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Cinch presents Creamfields Northcelebrated its 25th anniversary in style in the village of Daresbury—its home since 2006. The site in Cheshire again played host to the dance world’s premier brand, and with it a selection of global DJ superstars over August Bank Holiday weekend.

The biggest EDM event in the UK, hosting 250 artists over the four days, it comprised up to 12 stages, two of which were serviced by Capital Sound (a Solotech company) who have a long history of supporting the event, both in the north and south.

Headliners this year included Calvin Harris, David Guetta and Hardwell amongst others, all performing alongside the likes of Becky Hill, Bicep Live, Eric Prydz, Patrick Topping, Pete Tong, Martin Garrix, Jax Jones, Scooter and Armin van Buuren.

All the performances were DJ playback, and as is customary, each of the stages changed name on a daily basis. Working alongside Production Director Ian Greenway of LarMac Live, Solotech were responsible for ‘Stage 3’—a large TFS structure—and the outdoor stage 8 ‘Runway Stage’, which saw the introduction of a new ‘concept stage’.

THE COVERAGE WAS EXCEPTIONAL, FROM THE FRONT TO THE VERY BACK.

Stage 3 began as a Silent Disco as did all opening stages on the Thursday, changing to ‘Catch And Release’ ‘Stmpd Records’ and ‘MK Presents’ on the successive days. The key nights were Saturday when Martin Garrix headlined and on Sunday where MK revved up the audience hosting his own Arena line up.

Solotech fielded 11 MLA elements with an MLD Downfill at the base on both sides of the stage; further front fills were provided by four Martin Audio DD12, while an array of 13 MLX subwoofers in cardioid ran across the front. Set back in the rear of the compound were two delay masts of 10 MLA Compact enclosures, ground stacked on risers. Overseeing this for Solotech was system tech and crew chief, Olly Fallon.

Stage 8 came alive as Paradise on the Friday, transforming into Trick on the Saturday and Solid Grooves on the Sunday. This stage was designed as a unique self-supporting, eight-leg truss structure, from which a WPL PA was flown. The upstage goalposts (left and right) supported WPL, and delays consisted of two hangs of eight WPS, were flown from the last goalposts of the truss structure.

Rayne Ramsden, crew chief and system tech on this stage, reported that as the first time WPL had been used in this context it was a fantastic success. He said he had received a number of compliments from crews and crowds alike. “The coverage was exceptional, from the front to the very back,” he stated, adding that dance fans surged in to extend the area back some 40 metres beyond the FOH position. “Even with that extra capacity WPL catered for the extended throw distance with no trouble at all,” he confirmed.

The complement of speakers that made that possible were hangs of 13 WPL with a further three WPL fills down on each side of the stage upstage from the main PA hangs. These were supported by an additional four DD12 , providing extra front fills, and a broadside array of 13 MLX subwoofers, providing the all-important LF extension.

Solotech senior project manager, Martin Connolly, described the event as an outstanding success, and the experiment with the eight-legged free-standing structure as a revelation.

Ian Greenway added, “We know Solotech well, and their willingness to adapt and overcome at Creamfields is more important than ever as we start to migrate to newer and more unique structures. With two Creamfields festivals a year now, we’re looking forward to further developing the relationship.”

In fact Creamfields marked its 25th year by launching a second edition—Creamfields South, which was staged early June at Hylands Park in Chelmsford and attracted 50,000 dance music fans.

Photography by Andrew Benge.

Having routinely specified Martin Audio’s MLA Compact PA for festival shows where sensitive offsite noise has been an issue—along with the smaller MLA Mini on corporate events—Bristol based SWG Events has continued its long tradition.

Best known for servicing a number of stages at Glastonbury with Martin Audio solutions the production company recently provided sound reinforcement for the second year to the Hampton Court Palace Festival, having worked for the production company that runs HCPF on other shows.

In addition to the single large stage, which featured two main hangs of eight MLA Compact and six MLX, they also provided BlacklineX on a small bandstand in the East Front public picnic area prior to the show.

This year’s all-star line-up included UB40, Elbow, George Benson, Jack Savoretti, McFly, Kacey Musgraves, The Human League, Michael Ball & Alfie Boe and Crowded House. To provide even coverage for audiences up to 3,200-capacity SWG Events supplemented the two main MLA Compact hangs with DD12s for centre and left/right outfills, with eight WPM for front fills and six Blackline X8 for balcony fills. A monitor package in the shape of 16 of their new XE500 was powered by Martin Audio’s iKON iK42 amplifiers.

Aside from the quality of the music, the orientation of the stage—enabling the Palace to provide a spectacular backdrop—was the icing on the cake, as SWG Event Technology Specialist Ian Williams explained. “The idea is to create the illusion that the audience felt they were inside the palace rather than just in front of it. We illuminated it and handed control over to the lighting designers so it could be used as a spectacular backdrop.”

With Williams himself project managing, leading a team comprising Matt Pope, Ryan Bass and Kieran Jordan, the shows functioned like clockwork. Engineers simply plugged consoles into a pre-time aligned, pre-optimised system, and were provided digital inputs for left, right, sub and fill. “Our system technicians then worked to keep the optimisation as current as possible, working with the engineers to find ideal times within their sets to load in new profiles to the rig”, explained Williams.

SWG’s long successful tradition with Martin Audio equipment, now enters its next stage with their recent purchase of WPL. Williams commented, “We’ve already done a number of shows with our new system and we have received some great comments from engineers that have used it.”

If there is a single festival that defines the English summer, it has to be Henley, which this year celebrated its 40th anniversary with an eclectic mix of music, comedy, art and grade A fun.

Production managed by John Harris, Henley is a festival unlike any other, with the main stage placed in the River Thames, backed by a fleet of boats of all shapes and sizes. The site features a variety of other venues ranging from intimate comedy to cabaret and dance bands.

RG Jones has been providing audio at Henley since 1983—most of it based around Martin Audio PA—and in a relationship surviving that long, the level of trust and commitment is obviously at its highest. Over the years, the style of the event has changed somewhat from the original, fully classical programme to what is now a much more commercial line-up, but with no less determination to deliver an unforgettable experience. This year’s artists (on the main Floating Stage) were as diverse as Sir Tom Jones, Craig David, Katherine Jenkins, Jack Savoretti, The Script and Pete Tong with the Ibiza Classics Orchestra.

The Floating Stage sound system was manned by the experienced Mark Edwards, using an established design by Simon Honywill. The site is very unusual as it is around three times wider than it is deep, and three arrays each side of the stage structure are required to deliver the requisite coverage; the outer arrays feature nine deep hangs of Martin Audio’s MLA Compact, the forward facing comprise seven deep MLA Compact, and the inner coverage this time was provided by four deep Martin Audio Wavefront Precision Mini (WPM), plus some W8LMD frontfills. “It’s a tricky system to get right,” says Honywill, “as some seats are extremely close to the stage. But years of working on this site go a long way to guaranteeing a first-class audience experience.”

Elsewhere, top comedians were doing their very best to keep everyone laughing in roasting temperatures in The Comedy Club – Andy Parsons, Milton Jones, Maisie Adam and Russell Kane were among the fantastic line up. For RG Jones, The Comedy Club was operated by Sam Liddiard and featured a Martin Audio W8LM/WLX system.

Rosie Tarrant could be found in the Bedouin Bar with a Martin Audio DD12/SXC118 system for a varied mix of world and folk music, and in the Jazz Tent Olly Wickes was tasked with a stream of different acts—handled more than capably by an MLA Mini system.Finally Dan Langridge was anchored in The Riverside Restaurant, mixing the resident dance band on a W8LM/WLX system.

A highlight of this year was the appearance of Boney M in the Big Top.With a fantastic 9-piece band and a raft of backing singers supporting original member Liz Mitchell, they smashed through their massive list of enormous hits to the rapturous delight of a crowd of very up-for-it festival goers.Mixed by Simon Honywill on his first serious Martin Audio TORUS adventure, the sound engineer stated, “the result was one of those one-off joyous things which make you realise why you still do this for a living.” Complete with stage invasion, this extravaganza was a huge success.

Another big success was Honywill’s partnership with LIPA student Sheridan Burns, who came under his tutelage as part of Henley Festival’s new RISE programme. The Festival was set up in 1982 as a charity, its mission being to stage a music and arts festival for the local community. To coincide with its 40th anniversary, they set up RISE to support emerging talent, both in front and behind the spotlight—and Burns was selected by RG Jones to fulfil their RISE quota.

As for TORUS, speaking of his first experience with the system, Simon Honywill stated, “This is a great product; it has great flexibility while maintaining the musical, signature Martin Audio sound that I love so much.

“We had to redeploy the system into a 270° DJ system after Boney M finished … and it totally rocked!”

John Harris also added his own plaudits, both on TORUS and the sound set-up in general: “Henley Festival is proud of its long association with RG Jones and is excited to see and hear the developments in technology that they introduce to our stages.”

Background music systems have been shown to have a huge influence on people in just about every situation. However, an area that has been overlooked is the effect that the quality of the music has on human behaviour.

Research has highlighted the way that music can affect consumer habits in a retail environment, employee focus in a workplace and relaxation in a hospitality setting. The first studies into the effects of music on shoppers were published more than 30 years ago and these results have been confirmed and refined time and again since then. Findings by PPS PRL[1] showed that two-thirds of UK adults say that the type of music a shop or business plays influences what they buy. The same survey also found that classical music encourages restaurant diners to order expensive items on the menu and that more than two-thirds admit to leaving a venue after realising that no songs were playing.

Further research, published by JAMA Network [2], notes the implications that music can have in other hospitality settings, such as hotels and spas. This research shows that music can make a positive change in health-related quality of life, which highlights the important role that a commercial audio system plays in therapeutic settings such as spas.

A slightly more contested area is the use of audio in the workplace. This is a subject that has seen a large amount of research, with results that have often been contradictory. Some papers have found that listening to music with lyrics while reading or working can decrease concentration or cognitive performance (Shih et al., 2012 [3];Liu et al., 2021 [4]). On the other hand, a number of studies have shown oppositely that natural-occurring sounds such as white noise, or highly composed sound such as classical music, can be beneficial for increasing focus and can even improve learning outcomes (Davies, 2000 [5];Chou, 2010 [6];Angwin et al., 2017 [7];Gao et al., 2020 [8]).