Full-service AV rental company Total Production Group (TPG) of Cerritos, CA, employs newly acquired Bose® ShowMatch™ system for annual star-studded event
Framingham, CA – Every year since 2013, Los Angeles hip-hop record label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) has held a charity concert in the Watts neighborhood at Christmastime featuring its artists, who include Kendrick Lamar, SZA, ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul, SiR and Lance Skiiiwalker. The most recent event on December 22, 2017, also featured special guest appearances by Rihanna and Bay Area rapper E-40. TDE tapped full-service AV rental company Total Production Group (TPG) to provide the concert sound production, presenting the Cerritos, California-based company with an opportunity to debut its newly acquired ShowMatch™ DeltaQ™ compact line array system from Bose Professional.
As owner/partner Steve McAllister notes, TPG is much more than simply a concert sound provider. “We’re a unique animal in the production world,” he says. “We’re a full-service, one-stop shop. We own the staging, lighting, audio, truss, generators, fencing – everything you need for a turnkey production. It gives our customers the ability to focus on what they need to focus on and let us handle all aspects of the production for them.”
McAllister and his crew flew left and right arrays of 12 ShowMatch line array modules each. The rig also included 16 ShowMatch SMS118 single-18-inch subs, ground-stacked three high and two wide beneath each main hang with a two-by-two stack midway between them, deployed in a cardioid-array format.
McAllister was very happy with the debut performance of TPG’s ShowMatch rig. He notes, “The vocals really cut through. That’s so important with singers, especially with hip-hop. If you can get those vocals to pop over a full, powerful low end, then that’s awesome.”
The TDE Concert Toy Drive and Giveaway event was held at the outdoor recreation facilities at the center of the Nickerson Gardens housing project, where TDE’s CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith and rapper Jay Rock grew up. The fourth annual event, which ran from 2 p.m. through 5 p.m., was free to anyone from the community who arrived with an unwrapped gift. The popularity of the featured artists undoubtedly helped swell the crowd to capacity: Kendrick Lamar is nominated for seven 2018 GRAMMY® Awards and SZA is the most-nominated female artist this year, with five, while Rihanna has eight GRAMMYs from 33 nominations.
McAllister reports that he first experienced the ShowMatch system at the annual summer series of concerts held at the Pershing Square Downtown Stage, produced by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. “We had worked Pershing Square for the last 12 years for staging and things like that,” he says. “They had always done the audio in-house, so we had heard a bunch of different systems. But this one was different, and immediately we could tell that the coverage was so much better. I walked the whole park and it was flawless all the way through.”
During load-out at Nickerson Gardens, says McAllister, “I saw Top Dawg as he was leaving and asked how he liked it. He gave me the thumbs-up; he was totally stoked. TDE was very happy with the result, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get more calls from them in the future.”
For more on Total Production Group, visit http://tpg-production.com/.
For more information, visit pro.bose.com.
Photo caption: Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) artist Kendrick Lamar performs at the label’s annual Christmas concert in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles on December 22, 2017. TDE tapped full-service AV rental company Total Production Group (TPG) to provide the concert sound production, and the company employed its newly acquired ShowMatch™ DeltaQ™ compact line array system from Bose Professional (array visible in background).
