 Adamson Y10s for delays plus a JBL HLA conventional PA as outfill. The amps are all Labgruppen.

They’ve upgraded their speaker controllers to the Apex IX, which is a vast improvement and makes good use of "floating point" technology, offering increased headroom and dynamics and huge advantages over fixed point systems. The system is EQ’d via an Apex IQ system, so the whole mix is digital from the mic inputs through to the speakers.

The electric band is kept well under control in terms of potential spillage with the use of digital V-Drums, DI for the bass and keyboards and a Line 6 digital amp for the guitar. For vocals, guest artists are offered a choice of Neumann or Shure wireless.

Demoustier’s outboard rack contains - among others - a nice selection of Manley toys, including a Manley Massive Passive EQ which he uses across the whole system, linked to a Manley stereo compressor. The main sonic challenge is keeping a good clean sound, and in mixing both classical and electric music simultaneously, without either genre losing its distinct characteristics. It’s something that Demoustier has now honed to a fine art.