Indigo2 Greenwich

Indigo2 Greenwich

Greenwich

Indigo2

venues, September 2007, COMMENTS

Now in its second phase of life, the O2 has long outlived the short shelf-life predicted for it before the turn of the century, when the Labour Government found themselves behind an embarrassing white elephant, eating up huge amounts of public funds as the deadline for the completion of the ‘Millenium Dome’ sailed by.

The venue was closed in 2001 having attracted only half of the projected 12 million visitors. But there is no evidence of the logistical difficulties that beset the Millenium Dome at the O2, as it is now known, and the iconic canopy and yellow support structures to which it is yoked haven’t changed since the venue opened on 1 January 2000. Nonetheless the interior, and the area around North Greenwich Station, the QE2 pier and The O2’s main entrance have been completely redeveloped since the Dome closed its doors in 2001.

The recreation of the venue, which is now run by American conglomarate Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), involved a ‘who’s who’ of international contracting talent. Following an interior design by American sports venue specialists HOK SVE, engineering firm Buro Happold provided structural engineering for the project, while the main civil engineering and construction contract for the development was awarded to Sir Robert McAlpine. Watson Steel Structures provided engineering for the 4500 tonne and architecturally complex arena roof, while M-E Engineers were the services engineers for the site. T. Clarke provided electrical engineering across the site, while Keller Ground engineering prepared the ground for construction. As part of the £600m investment programme, naming rights were sold for £6m a year to O2 plc; and ‘The Dome’ officially became ‘The O2’ on 25 May 2007.

Opening to the public in June 2007, The O2 is nonetheless due a a further phase of construction. The main space - the O2 Arena - is up and running, with Prince having already completed a celebrated 15 date residency following a successful inaugural gig by Bon Jovi. Twenty five of the available units on Entertainment Avenue (a semi-circular mall that stretches around the back of the main stage at the Arena) have been leased to outside entertainment companies. The avenue includes shops, bars, restaurants an ice rink and two clubs – the Inc Club and the AEG-run Indigo2 – as well as the 11 screen Vue Cinema and an indoor beach, complete with fake palm trees and several tonnes of imported sand.

However, several units still remain unfilled, and there are rumours that a number of well known independent London club operators are interested. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, in partnership with Arts and Exhibitions International and the National Geographic Society, is also bringing an exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb to the O2 Bubble – a dome-shaped exhibition space (akin to one of the biospheres at the Eden Project) that sits inside the tent. When NIGHT came to visit, we found DES Electrical and main contractors GF Holdings hard at work on readying the venue for the priceless relics.

THE ARENA
The main focus of the O2, and generating huge amounts of anticipation and column inches in the press – reflecting a public curiosity in the public drama that development of the Millenium Dome had become – the O2 Arena has launched successfully as the UK’s largest indoor arena space. Run by Anschutz Entertainment Group, the world’s second largest entertainment company (behind Live Nation), and with a booking schedule that stretches until well after the 2012 Olympics, the success of the O2 Arena is, this time, assured.

The space is distinguished not only by its iconic host building and a busy roster of events - it also rises above its peers in terms of sheer quality of facilities. The layout of the auditorium is designed to be flexible, and a lot of attention has been given to audience comfort, both in the 96 VIP boxes and throughout the grandstand seating which, for a stadium arena, is surprisingly wide and thickly padded, with arm rests and cup holders. These were provided by Irwin Seating while the flat floor seats were provided by Mark Cowley at Audience Systems.

Audience configuration can vary between 360 degree, in-the-round productions (such as the recent Justin Timberlake gig) or a more conventional flat-facing layout. Each row of the audience seating can be stepped by either 150mm or 300mm rises depending on the requirements of the event, while the first seven rows of the side seating blocks can be removed to provide a wider floor for standing shows or gymnastics events. Above the first tier seating, the 96 audience suites occupy the middle two levels, above which is the fourth level seating area. The design of the seating concepts (by architects HOK) gives unobstructed views of the stage from any angle. The exact capacity will differ from event to event, but an average concert would seat 18,000, while according to AEG it is possible to entertain 23,000 people for in-the-round events, in an oblong shaped layout with 360 degrees seating.

Acoustically, the padded seating used throughout the venue helps to dampen the sound, but the arena walls and roof have also received extensive acoustic treatment in consultation with Jim Griffiths and Joe O’Herlihy of Vanguardia. The arena’s resident sound system is a JBL VerTec line array with six bass stacks that are flown into the roof to avoid blocking sightlines. The system, powered by Crown amps, serves as a house PA for emergency evacuation and as a plug in for touring productions, as well as for sporting events like ice hockey and basketball. On the night, the Arena’s roof will support 50 tonnes of equipment, while the venue has a standard set of suppliers that are available to any touring production, as Q Willis, Senior Event Technical Manager for the O2 Arena and for Indigo2, has explained.

“If we were asked to supply production for an incoming event, we would ask them to use our suppliers but appoint an independent production manager because we feel that it’s a potential conflict of interest to handle it internally,” says Q. “We’re also looking to appoint a dedicated house crew who can work on events that we organise, and again we will recommend to our clients for things like the kind of red carpet events you see in Leicester Square, for instance.”

INDIGO2

The Indigo2 club is one of the few ancillary venues at the O2 to be owned by AEG Live, the live events branch of AEG that is responsible for the O2 Arena. Inside, a beautifully crafted auditorium by Carey Jones Interiors has been arranged around a large stage (8.5m by 16.5m) and nightclub, which hosts high profile acts (Jools Holland, Timberland and Beverly Knight were amongst the first to tread Indigo2’s boards) and club nights – often designed to tie in with the main attraction at the O2 Arena: the club is currently doing a roaring trade in after-show parties for the likes of Prince, Bon Jovi, and The Rolling Stones.

While compact, the venue is state of the art. It has been designed with the acts in mind – the four large dressing rooms boast multiple telephone lines, wireless technology and rich couches, chairs, large vanity mirrors, and three en suite bathrooms, while the stage incorporates a large rear access hatch with which articulated lorries can easily be docked, and a full compliment of in house backline gear, stage risers and storage is available.

But it is the way the audience space has been organised that is key to the venue’s appeal. Spread over two floors, the auditorium includes a semicircular stalls at ground level, and a multi-tiered seated gallery upstairs. The gallery includes its own bar, Bleachers, which includes space for extra standing audience at the very top of the venue, while table service is available to the seats at the front of the gallery, an area known as King’s Row. The seating is stacked in a tight, steep circle, with project manager Darren Newby of Carey Jones Interiors working hard to make sure that each angle of the auditorium has an unbroken sightline to the stage.

Part of the designer’s brief has been to reduce the waiting time at the bar associated with live venues.
To do this, Darren created a series of long, elegant bars at the back of the gallery and the stalls. Downstairs a total of 12 serving stations operate at the main bar, each with a quick pouring font that reduces pouring time (of a pint) to a scant seven seconds.

“We wanted to avoid the easy faults of most venues, creating a live venue and club that was attractive and also user friendly,” explains Darren. “One of the most common difficulties with live venues is that access to the bar is always difficult, meaning frustration for the customer and a loss of potential revenues for the operator. We’ve put in four bars in the venue, the largest being downstairs. Each drink station is fitted with quick pouring taps to reduce the crush at the bar and to increase numbers of drinks sold. Equally, the audience is distributed throughout the venue so that no one is more than a few feet from a bar – meaning you don’t have to struggle through the crowds when getting a round in.”

The interior design is economic and elegant. Rather than hiding the copious amount of Vanguardia’s sound dampening panels on the walls, these have been overlaid with a hexagonal steel trellis for an up-market industrial look. The venue’s hi-tech feel has been further offset by the addition of a second curvaceous bar topped with a slatted timber finish and sponsored by Beck’s. The space has also been broken up with white drapes that follow the curve of the bar, and onto which LED batons project colour changing light. The system can be switched on and off depending on the night (during club nights, the stage lights are dimmed and the LED colour changers lit).

Finally, Carey Jones Interiors also created a mock proscenium arch in the form of four plaster displays that have been hung on either side of the stage, and lit again with LED colour changers. The balance of hard and soft finishes has been integral to the atmosphere of Indigo2, explains Carey Jones Director, David Griffiths.

“We wanted to produce a setting which considered both the hard edge industrial elements of the base build whilst reflecting softer, more theatrical features. We have combined materials such as dense timber paneling with rich velvet curtains and the finished result is a balanced design scheme which, whilst memorable for both the artist and visitor alike, is also sufficiently tempered to allow the live performance to be the centre of attention. Indigo2 really is a world class destination for music and we are delighted to have been associated with such a prestigious scheme”.

But the stage is not the only attraction at the Indigo2 – beneath the gallery AEG have also specified a luxurious upstairs VIP lounge. Getting the look right in a confined space required some skillful design work, says Darren.

“The challenge with the VIP room was to make use of the empty space beneath the gallery without it being too obvious – in other words, to make from a comparatively narrow space a stylish, secluded and luxurious venue for AEG’s VIP guests.”

This has been achieved with an extensive selection of luxury loose furnishings, a fourth bar, and a spectacular corridor of brightly polished copper slats through which VIP guests enter. The VIP area, as with the corridors, toilets and bar areas of the rest of the venue, has been decked out with a large number of widescreen plasma screens to ensure that no one misses the live action.

TECHNOLOGY
The technology at Indigo2 is based on a Harman package of JBL speakers networked with a BSS Soundweb. As with the O2 Arena, sets of JBL VerTec Series flown line-arrays are hung at the left, right and centre of the Indigo2 stage, while 12 VT4880A subs have been positioned discretely at floor level, with the arrays and subs powered by twenty Crown IT4000 and six IT8000 amplifiers. The house sound is then reproduced on stage by a full compliment of JBL BiAmp monitors and side fills, and distributed with a 48 channel ISO OB splitter with outboard EFX and processing available at both main speaker and monitor positions. Completing this package is a full compliment of live and studio quality standard and wireless microphones and Direct Input boxes.

The lighting system at Indigo2 is based on trusses of Vari-Lite VL3000 series fixtures, Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes and programmed through High End Systems Whole Hog IPC Consoles. The VL3000 moving light package consists of 15 VL3500 Wash fixtures and 20 of the VL3000 Spot fixtures.
The brand new Vari-Lite 3500 wash fixtures, selected for their extra wide aperture for projecting dramatic beam effects, while the VL3000 spot fixtures were specified by AEG’s in house production teams for their three rotating gobo wheels, remote control iris for precise beam control; and motorized zoom and focus optics for versatility.

In addition to the Vari-Lite VL3000 series fixtures, 24 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes have been arranged in a grid so that they can be easily chased in patterns, or used as a single group to create a blinding flash effect.

All of these lighting effects are controlled by the High End Systems Whole Hog IPC lighting console, programmed with the latest Whole Hog III lighting control software, as well as the industry standard Whole Hog II software. The Whole Hog IPC console features dual full color touch screens, ethernet connectivity and a built in hard drive for show storage.

The venue’s technological installation required a sitewide electrical infrastructure, completed by DES Electrical Contractors UK LTD. Bill Dugdale, Managing Director of DES said the Indigo2 was an important project for the company.

“We were awarded the project in January 2007, which to date was the largest electrical project carried out by DES. The installation of the electrical services was a real challenge due to the complexity of the build and the various levels that we were given to work with. DES carried out the electrical installation under the leadership of Jamie Duggan, a fellow director.

“The programme was extremely tight, but DES completed on time, and our electrical install was one of the first projects to be completed within the O2 centre.”

Words: Leo Batchelor

Images: Jim Ellam

From: September 2007 Issue

Subscribe to NIGHT magazine