Double Venue sale for AVL Distribution
Published: MEA
SOUTH AFRICA: Johannesburg-based AVL Distribution has sold two Avid Venue Profile mixing systems to Gearhouse South Africa. The systems purchased by Gearhouse have two stage racks each (to enable 96 channels), extended analogue and digital outputs, and four Madi option cards.
In the lead up to the purchase, Gearhouse had been using AVL’s demo Venue consoles for performances by Crowded House, Bryan Adams and Ne-Yo as well as the World Cup Kick-Off concert. Following the delivery of the consoles in early November, Gearhouse has received bookings for the consoles from Duran Duran, AR Rahman and 30 Seconds to Mars.
‘We had noted that Venue was coming up more and more often on overseas riders, and we knew the guys from AVL Distribution, who are the African agents for Venue, so we started interacting more closely with them in order to start understanding and working with these great consoles, with a view to purchasing some when the time was right,’ said Dave Tudor, head of operations delivery at Gearhouse SA.
‘We ended up using Venue on shows like KoRn, Counting Crows, most artists on the Fifa Kick-off Concert, Bryan Adams and various others,’ he recalled. ‘As our technicians got to work more and more closely with Venue, we came to understand why these consoles are so popular overseas. They sound fantastic, the pre-amps are studio-grade, the quality and quantity of the third-party plug-ins on Venue are beyond compare, and the “virtual sound-check” feature is just a pleasure – who needs the artist to sound-check when you’ve got full Pro Tools integration? We could EQ the room, set up snapshots and just about everything else all without the band,’ he enthused. ‘Above all, the design of the work-flow on the console surface is just stunning – I noticed many of the overseas engineers that worked with us kept on emphasising that Venue’s workflow removes the complexities, so they could concentrate on what matters most — the mix. Also, they kept praising the rock-solid reliability, sound clarity, I/O flexibility, scalability and integration that Venue is known for.
‘Well, overseas engineers rave about Venue, but only after working with them a few times ourselves did we actually believe the hype, so the decision was made to place the order for two Venue Profile systems in late October,’ explained Mr Tudor. ‘The systems were delivered to us a couple of weeks later, and we are already very excited about them. Our technicians are getting ready to use them on no less than three international acts that are not-negotiable Venue users, between now and Christmas, with more to come next year. These consoles are going to be very busy indeed.’
‘We are absolutely delighted that Gearhouse has joined the Venue family,’ said Nick Matzukis of AVL Distribution. ‘The consoles sell themselves, and the choice might have been an obvious and natural one for Gearhouse, but we would like to thank and congratulate Dave, Ofer and the other guys at Gearhouse for their warm and professional reception to our products. They made this sale an absolute pleasure for us and, in true Gearhouse style, they didn’t just go for a basic system – they purchased two state-of-the art Venue Profile systems with maximum power and flexibility.’