TNDV Closes Out The First Quarter Of 2025 With Several Live Music Event Productions

TNDV closed out the first quarter of 2025 with several live music event productions under its belt, including two major network broadcasts and the final year of a popular hip-hop festival.

"After kicking off 2025 with our 15th Passion Worship conference over two consecutive weekends in Nashville, we were off to Los Angeles for the first of two CBS network specials with Fire Aid – and that was just the beginning," said Rob Devlin, President, TNDV. "We continue to stand apart as an entertainment-centric mobile production company in an industry where most trucks are sports-centric. That has helped TNDV carve out a special niche the leading expert in bringing live broadcast, live streaming and live performance with in-venue AV together for our clients."

TNDV's cinematic production skills were on full display for Ringo and Friends at The Ryman, a two-hour CBS special that aired in late March celebrating the music and legacy of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr for his 80th birthday. The production workflow features a full RED camera acquisition system that included robotics, a jib and gimbal techniques to capture everything happening on stage.

TNDV recorded footage both with and without used a LUT (Lookup Table) applied, giving the post-production team more options. For the internally recorded LOG files, Dugger noted: "Recording in LOG provides more colour correction latitude in post," he said. "For the feed going to the truck, adding the LUT (colour) live in a cinematic shoot limits colour correction flexibility, so we added it for the truck feed and recorded internal ISO's without."

TNDV returned to Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh Noth Carolina for the fifth and purportedly final Dreamville Festival, curated by hip-hop star J. Cole and his Dreamville Records label. TNDV was hired by event producer Fuse Technical Group to provide image magnification (IMAG) including live video and cuts to large LED screens raised behind the performers on two stages, along with six live video feeds to approximately 20 private televisions — one for each scheduled musical act — in the artists compound.

TNDV brought in its Destination 40-foot HD expando truck to manage Stage A feeds and a customized flypack for Stage B. TNDV operated six cameras for Stage A plus four cameras and a jib for Stage B for live video and cuts with live direction from TNDV technicians. The TNDV team also brought an external router to manage feeds from the two stages, and ran direct fiber connections to each private TV in the artists compound.

"We ran program and IMAG feeds for both stages, a site program that mixed the two, and an NCAA Final Four feed, broadcast on a large screen adjacent to the Ferris Wheel, for fans who wanted to watch the games," said Dakota Russ, Audio Video Engineer. "Destination's smaller footprint is perfect for music festivals and concerts because it’s highly adaptable to each event’s unique needs, but the size of the grounds and the number of feeds required more. We brought in the custom flypack for Stage B and the external router, which allowed us to apply effects over live cuts for both stages among other flourishes Destination. Between the site connections and live feeds, we used 60 of the router’s 70 output ports."

The live music and entertainment community came together on January for the Fire Aid benefit concert, which raised an estimated $100 million for victims of the devastating fires in Eaton, Palisades and other Los Angeles neighborhoods. TNDV was honored to bring its unique Vibration audio production and multitrack truck to the Intuit Dome to acquire stage audio for the live two-hour CBS broadcast, including performances from Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish.

"We had 190 microphone inputs to capture the audio from seemingly every possible angle and direction, using Vibration's primary and secondary mix booths," said JJ Hacker, Audio Engineer, TNDV. "The schedule was dense with one band’s performance beginning right as the previous act ended. As one artist performed, the next would set up on the other side of the wall. We connected into the splitter at those two stages so we could seamlessly switch from one to the other and provide a consistent 5.1 mix for the broadcast."

Russ added that all microphones were recorded direct to Vibration's redundant 128-channel Pro Tools machines, with live mixing achieved on the truck's Studer Vista9 console. "We recorded and played back all rehearsals to tweak the mix and make it sound as pristine as possible for show day. We also ran copper and fibre to the video truck so we could see what was happening on stage as we did our live mixes."