Entec's Night of Bliss at the 02 Arena

3 September 2010

UK - Entec Sound & Light supplied sound and lighting equipment plus 19 crew for a non-stop get-in, show and performance marathon Night of Bliss, the biggest ever Christian Conference in the UK - for the Christ Embassy Church at the O2 Arena.

The event featured various Christ Embassy ministers who delivered blessings, prayers and sermons to the crowd. Speakers included Pastor Anita and Pastor Chris Oyakhilome. A live worship band and a choir of over 1000 voices accompanied them. The whole event was also recorded for DVD.

Entec's heavy schedule demanded some nimble logistics, so they brought Simon Tutchener onboard as technical production manager for the project, to integrate their services into a vast XL Video set-up, Hawthorn set design and four rigging teams from Summit Steel. Eat To the Beat and Stage Miracles completed the cast. Tutchener was also the anchor between client and the 02 staff Emma Beszant, Alex Donnelly-Palmer and Summit's Simon Frost.

Liam Halpin was Entec's sound designer, who also worked on the 2009 Christ Embassy show - also serviced by Entec - at Wembley arena. The event utilised the whole of the O2 Arena with audience overspill accommodated in the O2's adjacent Indigo venue.

The main PA consisted of main and side hangs of d&b J8 cabinets, with J12s at the bottom of the hang for wider coverage of the nearfield, together with a centre cluster of d&b Q1s. The system was positioned to achieve the clearest and best possible coverage throughout the space, catering for many acoustic dynamics - from the spoken word to music and to multiple voice chorals/choir.

d&b J-Subs were flown directly behind the main arrays, giving a zero point for all the delays and more expedient time alignment parameters than hanging the subs to the sides of the main hangs. Ground in-fills and out-fills were covered by d&b Q10s and Q7s and the whole system was driven by d&b D12 amps and processing.

FOH was mixed by Brother Mike using a DigiDesign D-Show Venue console, looked after by Kevin Smith & Owen McAuley. Additional sound feeds from the main stage were sent to Indigo. A Yamaha PM5D was supplied for monitors mixed by Entec engineers Justin Grealey & Iain White. They worked in double shifts both ends of the multicore to ensure that there was always a fresh engineer at the desks.

Entec's lighting crew faced all the same time-based issues as audio. Ryan Brown joined the show delivery team again to design lighting following his highly successful work on last year's event.

The lighting set was hung from two dedicated trusses and was lit by Martin MAC 2000 Profiles, MAC 700 profiles, MAC 250 Beams as well as JTE 1044s.

The set itself was installed by Hawthorn Theatrical and was made up of spandex panels and fabric strips. This was hung at staggered depths, which allowed lighting elements independently. "The complexity and depth of this set allowed us to make many different looks which was crucial for such a long show," commented Ryan.

XL video provided several jibs and cranes as well as the hot-heads and four projection screens. The client provided over 20 cameras that were mixed by XL onto the screens and recorded for DVDs.

The final tally of 160 moving lights filled eight universes controlled by a GrandMA full size operated by Ryan, as well as two GrandMA lights, and two NSPs. Avolites dimmers and Entec's custom-built distros worked for the 24 hours straight of rehearsals and show without complaint.

(Jim Evans)