Profession:
Director, Adlib Audio Limited

Date & place of birth:
June 26 1972; Carshalton, Surrey, UK

Your first job after full-time education?
The gap between education and full-time work only lasted a few minutes. I was picked up by the Adlib minibus straight after my last exam and went off to run the five stages that Adlib had in the Glastonbury theatre fields at the time.

How was your interest in sound technology embellished from a young age?
My father was a BT engineer so I had lots of experience fixing phones and installing telephone systems from an early age.
I followed a typical education route; I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I always knew that I had an interest in electronics and audio.

I was always involved in after school activities from junior school where I joined an electronics club taking apart and reassembling TVs and radios, usually ending up with a load of spare parts after the event.
I got involved with school plays and realised that drama and performance was not my forte, so I went back to organising events and working backstage in local theatres and maintaining equipment at a local roller disco (in between games of street hockey).

I came to Liverpool University in ‘98 to study Electronics and Communications and I got involved with the technical committee at the students union and over my four years there, I ended up running the audio department and understanding how the business worked. We would charge for events (get paid in beer) and have to invest in new equipment with the money we had built up over the year.

We ran a very impressive Hill PA system with a TAC Scorpion mixing console and a load of amplifiers that didn’t catch fire much. At the same time I started doing part-time work for a couple of local PA companies and Andy Dockerty asked me to join Adlib.

What is Adlib doing to encourage new talent coming through?
We are actively working with schools and colleges to give students real world experiences of live events and what is involved. We take sound and lighting systems into their venues for the day, students spend the day with us from load in to load out and the music department provide some bands to perform in the evening. It is easy to see the ones that are interested; this gives people a reality check at an early stage.
We are also delivering our in-house training at Liverpool Community College once a month. This enables us to monitor our trainee engineers and at the same time integrate our training with the courses offered at the College.

Both of these types of involvement allow us to identify the shining stars that are still in education and advise them on how to direct their career paths and gain experience. This has proved to be very successful over the past four years and we have taken on five people as a result of this.

Why is Adlib so passionate about doing this?
The opportunity to supply on-the-job training has significantly reduced and too many people finish an FE or HE course and expect a job in the industry. There are so many courses available, but most of the very small amount of industry jobs are already filled. Only the very determined will succeed and students need to get experience as early as possible.

What equipment brands do you work with and why?
Soundcraft, L-Acoustics, Lab.gruppen/Lake — all of these brands really engage with their users and really take on board feedback to develop their products. I have been heavily involved with Soundcraft’s R&D department for well over 10 years now and it is great to see some of the concepts that we have discussed coming to life. Along the way, I’ve delivered training all over the world with Soundcraft for its Going Live seminars on its Vi range of consoles.

What is the biggest threat to Adlib today?
Fast changing specifications, return on investment for digital products, standardisation of a protocol for audio distribution — not really a threat, but a burning issue at the moment.

What occupies your free time?
Spending time with family is the top priority. Gadgets and technology are my other passions; I love beta testing devices, trying to justify how they can make my life easier and helping manufacturers fine tune their products.

Your desert island record?
That would have to be Del Amitri’s second album, Waking Hours (1989).

What would be your advice to a teenage Dave Kay?
Not really advice for myself but for others — use your time in education to its maximum — don’t expect opportunities to just drop on your lap. You have to go out there and make things happen. Use the educational voyage to support your learning on and off the course.