There was a huge international arts festival in Manchester in July 2017 (MIF17) which showcased amazing arts projects and involved some very well known names. We here at oXyFire and oXyFire.LIVE were lucky enough to have been involved in this huge set of events in a different capacity than our usual full production capability.
For the duration of the festival we worked with the organisers to provide live stream connectivity with the use of our LiveU system and IP satellite. We set up ‘shop’ from various locations throughout the city including Piccadilly gardens, old Granada studios and even the disused United Footwear building in the northern quarter. We broadcast to BBC Live and online (Facebook/YouTube).
Live Production
Opening Event
The first event was a particularly rainy Wednesday in late June. We provided an uplink to BBC Live for ‘What is the city but the people?’. If you were around Manchester during the week, you will have seen the huge yellow catwalk in Piccadilly gardens. This was a great event to be involved in as it showcased the wide variety of people who keep Manchester powering on as a city and certainly kicked the festival off with a bang.
UNFEAR
Karl Hyde from Underworld – Artist
At 9am the morning after, our production manager Matt was already at work on a project codenamed UNFEAR. He arrived at a secret location deep in the Northern Quarter. The reason this event was a secret until it opened became apparent when we discovered that none other than Karl Hyde from Underworld was the lead artist. (If you can’t quite remember who underworld, they are the band behind the famous ‘Born Slippy’ track that was a mainstay of clubs in the late 1990s). We installed just over 1km of cables, eight camera points, full vision mixer and LiveU ready for the CCTV network style broadcast. This project later became known as the ‘Manchester Street Poem’. You can find an archive of the event here: http://mcrstreetpoem.com/
New Order
Our favourite event to work on for MIF17 is a more secretive project than UNFEAR. New Order were performing a secret show from the Old Granada Studios in Manchester. Working with our friends at LionEyes, we produced and sat linked the show to the BBC. We also provided a live dual stream to MIF & New Order’s Facebook pages.
More Information
oXyFire worked on various other events throughout the duration of the festival but this is enough of a record for now. What I can say is Jay and Matt had a great time running around and sorting all these events for such a large scale event and meeting some great people and companies that we at oXyFire hope to work with in the future.
For more information about Manchester International Festival visit http://mif.co.uk/