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tpi awards 06MARK CUNNINGHAM REPORTS ON THE BUILD-UP AND EXECUTION OF THIS YEAR'SMEMORABLE INDUSTRY PRIZEGIVING EVENT...

Held once again at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith, west London, whichstruggled to contend with the extra demand for tickets, the fifth edition of theMondiale Events-organised TPi Awards was production managed by Steve Allen, theman who did the same job for Live 8 in London, and featured the invaluable input ofPSL Music (video), MLsoundadvice and Meyer Sound (audio), HSL Group (lighting),A.C. Lighting (additional lighting equipment), Martin Professional UK (gobos), StarEvents Group (rigging & truss), Kroos (crewing), Blackout (draping), Ice Lighting (barLED lighting) and, last but certainly not least, Edwin Shirley Trucking (transport). It's anevent that just keeps growing — this year's attendance broke all previous records,and the production again went several steps further.

With many of the guests walking straight into a protracted drinks reception onthe tails of the preceding PSA Conference, dinner for 900+ got underway in theChampagne Suite at around 8.30pm, during which the audience were entertained byan hour-long compilation of live video clips, charting the development of concertproduction over the last four decades. Keeping with tradition, I introduced theAwards ceremony — much later than planned — and brought on our hostpresenter for the evening, the delightful Jayne Middlemiss of TV fame, whose charmand Geordie humour permeated the event.

Celebrating the achievements of individuals and companies from the productionworld, the winners' list was largely a mirror of one of the busiest and most variedyears ever known by the live industry, dominated by those who were involved insome of the top selling tours of 2005 — see the full list at the end of this feature.However, as usual, there were a few surprises. Glastonbury PM Dick Tee, a man

whose work is usuallyconfined to British shores,pipped the globetrottingJake Berry of U2 andStones fame to the postfor the ProductionManager award, whileEntec Sound & Lightunexpectedly stole amarch on the likes of BritRow which, after celebrating its 30th anniversary year and handling the sound for Live8 in London, was tipped to take home a prize.

Absent winners were thin on the ground — Helen Campbell and Jez Craddick,currently on tour with the Rolling Stones, were congratulated on their respectiveTour/Production Assistant and Rigger awards via video clips, featuring their crewcolleagues.

Load-in began early on the freezing Sunday morning with the arrival of EdwinShirley Trucking's vehicles, and in a virtual repeat of the previous year'scircumstances, the crew found several hungover Welsh crew from the weekend'sSofa exhibition blocking up the load-in bay — our own team were forced to movetheir trucks in order to make way for our onslaught. It was only later that we saw thefunny side of this false start! All our production suppliers were aided and abetted by a30-strong team of local crew and carpenters from Kroos, while the production

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management team of Steve Allen and his co-ordinatorJulie Chennells (both Live 8 veterans) expertlysmoothed a path not made easy by several petty,logistical obstacles presented by the hotel management.

For many, and certainly for yours truly, thehighlight of the evening came early with thepresentation to Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith ofthe Live Production of the Year award for Live 8 inHyde Park. Frustratingly, until just a week or so beforethe Awards, it looked unlikely that Geldof wouldattend. When he was invited to personally accept theBest Live Event of All-Time award for Live Aid at ourinaugural event in 2002, he was only able to accept on

video, and it was a tremendous disappointment. Thistime, when it appeared that his diary was again too full,it was emphasised that a vast number of crew andsuppliers who made Live 8 happen would be inattendance, and that this would be a once-onlyopportunity to personally thank everyone for their vitalsupport last July. When the penny finally dropped, hewas more than happy to postpone other plans infavour of joining us for the evening with HarveyGoldsmith to accept the first award of the night.

Not only did Geldof deliver one of his mostcaptivating speeches ever, explaining in passionate,graphic detail what the production industry had actually

helped to achieve to aid poverty, health and debt relief,but he also entered into an hysterical banter withDiGiCo's Bob Doyle who, half a lifetime ago, workedon the Boomtown Rats' crew. "Doyle couldn't tell jokesin 1977, and he still can't!" teased Geldof. It was ahighlight that everyone present will not forget easily.And as Goldsmith solemnly reminded us, "Withoutyou, forget the acts, Live 8 wouldn’t have happened."

THE PRODUCTIONAlthough initial discussions regarding the generalproduction and organisation of the event kicked off inSeptember with the appointment of Steve Allen as

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Opposite: Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith acknowledged the vital role played by the production industry in realising Live 8’s goals;TPi’s Mark Cunningham and host presenter Jayne Middlemiss during the introduction.Above: Impressive widescreen video projections dominated the stage throughout the ceremony.

“Without you, forget theartists, Live 8 wouldn’t

have happened...”HARVEY GOLDSMITH C.B.E.

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production manager, the main detail of the design wasnot finalised until December, when representativesfrom the key suppliers congregated at the Novotel forthe first site visit. Mike Oates of HSL, MLsoundadvice'sGareth Jones and Star Events' Mark Armstrong cameon board early and showed immense enthusiasm to"get this one right".

Anticipating, quite rightly, that Live 8 would walkaway with the Live Production of the Year award (itattracted a massive 90% of the votes), I decided earlyon that we would theme part of the visual presentationaround it, and brought in Richard Shipman, the videographics director at Live 8's Hyde Park show, to workwith us.

Shipman worked alongside Richard Bagshaw andKate Perring of graphics team Digital Insanity, allagreeing to distance themselves from the standardPowerpoint show with glitzy, but safe, 3D animation,metres of LED and 'whistles and bells' FX. At this point,

bear in mind that although I had given Shipman a loosebrief concerning the content and basic 'shape' ofpreferred usage, I was not able to view anything theyhad created for the ceremony until the Sunday night —I completely trusted their creativity and left it in theirhands. However, once I caught a glimpse, even thiscynic's wildest expectations were surpassed.

Said Kate Perring: "We wanted lots of detail, fromone end of the room to the other, using the full heightand width of the back wall, with an analogue feel towhat is traditionally a digital kind of show withautomated cues and teleprompts. We were definitelyafter something that would hold people's attention rightthrough to the last award, saving some visual surprisestowards the end of the ceremony. Hopefully thatraised a smile here and there, a nod of recognition.

"We wanted to come up with something a bitcloser to the lives of the recipients of the awards, andalso focus on the magazine and use it as the main

source of material used — something that was real,with a proper rock'n'roll feel, with film and photos ofactual things in real time. To this end we had no effectson any of the video and meticulously maintained aspectratios throughout."

The video playback system provided nineindividual outputs and 16 inputs with a high percentageof the show running six unique outputs. The kitfeatured four Hippotizer media servers (2 x Stage, 2 xExpress) running native 1024 x 768 mpg2, an Arkaossystem running 1024 x 768, four DoReMi hard driveplayers, a Pioneer DVJ, one Edirol V-440HD visionmixer and two Folsom vision mixers.

It was through my early discussions with Shipmanthat I was encouraged to approach Pod Bluman andNeil Smith of PSL Music for video support, and theresponse was overwhelmingly positive, the resultshighly impressive. "It was a standard show for us,"explained Bluman, "except for the added pressure of

Top row: Dick Tee collects the PM award from Alan Durrant of Rock-It Cargo; Tina Waters of The Tour Company; Amptown Cases’ John O’Neillprepares for an announcement; FOH Sound Engineer winner, Dave Kay with Dave Cooper of Midas. Row 2: Monitor man John ‘JJ’ James; MartinPro’s David Caulfield with the lovely Jayne; Dick Carruthers; Roy Bennett. Row 3: Klark Teknik’s David Wiggins; a very happy Dick Hayes of Entec;Dave Keighley of PRG Europe; Jeff Burke of victors Edwin Shirley Staging. Row 4: LiteStructures’ Nidge Dobson, Lou Hall and Mark Jackson; CT’sDave Crump; David Coumbe and Carl Reed of Fly By Nite; Beat The Street’s Jörg Philipp.

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having to perform in front of our entire industry!"The playback elements fed into PSL's five stacks of

projectors, each containing a Barco R12 and DigitalProjection 10GV. As well as the projection, PSLprovided eight plasma screens to relay the actionaround the function room, and a seamless plasma wallbehind the presenters on stage, made up of the newInfinite PK4201M super-thin 42" digital display panels.PSL also provided three cameras to deliver live actionmainly to the plasma wall and relay screens.

Blackout, which like the Star Events Group, EdwinShirley Trucking and Kroos, has supported the TPiAwards since its inception, created the 42m x 6mwhite backdrop for the main stage, used as one longprojection surface for the video projections.

The evening's video content started low key withthe potted history of live rock'n'roll, projected at 50%on to plain white cloth. "We wanted to build anelement of surprise for a room of people who've seenit all, and also take into account that people would beeating and chatting rather than looking at the wall,"explained Perring. "From here we introduced themagazine layout look with wall to wall covers from thepast year, introducing elements slowly into the collage,with the live camera images appearing first, then thelayout for the awards announcements.

"To bring this all together and also include neatlythe live camera work of the event, we decided to use

the magazine layout itself as a framework. Taking atwo-page spread as a template, we would be able todrop the live feeds into the picture place holders of thearticles, and also link the content of the article to the

award category or winner. From this, we designed abase five-stage layout from floor to ceiling, and wall towall. We planned to be able to split six unique outputsto any one of these five stages with the plasma wallthat would go behind the presenters on the stage as aseparate destination to be fed by the live camera team.

"We then designed several different 'looks' for theprogression of the evening as the award types changed— for instance, we changed from a base magazinelayout to a festival stage layout for the Favourite StagingCompany award, and a crowd shot layout forFavourite Security. We wanted to focus on themagazine itself and so only used material from TPi'sarchives."

For the category/nominations announcements, thegraphics team took influence from the notes that getscribbled in event production meetings — the set lists,lighting plots, etc, and came up with the idea ofhandwritten notes on a flight case. I had to laugh whenRichard Shipman confessed that, for reasons of scale,the actual flight case used was in fact an old Live!award. There's irony for you, and a touch of genius atthat!

"We were then able to include the award sponsorlogo as a sticker on the flight case," he said. "We usedindividually triggered clips for damage limitation, if anaward was announced in the wrong order we couldgo with it, and we'd be able to trigger clips at thespeed of each individual speaker. From here we movedinto states, mixing award announcements with articlesand photos with some relevance either to thenominees or the category or the sponsor, for instance,the lighting rental company's award had a backgroundof an outdoor stage in broad daylight!"

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Above: EFM’s Mike Llewellyn picked up the Freight Company award; crowd safety consultant Jon Corbishley; Roy Wise, Mark Harding and StuartDawson of Showsec were again victorious; DiGiCo’s Bob Doyle. Below: Stage manager legend Steve Jones was presented with The Editor’s Award.

Above: XL Video UK’s Lee Spencer and Des Fallon presented the Favourite Catering Company award to... Tony Laurenson of Eat To The Beat;jovial Venue award winners Pernilla Holl and Josh Rosen from Carling Brixton Academy; Andy Lenthall and co-Unsung Hero, Eric Porter.Below: Lifetimer Dick Bell (right) with Iron Maiden manager and Sanctuary Group founder, Rod Smallwood.

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Richard Bagshaw added: "For a couple of key awards, live production andlifetime achievement, we created a 'living magazine' feel with the picture holderscoming to life and streaming video from Live 8 and the last Iron Maiden tour, as wellas still articles relevant to the events. We topped off the evening with a waterfall ofshow passes from various sources — a triple A fanfareto play see the audience off to the bar!"

SOUND & LIGHTPleased with the sound quality and coverage of lastyear's Awards, we re-approached Gareth Jones toprovide audio services, although this time he waswaving a different flag. The 2005 Awards was notable asthe last-ever gig for his firm, Villa Audio, and much hashappened since. Now firmly behind MLsoundadvice,the corporate/special events wing of ML Executives,Jones' brief was again to provide a constant coverage,highly coherant loudspeaker system, primarily forspeech reinforcement, to cover the entire ChampagneSuite. In other words, a 'standard' awards showpackage, with no 'shock and awe' element, piloted byengineer Oz Bagnall.

Encouraged by Roger Harpum and Karoly Molnarof Meyer Sound, Jones elected to use one of theirsystems for the show. He explained: "Using the MeyerSound MAPP online system to achieve a predictivecoverage/pressure level design, we chose to use atotally mono three-hang Meyer M1D ultra compact linearray. This achieved coverage for the vast majority ofthe room. As the event had sold so well, with theaudience extended out into the corridor, these areaswere filled using a combination of Meyer UPA-1P andMeyer UPM-1P cabinets. The whole self-powered thingis probably the way forward.

"The control system was the essence of simplicity, using a Midas Venice 320console with Smart Research compressors on the four Shure RH series radio mics.Oz Bagnall commented that he was happy with the controlled coverage of thesystem, which seamlessly edged into the delay areas."

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Jayne Middlemiss announcing the Set Designer of the Year category.Far right: Absent winners due to touring commitments —Helen Campbell, Maggie Mousakitis and Jez Craddick.

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HSL's lighting design veered towards theminimalist, with an unusual approach for an awardsshow. Mike Oates said: "We decided to go for a seven-finger truss option, coming out from a central curvedfront truss, to try and get lighting in every part of theroom, The original idea was to try and rake the trussesto added some depth to the system but due toprojection issues we had to fly the trusses level. Thetheme was to complement but not overpower theprojected graphics."

Lighting was programmed and operated byNathan Wan on a Avolites Diamond 4 Elite with ChrisSteel from Avolites, with kit including 20 Robe 1200Colorwashes and 12 Robe 1200 Colorspots, 10Martin MAC 700 spots, 12 MAC 250 Entours, 50James Thomas Pixel 87s, 150 A.C. Lighting Chroma-QDB4 Color Blocks, 62 ETC Source 4s and, adding atwinkle to the back of the room and the bar, six hi-respanels of SoftLED.

"We mostly used soft edge units and just added inthe spots to add that extra touch," explained Oates."The 42m projection surface was lit by the ColorBlocks, which performed really well and were

controlled from PixelDrive mainly to save onprogramming time. The trusses were all individuallytoned by the James Thomas Pixel 87 and to finish offwe added in the SoftLED at the rear of the room forany reverse camera shots with the content for thesecreated by Richard Shipman."

In addition to HSL's equipment, Martin UK assistedwith the supply of TPi logo gobos, while Alan Oliver ofTelectra Beadlight Technologies supplied five columns offour ICE Lighting LED Super Battens to brighten up thereception area.

Mark Armstrong and crew boss Amos Cotter ofStar Events Group viewed this year's show as muchsimpler to rig, providing 32 half-tonne hoists withrigging and control, 90m of truss, plus projection andspot towers. Their patience with the ever-changingdesign plot was much appreciated.Added flair camefrom Sunbaba, who kindly designed and produced alarge backdrop Awards logo screen for the purposes ofphotography and general ambience in the bar.

FEEDBACKWriter and independent observer Petina Rowsell, who

attended the TPi Awards 06 for industry researchpurposes, said in her review: "The reception wasreverberating with rowdy chatter, the backstage peopleenjoying an unaccustomed spot in the spotlight. Thesound people hearing their own voices for once, thecaterers being served, the video crews being filmed,and the lighting luminaries getting their chance to shine.Like Cinderella, the dogsbodies became the dog’sbollocks for the evening. And rightly so."

Professionals literally flew in from all over theworld to spend an evening with old friends andnetwork with new acquaintances. Nick Jackson of PRGcommented that it was great to be able to fly in fromCalifornia and see everybody in one hit, which somefelt was reason enough to hold the event.

Mike Llewellyn of Favourite Freight Company, EFMManagement, said: "Regardless of our award, theevening was the best that I have attended and theattendees stayed sitting for the duration of the awardswhereas in the past the dining room has thinned outbefore the awards are normally finished. This itself,reflects the success of the evening. The rear screenprojections of the TPi front covers worked well and the

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“Like Cinderella, the dogsbodies became

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the dog’s bollocks for the evening...”

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Top: The crew line-up before soundcheck.Row 2: Richard Shipman, Kate Perring andRichard Bagshaw in the AV gallery; visiondirector Julian Hogg, Neil Smith of PSL andRichard Shipman; the HSL team — NathanWan, Mike Oates, Graeme Ramsedale, RobStarksfield and Howard Dean. Row 3: Soundengineer Oz Bagnall; Steve Allen and JulieChennells; The Sunday build-up (“it goes overthere!”). Row 4: Show caller Alex Clayton andgraphics programmer Kate Perring during run-through; Mondiale’s Hannah Eakins and LisaKershaw at the pre-dinner reception.

TPi Awards 06 — Key Personnel & SuppliersProduction Manager: Steve Allen • Production Co-ordinator: Julie Chennells • Creative Director: Mark Cunningham • Sales & Marketing: Hannah Eakins • Event Co-ordinator: Lisa Kershaw •Executive Producer: Justin Gawne • Show Caller: Alex Clayton • Sound: MLsoundadvice • MLsoundadvice Project Manager: Gareth Jones • FOH Sound Engineer: Oz Bagnall • Audio SystemTechnicians: Julian Bishop & Des Jabir • Loudspeaker System: Meyer Sound • Audio Console: Midas • Microphones: Shure • Video: PSL Music • Video Graphics: Digital Insanity • VideoProducer: Richard Shipman • PSL Music, Manager: Pod Bluman • PSL Project Manager: Neil Smith • Vision Director: Julian Hogg • Video Racks Engineer: Simon Hudson • Video DataEngineer/Camera Operator: Nick Hall • Video Data Engineer: Paul Samson • Projectionists: Jim Fischer & Grant Orchard • Video Engineer: Alfredo Paz • Graphics Operator: Richard Bagshaw •Graphics Programmer: Kate Perring • Camera Operators: Simon Wilson and Grant Rosson • Lighting: HSL Group; Ice Lighting • HSL Project Manager: Mike Oates • Lighting Operator: NathanWan • Lighting Crew Chief: Rupert Reynolds • Dimmers & Mains: Rob Starksfield • Lighting Techs: Tim Oliver, John Slevin, Graeme Ramsedale • Gobos: Martin Professional • Draping/ProjectionSurface: Blackout • Blackout Project Manager: Tom Lambert • Awards Logo Banner: Sunbaba • Trussing & Rigging: Star Events Group • Star Events Project Manager: Mark Armstrong • SeniorRigger: Amos Cotter • Transport: Edwin Shirley Trucking • EST Project Manager: Del Roll • Crewing & Stage: Kroos • Kroos Project Manager: John-Henri Mills • Kroos Operations Manager: JonDavis • Kroos Crew: Peter Bedecs, Dusan Babel, Mick D’sa, Daniel McIndoe, Rob Yeates, David Edwards, Nick Burton, Louis Henn, Lee Merrett, David Ezeka, Steven Cousins & Leo Collier

film with handwritten nominees was a clever touch."Dave Pattenden of the Sanctuary Group added: "It was the first time

I've ever seen Rod Smallwood [Iron Maiden's manager] smiling at anawards ceremony, so congratulations! A good evening was had by alland I enjoyed it over and above countless other such events I've beento before."

As Richard Shipman told me, this has to be one of the toughest‘gigs’ out there, because the room is traditionally the largest gathering ofthe most opinionated, entertainment-fatigued people one could evermeet! They’ve seen it all and done it all, so it gets harder to impresseach year. But by all accounts we really delivered, and we're verythankful to everyone who played a part in putting on a superblymemorable night, especially those who didn't stop working on the load-out until 5am.

The more successful and established an event like this becomes, themore one receives "ideas for improvement" from well-meaning folk.The tremendous pressure we are under to expand the number ofcategories is countered by equal pressure to make the ceremony moreconcise. Add to this a number of criticisms of the current voting process(mostly from people who didn't win, I should add!), and it's easy tounderstand that this is unlikely to ever be a 'please everybody' event.

What we can and will do is listen to everyone's comments andconsider them as we grow the event over the next few years. It is ourfeeling that the TPi Awards should and will become a much more widelyacknowledged event, one that truly celebrates the contribution of theproduction industry as part of the live entertainment experiencesenjoyed by millions of people around the globe. We will not be shy inmaking a wider audience aware of this — in fact, we regard it as ourresponsibility — and our future plans will bear this in mind.

Our decision to stay at the Novotel London West for the 2006Awards was always going to set a challenge. The turnout for the 2005event was such that many of us at TPi/Mondiale assumed we wouldhave to move to a larger venue for this year in order to cope with thegrowing demand for tables. However, we were encouraged by a widerange of industry people to continue in Hammersmith for a variety ofpractical reasons — a decision that forced us to open up the back of theroom to accommodate around 15 extra tables and install delay plasmascreens so that the rear audience would feel as part of the event asthose nearer the front. It was a massive compromise, and not one wewould feel comfortable repeating.

It's probably no surprise, therefore, that in 2007 the TPi Awards willbe relocating to a more appropriately-sized London venue, and wehope to make a very exciting announcement on this very subject withinthe next few months.TPi

Photography by Louise Stickland, Jim Ellam & Mark Cunningham

“ShockinglyA-List”...according toLD of theYear, WillieWilliamsArriving at the Novotel, the first twopeople I see are Michael Tait(builder of U2’s stages since 1983)and Roy Bennett (internationalshow design deity), both of whomhad flown in from the US. Clearlythe fleet was in and there were rakesof people there whom I know and lovedearly.

Smasher, the U2 Vertigo tour’svideo director, had Eurostarred infrom Belgium, but the surprise of thenight was running into Pete Russell, asound engineer with whom I did twoStiff Little Fingers tours around 1981.We became quite pally on the tour(when you’re doing 35 club dates inFrance in 36 days it's sink or swim) andI haven’t seen him since, thoughremarkably, with the exceptionperhaps of marginally fewer teeth, hewas entirely unchanged.

It all turned out to be shockinglyA-list, and I found myself seated nextto Harvey Goldsmith and Bob Geldof,neither of whom I'd properly metbefore but they were both veryengaging. Geldof is every bit asentertaining dinner party company asyou'd imagine and I particularlyenjoyed hearing his take on some ofthe political jaunts, as I only ever hearBono's side of the stories. Bob’s a littlemore... direct, perhaps.

The giving of awards appeared tobegin at midnight or so by which timeall present were howling drunk.Geldof and Goldsmith received anaward for Live 8 being the event of theyear and responded with the requiredspeeches. Bob’s speech was bothhilarious and uplifting as he slagged offthe “Novotel fucking West” ("wasthere a problem with theDorchester?”) but went on to thankeveryone in the room whom hemaintained, however indirectly, waspart of the success of Live 8.

No other industry, he reminded

us, can do this, let alone pull offsomething of this scale andsignificance in six weeks. The movieindustry couldn’t, the bankingcommunity couldn’t and the politicalfraternity wouldn’t know where tostart. There’s something about thelive music industry which inspiresthose within it to just get on and dowhatever needs doing. And so say allof us.

I was named Lighting Designer ofthe Year which was gratifying though Ihave reservations about the wholeconcept. The last thing we want in thisindustry is people being pitchedagainst each other. As Bono alwayssays, it’s only when they numberedthe charts from 1 to 10 that musicturned into a competition. Bettersurely to celebrate all of the good stuffand leave it at that.

Inevitably I found myself pissedand freezing on a desertedHammersmith Broadway at 4amclutching a large perspex award withnot even the smell of a taxi for miles.Eventually I found a night bus to takeme back to the West End in thecompany of kebab-wielding inebriates— an experience which I actually quiteenjoyed in a perverse kind of a way.

Very possibly the 'managing to notget mugged' aspect helped me see itas an interesting societal experimentfor a Monday night rather than merelyrunning the gauntlet. I bet GwynethPaltrow always gets the night bushome from the Oscars for the samereason.

Stolen from Willie Williams' Road Diary atwww.u2.com

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Live Production of the Yearsponsored by DiGiCoLive 8 at Hyde Park

Production Manager of the Yearsponsored by Rock-It CargoDick Tee(Glastonbury Festival,International Festival Of The Sea)

Tour Manager of the Yearco-sponsored by EFM & Chapman FreebornMaggie Mouzakitis (Oasis)

Tour/Production Assistant of the Yearsponsored by Amptown CasesHelen Campbell (Rolling Stones, U2)

Front of House Sound Engineer of the Yearsponsored by MidasDave Kay (Scissor Sisters)

Monitor Engineer of the Yearsponsored by ShureJohn 'JJ' James(Robbie Williams, Cliff Richard)

Lighting Designer of the Yearsponsored by Martin ProfessionalWillie Williams(U2, Bryan Adams, Little Britain Live)

Set Designer of the Yearsponsored by Star Events GroupRoy Bennett(Paul McCartney, Madonna)

Video Director of the Yearsponsored by The Picture WorksDick Carruthers (Oasis, Bryan Adams)

Rigger of the Yearsponsored by Columbus McKinnonJez Craddick (Rolling Stones)

Favourite Sound Rental Companysponsored by Klark TeknikEntec Sound & Light

Favourite Lighting Rental Companysponsored by Robe Show LightingPRG Europe

Favourite Set Construction CompanyLiteStructures

Favourite Staging CompanyEdwin Shirley Staging

Favourite Video Services Companysponsored by BarcoCreative Technology

Favourite Trucking CompanyFly By Nite

Favourite Tour Bus CompanyBeat The Street

Favourite Freight CompanyEFM Management Ltd

Favourite Travel AgencyThe Tour Company

Favourite SecurityCrowd Management Companyco-sponsored by Mojo Barriers UK &The Centre for Crowd Managementand Security StudiesShowsec International

Favourite Catering Companysponsored by XL Video UKEat To The Beat

Favourite Venuesponsored by Entec Sound & LightCarling Academy Brixton

The John Peel Unsung Hero AwardMark Armstrong, Chris Higgs & Eric Porter(for initiating the National Rigging Certificate)

The Editor’s AwardSteve Jones(for more than 20 years as one of theworld's most influential and successfulstage managers)

Lifetime Contribution AwardDick Bell(celebrating his career as Iron Maiden'sproduction manager since 1982)

winners &category sponsors

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