SHOWSTARS Graham Shaw interview

CREW C ALL T H E O F F I C I A L S H O W S TA R S B U L L E T I N

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Winter 2015 SHOWSTARS.CO.UK

Graham Shaw: looking back.

EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING Mark Cunningham grills Showstars’ founder and MD Graham Shaw on the origins of the UK’s leading crew company...

Graham, how did your career in live event production begin?

GS: It started for me in February 1977. Listening to music had always been a passion and although I didn’t have any professional music aspirations, I was intrigued by the crew work my flatmate had been doing for the past few years.

At that point, I was between jobs and jumped at the chance of assisting the load-in and load-out of two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall by ABBA, whose career was then at its peak. It was Valentine’s Day and I was pushing flight cases up a ramp. This wasn’t particularly romantic and not at all what I expected to be doing with my life.

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I must have done something right because further offers of work came and, soon, crew jobs became frequent and I was helping out on some gigs for Harvey Goldsmith who had been using college students as local roadies. One of Harvey’s staff, Paul Loasby approached me after a while and asked if I’d running the crewing side of Harvey’s business. Paul hadn’t been happy with the way it was being managed so I gratefully accepted the challenge and ran the crew myself until the summer of 1978 when I fell off the stage at The Stranglers’ Battersea Park gig and fractured my skull.

That was obviously a shock to the system in many ways.

By the time I returned to manage the company, other crews

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Top row: ABBA at the Royal Albert Hall on Valentine’s Day, 1977 – an auspicious start to a remarkable career; The Boss himself in 1981.

Above: Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, July 13 1985; Bob Geldof; production manager Andrew Zweck. were beginning to make a name for themselves on the live circuit and it resulted in some rivalry.

Meanwhile, as a huge Bruce Springsteen fan since ‘Born To Run’, I was about to have the time of my life on his UK tour of 1981 [The River] as the runner for the tour management. I got to know the E Street Band and Bruce himself. I’d drive him around and take him sightseeing, and it’s still one of the big highlights of my career.

It was during this period that I got to know George Travis who has remained a key figure on Bruce’s tours and subsequently has become his tour director. We’re still in touch.

At what point did you establish Showstars?

GS: Up until 1983, I’d been working on a self-employed basis and I had gathered enough experience by then to start my own company. It was Ian Wright at Solo Music Agency who encouraged me by putting me in touch with his accountant and Showstars was incorporated on March 1st 1983. Most of the rock’n’roll crew work at that time was split between Showstars and a close rival, but the project that helped to define us came in July 1985 with Live Aid at Wembley Stadium.

What was Showstars’ role at Live Aid? GS: We supplied all of the stage crew and it was a fantastic day, despite being a daunting prospect at the outset. I’d worked on a number of shows at Wembley Stadium but I remember looking out through the stage drapes at this huge crowd – never before had I seen Wembley so rammed!

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On the morning of the show, I was standing in the wings when [production manager] Andrew Zweck turned to me and said, “Well, it’s all in your hands now”… the very words I believe Bob Geldof had said to him earlier that day. I was given free reign to use as many crew as I thought were needed for the changeovers and right up to the morning of the show, I was still hiring people to come and help as the enormity of the task unfolded. In the end we had a total of 70 crew.

The load-out was also a challenge because I do not think so much production equipment had been used in one place.

We had to load out the massive revolving stage the next day, before even starting on the staging.

Interestingly, in the week prior to Live Aid we had worked on Springsteen’s show at the same venue during his Born In The USA tour. We’d started building the stage on June 29 – the day my first child was born. At around 8.15am I was at the hospital as my daughter made her first appearance but by midday I was at Wembley for which my ex-wife never forgave me. That stage was left in place for Live Aid as Bruce’s contribution to the event.

I’m still very proud of what we achieved on that momentous day although we didn’t use that experience as a stepping stone. In reality, we were just stumbling from one to the next and even when Showstars became a larger operation I didn’t have a business plan.

If I’d have been more astute back then I think we’d have achieved a greater portion of the market but we had very good people within our ranks; our reputation was growing and we soon established ourselves within the industry as a force to be reckoned with.

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The car’s the star... working for Imagination on Ford’s exhibition stands has contributed to Showstars’ reputation in the corporate world.

Below: Mick & Ronnie with the Stones at Wembley, 1990.

Towards the late 1980s, Showstars began to enter the corporate events arena. How did that come about?

GS: Possibly inspired by the advances in rock’n’roll production, the corporates were becoming more sophisticated with their event designs for AGMs and product launches, and Showstars started to become in demand. Many of them were using the same suppliers that were found on large concert tours and, naturally, we fell into that bracket as a default local crew source.

I don’t think it’s an accident that

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the upscaling of corporate events coincided with the dawn of the affluent society because there was suddenly more money available to impress.

A new generation of entrepreneurs began to have decision-making power and they enjoyed the kudos of using companies who had toured with The Rolling Stones for their car launch.

Our first major project of this kind was the launch of the re-designed Ford Sierra in September 1987, for which we were hired by design agency Imagination to help convert a disused warehouse in the Docklands into a

luxurious, state-of-the-art showcase venue. Also around that time, the British Gas AGM took over three halls at the NEC in Birmingham, which obviously required a huge crew to install lights, drapes and endless amounts of set pieces. They had the money to turn what was usually a dull meeting into one that reeked of razzamatazz, and we recognised that this was a very lucrative area of work for Showstars.

After that we started to work on all the European motor shows, building the Ford stands for Imagination. We had a crew of 12 people who took on that responsibility for a number of years until it began to tail off a little when it was more cost-effective to hire local crew, although we remain involved to some extent.

Obviously, the appearance of our crew on the corporate events had to be more refined than rock’n’roll usually demands, so we adopted a smarter, uniform approach for our crew’s presentation.

You quite literally have to cut the cloth to fit!

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Main photo: Pyromania along the River Thames on Millennium night.

Insets: (top) George Michael opens the new Wembley Stadium with his 25 Live production; the Millennium Show at the Dome.

You mentioned The Rolling Stones.

Did they represent another of the company’s big milestones?

GS: Absolutely! It was quite a breakthrough for us. By 1990 we had been building stages at Wembley Stadium for roughly seven years and The Rolling Stones’ production manager Michael Ahern came to us to ask for 30 touring crew to help build their stage throughout the band’s Urban Jungle tour of Europe – the last to feature Bill Wyman on bass.

Edwin Shirley Staging created a massive stage structure for the band – it was bigger than anything we’d worked on up to that point – with scaff towers that folded up the sides on which the inflatable ‘honky tonk’ women appeared.

Their schedule was incredibly tight and even though they were leapfrogging two stages, they had a very small window in which to de-rig the stage and move it to the next venue. So rather than rely on numerous local crew companies, they wanted one team who knew exactly what to do at every show and would travel on two sleeper buses.

I’m pleased that we did very well on Urban Jungle, from May 1990 until the final show at Wembley in the August. Not only did we build the stage, we also multi-tasked as production hands and played a big part in the overall smooth running of the shows.

That Stones tour earned Showstars a valuable reputation for providing good climbers and steel crew, and that reputation has stood to the present.

Wembley appears to have played a big part in Showstars’ development.

GS: Yes, I’d agree. Along with the V Festival and The BRIT Awards, which we’ve crewed since 1997, both incarnations of Wembley Stadium – and the Arena, where we’ve done hundreds of shows – have been at the heart of our business.

When the new Stadium opened in 2007, we were the first company to build a stage there, for George Michael’s 25 Live – a pair of soldout shows for which Marshall Arts requested us to also provide production and stage building crew. We’ve remained a regular fixture at the venue ever since. I can only think of about three rock tours that have played there when we’ve not been present.

“The Millennium called for a huge range of diverse skills” S H O W S T A R S C R E W C A L L w i n t e r 2 015

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Crew from Showstars had key responsibilities at the Olympic Stadium during London 2012.

Bottom: Many of the same crew worked on the Sochi Games in 2014.

Another major client has been Jack Morton Worldwide, well known for its production of some of the biggest sporting and corporate brand spectacles.

GS: One of the projects that really brought things together for us was the Millennium, when a combined crew of around 200 were simultaneously working for Jack Morton Worldwide [JMW] on the celebrations along the River Thames and for NMEC at The Millennium Dome who ran the building and were responsible for the very large show taking place there for

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the Millennium celebrations that was attended by Her Majesty the Queen. It called for a huge gathering of diverse skills from us – lots of staging in the Dome and a big corporate production out on the river.

We had already worked on The VE Celebrations in Hyde Park and had been supplying festival crew since 1997, proving our capability on outdoor events to a wide range of suppliers, so when the Millennium job came up we were ready to take it on and perform very well for JMW. That was really the start of a relationship that carried on with projects such as

a very large Toyota European retailer meeting for 6,000 dealers at ExCeL, the wedding of the Duke & Duchess of Cornwall, and right up to date on a very recent large international show.

We have supplied the crew for the New Year’s Eve celebrations ever since and will be doing so again this year.

London 2012 was, of course, another massive watershed for us although we were appointed by a separate body to supply crew to build the main staging and automated elements of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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U2 at Wembley, 2009.

We also supplied dedicated teams to the aerial department, technical staging, the Olympic flame cauldron, and lighting and set construction, along with being responsible for many of the plant operators, drivers and runners.

The crew calls just kept growing and growing! It was a very special project.

On top of all this, Stuart Milne headed the training of the London 2012 Ceremonies staff, contractors and volunteers in the Event Safety Passport, so it was a very comprehensive and very special project for us.

Subsequently, due to the global nature of these events, we went on to

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send 78 crew to Sochi 2014 for five months and, very recently, had 140 crew working in Glasgow.

Back to live music – Live Nation has been the source of many key projects for Showstars.

GS: The work we’ve done with Live Nation originally came as a result of our relationship with Andrew Craig, their Head of International Production. It’s become the norm for Live Nation’s crew work to be divided between the stage build and general production.

So whenever a stage needs to be

built at venues like the Emirates Stadium, Wembley or Twickenham, we are often the company that is asked to supply a crew of anywhere between 40 and 120 people depending on the size of the production.

The same generally happens with SJM and Metropolis. On some shows we actually cover the staging and all the production crewing too.

This year, the Live Nation connection was through Stageco who won the contract to supply the main stages for most of the promoter’s outdoor concerts and festivals including Kasabian at Victoria Park in Leicester [new-

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Showstars worked with Stageco on several Live Nation events in 2014. Clockwise from top: Wireless in Finsbury Park, Electric Daisy Carnival, Calling on Clapham Common, Kings Of Leon at Milton Keynes Bowl and Kasabian in Leicester’s Victoria Park.

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Operations Director Stuart Milne.

ly released on the band’s Summer Solstice DVD], Kings of Leon and the Electric Daisy Carnival [EDC] at Milton Keynes Bowl, Wireless at Finsbury Park in London and Birmingham’s Perry Park, and Calling on Clapham Common.

It was agreed that Stageco would take care of all the local stage building labour for those shows and because of their previous positive experiences of working with Showstars – on projects including U2’s record-breaking 360° tour – they very kindly chose us.

I don’t think any other British company can match Showstars for its experience and reliability when it comes to stage building, and it’s fantastic to get hired as frequently as we do because we have at least 40 or 50 people working for four days on the load-in and an extra day for the load-out. But we are also very happy to take on production.

between crew companies in the UK has increased dramatically. How do you remain a leader?

GS: The challenge of staying at the top has never been more difficult. However, I have enormous confidence in our experience across a very diverse range of live events, of all types and sizes, and if a new client comes to us we can provide a compelling case for hiring Showstars to cover all departments.

The more you work with a client, the more you become accustomed to how they prefer to operate, and that informs us which are the right individuals on the right crew for any particular job.

You have to apply people who are not only capable of the job in question but are also polite, and those who are allocated the responsibility of liaising with the client must present themselves in an affable, professional manner.

Back in the office, clear and respectful communication with the client is paramount. And, ultimately, the production manager or event director must be impressed.

You might have 12 climbers or 12 steel hands but unless you are absolutely convinced that these people have the right aptitude for work you may as well have none of them, because our future – and theirs – relies on us getting it right every time. We adhere to that old adage: you’re only as good as your last job. •

“Communication is paramount”

Over the 30+ years that Showstars has existed, the level of competition

We’re often regarded as the old kid on the block, and some decision makers might prefer to do business with a younger company. That said, our practical outlook is as fresh as anyone’s and when unfailing results count, you simply cannot beat experience because experience is everything.

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CREW CALL is produced by Liveculture for and on behalf of Showstars Cover image © The Roundhouse Other images © Paul Stich, Mark Cunningham, The Roundhouse, Harvey Goldsmith Productions, Band Aid Trust, LML Archives and the BBC