40 l July 2014
www.psneurope.com
live UNITED KINGDOM
Doing it my way
Andy Dockerty started the Adlib hire business 30 years ago. Solid principles means the company is thriving today, discovers Dave Robinson
THIS YEAR marks 30 years of Andy Dockerty’s Adlib. Based in Speke on the outskirts of Liverpool, the operation has grown from the archetypal ‘one-man-and-a-van’ PA hire company to a major force in sound, lighting, touring and installation. Adlib is an authorised distributor for L-Acoustics and Coda ViRAY, and earlier this year officially launched its Adlib Speakers business (20 years after the company started building them…). Recent work for Adlib has included tours with Ellie Goulding, Del Amitri, Lana Del Rey, Placebo, and Nine Inch Nails. Adlib has toured with CBeebies at one end of the spectrum, and Nine Inch Nails at the other. Comedy features too, in the shape of live shows for Mrs Brown’s Boys and Jack Whitehall’s Gets Around Arena tour.
The man behind Adlib is Andy Dockerty, but with typical humility he says the company is “not just about owning the kit, but really it’s the infrastructure and the people and the personalities that surround you. They make Adlib. I just happen to be the person who popped them together.” PSNEurope asked him to reflect on various aspects of his 30 years at the helm…
On getting started… When I was at school, my mates played in a band and I liked everything about it, but I was musically talentless. So I just helped out, shifting bits and pieces around for them. I finished my lower sixth – and failed miserably because I’d been working with the band in the evenings.
I applied for two jobs; one was as an administrative assistant at
the council, the other was as an electrician. I was lucky enough to get both of them, but I chose electrician because I knew I was working with the bands, and going into bizarre places with dodgy mains... I just thought it would help me out. I now had a full-time job, and was working in the evenings and weekends. Once I started earning the ‘royal’ 28 quid a week or so, I started buying little bits of gear here and there…
It started from that. I had a little PA system, and I just formalised it into a business from ’84. I don’t mix so much anymore, but when I do [for Scottish pop/blues outfit Texas], I get really excited about it. It’s still the reason why we wind up going into this industry.
On the name ‘Adlib’... When I started the business, I noticed that most companies were usually the owner’s initials, or some form of initials at least. I wanted something different, but I didn’t have a clue what. My accountant at the time said, “We’re going to have to register with something just to get you started.” I said, “I don’t know, I’ll be at a gig and someone will ad lib and we’ll use that, whatever.” He said, “Adlib – there you go!”
On growing Adlib as a ‘full service company’, and working at a local level...
I think there’s a journey to go still before you will be able to put your hand on your heart and say that we’re ready for that complete thing. PA and lighting, we can do what you want, when you want. Video, I want to grow it with a little more infrastructure so that there is confidence across the whole company; not just within a department.
Adlib Speakers have been building cabinets for over 20 years
Video is bringing the local corporate market back, because we haven’t been doing anything local really for a long, long time; that’s something I’m not very pleased about because that’s grass roots stuff, and that’s what we were originally all about. We’ve still got a few bits and pieces going on locally. For three or four years I moaned about not doing it, not getting close enough to the locality, that we needed to keep our hands in. But everytime we tried to do it, for what people are doing it for these days – man-and-a-van gigs – we can’t get close on price.
But six months ago I tied up with a small local company. We kind of nurture them now. It keeps us with a finger on the pulse of what’s actually going on. And they grow by working
with us. We’ll throw work at them, they’ll throw work at us. We’ve backed them on a couple of installations, that they couldn’t have done, but we couldn’t have afforded to quote for, and that has made it work for both of us. I’d rather have that than losing what’s going on at a local level.
On the Adlib Speakers division… We can’t build a cheap box but where we can be cost-effective is this: all you need with ours is a decent amplifier; you don’t need processing. The passive crossovers are well put together, and the boxes themselves are designed by Dave Fletcher to be flat and acoustically correct, without processing. We feel we can provide really good value for money solution by using them in the right places.
Andy Dockerty and the famous Liver Building, Liverpool
On investing in gear... “We’re never afraid to invest – we have committed to another £1 million of investment since 1 April this year. Everything’s monitored: we will always spend in relation to which each department is doing, but there is consistent investment in the audio and the lighting departments. As long as that demand is there, we will continue to do it. Audio-wise, there are two SD10s downstairs, with more arriving next week, and another three Avid Profiles on their way… For example, we are buying in seven consoles in the next month and we are moving on three.
I just see this company as a huge bucket of potential; it’s not finished anywhere, really.
On the location...
It’s got to be close to 50,000 square feet we have here, and I already have my plans drawn up for [refurbishing] half of the place. (Extensive building work was going on when PSNEurope visited, as Adlib had just taken over the building next door.) The actual location is fantastic because we’re two sets of traffic lights away from being on the motorway over to Manchester. Thirty minutes maximum from Liverpool city centre. Plus the airport is within Staggering distance as well.
On seizing the advantage… If the opportunity comes along, you think, can we take it, or can we afford not to take it? And that’s where you make your decisions.
As an example of that, going back, we’d not long bought the L-Acoustics V-DOSC system, and we’d looked after Bob Dylan for a couple of years. At the time, that was one of our biggest contracts, and we knew the year they were coming back after that they were going to want K1. We were thinking. ‘If we don’t buy that K1 now, we’re going to lose [Dylan].’ The decision to buy the K1 wasn’t based upon getting any more business; it was based upon not losing what we had, with the idea that we probably would get more business.
As it transpires, owning K1 was one of the shrewdest purchases we have made.
On the in-house engineers… We have quality specialists like Tony Szabo, Marc Peers and Ian Nelson but the majority are
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