SXSW Festival looks to Allen & Heath

This year’s SXSW Festival in Austin TX, USA, saw Allen & Heath’s iLive digital mixing system selected by promoters Cato Music to handle FOH and monitors on the British Music Embassy stage.

Almost 60 bands performed on the stage over the course of the week-long festival, including Django Django, fiN, Maverick Sabre, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Jonquil, Ben Howard, Slow Club, Twin Atlantic, D/R/U/G/S, Skindred, and Clock Opera.

FOH house engineer Fabrizio Piazzini explained: “I ran the desk in a very analogue way, all inputs on the left banks, and master section on the right and some visiting engineers wanted things moved around but we always managed to get the bands ready in the 15 minute changeovers. Some band engineers had never used the desk before but were so stunned by the ease of use, sound quality and format of the system they promptly added iLive to their riders.

“The festival patch included 37 channels but running iLive Editor meant I could drop all the channels for each performance on a single layer with just a few clicks. On the monitor side, we were running 5 mixes, with the odd band turning up with full IEM rigs. To ring out the wedges, we used the iLive MixPad app so we could actually EQ the system in the spot the artist would stand.”

The iLive system was supplied by Allen & Heath’s USA distributor, American Music & Sound, which also supplied Turbosound loudspeakers and beyerdynamic mics.

“I think iLive was a critical piece of the set up and it delivered every night,” commented Glen Rowe from Cato Music. “The British Music Embassy was a huge success this year and some sessions were so busy we set up more delays and opened the windows on the venue for people to hear outside.”

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