Dell – Tech of Choice for ACL Music Fest

Editor’s note: Post authored by Jason Devos, Dell Precision

As more than 75,000 music fans descend on Austin once again to see their favorite bands, from Lionel Richie to The Cure, for Weekend 2 of ACL Music Festival, Dell is backstage again helping to power audio and video production for bands, sponsors, and C3 Presents, the production company that puts on the festival. Let’s go behind the scenes to see how Dell technology is used around the park.

  

Arts+Labor, a creative content company, was enlisted by C3 to produce the official ACL Fest Daily Recaps; 12 hours of music in 90+ seconds, produced on Dell Precision workstations and posted to YouTube. Check out the recap from last Sunday



 The video team also captured editorial footage including band interviews, lifestyle pieces and other content for the livestream that will be available this weekend for fans around the world. They used Adobe Premiere Pro CC running on a Dell Precision M4800 mobile workstation and four Dell Precision T5600 tower workstations, paired with Dell UtlraSharp U2413 monitors, to ingest and edit video content from the stage and roving ENG crews. In addition, a Dell Networking 8132 10Gb switch was vital to quickly sharing content and raw footage between all the workstations.  The team also used two Latitude 10 tablets to check on the festival schedule, verify content quality and maybe to check on the occasional football game. 

Now, let’s head over to the Bud Light stage where Dell can be found backstage helping to power the Black Angels show on Friday, October 11 from 5:30 – 6:30. Brett Orrison, the front of house sound engineer, uses a Dell Precision M6700 Covet mobile workstation to multi-track record all of the audio channels from the entire performance.   This allows Brett to easily sound check a new venue and provides raw content of performances for their upcoming live album.

Finally, let’s go to the AMD stage and learn about their “ACL Acronym Guide: A Field Guide to ACL”.  AMD, Arts+Labor and ACL teamed up to bring festival goers and fans the AAG (ACL Acronym Guide) – a video field guide for the journey that is ACL Fest. The videos feature a host who introduces the audience to an array of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) that describe various personalities one might encounter at a music festival (e.g. OMH – over-dressed mustachioed hipsters). The comedic series was shot and edited on location on Dell Precision T5600 and M6800 workstations with AMD FirePro graphics. AAG sparked a viral social campaign of folks adding their own photos with the hashtag #AMDACL. A few of my favorites include: N.A.P, “Napping After Performance”, E.T.S, “Early Tree Squatters” and L.J.B “Lost Jazz Band”.

Thanks for touring the festival with us and learning how Dell technology helps bring your favorite music, bands and content to you live or at home.

About the Author: Lauren Mauro