Rik Haines

PlayStation Vita Rooms

Launching the new PS Vita handheld console Amplify and myself produced three pop-up shops across the UK, to give trade and public a unique chance to try out the console before it was released. Week long pop-up shops appeared in Manchester, Glasgow and London.

A unique and stylish layout inside created a variety of areas and set-ups where you could try out the PS Vita. From standing up positions, to lounge areas and multiplayer tables. In addition to this guest performers appeared at all of the venues to add an urban music edge to proceedings and add a party element. Guests such as Rizzle Kicks, Tinchy Stryder and Yasmin.

Working alongside Sculptivate and Rockit we designed the set and assets, toured them, and then transformed run down shops in 3 key UK cities to raise sales, create awareness and generally shout about this latest and best addition to the gaming market.

Event Magazine http://www.eventmagazine.co.uk/ came to the London launch, featuring Radio1 DJs Chris Moyles and Tim Westwood. And here’s what they thought about it, and they even featured on the front cover!

www.weareamplify.com

Sky Ride 2011 Production Manager

Since October last year I have been working with fantastic experiential agency RPM Ltd. After various projects for Sky and Diageo I was asked to work on the companies largest project- Sky Ride.

www.rpmltd.com / www.goskyride.com

Sky Ride city events are a nationwide series of summer events to encourage people to get back on their bikes.

I was asked to production manage Bath, Ipswich, Manchester, Southampton and Glasgow events, totalling over 40,000 participants across these events.

Manchester was the largest event that I produced, in the home city of British Cycling:

Skyride Manchester 2011 from Sky Ride on Vimeo.

Sky Ride Manchester 2011 from Sky Ride on Vimeo

And some photos from across the summer’s many events are here:

Bloc Production Team Pro Sound News Interview

Pro Sound News Magazine came down to Bloc, and asked us a few questions about sound, and why it is so important to us and our attendees.

Read the full interview here: Bloc Production Team Pro Sound News Interview

Lumacoustics do Tec:Bloc at Bloc.2011

I brought in Lumacoustics to the Crazy Horse aka Tec:Bloc. venue to transform it from a bingo hall into an awe inspiring club venue.

We blacked out the rest of the venue, and then left them a blank stage to do with what they wanted.
Lighting around the venue replicated the square images on the stage and made sure there was a club feel, than a festival stage set-up.

See the video of what they did below:

Bloc.2011

Bloc returned for it’s fifth birthday at Butlins in Minehead.

Yet again another sell out, but this time 3 weeks before the event.

Aphex Twin and Magnetic Man shared the headline slot, followed by LFO, Moderat (amazing stage set-up), Four Tet, Matthew Dear, Beardyman and many more over 5 venues ranging in size from 2700 to 100. Laurent Garnier finished the weekend with an awe inspiring live set and light show.

This year was the most complex production to date, due to the amount of high calibre artists and their visual set-ups. The team did an amazing job, and the weekend went without a hitch, with many happy performers and festival goers.

Lighting was designed and supplied by Luminaire Extraordinaire

Frolic AV supplied all screens and managed VJs with BlocTV

Audio Funktion supplied Funktion1 systems over all venues.

Working with me was technical production manager Ed Siebert, who dealt with the many artists in advance as well as a great stage crew and production team.

More images from the event are here:

Lots more to come in 2012. Watch this space….

www.blocweekend.com

Ninja Tunes XX

Legendary record label recently celebrated their 20th birthday at Ewer Street Car Park in Southwark. The venue was transformed with amazing light shows, projections, a massive Ninja head with laser eyes, graffiti, release artwork and press cuttings from the last 20 years, and state of the art sound with some of the labels best artists and friends playing through it.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I was running Arch 1, which hosted live and DJ sets from DMC champion Kentaro, Coldcut, XXXChange, The Qemists and legendary hip hop producer Roots Manuva whose set saw the arch completely rammed from front to back!

Here’s to another 20 years..

http://www.ninjatunexx.com

Gaymers Lost in the Orchard

In April Ear to the Ground asked me to get involved on an exciting new project they were working on with lead agency Frukt Communications. With my years of festival production expertise, combined with my marketing experience and experience of running bars at festivals I was an ideal candidate for the role.

In advance my work ranged from working with the designers to create the space we would tour, to speaking to bar contractors and to the sponsors managers at the festivals about how things would run on site. When we got to site I was in charge of the team, and we all built the stage and area to showcase some amazing talent, booked by the Frukt team, and create a comfortable space for people to enjoy Gaymers cider.

http://www.eartotheground.org // http://www.fruktcomms.com

Ear to the Ground describe it much better than me on their website:
We’ve been working all summer with Gaymers Cider designing and delivering a piece of surreal brand driven escapism for hot summer festivals. We designed and delivered a concept dreamt up by lead agency FRUKT called ‘Lost in the Orchard’ and we brought it to life with a giant mechanical cider press, magical trees and a rustic wooden stage showcasing all types of musical oddities. A Gaymers bar featured at each event and dispensed chilled cider to the super relaxed guests.

To top it all off we threw a stage into the mix and pleasured the audience’s ears with an eclectic mix of unusual and unique DJ’s, live music, Rockeoke and even a Cider Choir! The activities were a huge step up for the brand and paid immediate dividends with a 25% uplift in onsite sales at Glastonbury the Big Chill and latitude with over 75,000 people visiting the Orchard in the first three events. In terms of media we used our music contacts to get an Arctic Monkey down there (Alex turned up with his girlfriend Alexa Chung) helping generate a flurry of tabloid coverage.

Check out this video from an eager festival goer at Big Chill to see the stage in action with the excellent Rinky Dinks from Bristol:

Sponsors Area Manager

In amongst a busy summer of festivals across the UK (and one in Croatia) I was pleased to work at least one weekend in London.
Victoria Park was the site- Friday was (trance mega star) Tiesto live in Concert, Saturday was Field Day and Sunday was Underage Festival for under 18′s. I was chuffed to be working on this event alongside Loudsound and Eat Your Own Ears, and look forward to working there next year.

The programming on all days was great, and the production and crew second to none. Hackney should be pleased to have this event on their doorstep.

I was the main liaison between the production office and brands such as Pimms, Red Bull and Converse, and stages promoted and curated by Red Bull and The Lock Tavern and XOYO and Tower Hamlets Community Music project.

Soundwave Festival

Amongst a busy UK festival season I found the time to go and work at Soundwave Festival in Croatia.

The festival is at a site used a few times over the summer for a variety of UK promoters, putting on the creme de la creme of underground electronic music. Soundwave is no different, but focuses more on hip hop and beats, with guests such as Dam Funk, Cinematic Orchestra, Benji B, Channel One Soundsystem, DJ Format, Lone, Mr Thing and many more besides, as well as promoters from across the UK.

The music takes place on a specially built stage, a beachfront bar, and an amazing 1970′s club called Barberella’s, that’s like an italo disco heaven as well as the infamous boat parties.

I oversaw the general smooth running of the event, and ensured that the customers, locals, council and venue owners were kept happy, as well as making sure the artists were looked after and got on stage on time. Looking forward to returning next year. A great team, in an all round amazing setting.

Here’s the 2009 promo video- 2010 one will be up here soon:

Soundwave Croatia Video from noah ball on Vimeo.

Health & Safety Officer

Recently I put my years of experience working at many different kinds of events to very good use, when I was asked to oversee all the health and safety aspects of the London Fairtrade Festival and Potters Fields next to Tower Bridge on London’s Southbank.

This involved liaising with food and market traders, performers as well as dealing with the owners of the space.

The event ran very smoothly, even if it did rain most of the time…