With thousands of music lovers descending on Byron Bay for Splendour In The Grass, which kickstarts tomorrow, many more are probably just as disappointed in missing out on the three-day winter music festival and its mammoth lineup.
There is some consolation for disappointed punters however with the official stream of the festival over on YouTube in an ongoing partnership between Splendour and Virgin Mobile.
The mobile company will help present highlights from the Byron festival from Sunday 28th July at 2pm, showing eight hours of live music, interviews, and festivities in ‘The Best Of The Fest’, featuring the likes of Mumford and Sons, Empire of the Sun, Haim, Jake Bugg, Deap Vally, Boy and Bear, and more.
To do so however, is quite the herculean task, with Andrew Lord, director of Golden Duck Productions – the team tasked with capturing the ‘Best of the Fest’ stream – describing the behind-the-scenes tech of capturing the music festival for an audience in the hundreds of thousands, as reported by ComputerWorld.
Last year’s live stream amassed more than 500,000 views, marking it as the third most watched YouTube live stream in Australian history, and for this year’s stream, Lord says his Golden Duck production team will use a film crew of 25, with 10 high resolution video cameras, a terabyte of data and “a couple kilometres of cabling” on site to film the music and interview footage.
Unlike the 2012 Splendour stream, which was live, Golden Duck will shoot around 15 hours of footage over the three days of the festival before compiling it down to the 8 hour ‘Best Of The Fest’ showreel for Virgin Mobile and Splendour organisers.
“We’ve got four editors working pretty hectically over the weekend to create some good, fun stories for fans to get an insight into what’s happening backstage,” says Lord of the compiled footage.“A film crew of 25, with 10 high resolution video cameras, a terabyte of data and “a couple kilometres of cabling” will film Splendour”
The footage will be captured by cameras with 1920×1080 resolution cinema lenses, “which is the highest possible quality we can get,” says Lord, so that when it is compressed and streamed at 720p on YouTube it retains a lot of its definition, he explains.
“It does take a lot of macro-management because of the amount of data that’s being shared around,” says the Golden Duck director. “It’s more of a post-production workflow this year, allowing us to have more control of what’s being streamed. We’re effectively building a network server on site to data manage 15 hours of high-resolution content,” he says, with total amount of data reaching somewhere between one and two terabytes of data.
All that footage must then be run through a huge web of cables in and around the festival stages; “backstage, we run a cable to facilitate various departments, from the audio guys through to the promoters watching the streams as we record it,” says Lord, who says that wireless alternatives are “a bit risky,” creating possible lag problems in the stream – a major issue for a live music performance, especially as the video is beamed via satellite to the Sydney offices of Golden Duck.
From there, they handle the coding and uploading of the Splendour video to YouTube, where an online audience can enjoy the eight hour Splendour stream from the comfort of their own homes – sans mud and crowds.
Also bringing some cutting technological innovation to the event will be Splendour’s electronic radio frequency identification (RFID) wristbands – an Aussie music festival first. The RFID devices will be able to ‘track your journey’ with streaming service Deezer providing post-festival playlists and customised content based on your movements and ‘check ins’; like a benevolent kind of Big Brother.
The Virgin Mobile Splendour In The Grass stream kicks off on Sunday 28th July 2pm – 10pm AEST at YouTube.com/VirginMobileAus
Splendour In The Grass 2013 Playing Times
FRIDAY 26th JULY
Supertop Stage:
10.45- 12.00: Mumford & Sons
9.15-10.15: TV On The Radio
7.45 -8.45: Babyshambles
6.15-7.15 Boy & Bear
4.45 -5.45: Haim
3.10 – 4.00: Wavves
2.15 – 2.55: Deap Vally
1.20 – 2.00: Dune Rats
12.30 – 1.00: Baptism Of Uzi
G.W.McLennan Stage:
10.30 – 11.30: Architecture In Helsinki
9.00 -10.00: Matt Corby
7.30 – 8.30: You Am I
6.00 – 7.00: Portugal. The Man
4.30 – 5.20: Unknown Mortal Orchestra
3.15 – 4.00: Daughter
2.00 – 2.45: Cub Scouts
12.15 – 1.30: Songs
Mixup Stage:
10.00 – 11.00: Klaxons
9.30 -10.00: Yolanda Be Cool
8.30 – 9.30: Flight Facilities
8.00 – 8.30: Yolanda Be Cool
7.00 – 8.00: Darwin Deez
5.15 – 6.15: Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes
4.30 – 5.15: Dcup
3.30 – 4.30: Robert Delong
2.25 – 3.30: Xaphoon Jones (aka Noah Chiddy Bang)
2 .00- 2.45: Mitzi
1.15- 2.00: Xaphoon Jones (aka Noah Chiddy Bang)
12.30 – 1.15: The Hated
SATURDAY 27th JULY
Supertop Stage:
10.30 – 12.00: The National
9.00 – 10.00: Empire Of The Sun
7.30 – 8.30: Birds Of Tokyo
6.00 – 7.00: Cold War Kids
4.30 – 5.30: Something For Kate
3.20 – 4.10: Jake Bugg
2.20 – 3.00: Violent Soho
1.20 – 2.00: Palma Violets
12.30 – 1.00: Postblue
G.W.McLennan Stage:
10.00 – 11.00: Bernard Fanning
8.15 – 9.30: Polyphonic Spree (performing the Rocky Horror Picture Show)
6.45 – 7.45: Sarah Blasko
5.15 – 6.15: Cloud Control
4.00 – 4.45: Whitley
2.45 – 3.30: Villagers
1.30 – 2.15: Vance Joy
12.30 – 1.0: Art Of Sleeping
Mixup Stage:
10.30 – 11.30: Flume
8.45 – 9.45: Fat Freddy’s Drop
8.00 – 8.45: Alice in Wonderland DJ set
7.00 – 8.00: Drapht
6.15 – 7.00: Otologic
5.15- 6.15: Ms Mr
4.30 – 5.15: Otologic
3.30 – 4.30: Chet Faker
2.00 – 2.45: Jagwar Ma
1.15 – 2.00: Bad Ezzy
12.30 – 1.15: Twinsy
SUNDAY 28th JULY
Supertop Stage:
11.00 – 12.00: Frank Ocean
9.30 – 10.30: Of Monsters & Men
8.00 – 9.00 Passion Pit
6.40 – 7.30: MYSTERY B∆ND (quite possibly Alt-J)
5.30 – 6.15: The Rubens
4.25 – 5.10: Airbourne
3.20 – 4.05: Fidlar
2.15 – 3.00: Surfer Blood
1.15 – 1.55: The Jungle Giants
12.30 – 1.00: The Growl
G.W.McLennan Stage:
10.00 – 11.00: Laura Marling
8.30 – 9.30: You Am I (performing Hi-Fi Way)
7.00 – 8.00: The Drones
5.30 – 6.30: Gurrumul
4.00 – 5.00: Snakadaktal
2.45 – 3.10: Little Green Cars
1.30 – 2.15: The Chemist
Mixup Stage:
10.15 – 11.15: The Presets
9.30 – 10.15: What So Not
8.30 – 9.30: James Blake
7.45 – 8.30: What So Not
6.45 – 7.45: Hermitude
6.00 – 6.45: Peking Duk
5.00 – 6.00: Everything Everything
4.15 – 5.00: Peking Duk
3.30 – 4.15: The Bamboos
2.45 – 3.15: Tyler Touche
2.00 – 2.45: Alpine
1.15 -2.00: Tyler Touche
12.30 – 1.15: PVT
