Fire Fight Concert for National Bushfire Relief at ANZ Stadium – Sydney 2020

Wireless Spectrum Management

Following a disastrous fire season in the summer of 2019/2020 the Australian entertainment industry responded by mounting a concert on February 16th at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium (Stadium Australia, the home of the Sydney 2000 Olympics). The concert was watched all over the world and contributed many millions of dollars in relief. The demands of this event were significant and presented a logistic challenge for every craft discipline in the entertainment industry.

Profiles Resource Management committed to provide RF spectrum management for the event for all live performance and broadcast microphones and in ear monitoring transmitters, communications radios and camera microwave links.

From initial concept to the actual event was only a few short weeks, everyone was already busy, but somehow we managed to squeeze in the preparation. 22 acts in 10 hours was going to challenge any crew. The audio bump in commenced at 6am, and gates opened at midday. Thus off site preparation was critical.

PRM engaged with each act to establish what they needed, what frequencies they typically used and any constraints. The event was simulcast in real time by the Seven Network and FoxTel, thus many additional frequencies for host mics and IFB, communications, camera microwave links and telemetry frequencies, a total of three-hundred and seventy four frequencies ‘under management’.

Rather ironically this show was the last major event prior to the lockdown phase of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. PRM provided our equipment and services at no charge as part of the fund raising effort, as did most of the other equipment and service providers.

On the day the RF spectrum was managed by Peter Twartz and John Buckley, with Susan Twartz assisting with off site coordination.

ANZ Stadium’s Sound Control Room on Level 5 provided an ideal spot to locate one of our Spectrum Monitoring Stations and also to tap into the Stadium’s Shure Axient AXT600 Spectrum Manager. You will see some of these WWB Frequency Plots in the folder below Notated L5 SCR

Fire Fight in the Media

Links to Industry Media Reports:

firefightaustralia.com

Cx Magazine – Production Report

stadiumaustralia.com.au

Stadium Australia, one year on

Links to Mainstream Media reports:

www.abc.net.au celeste-barber-opens-fire-fight

www.abc.net.au queen-tops-five-memorable-moments

www.theaustralian.com.au

www.dailytelegraph.com.au

Wikipedia.org

Ongoing Legacy

In addition to the A/B “House” mics and IEMs many of the acts had additional wireless requirements, ranging from a guitar pack, or sponsorship agreements to use brand “X” mic through to Q+AL whose wireless racks and consoles remained from the night before and whose crew very graciously re-tuned everything to fit into our master plot, then re-walked the stage to test.

Stage A/B RF Racks

The “House” A/B Wireless audio system, along with the broadcast requirements had to be compatible and operate all day. and also work with the various act’s requirements. The whole stage wireless system was networked for monitoring and control.

The Shure Axient Digital ADX transmitters can be remote controlled from the receiver or the Wireless Workbench. This includes gain settings and even the transmit frequency. Additionally Handhelds 1 and 2 in both A and B were what Shure call Frequency Diverse. This means they each transmit on two totally independent frequencies, if one takes a hit, the receiver just selects the other. Given the potential for News media gaining access to the site without coordination, Frequency diversity was something I specified and was particularly keen on.

Backline RF Requirements.

The Acts RF Requirements.

Listed below are the RF requirements for each act.

Broadcast RF Equipment

Fox had a hosting suite on level 3 overlooking the stadium. This required wireless mics and wireless IFB for each host.

More background to the event and RF Spectrum Management.

Like many things of this nature a series phone calls were made, and the response was – Yes, we can. Quickly this concert swelled to something that rivalled Live Aid 1985. Queen + Adam Lambert provided the stage and TEG Dainty the production & artist management. The largest production companies in the country sent more equipment than you can imagine. Then came two broadcasters and ABC Radio to provide the on-air mix for broadcast.

The Event

On air for 10 hours in real time (often simulcast shows are time lagged to close up the programme), with twenty-one acts and the biggest producers in the country – including international acts Queen + Adam Lambert, k.d. lang and Ronan Keating. (There is a full artist list under The Acts RF Requirements)

In an event like this everything matters, there is nowhere to hide, communications is vital, and it just must work. The modern event production space is highly dependent on RF space and digital technology. The timing for the TV show was vital and depended on being able to reliably changeover between acts in less than ten minutes complete line checks and get on air again. We created two compete parallel signal chains (A&B) each with eighteen channels of radio microphones and ten channels of in-ear monitors (that all the musicians to hear on stage) these were the frequencies over which we had absolute control, they could be co-ordinated the usage managed and closely regulated. Then came equipment that the artists wanted to bring which formed part of the each set up, typically between four and six additional frequencies.  These were co-ordinated with the A&B frequencies above. Then came each broadcasters’ local frequencies for radio mics and in ear monitors. As well as general purpose voice and camera telemetry.  We finished with over three-hundred and fifty frequencies under management at Stadium Australia for the event.

In most conventional situations RF management occurs at a strategic level, it is decided long prior to and event or situation developing. Fixed commercial radio networks exist that provide a better than 80% solution. The event space is much more of a tactical situation that requires close co-ordination, compromise and occasionally command decisions to enable correct function.

We polled every act appearing at the concert (21 acts in Sydney + Michael Buble) to establish what they needed, what frequencies they typically used and any constraints. Knowing the equipment is vital as frequency bands and steps are limited on every type of commercial transmitter and receiver. This adds a further level of complexity to co-ordination.

In the days prior to the event we prepared a frequency co-ordination schedule and ran wireless clash software to reveal harmonic clashes and exclusion bands. This also allowed us to have some frequencies up our sleeve for emergent issues. Every act was then issued with a written frequency schedule for their gear prior to the event and assistance was provided to adjust where necessary. We also ran constant scanning receivers to monitor what else we may have missed. On the day we hunted down ENG crews and allocated frequencies on the fly by reference to dynamic availability.