2012: Part 2
Of course 2012 has been a remarkable year in London and by February we had been in discussion with the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee Flotilla team for some time. We’d spent a happy day on the river mimicking a belfry to check that on the day the real bells would be audible without deafening anyone and that had certainly proved successful.
March saw us undertake a series of live trials for the five music boats we had been asked to handle for the event itself. We had to deliver clear, well balanced audio to an audience 30-50m away on opposite sides of the boats without actually being able to get in front of the PA to hear what we were doing. To add to the pressure we were handling the boat carrying the LPO and the Choir, who would sing directly to Her Majesty at the end of the event.
Oh, and we were to provide the live TV mix as well. All from a behind the PA on a moving boat. Trials went well and we learned a lot but that didn’t stop the nerves kicking in as we loaded onto the various boats in driving rain. Richard himself managed to forget to breathe for about 24 hours .The project is described in our case studies and we are proud that it went extraordinarily well under appalling conditions.
Alongside all this came projects at Southbank too numerous to mention, ranging from AGMs for Barclays and M&S to the many and varied Festivals that this incredibly diverse centre produces. Women of the World led the way into a summer dominated by Festival of the World. Fantastic art, great music and fierce debate are a theme that runs through the Centre on any given day but the summer season this year surpassed anything we have previously experienced. From the Simon Bolivar Orchestra from Venezuela to Antony’s Meltdown and artworks including Call to Poetry and Morovia the only common denominator is the quality of the work.