Johnston Audio delivers at  Melbourne Blues Festival 

The Melbourne International Music & Blues Festival is an extraordinary event. Now in its second year, the 2004 MIMBF presented an amazing array of talent over 2 days at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

The MIMBF Main Stage was located in the grounds of the MEC, alongside the Yarra River with the Melbourne CBD as a backdrop, creating a wonderful atmosphere for the event. The line up on the main stage included Bryan Ferry, The Pretenders and The Wailers on the Saturday night, while Chicago, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray headlined the Sunday programme. A host of Australian and international acts also performed on the 3 stages of the Festival, including Tony Joe White, Renee Geyer, Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, Pete Murray, Tommy Emmanuel, Jon Cleary & the Monster Gentlemen, Xavier Rudd (and lots more!)

The MEC comprises 2 cavernous concrete and steel sheds and is usually the home of exhibitions in Melbourne . The 2 indoor stages at the Festival were located indoors in the MEC.

Johnston Audio provided the audio systems for all 3 of the stages at the 2004 MIMBF, with outstanding results.

Main Stage

Johnston Audio supplied Nexo Geo-T as the main stage speaker system. The Geo-T received rave reviews from all involved – sound engineers, promoters, punters and reviewers!

With tight changeovers, complex stage set-ups and large input lists, Johnston Audio provided 2 separate operating systems, with 2 x Yamaha PM4000 at FOH and 2 x Heritage 3000 on monitors. The monitor rig comprised Nexo PS15 and Alpha-E sidefill, all powered by Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers. This system design allowed for acts next-on-stage to be fully mic-ed up and line checked on both FOH and monitor consoles, so it was simply a matter of risers rolling on and off and being ready to play! The vocal lines were run into an active splitter and fed to both sets of consoles, allowing for mixes to be dialled up using the on-stage acts' vocals.

Indoor Red Stage

The “Red” indoor stage in the main MEC building was a flown Nexo Alpha system. The indoor stages had the potential to become huge echo chambers, but this problem was overcome by some judicious draping by the event production team and a system fly that limited the throw of the system. The flown array of Nexo M3 mid-high cabinets was focussed on the area in front of the stage, reducing the amount of slap in the room. The flexibility of the Nexo Alpha speaker and flying system was highlighted in this situation with the end result being first class sound, minus any unwanted reverberation!

Blues Club Stage

The “Blues Club” in the former Mazda factory (now an annexe of the MEC) was a popular spot for patrons throughout the Festival. This stage, which featured a variety of artists including Tony Joe White, Jeff Lang, Matt Walker and Mia Dyson ran with a Martin Wavefront system.

View the Melbourne Blues Festival Image Gallery

Johnston Audio crew were: