Yamaha Brings The Past And Present Together At England’s Favourite Christmas Show

07 December 2009 14.32 BST

If you’re looking for some all-singing, all-dancing Christmas entertainment with high production values, a quiet hamlet in rural Norfolk is unlikely to be the first place you’d think of looking. But that is exactly what’s on offer at the Thursford Christmas Spectacular and, with a major Yamaha audio system involved, the Spectacular truly lives up to its billing.

Just a couple of miles from villages rejoicing in the names of Great and Little Snoring, Thursford has been home to a remarkable evocation of yesteryear since the 1930s when George Cushing — born and raised in the village — started to buy up steam-powered traction engines and road rollers as they were being replaced by the internal combustion engine. This expanded to fairground organs, merry-go-rounds and, famously, the fourth largest Wurlitzer organ in Europe.

Nowadays run by a charitable trust and attracting many thousands of visitors per year, since 1977 the Thursford Collection has put on an annual Christmas Spectacular. Produced and directed by Cushing’s son John, managing director of the Collection for over 30 years, the Christmas Spectacular runs from early November until just before Christmas and is claimed to be the most popular Christmas show in England of all time.

Ironically, given that Thursford’s raison d’être is evoking the past, the Christmas Spectacular’s production values are so high that it requires the very latest in audio technology, including a Yamaha PM5D-RH, two DSP5Ds, an 01V96 and an LS9-32.

The event’s associate sound engineer is Amos Christie, who played a major part in designing the system, which was supplied by Brodie AMS, the company run by the event’s head of sound Steve Brodie, who also mixes the shows.

“It’s a very big and complex show with a lot of different elements,” said Amos. “We have a live orchestra, a live band, singers, dancers, the total number of performers is around 150. The show takes place in the hall we use for exhibiting the steam engines during the rest of the year, so there are also acoustic issues to take into account.”

Feeds for the PM5D main front of house console come from two DSP5Ds, via a DCU5D digital cabling unit, which handle all the inputs from the orchestra, band, handheld radio and lavalier microphones.

In addition, a total of 32 overhead and shotgun mics are submixed via an 01V96. These are positioned over the main stage, two side stages and throughout the auditorium. During the show, performers move around the audience, so the audio from these mics is fed either to the main Meyer speaker system or to surround and rear speakers for effect.

Meanwhile the LS9-32 handles monitors, feeding a variety of small frontstage wedges, band wedges, in-ear monitors and Aviom personal monitor systems. This is controlled by Steve Brodie via Yamaha Studio Manager software.

“To control such a complex show with just one operator is quite a feat,” smiled Steve. “But with the Yamaha equipment and the seamless integration between the different mixers, it makes it possible. That’s one of the many reasons we have embraced digital audio technology and Yamaha equipment in particular.”

Because of its complexity, the entire show is run using scenes, Each console is programmed with the relevant scenes, with Show Cue System software used for overall control. It ensures that, when a scene change is fired by the operator (using one of the PM5D’s user defined keys), each console switches to the correct one instantly.

“It’s a very elegant and intuitive system,” said Steve. “All required processing is done within the consoles and using scenes for everything makes for an incredibly professional-sounding show. It’s slick, seamless and we believe has production values as high as anything you’ll find in London’s West End.”

Due to the nature of the show, clarity and definition are more important than volume, as Steve explained. “With the audience demographic of the show, what we are striving for is subtle sound reinforcement rather than anything ‘in your face’. It’s like the old theatre maxim of sound reinforcement being necessary, but not necessarily wanting the audience to realise it’s happening.

“Thanks to the quality of the equipment, we can provide very high quality audio while still keeping volume levels down. It’s actually a very sophisticated sound.”

With an eye to the future, the system has deliberately been designed to be expandable, which the Yamaha equipment makes very straightforward, and if the popularity of the Christmas Spectacular continues to increase at the same rate that it has over the past 30+ years, that option will have to be taken up.

But those possibilities are for the future. For now the Yamaha system is very hard at work entertaining people from across the UK and getting them into the festive spirit.

“It’s a great system and audiences are leaving the show all saying how much they enjoyed it,” said Steve. “And all the time they’re saying that, it means we’re getting it right .”