Groove Armada, the Hawkstone Farmers Choir & Jeremy Clarkson
Sound, lighting, video and staging for Hawkstone's Wildthing launch at The Farmer's Dog, featuring Groove Armada's Andy Cato, the Hawkstone Farmers Choir and host Jeremy Clarkson.
Create a high-energy setting for the launch of Hawkstone's Wildthing beer and its musical collaboration with Groove Armada's Andy Cato and the Hawkstone Farmers Choir, bringing live performances, talks and activities together around one main stage.
Hawkstone wanted a launch with the energy of a live music event. At The Farmer’s Dog in the Cotswolds, the introduction of its new Wildthing beer was paired with a new recording by Groove Armada’s Andy Cato and the Britain’s Got Talent-winning Hawkstone Farmers Choir.
We brought together the sound, lighting, video, staging and power distribution for a day that moved between music, conversation and celebration.
A full day of live entertainment
Hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, the event centred on a live music stage, with activities and performances taking place around the site. A local acoustic act opened the programme, followed by the Cuban Brothers, whose mix of comedy, DJing and dance brought plenty of audience participation.
The Hawkstone Farmers Choir performed their set before joining Andy Cato for a live collaboration. Andy then took over for a DJ set, with SAMSAX rounding off the night with a DJ performance and live saxophone.
Between the music, Jeremy and the choir presented charity donations. Jeremy also joined Andy for a panel discussion about the regenerative and sustainable farming techniques behind the new beer. The production needed to make each transition feel natural, from a full choir to a spoken-word panel and back to a DJ set.
Building the stage and bringing the action closer
The foundation was our 10m × 6m Stagemobil XXL stage, with tiered decks to accommodate the performers.
On either side, a 4m × 2.5m LED screen with a 3.9mm pixel pitch carried live camera coverage and graphics. A Blackmagic Constellation system mixed the feeds from cameras positioned around the site, helping the audience follow both the performances and the conversations on stage.
Sound for the site, the choir and the DJs
Our Danley Sound Labs J7 system was a particularly good fit for the long, narrow audience area. Its coverage pattern allowed us to direct the sound down the site, with front-of-house control from an Allen & Heath C3500 and a DM48 MixRack on stage.
For the choir, we supplied 32 of our new Point Source Audio Series 8 headset microphones, replacing our previous DPA range. Each singer had an individual microphone, giving us the control needed for the choir’s set and its collaboration with Andy Cato.
The DJ setup used our Pioneer CDJ-3000 players and DJM-900NXS2 mixer, ready for the changeovers throughout the day.
Lighting, communications and the rest of the site
The lighting rig combined Chauvet L1 beams, Maverick MK2 washes, eLumen8 Tour Batten IP fixtures, Fury 200s and Spectra Wash floods. Everything was controlled from one of our ChamSys MQ70 consoles, supporting the daytime performances before bringing more colour and movement to the evening sets.
Behind the scenes, our new nine-way Hollyland C1 Pro communications system kept the crew connected. We also supplied power distribution and smaller structures for activity areas around the event.
The result was a successful launch at The Farmer’s Dog, with one coordinated production supporting everything from the choir and charity presentations to the final DJ set.
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