In spite of some "too flexible" organizational issues, this event went really well.
I arrived Thursday evening, so that Andy and I could hit the ground running on Friday morning.
The new lay-out, with the bigger and higher roofed stage, positioned opposite the beer marquee with 4x catering trucks joining stage left and the marquee, meant that the bikers and their families were mainly concentrated in the stage audience area.
I set up my FOH position in the barrier-ed off section of the beer marquee by 09:00.
The stage roof covering and the back-drop to cover the rear of the stage where the bands could put equipment, were still not completed. We had to assist/advise in the finishing-off of the stage roof additional scaffolding, that was used to support the lighting trussing. This all took until 12:30 to complete.
Andy and I then rigged 6 meters of trussing with 5x additional sets of back-to-back heavy duty G-clamps along the top and 12x PAR56 LED and 4x long PAR64 LED luminaires, DMX & IEC leads, temporarily onto 2 winch stands on the stage, tested the lamps and then raised the trussing. We then lifted-off the trussing and rigged it to the scaffolding, before removing the stands.
We used heavy duty safety wires on all fixtures and the additional clamps over the scaffolding.
We had also rigged 2x short PAR64 LED, and 1x Multispot LED luminaires to both sides of the stage scaffolding, to provide a contrast with the front lighting and light up the drums.
This rig looked really good in the darkness of the evenings and the bands commented on how effective the cover and colour washes were.
We then rigged my FOH PA, vocal monitors and stereo drum-fill.
We had to increase a gap in the scaffold boarding behind the drums, to allow us to run the drum stage box, drum-fill leads and sub-mixer leads under the very deep stage to the amp racks and multicore.
Back to the "too flexible" organization.
We had to wait until 18:00 for all of the catering trucks to arrive, before we could lay any cables to FOH along side them, as there was no cable-guard this year, due to the length required.
We could not run both of my 30m and 45m multicores to the FOH as planned, as the run was around 42 metres. This also meant that I had to use and extend my additional 2x 30m aux send leads for the drum-fill.
I also had to extend the FOH power feed as that was only 40m.
At least my 50m DMX lead reached.
This all delayed the sound check and the bands timing schedule.
My new Mackie sub-mixer had to be used on stage, instead of at FOH as planned, but fortunately, the Reggae band that used it had their own sound engineer, so he mixed their keys, rhythm guitar/additional beat-box percussion via outboard gear, on stage. (the guitarist did not want to use a guitar rig on stage and just had this elaborate set of units to play through).
These are my favorite musical highlights of the week-end.
Friday's head-lining band, The Good Old Boys, really showed how it should be done. Top notch, ex-famous rock band musicians, (Strawbs, Deep Purple and the like), great set and a superb sound.
On Saturday, Burn did a storming set, showcasing what a top quality 3 piece band can do.
Later on, Handle With Care, gave their all to whip their loyal fans into a frenzy and the superb head-lining Bare Bones Boogie Band were a sensation. Immaculate sound and musicianship, incredible female singer who looked fantastic under the LED lighting as she tossed her long blonde hair Stevie Nix style. What a voice.
The Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance touched down for a short while, in between life saving missions, to show everyone where the money goes. They also gave a chance for the bikers to meet the crew that have saved so many and continue to do so, using funds raised by the public at all sorts of events.
I will go to the planning meetings next year and if we can sort out the organizational bugs, that interrupt the setting-up of my equipment, next year's Chinnor will be the best ever.
Cheers, John.
www.wycombemag.co.uk/chinnor.htm
