Show of Hands Spires and Beams Tour

There is one tour that has steadfastly remained in memories and conversations within the Puxley team across the last few years. Regular client Show of Hands delighted acoustic roots and folk fans all over the United Kingdom with the Spires and Beams tour – a sensational exploration of cathedrals and historic buildings that saw the 3 piece perform to crowds of up to 800. The act, touring since the early 1990s, have built up a huge following including three sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall. For this tour, some of this countries most revered and impressive indoor spaces were visited – including Islington Union Chapel,York Minster, and Canterbury Cathedral. Audiences were treated to a musical spectacle completely removed from the traditional concert. The shape and size of the venues involved allowed for innovative and exciting seating and staging layouts, each bringing guests closer to Knightley and Beer’s incredible musicianship.

Whilst the quality of the shows themselves created great memories for the Puxley team, the achievements that were made in terms of technical production also proved to be a great asset for future concerts. The acoustic environments that these historic and prestigious buildings presented were both interesting and challenging. In order to provide great concert audio, our production engineers needed to look to the very reaches of their skill-sets, and employed a range of non-standard audio design tools. Many of the most challenging venues in the tour were visited in advance, and mapped acoustically using digital equipment and software processes. The result of this hard work was an audio installation unique to each venue, with distributed speaker systems running processing and signal delays to maximise intelligibility in the space. 3 engineers looked after the audio elements and a package of performance and architectural lighting that made the most of the incredible buildings. We also provided tour support including logistics and pre-production planning.

Still touring with Puxley equipment and crew, 2016 is set to be another exciting year with Show of Hands, we’re ready and waiting for any outlandish venues they may have to throw at us! If Cathedral sound hire or PA hire is a service that you require, get in touch with our production team.