We’ve played ICC Wales plenty of times - the main hall, the Woodland Suite, the Caernarfon Suite next door at the Celtic Manor. But this one was a bit different. This one was outside - something we’ve done a few times now for the ICC Wales.
The Plaza, the Dragon, and a Mini Festival
The plaza at ICC Wales is the open space out front, with the big steel dragon sculpture as the centrepiece. For this event the ICC team had built it out into a proper mini-festival - a big outdoor stage, a big D&B Audiotechnik PA, food stalls dotted around, and the dragon presiding over the whole thing. Delegates had been in conference sessions all day, and the moment they stepped outside the whole atmosphere shifted from corporate to festival.
The ICC know how to put on a party. The transformation from conference centre to outdoor event space was seamless - the kind of production setup you’d expect at a small festival, but executed for a private corporate audience.
Two One-Hour Sets, Festival Format
The format was simple and it worked. Two one-hour sets with a fifteen-minute break in the middle. That’s plenty of music to fill an evening without exhausting a crowd that’s already had a long day of conference sessions, and the break gave people time to grab food and another drink before set two.
Outdoor stages are a different beast to a ballroom. There’s no room reflection to help carry the sound, no walls to contain the energy. You’re relying entirely on the PA, the lighting, and the band to fill the space. With a serious D&B rig and a crowd that was ready to let off some steam, it filled up nicely. It also helped that it was us performing, of course - we play rolling sets, with seamless mashups and medleys carrying one song straight into the next. No dead air between numbers, no pause for the energy to drop, no gap for the dancefloor to thin out. Once a crowd is moving, the job is to keep them moving, and a set full of stops and starts just hands them a reason to wander off.
In-Ears, Clean Stage, Hi-Fi Sound
Here’s something most audiences never think about but absolutely shapes how a gig sounds: monitoring. On this one, every player was on in-ear monitors. No wedges, no stage volume, no spillage. The only sound coming off the stage was what the audience actually wanted to hear - the PA mix.
That makes a huge difference outdoors. Stage wash from monitor wedges muddies the front-of-house mix and pushes engineers into a fight with their own stage. With clean in-ears, our FOH engineer Dan had a blank canvas to work with - and the result was a mix that genuinely sounded like a high-end hi-fi system, just at festival volume. Vocals sat properly. The kick punched without flapping. The brass and sax cut through. Every player heard exactly what they needed in their ears, balanced for them.
For gigs at this scale we run a proper two-desk setup - a monitor engineer behind or on stage, and a separate FOH engineer out front. The monitor desk handles individual in-ear mixes (every player gets their own, tailored to what they need to hear). The FOH desk handles only what the audience hears. It’s how the bigger touring acts work, and there’s a reason: when one engineer tries to do both jobs at once, something always gives. Splitting it lets both desks do one thing properly, and the audience hears the difference.
If you’ve ever stood in front of a band where the sound feels muddy or shouty, this is usually why. Stage volume is the silent killer of a good outdoor mix.
The Eight-Piece Brotherhood
For this one we ran an eight-piece lineup:
- Vocals: Sam, Cam, and Jon up front
- Sax: Dan - one of the best players we work with, and a serious presence on stage
- Bass: Alun - genuinely one of the best bassists in the country. A Brotherhood mainstay, and the kind of player major touring artists call when they need a dep
- Guitar: Matt
- Keys: James
- Drums: Adam
- Front of house: Dan - a different Dan to the sax player. There’s a lot of Dans.
Three vocalists, a horn, a full rhythm section, and an engineer who knows the band and the rig inside out. It’s a configuration we use a lot for corporate events at this scale.
ICC Wales for Outdoor Corporate Events
The plaza isn’t the obvious option when people think about events at ICC Wales - the main hall and the suites get most of the attention. But for the right event, in the right season, it’s a brilliant space. You get:
- A proper outdoor area attached to the venue, with built-in production infrastructure
- A natural transition from conference (indoors) to party (outdoors), which is a lovely arc for an event day
- Room for festival-style staging, food stalls, and informal layouts that you can’t really do in a ballroom
- The Celtic Manor Resort and ICC’s own accommodation just steps away, so delegates can walk home
It’s weather-dependent, of course - this is South Wales. But on a good May evening, with the right production and the right band, it’s hard to beat.
The Brotherhood plays corporate events, conferences, and after-parties at ICC Wales, Celtic Manor, and venues across South Wales and nationwide. If you’re planning something - indoor, outdoor, or both - get in touch.
