102 EXPO
L-R: John Torger Skjelstad from TTA and ‘virtual’ Chris Ashworth; John Taylor and Steve Jones from d&b audiotechnik; Tuomo Tolonen from Shure UK
OPENSTAGE LONDON
The inaugural event under the OpenStage umbrella took place at the Royal Acade- my of Dramatic Arts in London on 12 May, with an enthusiastic audience of sound specialists from the theatre world gathering to see if the OpenStage promise would and could be kept: namely that this would be a forum for technical experts, inven- tors and developers, gurus and seers, to look into the future of theatre sound. This unique event was sponsored by six discrete companies: d&b audiotechnik, Shure UK, RTS Telex, Roland Systems Group, TTA and Figure 53, best known as the authors of the QLab show control system. It was staged by RADA in its 180- seat Jerwood Vanbrugh theatre. John Torger Skjelstad from Norway’s TTA opened the proceedings with an in- depth discussion about the art of performer tracking and localisation, using as a demonstration the StageTracker system that he authored and which is now in use in many high-profile cultural centres in northern Europe. In a later seminar, John Torger Skjelstad was joined by a ‘virtual’ Chris Ashworth, live from his office in Bal- timore via a Skype link. Ashworth is the developer of the industry-standard show control software QLab, which has recently integrated with the TTA StageTracker system to widespread industry excitement. Shure’s Tuomo Tolonen tackled the hot potato of spectrum allocation in the UK, bringing to bear all his experience from the BEIRG steering committee and his amazing passion for RF technology. In his second presentation, he revealed the Shure Axient Wireless in all its glory, a superlative example of a manufacturer
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responding to genre-threatening changes on a global scale. The Roland Systems Group aimed its presentations primarily at the non West End theatre community, although the latest use of its M-48 monitoring systems has been by the prominent musical production of “We Will Rock You”. Simon Kenning and Phil Palmer set out to reveal Roland’s design philosophy for theatre, which is based on systems integration. OpenStage was lucky to have a visit from Bosch Senior Scientist Jeff Berryman, a heavy hitter from the USA who, speaking under the banner of RTS Telex, delivered a fascinating master class on universal media networking standards. Currently the subject of intense joint development, these long-awaited standards allowing audio and video equipment from diverse manufacturers to achieve new levels of interop- erability with greater ease are intended to revolutionise systems design. For most of the audience, the highlight of the day was a riveting presentation by d&b audiotechnik’s tech gurus, John Taylor and Steve Jones, who, with great humour and a variety of demonstration devices, analysed the anatomy of both line array and point source systems to discover their respective pros and cons. Gratitude was extended to Chris Mock, Head of Sound at RADA, for hosting the event, hopefully the first of many to unite different specialist manufacturers in a no-agenda showcase for the theatre world. OpenStage hopes to be back at RADA soon. Interested parties should get in touch.
ian.fishlock@
me.com
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