Leading UK rental company Entec Sound & Light supplied lighting and audio production for award-winning Taiwanese Mandropop superstar Jam Hsaio’s show at Wembley Arena.
Entec offered a flexible, cost-effective, quality technical package and illustrated how thorough planning can enable a high profile and ambitious one-off to be delivered to the best standards in a single day.
The show was the latest in a series of Asian megastars visiting the UK and Europe that have used Entec.
Sound
Entec’s sound department was Crew Chiefed by Ed Hammond, They drew on their vast experience of producing similar shows in Wembley combined with the spec from Jam Hsaio’s engineers David Wang (FOH) and Alvin Kuo (Monitors).
A d&b J-Series was supplied comprising 10 x J8 speakers with two J12 downfills per side for the main hangs plus side hangs of six V8s and two V12s, the latter being at the top of the array.
Eight J-SUBS a side were arranged in a distributed bass array, and for infills, four Q7s and two Q10s were positioned across the front of stage.
David Wang chose an Avid VENUE D-Show console, which he combined with four Teletronix LA2A outboard compressors and a selection of Waves plug-ins for the VENUE system.
A Yamaha PM5D was the monitor console. Eight d&b M4 wedges were positioned along the front of stage for Jam Hsaio himself, and an Aviom personal monitoring system was provided for his 12 piece band. Jam also used a Sennheiser G2 in-ear system.
The sound crew of five – Kev Smith (FOH), Chris Trimby (monitors), Adam Draper (patch) and technicians Sam Maningly and Danilo Zuccaro - plus Ed Hammond got in at 7 a.m. on the day, and were ready for a 1 p.m. rehearsal followed by the show that evening.
It was the first time that Entec has used its new d&b V-Series speakers in the venue, which worked extremely well in providing flexible and dynamic side hangs.
Lighting
Entec Lighting Crew Chief Pete “Pepper” Schofield worked with a team of five technicians to Lighting Designer Alan Wu’s plot. The framework of this was an architectural style trussing structure based on three chevrons over-stage, which were constructed from Entec’s new JTE Supertruss.
Hanging off the chevrons was a selection of angled trusses made from standard A-Type trussing product.
All the trusses were toned with i-Pix Satellite LED ‘bricks’, 40 in total, which looked very cool, and lighting fixtures were then scattered all over the structure.
The core moving lights were 30 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots and 24 Martin Professional MAC 700 Washes. Six of each type were on the floor and the rest in the air.
Added to these were 14 x 8-lite Moles, 12 ETC Source Four Profiles with 10 degree lenses on the chevrons and 12 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes. Two Cirro Lite hazers and two ZR 33 smoke machines aided the atmospherics.
Alan Wu’s console of choice was a grandMA full size, and Entec also supplied a grandMA light onstage at the dimmers, which was used as a technical desk.
As with audio, all went very smoothly for Lighting right from their 6 a.m. get-in onwards. The crew were Will Wright (consoles & networking), Damian Courage (dimmers), Tim Matthews (metalwork and trussing) and technicians Will Mashiter, and Phil Lee.
Pepper comments that although the quantity and positioning of lights was straightforward, the truss build was complex and needed good planning, part of which involved bringing in the legendary Pete ‘The Greek’ Kalopsidotis (PTG) as Production Rigger to specify and rig all the points for lighting, PA and a large upstage LED screen from XL Video together with a camera/IMAG and PPU system.
Promoter Benjamin Yip from Netherlands based Orient Touch says, “The professionalism and collaboration from everyone that enabled us to give the best show to our audience was amazing, and the Entec team played a major role. They are great to work with and their flexibility and passion for the job in hand fused perfectly with the dedication of our team to make this a truly special performance”.