Solo Music Agency & Promotions was again behind the promotion and production of the Isle of Wight Festival, taking it forward with rapid sales of tickets and huge media interest. This year, the festival returned to its roots, with The Who headlining on the Saturday night, having previously played on the island back in 1969 and 1970. Their set bristled with energy and underlined their ever-growing status as rock legends.

The Stereophonics headlined the opening night with a more chilled but highly engaging set, and we were lucky to thrill to a pre-heart op David Bowie, who brought the weekend to a memorable close. Other notable performances throughout the weekend came from Jet, Snow Patrol, The Charlatans, Manic Street Preachers, Suzanne Vega and Steve Harley.

This year, the festival benefited from the headline sponsorship of Nokia and media sponsorship of Virgin, which increased the event's budgets and helped transform the event into one of the summer's hottest tickets. The boost in visitor numbers led to an increase in pressure on the health and safety issues that are created by bringing 35,000 people across the water, as well as the need for greater production and facilities on site.

Coping with the huge influx of people on to the island was one of the key issues the production team had to tackle in order to satisfy the licensing authorities. Solo's Production Manager Mark Ward worked in conjunction with consultants Capita-Symonds to ensure there were additional ferries laid on (one was even sailed in from Russia just for the weekend), and persuaded local police to agree a road closure plan and provided visitors with a shuttle bus service allowing easier access to the site.

Building on recent success, the Newport site evolved with several new additions, including a bigger fun fair, a picnic area with a giant mobile video screen (linked to the main stage performances), a Bacardi B-Bar dance arena, and Nokia and Virgin corporate hospitality areas. Developing the site and booking the right artists was one of the key aims of the promoters, who retained the aspects of the site that worked previously, and looked to improve access for both the public and suppliers to the event, ensuring that festival goers enjoyed their time spent at the festival.

Explained Ward: "The experience of the punter is down to us, so we try and manage all aspects of that experience! It helped that we set our initial budgets on selling 20,000 tickets, so having sold out we weren't afraid to spend money on getting things right. We've built up a great team over the years, and they make a potentially tricky project come together very painlessly. Kahren Williams has once again been my right hand on site in dealing with all manner of issues and keeping the whole build up very calm."

On Ward's left side was Capita-Symonds' Alan Law, the festival's Safety Officer, who explained that noise levels led to the initial license application being refused. He said: "The site is surrounded by residents, and even though complaints had been minimal in 2003, the local authority were particularly keen to see that we were taking the issue of noise seriously.

"Mark Ward stuck with Canegreen as the PA supplier and their knowledge from last year was a crucial factor in getting the licence. Their project manager Pete Hughes prepared a huge document back in January for the license hearing that explained the measures being taken to ensure the sound distribution and levels would fall within the requested levels."

Canegreen's return to the IOW saw the firm once again installing its Meyer Milo line array speakers launched at last year's festival, flying 12 Milo cabinets either side of the stage, with four Meyer M3Ds above them for the longer throw element. This year, Canegreen unveiled its latest investment, seen for the first time in Europe - 24 Meyer 700-HP ultra high-power subs to complement the brilliant acoustic reproduction of the Milos.

The main challenges for Hughes and his team this year were to adhere to the strict sound levels at the site boundaries agreed months earlier whilst maintaining good sound pressures for the audience. The design of the PA was critical and Hughes worked closely with the acoustic team at Meyer using predictive MAPP software to align the speakers in a radical design.

The new Meyer 700-HP cabinets were aligned across the front of the stage to replicate the line array properties of the Milo cabinets that carried the mid and high frequencies. This allowed the bass frequencies to be steered into the inner area of the festival site in the same manner the higher frequencies were managed, therefore reducing the noise reaching areas surrounding the site. With a huge Carling bar located behind the FOH tower, a pair of delay towers, also carrying Milo cabinets were steered to fill the 'A-shaped' audience areas to ensure good sound coverage for the whole of the audience.

A pair of Midas XL4 consoles, BSS Soundweb 9088s, Klark Teknik graphic analysers and EQ controlled the FOH system. On stage, Canegreen's crew managed all of the changeovers for the bands over the three days, with a Midas Heritage 3000 providing a 12-way mix to EAW SM15 monitors. The feeds on-stage were also split to feed the TV broadcast for Channel 4's coverage of the festival. Stage manager Steve Jones worked within a very limited backstage area to keep to a quick schedule of artists.

ISLAND LITES
The lighting team burst into action as the evening sun sank over the riverbanks. And what a team! Festival LD Vince Foster was back working with Ward for the third year and LSD Fourth Phase supplied kit and crew. The main difference for Foster this year was the presence of CC Lab filming the event for TV broadcast.

He said: "It's presented me with a double role - creating lighting that satisfies the needs of the TV design and the live production. It's a far bigger show, with more lights on stage, more follow spots and some specials on the mixing tower. We've also lit the trees and flags around the main arena."

Whilst Foster looked after the needs of some of the smaller bands, most of the bands brought their own LDs, leaving Foster to concentrate on lighting the audience and making sure the band members were lit for TV close-ups. Two WholeHog II consoles were employed at FOH - one controlling the generic and moving lights, the other controlling the audience lighting.

"We've had some of the best LDs in the world on site," clained Foster. "Pete Barnes created an intimate look for the Stereophonics on Friday night, as well as assisting me all weekend with programming, then Tom Kenny was LD for The Who with a big bold show and it was his stunning design that Mark Cunniffe has out on tour with Bowie that incorporated the screens to great effect. It's been a great lighting weekend."

The 25m wide Stageco stage was impeccably constructed, and it certainly showed its engineering pedigree in carrying three lighting trusses brimming with 57 Martin MAC 2000 spots and 24 washes, six Super Cycs, 12 City Colours, 125 Pars, 19 Molefays and 12 strobes, and it carried XL Video's giant Unitek screens flown at the rear of the stage for Bowie's set. LED technology has become a part of the lighting designers armoury and LSD Fourth Phase also flew 12 of its new Pixelines around the stage truss to great effect.

CORPORATE INFLUENCE
The tented dance arena of the Bacardi B-Bar was managed by Jo Little, who said: "Working for the sponsorship company meant that I have had to create an event within the event. I've managed my own production crew, which gradually mixed with the main on-site team. By the Thursday night Mickey Curbishley and Tom found their way to the Bacardi B-Bar and we had them focusing our lighting, which I thought was pretty impressive pedigree for our little bar."

The second key area of corporate influence on this year's event was more exclusive/less inclusive, but no less important to the success of the festival. Mark Ward said: "Sponsorship incomes ran into hundreds of thousands this year, which gave us the confidence to go out and book this calibre of artists well in advance of knowing ticket sales. With the costs of putting on a professional festival, sponsorship is a fact of modern life, although at Solo we are very keen it doesn't impact the main audience enjoyment of our events."

Nokia and Virgin entertained around 150 guests each per day in marquees overlooking the main arena. The all important bar offered 'Isle of Wight Festival' cocktails served by Hard Rock Cafˇ staff, whilst caterer Chevalier prepared food for the 480 VIP guests.

Chevalier's event leader Mike Smith liased with the corporate clients to ensure guests enjoyed a hot and cold buffet menu throughout the festival, and they rounded the day off for guests with bacon sandwiches served late at night after the headline bands finished their sets.

Having worked with Ward on the previous year's event, Chevalier's sister company within the Global Infusion Group, Eat To The Beat, was a natural choice to cater for the artists, production crew and the TV broadcast staff. Across the whole event they served over 5,500 freshly prepared meals, all sourced from local suppliers.

SIA DEBUT
Whilst the corporate experience of guests may have been a little more comfortable, the glorious weather beaming down throughout the weekend and general feelgood factor amongst the audience created a great atmosphere.

The Isle of Wight Festival was the first major event in the UK to come under the jurisdiction of the new SIA licensing regulations. Jim McDonald, Director of Rock Steady Security, had spent months in liaison with the SIA trying to agree the training and licensing certification his staff needed to comply with, but in the end, agreement was reached that the timetable of introducing the new laws was unattainable and the festival was the first (of many) events to be given dispensation to be dealt with via traditional licensing methods.

"We were the test case," McDonald explained. "I think overall, the new legislation will be for the good of the security industry, the big players are behind it, but it's been a bit painful at times dealing with the SIA and the practical introduction of the scheme."

Photography by Graham Brown/Resource PR