With the clocks gone back and the evenings closing in, here's a quick run-down of some of the events that we were involved in over the summer of 2011.

June kicked off with the Havana Festival. This 3 day multi-stage event took place on the Bank Holiday weekend around the streets of Galway. The mainstage featured Salsa and Latin-Jazz acts from France, Ireland and the UK. As the stage was located at the bottom of the pedestrian zone and access would be required for delivery vehicles during the day, the entire stage, PA and lighting system had to be built and de-rigged each day. We used a 4 box aside of Nexo S12 in order to get sufficient coverage down the 80m street. As with many street stages, mixing was side-stage via an SC48, though we used a wireless link to be able to have control of the FOH sound from a position in front of the stage. There was also a smaller stage near the Spanish Arch and several smaller gigs in the pubs around Galway's so-called "Latin Quarter". Backline was also supplied - a lot of percussion and keyboards given the nature of the music. Other gigs in June were a small gig in Ballinahinch Castle with Bill Whelan (Riverdance) and the RTE chamber orchestra and the stunning Janelle Monae. Janelle Monae used a large Nexo S12 system with PM5Ds at FOH & MONs which we subhired from Litton Lane.

July opened with a launch of the Galway stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race 2012. Soon, however, we were knee deep in the 2012 Galway Arts Festival with its usual blend of music, theatre, dance and literary readings. I was stage manager also for the Big Top, which had performances from Bell X1, Duke Special, Blondie and De La Soul. PA for the Big Top was a Litton Lane supplied Arcs system. Finally the last week of July was Race Week and we provided a 30 box Nexo S12 line-array system for the mainstage. FOH boards were an SC48 and a Midas H3000. An SC48 took care of monitors. Also in use were Nexo AlphaE side-fills and 8 mixes of SSE MB4 floor monitors. The Stunning and Horslips were some of the headliners over the 4 day festival.

Into August, we had a few days to catch our breath before we loaded a truck bound for Kilkenny's Arts Festival. Ten days, 27 shows. The venues ranged from St Canice's Cathedral, to hotel ballrooms and other smaller church venues. We also supplied backline for all the events. Nexo S12 and PS10R2 were the main boxes used around the various venues, with consoles from Avid and Yamaha. Things were a bit quieter towards the end of August, though we did supply some Nexo S12, NXAMPs and MB4 monitors to Loftsound for Belfast's Mela Festival. September saw "Fever Pitch", a one day indoor festival in Croke Park's Hogan Suite, featuring Royseven, Ryan Sheridan and more. Finally, the Guinness Live festival was a multi-venue event "weekender" which brought Whipping Boy, Jerry Fish and Duke Special to Galway. Consoles, monitors, crew and backline were supplied.