The company has recently bought four more PM5D-RHs to add to its Yamaha rental stock, which now comprises ten PM5D-RH, two DSP5D, four M7CL-48, five LS9-32 and three LS9-16.
"Previously we've always had analogue consoles on festival monitors enabling us to cater for the wide variety of engineers who need to use them," says SSE's Alex Penn. "This will be the first year we've switched over to using only digital consoles, but it's a decision we haven't taken lightly, as all our setups need to be instantly accessible for any engineer to walk up to.
"The PM5D-RH is such a well-known platform, it has virtually become the industry standard. It's popular and pretty well everyone knows how to use it, so it has allowed us to make that switch."
Already confirmed to feature SSE Hire's PM5D-RHs at the monitor position are all three stages at the High Voltage festival; the main and second stages at both V festival sites, Lovebox, Oxegen, Global Gathering and T4 On The Beach; plus the main stages at Field Day and Summer Sundae. More are likely to be confirmed soon.
In addition to the festivals, SSE's PM5Ds are expected to be in constant demand for other events throughout the year.
"Yamaha consoles offer an excellent return on our investment, because they're very popular with engineers and so rarely go wrong," says Penn. "Apart from an annual service, they need virtually no attention and are very unlikely to crash. It makes them highly cost-effective and gives us complete confidence that they'll be out there, just getting on with the job with no problems."
(Jim Evans)
