SYNTHONY IN THE DOMAIN 2025 – BIGGER AND BETTER

The Global Productions Partners & SYNTHONY love affair continues

The Manuka Doctor Phuel Synthony Festival in Auckland Domain has just set a record for NZ’s largest one day event, this year with a sellout crowd of 41,000.

The concept of fusing a dance party, an orchestra, and anthems has been carefully nurtured by Duco Events since the inaugural event at Auckland Town Hall back in 2017, enjoyed by just 2,500. From Synthony in the Snow in Queenstown, to new year festival sets, to Australian tours, to opening the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Synthony brand is building global momentum. Behind the scenes throughout the journey has been Global Production Partners, committed to transferring the learnings from every iteration of Synthony to make the next one even better.

The Event

This year’s Synthony in the Domain kicked off the afternoon with Dick Johnson, Example, Ladi6 and Th’ Dudes. Kora got the sunset slot, with Finnish DJ Darude warming everyone up for Synthony No.6. Auckland Philharmonia, conducted by Sarah-Grace Williams, and guest artists including P Digsss, Emily Williams, Nate Dousand, Sam Allen, Kings, Lewis McCallum, Nyree Huyser, Tiki Taane, Cyril and Masha Mnjoyan proceeded to smash out banger after banger. Ranging from the mid-90’s Robert Miles ‘Children’ and The Bucketheads ‘The Bomb’ to the more recent ‘Baddadan’ by Chase Status and then throwing in the New Zealand Youth Choir accompanying Sub Focus ‘Solar System’, you can understand the broad generational appeal of the Synthony model. Building to Calvin Harris’ 2014 hit ‘Blame’, David Guerra’s ‘Titanium’ and Lewis McCallum’s sax accompaniment to ‘Where’s Your Head At’, the show crescendoed with a Darude encore of ‘Sandstorm’ and a Basement Jaxx set rounding off the evening.

The Production

To make it all happen, Duco’s Event Director Nicky Rawhiti works closely with Jason Steel, GPP’s Creative Lead, who has personally been involved with Synthony since the 2017 break out show. “We sit down with Duco and reflect on what we can improve after every show, and last year we felt strongly that the Synthony audience comes to see and appreciate the artists, not just clever visuals. Jason took that and built on the success of last year’s show to achieve a much cleaner look with more punter and orchestra integration,” explains MJ van Lingen, Production Manager. A 30 to 40 percent increase in the production budget was testament to the client’s commitment to the brief. The client also felt that the two-hour set in 2024 was too long for the orchestra, and the run time for Synthony No6 was reduced to 90 minutes.

To achieve a more polished look and feel, GPP increased the screen size from 308sqm to 411sqm and hid the seams and the legs of the stage to achieve a larger LED. They focused more lighting on the crowds and used Notch with more live IMAG and Follow-Me to capture both the crowd experience and the artist interaction downstage, “We used the same tech but in a smarter way and in larger quantities. We really went back to our dance party roots but the content was much crisper and defined, with simpler shapes and textures. The result was a lot harder hitting and more impactful. We were really pleased, as was our client.”

With just two days to pack in and a full rehearsal only the evening prior, more time spent on pre-viz and in team meetings with the client finessing the workflow ensured that the additional investment and artist/crowd focus paid off. MJ’s highlights were the thirty piece youth choir and Basement Jaxx sharing the stage with Darude, “The choreography and using Follow-Me was pivotal to capture those moments and enable the crowd to feel involved.”

The additional budget also saw the PA system level up to include the latest L-Acoustics K1 and K2 speaker systems and monitors, “Using the latest technology meant that we could use more delays and ensure greater diversity across the audience. We wanted to be able to reproduce the full range of sound, all the elements of the orchestra, no matter where you were in the crowd.”

Pyrotechnics also got a boost, with 16 single gerbs and mines, 18 comets and eight Pixie FX.

Taking Synthony Global

Another motivator for the clean look was to capture video for marketing. Already announced, Synthony No.1 is heading to the legendary Brooklyn Mirage for their first-ever U.S. show in August, with more details to come on Australian and European tours later in the year.

GPP are excited to be involved, “The core production team and artists will travel overseas, and we’ll work with local orchestras and a local conductor. It will be an amazing opportunity.”

New Zealand won’t miss out either, with a new take Full Metal Orchestra doing what Synthony has done to dance anthems to rock classics at Auckland’s Spark Arena.

This comes on top of GPP’s other imminent commitments which include the operational side of the New Zealand Sail Grand Prix in Auckland, the New Zealand Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix, and the Halberg Awards, New Zealand’s premier sports award night.

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Lighting/Visuals

Fixtures and Moving Lights

• Viper Performance Extended: 24 Domino LT Extended: 6
• Eurus S Extended: 24 Perseo Extended: 32
• Sharpy Vector: 20
• Mini-B Basic: 20 Aquabeam 400W LL: 48 Aura PXL: 24
• XiP Basic: 24
• Fusion Bar 6 Ch: 27
• PXL Bar 16: 40
• RGB LED Bar 1M 16 Pixel: 74+
• Strike M 97 Channel: 40

Effects and Hazers

• Atmosphere APS: 2
• ATMe: 2
• Unique Hazer: 6

Managed by:

• Lighting/Visuals: Andrew Naysmith Lasers: Joe Pearson
• Follow-Me: Jack Hooper

Suppliers

• Stage by StagesetNZ

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Audio

• Main PA – 12 K1, 4 K2 side Side hangs – 14 K2 per side
• 2x GA Delay towers – 12 VDOSC, 4 SB28 2x VIP Delay towers – 4x K1SB, 8 K2 hangs Ground subs – 16x KS28, 24x SB28
• FOH – DiGiCo SD5
• MONs – DiGiCo 338 both consoles on Optocore loop with 2x SD racks. 112 channel input count

Managed by:

• FOH Engineer: Bjarne Hemmingsen
• Monitor Engineer: Heath Clapperton
• Playback Engineer: Jacob Collins