The future of video, lighting and sound control were debated at ISE’s Live Events Summit, highlighting some of the seismic changes that have taken place across the industry in recent years.
Speaking on the topic of sound control, Phil Wright, managing director at Phil Wright Sound, said that the more widespread use of IT infrastructure had had a big impact on sound teams. “An enormous part of sound at live events now is delivered through IT. There are some hot-shot engineers coming through who know all about the IT side so the job of sound has separated into a complex engineering role and then the rigging side.”
Dom Harter, MD Martin Studio, agreed: “That has definitely been the most fundamental change in audio. Overall, events have come so far in terms of sound, so that shows are fundamentally better than they were 30 years ago. And audiences’ expectations are much higher.”
Addressing the video side of live events, Nigel Sadler, sales director of media player outfit Hive, said that the industry had moved way beyond “just putting images on a big rectangle”.
“We will get to a point soon where we will see fully transparent screens and printable LED so that you don’t have to shape your show to fit the screen but the screen can fit around your event.”
But with all the technical development in screen technology, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that this is still just a display tool, said Sadler. “If you don’t appreciate that it’s the creativity of the content and the artist that is the focus, then you can end up detracting from that. If there’s too much going on around an artist it kills them off – they are not centre stage any more.”
