When the latest in a series of remodels stretching back two decades was completed in 2013 at the newly named AXIS at the Planet Hollywood resort in Las Vegas, and it was announced that pop star Britney Spears had been signed to a two-year residency deal. No one — including gurus of the entertainment world – expected it to last more than six months. Currently, with that residency wrapping up an overwhelmingly successful four-year run and other pop residencies having taken hold, the venue boasts the highest number of ticket sales in Las. In a world of dizzying changes, one of the few constants has been the presence of DiGiCo consoles at both ends of the snake.

The other constant has been the presence of AXIS Production Supervision and Head of Audio Eric Fish. “When I first came in, this place was raw concrete,’ he recalls. “It was not a facelift, rather it was a full remodel from the speaker rig to the consoles to everything in the walls and a tonne of acoustic treatment.’

Over the past four years, the AXIS has become “pop central’ and a model for the idea of residencies by artists best known for international tours. Currently, the calendar has rounded out to include residencies by J-Lo, Backstreet Boys, Lionel Richie and Pitbull. “We have the highest number of paid ticket sales in the country, and we’re number three in the world,’ Fish reports. “In addition to four rotating residencies, we do everything from live events for TV broadcast to a comedian in front of a curtain with Britney or J-Lo’s set right behind it.’

Working alongside Fish on the Britney show is System Engineer Julio Valdez, from Vegas-based provider 3G, who reports that the reliability of the DiGiCo platform makes his job easier. “The beauty of the whole platform is that you can move from one DiGiCo surface to another one with very little adjustment.’

The room is regularly driven by some of the best engineers in live audio. Britney is mixed by Rob “Cubby’ Colby, Backstreet Boys by Sound Image’s James McCullaugh, J-Lo by John Clark and Lionel Richie by Gordon Mack. All shows use the house SD5 at monitors and an SD10 at FOH except Britney. “Cubby is more comfortable on the SD5, so we bring one in from 3G for those shows.’

Fish adds that the platform allows engineers with totally different approaches to all thrive in the same ecosystem. “Cubby uses nothing but the console with no plug-ins or external processing, and at the other extreme is James who is deep in the Waves universe. We have full input racks for house and monitors but the Backstreet Boys show uses raw tracks mixed live, and both ends of the snake share inputs using the Gain Tracking feature and everything is digital except the crowd mics for monitors. On J-Lo we’re doing a kind of cool thing that I came up with where they each have their own input rack, but they are on the same loop, so they are each backups to the other one. If something were to go down on one rack, they could pull in inputs from the other one pretty easily.’

Valdez, ever the system engineer, points to the backbone as just as important as the consoles themselves. “We have an extensive Dante system that allows us to do things like pull in various ambient mics from the house and to send audio all over the building. And integrating the consoles was just a case of throwing a Dante card into the console and making those basic connections. The rest was flawless.’

Britney’s residency was winding down at the time of this interview, and Colby summed up the experience of four years on the SD5. “After 250 shows, 90 rehearsals and numerous live TV broadcasts, DiGiCo delivers on all fronts every day.’

The residency that started it all for the AXIS may be coming to an end, but there are not going to be a lot of dark days. “We’re booked through solid through at least 2018,’ Fish says. “It’s great, I know my schedule practically two years in advance, and DiGiCo will continue to be a big part of the success of this room for the foreseeable future.’