Entec answers Mayday call

24 April 2012

UK - West London UK based rental company, Entec Sound & Light supplied full technical production including lighting and sound equipment and crew for a recent high profile show at Wembley Arena by Taiwanese alt rock superstars, Mayday.

Their brief included the provision of the band's backline which was sourced from John Henry Enterprises, and specialist video which came via Bluman Associates. All necessary rigging was also supplied by Entec.

Entec's project manager Noreen O'Riordan worked closely with Mayday's LA-based production manager Jeffrey Soon to ensure that all their needs were met, and brought Simon Tutchener on-board as their overall production and site manager.

Tutchener started work on the gig about two weeks in advance. The challenges were all the usual ones of a large one-off - a pressurised time frame, the logistics of remote co-ordination .... and only one chance to get it right for a large production.

To meet all the deadlines for getting four trucks of kit into Wembley and having the stage handed over to the band for a 2 p.m. rehearsal, with a show that evening required a serious amount of pre-planning by all departments.

Jeffrey Soon comments, "Entec took all those extra little steps to ensure everything ran glitch-free on site." Adding that they also took the time to meet him and his team in their hotel at short notice, "We rarely get service like this these days" he observes!

The system requirements were kept relatively simple due to the compressed set up time.

The lighting was designed by Allen Wu from Taiwan. The rig was based on a combination of standard and chevron shaped trusses over the stage and six vertical truss towers across the back of the stage.

The moving lights were 26 Vari*Lite 3000 Profiles and 22 Martin Professional MAC 700 Washes. They were joined by 24 i-Pix Satellites used for truss toning, Source Four profiles for key lighting and specials plus a mix of 4 and 8-lite Moles and a bunch of 3K strobes.

It wasn't a massive rig for the Arena, but Wu made it go a long way, creating many epic rock looks and bringing plenty of drama and glitz to the evening. He programmed and ran the show on a grandMA full size console, with a grandMA light supplied for backup. Ryan Brown was Entec's lighting crew chief.

For audio, Entec supplied a d&b system with Avid Profile 96 channel consoles for both FOH and monitors, engineered by Mr Soga from Japan (FOH) and Yang Chung on monitors.

The main flown PA hangs comprised 12 d&b J-8 and two J-12 cabinets a side with a hang of five J-SUBs per side and then side-hangs of seven Q-1s. Ground stacked each side were two Q-7s and a single Q-10 and three B-SUBS, all driven by d&b's proprietary D12 amps.

The monitors were 12 d&b M-4 wedges a C-7 sub for drum-fill and four channels of Sennheiser G2 as a backup to Mayday's own IEM system. There was a selection of Shure and Sennheiser mics, Radial DIs and a Telex BTR700 comms system.

Ed Hammond was Entec's audio crew chief, and worked with a crew of five.

The video elements were managed on site by Andy Joyes and consisted of a large upstage Lighthouse LED screen measuring 8.3m wide and 4.6m high, and two side projection screens for IMAG, fed by Barco machines. Four hi def cameras were deployed, one at FOH (with long lens), with two in the pit and a remote cam onstage.

Mayday integrated their own control system with elements supplied by Bluman Associates, all of which was run from FOH. Pod Bluman comments, "It was really excellent to work with Entec. Noreen and her team are highly organised and dedicated to providing the very best possible service, so our companies fit well together."

(Jim Evans)