Clear-Com on Festival Stage and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival Productions

Clear-Com is pleased to announce that the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival (NCShakes), and its affiliate, Festival Stage of Winston Salem, are utilizing a Clear-Com HME DX210 digital wireless intercom to coordinate productions. The HME DX210 gives the busy Festival Stage and NCShakes production staff members the freedom and flexibility they need to manage events without a hitch, raising their overall production value, the company says.

Clear-Com's HME DX210 helps the Festival Stage and NCShakes staff members collaborate more effectively on a variety of duties and responsibilities. The wide coverage range of the HME DX210 enables workers to move around the backstage freely and quickly without being tied to one position. Furthermore, because it is designed with Spectrum-Friendly technology, the reliable wireless system operates without any RF interference, ensuring crystal-clear audio and a secure connection for the entire production team, the company says. Added flexibility comes from the fact that HME DX210 system can easily integrate with any venue's existing Clear-Com partyline and other third party systems, offering a scalable solution for the varying demands of each classic and contemporary theatre performance.

"Previously, we had a set of small hand-held two-way radios. There were several times when people had to get on their cell phones to communicate because there were so many dropouts. That's unacceptable," says Tim Kottyan, technical director at Festival Stage of Winston-Salem and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. "We just used the Clear-Com HME DX210 along with the High Point Theatre's Encore partyline for our annual production of A Christmas Carol and it was amazing. It was simple to get them up and running right away. With multiple communication paths available from both our wired and wireless Clear-Com systems, our lighting designer and master electrician board ops could talk on separate channels via the Encore while stage management and the backstage crew had their own dedicated talk paths on the HME DX210. The combined solution has worked flawlessly to meet our production requirements."

Kottyan and his team installed the HME DX210 base station, beltpacks, headsets, and adaptors along with a power conditioner and rack-mounted lighting unit, in a portable road case for effortless travel with it between the Festival Stage of Winston-Salem and NCShakes venues. Once at a venue, the equipment is integrated with the house system. During productions, booth positions generally used the wired intercom while the run crew backstage conversed using the wireless beltpacks.

Festival Stage of Winston-Salem and the NCShakes team members have been impressed by the portability and durability of the HME DX210 system, the company says. In fact, NCShakes is planning to use it for the Shakespeare To Go troupe, which travels throughout North Carolina and other states, to put on Shakespeare productions for school students. Roughly 25,000 students in all of North Carolina's counties watch the plays each year, and Kottyan is confident that the rugged HME DX210 can handle the multiple productions without any problems. "It has almost bomb-proof casing," he notes, "and I love the sealed buttons on the beltpack. The crew members like the lightweight feel of the beltpacks and how it adapts to the headsets they may already own."

"The HME DX210 was developed with fast-paced productions such as Festival Stage of Winston-Salem and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival in mind," says Craig Frederickson, product manager of the HME DX Series, Clear-Com. "As a multi-channel wireless intercom solution with a full-feature set, it's also highly portable and easy to operate. It can also be quickly configured on the go for touring productions such as NCShakes. We're proud that such a prestigious group of organizations has chosen our intercoms for its demanding production needs."