Production March 2006

Please visit the “Project Gallery” link on our website to view pictures of various large full-scale concert production jobs that Ashen White completed between December 2005 and January 2006. Some of these sites include the National Trade Centre, the Air Canada Centre and the MTCC.  The average equipment package sent out during that period of time included 24-32 EAW line-array boxes, 144,000-watts of conventional lighting and 24-32 moving head fixtures with multiple motorized fly-points.

Ashen White was awarded the audio and lighting production contract by the City of Toronto for the 2006 “Winter City” festival that was held at Nathan Phillips Square, and other sites, during the months of January and February 2006.

During the first week of the “Winter City” festival, Ashen White provided a 12-box EAW KF-760/761 large format line-array system flown from 25’ scaffold towers, along with numerous EAW JFX-260 in-fill speakers for area fills.  Sub-bass was covered by 8 TSW-718 2x18” 1600-watt sub-woofers.  Routing for the various zones was provided by multiple sends from line mixers and a Midas Venice 320 audio console.

In the second week of the festival we provided a 16-box Turbosound Floodlight system stacked on 4 10’ tall scaffold towers, along with 4 ST-25 super-towers holding 12 EAW JFX-260 full range speakers that were used for special vocal feeds and additional area coverage.  Sub-bass was covered by 16 TSW-718 2x18” 1600-watt sub-woofers. Routing and mixing was managed with one 48-channel Soundcraft MH-4 audio console along with line mixers and media pool feeds.

Signal source for the show was provided by various playback units and numerous Shure and Sennheiser wired microphones along with 16-channels of Sennheiser 3000 Series UHF wireless transmitters and receivers and 24-channels of Shure U4 UHF wireless transmitters and receivers.  At the height of the event we were managing a total of approximately 40 channels of wireless along with 5 separate UHF antenna distribution systems.  Please feel free to contact our rental department if you require small to large wireless rentals for your up and coming events.  We have numerous Shure and Sennheiser wireless systems in our rental stock.

Lighting on the “Winter City” festival included about 300,000-watts of conventional lighting, a large outdoor-use LED package and about 20 moving lights. Thousands of linear feet of cable was used to link the lighting to the main dimming and control equipment.  The overall show package included one main outdoor site, one mobile stage site and four large tents each with small audio systems and individual lighting packages.  Additional staging was provided last-minute to help with client logistics issues.

At the same time that we were handling the “Winter City” festival, we were also gearing up for one of the largest high-profile corporate dinner and awards shows that happens in Toronto each year and packaging equipment for multiple clients at the “2006 Toronto Auto Show”. These events happened in the first three weeks of February and will be detailed in our project gallery and in a future newsletter.

As we head into the busy summer season we are once again building up our stock of extra equipment and preparing for another fantastic series of shows.  The Ashen White staff is looking forward to working with our long-term and new clients over the next few months.

Sales March 2006

Big thanks go out to our clients and staff for helping Ashen White achieve a record year in our retail sales and installation divisions!

We started off summer 2005 with a major audio installation in a large church.  As the summer progressed we also completed installations of audio and lighting equipment at a number of clubs and schools.  We are now working on a large theatrical lighting installation and we have some smaller sales projects in the works with various entertainment and local community event customers.

The “Retail Sales” section of our website has been updated regularly over the last few months.

In the “Used Sales” sub-section of our website, the list of available equipment has more than doubled and now includes Clair Brothers Piston speakers, Audio Analyst S4 speaker cabinets, amplifiers, mixing consoles, lighting dimmers and many other items.  Please don’t hesitate to call if you would like to make an offer on one of our used items.

The “New Sales” sub-section now includes packages for both audio and lighting as well as some current “Special deals”.  If you have trouble finding a package that suits your needs, please feel free to contact us by phone at 416-675-9090, or via the “Contact Us” on-line form and we will be happy to provide you with a personalized quotation.

Encourage your friends to sign up for the newsletter and scroll through the sales sections of the website as more package deals, as well as “limited time specials”, will be posted on an ongoing basis.

When we post our “limited time specials” we will try to offer a special deal for all of our clients including DJ’s, corporate clients and pro-audio clients.

Our sales division will work hard to provide specials in all areas of production including: pro audio gear, lighting equipment, recording equipment, consumer audio products and video equipment.

Thanks for you interest in Ashen White and feel free to “sign-up” in order to receive our newsletters vie email in the “Subscribe” section at the bottom left corner of our website. www.ashenwhite.com.

Newsletter:

            What a great summer.

Not only was the weather fantastic for outdoor festivals, but all our new equipment worked wonderfully on all our jobs. We had virtually no technical difficulties, as we provided production for over one-hundred festivals and events between June and August this year.

The Ashen White staff were proud to receive numerous calls of thanks from customers and bands who had worked with us on various jobs over the summer; these welcome words of encouragement were topped off by a call from a high profile recording act from the USA who suggested that the band had “never sounded better” after they had just finished a show using our new EAW KF-760 line array system. The happy client also mentioned that they loved working with our crew, as the technical-support and staff-professionalism were excellent.

We are now looking forward to turning our attention to indoor corporate events, touring, theatrical shows and television work as the weather gets cold and rainy over the fall and winter seasons.

Just In time for the corporate season, Ashen White has now acquired a large new stock of laminated 4’x8’ staging risers with x-type 3’-5’ adjustable bases, 8”-32” legs, all the associated hardware, scrim and stairs. Please contact us if you need a quotation for a small riser rental or a full staging set-up.

Ashen White has recently completed the acquisition of the remaining balance of equipment from Special Event Productions. Much of the acquired equipment is available for club-installation and/or sale. We are actively searching for club installation projects, and are interested in working-out special rental deals for nightclubs in need of a system during the fall, winter and spring months. Most of the available systems consist of either Clair Bros. or Turbosound speakers and Crown or Crest power amplification with Soundcraft mixing consoles. Please don’t hesitate to call for some special pricing.

Brent Tomlinson, of Special Event Productions, who has twenty-plus years of concert production and touring experience, is still available to provide sales, installation and production quotations. Brent can be reached by calling our office or sending an email to brentt@ashenwhite.com .

            There has certainly been a great deal of activity in the audio visual industry this year. Some very large production companies have entered the local market and are buying up some small to medium sized operations.

Please remember that Ashen White is a properly-insured, mid-sized, local production company. We will be happy to provide top-notch equipment and excellent service while following all government mandated safety regulations.

Clients will be well-served in the long run by supporting professional, mid-level, local companies with a view towards encouraging a strong, competitive and healthy audio-visual production marketplace in our immediate area.

Please be a proud local production company supporter!!!

As you may have heard through the industry grapevine, we have had a lot of changes in the past year. Ashen White has practically rebuilt our entire organization from the ground up over the past 12 months.

In May 2004, Ashen White purchased of a brand new “state of the art” EAW KF760 large format Line Array system capable of providing coverage for large-scale concerts with attendance up to 50,000 people. We have used this system extensively on numerous recent shows. High profile performers currently out on tour with an EAW KF760 Line Array system of similar size to ours include: Usher, Motley Crew, Iron Maiden, R.E.M., and many others.

Shortly after the purchase of the new audio system, we bought-out essentially all of the lighting assets of a local Burlington, Ontario production company. Our large stock of conventional theatrical lighting now also includes over 300 Par fixtures on pipes of six (both chrome & black), 200 sections of truss, 50 chain-falls & motors, five hundred thousand watts of ETC & Leprecon dimming and miles of cable.

After the loss of an entire truck load of equipment in July of 2004, we proceeded to upgrade our entire stock of large-format consoles, processing equipment, monitors, corporate speakers, amps and audio snakes. We now have thirty-two EAW JFX-260 corporate speakers with stands and fly-ware, four 52-input large-format Soundcraft audio consoles, a number of smaller Midas and Soundcraft corporate mixers and about twenty new digital effects processors including: TC Electronics 2290s, TC Helicon Voice-works voice processors, Lexicon processors and new XTA-226 digital crossovers.

Finally, we have spent the past couple of months totally rebuilding our web presence. Ashen White is aware of how important it is that our clients know about all the different services that we can provide. Having this information at hand can help customers keep the cost down by accessing all the equipment and services at one location. For more information please visit the “Production Services” and “Retail Sales” sections of the web site.