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ALL THURSFORD WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS DIGICO Audiences totalling over 100,000. A cast of more than 150. Eighty performances in two months. A creative team of almost 30. A stage more than 130ft wide. A Wurlitzer. A carousel. A non-stop extravaganza of music, dance, humour and variety. This is the amazing spectacle that is the Thursford Christmas Spectacularm as TPi discovers...
Founded by George Cushing in the 1970s, the Thursford Collection in North Norfolk houses an extensive collection of steam engines, organs and fairground attractions. Three generations of the Cushing family have been involved with the Collection and it was John, son of George, who decided to put on a little carol concert for the local area. The concert grew over the years and 42 years later, with John as producer, director and CEO - alongside sons George and Charlie - the Thursford Spectacular has grown into one of the most popular Christmas events in the country. Thursford’s existing mixing consoles had served them well, but they were starting to creak under the strain of the show’s ever-expanding requirements: there are 70 channels of Shure radio systems accommodate the dynamic nature of the show, including 28 head mics, 10 handheld transmitters, and 26 body packs for the orchestral players who can carry their instruments around the stage, and front of house sound
reinforcement is delivered by a substantial Meyer Sound system, along with RCF surround loudspeakers for delivering reverb and effects. Head of sound, Kieran Lowe was well aware that the time to upgrade was due and looked to the power of DiGiCo. In consultation with DiGiCo’s Tim Shaxson and Dave Bigg, they specified the flagship SD7T for front of house, an SDTen with SD10-RE for monitoring duties, 3 SD-Racks loaded with 32bit I/O cards to provide for 166 input channels and 52 output channels, along with an Orange Box with DMI optics / DMI MADI for virtual soundcheck (every show is also recorded and, after the run of shows has finished, a CD is produced for the audience to buy) all on an Optocore loop for full redundancy, with OpticalCON connectors. “Our SD-Racks are full to the brim,” said Lowe, who has been working with Thursford for the past 11 years. “For the past 10 years we had a different brand of console. They’ve been 12
