Chris Bogg, managing director at live events production company dBS Solutions, speaks to Headliner about the resurgence of the live events market and why the firm’s long-term relationship with Martin Audio has been so crucial to the business…
Tell us about the origins of dBS Solutions.
We started dBS back in 2005 as a relatively small sound and lighting rental shop based in Warrington. We service lots of local events but also some national theater tours. As for my background, I came from a venue in Manchester called The Bridgewater Hall. I worked in the sound department there before leaving to set up the company. I did a lot of orchestra work there and live music concerts, so that was my passion when we started the company – to offer a service initially to local venues in Manchester and Liverpool and that has grown over the years.
How has 2022 been so far for the company?
It’s been very good. Since September last year things have come back with a vengeance. We were very fortunate over the last couple of years to still have a stream of income, albeit diversified, so the last quarter of 2021 and the first of 2022 have been up to pre-pandemic levels, which is great.
Are there any types of events that have proven especially resilient during Covid?
Yes, the illuminated trails market in the winter. We do four of those at the moment, and some of them are in stately homes – places like Blenheim Palace. We’ve done those for the last couple of years but I really pushed those in 2020 when a lot of our pantomimes and shows started to disappear. So, we really have built that market up and it’s been one of our saving graces.
Have you found that your schedule is now filling up quicker than before as we edge back towards normality?
Yes, our winter of 2022 is not far off being full, which is a great position to be in. It’s just slightly quieter over the summer.
Have you been forced to diversify your offering during the pandemic?
We’ve diversified a little bit. Prior to the pandemic, although we have a lighting hire department, we were largely doing audio for the lit trails, where we’ve started to venture into doing some more of the lighting. We’ve probably stepped away from the weekly touring theater shows and moved into the market of daily touring, which is something that’s reasonably natural as you look at people’s available budget.
Tell us about your relationship with Martin Audio?
One of the first theater tours I did was in 2014 and that was one of the first times I was looking to design and supply a speaker system that was out for long enough that I could pick the system for the job. So, I started to look at different options. That was my first venture into purchasing Martin Audio products. I’d used them many times before but that was the first time I purchased them. We bought into the XD12s and single 18 subs. Soon after that we quickly bought a W8LM system – about 18-20 boxes of that over a relatively short period of time. That grew into owning a lot of the point source products like XT15s, a good array of twin 18 subs and lots of DD6s as frontfill. The whole system we would provide was Martin Audio and we had great support from the guys there.
What was it about the products that separated them from the competition?
The things I look at and appreciate about the Martin Audio ethos now are slightly different to the things I enjoyed when I first started. Back in 2014, I was looking for a box that was flexible enough to do all of the venues that varied hugely in width. So, what I liked about the XD12 was that it had a rotatable horn, meaning I could use it in both orientations and I could also choose to use one in wide format and another by the side with the horn rotated.
Another thing I enjoyed was the affordability of the product, because it was a flagship British brand, but I was also able to drive it off the existing amps that we had in rental stock by just adding a processor, so it made the move over quite affordable. And with the W8LM system we purchased, I was able to drive it with existing amps, add in a few extra amps and then eventually move over to a different amp stock, but it made the big purchase a little easier because I could do it in steps.
What I really like about Martin Audio is that it is still a relatively small team, and I can talk to them and I can talk to the tech support staff there who have been supporting us since we had W8LM. I can phone them, say I need a particular preset for an old controller and they’ll make it for me, so it’s a really nice thing to have. I really like having a relationship where I can phone the people making the speakers.