Full Production expands with investment in new Headquarters
UK – Full Production, the Berkshire-based specialist in the design and delivery of world-class entertainment technology solutions, has completed the move to a much larger premises, with significant new facilities. Located in Ruscombe, between Reading and Maidenhead, with fast access to the nearby M4 motorway and Heathrow Airport, the new site offers an attractive new working environment for staff and clients alike, including enhanced workshop, prep and testing areas, a meeting and training room, increased office space and a new, fully equipped Vis Suite.
Founded by Steve Richardson in 2010, Full Production offers complete technical resources to the entertainment production industry, from lighting, sound and rigging to staging and video. The company has also been focusing on adding facilities and capability to its in-house workshop, increasing its activity in advanced solutions R&D, custom manufacturing and prototyping to ensure the very highest levels of service.
The new premises represents a significant investment, and follows a period of rapid expansion for the company since Covid. In addition to its extensive office and workshop spaces accommodating its full-time staff, the new site offers a welcoming ‘Green Room’ for visitors, plus a comfortable Vis Suite equipped with an MA Lighting grandMA3 system and Depence software.
Marc Thornton, Director of Live Events and Touring explains, “For the Vis Suite, we wanted a space that feels warm and homely. We want people to feel relaxed, to be able to escape to somewhere pleasant and peaceful. We’re in quite a rural location, with various very nice pubs and restaurants nearby offering accommodation. Part of the attraction for our clients is to escape for a few days, allowing them to fully concentrate on creativity.”
Richardson adds “It was important to us not only for the Vis Suite to be a dedicated well-equipped room, but to have an ambience and to be a desirable destination.”
Richardson has been pleasantly surprised by the company’s post-pandemic rate of growth. Of the move to new premises, he says, “Happily, within our ten-year plan we have included a degree of futureproofing, and have room available to play with. If we outgrow the space in its current configuration, we can double the size of the facility if we need to.”
In recent years, via clients including Treetop Golf and Pixel Artworks, Full Production has made valuable contributions to a series of large-scale special events, installations and attractions, in the UK and overseas. Having recently completed a landmark installation for Treetop Golf’s new attraction at the Metrocentre shopping centre in Gateshead, the company is now looking toward a number of exciting projects already in the pipeline. The team will be using the new space to produce in-house all its custom solutions for shows and installations, continuing Full Production’s push towards self-sufficiency, with all its advantages in increased efficiency, consistency and reliability.
“We have the confidence to invest in the company and build for the future, in a sustainable way,” says Richardson. “It shows our firm belief that that the business has a solid foundation for years to come.”
Full Production raises the game for Treetop Golf
UK – Full Production, the Berkshire-based specialist in the delivery of world-class entertainment technology solutions, has completed the audio-visual design and installation of the latest Treetop Golf destination. Sited at Metrocentre shopping centre in Gateshead, the new themed attraction includes over 400 luminaires and an immersive audio system with 140 loudspeakers.
The regular service supplier to Treetop since 2020, Full Production has lived up to its name with this, the fifth Treetop Golf site, carrying out the design and installation of the audio, lighting, show control and visual infrastructure. With successful attractions in Leicester, Cardiff and Manchester, Treetop’s management brought in Full Production for its next site, in Birmingham, where its critically acclaimed design and installation significantly raised production values. With this experience, Treetop’s management were fully convinced to enhance the new Metrocentre site even further. As well as requiring that the multi-faceted system be able to run standalone, without technical operators, for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week – it would also set a new bar for world-class visitor experiences, employing the very latest show technology.
The site has two themed 18-hole golf courses – ‘Tropical Trail’ and ‘Ancient Explorer’ – plus the Bonus 19th hole. Full Production’s Steve Richardson says, “When designing these sites, we have to keep in mind that, first and foremost, it has to function as a mini golf course. Because of this, when we lit the Birmingham site, we had adopted a ‘more but less’ approach – more lights but at a lower intensity – to ensure the playing surfaces were evenly lit, minimise shadowing, and be sure the players could actually see the ball! We brought that approach to Treetop Metrocentre too. This is the base of our design, which we use as a framework to then build the eye candy and wow-factor within the integrated elements.”
Consequently, the Metrocentre design features a lot of luminaires. Among them are 270 Jade Expo track-mounted fixtures from CLS, which include an internal soft diffusion filter. “The Jade fixtures are great,” says Richardson. “Each has a 42˚ beam-shaper to even out the beam and eliminate any hot spots, plus some deft barndoor action to remove spill on the kerbs and planting. Their DMX control is invaluable – many of the units are only running at 5 or 6% on the playing surfaces, but the output is consistent and even – and we can also utilise them for ball trigger effects.”
Also used, for the very first time, are 20 EclMini DAT Gallery fixtures from PROLIGHTS. Of these, Richardson says, “They are new to us on this site but are phenomenal. When we were designing Birmingham, I struggled to find a small profile fixture, with shutters and onboard DMX dimmer, which could hang from a lighting track – this product ticks all of those boxes, and the light output is insane! In the future, we’ll be using these a lot more for gobo and texture work.”
The lighting design also features more than 50 lighting fixtures from Chauvet – including Accent 3, Ovation E910 FC and ColorDash Batten Quad 12 models – plus Elation SixBar 500s, UV Battens from ADJ and several dozen RGBW LED downlighters and uplighters.
There are 40 ball-sensors triggering special ‘moments’ for the players on 18 interactive holes across the Metrocentre site. It sounds straightforward, but show control is complicated, as Richardson explains. “Most holes have ‘Win’ and ‘Lose’ routes, but each can have multiple outcomes. The Bonus 19th hole, for example, has one win and four losing routes. The ‘Win’ route has five outcomes and the ‘Lose’ routes have 10. As the ball triggers the sensor, our Pharos LPC2 controllers fire a host of commands across the network – playback for lighting, pixel-tape, audio automation and video which are synced together.”
Video content, including graphics, effects and results is displayed on a number of screens which are fully integrated within the various elaborate set-pieces throughout the site. Digital content is stored on and played back from 13 BrightSign HD1024 units.
However, it is with audio that Treetop has taken the biggest step forward at Metrocentre. Here, guided by Full Production’s vast knowledge and support, they wanted to ensure the visitor experience was enhanced as much by the possibilities of audio technology as by the lighting and visual elements. To help its client meet this need, Full Production drew on the skills of its regular go-to audio solutions architect and experienced sound system designer, Dan Roncoroni of Raven AV.
Initially, Roncoroni made some improvements to the audio system at the Birmingham site, and some strong recommendations for the future, which led to Treetop agreeing to make a significant new investment in audio. “I stressed the importance of investing not just in audio hardware, but in content,” he says. “Sound designer Dave Shepard has put together a team of composer, voice actors and a script writer to create all-new content for quite a lot of the holes in Metrocentre. Dave understands what I wanted to do, so he’s designed it for spatial audio.”
Audio enhances the visitor experience. Spatialized sound effects are triggered on the majority of holes throughout the site. For several holes of the Tropical Trail, in an area called the Mystic Wood – seen as the ‘highlight’ of the route – these sound effects are enabled by a TiMax SoundHub-S32 with Dante networked I/O, with its hybrid delay/level spatialisation system. Elsewhere, Roncoroni uses the level-based spatialisation capabilities of Innovate Audio’s panLab software. He explains, “Some content needs to be very accurately localised, for example birdsong moving from the low-level shrubbery up to the centrepiece tree, and TiMax does a great job at that. For the rest of the site, where we just need a more general, atmospheric positioning of sound, the power of TiMax wasn’t needed and panLab was the ideal option. Both systems are invaluable in these situations as time-saving programming aids. To do this manually, setting the delay times in each loudspeaker, would have taken forever!”
Playback, through either TiMax or panLab, is controlled via QLab software, from two Mac Minis, one serving each 18-hole course. Scripts within QLab randomise sound effect playback (saving staff from irritating repetition) while lockouts ensure that ‘win’ or ‘lose’ moments are uninterrupted. “It’s relatively complex,” says Roncoroni. “There are just over 1,000 cues between the two Mac Minis – so we’re doing quite a lot there on the audio front.”
He adds, “The idea is that, when you shut your eyes, you are in the middle of a jungle – it’s more immersive. The loudspeakers disappear and you just hear the content. You don’t hear where it’s coming from.”
To deliver those realistic, spatialised sounds – including birdsong and screeching monkeys – 140 loudspeakers are secreted around the set. These include over 100 cabinets from UK manufacturer EM Acoustics, with the remainder a height layer formed of pendant loudspeakers from QSC Pro Audio. Power is provided by 16 of the new Unica amplifiers from Powersoft, which also gives the advantage of a suite of monitoring and alarm tools – an extra layer of assurance in such a situation. Great care has also been taken to maximise intelligibility – quite a challenge in a busy, noisy environment receiving hundreds of visitors, of various ages, every day.
One especially interesting element is also from Powersoft – a tactile transducer called the Mover. This is a small (9cm x 9cm), robust unit with a moving magnet and platform which can impart an earth-shaking rumble to a floor or wall. In the Ancient Explorer’s temple-themed environment (think ‘Indiana Jones’ rather than ‘quiet prayer’) an obelisk falls over, accompanied by a terrifying ground-shake from the Mover.
For Roncoroni, without space to hang a large subwoofer to achieve a similar effect – and with noise issues to be wary of – the Mover is a fine alternative. “This was something entirely new for Treetop,” says Roncoroni, “but everyone loves it. It’s been really successful.”
Full Production is now responsible for the ongoing service and maintenance at all five Treetop sites which, between them, see more than 14,000,000 triggers in the course of a year. Richardson concludes, “We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved for Treetop, and of course we’re hugely grateful for the trust they’ve put in us, to deliver such a wonderful environment. We look forward to the next challenge.”
Technical Information:
AUDIO
68 x EM Acoustics EMS-41
13 x EM Acoustics EMS-51X
5 x EM Acoustics EMS-61
4 x EM Acoustics EMS-81X
14 x EM Acoustics S-48
24 x QSC AD-P4TB pendant loudspeakers
1 x TiMax SoundHub-S32
8 x Powersoft Unica 2000W/8-channel amplifiers
8 x Powersoft Unica 4000W/8-channel amplifiers
LIGHTING
270 x CLS Jade Expo
20 x PROLIGHTS EclMini DAT
30 x Elation SixBar 500
34 x CHAUVET Professional COLORdash Accent 3,
11 x CHAUVET Professional Ovation E-910FC
6 x CHAUVET Professional COLORdash Batten-Quad 12
22 x ADJ UV Battens
CONTROL
3 x Pharos LPC2
2 x Netgear M4250-26G4F-PoE++ Switch
1 x Netgear M4250-10G2XF-PoE++ Switch
1 x Pharos TPS (touch panel station)
7 x Pharos RIO 80
12 x Artistic Licence Railsplit RDM
3 x Artistic Licence RailSwitch
1 x Dell NUC control PC
1 x 4-way KVM
1 x KVM console drawer
1 x Enttec S-play
4 x Enttec Octo
40 x ball sensors
13 x Brightsign HD1024
FULL PRODUCTION APPOINTS NEW DIRECTOR OF LIVE EVENTS AND TOURING
Full Production, a production services company based in Berkshire, has appointed a new Director of Live Events and Touring.
Marc Thornton steps into the role after several years as Lighting Director and Programmer for some of the UK’s biggest artists, including Foals, Charli XCX and Goldfrapp. He will be overseeing the live events and music arm of the business, adding his wealth of experience to a team that is growing following a series of new client wins.
Marc is a BRIT school graduate who began working alongside Full Production Managing Director Steve Richardson early on in his career, whilst they were both working at White Light. Marc worked with Full Production as part of a successful freelance career for the past eight years, before joining the company on a temporary contract in February 2021. He played an integral part in some of Full Production’s biggest projects of 2021, including the Warwick Castle Sundown Spectacular, and installations such as Treetop Adventure Golf.
Marc now joins the company on a full-time basis as a Director, and will be helping steer its direction in the future. His addition will bolster Full Production’s existing range of production services, which includes live events, installations, broadcast and live music. In 2021, the team was involved in projects that included lighting St Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar, the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, and Champions Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall.
Commenting on his appointment, Marc said: “I’m delighted to be coming on board full time with the team at Full Production. Steve has played a big part in my career from the moment I started in the industry, so to find myself with the opportunity of joining the team on a permanent basis is really fantastic. I have always enjoyed seeing what projects Steve and Full Production have been doing and I think together, we are going to create some really interesting and exciting pieces of work.”
Full Production Managing Director Steve Richardson commented: “2021 was a fantastic year for us, which saw us return to the exponential growth we were seeing pre-Covid, and with 90% new business. As a result of this continued success, we’re delighted to be in a position where we can continue with our planned expansion of the Full Production team.
“In creating the Live Events and Touring role for Marc we are ensuring that this arm of our business can continue to service our clients needs to the highest standards, and have the capacity to expand in what is a very fast moving and exciting sector for us. Marc’s experience adds another string to our bow and I am excited to begin this next chapter of Full Production’s development with him beside me.”
marc@fullproduction.co.uk , steve@fullproduction.co.uk
For media enquiries please contact:
Stuart Wood / stuart@creativebd.co.uk / 07784528297
Full Production’s Steve Richardson on why respecting freelancers’ time is the way to win their loyalty.
We don’t work a standard 9-5 job: load-ins start in the early hours of the morning, with rehearsals quite often shortly after lunch. Then there’s the show itself, followed by the load-out – all in the space of 18-24 hours with very little downtime. We work in an industry which famously has a “show must go on” mentality.
But at what cost?
Poor sleeping patterns, long periods away from home and bad eating habits on site are very common. It wasn’t that long ago, perhaps even before the pandemic, where a lack of sleep and generally being run down was worn as a badge of honour by many throughout the industry.
More recently, my LinkedIn and Facebook networks have been crying out for staff. Not an hour goes by without a post on various freelance forums or company pages, requesting assistance in finding crew for shows and events across many genres of the industry.
Why?
Simply put, there is a real shortage of skilled crew for events and installations, and as a company owner I’m finding myself having to pick up the shortfall both mentally and physically.
I think this has been caused by a couple of things:
Firstly, many people have outright left the industry. Myself and my colleagues all know people who have left roles in events to go and work elsewhere, in industries they believe are less likely to be shut down by virus regulations. This, coupled with film and dramas swallowing up a large number of console operators, has left a massive shortfall in areas of the entertainment industry which have been shut down for a long time.
“There is a fine balance between getting what the client wants, and offering your staff and contractors healthier working hours.”
Steve Richardson
I think another reason for the shortage is that, for many people, the benefits of freelance work are beginning to be outweighed by the risks. There is a smaller pool of talented freelancers than there was pre-pandemic, and many of them are now only searching for full-time employment. That shouldn’t be a surprise: many freelancers were forgotten about in the government’s financial aid. Who can blame them for wanting a bit of financial stability moving forwards?
One way I think we can entice freelancers back onto jobs is to show them that we respect both their time and their wellbeing. We need to support them with strong HR processes, and we need to stop offering them shifts which, whilst financially tempting due to the length, offer very little in terms of personal wellbeing. I’m talking about those 1.5x or 2x days, quite often with 12+ hour shifts. After spending more time at home with family and friends, people value their time much more than they used to.
At Full Production, we’re making this change. We’re trying, as much as possible, to split those long shifts in half, hiring a day crew and a night crew, or a load-in crew and show crew with a handover in between. Sometimes, though, this is dependent on the client – they need to play their part by offering a realistic budget and just as important, a realistic schedule.
There’s the trickle down effect and when clients start cutting budgets, the impact is felt most strongly by the people on the ground, who quite often will have to make up the difference with longer hours.
There is a fine balance between getting what the client wants, and offering your staff and contractors healthier working hours. We’re committed to making this change, but it won’t happen overnight. It also isn’t always going to work for everyone, I’ll be the first to admit it – there are always going to be key personnel which sadly aren’t able to be swapped out due to continuity – but even small changes when and where we can will benefit the majority.