Lighting – Penguin Media Hire

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The Great Escape Festival 2019 @ Door77, Brighton

The Great Escape Festival once again took over Brighton for 3 days of new music, and Penguin Media Hire provided full technical production to Door 77 (formerly Bau Wow) as they provided the venue for The Alternative Escape.

30 bands over 3 days graced the venue, with stand out sets from Juiceboxxx, Kroy and on the Saturday, ÅÄÖ Sounds Swedish took over the day with their showcase of Swedish emerging artists.

We provided an Allen & Heath SQ6 digital mixing desk, along with a full stage package including microphones, stands and all cabling. as well as technicians for the event. Because our sister company Penguin Media Solutions designed and installed the sound and lighting systems, we have an intimate knowledge of the venue, so know how to extract the best from the fantastic Martin Audio system and the bespoke lighting rig.

Overwhelmingly positive comments ensued, and the three days finished without a hitch, with sound quality and tight organisation high on the list of likes. We had a great time, and are already looking forward to next year!

Bau Wow

Penguin Media Hire’s involvement with Bau Wow started at the very beginning, before the club was even built! Our sister company Penguin Media Solutions, which deals with the sales and installation side of the industry, were approached to design a system for the club. With the companies being inextricably linked, it was of course no problem for us to set up a demonstration of some Martin Audio kit we have in hire stock, for the new owners, in the room it was due to be installed in. The demo was done and there were smiles all round, a design and quote drawn up, and a new system was installed!

Because Bau Wow was planning to hold some live gigs, it was decided that rather than purchase all of the live equipment needed, the club would hire it on a gig by gig basis, as well as have Penguin Media Hire handle the live technical management of the venue, book Front of House engineers for the gigs, etc.
An Allen & Heath SQ7 mixing desk with GX4816 digital stagebox, full industry standard microphone package, mic stands, cables, DI boxes and Litedeck stage extensions are supplied to complement the house Martin Audio system.

Urban Village Fete (The O2, London)

We had provided site wide audio for Hemingway Design and their smaller O2 event ‘Sample’ in the past, so scaling this up for Urban Village Fete was no problem!

The festival held in the shadow of the O2 was a mixed family affair; music, art and crafts, with a large main stage along with some smaller satellite attractions for smaller acts, the majority using our excellent Martin Audio Blackline X8’s for high quality, unobtrusive PA.

The main stage used Martin Audio MLA Compact and WS218X to great effect, along with a simple lighting setup. It was a daytime event, so the lighting was kept low key and effective, with bright sunshine taking the crown for the most impressive light show! Chauvet ColorRail LED battens along with ProLights cob pars providing a visual effect and a subtle wash.

With sunshine came the crowds, and the event was a massive success, Gilles Peterson playing main stage to thousands of happy people.

‘The Factory’ NYE (Argus Printworks, Brighton)

Penguin Media Hire were called in to provide production, sound, lighting, staging and power for this very special New Year’s Eve party at the old Evening Argus Printworks on the outskirts of Brighton. The main print hall was a cavernous space, once home to the Sussex newspaper’s printing presses – the acoustic treatment to the building to reduce noise of the machines also came in handy, post-printing!

We supplied 10 x Martin Audio WS218X subwoofers for the event, along with a Martin Audio W8L Longbow large format line array system. The venue was dubbed ‘The Factory’ for the event, as Printworks was already taken! 😉

The warehouse party brief was ‘make it loud and clear, and assault the senses’. The PA system did exactly that, using our Martin Audio IKON / Linea Research amplifiers with onboard DSP. The monitoring rig was 1 x WS18X/XD12 per side and kept up superbly.

We also had to have some warehouse party lighting! We supplied Robe Pointe moving head beams, along with Robe Robin LEDWash 300 moving heads and Chauvet ColorRail’s across the back of stage – seeing as power wasn’t a problem in the venue, we weren’t shy with adding some strobes either, 6 x Martin Atomic 3000 strobes with colour scrollers had as much juice as they could possibly need!

We also supplied all power distribution for the event. As it was a decommissioned factory, there was not an abundance of the usual power outlets like you would expect in a working performance venue. Well in advance of the date, we performed high draw load bank testing to ensure there would be no untimely drop outs and tested the electrical installation. We also provided power for site lighting, as well as the bars and entry ways.

The production side of the event was a success and there were talks of regular events at the venue, unfortunately early in the new year a bid was received for the land and The Factory was demolished to make way for a car dealership.

A big shame, Brighton would have made great use of such a great, raw performance space – we were proud to play such a large part of its first and only party!