Taking in arenas in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield, the How Now Mrs Brown Cow tour is running from March through to December. Adlib has been working with O'Carroll and his team for many years and has used Coda systems on previous tours, so they knew it was the right choice for the current shows.
The entire production is tailor-made to suit each arena, ensuring that audiences always enjoy the optimum performance. Because of this, the straightforward scalability and seamless coverage of Coda systems is a particular benefit.
"We have used Coda systems on a number of 'Mrs Brown' tours and they have always delivered great sound," says Kevin Byatt, Adlib's technical production manager for the tour.
Engineer Kenny Perrin has worked with the tours for over a decade, mixing both Front of House and monitors from the FoH position. He has a lot of experience of mixing comedy and knows how crucial it is to have a PA system that delivers exceptional sonic clarity, to ensure the pristine delivery of jokes and punchlines. "Coda is absolutely brilliant for vocal clarity and definition," he says.
For this tour, a typical setup is main hangs of 14 Coda LA12s and three ViRAY under-hangs per side, plus two additional side-hang arrays of 14 ViRAY, each paired with four groundstacked Coda subs. A centre cluster of four ViRAY fills the mid stalls, while two delay hangs of six ViRAY per side are flown approximately half way down the venue, to ensure the vocal gets right to the back of the room and the system maintain even levels throughout.
With a lot of playback, spot effects and a great deal of cast ad-libbing in each show, mixing the perfect sound can be a challenge, but the Coda system is ensuring that not a word is missed by the sold-out audiences.
"It's a fantastic tour for Adlib, the show is highly entertaining and very funny," says Kevin. "We have a really fluid dialogue with everyone involved in the production side, they trust us implicitly to deliver the best technical specs and very highest production standards."
(Jim Evans)
