Vogue World: London

British Vogue Opens London Fashion Week 2023, With Sound By Autograph

A night among the elite of global fashion: Autograph’s Special Events Team deliver perfect audio for the glitziest event of the year

Vogue World: London was a one-of-a-kind show which took place in early September ’23, inspired by an opening night in the West End and showcasing the best of British culture and fashion. Staged at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which was temporarily repurposed from its current show specifically for this dazzling event, it featured performances from leading lights of opera, theatre and film as well as classical and pop music.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, it featured an incredibly diverse range of talent and A+ list guests including the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, Hongni Wu, the Southbank Sinfonia, FKA Twigs, Neneh Cherry, Goldie, the Rambert Dance Company, Stormzy, Sophie Okonedo, Kate Winslet, Kate Moss, Leonardo DiCaprio, Victoria Beckham, Sienna Miller, Annie Lennox, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista among many others.

Autograph’s Special Events department were contracted by specialist production company Bureau Betak to provide an audio infrastructure capable of handling the challenges of a fast-paced production, which combined a catwalk fashion show with live performances of both classical and pop music. Head Of Department Andrew Hedges remarked, “Obviously an event like this is all about the look – and it looked incredible – so a major part of our work was delivering the same flawless level of audio reinforcement for the performers and audience throughout the entire show and to achieve that as discreetly as possible.”

The Autograph team supplied and deployed a bespoke sound design including dedicated FOH and monitor consoles, plus around 100 channels of wireless microphones used throughout the orchestra and by individual performers: they also provided the show-control timecode for lighting and video as well as the 128-channel audio feed for the simultaneous live stream. Autograph additionally supplied the technical crew communications for the live show with coverage both throughout the building and across the larger site while interfacing with broadcast and on-site Motorola radios.

Separate discrete audio systems were also deployed in the foyer for individual luxury brands. As is standard practice with Autograph, all the key technologies featured dual-redundant systems which guaranteed the delivery of mission-critical show audio, comms and timecode successfully across all the project disciplines.

“It was an amazing night” recalls Adam Taylor, part of Autograph’s 15-strong team at the theatre. “The show itself was quite short but absolutely non-stop, brilliantly choreographed and really something special to watch. Working at events of this profile really gives us the opportunity to deliver the quality of audio that makes all the difference – it has to sound as good as it looks – and it did!”

Read Vogue’s own report on this amazing night HERE and view footage on YouTube HERE.

Key Equipment:

DiGiCo SD7 and SD11 mixing consoles

Shure and Sennheiser wireless systems

DPA microphones

Riedel Artist and Bolero comms