Televised globally and drawing in a reported two billion people to raise awareness of the climate crisis, the Live Earth concerts featured 24 hours of music across seven continents. The London Live Earth concerts saw Madonna closing the show and included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duran Duran, the Black Eyed Peas, Kasabian and spoof band Spinal Tap.
However, there was nothing spoof about the British production teams and suppliers who serviced the event in London and elsewhere.
Sat Bal spoke to some of them.
"Live Nation promoted and produced Live Earth in
London. We were asked to manage the event
following our involvement in Live 8 two years ago.
The brief was to create a multi-topline live artist
event in a brand new stadium- easy!
The biggest challenge was the change over from
the Concert for Diana the week before and
Metallica the day after, in the same stadium on the
same stage – and they had to look very different!
Wembley is a brand new stadium with a brand new
team and that caused a few teething problems but all worked very well in the end.
The number of crew, artists and media took us close to breaking point but the combined efforts of so many dedicated people enabled us to pull it off. Lots of people had an opinion on how things should be done in the early stages but this settled down as the trust emerged.
We received a lot of fantastic comments from Control Room (the Producer), Ignition (Experiential marketing), artists and press. My favourite was from a veteran of the event industry who said ‘It’s all about smoke and mirrors.’ How true that was!
High points? Getting the stadium and local authority to agree to an extension of the rehearsal times for Madonna the night before the show when everyone said it couldn’t be done! My first drink in the hotel bar when it was all over. The rest was all about smoke and mirrors! "
Roger Barrett, Development Director, Star Events Group Ltd (SEGL)
Live Earth, China. (STAGING)
“Live Earth in Shanghai saw Star Events Group China supply its first full outdoor stage system. The structure was built at the
base of the Oriental Pearl Group (OPG) tower, the highest
tower in Asia. The stage system we used was a 15m Orbit
Flexidome because the site has a shopping mall beneath and
no other structure could provide the rigging capacity. Working
on the roof of the shopping mall disallowed the use of any
cranes or pickers so the whole system had to be hand built and
rigged.
For carbon footprint friendliness only 15% of the equipment
was shipped from the UK by sea. The rest was manufactured in
China and assembled at SEGL’s new warehouse in Shanghai. All
equipment is remaining in China and has already been booked
for other shows in 2007.
We despatched four crew from the UK and they joined SEGL’s
local staff to train the local crew. Bob Fennell was crew chief while I managed the project. We knew in advance that July is the height of the rainy season and we built the stage in weather conditions that ranged from continuous driving rain to really uncomfortable heat, reaching 410C at 80% humidity. We had huge thunderstorms during sound checks and the show, but the stage remained totally dry throughout and full UK safety standards were maintained.
We were all really impressed with the local crew. Their ability to grasp what needs doing very quickly is on a par with anywhere, including the UK. We’re not sure they fully understand the English sense of humour yet, though!”
Val Bowes, Director, Flying Saucers (CATERING CO-ORDINATOR)
”Our client was Nick Levitt and we took care of the 24-hourproduction catering needs of artists and crew. We served 1,264
breakfasts, 1,334 lunches & 1,315 dinners and 400 artists and
artist crews.
It was quite a difficult catering area – partly in the underground
car park! We had to move the dining and serving area the night
before show to accommodate the Green Room and again on the
last catering day since our area was being demolished! A
separate operation was brought into the outside car park for
production catering so that artist and artist crew catering could
take place inside the building.
The catering area became the Green Room and dressing rooms were really very low-key as befitted the theme of Live Earth.
In summary, this was the most complicated catering operation I’ve encountered in 27 years of Flying Saucers – and that’s saying something! I think everyone coped amazingly well considering the challenge!
Client, and other, feedback was excellent and people found it hard to believe that we could maintain the quality of meals (as well as our spirits!) at such a high level over such a long and demanding period. It felt great to have played a part in making such a special occasion work."
Chris Saunders, Screen Producer, XL Video (VIDEO)
"XL Video co-ordinated all the video elements betweenXL and the various event designers, producers and
others involved in screen content. We already had a
large video system installed at Wembley for the Diana
concert and this was all removed for Live Earth.
Technically, the show went completely flawlessly from
XL's perspective. It was a constantly moving and
changing entity in many ways, with plenty of elements
being introduced or cut at the last minute and a few
curved balls that needed dealing with - truly 'live' in
every aspect,in fact! There were also key elements
along the international timeline that we had to hit, notably Al Gore's keynote speech from Washington.
For the event we supplied one of our new HD PPUs, cameras, screens and a team of 30 crew. Another challenge entering our 'world' relatively late on was that we became the hub for five live global feeds - Japan, Australia, New York, Washington, Germany - which we fed into a high definition EVS Machine. These were then clipped up and output to screen during the change-overs in London"
Dirk de Decker, Project Manager, Stageco (STAGING)
“We were at the heart of the action as production teamsloaded out A Concert for Diana on 2 July and built Live
Earth for a 7 July performance date. It was logistically
challenging and we worked with the Live Nation
management team and production managers to plan and
execute Stageco’s part of the build with both concerts in
mind. We set the ‘revolve’ used by Live Earth into the stage
floor before the Diana concert saving time for the following
week. However, the Ray Winkler-designed Live Earth set
required an entirely different look to the Diana shows, part
of which involved turning the roof round by 180°.
We brought in nine extra guys to do the changeover from Monday into Tuesday, making a crew of 24. Within 36 hours of the Diana show, the stage had been turned around and ready for the Live Earth technical production.
We provided 1,500m² of deck, giving 1,000m² of covered stage, plus three delay masts, auxiliary ramps and stairs for both concerts. Stageco also provided the stages for the Live Earth concerts at the Giants’ Stadium, New York, USA and The Arena, Hamburg, Germany."
Chris Ewington Product Designer I-Pix (LIGHTING)
“The challenge for lighting designers was to
make the rig as energy-efficient as
possible. So as many high output,
low-energy lighting fixtures as possible
were used.
Lighting contractor PRG and the London
event’s lighting designers Patrick Woodroffe
(responsible for the stage/show lighting)
and Mark Kenyon (responsible for the TV
and BBC’s lighting requirements) made the final assessment.
Twenty-four of i-Pix’ new mega-bright BB wash-lights were mounted on the front truss header replacing normal 8 light blinders and producing a sixfold reduction in power.
Patrick and Mark also chose 86 of i-Pix’ popular Satellites LED fixtures and the 86 heads on full power consumed a mere total of 14.91 Amps.
It was a great honour to work on this show with Patrick, Mark and PRG and with the LE theme since we develop products with excellent green credentials at the forefront of their spec.”
Pete Wills, Managing Director, Power Logistics. EVENT POWER 
“The organisers of Live Earth were committed to minimising the
environmental impact of the event. This saw the use of 100%
bio-fuels in all generators keeping the carbon footprint as low as
possible.
Sustainability is our company policy and our own trucks run on a bio-diesel mix. For Live Earth some 13,000 litres of recycled
catering oil was sourced and chemically treated to create a truly
recycled bio-diesel product which effectively ran the generators.
The extensive television infrastructure, outside broadcasting
facilities and feeds to several hundred different stations required
unbroken, consistent power throughout the marathon 10 hour
show and the power needs of the stage production were no less
demanding.
Live Earth demonstrated that any event organiser wishing to switch to sustainable fuel for concerts or festivals can confidently do so and we supply a mix of fuels or pure bio-diesel as requested. ”
Patrick Jordan, Mojo Barriers (SECURITY BARRIERS)
“We provided crowd protection barriers at three of the
seven main Live Earth concerts that took place, plus
the highly attended satellite event Live Earth Alert! The
events in New York, London, Sydney and Amsterdam,
combined, used over 1,200 metres of the company’s
aluminium or steel barrier systems to ensure the safety
of the audiences.
As a company we are making our own efforts to
operate sustainably and we were delighted to be able
to support an environmental project like Live Earth.
Mojo’s project managers at the four concerts were Jim Gaffney at Wembley Stadium, J.B. Dolphin at Giants’ Stadium in New York, Greg Walker (of Mojo’s Australian distributor, The Purple Station) at Aussie Stadium, Sydney and Erwin Sprengers at Westerpark in Amsterdam.
The party....
The Hospital in Covent Garden hosted the
LE party following recent changes to its
interiors including a dramatic new ground and
fourth floor and a new events space
on the first floor.
"The official Live Earth aftershow party took
place on the second floor, in The Main Bar
and Lounge, Bellini Bar, and Restaurant
There was a DJ (who made Corinne Bailey
Rae dance!), our amazing Hedgerow Crush
cocktails, and delicious canapés. Celebs who
came included Harvey Weinstein, Corinne
Bailey Rae (who was made to dance by the
DJ!), Duran Duran and June Sarpong (from
T4)." Lydia Penke - The Hospital
RK
