(Editor’s note) Tim Boyle, managing director of UK-based Concert Sound, says: “The greatest improvement in sound is when the artist plays well.” That shouldn’t seem revolutionary, but it sets the company he runs apart from the toy-of-the-month outfits. Read about how keeping engineers on retainer motivates them to share information instead of hoard it. Concert Sound has supplied Eric Clapton for the last 13 years, including his 2001 “Reptile” tour.

Concert Sound Limited has provided PA systems to professional musicians and entertainers since 1977. Tim Boyle, managing director, Concert Sound, is humble when assessing the company’s success through the years, insisting “we’re a small PA company who does big things.”

Big things include Paul McCartney at his much-heralded appearance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Manic Street Preachers New Year’s Eve performance at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and touring with Eric Clapton for the past 13 years.

Concert Sound first worked with Eric Clapton at the Prince’s Trust Concert, where the musician appeared on the roster with Elton John, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, and David Bowie. The company then went on an African tour to Swaziland, Mozambique and Victoria Falls with Clapton. The two have been together ever since.

The company does theatrical productions as well, such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and has provided PA systems and technical support for other large-scale events like Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Festival and The Eisteddfod, the largest cultural event in Wales.

The Eisteddfod, a weeklong summer extravaganza, takes place on a different 140-acre site each year. Concert Sound spent two weeks before the festival setting up, and had 14 engineers working on the Eisteddfod this summer. The main pavilion, where the big events take place, holds approximately 5,000 to 6,000 people, but there are also three mid-size tents which hold anywhere from 300 to 500 people and are set up for theater performances, literary readings and rock n’ roll shows. In addition, there are another dozen smaller venues that need audio hooked up as well. Boyle says the key to success at something as large as this is staying flexible, especially when the talent is speaking to you in Welsh dialect.

Concert Sound's Tim Boyle

Praising the company’s exacting engineers for keeping Concert Sound flexible, reliable and well respected within the industry, Boyle notes that having someone like the company’s senior engineer, Robert Collins, Clapton’s front-of-house engineer for the entire 13 years the musician’s been with Concert Sound, helps everyone push the envelope. “Robert is a wonderful engineer, but he’s very demanding, and rightly so. That improves our standards and moves our stock of equipment upwards and onwards in some ways. I’ve always thought it gives us an advantage.”