32 l November 2013
www.psneurope.com
livereport UNITED KINGDOM Generating profit Phil Wardfinds sparks of inspiration at UK rental powerhouse Pearce Hire
SHAUN PEARCE and Richard Oxley busy themselves in the hangar-like warehouse of Pearce Hire, preparing a sophisticated course of sound reinforcement for an event mostly removed from musical performance: the Birmingham Great Run, a classic official half-marathon with added charity fundraising that draws huge crowds every year. Thanks to the audio, everyone’s experience of the occasion is greatly enhanced – not least because of the ‘bands on the run’ that entertain along the way – but this is business as usual for the now 27-year-old rental company based in Peterborough and its bedrock of loyal clients. By trade Shaun Pearce is an electrician, and you wouldn’t get very far without electricity in this business. But more than that, you can go a lot further with a good grounding, if you will, in excellent provision of it, wherever that may take you. He apprenticed at Redring, a local water heating and shower specialist, and no doubt it’s this expertise in the combination of electricity and water that has made him one of the go-to figures for temporary generator power at British outdoor events today.
UNITED KINGDOM VUE banks on UK launch Loudspeaker manufacturer brings beryllium to Britain. Dave Robinsonreports
US-BASED LOUDSPEAKER manufacturer VUE Auditechnik marked its official UK launch last month with a series of demos at The Music Bank facility in London. The demos were a joint effort with the company’s newly-appointed UK distributor Fuzion Ltd. Featured products included a full sampling of the VUE a-Class, and i-Class ranges, as well as the al-4 subcompact line array and h-Class systems
– the latter two incorporating the company’s beryllium compression driver technology. Customers from across the UK came along to the two-day event, this being the first opportunity to hear VUE’s offerings since the company revealed itself at Prolight + Sound last year. VUE was established by EAW co-founder and former CEO, Ken Berger and former CEO of Meyer Sound Germany, Jim Sides.
Design chief is Michael Adams, who has devised systems for JBL, QSC and Yamaha. According to VUE’s EMEA
business development manager Doug Green, the occasion was a huge success.
“This is such an important
market for VUE and I couldn’t be more pleased with how enthusiastically our products were received this week,” commented Green. “I’m very excited to continue this
momentum with our partners at Fuzion as we introduce a new level of technical innovation and performance to customers throughout the UK and Ireland.”
During its Music Bank tenure, VUE took the opportunity to hold its first formal European distribution strategy meeting ahead of 2014.
www.vueaudio.com
(L-R back): Matt Cook (Fuzion); Holger De Buhr (Media Logic Germany); Doug Green; Gary Ashton (Fuzion); Mikael Collin (AVP Sales Sweden); Ed Draycott (Fuzion). Seated: Tony Torlini (Fuzion) and Edgar Lien (Avon Lyd Norway)
the tyre fitters and bathroom installers populating what used to be open fenland on the outskirts of town. Crucially Pearce bought his
premises rather then renting, so when recession hit, although he had to shed staff and carry on more or less alone, there was some equity to cushion the leanness until things improved. And so they did: purchase of a Soundcraft 400B desk, Martin Audio Philishaves and JBL horns consolidated regular electrical and lighting work – including a cast-iron, Council-backed commitment to the Cambridge Folk Festival – and frequent rave-scene half- marathons of a different kind into a thriving business. “The level of investment
Project manager and Pearce Hire’s ‘Mr Audio’ Richard Oxley (left) and Shaun Pearce, prepping the delays for the Birmingham Great Run
His enthusiasm dates back to
Peterborough schooldays, triggered by a simple remark made by his Mum after she’d seen – and heard – a David Essex concert: “Wow,” she said, “you should have seen the size of the speakers…” It was enough to exert young Shaun into the rather more accessible world of disco, and the building, renting and operation of a mobile rig around the local scene.
“I built the first DJ console
myself,” he says, “so this company is effectively founded on an investment of £15.” Pearce Electrical followed, while a collection of sound equipment and lighting built up enough to service the pub scene in live music for miles around. With textbook enterprise, the operation outgrew the family enclave and Pearce Hire, as it was now called, moved into a bustling unit among
nowadays required in audio is a challenge,” Pearce reflects. “If you bought an analogue monitor board at one time, it would last you for the next 10 years. The pace of technology now means you’ve got to get your money back quickly, and that’s after a big outlay. It’s creating two very different tiers: the top-end companies like Capital Sound, Brit Row and SSE; and the lower end of the scale doing local stuff. There’s a void in the middle that’s becoming very hard to breach.” There’s a drive at the heart of the company that Pearce finds lacking in a new generation of potential intakes, although apprenticeship figures highly on his agenda. “I’ve forged links with the local Technical College,” he reports, “and we’ve got some internships underway. It’s important that they see every
aspect of the operation, and not just make the tea all day, so we keep a careful log of how they complete each task.” For Birmingham, project
manager and Pearce Hire’s ‘Mr Audio’ Richard Oxley is testing 650m of cable connecting time- aligned KARA and ARCS boxes – one stack every 50m – and Yamaha M7CL control. “I’ve worked with Yamaha digital mixers from day one,” he says, “quite literally: I did the product launches for the ProMix01, 01V, PM1D and DM2000! They’re absolutely reliable, I know them inside out – and everybody else does as well. The M7CL is one most bands’ riders at the moment; it’s very rare that we get asked for much else.” As well as the flagship L-Acoustics kit and Yamaha desks, the inventory boasts
Lab.gruppen amps, Dolby Lake and Sennheiser EM300 radio systems among much else, and if the British Birdwatching Fair is “not on the rock and roll A-list,” as Pearce puts it, it still requires 300 power sources, huge lit marquees, a distributed PA system throughout, delayed L-Acoustics speakers for lectures and a digital console – where 16 years ago it took three microphones and a small mixer. The business has regular bookings up to 2018, and now occupies 14,000sqft in an even bigger ‘enterprise fen’: not bad for a self-confessed ‘house sparky’. If such a combination of humility and commitment could be harnessed to a boiler, it would keep this industry warm for decades.
www.pearcehire.co.uk
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