:: Arizona Bike Week ::
From left to right:
Monitor world
at stage left,
with the Yamaha
M7CL- 48 mix-
ing console; The
stage right stack
of EAW KF750
loudspeakers
providing sound
reinforcement for
the “HandleBar
Saloon.”
tor amp rig and that was the first
time we used them all networked.
It’s really nice to be able to set up a
custom panel and see the status of all
the amplifiers and know how much
headroom you have.”
“I’ve got our laptops set up so I can
monitor all of the (Harman Pro Group
HiQnet) System Architect devices, in
this case it’s the I-Techs, and a dbx
4800 Drive Rack at Front of House.
I can also monitor all the Shure wireless systems and then I also have it so
I can run either of the M7s remotely
from the laptop, walking through the
crowd making mix adjustments and so
forth. To be able to do all that from
one laptop is pretty cool.”
As far as microphones were concerned for Cyclefest, Pro Production
aims to please. “We’ve got a really
diverse mic selection, we’ve got AKG
C414’s and Neumann KM-184s, we use
Shure KSM 9 and of course the standard selection of 58’s and 57’s, we also
have Sennheiser e908’s that we use on
toms, and 421’s, which are my personal
favorite mic. We just bring out basically
two full mic packages and they’ll have
pretty much anything that they could
want to choose from,” said Mote.
In addition to the PA rig Pro Production Services also provided all staging,
lights, video, and backline. Mote stated,
“More and more these days clients want
to have a company that they can make
one phone call to and have most of their
needs, if not all of them, met. So we’ve
been trying to diversify our business
model to accommodate that.”
Commenting on the overall event
Mote said, “This year, I would have to
say that things went really smoothly. A
lot of that has to do with the fact that
we’ve done it for a number of years so
we’ve really become as efficient as we
can. And it’s not just us, the organizers
of the event do their part to make sure
we have plenty of access, and they’ve
really fine-tuned the schedule so that
we have time enough to do what we
need and they still are able to fit in
everything that they need to do. We’re
able to anticipate any kind of problems
that there may be.”
E. B. Chester of Chester’s Harley-Davidson summed it up: “Music is
a large part of the fabric of life in the
motorcycle world. Few events can bring
a crowd of Americans together like a
good concert. If there is any doubt
about it, look at this year’s Arizona Bike
Week. Our dealership normally, on a
good Saturday when we are giving away
free food, may have one or two hundred bikers on hand. Through a good
concert with Charlie Daniels, we see
10,000 people. What a rush. We were
over whelmed. The Handlebar Saloon at
Bike Week was more than packed each
night for the concerts. I can truthfully
say that without the music the entire
event would not be the same.”
Mote estimates around 50,000
people attended over the five days of
Cyclefest. “This year there were two
other really large festivals that were
the exact same time frame as Arizona
Bike Week, and I hear reports from the
other two as well as Bike Week that
the numbers were as high as ever and
in some cases higher, so the economy
is affecting a lot of people, but we’ve
been real lucky.”
Mark Johnson has
been involved with
audio and video in one
way or another for over
35 years, including
production, manufac-
turing, and covering the industries
for various publications.
