TORONTO, ON – The annual Much Music Video Awards took over parts of downtown Toronto in late June, closing some of the area's busy streets as some 20,000 were drawn by performances by Lady Gaga, Far East movement featuring Snoop Dogg, Bruno Mars, Avril Lavigne, Fefe Dobson and others, and also by celebrity appearances including Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.
Clair Canada provided sound production for the main stage set up at the Much Music parking lot and for another stage at the intersection of Queen & John streets. PA Plus took care of Red Carpet and an additional stage inside the environment where The Black Keys and City and Colour performed.
Other companies involved in lighting, staging and promotion of the event included J. Michael Elder Productions, Much Music Lighting Department/Christie Lites, Midnite Hour and Optex Staging.
The sound design for the street awards was designed by Dave Donin of Clair Canada, using Clair's Adamson Y-Axis, SpekTrix and SX Subs inventory, paired with their proprietary P-2s.
"It was a tough environment for the main stage, as we had to fit (the system) in amongst a lot of hanging set pieces," Donin said. "The system was designed using the shooter software and drawing the PA system into Google Sketch-Up, as the stage and set already existed in a full drawing already. This allowed us to make sure the PA would both cover and fit in the way we needed it to."
The Adamson systems was chosen for their tight coverage pattern, ease of flying with the many given obstacles, and the fact that if no tuning time was to be given.
"We could turn it on and have a great-sounding show right out of the box" Donin said. The main stage system design featured two hangs of 12 Y-10 at L &R of house, with a single center hang of 6 Y-10s. Sixteen SX Subs were placed on the ground (6 left, 6 right, 4 center). Eight Clair P-2 were used as front fills, and a 6-unit SpekTrix 15 degree enclosure was hung as a delay.
The system was processed with Clair Dolby Lake Processors with AES input and powered by Lab.gruppen fP3400, fP6400, 20000Q PLM, 10000Qs.
"It is very often that we are put in a situation where we need to make a PA fit in around all the scenic elements of a show, the Adamson system did this extremely well and based on the design of the show," Donin noted. "The only real problem spot was at front of house, which was placed in a tower that was shadowed from the PA. We ended up using large near-field monitors as a solution."
Mark Vreeken and Peter Stoynich controlled the show from FOH. Danny Thomas, Russ Wilson and Stein Guitton handled monitors. Jon Halliwell was systems engineer for the event.
The FOH and Monitor consoles, chosen based on artist preferences, included one PM-5D used as a master traffic console on the Parking Lot stages. Because it connected to the MADI broadcast network, it had a full copy of any input that was needed and it was not loading down any primary host microphones or inputs.
The console list included five Avid VENUE Profile systems (3 x 48 channel, 2 x 96 channel), two Yamaha PM-5Ds and one Yamaha LS-9.
For more information, please visit www.adamsonsystems.com.
Photo by Mark BT
