For Kiwi metal heads, nothing else matters tonight other than metal stars Metallica, who will take the stage at Eden Park in Auckland.
According to RNZ, the concert – alongside the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education, the largest academic conference the country has ever held – was expected to sell out almost every hotel room in the city.
An expected 55,000 concertgoers were expected to descend on Mt Eden to see the multi-Grammy award winners when the gates open at 4.30pm. The opening acts are Suicidal Tendencies and Evanescence, which start at 5.30pm.
While Metallica is made up of four band members, it takes a team of hundreds to get set up for a gig like tonight’s – a logistical beast.
According to the promoters, it will take a crew of 106, plus 96 locals, a full day to set everything up and four hours to pack it down.
The operation uses 25 trucks, 19 sea containers, and “half a plane” of gear from Metallica’s headquarters in San Rafael, California, near San Francisco.
A lighting crew of 12 is responsible for 200 moving lights, 200 additional LED lights, 12 spotlights, four lighting trusses, and five remote operators under the stage. All lighting is sourced from Australia and New Zealand separately.
A video crew of 16 will operate five video walls measuring 9×9 metres, 17 million pixels, 16 cameras, one spidercam and one remote dolly cam. The show uses six terabytes of video data.
But the main thing punters will care about is the sound. And organisers promise it will be loud.
Hundreds of speakers with 150 dB per output are used in the show. The speaker setup consists of “sticks” made up of 20 cabinet speakers and 10 subwoofers.
There will be 120 speakers around the stage, 48 in the back, 40 hanging subwoofers, 72 floor wedges, and 48 on the ground under the stage.
The speakers under the stage reach such low frequencies that they were used to rattle test components for the space shuttle.
To get sound out of the band, there are around 157 audio inputs.
How to get to the gig if you’re going
Eden Park asked punters to Ride the Lightning and “arrive early” due to the sheer number of people expected.
Buses and trains to the gig are free with your concert ticket from 2.30pm. There will also be special-event buses from the city and North Shore from 4pm.
There is no public parking at Eden Park, and restrictions will apply around the surrounding streets.
Drop-off and pick-up locations are on Dominion Road between Bellwood Avenue and Walters Road, and on Morningside Drive. There will be limited bike parking.
More information can be found on the Eden Park website.
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