For the fifth year, Clair Global has curated multiple technical services to Soundstorm, the Riyadh-based 3-day festival described by promotion company MDL Beast as a ‘living city that rises from the sand, alive with movement, light, and sound’.
It’s a site constructed through specialized skillsets and months of pre-production, and this year, Clair’s KSA location added to its audio, data services, comms and radio systems scope by designing and supplying audio for the main stage, Big Beast.
"We do plenty of stadium shows all over the world, all of the time, but this one was very different," begins Clair Global KSA's Stu Wright. "Given the amount of people that backed us by making the change, we had to make sure we delivered it flawlessly, and client feedback suggests we did. It's a big deal to replace your audio vendor on any main stage, especially this one, and I personally felt the pressure to get it right."
Local and regional performers included Ibrahim Alsultan, Zena Emad, Balqees and Omar Basaad. International artists from the worlds of EDM, pop, R&B, and rap saw Ukrainian DJ Korolova, DJ Snake, Armin van Buuren, Swedish House Mafia, Steve Aoki, Pitbull, Benson Boone, Post Malone, Halsey and Cardi B amongst many others take to the stage for the weekend’s eager 450,000 attendees.
Over 100 Clair Global crew were utilized. Stu continues: “Choosing the right crew is vital. Fortunately, we have some of the best talent available to us. Our Project Managers, Pete McGlynn and CW Alkire, made sure everything ran smoothly. The whole interaction between festival production, festival management and the wider Clair team was seamless. Our designers and engineers at Soundstorm are all world class, they really are the best in the business.”
Low-end and a Chest-pumping System Response
Clair’s UK-based engineering team headed up by Josh Lloyd designed Big Beast’s audio reinforcement using an L-Acoustics system. K1-SB, K1 and K2 loudspeakers made up main and side hangs, flown and ground KS28 sub arrays were used to ensure good sub coverage down field and to help with SPL. More boxes of K1-SB, K1 and K2 were chosen for 6 x crucial large delay hangs. Control packages for musical acts across all stages were DiGiCo; at Big Beast FOH and monitors, 4 x SD7 Quantum were used, as well as an SD12-96 which served as a production console.
Josh says: “It's quite varied in terms of artistic content, with a mix of both EDM acts and live bands performing. From a system design point of view, we needed to generate high impact, with an almost ‘in your face’, low end, chest-pumping system response for that club experience, while creating a system that also works for bands. Getting the rejection on-stage, the directivity control with low frequency and sub information correct was very important.”
Soundstorm isn’t a typical festival experience; the VIB (Very Important Beast) suites offer a festival box experience based around privacy & luxury while having the best view of Big Beast stage. The VIB suites were all equipped with Cohesion CF24 and CF Subs and utilized a Yamaha CL5 control surface. There are elevated zones too, where fans can experience live music from panoramic viewing decks.
Clair also supplied the site’s EVAC PA system with Clair i-3 3-way speaker cabinets and Yamaha DM7-EX and DM7 Compact digital mixing consoles.
Josh continues: “On a typical festival site, you can afford to drop the level at the back a little, but at Soundstorm, the raised VIB boxes and grandstand viewing mean that’s not possible. Many areas are removed from the main crowds and situated at the very back of the venue, but these spaces still require an immersive and engaging audio experience.”
The engineering team had to consider the festival’s sprawling layout, a multi-stage site with entertainment occurring simultaneously. To combat the possibility of stage bleed, the delay system distribution was another big factor. To maintain the level and low-end impact, particularly within the hard-hitting EDM realm, Josh employed L-Acoustics modelling software to really dig into the design detail and nuances.
He praises Clair’s on-site system engineers for doing a brilliant job: “With Andy Fitton and Dan Fathers on our team, I knew I was handing the design over to two very talented engineers who worked collaboratively and assured the design was deployed as intended. The success of Big Beast is a testament to their work as much as it is the system design.”
Echoing the importance of collaboration, he adds: “A strength within our company is that we deliver such a breadth and depth of events, meaning we can draw on both personal experience and our wider team to devise the right solution for the client. We truly tailor each system design around what's best for them.”
Owen Orzack managed audio across the entire Soundstorm site. He notes: “We wanted to ensure that Big Beast coverage & low frequency impact of the various systems were solid. Most of the artists who were bringing in their own control packages were already known to us, so we had guest snakes, RF coordination and 120V power for the US-based acts, ready for their arrival.”
Underground Audio
Elsewhere, Clair was responsible for audio across four of Soundstorm’s Underground stages, which were ran by Tristan Johnson. This area moved from its previous site location and had multiple re-designs to adapt to the festival’s growing needs.
The Plexi and Log stages utilized Cohesion CO12 large format loudspeaker systems, while the Port stage benefitted from a brand-new layout, using a d&b audiotechnik KSL8 system. Another new feature for the Underground village was the impressive 360-degree Silk stage which used a d&b audiotechnik V8/12 deployment. The Underground stages housed a combination of DiGiCo SD10, SD12-96 and SD11 consoles.
Alongside some spectacular drone shows - all triggered from Clair-supplied playback and timecode rigs - Clair also handled 24hr cover a week before the festival commenced to facilitate soundchecks, rehearsals, the technical build and any last-minute artist enquiries.
Breaking down Cultural Barriers, increasing Operational Efficiencies
Owen continues, enthusing that the experience of working on this huge and complex event only gets better: “Every year, the team at MDL Beast works hard to ensure that the crew experience, alongside the patron experience, is improved. For Clair, this festival continues to be a multi-company, multi-country event with our local KSA workforce too. We’re all proud to be involved.”
This is reinforced by Clair Global KSA General Manager Nora Alsalem, who states: "I’m proud to be part of the progressive development happening here. The Saudi people are benefiting greatly from all the changes, and I am excited to help with the transformation by creating new employment opportunities for Saudis while we build a new entertainment industry, aid tourism and welcome overseas visitors.
"At Soundstorm, the local knowledge from our Saudi team helps to unite the multicultural crew. Breaking down linguistic and cultural barriers increases operational efficiencies and brings people together, ultimately reducing risk for all involved. This year it was especially great to see the festival's Arabic stage fusing the best in western and eastern creativity and talent to crowds who loved it."
Critical Comms and Radio Resilience
To handle the festival’s critical comms, Clair devised a system encompassing Riedel Communications Bolero beltpacks (171), antennas (64), Reidel Smart Panels (108) powered by Artist-1024 frames (3), a single Artist-32 frame and 120 x RTS DBP hardwired belt packs with an ODIN frame and 36 x Netgear 4250 switches.
Comms engineer, Jimmy Xiloj, advises: “We serviced 8 x stages in total and provided equipment for the Event Control team. The biggest obstacle for us was the miles of fiber required to cover such a big area. It was essential for robust communication.”
Clair also deployed a digital mobile radio (DMR) system, a state-of-the-art integrated trunk network comprised of 4x sites made from 24 x Motorola SLR repeaters collocated in the main site compound.
Strategically planned radio channels were also integrated into the sitewide Bolero show comms system with the use of Motorola Mobile DM4600e's. Additional repeaters were located at the Big Beast’s audio FOH station to provide constant transmission of the firework time code for remote firing, ensuring ultimate audience and crew safety.
Neil Chapman oversaw the radio systems: “We opted for Motorola R7's for user handsets with accessories including noise cancelling headsets, covert earpieces and remote speaker microphones (an incredible 3,200!).
“Our radio channels were organized in sequence of priority across the repeater sites to allow for resilience and redundancy. The radios were integrated into an Avtec dispatch console system, giving dispatchers in Event Control site wide channel access with features including call history, call recordings and instant replay.”
No Margin for Error
Like audio, the scope for data services has expanded each year along with the festival size. Production demands have increased, driving significantly higher data utilization, greater bandwidth, more fiber and high-capacity equipment to support expanding tech requirements and content delivery.
Director of IT for Clair Data Services on Soundstorm, Carlos Elizondo, talks through the build: “We deployed an enterprise-grade Cisco and Meraki network stack, using access points and Cisco Catalyst switches capable of multi-gigabit connectivity. These were paired with custom Clair enclosures and tactical fiber cables manufactured and terminated in-house.
“On top of the physical network, we used a suite of custom tools and software for configuration, live monitoring, and performance reporting, allowing us to actively manage traffic, troubleshoot in real time, and provide visibility into how the network performs throughout the event.”
Clair delivered a fully integrated connectivity platform supporting both production operations and fan-facing services across the entire site including public Wi-Fi, ticketing, point-of-sale systems, RFID for staff and access control, as well as all technical production, broadcast, and communications infrastructure, government, content distribution, CCTV, and emergency announcements.
To enable seamless connectivity for crew, artists, vendors, and guests, Clair designed and operated a large scale, multi-zone Layer 3 network with a site wide Layer 2 network supporting real-time audio, lighting, video, timecode, and content workflows.
The deployed system included 1,100 wireless access points, 226 network switches, 805 hardline connections, 257 fiber handoffs, 36,576m of fiber optic cabling, and 45,720 meters of CAT6 cabling.
The core transport layer was built on 75G, 40G, and 10G aggregated LAN links, providing the throughput required for Dante audio, lighting networks, broadcast systems, comms integration, and site-wide radio programming. In total, the network supported 53 VLANs, including 15 SSIDs and 150+ terabytes of data moved during the event.
Carlos continues: “What makes data especially critical is that it functions as the integration layer between every department. Systems operate across the same engineered fabric, but are isolated, protected, and prioritized so they can coexist without risk. This environment is high performance; everything is live and there is no margin for error.”
Following the huge task for the data team, and the wider company, he concludes: “This event reinforces the strength of the Clair Global brands. Teams from different disciplines, regions, and companies aligned around a single goal and that is reflected in the technology we deploy, in the people we trust and in our company culture.”
