www.psneurope.com
April 2013 l 43 GERMANY/UK/BELGIUM live The pro-audio
equipment giant leaps into Q2 with bigger facilities in Germany, a major investment in gear, and heartening news regarding last year’s costly warehouse fire in Belgium, reports Marc Maes
IT’S BEEN a productive first quarter for self-styled ‘material banker’ AED. Last month, AED Rent Germany opened a facility in Bannberscheid near Koblenz, quadrupling its storage capacity, as AED Rent UK launched its own distribution department. The parent AED Group has ramped up for the summer season with several notable investments in cutting- edge PA kit, and reports that its Belgian facilities, gutted by an inferno last November, are being rebuilt. After more than a year of
building, AED Rent Germany has moved out of its old Montabaur location. A footprint of 6,700sqm increases storage space fourfold for the GmbH arm, which now offers audio, lighting and video equipment for professionals. “With increasing demand, moving to a new building was crucial,” says Alexander Kexel, managing director of AED Rent/Display GmbH. “Before the expansion, we had to order much extra gear from the Belgium headquarters – the extra room will allow us shorter delivery times.”
The Bannberscheid building
was based on an identical concept to the one in Belgium: a double floor warehouse with
two equipment elevators, five loading docks and a huge parking lot. “Finally we have the working space to lift AED Group’s activities, as a total solution provider, beyond the traditional dry-hire pattern,” adds Kexel. “In the same move, we added the AED Store, and, as from April, the new AED Second Hand Trader Platform, where rental companies can sell their second-hand kit following the ‘Bring it-Price it-Sell it’ principle, allowing them to optimise their rental inventory, warehouse capacity and cash rental flow.” As from last month, AED
Distribution UK is now operational. Based at the existing premises in High Wycombe, and backed by professional logistics and order processing within the AED Group, AED Distribution will be offering a wide range of entertainment technology brands for professional rigging, trussing and lighting needs. “This is a very exciting opportunity to join AED Distribution, and to offer a total sales solution that reflects what customers need in today’s ever- changing market,” says David March, formerly with Philips Vari-Lite, newly appointed to run the venture.
AED Rent in Belgium has
once again increased its inventory, this time purchasing Soundcraft Si Performer 2 mixers and desks from Yamaha’s new compact range. “We’ve invested in Yamaha CL3 and CL5 digital consoles,” explains Piet Verstraete, sound engineer and account manager with AED Rent. “This is just a start: the desks have been continuously on the road since we took delivery. And just like the PM5D, [they’re] very reliable.” With the addition of a
number of Sennheiser Digital 9000 series systems, AED Rent is also eyeing major theatre productions – the sets were being built in racks at press time to be ready by the end of April. “The key issue here is the absolute low signal/noise ratio, essential when using many channels in a theatre, we will invest in extra Sennheiser 9000 systems as soon as demands rise.” adds Verstraete. As for loudspeaker cabinets,
AED Rent took delivery of 150 L-Acoustics 5XT coaxial speakers for use as front-fill, monitors or trussing applications. “In addition we’ve augmented our KARA speaker inventory with 72 units adding up to 375 units in total plus 48 12XT
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6,700sqm SOUNDBITES
Floorspace at new AED German operation
AED has spring in step
Alex Kexel of AED GmbH outside the new facility
monitor speakers from which we now have 160 cabinets all told, for use throughout our AED companies,” Verstraete concludes. Meanwhile, the rebuilding
work in Willebroek, where both the AED New Stock warehouse and the AED Cases factory were hit by a firestorm on 4 November, is progressing rapidly – the likelihood is that both will be operational by the summer. “Two days after the fire broke loose we transferred our new stock materials in our warehouses abroad. As for the Cases division, where we lost some 500 new flightcases, we found a solution in the combination of a wood supply company and the employment section of the Louvain prison,” reveals Glenn Roggeman, CEO of AED Group. “The prison management is
renting us a 1,000sqm factory for our new machinery where 20 inmates assemble the flightcases. Four weeks after the fire, we managed to produce 300 new flightcases for our equipment – at press time some 1,500 cases have been assembled,” he explains, underlining that in the aftermath of the fire disaster, none of AED’s workers had to be discharged or made temporily unemployed. n
www.aedrent.de
Multi award-winning Scottish singer/songwriter Amy Macdonald spent February and March on a European tour to promote her latest album Life In A Beautiful Light. FOH engineer Fabrizio Piazzini enjoyed using a DiGiCoSD8 to mix each show: “The automation is so in-depth and so easily editable that I can edit it during the show. Even at a really busy gig, I can still do really geeky things and make sure they work. It’s very simple to do.”
www.digico.biz
Mercury prize-winning band The xx has bought two DPAd:facto II vocal microphones after being introduced to them by their live sound engineer Rik Dowding. The band has already toured the US with the new mics and has used them for a gig at Abbey Road Studios where they were recorded for a live session on Absolute Radio.
www.dpamicrophones.com
Pro3&Co has been named as the new distributor for Electro-Voice and Dynacord in Spain. Barcelona-based Pro3’s project list includes the Barcelona International Convention Centre, Toledo cathedral, Mallorca’s Teatre Principal de Palma and FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou.
www.boschcommunications.com www.pro3.es
Soundking Group Europe has reinstated UK distribution of its Studiomaster and Carlsbro brands from its Luton HQ. Prior to this the ranges were handled by John Hornby Skewes & Co.
www.soundking.com
FOH engineer Barry Bartlett used a TurbosoundFlashline to deliver audio for the Young Voices Arena Tour earlier this year. The annual charity tour features choirs ranging from 5,000-8,000 children. Bartlett was using the Flashline system supplied by long time Turbo partners Britannia Row Productions for the first time. “I was bowled over!” he said.
www.turbosound.com
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