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TPi AWARDS 2008TPi AWARDS 2008ONE BIG STEP FOR THE INDUSTRY’S TOP NIGHT (AND DAY) OUT

AND ONE GIANT LEAP FOR THE TOTAL PRODUCTION TEAM.MARK CUNNINGHAM REVIEWS THE DESIGN, CONTENT AND THRILLS

OF TPi’S UPGRADED DEBUT AT LONDON’S GROOSVENOR HOUSE...

After four consecutive years at the Novotel LondonWest in Hammersmith, the TPi Awards (and itsassociated PSA Conference) moved into Mayfair’sdecidedly more upmarket Grosvenor House for itsseventh annual event on Sunday 17 February, hostedby comedian Simon Amstell of BBC TV’s Never MindThe Buzzcocks fame.

It was not simply a case of moving our event fromone venue to another. For 2008, the TPi Awards wascompletely reinvented and with that came a number of

major challenges that were met head on by an aceorganisational team. Far from repeating the formula ofprevious years, it was decided early on to divide theusual 26 award categories into two distinct sections —11 company-orientated awards presented during thePSA Conference lunch, followed by the remaining 15at the evening’s gala dinner.

The PSA’s general manager, Andy Lenthallexplained: “There were two main aspects to thisdecision. Firstly, many of the nominated companies are

PSA members who attend the Conference annually,and those who don’t attend should do so, because ofthe key industry topics raised that seriously affect theirbusiness. Holding the TPi Company Awards atlunchtime was another way of attracting these peopleto this important daytime programme.

“Secondly, we’ve often received comments thatthe evening ceremony can be very long. We reacted tothat and felt it was another justification for dividing thecategories.”

Above L-R: Production manager James Cobb with assistant, BCUC student Sophie Robinson; Nigel Sadler and Kate Perring in the video cockpit;video producer/director Richard Shipman; part of the PSL-supplied system.

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Above L-R: Show caller Alex Clayton deep in concentration; Keith Barnes behind the Midas Heritage 3000 desk; Orbital Event Communications engineerCharlie Garrick; LD Pete Hoiser at the Avo D4 Elite console.

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Our host, Simon Amstell

With our photographer Louise Stickland on handto capture the lunchtime ceremony, we were able tocreate three highlights packages from the CompanyAwards as part of the evening’s presentation. Overall,we managed to shave around 45 minutes from theevening’s formalities, and allow further valuable time forthe all-important networking and socialising — withoutcompromising even slightly on the detail of theceremony. One or two people commented that theceremony seemed quite short... but was that becauseit was more engaging this time?

Holding the event on a Sunday was a decision wewere forced into, due to availability. We wereconcerned that this might cause problems with ourguests, especially as London’s public transport systemisn’t the most reliable on a Sunday. However, with justshort of 1,000 in attendance, any such issues appearedto evaporate.

Initially, there was a degree of resistance to some

of the changes and, indeed, the associated costs ofmoving ‘up West’ to the Park Lane location,overlooking Hyde Park. It was, therefore, a relief whensome of our fiercest detractors finally accepted thenew-style event for what it was.

With the exception of Cara Greczyn who, due toher commitments on the X-Factor tour, wasn’t able topersonally collect her Production Co-ordinator award(Rebecca Travis deputised on her behalf), all of our‘surviving’ winners were present — including industryroyalty in the form of Mark Fisher and PatrickWoodroffe who attended for the first time. “It’s apleasure to be here, and an honour to be recognisedby the industry,” said Fisher, who took the LifetimeContribution Award.

The afore-mentioned word ‘surviving’ is usedsensitively — two of the 2008 awards wereposthumous. It was perhaps a mark of the respectearned by the late John Roden in his 30+ year career

that he won the Monitor Engineer award by a massivelandslide and it was an honour for me to present thetrophy to John’s partner Noreen O’Riordan and hislong-time friend and touring colleague Pab Boothroyd.John’s boss, Sir Paul McCartney wasn’t able to make itto the evening but his spoken tribute was aired and hiscompany, MPL, generously reserved a table for John’screw pals.

Skan PA founder Pete Howard, who also died lastyear, was posthumously awarded as this year’s JohnPeel Unsung Hero. Guitarist and producer SteveHillage paid tribute to his friend, as did The Stranglers’bassist, Jean Jacques Burnel (via a video made on ourbehalf by Chris Hannam of Stagesafe). Hillage thenpresented the award to Pete’s widow Yvonne anddaughter Debbie.

Tributes were also given on the night to RichardWillis, Benno Goldewijk, Al Lyon and Dave Bryant, allof whom passed away during 2007. There was no

“Congratulations on a superb TPi Awards — the best so far.”Henry McGroggan

Below: Ipso Facto opened and closed the ceremony, as well as injecting live walk-upmusic for the winners’ acceptances. Right: Lead singer and guitarist Rosalie Cunningham.Inset: Keyboard player Cherish Kaya duets with Simon Amstell during soundcheck.

“Ipso Facto — a top, top band!”Chris Headlam, Orbital

intention to bring the mood down, however, therecent loss of many a good friend has provoked adistinct sense of mortality within the industry — asense that we’re all in this together — and it was rightthat they were remembered. The toast I proposed tothem during my introduction was meant more as acelebration of their contributions than an act ofmourning. I do hope it was received as such.

There were many first-time winners during theevening, including GCB (Gary Cooper-Burrows), JonBray, Mike Darling, Bart Clement, Ruary Macphie andthe O2 Arena, less than a year since it opened andchanged the public’s perception of live venues. All ourwinners took home a sleek, new-style, glass trophy,specially manufactured for us by BroadwayPresentations.

LUNCH...This year, for the first time, we put the productionmanagement role out to tender. The ultra-professionalJames Cobb of CA Event Management came throughas the man for the job and the slick, gentlemanlymanner with which he handled everything from venueliaison to the choice of suppliers was medal-worthy.

Coupled with the return of Alex Clayton’s on-the-

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money show-calling skills, and the debut ofSKC’s Steve Kearney as our health & safetyguru (whose experience of installationswithin the high end corporate market isarguably unparalleled), we felt at all timesthat we were working with a genuine A-Team.

The PSA Conference (see AndyLenthall’s account in this month’s PSA Actionbulletin) broke at 1pm for lunch in the CourtSuite, where a healthy turnout witnessed thefirst-ever TPi Company Awardspresentation. A mighty “thank you” goes outto Live Insurance for sponsoring the foodand refreshments!

Adlib Audio and HSL came through asclear winners of the Favourite Sound andLighting Rental Company awards, thusridiculing any theory that there was ever ananti-Northern bias to the voting! Eat To TheBeat won its sixth consecutive Cateringaward, XL Video reigned once again in theVideo Services category (for the fifth time),and other victors were Brilliant Stages,Stageco, Rock-It Cargo, Music ByAppointment, Fly By Nite, ShowsecInternational and Gearhouse South Africa,winner of the Favourite InternationalProduction Company award.

Andy Lenthall and I hosted the

lunchtime event (hence the embarrassingplethora of photos contained in this report!),and XL Video relayed the award winners onto two 61' plasmas as well as controllingaudio. XL also provided AV facilities for PSA’sAGM, which involved relaying of PowerPointand DVD images to plasma screens, supplyand control of sound and operation of theAGM’s voting system. The XL element wasproject-managed by Robin Evans, andcrewed by Terry Kerley, Mike Crewe-Turrelland Charles Archer.

Local Crew Ltd spread its workforceacross both ceremonies and had a hand invirtually every area of the production.Grosvenor House is a regular venue for thecompany (formerly known as Kroos), andthere is a good relationship between bothparties.

The firm’s operations director, Jon ‘JD’Davis, explained that his 19-person team’sday began early with the preparation of thePSA Conference and Company Awardslunch. “We supplied, built and dressed thestages, and helped to get the AlbermarleSuite set up for Andy Lenthall and theConference,” said JD. “This was mainly doneby my ‘number two’, Taz [TadeuszZebrowski] and our chippies Doron ‘Dee’Daniel and John Von Cripps.”

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“The afternoon awards with video highlights on the night was a greatidea, showing that you respondeed to the ‘too long’ comments of the past.The production was very good, the sound system very intellligible, food upto par... all in all, an extremely professionally staged event.”Bob Doyle, chief exxecutive, DiGiCo

Lunchtime in the Court Suite...

The entrance tunnel, featuringS+H’s dazzling video floor andShowLED draping, with PSCo’sOrion Infinite bezelless plasmawall at the balcony end.

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Rockdrops was also involved in the CompanyAwards — the firm provided a high quality logo-emblazoned backdrop with artwork assembled byJames Brunton, as well as designing and supplying alarge sponsors’ logo board, positioned on the GreatRoom balcony.

LIVE MUSICAs soon as the lunch ceremony came to a close, Ifound myself hot-footing it down to The Great Roomwhere the stage build was close to completion in timefor a late afternoon soundcheck and rehearsal with liveall-girl band Ipso Facto and Simon Amstell, whosewelcome address (“who needs pop stars when you’vegot a Hippotizer Version 3 with timeline?”) hadeveryone in stitches.

The only time we had previously featured livemusic at the TPi Awards was way back at our firstevent in 2002 when it was spectacularly under-appreciated! We vowed never to include it ever again,however, James Cobb was keen to revisit the idea,particularly for the winners’ walk-ups. When ourgraphic designer Dan Seaton came up with theMarshall guitar amp-influenced ‘dial’ logo, it wasobvious that we would choose more of a rock’n’rolltheme to our overall show design, and dovetailing alive music element became increasingly more

attractive.It was an interesting twist of fate that in the week

before the TPi Awards, Ipso Facto had a double-pagespread feature and a live review in NME magazine.They’d just been on the Vice Live tour and supportedthe Klaxons and Frank Black, as well as earning rave

reviews with their debut single ‘Harmonise’, so theywere not entirely unknown. That their lead singer andguitarist Rosie Cunningham is my daughter may havebeen a factor in choosing them to perform at ourevent — but by no means the deciding factor!

The band opened the ceremony with‘Introducing...’ and their unique brand of ‘monochromegarage psychedelia’ that punctuated the ceremony was

a massive hit, not least with Simon Amstell, who hasthreatened to visit them during their upcoming tour assupport to the Queen of the Banshees, Siouxsie Sioux.

MOVING VISUALSOnce all the physical elements of the show designwere finalised in the weeks leading up to the event,Jonathan Perry of Perry Scenic Productions kindly castan experienced eye over the preliminary drawings andadvised us on the most attractive and practical ways ofconfiguring the set in The Great Room.

For the audience, the experience beganimmediately as they made their entrance. S+HTechnical Support’s team have over 16 years’experience of working at Grosvenor House, and it allcame to the fore on February 17. The starcloths andkit necessary to build a mesmerising entrance tunnelinto The Great Room were delivered in S+H vansduring the previous day, ready for work to begin at7.00am.

S+H’s day kicked off with the hanging of theShowLED Chameleon starcloth behind the main stage.The crew then prepared and erected the Chameleonstarcloth tunnel comprising two 12m x 3m walls, all ofwhich was completed by 9.30am.

Attention was immediately turned to theinstallation of the entrance tunnel’s 18.75mm pixel

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Clockwise from top left: Victorious company award winners — Adlib Audio, HSL (with presence from Paul Young of sponsor MA Lighting), XL Video with IanW. Brown of Robe, Stageco with Jessica Allen from Martin Professional, and Brilliant Stages.

“A great event — itblew the Novotel out

of the water!”Matt Wright,Rock-It Cargo

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pitch video floor. Despite being very simple system, it isquite a physical process and because being so new toS+H, the install may have taken slightly longer thanwould be considered the optimum time.

That said, by noon, the four-person crew hadcompleted the 9.3m x 6m floor and the whole systemwere passed over to programmer Joe Howard toconfigure it with a continuous scrolled loop of every

Total Production front cover published since February1998 — we were, after all, also celebrating our 10thanniversary!

The video production team of producer/directorRichard Shipman and Digital Insanity’s graphics duo,Kate Perring and Richard Bagshaw, were back for thethird time and once again pulled off a brilliant job ofcreating the video packages for both ceremonies. All of

the nomination sequences featured a background liveaudience loop and a stylish lanyard/tour pass-with-mugshot reveal for each winner, along with relevantsponsor logos.

In addition, the team compiled the TPi front coverloops for the plasmas, and packaged special VT clips forthe introduction (a NASA countdown and voiceover,care of yours truly, set to a scene from ‘Dr.

Clockwise from top left: More company winners... Fly By Nite, Rock-It Cargo, Music By Appointment; Gearhouse South Africa; Eat To The Beat and Showsec.

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Strangelove’), a live clip from Genesis’ 2007 Turn It OnAgain tour (to precede Mike Rutherford and TonySmith’s acceptance of the Live Production award),previously unseen highlights from the Ahmet ErtegunTribute concert — including Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’— for The Editor’s Award (presented to HarveyGoldsmith), a clip of The Stranglers’ J.J. Burnel payingtribute to Pete ‘Skan’ Howard, and a three-minutemontage created to honour Mark Fisher.

At Richard Shipman’s recommendation, webrought in PSL Music to supply four Christie 20K

projectors and four Sony cameras (two hand-helds andtwo fixed) to transmit live images, VT and graphicalimages to a pair of projection screens built by Blackout— who also supplied draping for the productioncontrol gallery and around the room.

Shipman cut the show on a Grass Valley Indigoswitcher and Nigel Sadler from Green Hippo was onhand to manage the three Hippotizer V3s (“featuringtimeline control”) that were driving the graphicalelements to the various surfaces.

As well as projection, we were graced with a vast

amount of plasma relay screens from PSCo’s ‘AdvancedProducts’ range. Overall, PSCo installed 14 individualscreens in The Great Room, of which four wereflagship large screen technologies.

At the balcony end of the entrance tunnel, a newOrion Infinite bezelless plasma wall provided crystal-clear images of the TPi cover collection, while imageswere also relayed to the revolutionary new 82" EVOSLCD screens in the bar and reception areas. Twogigantic 103" Panasonic plasmas and 10 50" versionswere placed at the rear of The Great Room, ensuring

Top row L-R: Chris Vaughan, Production Manager of the Year, with Simon Amstell; Stage Manager winner GCB; Jon Bray of Summit Steel collects the Riggerof the Year award. Middle row: Lighting Designer of the Year, Patrick Woodroffe addresses the audience; Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford and the band’smanager Tony Smith pick up the Live Production of the Year accolade. Above: David Cooper of Midas makes a stage appearance; Tour Manager of the YearMike Darling celebrates his award win with the Kaiser Chiefs at the BRIT Awards (three days later); there was a whole lotta love for ‘Big’ Mick Hughes, FrontOf House Engineer of the Year.

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all guests were able to view the presentations.Imagery was fed to the plasmas via four Edirol

VC200-HDs that performed SD to SDI conversion(and upscaled to HD 720P, the native resolution ofChristie’s projectors) for the main mix, while theyconverted from SD-SDI to DVI for the Orion Infinitewall.

“This was an opportunity to showcase the PSCoportfolio to the live production industry,” commentedAndy Turner, PSCo’s client support manager. “The briefwas to create something visually impressiveincorporating the very best in large screentechnologies.”

James Cobb, who was assisted on the big day byBCUC student Sophie Robinson (also our stagehostess), said: “The show was very video-based, so itwas essential that all the guests had a good view, andthe plasmas from PSCo — including the 103" — wereessential in achieving this. The Orion Infinite plasma

wall was a spectacular display, and made an idealcentrepiece to the entrance as the first thing peoplesaw upon entering The Great Room.”

Amongst the stage design were two interesting‘specials’. Le Maitre provided an 18' ‘intelligent’ AquaVisual water screen at the back of the stage, just infront of the ShowLED cloth. During dinner, the waterscreen projected the TPi Awards logo and a range ofanimations. When an award winner was named, thewater screen projected the winner’s name with waterdroplets. The water images were lit with LED lights toboost intelligibility — many guests couldn’t believe thatit was actually real water forming the text. The imagerydisplayed was produced by Digital Insanity andprovided to Le Maitre as bitmap files.

The system uses a closed loop water system withthree water reservoirs each containing 150 litres. LeMaitre’s experienced technicians Emerson Wellens,Tim Haddon and Danny Terry managed every aspect

of this department, from rigging and controlling theshow to de-rigging.

The other ‘special’ came from Pufferfish Displayswho supplied a pair of PufferSpheres for displaying aconstant stream of ‘tumbling’ sponsor and supplierlogos from Digital Insanity throughout the evening.

The spherical screens were inflated via a self-contained base unit, whilst the internal projectionsystem mapped the Hippotizer-driven digital contenton to its surface. Some excellent video clips ofPufferSphere applications are viewable atwww.pufferfishdisplays.co.uk

LIGHTINGTo a certain extent, when working in The Great Room,it pays to hire some of the systems already installed inthe overhead truss. It’s a condition of the venue thatany rigging of (heavy) additional kit within the truss hasto be carried out by the house riggers from

“John was always there for us... he was our man.” — Sir Paul McCartney

Below: Mark Cunningham presents Pab Boothroyd and Noreen O’Riordan with theposthumous Monitor Engineer award for John Roden (right) who died last summer.Inset: Sir Paul McCartney paid tribute via a recorded message.

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Roadrunner — and that’s not cheap! We thereforedecided to ground-base extras from HSL, PixelRangeand Orbital.

PixelRange and Lighting Effects Distribution(L.E.D.) did us proud by supplying a number of units toHSL. Fifty new PixelArt video battens adorned thebalconies either side of the stage, creating colourfulmedia that dominated the room — which resulted inthe intensity having to be turned down! Ten PixelParswere positioned at the rear of the stage to colour-washthe water curtain, whilst PixelLine 1044s and PixelLine

110s on high bases were used to enhance Ipso Facto’sperformances.

[PixelRange fixtures also played a big part in thelunch awards ceremony, with a Zero 88 Jester consolecontrolling 20 PixelLine Micro wash bricks to saturatethe draped curtains in the Court Suite.]

Ian Kirby at L.E.D. supplied 20 very bright GLPImpression LED moving heads to HSL, which lined thefront of the stage. HSL also added eight Robe 700s onhandrails at the back of the room to aid reversecamera shots. For the remainder of the lighting, HSL

relied on 18 Vari*Lite VL2500 washes and eightVL2500 spots that form part of the in-house rig. Thelighting was controlled by Pete Hoiser from an AvolitesD4 Elite desk; the HSL crew also included RupertReynolds, Rob Myer and Tom Wright.

Local Crew was instrumental in the whole eveningceremony preparation. The firm loaded in and out;supplied and installed the frame for the ShowLEDstarcloth and side screens; supplied and built the stageand camera positions; supplied the access towers andproduction office flightcase desk; covered the front of

Top row L-R: The late Pete Howard, winner of the John Peel Unsung Hero award; guitarist Steve Hillage gave a touching tribute to ‘Pete Skan’; Stranglersbassist J.J. Burnel added his own feelings via a video shot by Stagesafe’s Chris Hannam; the award was received by Pete’s daughter Debbie and wife Yvonne.Above L-R: Video Director of the Year, Ruary Macphie; AEG’s Andy Young accepts the Favourite Venue award for the O2 Arena; Set Designer champ BartClement with our host.

In an interview conducted at the TPi Awards by BBC Radio’s youngestpresenters, Ollie Winiberg-Bettell and Mike Bromfield(pictured), Harvey Goldsmith expressed fears thatfollowing consistent high growth within the UK liveevents market over the last three to four years, 2008may well turn out to be a disappointment.

He said: “We’ve had the busiest period ever for livemusic that I’ve ever known. Last year was a recordyear for the live business. We all thought 2006 was arecord year, and 2005 before that, but 2007 capped itall. I’m not sure it’s going to be as busy in 2008 but I don’t think that

will have anything to do with the economy. Our business works instrange cycles. Every artist has their own cycle ofwriting, recording, finalising their record promotionand then touring. Some years, they’re all lined uptogether, and other years they’re not. Perhaps this willturn out to be one of those years.

“What we really need now are some newsupergroups because within the next four or five years,the ones that are there won’t exist any longer. We havea lot of great new bands in Britain, but too many bands

break up too soon, and that’s no good for anyone.”

GOLDSMITH PONDERS ON THE YEAR AHEAD

“I really enjoyed myself, and the setting was superb.” Steve Iredale

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the balcony control gallery; installedramps for the video floor; ran cable;installed the plasmas... and generallygave a hand to anyone who neededback-up.

SOLID SOUNDOrbital augmented the permanentlyinstalled in-house d&b E9 system with adozen flown Q7s and four stacks ofd&b C7s with C7 Subs and two B2seither side of the stage. Eight E3s wereused as in-fills covering the front rows.The south London company normallyuse d&b R1 software for delay, EQ andamplifier gain, but on this occasionchose to use XTA DP224s.

For the band’s stage monitoring,there Orbital chose d&b Max12wedges for their very low profile, plusthe paring of a Max15 with E18 sub fordrum fill.

Although Orbital took a variety oflectern microphones to see whichwould work best, a Shure SM87Coffered the best solution. Due to a veryopen stage, discreet miking wasnecessary for the band — Shure Beta98s were on the toms, 91 on kick,AKG 414s on overheads, and a SM57and SE300 were paired on the hi-hat.Rosie Cunningham’s vocal mic was astandard SM58, and everything elsewent through BSS DI boxes.

A Midas Heritage 3000 did a greatjob of serving both the FOH andmonitor requirements. Seb Frost wason-stage with a radio in souncheck tocommunicate with the gallery over thewedge mixes, and the desk’s layoutenabled engineers Eric Simpson andKeith Barnes to mix simultaneously.

January was a strangely variedmonth for me — my regular magazineduties were regularly punctuated by allmanner of Awards preparations, notleast the choosing and editing of audioplayback material, and the recording ofmy voiceovers for the evening introand other cameo pieces. This materialwas put through Orbital’s Pro Toolssystem for final trimming andnormalising. It was then transferreddigitally into a 360 Systems InstantReplay unit where each sting or musictrack was assigned to its own button,

enabling anything to be replayed in anyorder.

The TPi Awards was one of thefirst shows to benefit from Orbital’snew Event Communications division,whose potential was reflected by thedemand on a sophisticated commssystem, piloted by engineers TimSherratt and Charlie Garrick. It allowedseamless communication through theceremony and provided a solidtechnical infrastructure.

Central to the comms system wasa RTS Zeus matrix that formed thecentral hub. Into that were connectedsix KP32 Key-Panels, 30 Riedel DPLDigital two-channel beltpacks, fourTelex BTR800 duplex radio comms,eight HME DX200 duplex digital radiocomms and no less than 24 MotorolaGP340 walkie-talkies. The Zeus Matrixallowed the Key-Panel users to gainaccess to every part of the commssystem at the touch of a pre-programmed button. Other Orbitalcrew on duty were Jonny Clarance andTom O’Conner.

It has become a tradition for ESTto assist our production, and we thankDel Roll once again for his tirelesssupport! For the suppliers whorequired transport for their kit, ESTkindly provided an 18 tonner for theload-in/out, collecting and returningfrom and to four different locationswithin the M25 region.

POST-MORTEMJames Cobb, who ensured thateveryone and everything was ready to“hit the ground running” at 7.00am onthe Sunday, observed: “The TPiAwards is always challenging because itsaudience are perhaps the most difficultpeople to impress — they’ve seen anddone it all — but on this occasion itwas even more demanding as we hadto be in and out within 24 hours, viaone lift.

“Therefore, rather than push theboundaries of available technology, wesimply decided to do everything well.Even so, there were a number of newand very interesting aspects to theproduction.”

Local Crew’s JD said: “Without

Favourite Sound Rental Company ADLIB AUDIO • Favourite Lighting Rental Company (sponsored by MA Lighting) HSL • Favourite Set Construction CompanyBRILLIANT STAGES • Favourite Staging Company (sponsored by Martin Professional) STAGECO • Favourite Video Services Company (sponsored by Robe) XLVIDEO • Favourite Transport Company FLY BY NITE • Favourite Freight Company ROCK-IT CARGO • Favourite Travel Agency MUSIC BY APPOINTMENT •Favourite Security/Crowd Management Company SHOWSEC INTERNATIONAL • Favourite Catering Company EAT TO THE BEAT • Favourite InternationalProduction Company (sponsored by Christie Digital) GEARHOUSE SOUTH AFRICA • Favourite Venue (sponsored by MA Lighting) O2 ARENA • ProductionManager of the Year (sponsored by Christie Digital) CHRIS VAUGHAN • Tour Manager of the Year MIKE DARLING • Production Co-ordinator of the YearCARA GRECZYN • Front of House Engineer of the Year (sponsored by Midas) ‘BIG’ MICK HUGHES • Monitor Engineer of the Year JOHN RODEN • LightingDesigner of the Year (sponsored by Martin Professional) PATRICK WOODROFFE • Rigger of the Year JON BRAY • Video Director of the Year RUARY MACPHIE• Set Designer of the Year BART CLEMENT • Stage Manager of the Year (sponsored by Robe) GCB (GARY COOPER-BURROWS) • Live Production of the Year(sponsored by Barco) GENESIS: TURN IT ON AGAIN TOUR • The John Peel Unsung Hero Award (in consultation with the PSA) PETE HOWARD • The Editor'sAward THE AHMET ERTEGUN TRIBUTE • Lifetime Contribution Award (sponsored by Yamaha Commercial Audio) MARK FISHER20

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SLeft, from top: MC, Harvey Goldsmith and Mike Rutherford with the Editor’sAward for December 2007’s Ahmet Ertegun Tribute; a duplicate award waspresented to Bill Wyman, Albert Lee and Tony Panico two nights later, inrecognition of their valuable roles at the Ahmet Tribute; Stageco’s Hedwigde Meyer presented the Lifetime Contribution Award to scenic designlegend Mark Fisher.

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and our highly valuedproduction suppliers

our event co-sponsors

with grateful thanks toour main category sponsors

any major dramas, my crew managedto achieve in one day what wouldnormally take twice the time. Tazworked like a trooper, finishing thestages and generally keeping the levelof motivation high.”

Cobb continued: “Our rehearsaltime was always going to be minimal,so the comms system provided byOrbital was crucial to us being readywhen the guests arrived. Anotherfactor was the crew’s instant onlineaccess to all documentationconcerning plans and schedules thatwe at CA produce for every project.The show must still go on if theproduction manager goes under abus!

“I’d like to thank Ben Behan,Grosvenor House’s technical managerwho was very helpful. Also, SteveKearney did a great job of collating allcontractor risk assessments andproduced an event safety policy whichtook into account legal responsibilitiesand the venue’s own operating rules.A venue representative remarked toSteve during the morning how great itwas to have crew displaying suchgreat skill and professionalism.”

JD added: “It was a muchsmoother job this year, partly becausewe know the venue and workedclosely with James from the earlieststage, but also because we had lesslighting and rigging than previousyears. I managed to sit down for thedinner and the Awards ceremonywhich I enjoyed immensely! It was amuch cleaner and more professionalevent than ever before.”

A vast amount of people havesuch opposing views about how theTPi Awards should presented — tothe point where it’s almost as if they

claim ownership! — that it would beimpossible to tick everyone’s boxes.However, we believe that not onlyhave we finally hit upon a morepractical form of presentation, withthe divided awards ceremonies, butwe’ve also set the right tone.

In the past, regardless of who ispresenting on stage or accepting anaward, there has been a very highlevel of ambient noise caused bychattering amongst the guests. Forthose who are interested in thespeeches, this has been extremelyannoying, and not least a problem forour sound engineers to overcome. It’salso very bad manners!

Perhaps it was the nature of thevenue, but this year there was moreof a reverential air to the eveningceremony. Every presentation washeard perfectly and the guests reactedwith respect, which was a greatimprovement for everyone.

We will be building upon ournew formula for next year and hopeto introduce a few new, long-awaitedcategories. In the meantime we lookforward to receiving suggestions fromall parties about how we can furtherimprove the TPi Awards experience.

What we CAN tell you is that wehave fixed the date for next year. TheTPi Awards 2009 will take place onMonday 9th February 2009 atGrosvenor House, and we hope youwill join us. Yes, it’s a Monday!TPi

Photography by Louise SticklandAdditional pics by Jane Monk,

Jane Winiberg & Mark CunninghamJ.J. Burnel pic by Chris Gabrin

TPi Awards ‘dial’ logoby Dan Seaton

TPi AWARDS 2009Monday 9th February 2009

Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London W1

Contact b.chadwick@mondiale.co.uk for bookings

“Thank you for a wonderfulevening and the excellentorganisation of the event.The TPi Awards are aa greatinitiative... they giveinspiration and motivation.”Hans Staal,Stage Entertainment,The Nettherlands

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