Live Entertainment

MASSIVE COMMITMENT TO SUBLIME SHOWS

Concerts, tours, festivals, and the like are usually stunning visual and audio experiences for the audience. But for event technicians toiling behind the scenes, they’re mostly a staggering challenge. The crew is on the road for days and weeks on end. The technical demands alone are tough to tackle, but all this stagecraft has to be choreographed and made to serve artistic purposes. What’s more, in recent years concerts and tours have become increasingly elaborate, with sophisticated lighting, video, and sound reinforcement systems requiring ever bigger rigs and more equipment.

Since branching out with its touring and live entertainment offshoot in 2001, satis&fy has hit the road time and time again. Crews have rolled out rigs to support homegrown acts such as Die Fantastischen Vier, Die Ärzte, Tokio Hotel, Xavier Naidoo, Söhne Mannheims, Nena, and Jan Delay, as well as a roster of international stars including David Bowie, AHA, Carlos Santana, and Joe Cocker. With tours taking us across Germany and Europe, to festivals, and on TV shows, this job is nothing if not varied. The requirements for every type of show and appearance are so very different. So it’s fortunate indeed for a production company to have on hand everything a touring act could possibly need, including all the human assets:

• Audio engineers with ample hardware and software skills, creative light and media designers, seasoned stage designers, and road-tested project managers who know how to keep on top of every detail and pull off the trick of staging tours and huge open-air events like Rock am Ring
• An extensive range of reliable and proven equipment to support solo artists and bands on their journey through the Republic and beyond. Of course, we devote a lot of effort towards keeping our most valuable non-human resources in good shape, and regularly invest, often heavily, in the latest audio, lighting and video equipment from renowned market leaders.

Here’s a quick run-down of our arsenal of state-of-the-art gear and other must-haves for shows:

Sound reinforcement
Our people have the skills and gear necessary to tame the acoustics of even the most challenging venue – be it an opera house, an open-air festival, a multifunctional arena, or club – and treat audiences of every size to deeply satisfying sound. When it comes to audio quality, our flagship rig is a K1/KUDO system, supported by V-DOSC, DV-DOSC and ARCS components, all of which were designed and built by the French manufacturer L’ACOUSTICS. We are, of course, an L’ACOUSTICS network partner. Next to this big daddy of all arrays, we also have the full range of d&b audiotechnik systems as well as many Electro-Voice products (X-Line). Our warehouse is chock-full of analog and digital mixing consoles bearing the Midas, DiGiCo, Digidesign, and Yamaha brand names, not to mention oodles of new Sennheiser and Shure wireless and in-ear systems.

Lighting
Vari-Lite, ETC, Robe, High End, GDS, i-Pix – these are a just a few of the many brand names you’ll find in our rich cache of conventional, moving head, and LED lighting gear. Our pool of rental equipment is brimming with control consoles for MA lighting and high-end systems in every performance category, as well as accessories ranging from chain hosts and trusses to the state-of-the-art data transmission systems. 2D and 3D CAD planning tools and photorealistic renderings enable our customers to experience their lighting concepts before the show kicks off.

Video gear
These days, video clips and live images on backdrops and LED walls are fixtures in every tour production toolbox. For artists, they are a powerful means of visual expression. This is why we have everything it takes to make shows, concerts, and festivals a feast for the eyes as well as a treat for the ears. Weaving multimedia presentations into the fabric of a live production requires some pretty sophisticated equipment. Our LED walls, screens, projectors, players, and cameras were hand-picked to meet these rigorous demands. Some of our hardware highlights include Catalyst media server systems, SD/HD micro cameras, flexible remote camera systems, and rugged, road-ready optical fiber infrastructure. We preconfigure these systems individually, and then test the entire integrated and networked setup to create plug-and-play rigs that we can set up time and tear down in minimum time.

Set design, stage construction, and trucking
Sure, we have the technical end covered. But we have also mastered the art of stagecraft. No concert or outdoor event can do without professional set and stage design. Our project managers join forces with our light and sound designers to show you how it all will look, feel, and play. If you like it, we’ll make it happen. And if you need it, we’ll build it. Anything goes, from small stages for unplugged gigs in a warm and welcoming ambience to the huge stage for mega events under the stars. Everything is safe and certified by TÜV, Germany’s exacting safety standards authority. LiteDeck™, a Litestructures staging system provided by the company’s German rep Gunther Hecker GmbH, is the latest addition to our warehouse and already a touring mainstay. Our fleet of trucks ensures all your gear arrives at its destination on time and in good shape. At satis&fy, we have the assets necessary to handle all the logistics for your tour and the same goes for all your gear. Our warehouses offer plenty of storage space and our techs are standing by, ready to perform repairs on equipment and cases.

Rehearsal studio
Another big benefit awaits bands and artists in Werne, the town near Dortmund that has been home to satis&fy since we moved there in 2007: Studio 20/20 is our 400 square meter rehearsal studio. We equipped it with a large rig comprising the finest equipment to afford artists the opportunity to rehearse under real-world conditions on a life-size stage in 1:1 scale. Die Ärzte, Farin Urlaub Racing Team, Nena, Jan Delay, Die Fantastischen Vier, and Culcha Candela have rehearsed set lists, tweaked stage shows, and programmed striking light shows at Werne.

To learn more, see the article Werne Rocks – Bringing out the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in Live Entertainment (page 4-5, only in German).

Are you planning a tour, open-air event, or TV appearance? Do you wish to use our rehearsal hall to prepare for a tour? Then call us now at +49 (0)2389 9289-0.