In one of the world’s most popular music festivals, College Hill Productions supplied the live sound services for the Auckland date of Big Day Out on January 15. The event featured performances by some of today’s biggest artists, including Lily Allen, The Mars Volta, Jet, Kasabian, The Decemberists and Fear Factory.

Big Day Out featured two main stages next to each other, enabling one act to perform on one stage immediately following the conclusion of another performance on the adjacent stage. At the front-of-house position at each stage, College Hill’s FOH system engineers Kevin Bennett and Leon Dalton used a 96-channel Soundcraft Vi6™ console with fiber multicores. Both systems utilized the onboard Lexicon effects packages built into the Vi6. In addition, the electronic group Groove Armada used a third Vi6 in the dance tent.

The day before the show, each band’s engineers visited the concert location and programmed their basic shows, including soft patches. “All comments from the band engineers were positive,� said Chris Tate, Director of College Hill Productions. “The day went 100 percent smoothly and the Vi6 consoles worked flawlessly.�

Part of Soundcraft’s Vi Series of consoles, the Vi6 features the patented Vistonics™ II interface, which offers the ease of use and intuitive operability of an analog surface, but with the speed and efficiency that is only possible with a digital console. The Vi6’s 64 mono inputs are expandable up to 96 (as was the case at Big Day Out) into 35 outputs.