The twelfth annual Classic Brit Awards took place on May 12th at London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall. Hosted my Myleene Klass and in the presence of the Duchess Of Cornwall, the award presentations were interspersed with performances by Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins and the cast of Les Miserables.
Closing the show in tribute to the late songwriter John Barry, who was honoured posthumously with the Outstanding Contribution To Music Award, the incomparable Dame Shirley Bassey sang the theme to ‘Goldfinger’, just one of many instantly recognisable Barry compositions.
Despite the extensive technical demands of a complex and sometimes unpredictable event, the flawless production proved the capabilities of the design and engineering crew. The audio side was handled exclusively by Britannia Row Productions who deployed a 30-element Outline GTO system flown in three ten-deep columns, each with three Outline Mantas underhung for nearfills. The two side hangs comprised ten Outline Butterfly elements each, and the whole system was driven by Outline T-Series amplifiers run from Dolby Lake system controllers.
The Midas XL8 at FOH was operated by engineer Colin Pink, with Chris Coxhead handling the orchestra mix on a Midas Pro 6, while Dee Miller mixed monitors on a Yamaha PM-5D.
FOH engineer Colin Pink said, ‘The power of the Outline GTO system provided a very large dynamic range whilst keeping exceptional detail and intelligibility. It managed to retain its warmth and subtlety at all volume levels and never became harsh’. He continued, ‘Although the system looked like a normal left/centre/right arrangement, in fact the three hangs were time-aligned to four separate zones. The orchestra layout was over fifteen metres wide, so I split this into three areas across the width of the stage and timed each area separately to the PA hangs. The fourth zone was the stage itself, for the solo performers and singers. This gave us a much more natural sound with improved detail and imaging, and allowed us to get the most out of the GTO system’.
The overall audio design was done by special-event veteran Derrick Zieba who commented, 'For this event I would normally have specified another system, but a recommendation from my pal Richard Sharratt who has been using GTO for orchestral work made me want to try it. I liked it's basic character as soon as I heard it, and as we tuned the system I couldn't help but compare it with another high-profile loudspeaker brand I've been using recently, and I have to say that the comparison was very favourable. The GTO rig made it easy for Colin and I to get the sound we were looking for, which for this gig is not always so simple as we're actually trying to augment the acoustic output of a large orchestra to produce a totally natural response throughout a difficult room. The L/C/R speaker arrangement, with each hang time-aligned to separate zones, worked extremely well and the acoustic blend between the separate hangs was as good as I've ever heard. I really enjoyed using GTO and I look forward to doing so again'.
Britannia Row’s Bryan Grant said, ‘There’s only one way to do complex and challenging shows like this, and that is to combine a highly skilled and creative crew with the professional tools they need. The success of this year’s Classic Brits suggests that we and our team did just that’.
The presence of royalty and so many famous faces attracted much attention from the British media with both BBC and ITV giving significant airtime to coverage of the event the following morning The Classic BRIT awards 2011 will be broadcast in full on ITV1 on May 29th at 10:00pm.
