35th Annual American Music Awards

November, 18, 2007, Nokia Theater L.A. Live, Los Angeles - Los Angeles has long been a city that defines entertainment and is home to some of the world’s best venues. While it may lack the number of Broadway productions that New York is home to it clearly sets itself apart when it comes to television productions. As many of the city’s older venues become a bit long in the tooth producers are looking for new specifically built locations to hold their television events. Not the standard recurring television shows that populate TV, but instead, large two to three hour live television music specials with as many as twenty live performances or more in front of a live audience of six to seven thousand people, not to mention the millions that watch around the world as the show is beamed out live. At the top of the list of these types of shows are the “Award” Shows. In this case the 35th Annual American Music Awards, which is one of the largest and more prestigious music shows. The venue that housed this years AMA’s was the newly built Nokia Theater. This venue is centered in L.A. Live, the area that was formerly just Staples Center but is now in high hopes of becoming a downtown entertainment destination for Los Angles.

The show was a first in the Nokia for most involved, be it riggers, carpenters, lighting people and for ATK Audiotek, as well. When a show has a history of being in the same venue for years and then moves to a new location a whole new set of standards needs to be created. ATK has a standard approach for most Los Angeles production locations and is typically heralded for its well thought out sound designs for them. But, in this case, there was no former show to look back on and designs had to be started from scratch. Although the Nokia Theater has an installed PA system, it was not hung in an optimal spot for a TV production that builds the stage out into the audience by ten or more feet. Audiotek was left with no choice but to bring in its own JBL VerTec line array PA flown in two fourteen box clusters. Smaller VerTec delay clusters were also used to support the seating area in the vast balcony sections.

The show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, had sixteen live performances playing on two separate stages. Artists included Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz, Maroon 5, Daughtry, Rihanna, Rascal Flatts, Avril Lavigne, Sugarland with Beyonce, Fergie, Will.I.Am and a reunion of Duran Duran. For a show with that many performances on two stages ATK employs two separate monitor mix systems. The monitor rigs were comprised of Yamaha PM1D digital mixing systems, Shure and Sennheiser wireless in ear monitors, ATK proprietary M2 and M5 wedge monitors, proprietary ATK C6 three way sidefill speakers and ATK CSW218 sub woofers. Front of house was occupied by a Yamaha PM1D for music mix and a Yamaha PM5D for production mix. For both front of house and monitors each band had its own scene stored from soundcheck with all of the parameters on the PM1D’s in order to be recalled for the live broadcast. The production audio sources and performance microphones totaled more than 140 inputs. All of these signals were routed between two broadcast music mix trailers outside the Nokia, the Denali production truck in the Nokia’s loading dock, two stage right and stage left monitor mix areas and front of house using Audiotek’s industry standard infrastructure of 56 pair three way and four way transformered splitters, 16 pair splitters and almost ten thousand feet of cable. This is certainly one of the year’s biggest shows.

As a premier venue in Los Angeles, the Nokia Theater has a ways to go while cutting its teeth. There are no insurmountable problems, however, on a show with band carts wheeling by and set pieces moving in and out realestate is at a premium and soon runs out back stage. But, then again, it wouldn’t be an Audiotek show without dealing with changes, whims of lofty production visions and demanding artists…that is why ATK is there.