SAN DIEGO — Paul Tisa of Frontrunner Productions hired Sacramento Production Services (SPS) for the past two years running to provide a system for the 2011 California Democratic Convention along with a number of other political events in past years; including appearances by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. SPS’ Keith Wackford cited “the quality and smoothness of our sound systems” — which includes Lab.gruppen gear — as a key reason why.
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Clients hiring sound reinforcement for any event, whether it’s a concert, a corporate, or a private function, always want to ensure the audio system provided sounds great and is absolutely rock solid reliable. For political events, however, somehow it just seems like the stakes are higher.
Paul Tisa of Frontrunner Productions — which Tisa founded four years ago as an offshoot of production supplier Metro Media Productions specifically to service the needs of their political clients — tends to agree. “If you fail, you don’t just fail in front of 1,000, 5,000, or 30,000 people, you fail for the cameras — cameras that may be broadcasting to a worldwide audience, depending on who the speaker is at the time.”
That’s precisely why Tisa hired Sacramento Production Services for the past two years running to provide a system for the California Democratic Convention, as well as for a number of other high profile political events in past years; including appearances by President Barrack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
“One of the main reasons we get hired for these political gigs, and for a lot of corporate applications, is the quality and smoothness of our sound systems,” says Keith Wackford of Sacramento Production Services, audio production manager for the convention. “That’s in no small part down to our decision to use Lab.gruppen with our Martin Audio W8LC system; they make a great sounding speaker sound even better, and when you’re talking about a series of speeches that go on for two to six hours, the audience doesn’t tune out.”
“We’ve tested just about every amp out there,” Wackford adds. “We originally purchased PLM 10000Qs and 14000s, but when the Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Qs came out, that gave us the ability to go down to just one type of amp — no matter where it’s being used the Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q is now going to be the amplifier.”
Bottom line, clients who are applying for a job as “leader of the free world” can probably find someone else to provide audio if you don’t work out. “It’s their decision to use us,” Tisa says, “so we work our hardest to make sure that decision was the right one, and the way we do that is to minimize the risk of failure on an event site. Making the right choices about what people and technology are employed is the name of the game. That’s why we use Keith and his inventory.”
For an event like the California Democratic Convention, the audience might not be a global one, but that doesn’t mean the client is likely to be any more tolerant of technical problems, or that the event will be any less demanding in terms of technical requirements.
Held at the Sacramento Convention Center over the weekend of April 29-May 1, 2011, last year’s convention included multiple speeches as well as a performance by L.A. based world fusion band Ozomatli. The system had to be reconfigured and additional loudspeakers added for the concert, including “a lot more subs,” says Wackford.
“One of the great things about the Lab.gruppen’s was being able to preprogram a preset for the concert and a preset for the speeches at our warehouse before taking the system on site for the event. That’s definitely a benefit of the Lake processing and the Dante. And that’s where the presets really came in, in being able to hit recall at the end of the show on Saturday night and be set up for speeches again.”
Using the Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q exclusively also allows Wackford to pack 16 channels of amplification into each 12-space rack. “Never mind we’ve lost somewhere around 115 pounds per rack, which is tremendous when you start talking about trucking,” he adds. For the speech portion of the event, three monitor mixes, the mains, subs and three lines of front fill were all run off two racks of amps, holding 4 Lab PLM 20000Qs each.
Being able to wander the roughly 3000 to 4000 capacity room while setting the mix was another benefit of the Lab’s Lake Processing, Wackford says. “The FOH position was six feet in the air at the back of house, and you don’t want to be pointing PA up there at a convention center. Having the ability to walk around with a tablet and tune and EQ the room was huge. And we didn’t need a return snake.
“One of the things about these political gigs is that you generally have very few inputs,” Wackford continues. “For the speech portion of the event, I think we had nine inputs, but we had something like twenty-seven returns back to the stage. Since making the switch to the PLM 20000Qs and adding a Dante card to our Yamaha console it’s allowed us to send all of the main, front fill, monitor and sub sends right from the desk, down Cat 6, to the amp rack.”
Above and beyond flexibility, the Lab’s compact physical footprint and the time they’ve saved Wackford on this gig, the most important factor is the impact Lab.gruppen amplifiers have on how the system sounds. “Our clients (both Frontrunner and the convention organizers) are actually so happy with us they’ve asked us to put a rig in Vegas for three months next year.”
“Amps make a big difference when it comes down to it.” Tisa says. “I really love the Martin system, and one of the things I’ve noticed in using it over and again is that there was a richer tone coming from it with those amps. There’s a noticeable difference. I’m attributing that to the amplifiers, and in my discussions with Keith, he attributes that to the amps as well. They’re great sounding cabinets anyway, but the Lab amps really helped out.”
Ultimately, Tisa says, that means Lab.gruppen will likely be appearing on the campaign trail in 2012. “We’ve had his rig on multiple events and as we gear up for the next election cycle and business comes our way, we’ll be hiring Keith for that.”
