Entec Answers Mayday Call

West London UK-based rental company, 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. To meet all the deadlines for getting four trucks of equipment into Wembley and having the stage handed over to the band for a 2pm rehearsal, with a show that evening required a serious amount of pre-planning by all departments.

Soon comments, "Entec took all those extra little steps to ensure everything ran glitch-free on site." He added, "We rarely get service like this these days."

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 Philips 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 four- and eight-lite Moles and multiple of 3K strobes.

Wu 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 front-of-house and monitors.

The main flown PA hangs comprised twelve 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 twelve 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 communication 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 definition cameras were deployed, one at front-of-house (with long lens), with two in the pit and a remote cam onstage.

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

Soon comments, "It was vital that there were no hitches, hold-ups or problems with the kit, and it was all 100% ... we didn't even lose a single lighting fixture ... and this really impressed me! It shows what good care Entec takes of its equipment."

"Apart from that, the company and everyone working on the show has a brilliant attitude and are great communicators. I would be more than happy to work with them again."