IT IS the map on the wall that gives it away. In all other respects this is an unprepossessing office overlooking the London Palladium in the heart of Theatreland. But facing Stuart Galbraith’s desk is a scale map labelled “Hyde Park, Live 8, July 2” and its network of transport routes, stage projections and PA rigs will be imprinted on his brain for the next three weeks.

As the festivals director of Clear Channel Entertainment, Europe’s largest producer of live musical events, it falls to Galbraith to ensure the smooth running of the largest single concert staged in Britain.

With the eyes of the world focused on the famous royal park, it is almost as if the fate of Africa depends upon his ability to get 150,000 fans on and off the site while making sure that Madonna’s motorcade isn’t caught in a Belgravia snarl-up. An army of 5,000 helpers have just one day to get the site ready.

“It’s having its moments,” admits the director, who began his career booking U2 when he was the University of Leeds entertainments officer in 1982. But Live 8 will be run with a military-style precision if Galbraith’s plans are followed.

“There is a clear route for the bands to enter the site at Queen Elizabeth Gate,” he says, poring over the map. “The transport operation is that they will be shuttled through, do their thing on stage and then be taken straight out the other side.”

With 20 of the world’s biggest acts queuing up for clearance, there will be no time for egos. Mariah Carey will not get her red carpet and backstage tea-service for eight.

“The cause is bigger than some artist’s riders,” says Galbraith, who worked on Live Aid in 1985 and found it refreshingly free of diva behaviour. “People muck in to make it happen. There will be every facility that artists generically require but there will not be the pampering they experience at their own shows.”

Superstars will have to wrap up their greatest hits inside 13 minutes, with a traffic-light system advising them when their time is up — “or a long hook”, the director jokes. Some artists will be asked to perform duets, with the Live Aid promoter Harvey Goldsmith negotiating the stage times and set-lists.

For safety reasons the 150,000 crowd will be divided by barriers into levels, with some getting a better view than others. A ring for 15,000 “gold ticket” fans is reserved in front of the stage.

Some may be plucked from the ticket-lottery winners revealed this weekend, but most will inevitably be purchasers of VIP corporate packages.

Some people will pay “very large amounts of money”, according to Galbraith, but the funds will be used to pay for an event for which no conventional tickets are being sold.

All is currently calm in Galbraith’s office, but in reality his schedule appears insane. This weekend he oversees Ozzy Osbourne’s Download heavy-metal festival at Castle Donnington, while U2 and R.E.M. both begin British stadium tours under the Clear Channel banner next week.

An entertainment giant with £5 billion revenues last year, Clear Channel is not noted for backing not-for-profit, liberal political activism. The Texas-based company dominates American radio, where it removed Howard Stern from stations for indecent behaviour and donated airtime to pro-military campaigns.

Galbraith is conscious of the bottom line. “To be honest, Live 8 has to fit in with the rest of our commercial activities. It can’t become all-consuming because if we go out of business, we won’t be able to run it.”

And it is the company’s Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, starring New Order, Basement Jaxx and Kasabian and concluding just 37 hours before Live 8, that is providing the greatest challenge. A map next to the Live 8 one shows the four-day Wireless layout with four stages, stalls and healing areas. It’s all got to go, and pretty sharpish.

“Kasabian finish at 10:15 on the dot on Thursday night,” Galbraith says “There will then be a manic transformation of stages being dismantled, tents coming down, fences being repositioned and facilities being added. We will work through Friday night until the Live 8 gates open at midday on Saturday.”

It will take 5,000 stage crew, caterers, bar operatives, sound and camera technicians, stewards and additional police to make Live 8 a reality. A gay pride march, Wimbledon tennis and Lord’s cricket final on the same day do not make the logistics of 150,000 people descending on Hyde Park any easier for the authorities.

Agreement with the police and local residents concerned about noise pollution placed an initial 8pm closing time on Live 8, but the music may yet play on.

“We are talking with the authorities,” Galbraith says, “and I believe we can get agreement for a later finish. But the transport is simply not available suddenly to turn 150,000 people out at 11pm.”

But he has a cunning sonic solution to the locals’ concerns. “Live 8 will have the most sophisticated, targeted sound system so that it is acceptably loud for the audience but you will be able to walk down the other side of Park Lane and not know the event is taking place.”

Live 8 will be many people’s first large-scale concert experience, and Clear Channel, which also controls 53 British theatres, has a cradle-to-grave strategy.

“If we get it right, we can start the 4- to 5-year-olds on McFly and Teletubbies, then they get older and go to see Green Day and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. When they are 45 they will see their generation’s Simply Red, and hopefully before they finish their gig-going career we’ll have finished them off with Cliff Richard, Michael Bublé and Neil Diamond. We’ll have had 60 years of income out of them.”

He is joking, but one imagines the Clear Channel board nodding sagely.

Although the world’s most keenly awaited concert is days away, Galbraith is determined to remain calm. “It’s quite a straightforward proposition really. But then in a rather foolhardy moment we said we would stage the simultaneous Live 8 concerts in Rome, Berlin and Philadelphia.”

Fortunately Galbraith will not have to inform the bulletproof 50 Cent that his stage time is up. Directing traffic around Mariah Carey and Madonna will be quite enough for one day.