What an amazing night!
After an early 06:00 start from Bristol, the crew arrived safely with all the trucks at the Portsmouth Guildhall and spent the whole of Friday rigging the stage, lighting and sound for the ACE Awards 2013. We were pleased that the set went up easily including the excellent LED curtains. These were going to be used as part of the light show and we were all looking forward to seeing them in action.
We had a leisurely 10:00 start on Saturday and started with rehearsals and sound checks for all the acts performing on the night. After a complete run through we were all in agreement that all the video content made by our studio department, the LED screens and the lights were fabulous! The venue even asked if we could leave the LED screens behind, sorry boys, not this time!
The lighting and sound engineers spent the whole day programing lights and making sure each act sounded great, although we did get in trouble with the catering manager as the bass had vibrated a lot of the cutlery onto the floor – so sorry for that!
Roxanne Emery and her band were a pleasure to work with, and not only is she a lovely person, but she has such a beautiful voice, we were all very impressed!
But it was Beardyman who stole the show on the night, taking the audience by surprise and interrupting the host for the evening. He made a dramatic entrance through the tables overshadowing any spoken word with a thunderous helicopter noise he expertly mimicked using only his voice. He then proceeded to amaze and entertain the 450 guests getting them up and out of their seats in pure amazement at his unique ability. The huge array of musical genres he can produce linguistically is almost unbelievable, and something you might have to witness to believe, but never the less, everyone loved him, including all the crew who joined the masses in filming him on their mobile phones (despite the extensive recording equipment already in the room).
Once he had the room up and dancing, MadHen took over the evening’s entertainment and everyone danced the night away to their excellent repertoire of covers from all eras.
All in all, a hugely successful night, and congratulations to all of this year’s Award winners! What a way to celebrate.
The only question now is, what next year?
