"We work with more than 60 sound engineers over the three days of the festival, and we only have a small window to make a good impression," says Skan director Chris Fitch. "Little details can make a big difference." Obviously this principle extends beyond domestic appliances to high standards of equipment, staff training and safety.
When Fitch and co-director Abby Llewellyn bought Skan from founder Peter Howard in 1996 (Fitch had worked for the company since leaving university a decade earlier), they focused on maximizing quality in all areas of the business. This included recruiting and training staff, building relationships with freelance sound engineers and systems technicians and updating the inventory.
Fitch and Llewellyn inherited a fairly new Turbosound Floodlight system, but the control equipment was somewhat outdated. "Our first major purchase was a Midas XL200, closely followed by an XL3," adds Fitch. "Since then we seem to have bought a couple of large desks every year."
While the Other Stage at Glastonbury represents one of Skan's biggest annual jobs, the company regularly handles a wide range of events of differing sizes, including numerous tours (this year's credits include the Sugababes, Moloko, Tindersticks, Melanie C, Feeder and Supergrass), large one-off events such as Radio One's Big Weekend, and outdoor classical events such as that for Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Corporate work includes diverse projects such as the Queen's official Jubilee visit to the armed forces, the Levis 150th birthday party, numerous product launches and conferences.
To cope with this range of work, Skan stocks a broad selection of analogue and digital mixing desks, including Midas Venice, XL3, XL4, Heritage, Yamaha 03D, DM 2000 and DiGiCo D5. It also stocks a wide range of speakers from JBL's Contractor series and Turbosound Q-light system, through to concert boxes such as Turbo's Floodlight. A recent acquisition was L-Acoustics ARCS and dV-Dosc, and a further major speaker purchase will be announced around PLASA time.
Skan occupies a 4,000sq.ft warehouse in Reading. "The location is near perfect," says Fitch. "We are less than an hour from the West End." The warehouse has storage across three levels, plus office accommodation. A dry-back spray booth was recently fitted to tackle the never-ending cycle of equipment maintenance, and there is a dedicated preparation room where all systems are tested before despatch.
The company's involvement with Glastonbury is proof of its constant reviewing and updating policy. Every year the PA system at the Other Stage undergoes a number of refinements, driven by the company's latest investments in technology. "Artists' expectations go up every year, so there's always an improvement in the reinforcement and control specs for Glastonbury," says Fitch. A major development was switching to XTA DP226 controllers in 1998. "We were one of the first to go exclusively over to XTA processing on FOH and monitors after we took it out on tour with Catatonia in 1997, and we haven't looked back since. While we have to specify for Glastonbury quite far ahead, we do have the benefit of being able to put pretty much what we want on it - no one artist can specify the system."
This year the monitor consoles were upgraded to two Midas Heritage 3000s. "It's become an industry standard monitor board now, and engineers expect to see it," says Skan's senior technician Matt Vickers, who runs FOH for the Other Stage. Another change this year was from Turbosound Floodlight to Flashlight
