Nova Batida Festival
Full Production & Technical Management
Location Lisbon, Portugal Client Verso
We were brought on board for the 2019 edition of the festival to oversee all technical and production requirements on behalf of the festival operations team from Verso. This included a number of site visits and procurement with a team of local suppliers, supplying a team of UK technicians including Audio Engineers, Lighting Designers and Stage Managers to work alongside the local contractors and oversee the work onsite.
The festival comes with its own unique challenges; based in the middle of the LX Factory complex in central Lisbon, access to the venues is via small cobbled streets lined with markets, restaurants and boutique shops. To avoid disruption to the local businesses and tenants we had to bring all HGVs in overnight between 2am and 6am. The venue for the main stage is inside a 6000 capacity disused warehouse space with no flying options in the roof. We developed a stage design that maximised the space and facilitated 3 bands of rolling risers while still not encroaching on capacity. The festival featured a range of live and electronic artists from across the world so it was important to create a stage that had ample space for the larger and more complex live bands, whilst maintaining the intimate feel of the festival for the late night elements.
We partnered up with established local lighting & AV supplier Backlight who provided a rig of Robe Megapointe and Spiider luminaires, Clay Paky Stormy CC strobes as well as a full Prolyte groundsupport. Control was from an Avolites Pearl Expert operated by our LD John Tasker. Audio rental supplier Audiomatrix provided L’Acoustics Kara audio systems throughout with Digico, Soundcraft and Avid consoles with use of Sennheiser RF. Audiomatrix showed their extensive experience working in the venue when setting up the L’Acoustics system. The venue complex is subject to strict noise limits and the system was configured in a way which gave fantastic directional coverage for the entire audience area, minimising reflections off the cavernous walls and roof without compromising SPL.
Stage 2 was situated at the Village Underground – one of Lisbon’s most cutting edge outdoor venues. We took over the outdoor restaurant area by installing a stretch tent canopy between the shipping containers and a creative lighting design that utilised the venues eye catching existing architecture. By lighting the containers with washes, strobes and mounted molefays in and around the structure and foliage nearby, the result was a truly immersive audience experience. Audience members were able to walk through the bridges and corridors of the steel structure which was the centrepiece of the stage design. Again, the open air venue was located close to nearby residences so we deployed a D&B Audiotechnik system, with multiple additional Y7P boxes to achieve good coverage for a complex venue layout without having to compromise on level.
In addition to the two main stages, the festival also featured a programme of talks and workshops, surf lessons, boat parties, wellbeing sessions and other activities. We provided equipment for a rooftop terrace with views over Lisbon for afternoon and sunset sessions and finally the festival was closed with an intimate Beach Party just outside of the city centre.
Photo Credits : Matt Eachus