TPi AWARDS 2010 Review

NEWS FOCUS: TPi Awards 2010

TPi AWARDS 2010Now nine years into its colourful life, the TPi Awards continues to evolve as the international live production industry’s most eagerly anticipated night of celebration, recognition and social networking... and this year’s event was hailed by many as possibly the best to date. Attracting a sell-out audience of almost 1,000, the 2010 edition on February 8 saw a welcome return to what has been described as its ‘spiritual home’, Hammersmith’s Novotel London West, and was expertly hosted by Chris Evans, the new presenter of BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show and a man who is no stranger to awards shows, having twice anchored the BRITs. Together with a roster of specially-invited

VIP guests, including the Pet Shop Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe), the Kaiser Chiefs’ lead singer Ricky Wilson, bass supremos Jah Wobble and Damon Minchella, and Jon ‘Webbo’ Webster, the chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, Evans presented a total of 31 awards — culminating in a richly-deserved Lifetime Contribution Award for Fred Heuves, a legend of the modern European live sound business who retired a year ago. Kindly sponsored by Barco, Christie, Digital Insanity, EFM, MA Lighting, Martin Professional, Midas, Perry Scenic, Pulsar, Showforce Middle East, Showsec and Yamaha Commercial Audio, and supported by Doodson Entertainment, the categories included the brand new My Generation Award, won by 20 year old industry

06 • TPi MARCH 2010

RACHEL ESSON TALKS TO COLLEAGUE MARK CUNNINGHAM AND OTHER TPi AWARDS PERSONNEL ABOUT THE CREATIVE& TECHNICAL ELEMENTS BEHIND THIS YEAR’S MAJORLIVE PRODUCTION INDUSTRY CELEBRATION...

Our host, Chris Evans

TPi MARCH 2010 • 07

newcomer Luke Jackson, whose skills as a lighting designer/operator and festival technical manager are fast becoming recognised. TPi’s thousands of voters ensured that it would turn out to be quite a U2-themed night. The band’s innovative 360° world tour scooped Live Production of the Year, Jake Berry was the voters’ Production Manager choice, Dallas Schoo’s Backline Technician trophy was collected by U2’s sound director Joe O’Herlihy, and Willie Williams won both the Lighting Designer and Video Visionary awards. Other winners associated with U2’s tour included Clair, Stageco, XL Video and Showsec. With the industry as busy as ever, it was inevitable that some winners would be absent. Once again voted as Production Co-ordinator of the Year, Helen ‘Hels’ Bells was in Kiev on the Depeche Mode tour, but on the eve of the show, those Basildon boys were filmed presenting the award to her and highlights appeared on screen. FOH Engineer of the Year, Paul ‘Pab’ Boothroyd was away with AC/DC in Australasia and a representative movie was screened as

colleague Tim Boyle of Concert Sound Clair accepted the award on his behalf. One of the evening’s biggest surprises was the first-time victory for catering firm Eat Your Hearts Out, which halted rival company Eat To The Beat’s unbroken run of seven consecutive wins. Ironically, no one from EYHO attended but Jenny Marshall of Marshall Arts kindly stepped up to collect.

PRODUCTIONIn his third-time role as the TPi Awards production manager, James Cobb led a stellar team of suppliers and crew. As creative director Mark Cunningham explained: “James’ trademark patience and charisma shone through as he dealt with problems including the absence of a working service lift, despite the Novotel management’s repeated promises of maintenance. “From the initial load-in at 8.00am on February 7, all movement of equipment was inevitably slowed down due to the enforced use of the hotel’s public and staff lifts. No one was impressed, least of all the local crew from The

Chain Group.” Clint Stradiotto, The Chain Group’s crew boss, bit his lip: “Whilst having a truck’s worth of lighting kit and truss scattered

all over the loading bay and surrounding available areas, other contractors were arriving, wanting to install their kit in the middle of this load-in turmoil. Time was

slowly running away from us and after around 50 flight cases taken painstakingly up in the public lifts it was time to bring up the truss via escalators.”

The burden was carried out with great humour, whilst trying not to injure any of the resident Britain’s Got Talent auditionees who paraded themselves around the Novotel lobby like a bizarre freak show! It’s to the credit of Stradiotto’s man management that even with all these obstacles, little time was lost for the build. As well as the tough load-in (and easier load-out), The Chain Group crew did an outstanding job of supplying, fitting and carpeting all the staging, both in the main room and in the after-show area, and building the camera risers along with assisting other contractors.

VIDEO-LEDThe planning and design process began in earnest last November after the key suppliers were confirmed. From the outset, the production was always going to be video-led and between Creative Technology, video producer/



Below: Production manager James Cobb and assistant Sophie Robinson; video producer/director Richard Shipman; the video production gallery team in action; one of four cameras capturing live I-Mag feeds; sound engineer Jon Reynolds at his DiGiCo console; LD Matt Oscroft, show caller Alex Clayton, Jon Reynolds and autocue pilot James Hamling.

director Richard Shipman, and the Digital Insanity content creation partnership of Kate Perring and Richard Bagshaw, it was decided to repeat the ultra-widescreen format from 2006, but with a significant twist. “The idea in 2006 was to bring TPi magazine to life on screen, but this time it was all about harnessing online media,” said Shipman. “The projection screen supplied by Blackout spanned the entire width of the stage end of the Champagne Suite and acted as a giant computer desktop upon which we revealed the category graphics packages and the picture-in-picture mix of video clips and live camera.” Those packages included real-time ‘grabs’ of winners’ Facebook pages and corporate websites — and it was interesting to see the variation in style between them. It was noted

that one of the winners has yet to have a presence on the World Wide Web... which meant that a genuine ‘this page could not be found’ message was splashed across the screen! As well as the ‘Digitally Insane’ screen content, Mark Cunningham produced the intro video featuring highlights from previous awards, set to his ‘classic rock’ mash-up soundtrack. He also created videos for U2’s Live Production of the Year sequence and for the Pab Boothroyd presentation, and provided imagery and a voiceover for the Fred Heuves ‘Lifetime’ video. Project managed by Alex Leinster, CT provided a full complement of eight (double-stacked) Barco HD20 projectors, four manned Thomson HD cameras, and a set of 65” and 42” plasma relay screens to cover the rear seating. CT’s PPU unit included a Snell & Wilcox 2ME

Kahuna console, specified by Richard Shipman for the job. Digital Insanity called on the services of Green Hippo and its Hippotizer media server to act as the graphics playback system, with a pair of back-up Hippos also supplied by CT. The server was specified to include the new Uberpan feature that is due for public release very shortly. With Uberpan, the team were able to create a graphics canvas that was in excess of 7,000 pixels wide by 1,000 pixels tall, which was then projected on to the entire back wall by the Barcos. Uberpan was chosen because it was able to take care of the soft edge blending across all the projectors and the overlapping of images, syncing all the media together so that it all



LIVE PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR: Willie Williams, Helen Campbell & Jake Berry collect the award for U2’s 360° tour from Mark Leahy of sponsor Barco and host Chris Evans.

PRODUCTION MANAGER OF THE YEAR: Swiftly ushered back to the stage,Jake Berry accepts his trophy from Gavin Chatfield of sponsor Christie Digital.

FAVOURITE INTERNATIONALPRODUCTION COMPANY:Gavin Chatfield awards Clair (Juerg Huegin, Tim Boyle, Andrew Davies & Troy Clair).

PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR OF THE YEAR: Absentee Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith won and Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan sprung the surprise on video.

TOUR MANAGER OF THE YEAR:Sponsor Mike Llewellyn of EFM meets the winner, Coldplay TM, Andy Franks.

STAGE MANAGER OF THE YEAR:Richard ‘Wez’ Wearing collects his “lump of glass” from Chris Evans.

FAVOURITE REHEARSAL FACILITY: Music Bank’s Jimmy Mac goes away smiling!

FAVOURITE SOUND RENTAL COMPANY: Wigwam’s Chris Hill takes first prize from Nick Pemberton of sponsor Yamaha.

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played as just one clip. It played multiple channels of sound, and still allowed the operators to move elements and live video around the screen in real time across the whole huge canvas without any extra pre-rendering, so that they could be ready for any of the unexpected things that can — and do — happen at an event of this nature! The Hippotizer programming and operation was handled by Green Hippo’s very own Nigel Sadler, who explained: “The set-up of the system was very simple, using an intuitive interface to allow the crew to place the screens and projectors as they would be in the real world, and then let Uberpan do all the rest — cutting up the content on the fly, distributing it to the media servers and synchronising all the servers together automatically.” Two of Green Hippo’s new HD-Access low latency HD input cards were used to display live I-Mag to the outer extents of the screen in full HD with very low delay. The faulty access lift was not the only major problem to hamper the production. A lack of air conditioning led to the projectors overheating and the double-stacked Barcos were reduced to single stacks, literally minutes before the ceremony was about to begin. This explains why the lighting levels had to be reduced in order to preserve a good density of projection.

LIGHTINGFor the past 24 years, Hawthorn has earned a great reputation for lighting galas, dinners, award ceremonies, car launches and other similar events. This year, the company made its début as TPi’s lighting and rigging supplier and as its project manager and lighting designer, Matt Oscroft explained, it felt a little like unknown territory at the start. “Our brief given to us by James Cobb was ‘More Oscars, Less Brits’ — the lighting needed to be more atmospheric than in your face,” said Oscroft, who

has enjoyed a long career in theatre. “Once appointed I started to look back over previous TPi events to gain valuable insider information, but none of it helped as I was hit with lasers, in-house rigs and lots of rock’n’roll. “As TPi decided to return to the Novotel it meant everything we required had to be installed, this included the full LX rig, dimming and rigging, all achievable with an eight-hour get-in and a large goods lift — which as we all soon learned wasn’t working!” Once inside the building, the day became plain sailing as Hawthorn’s rig consisted of three trusses, complete with intelligent and generic fixtures that tastefully complemented the starcloth drapes from S+H Technical Support that wrapped the whole room. The initial design and desk plotting was achieved with the help of WYSIWYG at Hawthorn’s Leicestershire office. This proved a useful tool as plotting time was now somewhat scarce, and due to the mammoth projection screen the video department required a great deal of dark time. “I used mainly Clay Paky fixtures,” said Oscroft. “Their Alpha Spots, Washes and Beams were selected for their reliability, speed, gobos and colour mixing. In addition to these we chose 12 GLP Impression LEDs for their brightness and low power consumption. “Another challenge we faced was how to light the lower ceiling area, which had suddenly grown from four tables to around 20. We needed a quick fix solution; this was achieved by using 48 GDS LiteWare uplighters, half currently owned by Hawthorns, the rest direct from GDS. These fixtures operate totally wirelessly and were controlled via a wireless DMX transmitter, powered by the ever-faithful Avolites Pearl. “The Pearl is great for an event like this as you’re never quite sure what’s required next. With a quick spin of the Rolacue, you’re back at



FOH ENGINEER OF THE YEAR:Paul ‘Pab’ Boothroyd was on tour with AC/DC but colleague Tim Boyle accepted his award.

MONITOR ENGINEER OF THE YEAR:John Oakley of sponsor Midas presents Jac Nott with her trophy.

BACKLINE TECHNICIAN OF THE YEAR: The Edge’s right-hand man, Dallas Schoo’s award was collected by U2 sound director, Joe O’Herlihy.

FAVOURITE CREW COMPANY:Sponsored by Showsec, the category was once again clinched by Showforce despite stiffcompetition.

FAVOURITE RIGGING COMPANY:Jane Russen of Star Events Group steps up to claim her firm’s moment of glory.

RIGGER OF THE YEAR:Paul Mardon of sponsor Pulsar hands the award to Johnny ‘Hotpants’ Ashton.

FAVOURITE STAGING COMPANY:It’s another victorious year for Stageco and founder Hedwig de Meyer.

SET DESIGNER OF THE YEAR: The Perry Scenic-sponsored award is presented to Es Devlin by Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson.

FAVOURITE SET CONSTRUCTION COMPANY: Chris Evans presents to Simon Wood and Steve Dolan of winning company, Stage One.

FAVOURITE TRANSPORT COMPANY:Beat The Street’s Jörg Philipp takes first prize as our host offers his approval.

LIGHTING DESIGNER OF THE YEAR: Presented by Jessica Allan of

sponsor Martin Professional, this was the second of three appearances

on stage for the voters’favourite LD, Willie Williams.

your selected lighting state. Continuing with the Avo theme we also opted for the Avo 48-way dimmer racks, patched and monitored by Hawthorn’s Ryan Grant.” Other LX crew included Rob Szabo, Jake Moore, Pete Why and Chris Smith, all full-time employees of Hawthorns. “We were delighted to be a part of such a prestigious industry event and would like to thank all associated for their help and assistance during the day,” said Oscroft.

SOUNDWorking in tandem with Creative Technology as part of an Avesco group service package was its audio sibling, Dimension, whose system designer and project manager, James Loveless, chose to use a distributed d&b system with the aim of providing clear, defined audio to every seat. For the main PA and delays, Q7s and Q-subs were used with Ci80 and E3 speakers providing coverage for the areas out of reach of the main PA. Q7s on sticks were used to cover the areas around the back of the room. The system was powered by d&b D12 amplifiers with R1 software set up wirelessly so that the system could be monitored remotely. The wireless theme carried on as Dimension made its Sennheiser G2 radio mic system accessible with the use of a NET 1 controller, enabling racks technician Luckasz Klapczynski to monitor racks and battery levels remotely. “This

was a real advantage due to the small amount of space backstage,” said FOH engineer Jon Reynolds. Aged 18, Dimension newcomer Reynolds coped well with the stress of the occasion. “At first, the TPi Awards didn’t mean much to me — it would just be another job where I would be system tech-ing but in a slightly more pressured environment,” he said. “But when I asked James if I could do FOH after a freelancer became ill, the pressure mounted dramatically. It’s been the most stressful show I’ve done to date, and it will probably be the most pressurising I’ll come across for a while considering this audience!” Reynolds said that he chose a DiGiCo D5 Live console to control FOH and monitors from one place because it could present a one-stop solution. “Although it may be overspecified for the job, it did all that I wanted it to do out of the box. The DiGiCo is a fast and intuitive desk to use, and the one I personally get the most pleasure out of using. I’m still young and big, powerful desks make me excited!” There was no need for outboard apart from the trusty 360 Systems Instant Replay hard disk playback device which cued the 39 walk-up music stings [chosen and specially edited by Mark Cunningham] without a hitch. The main lectern (provided by Hawthorn) used by the winners and guest presenters was fitted with a pair of Audio-Technica 935 microphones, a Dimension favourite and used



on 90% of its shows. Although these mics also featured on Chris Evans’ flight case lectern (provided by The Chain Group), they ended up being sacrificed in the mix in favour of a skin-toned, jawline Countryman E6i mic. “There are very few other lapel or jawline microphones that compare with them,” commented Reynolds. Over dinner, guests were serenaded by the Southend-based Dave Dulake Trio, who played

a swinging set of classic rock/pop tunes, using backline kindly provided by Music Bank. While the Kurzweil keyboard and bass stack were DI’d using BSS AR-133 boxes, the drums used a Shure Beta 91 and 52 on kick, a pair of SM57s for top and bottom snare, and a Beyer Opus 88 on each rack tom. A Shure SM81 was used for the hi-hats and AKG C414s were on overheads. Monitoring for the band was provided by

two d&b E3s. “Due to the small stage and low level requirement we felt that E3s would be ample,” said Reynolds. “They also doubled up as the foldback for Chris and the other presenters.” With the pressure now off, how does Reynolds now feel about the big night? “The atmosphere on-site was great with everybody trying to get the best result. The job was a learning curve for me, as it was my first awards



FAVOURITE LIGHTING RENTAL COMPANY: Sponsor Michael Althaus of MA Lighting presents the award to PRG’s Martin Locket & Mickey Curbishley.

THE EDITOR’S AWARD: Mark Cunningham & Rachel Esson present this year’s special trophy to the husband & wife production team, Steve & Duchess Iredale.

THE MY GENERATION AWARD:Industry newcomer, LD Luke Jackson receives his prize from TPi’s dynamic duo and special guests, the Pet Shop Boys.

FAVOURITE VIDEO SERVICES COMPANY: It’s XL Video for the seventh time (!), as Jo Beirne grabs the trophy, sponsored by our own video content team, Digital Insanity.

THE VIDEO VISIONARY AWARD:It’s that man again... Willie Williams steps up for the third time, proving that lighting and video do have something in common!

FAVOURITE CATERING COMPANY: Bizarrely, Eat Your Hearts Out didn’t attend to accept its first-time TPi award, but EYHO fan Jenny Marshall was happy to collect.

FAVOURITE SECURITY / CROWDMANAGEMENT COMPANY: MMF chief exec Jon Webster presents the award to Showsec’s Katie Farmer & Alan Wallace.

FAVOURITE TRAVEL COMPANY: Once again, the award goes to Music By Appointment, as accepted by Caroline McCann and Billy Bowman.

FAVOURITE FREIGHT COMPANY:A sponsor earlier in the evening, EFM was back to collect an award itself, with Mike Llewellyn and Lisa Ryan stepping up.

FAVOURITE VENUE: Sponsored byShowforce Middle East, whose MD Ian Spendlove co-presented with bassist Damon Minchella, the award went to the O2 Arena.

CHARITY PLUG: PSA general manager Andy Lenthall reminds the audience to dig deep for the PSA Welfare & Benevolent Fund.

JOHN PEEL UNSUNG HERO AWARD:Opportunity Knocks for Chelsea F.C. fan John Corr of Sound Moves — the PSA’s choice for 2010.

Sound hire

Audio sales

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www.orbitalsound.co.uk+44 20 7501 6868

“The Zaxcom digital radiomics have a very open,natural sound. There isno companding and as a result, you get a soundthat is much closer to that of an ordinary wired mic.”

Rick ClarkeSound Designer, Chicago The Musical

Theatre Sound quarter TPI March10 25/2/10 11:04 Page 1

show on a D5, but I’m glad I used it — I’ll definitely choose it for future awards shows. “From my perspective, I felt the event went very well. Of course, there are always things I would do a little differently next time but considering it was a new room to me, I was pleased with how we did.”

PARTY TIMEAfter the ceremony, the guests trickled downstairs to the Chablis Suite where pre-dinner drinks had been served. It was here that an after-show party continued into the wee small hours, with the Dave Dulake Trio playing a second live set and DJ Will Butters behind the decks. Universal Stars did a fine job of dressing the Chablis Suite’s cavernous basement space, using 24 panels of white silkline trevira full colour LED starcloths,

operating on 12 channels of DMX and with an overlay of the company’s white Voile-over System. Said Universal Stars MD Natasha Safavi: “By building a ground support framework at a 4.9m height, we created a large seating area that was later filled with furnishing (sofas, stools and coffee tables) by GLD Productions. “By programming our lighting desk, guests were presented with a glittering wall of the event’s cyan and white colours, which later turned into a cornucopia of pastel shades and twinkling radiance to create an intimate and well-illuminated space for relaxation.” No further lighting was required save for some LED floor lamps that the white voile and trevira allowed for uplighting effects. Del Roll at EST once again ensured that the bulk of the production arrived at the Novotel



A year after announcing hisretirement, Fred Heuves of Ampco Flashlight Group and Synco Europe fame, enjoyed a huge surprise as his 33-year career was celebrated with our Lifetime Contribution Award in the presence of his wife, Rolanda. The biggest shock came when the award itself was presented by his old touringcolleague, ex-PIL bass legend Jah Wobble (top left) —someone he hadn’t seen in around 20 years!

FRED HEUVESOUR 2010 ‘LIFETIMER’

FOOD PASS

BREAKFAST

LUNCH

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There is such a thing as a free lunch!

CUT THIS OUT AND USE IT IF YOU SEE US

Favourite Catering CompanyTHANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED FOR US

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in a timely manner. He kindly reserved a pair of 45’ artics to collect, transport and return all of the kit supplied by CT and Dimension in West Sussex, and Hawthorn in Leicestershire. There are countless other people who helped smooth the path to another memorable TPi Awards event, not least our now-resident show caller Alex Clayton who held everyone and everything together with skill and precision, in partnership with autocue operator James Hamling. The lovely Miss Sophie Robinson returned in her dual role as production assistant and ‘stage hostess with the mostest’, and Steve Kearney of SKC again managed all things relating to health and safety. Mondiale’s own events manager, Ben Chadwick was crucial to the entire TPi Awards

operation from the earliest planning meetings. Aided by myself and TPi’s Joel Perry and Ric Ashton, he dealt with all matters relating to venue liaison, event promotion and the dedicated website, table bookings, sponsorship, menu choice and signage. A big thank you goes out to everyone who brought this year’s TPi Awards to fruition, to everyone who sponsored and supported the event, and to the 1,000-strong audience for attending. We look forward to announcing details of the TPi Awards 2011 — our 10th annual event — very soon.TPi

Photography by Louise Stickland,Richard Skins & Mark Cunningham

www.tpiawards.com



THANKS TO OUR 2010 AWARD SPONSORS

TPi AWARDS 2010 Review

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