🎪 Latitude Festival 2025: A Technical Spectacle at Henham Park

Latitude Festival returned to Henham Park, Suffolk, July 24–27 2025, delivering another captivating blend of music, comedy, theatre, literature, and arts for around 45,000 expected attendees 

Festival Atmosphere
The expansive site featured its signature stages—the main Obelisk Arena, BBC Sounds Stage, Sunrise Arena, Comedy Tent, and Across the Arts venue—alongside family and wellness areas. With headline acts like Sting, Fatboy Slim, Snow Patrol, Basement Jaxx, Mika, Clean Bandit, and Alison Moyet, the production teams faced a complex challenge: deliver immersive audio and dazzling visuals across multiple platforms and genres 

🔊 Sound Engineering Behind the Shows
Wireless Coordination
Latitude is classed as a major PMSE event, requiring organisers to coordinate frequencies for using:

Wireless microphones (handheld, lavalier, instrument packs)

In-ear monitors (IEMs)

Video links and talkback systems 

This ensures clean, interference‑free audio for artists across all stages.

Front of House (FOH) & Monitor Systems
While exact models aren’t published, festival-level tech riders typically include:

High-end 3–4‑way active speaker systems, delivering 45 Hz–20 kHz coverage for FOH

Mixing consoles such as Yamaha CL/QL, Midas or DiGiCo for FOH, with identical or smaller desks for monitor engineers

Outboard racks loaded with compressors, gates, reverbs, and delays for precise sound shaping

Monitor wedges and in-ear systems ensuring performers hear themselves clearly onstage

For Basement Jaxx’s return live show—their first in a decade—this setup would have been deployed with top-tier redundancy to handle their high-energy performance and elaborate instrumentation 

💡 Lighting & Visual Atmospherics
Lighting Direction & Design
Lighting is a key atmospheric element at Latitude. Though not credited, festival lighting is often led by seasoned designers using:

LED wash beams, moving head fixtures, and strobes to match tempo, mood, and song structure

Followspots for solo artists like Sting or Mika

Specialized plot setups per stage: the Obelisk Arena demands wide cinematic sweep, whereas the BBC Sounds Stage leans toward tight creative visuals

Set Design & Execution
Under tented stages like the Comedy Arena or Across the Arts, lighting includes:

Configurable trusses holding arrays of LED pars and ellipsoidals

Tailored lighting plots, balancing front wash for visibility with backlight and colour for depth and texture

Dedicated lighting technicians per stage to manage cues and effects throughout each performance

Broadly, productions follow a technical rider approach commonly outlined in live music (e.g., number of kW of lighting, power distribution, truss load limits) 

Final Thoughts

Latitude Festival 2025’s technical brilliance lay in its seamless integration of cutting-edge audio and lighting systems tailored to the diverse lineup—from quirky acoustic sets to epic dance performances. Behind the spectacle was a careful orchestration of frequency licensing, robust FOH and stage systems, and creative lighting design—all working in unison to craft an unforgettable experience under Suffolk’s summer sky.