After two years away from Daresbury, Britannia Row Productions returned to cinch presents Creamfields over the UK August Bank Holiday to provide sound for the North Stage, South Stage and the 15,000-capacity Steel Yard.

‘As with many events that have managed to go ahead this year during the pandemic, I think there was a general sense of relief and joy that we could be back in a field enjoying our favourite DJs and the live event atmosphere once again,’ says Audio Crew Chief Alex Hore.

Britannia Row has a long and relationship with the legendary dance festival and its production company, LarMac Live, so as soon as the 2021 event was ready go ahead, Hore and the Brit Rows team were eager to pick up where they had left off. Given the success of Britannia Row’s 2019 visit to Creamfields, the team decided that the PA configuration and audio thinking for 2021 should remain largely unchanged.

‘The North Stage has a fairly standard outdoor main stage configuration, with left and right hangs of L-Acoustics K1, KS28 for ground subs, and K2 on ground fill and delay duties,’ Hore says. ‘The one unusual thing is that the side hangs have to be flown way out in order to stay out of the way of the stage’s very large video screens.’

The South Stage was rigged with a similar outdoor standard L-Acoustics set-up, but on a smaller scale, with ground-stacked K2 in place of side hangs. ‘The design of those two outdoor systems is to provide the best sounding and largest-area-covering audio we can, while limiting the potential for any off-site sound problems,’ Hore says.

As the Steel Yard is a covered space, the team came up with a more bespoke design, featuring flown subs, using K1-SBs in the air, a KS28 sub enclosure – both flown and on the ground – and K2 enclosures as main hangs, as well as SB18 for delays, ARCS II as ground fill and front fill using Kara. ‘The two sets of flown delays with flown subs were invaluable,’ Hore reports. ‘They ensured even coverage throughout the space even when the noise levels are dropped for the post 11pm until 4am noise limits.’

All stages had DiGiCo SD5 mixing desks at FOH and monitors, with the exception of the SD10 monitor desk used at the Steel Yard, and all FOH racks had a Waves Server enabled.

‘This set-up means we can provide a consistent high standard across all our stages,’ Hore says. ‘Many acts would spec this kind of desk/control package, so it means that they can come in and be at ease straight away. The fact that they can come to us and use what they would in a touring scenario means they can relax and focus on creating the best possible sound for their artists.’

‘Alex Hore knows the show well and gets the genre and scale enough to help us deliver incredible shows across their three stages,’ says LarMac Live’s Ian Greenway, the festival’s Production Manager. ‘All of the feedback we’ve gotten since the festival has been fantastic – we’re achieving better levels year-on-year by constantly tweaking our systems and learning from previous years. This attention to detail and care about the product from Brit Row – and in particular our Account Manager Dave Compton – is really important to us and to the festival as a whole.

‘We had a great combination of highly experienced seasoned engineers like Jon Lewis and Richard Trow and some first-time festival crew as well. As a Crew Chief it was a pleasure to work with everyone at Team Brit Row again after the long break, and there were huge efforts made in the warehouse to get everything back up and running.

‘As usual, the equipment was all in tip top condition. It was also great to see all of the LarMac Live team and everyone from Vanguardia, as well as the stage management teams, truck drivers, and other festival friends.’