Riyadh’s three-day Soundstorm festival saw Clair Global in action for a fifth year, supporting audio, data services, comms and radio systems scope, as well as designing and supplying audio for the main Big Beast stage.
International artists DJ Korolova, DJ Snake, Armin van Buuren, Swedish House Mafia, Steve Aoki, Pitbull, Benson Boone, Post Malone, Halsey and Cardi B join local acts in front of the weekend’s 450,000 attendees. Clair’s UK-based engineering team headed up by Josh Lloyd designed Big Beast’s audio reinforcement using an L-Acoustics system. K1-SB, K1 and K2 loudspeakers made up main and side hangs, flown and ground KS28 sub arrays were used to ensure good sub coverage down field and to help with SPL. Six delay hangs comprised K1-SB, K1 and K2 boxes. Control packages for all stages were DiGiCo – four SD7 Quantum at Big Beast FOH and monitors, as well as an SD12-96 as a production console.
‘It’s quite varied in terms of content, with a mix of both EDM acts and live bands performing,’ Lloyd says. ‘From a system design point of view, we needed to generate high impact, with an almost ‘in your face’, low end, chest-pumping system response for that club experience, while creating a system that also works for bands. Getting the rejection on-stage, the directivity control with low frequency and sub information correct was very important.’
Soundstorm isn’t a typical festival experience; –VIB (Very Important Beast) suites offered a festival box experience based around privacy and luxury, and had the best view of Big Beast stage. These suites were all equipped with Cohesion CF24 and CF Subs, and a Yamaha CL5 mixer. There are elevated zones too, with panoramic viewing decks.
‘On a typical festival site, you can afford to drop the level at the back a little, but at Soundstorm, the raised VIB boxes and grandstand viewing mean that’s not possible, Lloyd says. ‘Many areas are removed from the main crowds and situated at the very back of the venue, but these spaces still require an immersive and engaging audio experience.’
The engineering team had to consider the festival’s sprawling layout, a multi-stage site with entertainment occurring simultaneously. To combat the possibility of stage bleed, the delay system distribution was another big factor. ‘With Andy Fitton and Dan Fathers on our team, I knew I was handing the design over to two very talented engineers who worked collaboratively and assured the design was deployed as intended,’ Looyd says. ‘The success of Big Beast is a testament to their work as much as it is the system design.’
Owen Orzack managed audio across the entire site: ‘We wanted to ensure that Big Beast coverage and low frequency impact of the various systems were solid. Most of the artists who were bringing in their own control packages were already known to us, so we had guest snakes, RF coordination and 120V power for the US-based acts, ready for their arrival.’
Elsewhere, Clair was responsible for audio across four of Soundstorm’s Underground stages, which were run by Tristan Johnson. This area moved from its prior location and had multiple re-designs to adapt to the festival’s growing needs.‘Every year, the team at MDL Beast works hard to ensure that the crew experience, alongside the patron experience, is improved,’ Orzack says. ‘For Clair, this festival continues to be a multi-company, multi-country event with our local KSA workforce too.’
The Plexi and Log stages used Cohesion CO12 PA systems, while the Port stage benefitted employed a new layout, using a d&b audiotechnik KSL8 system. Another new feature for the Underground village was the 360° Silk stage which used d&b audiotechnik V8/12. The Underground stages housed a combination of DiGiCo SD10, SD12-96 and SD11 consoles.
‘At Soundstorm, the local knowledge from our Saudi team helps to unite the multicultural crew,’ says Clair Global KSA General Manager Nora Alsalem. ‘Breaking down linguistic and cultural barriers increases operational efficiencies and brings people together, ultimately reducing risk for all involved. This year it was especially great to see the festival’s Arabic stage fusing the best in western and eastern creativity and talent to crowds who loved it.’
To handle the festival’s comms, Clair devised a system comprising 171 Riedel Bolero belt packs, 64 antennas , Reidel Smart Panels powered by Artist-1024 frames, a single Artist-32 frame and 120 RTS DBP hardwired belt packs with an Odin frame. ‘We serviced eith stages in total, and provided equipment for the Event Control team,’ says engineer, Jimmy Xiloj. ‘The biggest obstacle for us was the miles of fiber required to cover such a big area. It was essential for robust communication.’
Strategically planned radio channels were integrated into the sitewide Bolero show comms system with Motorola Mobile DM4600e units. Additional repeaters were located at the Big Beast’s audio FOH station to provide constant transmission of the firework time code for remote firing, ensuring audience and crew safety.
‘Our radio channels were organised in sequence of priority across the repeater sites to allow for resilience and redundancy,’ says Neil Chapman, who oversaw the radio systems. ‘The radios were integrated into an Avtec dispatch console system, giving dispatchers in Event Control site wide channel access Like audio, the scope for data services has expanded each year along with the festival size. Production demands have increased, driving significantly higher data use, greater bandwidth, more fibre and high-capacity equipment to support expanding tech requirements and content delivery.
Clair delivered an integrated platform for both production operations and fan-facing services site-wide, including public Wi-Fi, ticketing, point-of-sale systems, RFID for staff and access control, as well as all technical production, broadcast, and communications infrastructure, government, content distribution, CCTV, and emergency announcements.
To enable connectivity for crew, artists, vendors, and guests, Clair provided a large-scale, multi-zone Layer 3 network with a site-wide Layer 2 network supporting real-time audio, lighting, video, timec ode, and content workflows.
The system included 1,100 wireless access points, 226 network switches, 805 hard line connections, 257 fiber handoffs, 36,576m of fibre-optic cabling, and 45,720m of Cat6 cabling. The core transport layer was built on 75G, 40G, and 10G aggregated LAN links, supported the Dante audio, lighting networks, broadcast systems, comms integration, and radio programming. In total, the network supported 53 VLANs, including 15 SSIDs and 150+ terabytes of data moved during the event.
More: www.clairglobal.com