Gospel Concert – Huddersfield Town Hall

I recently had the privilege of mixing front of house for a gospel concert, I was approached about this approximately 2 weeks before the event. It was quite a challenge to draw up the technical specifications because the goal posts kept moving as different acts submitted their requests. After I received a running order I set about contacting every act, one at a time, drawing up requirements for each and confirming it when they got back to me. Next I drew up a proposed channel list and arranged with the even organizer to visit the venue. The visit was very useful and helped me work out what I needed to do, while I was there I put together a stage layout in my head and discuss plans with the stage manager. This was very close to what we did on the day with the exception of some of the patching. The final patch had everything through stage box b with the exception of the radio receivers, it also included one extra radio microphone for the main speaker for the evening as he preferred to have a lapel microphone.

On the day we were given access to the venue from 14:00 for a 17:30 start. I arrived with my team in the van at 13:55 and began to bring things in, there is no loading dock at the town hall so we arrived promptly in order to get parked up as close as possible. We finished the load in with plenty of time spare in my schedule and began to rig the hall, on the day we were very blessed to have a great in house tech called Matt, he knew his systems inside and out and was happy to get his hands in all day no matter what I asked of him; he ran my snakes from stage to front of house and flew in my power to the mix position freeing me up to keep everything else moving.

On the day we patched into the in house PA from our stage boxes. The PA sounded really crisp and was much better than anything we could have flown in the time provided. Its a Meyer system designed specifically for that hall by Meyer, there were subs under the front of stage, and tops for almost every part of the building; it was a lovely system. The only limiting factor for me was the positioning of the flown speakers to cover the balcony, they were a little to far back for my liking, potentially limiting the amount that I could push the choir mics before feedback. Fortunately this wasn’t a problem at all except for one act, but we will get to that later. The set up was completed on schedule and we line checked everything with time to spare. Unfortunately, people weren’t ready at the allotted time to sound check, a frustration that you all to quickly get used to, I tried to be as accommodating as possible to get everyone through but there is only so much you can do. I will definitely in future be more ridged with timing, get people through so as to not loose sound check time for the people at the end. At 4:45 we gave the go ahead for doors to be opened, and called time on the soundchecks, instructing people to leave stage. The technical team regrouped at the back by front of house, we prayed and then got ready for business.

We were a team of four: I had my support with me at front of house, he had radio communications with the stage manager and show caller and kept me well informed about details from back stage as well as being eyes for any surprises. We also had 2 people back stage, one on the left, on on the right, both positioned to adjust choir microphones for the different groups, to replace batteries as necessary, fit the speaker with his lapel microphone and be ready to solve problems as and when they arose.

The night got off to a great start, my personal highlight was a small group from Elim singing the two songs, the first, ‘O Holy Night’, and the second, ‘Noel’ by Chris Tomlin. They sung the first accapella and the second with piano accompaniment. The choir from Huddersfield Christian Fellowship sung with really passion, and the simplicity of the arrangement made it a joy to mix. From here things got more challenging from a mixing stand point, especially with some of the people who neglected their sound check. The venue has a capacity of 1,200 so I decided to put a microphone on the kick and snare, in the small sound check the drummers tickled the drum so I felt reasonably comfortable, even taking into account an inevitable volume increase; however the drums were considerably too loud and I was left powerless to bring them down, the snare mic was turned off, no need for it and the drummer had clearly forgotten to bring his hotrods for the choir concert! To combat the increasing discrepancy in the levels of the mix I pushed the bass to try and bring a modicum of balance, this allowed my to high pass the choir 414s at a higher frequency giving me more headroom to play with before the resonance of the room threatened feedback. These songs were a real battle and I was wrestling with everything constantly to keep control. We got to the end of that set general good feedback but everyone from my team and those who I knew from the audience made comments about the snare. During the interval we got a message to the drummer who was due to play again later that he needed to hold back a bit instead of going flat out, this was broadly speaking ignored so there was another fight with the faders later.

The rest of the show ran very smoothly, it was a joy to mix, the choirs sounded great and when the gospel was given, a number of people responded. I call that a success! The de-rig was smooth, and we left the building approximately 45 minutes after the end of the show. Better than a quick de-rig was the free food that came with being sponsored by ASDA, nothing is quite so welcome after a full, long day. The van was once again able to get very close to the goods lift at the entrance enabling us to load out nice and quickly. All in all a great evening. In future I will make sure to run sound checks more strictly from a time stand point and I will definitely make sure to bring anesthetic for the drummer… or possibly a drum screen.