Hawthorn's head of sound, Iain Reinhold, said the acquisition made perfect sense. "It creates compatibility with our already comprehensive inventory of Martin Wavefront systems and will allow us to expand our work portfolio by quoting for more outdoor work."
This portfolio is already substantial, as Martin Hawthorn's Leicestershire-based company has carved out an enviable share of the large-scale corporate event market since setting up the business 18 years ago as sound and lighting specialists.
"As we were being asked to service more arena-style conferences we decided to demo the Martin system last October - and later compared it alongside an alternative system." The criteria that had to be met, continues Reinhold, had as much to do with the system's visual attributes as its sonic performance. "Aside from the compatibility issue, the Martin system was more compact - and able to be flown above the sightlines. The advantage with the Wavefront W8LM is that it cuts down a lot of rigging time with trussing, and dispenses with delays entirely."
Further to that, he says, the ViewPoint predictive software is a major advantage. "It means that someone who doesn't have Martin Line Array knowledge can get the system up in the air with the array measurements spot on. You can look at a room and predict exactly where the boxes will need to go."
Reingold believes that the presence of the W8LM in their hire fleet will enable Hawthorn to service more large-scale events - and expect to sub in additional reinforcement from the growing number of Martin Line Array stockists. "The problem at present is that we are handling such a wide variety of shows that initially we will only be able to service a maximum of two events with Line Array."
In fact the day after its arrival, the entire system was on the truck, bound for the island of Rhodes - as part of a complete production shipment for a major corporate conference and concert for a pharmaceutical company. "This event was very much in our thinking when we made the purchasing decision," admits Reinhold.(Sarah Rushton-Read)
