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Re: The top ten


Silas-


Work as an IATSE stage hand.  ;)


What I see working arena shows in the past 12 months are Clair I5/I3, JBL VerTec, Meyer Milo, l'Acoustics vDosc (only one K rig so far), Martin MLA (only one so far), d&b (only 2 so far), EV X-Array (one rig), and one Turbo line array (don't remember which one, I was electrician on that gig) and one EV line array (the big one).  I think it's important to remember that on the arena circuit we only see "A" level national or international acts.  On the "soft seat" tours there is more variety and more ground stacking, so in addition to the above I've seen some EV QRX, JBL SRX, d&b, an old Turbo Flash/Flood rig (sounded pretty good, too), and various combinations of EAW KFxxx.


On budget tours we see some S-4,; Brett Michael was carrying Showco Prism for side fills.


What I find interesting is that EAW seems largely out of the touring market, Martin has yet to gain significant market share with the MLA, and despite having good products we don't see much Turbo or d&b.  That makes me think the selection of a touring PA company is much more about service and support than what inventory the company has.  In my research before we bought VerTec I spoke with a number of company owners, and one of them told me "if the tour is long enough I'll buy whatever the BE wants, even if it's a product we'd probably not have purchased otherwise."


Hope this helps.