Poppy Appeal launches with Capital Sound

This year’s Poppy Appeal launch, which took place at London’s Trafalgar Square on Wednesday October 24th, saw full production for the event provided by Capital Sound.

Hosted by Ben Shephard, the show opened with a fanfare of trumpets from 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards, and was followed by a raft of high-profile performers, including Alesha Dixon and The Military Wives Choir, with James Fox singing the Poppy Appeal Launch single, ‘Landlocked’ and Pixie Lott.

"As a full production job for Capital, you literally have to supply everything from the ground up," said Capital’s Charles Ellery. "We supplied staging, lighting and sound, with the video element arranged by the Royal British Legion’s own in-house video production supplier, Raw. We also arranged for all the dressing room cabins, temporary loos, catering, first aid, special FX and so on."

The audio team on hand for the production, which was made up of Joseph Pearce (crew chief and system tech), Nick Foots (FOH), Steve Bunting (MONS), Craig Bruce (RF and stage tech), Nathan Hayward (PA/stage tech), Karima Kingsley (PA/stage tech), Harry McCann (PA/stage tech), Louisa Gladwin (Mons/stage tech), was certainly put through its paces.

"With changeovers of only three minutes between bands, it was very tight for time," said Ellery, "but the crew performed incredibly well after a long night rigging and testing and it all went off very smoothly."

The climax of the show was the official launch, with half a million poppies being blasted over Ben Shephard, Pixie Lott and Alesha Dixon, to declare the Poppy Appeal open.

The Appeal aims to raise £42 million this year, so please give generously at the following link: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/support-us/poppy-appeal

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