The site featured nine main arenas and a hospitality area including – for the first time – two outdoor stages – North and South, with a lineup headlined by The Chemical Brothers, Armin van Buren, Tiesto and David Guetta. Challenges included wet weather, noise restrictions and late changes at many of the arenas and both outdoor stages.
“The emphasis on production values is always high at Creamfields, with a real commitment to deliver the very best for the 55,000 capacity audience, which was again completely sold out,” Greenway said. “We built on our experience of production-managing last year’s event and were able to introduce new elements and streamline existing ones.”
On the outdoor stages, LML brought in Colour Sound Experiment for the first time to look after the lighting requirements, alongside other newcomers Britannia Row for the audio. XL Video looked after video, supplying more than 1,000 square meters of LED screen site-wide.
The technical set up was identical for both outdoor stages, with various aspects of the Chemical Brothers’ touring production accommodated for their Saturday night performance.
LML once again arranged to have one rental company supply integrated lighting/visuals and sound packages for most of the other arenas, and also using a proportion of locally based suppliers. Having a selection of different companies dedicated to the individual arenas helps the flow of logistics during the site build and de-rig and delivering the massive amount of equipment involved via a one-way Trackway circuit around the whole site.
The Cream/Evolution and Pryda/Cocoon Arenas and the Hospitality area lighting and sound was delivered by Liverpool-based Adlib.
Manchester based Audile – another regular LML supplier – provided lighting and sound to the Annie Mac/Super You&Me and Radio1 XTRA/Goodgreef Arenas.
HSL from Blackburn supplied lighting for the Size Matters/Swedish House Mafia Arena. Saturday night’s screen and staging setup there was de-rigged overnight to reveal the SHM’s chevron-based set architecture, complete with 200 square meters of Stealth screen supplied by XL Video, which served as the backdrop to their Sunday hosting slot.
The Star Events Group provided staging and decking site-wide, including the 20-meter Vertech three-bay roof structures for the North and South stages. All the local crews came from The Roe Street Runners. LS Live from Wakefield supplied the risers and DJ Rentals the backline/DJ set ups.
LML worked closely with Vanguardia to manage the environmental noise control, governed by a 68dB limit at the nearest offsite monitoring point, which needed to drop to 45dB after 11 p.m. when the main stages closed.
This task became more crucial with the temperature drop, but nothing that experience could not handle. The overall task was enhanced by the fact that all the tented spaces were carefully draped internally to help dampen and contain sound spillage.
To entertain the early bird festival attendees arriving on the Friday, LML oversaw three silent discos.
Another area that required detailed planning was liaising closely with the rental partners on crewing levels and ensuring that shifts were in place for the overnight production changeovers, so these were undertaken by fresh technicians. The Arenas closed at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning and had to be ready to rock by midday on Sunday with new brand presentations.
“The whole event market is getting more demanding and ambitious in wanting to offer different visual environments over the course of each festival, with dance leading the pack,” said Greenway. “This is definitely the case with the Creamfields promoters, and their passion for ‘the show’ is a great testament to the maturity of the market, ‘upping the ante’ in terms of collective responsibilities of all involved. It’s a great challenge, and something that we pride ourselves in delivering for our clients and their ultimate clients – the audience.”
For more information, please visit www.larmaclive.com.
