The training course was devised and delivered by Ambersphere's head of training, Chris West, ably assisted by Thor Andre' from sales and support technician, Sam Parsons. "The dot2 training at Ambersphere is a one-day course," explains West, "teaching the console to such a level that the attendees can easily go straight out and run a show whereas these training sessions at PLASA necessarily offered more of an introduction. We started off by giving a thorough overview to the technical aspects and capabilities of the console and then spending an hour really getting hands on with it and experiencing first-hand how easy it is to operate. The sessions ended with a Q&A for those that had more specific questions and things they wanted to learn."
The reasoning behind the training sessions was simple as Thor Andre' from sales says, "There is always a great deal of interest in the dot2 at trade shows but, as is the nature of these events, it is not possible to cover all the functionalities of the board in a brief 'on stand' demo. The training sessions were a great opportunity for anyone that wanted to get more 'in-depth'. We took a lot of bookings prior to the show but also people visiting the stand and seeing the dot2 for the first time, signed up for the training then and there to really get a good understanding of it."
"It shouldn't really be a surprise that so many people wanted to sign up for these sessions," comments West. "The dot2 is ideally suited to so many different applications: theatre, live music, club venues, corporate events and that has been reflected in the people who have attended the training. In fact, that has been something of an unexpected benefit. For example, we've had French and Spanish speakers in the training room making use of the multi-lingual facility on the console. It's also true that if you sit two operators from different disciplines next to each other, they might be looking to achieve different results from the same console but they will also learn from each other. After every session we had people wanting to stay longer, ask more questions and generally make the most of what we provided for them.
"This was a great opportunity, not only to catch up with people we already know who wanted to get some hands on time with the dot2, but also introduce us to a lot of people we have never meet before," concludes West. "What was really interesting was to meet so many people that had little or no MA experience to begin with. Having the chance to introduce these people to a whole new system and seeing how quickly they adopted to it and enjoyed using it was very rewarding.
"It is great to hear comments such as 'I'd love to use this for my next show. Where can I rent one in Scotland?' and 'I want one! I'll still keep using grandMA2 for most of my shows, but for the smaller to medium size shows, this is a great alternative. It will do everything that I need it to.' Even better is the fact that some of the attendees has already specified the dot2 on upcoming shows over the next few months. You can't really ask for a better response than that."
(Jim Evans)
