C3 News...

we wish all of our customers, suppliers and freelancers a fantastic new year ! and a massive thank you for all your support in 2011.

Lots of exciting new projects in the pipeline and new opportunities should make the next 12 months pretty special

We have been able to work on some fantastic projects, with acts and venues to make their events a success. On 13th October we were pleased to get involved with Modeselektor playing at Digital in Brighton. This was a very rare opportunity to see they guys play a full live show with visuals and anyone who missed this show should be kicking themselves.

Saturday 22nd October took us to The Haunt in Brighton for the musical styling’s of Son of Dave, famed for his unique take on the one man band style, Son of Dave (aka Benjamin Darvill) has toured all over the globe and sold upwards of 40,000 records worldwide.

Saturday 15th saw James Vincent McMorrow grace St Bart’s playing songs from his self recorded album, ‘Early in the morning’. James defiantly brought something different to the church that day and with over 30,000 likes on Facebook and his current UK and Europe tour it is fair to say that he is one to watch out for. In May this year James made his debut on UK TV with his performance on Later Live with Jools Holland and was also nominated for the Hope of 2009 award.

Midweek, Wednesday 26th October saw Baby Dee come to The Haunt, Having begun her career in the 1970’s in Cleveland, Ohio she has been touring and releasing albums for over 10 years. The show in Brighton was a rare chance for her fans to catch her whilst she was in the UK, she continues to tour Europe up until Christmas.

The Haunt also gave us the chance to work with acts like Tube Lord who graced Brighton as part of their 2 month 20+ dates tour. Eilen Jewell who stopped off on her UK tour before heading back to tour Europe and America and lastly Walking with strangers who played on 28th October.

Digital in Brighton welcomed Mr Scruff for a special Halloween show on the 30th.

October has been a fantastic month for all of us here at C3 and with Christmas fast approaching it can only get busier. Make sure to remember to get in touch if you are planning an event at any time in the future and look out for some big events happening in the new year.

Image courtesy of julieedwardsphotography.co.uk

As a highlight of this years Brighton Festival the world celebrated french performance troupe bring their unique anarchy and humour to the city.

Dragging rainbow coloured cars through the streets; installing a punk band on a truck roof; climbing buildings whilst painted blue; the french Generik Vapeur put on awe-inspiring street performances interntaionally. To co-ordinate this in the UK with strict controls on Health and Safety and Noise Disturbance required Brighton Festival producers Handsprung to hand the outdoor programme over to C3s experienced team of project managers and technicians. The final event pulled in over 4000 people and provided a fitting finale to the month long festival.

the Norfolk and Norwich festival is now recognised as one of the UKs leading performance arts festival, C3 continues to support this event and provided full production to the Spiegeltent cabarat venue.

An relentless programme of circus, theatre, live music and random workshops kept our excitable team of technicians busy, and thousands of intrigued audience thoroughly entertained, for 2 weeks in the middle of May.

The Old Vic Tunnels is a unique new venue underneath the rail tracks at Waterloo station, and who better to test it out than the legendary punk band New York Dolls playing their only UK show in 2011. The venue being an empty series of interconnected railway tunnels C3 were asked on board to production manage this event. Our team built a bespoke stage and provided full lighting rig and audio system for the 2 show days. With over 1000 fans attending the tunnels were bought alive with their sleazy New York glam-punk bring rave reviews from the rock n roll press !

As part of the Brighton Festival throughout the whole of May, the french installation group Carabosse transform St Annes Wells garden with music and performance combined with fire.

Working alongside the Brighton Festival outdoor programme team C3 provided audio equipment and technicians to the french artist to ensure their incredible show ran smoothly and safely for the 2 days

The Great Escape is now firmly established internationally as the leading event for showcasing new music. Taking place in Brighton over 3 days in May introducing 15,000 music lovers to the key artists and sounds of the year. With over 300 bands playing in 30 venues over 3 days, The Great Escape is the key date in the music calendar. C3 has supported the festival since its inception and we are now proud to work on the management team co-ordinating the production of all the shows

the world renowned guitarist is currently touring with a full orchestra from his home town, performing unique adaptations of his material. With over 40 musicians on stage and 12 monitor mixes there was plenty of scope for concern, however C3 pulled on years of experience working with orchestral collaborations to provide a subtle and crystal clear stage sound that Jose remarked was perfect from the start.

To celebrate the launch of the latest series of Skins - the long running and hugely succesful TV drama - E4 came to Brighton, enlisting C3s production skills to throw an epic party for a handful of lucky fans. Bands and DJs rocked the event at the end of the pier in true 'skins' style !

The Imagined Village project started in 2004 when a group of musicians and record producers back came together to explore their musical roots and identity as English musicians and music makers. Some of the nation's most familiar voices and instrumentalists play alongside those who swim hidden in the fringes of the big village pond; some have backgrounds in traditional music, whilst others are as far away from the folk club as you can get.

C3 provided full audio production for the show.

The classical worlds internationally recognised awards, set in a unique heritage location and broadcast internationally on BBC Radio 3.

C3 continue to provide full production management and co-ordinate the AV content of this high profile awards ceremony. For the 3rd year running we designed an original and bespoke set matching the current event theme, and manage the creation of the high definition video content. Our team of technicians providing a flawless and smooth delivery on the day with the high quality of the audio being commented on by the BBC broadcast team.

White Night is Brighton & Hove’s unique all night cultural festival which takes place every year on the last Saturday in October when the clocks go back. Every artistic performance has been created especially for the festival, for the one night only.

C3 worked closely with the artists and festival producers to deliver bespoke audio visual packages for a number of outdoor large scale performances. Including a 40 foot wide self-projecting orb floating 50m above the heads of the awe-struck crowd and a animated theatre show projected on the façade of a grand Georgian Mansion. This years event was marked step up in quality and numbers with almost 40,000 people enjoying the blend of installations and performance art.

D&AD exists to inform, educate and inspire those who work in and around the creative industries. It is a internationally recognised brand in marketing, design and media celebrating the greatest work produced in this field by cutting edge creative types. The student awards exists to promote and honour the most creative and talented young people giving them a platform to reach the wider industry and has become recognised as a unique opportunity within this industry.

C3 were approached to produce their annual awards ceremony. With our arsenal of the latest technology and artisticly minded audio-visual team members we produced a high-impact fast paced ceremony to hold the attention of the creative mindsets in the audience. For 3 days we took over the incredible space that is the Spitalfields Market in east London, building a 15m square truss and providing a 4m wide LED screen, full video production and state of the art LED lighting system with zoned audio system. The market was left open to the public and the ceremony was watched by a fascinated audience, leaving no doubt as to the profile of organistation and celebrating the winners from around the world in the public domain.

For the first time in its history the Brighton Pavilion has constructed a large outdoor ice rink set in its beautiful garden overlooking the Old Steine. Including a learner rink, a restaurant supplied by the award winning Due South restaurant chain as well as a café/bar and viewing area the ambitious project has been pulled together using the finest local suppliers to create a unique experience rivalling that anything in Central Park.

C3 were brought on board to install a discrete but high quality distributed sound system both inside and outside for music and voice announcements. To achieve this over 20 Turbosound Impact 35 loudspeakers were installed in the roof areas divided into 5 zones using almost 1km of cable. As well as this high-power lightweight NUQ8 full range loudspeakers were installed over the rink itself to focus the sound on the audience without any unnecessary spill into the local residences.

The second week of June saw the glamour of the catwalk appear at the Brighton Corn exchange for Brighton Fashion Week. C3 was on hand to overse create the technical infrastructure needed for the event supplying staging, lighting and audio for the week of shows.

Originally titled 'Brighton Frocks' the brain child of Liz Bishop - this event has stepped up to a national levl, with designers like Jez Eaton with her recyclable style ‘Trashion’, plus a special appearance of channel 4’s Gok Wang. The week ran smoothly with an explosive interchange of fabulous ferocious frocks putting Brighton on the Fashion Map.

MAMMOTHFEST is the South East's one and only Metal Festival. Championing the best homegrown local talent and bringing some of the biggest and best metal bands in the UK and the world to Brighton & Hove.

C3 provided full production, audio and lighting services for the 2 day festival. A heavy schedule with minimal changeover times kept our engineers on their feet but needless to say we made it ROCK !

The De La Warr Pavilion is a unique Art Deco venue overlooking the sea in Bexhill, armed with a remit of providing a variety of performance arts and installations to the south coast it is rapidly becoming the venue of choice for creative international artists looking to deliver one-off collaborations and off the wall gigs.

C3 is proud to be the exclusive supplier for audio production and live music engineers to the venue. In the past year since we formed out relationships together we have delivered incredible shows with Beardy Man and Unkle collaborating with the Heritage Orchestra, and alternative artists such as Coco Rosie, Duane Eddy, Femi Kuti & Bat for Lashes.

Last month Kate Nash provided a spectacular show kicking off her UK tour at the De La Warr with a fantastical stage set and expanding her trademark sound rocking the predominately young audience.

The biggest single outdoor community event in sussex with over 160,000 people attending this one day free festival in central Brighton, it presented a unique set of challenges to the organisers and the new production team for 2010.

C3 were contacted 6 months in advance to provide audio systems and staging for the majority of the music venues. Working very closely with the production team and the Environmental health team we delivered and setup PA systems for 20000 people over 5 venues. Exclusively using Turbosound Aspect in each area meant a conformity of high quality sound and well controlled dispersion allowing us to balance effectively the demands of the party loving crowd and the sensitivities of some of the less open-minded local residents.

The day was a huge success and C3 continued its support of this event after the park closed supplying 20 separate soundsystems along the mile stretch street party in kemp town that continued for the next 2 days. Connected by a bespoke RF audio link, generally used for events such as the Jubilee and Notting hill Carnival meant the police and council had complete control over the 40,000 strong crowd.

Not but a stones throw away from the Theatre Royal was the infamous Spiegeltent in which our very own Tom Cossovich created a brilliant speaker layout design which incorporated more of the Turbosound Flex Array. The result was a near perfect dispersion of sound in a circular venue, not an easy thing to do, and all the festival goes got the full spectrum of enjoyment when it came to dancing the night way to Bananafana Social Club’s 1920s style swing. Of course the live shows sounded all the sweeter with Coco Rosie, Swervy World and Big Black Cadlillac. Then of course last but very much not least was the star attraction for the Spiegeltent, the spectacular ‘La Vie’. The French –Canadians from Montréal gave a show set in an audience engrossing purgatory. With a twisted after life narrative and amazing aerial performances La Vie is a show you can not miss.

In the Spiegeltent we had 4 unit of Flex Array flying ether side of the stage with NuQ15s and NuQ10 covering the dead areas behind them, plus 4 of the NuQ8s hung as a centre array in the top middle of the tent. This was all controlled by the Yamaha LS9.

C3 left the seaside of Brighton behind for a couple of weeks to travel up to the lovely city of Norwich for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. We had the delight of kiting out the Theatre Royal with Turbosound’s distinct line array. The Turbosound Flex Array, as it is called, had the pleasure of projecting the music of the legendary John Cale, the latin passion of Paco Pena and the jazz infusion of John Mclaughlin plus many more. Thanks to all the members of the Theatre and touring production crews for the time we spent on keeping the smooth running of all the shows.

The theatre was fitted with our aspect 880H and 218 bass bins for the lower ground level while the Flex Array with the 880L sub units for the upper balcony. Front of house had the Sound craft MH3 and on monitor was the Yamaha M7 controlling our TQ315s

After a successful year conquering the festivals with the only truly live drum and bass band touring at this level, Roni Size teamed up with the Emerald Ensemble to create and unique collaboration at the re-opening of the Colston Hall in Bristol.

C3’s Jon Crawley has been with the band for 18 months as monitor engineer and took up the challenge of mixing 88 channels into 24 mixes across the crowded stage. Using a Yamaha PM5D and the DSP5D to tackle the channels Jon also introduced the band members to the ACS T1 and T2 bespoke moulded in-ear monitors. ‘these devices are incredibly transparent and can handle the extreme low-end and fast transients prevalent in this music’. C3 continues to support Roni Size supplying full monitor systems for rehearsals and one-off gigs.

To promote the release of their latest single, the Scandinavian indie group Alphabeat called upon C3 to provide a live band setup for a gig in the middle of a shopping centre. The band performed their hits and the new track to an enthusiastic young crowd for half an hour before signing copies of their new single.

To minimise the disruption to the browsing shoppers C3 provided a Yamaha LS9 digital desk running a punchy compact self-powered Turbosound PA, onstage were 6 biamp wedges to keep the band happy. The whole system was setup and take down in less than half and hour.

Brighton and Sussex Universities combined their resources again this year to put on the largest Freshers’ event in the UK, filling the Brighton Centre with over 5000 new students. C3 continues its long-standing relationship with both student unions, again providing full production for the Graduation Ball held at Stamner House earlier in the summer, and supporting the busiest Freshers week to date. The university events teams provided a full fortnight of parties including gigs on the pier, festivals on campus, and culminating in the Freshers Ball at the Brighton Centre.

In the Ball main room 16 stacks of Turbosound Aspect PA easily coped with the full-on bass demands of drum and bass legends Pendulum. Radio 1s Zane Lowe and Judge Jules also headlined the event. In the 2nd live band room 6 stacks of Aspect for FOH were complimented by 14 Turbosound TQ315 Bi-amped wedges on 7 mixes on stage to create a big stage sound for Bombay Bicycle Club and the headliners Kissy Sell-out.

The London 2012 Open Weekend celebrating Britain's art, culture and sport came to Norfolk in July. ‘La Marea’ (the tide) presented the secret stories and private emotions that bring Norwich to life in real time, moving from the pavement to illuminated windows, from balconies to café terraces. This unique theatre featured nine fictional scenes, repeated over the course of the evening in shop windows and on street corners. The audience was placed in a subtly voyeuristic position, experiencing the actors’ thoughts only through projected subtitles. This was the first showing of La Marea in the UK, following its premiére in Buenos Aires in 2005.

An already technically demanding production spread over 300m, the additional Health & Safety complications of putting on a show in a public space was smoothly handled by our team of technicians who lived on site for the week. The whole production was coordinated at a central digital desk running all audio systems. We chose Turbosounds weather-resistant NUQ speakers fixed to the street furniture to provide a suitably discreet yet powerful sound-scape.

Brighton Pride is the UKs largest free festival celebrating sexual diversity. In 2008 the festival attracted an estimated 160,000 visitors. The celebrations lasts for a week culminating in a carnival parade through the centre of Brighton, a free festival in Preston Park and then a 2 day street party in Kemptown.

The 2 day street party attracted up to 40,00 people in the Kemp Town area of Brighton. Our project manager Tom Cossovich worked closely with the council and the police to design a sound-system that satisfied all the strict requirements. C3 provided a professional UHF radio link system on licensed frequencies and 25 separate audio systems to ensure consistent audio coverage over the 2 mile party. Being in a residential area there were strict noise limits imposed by the council however the central transmission base provided a neat universal volume control for the whole event, and also a means for the police to communicate with the entire crowd in any emergency.

C3 was also the preferred supplier of audio and power to the community floats on the parade. Our knowledge of safely installing PA systems to moving vehicles proved invaluable as our technical team supplied 12 generators and over 40 loudspeakers early on the Saturday morning to the various groups.