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tpi awards 05MARK CUNNINGHAM TELLS THE STORY BEHIND THE AWARDS SHOW THATCELEBRATES WHERE THE REAL WORK IN THE INDUSTRY IS BEING DONE...

One only had to watch this year's BRITs to be reminded of who does the real workin this business; an artist's performance is merely the tip of an extraordinary icebergof creativity, hard graft and dedication. Those 'backroom boys and girls' deserve to berecognised just as much as the Keanes and Scissors of the world, and that's why TPiis proud to push the boat out once a year in celebration of their achievements.

And push the boat out we did — our fourth annual Total Production InternationalAwards event at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith onMonday 31 January was our biggest and best to date, bursting atthe seams with 800 in attendance.

Inspired by his delivery at last autumn's UK Music Hall Of Fameshow at Hackney Empire, we secured the services of broadcaster,author and 'Professor of Pop', Paul Gambaccini, as our host and heimpressed everyone with his encyclopaedic mind, charm and sharpwit.

From 2005 onwards, the Unsung Hero Award — won thisyear by Chris Hannam — will be dedicated to the memory of thesadly missed John Peel, who died last year. Gambaccini did awonderful job of describing not only what it was like to have Peelieas a broadcasting colleague but also the vast influence the man hadon the business of live music.

Backing up the Great Gambaccini as guest presenters were a

number of industry personalities and award sponsors, including DiGiCo's maverickBob Doyle, PR guru Jerry Gilbert, Martin Professional's David Caulfield, Ian Brown ofRobe Show Lighting, Creative Technology's Mike Walker, Chris Allatt of LiteStructuresand Northern Studios, Tony Laurenson of Eat To The Beat, Roger Barratt of the StarEvents Group, Robin Wealleans of The Picture Works, Jonathan Cooper of Barco,Des Fallon of XL Video, Adrian Forbes-Black and Andy Lenthall of the PSA, and our

very own starlet Hannah Eakins and MD Damian Walsh.Special guests included ex-Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey

(now Chairman of the government's Live Music Forum) andformer BRIT Awards producer Lisa Anderson, who presented theLifetime Contribution Award to Mick Kluczynski.

But the highlight of the evening had to be the surpriseappearance of David Gilmour. The legendary Pink Floyd guitaristrarely, if ever, attends awards ceremonies, let alone appear onstage at one. It was, therefore, especially heart-warming to havehim accept an invitation to co-present The Editor's Award to PhilTaylor — the man who has given him 30 years' unbroken serviceas his personal technician and Floyd's head of crew.

In fact, a Floydian theme appeared to emerge throughout theevening. Many years before he took over the BRITs, Kluczynski wasa key member of the Floyd crew during the '70s, and the winner

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of the Set Designer of the Year award, Mark Fisher, issynonymous (with Jonathan Park) with the band's mostmemorable tours.

Catering firm Eat To The Beat (21 this year), XLVideo and the Star Events Group each won their thirdaward to date, while tour manager Henry McGrogganand rigger Phil Broad both bagged their second. Touringcommitments prevented monitor engineer John Rodenand FOH engineer Max Bisgrove from picking up theirawards in person, although production assistant Helen'Hels Bells' Smith — in Europe with Anastacia —accepted her second consecutive 'gong' by telephone!

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Opposite: Our host, Paul Gambaccini; viewsof the Versatube-loaded set created byCreative Technology.

Top: (left) Mark Cunningham, PaulGambaccini, Phil Taylor and Pink Floyd’sDavid Gilmour during the presentation of TheEditor’s Award; (right) Former BRITs producerLisa Anderson presented the LifetimeContribution Award to Mick Kluczynski.

Above: Feargal Sharkey was among ourguest presenters.

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Surprises were in store for some of the industry'sGoliaths who were toppled by lesser-known, buthighly respected, victors. Production manager AndyCotton and lighting company Fineline beat offconsiderable voting competition from the likes of ChrisVaughan and Mark Ward, and Bandit Lites, PRGEurope and Neg Earth to earn their awards —reflecting the important, consistent roles they play at'middle ground' events throughout the UK.

PRODUCTION DESIGN & TECHNOLOGYThe organisation of the awards event was handled byMondiale Events, and the core team consisted of co-ordinator Sally Clark, sales manager Hannah Eakins,general manager Justin Gawne and myself as creativedirector, while Andy Lenthall co-ordinated all aspects ofthe PSA's daytime AGM, seminars and Open Forum.

Having done such a great job of our 2004 event,

we once again took up Creative Technology's offer ofsupplying stylish and impressive presentation — andcrew — for this year's event, again with Rob Dayheading the team as production manager and AlexClayton show-calling to perfection. It was around lateSeptember that CT's Mike Walker presented his initialdesign concept, which was later modified by Rob Dayand lighting designer Nick Whitehead to make itworkable in the venue, designing rigging, the video

Top row: LD of the Year Dan Hardiman with David Caulfield of Martin Professional UK; Andy Cotton scooped the Production Manager prize;Jo Beirne of XL Video with Paul Gambaccini and CT’s Mike Walker, collecting on behalf of an absent Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith.Middle: John Corr of Sound Moves, Royal Albert Hall freelance stage manager Fay Laflin and Chris Hannam proudly pose with a stash of perspex!;Hannah Eakins with a victorious Bryan Grant of Brit Row; Henry McGroggan, Tour Manager of the Year.Bottom: ‘Big’ Mick Hughes collected Metallica’s Live Production of the Year award from Chris Allatt of Northern Studios; The Picture Works’ RobinWealleans presented the Video Director award to Nick Wickham; Fineline’s Darren Wring picked up the Favourite Lighting Company award from IanBrown of Robe.

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system and scenic elements between them.Once the system spec and general visual theme

was agreed, I started to give input in terms of theceremony script, order of proceedings anduse/clearance of video clips, stills and logos.

TPi's production department in Stockport came upwith the main TPi Awards 05 logo, supplying it toTorenne Chin who produced three 15 second 3Danimated loops of it to be inserted on the screens atdifferent points during the night, along with other 3D

inserts.To introduce the event, I asked Rob Day to

arrange for a six minute video montage to be creativelyedited from a pile of live video clips (White Stripes,Cornbury Music Festival, Snow Patrol and the Red HotChili Peppers), a wide range of concert stills and imagesof TPi front covers — all depicting highlights from someof last year's best shows. Dave Boeck's fantastic editwas set to a soundtrack of U2's version of M's 'PopMusik', remixed especially for the occasion by yours

truly.CT's video system comprised of three Barco G8

projectors running SDI, six Hitachi 42" plasma screens,a Grass Valley Kayak digital PPU, two Sony D30cameras, two UVW 1800 Beta recorders, two Doremihard disk players, two Pentium 4 graphics laptops, twoFolsom Research Image Pros (for converting laptops toSDI signals) and a Boland 10" XGA lectern monitor.Also supplied were two laptops and desktop projectorsfor the daytime PSA meetings.

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Top: Tony Bowern of Brilliant Stages accepted Mark Fisher’s Set Designer award; Lee Spencer and Des Fallon from XL Video received their awardfrom Barco’s Jonathan Cooper; Feargal Sharkey presented Max Bisgrove’s award to Corrs production manager Ian ‘Chip’ Calder; Entec’s DickHayes collected for John Roden. Above: EST’s Del Roll with Bob Doyle of DiGiCo; Roger Barratt with the Star Events Group’s award; Mark Jacksonand Lou Hall from the winning LiteStructures team, with Paul Gambaccini and Mondiale MD Damian Walsh; Tony Laurenson with Simon Lupini fromthe Royal Albert Hall.

Opposite (top row): Andy Lenthall and Ade Forbes-Black handed the Favourite Security/Crowd Management Company award to Showsec’s team;Tony Laurenson celebrated Eat To The Beat’s 21st anniversary by collecting the Catering award from XL’s Des Fallon. (Bottom row): Jerry Gilbertpresented Billy Bowman of Music By Appointment with the Favourite Travel Agency award; Rigger of the Year, Phil Broad; ‘Turnaround’ Ted Hewittof Phoenix Bussing collected the Favourite Tour Bus Company accolade.

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While Nick Whitehead designed the lighting system, Martin Seymour assisted asprogrammer and board operator. Whereas last year's main look was provided by therandomness of the LED screens, the 2005 motif came in the form of 143 one metreVersatubes. Tim Massey was the key person on-site for setting up and handling the

configuration of this new product, which necessitated raster mapping the output fromthe media server on to Versatube wall design to ensure content flowed smoothlyacross all fixtures.

SceneChange Imaging's Hippotizer Stage real-time media server ran up to eight

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Clockwise from far left: Productionmanager Rob Day; Villa’s GarethJones; Stephen Randall compilinggraphics; Oz Bagnall and AlexClayton at front of house; AndyFeakins and John Steer in videoworld; Mark Cunningham withMondiale colleagues Sally Clark(left) and Hannah Eakins.

Above, left to right: Daytime visitors to the Novotel attended new technology showcases by Zero 88, Marquee Audio, Martin Audio, Digidesign andMartin Professional.

THE DAYTIME PROGRAMME

During the day, a string of visitors descended on the Novotel to take part inthe PSA's Annual General Meeting and Open Forum, as well as taking theopportunity to check out the latest technology being presented byDigidesign, Marquee Audio, Martin Professional, Zero 88 and Martin Audioat the Daytime TP sessions.

Supported by the Showcase music industry directory, the PSA’s AGMwas the first to be held since the management of the Association washanded over to TPi’s parent company Mondiale Publishing in April 2004, andit was hailed a major success.

In addition to the well-attended and informative AGM, there wereseminars dealing with the new electrical colour code changes, sponsored byA.C. Lighting, and the new Control of Noise at Work regulations, inassociation with hearing protection specialist Sensorcom. The UK CrowdManagement Association also presented its plans for a study into Showstopprocedures — a session that turned into a lively and informative debate onthe subject.

The highlight of the day was the PSA Open Forum with a panel thatincluded Feargal Sharkey, representing the government's Live Music Forum.The licensing act and fee levels for large event licenses were the hot topicson the day.

PSA General Manager Andy Lenthall commented: “Those who attendedleft the session with a much clearer picture and confidence in the ability ofthe Forum to effectively represent and look after the interests of our industry.We’re extremely grateful to Feargal for taking time to sit with us and discussrather than simply taking the stand and talking about the Forum.”

PSA Chairman Adrian Forbes-Black summed up the day: “2004 was animportant year for the PSA. This year's conference has shown that we havecome a long way since our management changed last April. We have hadinstant, positive feedback from members, which shows that the PSA is anassociation that people are proud to be part of. We thank those whoattended and especially thank the sponsors for making the event possible.”

See this month’s PSA Action bulletin for a fully illustrated report on thePSA’s day at the Novotel.

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layers at high resolution, with a hardware accelerated effects engine whichenabled up to 18 effects to occur at once. Nigel Sadler from SceneChangeworked with CT in pre-production and on-site, making sure the mediaserver offered the flexibility, content and connectivity required.

The lighting equipment supplied to CT by Stage Electrics included 24Martin MAC 250+s, eight MAC 550s, 14 MAC 2000 Performances, fourMAC 2000 Washes, 40 ETC Source Four 50° profiles, eight Source FourPars, 12 1200W Fresnels, two HMI followspots, two Reel DF50 hazers, 48ways of Avolites dimming, 36-way hot power distro and six fire exit lights —with a Whole Hog II console as controller.

In addition, Snowy Johnson of Pulsar Light of Cambridge provided 30ChromaBank LED fixtures. Steve Bennett was the on-site quality control repfor the Stage Electrics equipment and Andy Loveday provided the projectmanagement from the company's Bristol base.

Rock Constructions supplied the staging in the form of a 15 foot circularstage plus a control riser and masking; six door portals to give a smoothfinish to the white draping, seven custom curved scenic panels for theVersatube backdrop, a custom lectern incorporating three Versatubes, andtwo followspot towers. Rob Day said: "Trevor Stevens, the man whoconsistently turns our concepts and ideas into physical objects with amazingquality, came up with the goods again for us, and his on-site team ofcarpenters were their usual 'happy to chop anything up' selves!"

The Star Events Group provided rigging services along with a 12” boxtruss throughout and motors to suit. Said Day: "Mark Armstrong, AmosCotter and the Star crew were all brilliant to work with, as usual. Mark wasparticularly useful at the load-in by helping me to move five drunkWelshmen [from the previous night's Sofa Show exhibition] from our loadingbay!"

Tom Lambert at Blackout was extremely helpful in providing anythingwe required. The company ended up supplying 42m x 5m white draping forthe back wall and dedicated rigging, as well as the support structure for thelarge TPi Awards logo photo call area backdrop, kindly produced for us byHangman.

We are also incredibly indebted to Del Roll at Edwin Shirley Trucking forarranging transportation for the entire production, and to John-Henri Mills ofKroos for providing 30 helpful, strong and dedicated crew who even moved

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Partying hard... networking even harder!

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a very badly positioned and full skip in the loading bay access area... twice!

VILLA'S SWANSONGIf there is one aspect of any awards ceremony that usually attracts criticism and anavalanche of boastful claims in equal measures, it is the live sound. After working withGareth Jones of Villa Audio last May on my own charity concert event, Drumming UpHope, I was very keen to see how his expertise and enthusiasm for 'getting things

right' would benefit our 2005 Awards. Little did anyone realise that it was to be Villa'slast event before it ceased trading a week later (see this month's news).

At least the company went out with a bang — Jones, with FOH engineer OzBagnall and the Villa team, supplied the best sound experienced to date at the TPiAwards and it proved to be an excellent showcase for KV2 Audio's latest generationof loudspeakers.

The system, designed by Jones, was divided into separate music and speechsystems. For the music, there were 10 differently configured ground stack pointscomprising of four ES1s, four ES2.5s and four ES2.8s, and a surround system of sixarrays of one ES1 and one ES2.5, all driven by KV2's proprietary EPAC processingamplifiers. Overhead in the truss, to deliver the speech element of the production,were 16 KV2 EX10 10"/1.4" self-powered speakers with internal processing.

Commented Jones: "This system is the forerunner to KV2's VHD [Very HighDefinition] Series which will be presented as a complete touring package. We'veeffectively used VHD-1, and KV2 will shortly be launching VHD-2 which is an ultrahigh output, ultra low distortion, 100° x 80° single source system.

"I only had two reservations about our Awards design. I was disappointed thatwe weren't able to fly the ES1 high packs on the truss around the room, and itwould have been far more preferable to run the VT audio from a time code-drivenDAT, rather than have the sound laid down to the video track. But overall I washappy that we'd improved standards."

Villa's control system was kept to a sensible minimum. "Oz Bagnall was offeredthe choice of any Midas console he wanted," said Jones. "But considering that he wasdealing with just 18 inputs, and with no specific requirement for input strip EQ, hechose the trusty Midas Venice 320 as the tool for the job — no sweating for thecrew, just a great sound."

The only outboard device used were four channels of Klark Teknik DN410parametric EQ and four channels of dbx 160XT compression. Radio microphoneswere all from Shure's UHF Premier Series. "We decided not to use a conventionallectern mic system but rely entirely on hand-held radio mics that delivered the 'grunt'required to penetrate a rowdy audience."

Although the music and speech PA systems were configured separately, theywere 'joined at the hip' by Out Board's TiMax system. Working alongside Villa toprovide optimum zoning and surround sound effects was Out Board's RobinWhittaker who used a 16 input/32 output TiMax system to address each of theloudspeakers in the room individually. Level-delay relationships to the speakers orimage definitions were set up for speech, stereo program and surround sound

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Production Manager of the Yearsponsored by Rock-It CargoWinner: Andy Cotton

Tour Manager of the Yearsponsored by EFM & Chapman FreebornWinner: Henry McGroggan

Tour/Production Assistant of the Yearsponsored by Creative TechnologyWinner: Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith

Front of House Engineer of the Yearsponsored by MidasWinner: Max Bisgrove

Monitor Engineer of the Yearsponsored by ShureWinner: John Roden

Lighting Designer of the Yearsponsored by Martin Professional Winner: Dan Hardiman

Set Designer of the Yearsponsored by Star Events GroupWinner: Mark Fisher

Video Director of the Yearsponsored by The Picture WorksWinner: Nick Wickham

Rigger of the Yearsponsored by Columbus McKinnon,PCM & TomcatWinner: Phil Broad

Favourite Sound Rental Companysponsored by Klark Teknik GroupWinner: Britannia Row Productions

Favourite Lighting Rental Companysponsored by Robe Show LightingWinner: Fineline

Favourite Set Construction Companysponsored by Pulsar Light of CambridgeWinner: LiteStructures

Favourite Staging Companysponsored by EurolitesWinner: Star Events Group

Favourite Video Services Companysponsored by BarcoWinner: XL Video

Favourite Trucking CompanyWinner: Edwin Shirley Trucking

Favourite Tour Bus CompanyWinner: Phoenix Bussing

Favourite Freight CompanyWinner: Sound Moves

Favourite Travel Agencysponsored by NovotelWinner: Music By Appointment

Favourite Security/Crowd Management Companysponsored by the PSAWinner: Showsec

Favourite Catering Companysponsored by XL Video UKWinner: Eat To The Beat

Favourite Venuesponsored by Eat To The BeatWinner: Royal Albert Hall

Live Production of the Yearsponsored by Northern StudiosWinner: Metallica —Madly In Anger With The World Tour

The Unsung Hero Award(dedicated to the memory of John Peel)Winner: Chris Hannam

The Editor’s AwardWinner: Phil Taylor

Lifetime Contribution AwardWinner: Mick Kluczynski

TPi Awards 05:THE WINNERS

Paul Gambaccini during his tributeto the late John Peel.

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effects.Of the 11 TiMax inputs used, eight were for sound effects

sources from the TiMax PC sound card, two for stereoprogram including the intro video montage soundtrack andwalk-up clips, and one for hand-held microphones used forthe award presentations. A sound effects sequence prior tothe opening video montage was cued entirely from TiMax'sin-built hard disk sample playback system. The system was setup, programmed and cued by Whittaker.

Jones concluded: "For me, the highlight of this project wasthe general crew relationship and the interaction of everyoneinvolved to pull together such an enjoyable event. Rob Daydid a fantastic job as the production manager. He didn't climball over us, he just trusted everyone's professionalism and weall very happily delivered the goods."

An announcement regarding plans for the 2006 edition ofthe TPi Awards will be made by Mondiale Events later thisyear.

TPiPhotography by Louise Stickland,

Jim Ellam & Mark Cunningham

TPi Awards 05 — Key Personnel & Suppliers

Producer: Mondiale Events • Creative Director: Mark Cunningham • Event Co-ordinator: Sally Clark • Marketing: Hannah Eakins • General Manager: Justin Gawne •Production Manager: Rob Day • Show Caller: Alex Clayton • Set Design/Versatube Graphics: Torenne Chin & Dave Boeck • Media Servers: SceneChange Imaging • MediaServer Technician: Nigel Sadler • Lighting Equipment • Creative Technology, Stage Electrics & Pulsar Light of Cambridge • Lighting Designer: Nick Whitehead • LightingProgrammer: Martin Seymour • Lighting Crew: Ian 'Patsy' Paterson, Fiona Imber, Dave Black, Graham Loughman, John Nowell, Pat White • Sound System: Villa Audio/OutBoard/KV2 Audio • Sound Design: Gareth Jones • Sound Engineer: Oz Bagnall • TiMax Programmer: Robin Whittaker • Draping: Blackout • Blackout Crew • Steve Tuck &Tom Lambert • Awards Logo Drape: Hangman • Staging: Rock Constructions • Trussing & Rigging: Star Events Group • Rigging Crew • Amos Cotter, Mark Armstrong,Richard Estridge & Bill Macklin • Transport: Edwin Shirley Trucking • Crewing: Kroos • Head of Local Crew • John-Henri Mills