Last August, my good friend and 'brother' Michael Bettell knew his time was short. He had recently been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour and surgery had failed to present a cure. Michael, a gifted drummer who had performed with bands including the Anti-Nowhere League and Marnie, as well as working on several studio projects with me, desperately wanted to "give something back" to the staff who had treated him on the specialist Elizabeth Loury Ward at Southend General Hospital in Essex.

Michael asked me if I would organise some kind of an event in which he could participate, with the aim to raise funds for the ward. At least that was the plan. Sadly, at the age of just 41, Michael died too soon on September 9, but his ex-wife Jane Winiberg and I vowed that we would follow his wishes and put on a show that Michael would have been proud of - featuring many of the musicians, friends and family who had been part of his life. Thus, Drumming Up Hope was born.

Our chosen venue was The Mill, a popular arts and leisure centre in Rayleigh, Essex, whose layout afforded us the ability to present artists both in the main hall and on a lower-key acoustic stage upstairs. The Mill's management were first out of the starting gate with a generous, charitable attitude, offering us the venue completely free of charge on a premium night (Saturday), and extending the curfew to 2am.

The core organising team consisted of myself, Jane (of Tomboy Music Group) and Ian Tomey, Jane's partner in the web resources company Rampant Hosting. Once the date was fixed as May 1, Jane's marketing and promotion machine swung into action. With Ian, she launched the www.drumminguphope.com web site and a media campaign resulted in us being swamped by literally hundreds of artists who wanted to perform for the good cause.

From a huge pile of CDs and biogs, 16 acts were chosen, forming an incredibly varied line-up of musical styles, from acoustic, soul and modern classical, to rock, pop, techno and breakbeat. They included headlining 13-piece soul band Jackie Wilson Says; singer/songwriters Phil Burdett, Luke Dawson, Graeme Campbell and Rosie Wilby; 'indie' bands Fiction, Hallelujah Johnson, Bad Ego and DoobieSnax; the more chilled-out sounds of Pearl, Closing Time and Doofus; and pop artists NeXX-us (straight from the Atomic Kitten tour), Lee Bennett and Smartbox. Added to the bill was The Band Of Hope - and eight-piece outfit (expanding to 11 with special guests including Michael's son Ollie) formed by Jane and I especially for the show.

Meanwhile, I began to contact suppliers with a view to securing as many favours as possible. The response was fantastic and the companies who came aboard were Villa Audio (live sound and risers), DPL Production Lighting (lighting and trussing), Edwin Shirley Trucking, Sensible Music (backline), Hangman (backdrop), LiteStructures (staging) and Reece Productions (crewing). Other support came from KV2 Audio, Hand Held Audio and Shure Distribution UK.

Very soon, what was originally a fairly low-key event started to mushroom into a monster, and so when Emma Barwell of SSE Hire offered her services as my on-the-day production assistant, I didn't hesitate to take her up on it! We had already committed to a low ticket price, thinking it would attract a bigger audience, and we did in fact sell out. With hindsight, and the knowledge that some of the best professional suppliers in the business ended up helping us put on a full-blown production, we could easily have charged much more. Which we will, next time!

ON THE DAY
Load-in commenced at 8.00am when Paul Slater from Edwin Shirley Trucking arrived with a tractor and 45ft trailer, having picked up from four points in London and Essex - in a week that also saw the Britney Spears and Paul McCartney productions rolling out of EST's east London base. Crew were supplied by Reece Productions of Maldon. On the main stage, Chris Doy of Darren ParkerÕs Stansted-based DPL Production Lighting used an Avolites Pearl 2000 console to control a number of Martin MAC 250 moving lights, plus generics in the form of six lamp bars with ACLs and ETC Source Fours. The kit also included two Le Maitre Neutron Star Hazers. Upstairs, Jack Lloyd manned a basic generic rig featuring six lamp bars with ACLs and colour changers, under Zero 88 dimming control. Two Studio Due Mini City Colors added some striking washes.

DPL also supplied its own box trussing and black drapes, over the top of which was a backdrop featuring the Drumming Up Hope event logo, which was produced at short notice by Norfolk-based specialist Hangman. When it was realised that the house staging at The Mill was not of the necessary high-spec standard, a call to LiteStructures resulted in the company supplying its standard LiteDeck staging for the 36 x 24 foot performance area. Additional decking for the acoustic stage was sourced from Knight International.

We decided that it would be a symbolic gesture to feature Michael's treasured Tama kit on the main riser throughout the whole gig, and all the drummers were more than happy. It was also agreed to go with generic instrument amplification in order to minimise changeover times, and Jeff Allen at Sensible Music kindly provided us with Marshall stacks for guitars and keyboards, an Ampeg SVT bass rig, a spare Sonor drum kit and a perspex drum screen to help prevent sound leakage into the front row mics.

VILLA, KV2 & LD SYSTEMS Dragged screaming from his office at Villa Audio's Chelmsford base to come out of 'retirement' and mix the main stage sound was self-confessed audiophile Gareth Jones. The only evidence of an older balance engineer here was the Yamaha PM4000 at FOH. "I know what all the knobs do on this!" he said during the afternoon soundcheck. "This is the first show I have mixed for quite some time, so it's best to feel safe."

Whereas Villa usually fields industry standard kit, Drumming Up Hope gave Jones the opportunity to try out some new alternatives and he was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. For instance, the loudspeaker systems on both stages were on loan from manufacturer KV2 Audio, whose UK offices are in Wickford, Essex, just down the road from The Mill. Jones was full of praise: "Without a doubt, this is one of the best point source systems available. George Krampera [chief designer at KV2] has worked out how to make low 'Q' cabinets throw. There is tremendous HF penetration, clarity and power, and I have no idea how he did it, but it really works!"

The main stage system was made up of ES1.0 mid-high packs, ES2.5, ES1.8 and ES1.5 lows and sub bass, all powered from KV2Õs own amplifier package. Upstairs on the acoustic stage were KV2 EX10 mid-highs and the very funky EX2.2 2 x 12Ó sub bass, run from a Midas Venice by Jamie Reece-Ford. "The EX10 sounds great, weighs nothing, and costs a lot less than other unpowered products," said Jones.

Having recently returned from a visit to KV2's Czech Republic plant, Jones was keen to try out the systems in a real-life situation. He commented: "The KV2 guys and I spent much time discussing better application for the product, including some aesthetic detail, manual handling and flying systems. I'm really pleased to be involved. "This system is still in its infancy but the main thing is, it sounds great. It may be an acquired taste visually, and impossible to fly well as it stands, but all that is just around the corner. Wait for PLASA in September, and I'm sure a lot of people will be extremely surprised. Is this just another cheap PA? I think not! The competition should prepare themselves for a shock."

Villa's monitor system for the event came straight off The Mavericks' tour, and was loaded from one truck to Edwin Shirley's. It consisted of the company's regular package of a Midas Heritage 3000 console, BSS FDS-360 EQ and FDS-344 system processing, plus Lab.Gruppen amplification. Monitor Engineer Oz Bagnall ran 12 separate mixes from the H3000, sending one to a Garwood Radio Station in-ear system from Hand Held Audio, used exclusively by Band Of Hope backing singer Andrea Jackson, while the remainder of the monitoring consisted of Villa wedges.

"This is the first tryout for the new beta3 version of the Villa house floor monitor - another step towards 'the final solution'," said Jones. "Oz is really happy with the latest updates and the artists seemed to have a great time up on stage with what they were hearing."

Standard microphone fare came in the shape of an Shure SM91 (kick drum), SM57s (snare bottom, percussion), Beta 57As (snare top, brass, vocals), SM98 wireless (violin), Beta 58A wireless hand held vocal mics, Sennheiser e609s (guitar cabs) and AKG C414s on drum kit overheads.

However, the decision to complement these with a range from the little-known LD Systems made Jones a very happy camper indeed. An LD D1008 condenser was chosen as a second kick drum mic and for the snare and bass stack, D1009s were placed on hi-hats and toms, and D1011 condensers were selected as spare vocal mics.

"LD Systems make some interesting mics which I think will take the big boys head on, and at a tiny fraction of the cost," commented Jones. "Rob Fricker from their distributor, Adam Hall, came over with some models for me to play with. We didn't listen at first, but put them up on the analyzer to check their performance. The results were encouraging. When we then tested LD's active DI box [LDI02] and discovered they come in at a paltry £15 a unit, we were even more impressed because there's no compromise on the build quality and the sound competes favourably with anything else out there. I've had no hesitation in using those DIs all over this stage.

"A straightforward listening test worked well enough for other engineers working in our warehouse to lift a couple of units to take straight out on The Mavericks' tour. Time will tell how far we go with them.

"All this comes at a time when promoters are wanting more for less. These products give at least the same or better performance than established industry products. So, if they can be favourably brought to the market, this can only protect our return on capital investments." Jones was last seen heading for the bar sporting a Stella-style grin!

BLINDING
The event was an outstanding success on a number of levels, and far exceeded our expectations. Every act gave a blinding performance and it was immensely satisfying to receive very flattering comments from members of the audience about not only the choice of artists, but also the quality of sound and look of the show. It was definitely on a higher level to anything normally staged in the area.

Even with a generic backline situation, managing the changeovers of 17 acts over two stages presented a huge risk of overrunning. Amazingly, it all went incredibly smoothly and to schedule.

We were blessed with the presence in the audience of guitar legend Jeff Beck, who was an old friend of Michael's, and gave the gig a resounding thumbs up. The most touching moment of the night came when Michael's son Ollie came on stage before the encore to thank everyone involved and say a few words about his dad. When asked if they would like to see this event repeated annually, the crowd gave a unanimous, positive roar. This could be the start of something big, and no one would be happier than Michael.

Photography by Ian Tomey

Drumming Up Hope - Key Production Crew & Suppliers:

Production Manager: Mark Cunningham
• Event Co-ordination & Promotion: Jane Winiberg
• Web Services & Photography: Ian Tomey
• Production Assistant & Main Stage Manager: Emma Barwell
• Acoustic Stage Managers: Richard Lewington & John Mannion
• Sound: Villa Audio
• PA Systems: KV2 Audio
• FOH Engineer: Gareth Jones
• Monitor Engineer: Oz Bagnall
• Backline Technician: Gary Taylor
• Acoustic Stage Sound Engineer: Jamie Reece-Ford
• System Technicians: Peter Gurton, Robert 'Batty Boy' Gulston
• Microphones: Rob Fricker for Adam Hall Limited
• In-Ear Monitoring: Hand Held Audio
• Lighting: DPL Production Lighting
• Lighting Crew Chief: Darren Parker
• Lighting Director: Chris Doy
• Lighting Technicians: Jack Lloyd, Ben Shepherd
• Backline: Jeff Allen at Sensible Music
• Staging: LiteStructures, Knight International
• Main Stage Backdrop: Alan & Chrissie Chesters at Hangman
• Transport: Del Roll at Edwin Shirley Staging
• Truck Driver: Paul Slater
• Crewing: Reece Productions
• Front of House Assistants: Barbara Warner, Kathy Amos, Sue Mitchell, Ian Luffman, Alex Russell
• Backstage Security & Ambience: Andy Russell, Lynda Bridge
• Rehearsal Facilities: Nightfly Studios
• Printing & Passes: Personalised Prints
• Lanyards donated by Shure Distribution UK