Production Futures

Oli Crump

TPi Breakthrough Talent Awards’ newly crowned Young Freelancer of the Year, Oli Crump sits down with TPi’s Jacob Waite to recap a whirlwind season of festivals and arena tours.

At the age of 25, burgeoning Southampton-based audio system engineer Oli Crump has already played a significant role in a range of projects during his brief time in the live events industry. His work as an audio project manager at the Lion’s Den stage of Boomtown Chapter 11: A Radical City saw him go on to win Young Freelancer of the Year Award at the TPi Breakthrough Talent Awards last year. Following the trophy scoop, TPi checked in with Crump to discover what’s next on his bucket list. Like many of his peers, Crump’s passion for audio dates back to his school days, born out of a desire to be “anywhere but on stage”. De voting most of his spare time to volunteering at the school theatre, this extracurricular drive was pushed even further when he arrived at the University of Southampton in 2012 to study Acoustical Engineering. “My professional career really started off in Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre, where I worked as a casual tech alongside studying,” Crump recalled. “Within a year or so, I was beginning to pick up bits of freelance work from BCS Audio, which is based just down the road.” These days as an experienced L-Acoustics System Technician, Crump has kept himself busy on a range of productions in 2019, including many festivals and a stint as Monitor Tech for The Streets’ UK tour. In 2018, he was the System Engineer on Rick Astley’s Beautiful Life tour; and Gilbert O’Sullivan’s 50th Anniversary tour, and prior to that he was the Audio Tech for Tom Odell in 2017. “A l ot of my work is one-off or short-term shows, so there’s a lot of jumping from job to job,” he said. However, his career highlight so far was taking care of the audio on the Lion’s Den stage of Boomtown Fair last year, closely followed by Rick Astley’s tour in 2018. At B oomtown Chapter 11: A Radical City, Crump assumed the role of both Audio Project Manager and System Engineer for BCS Audio – a feat which involved weeks of work designing the system, co-ordinating logistics and preparing the equipment before it was loaded and transported to site. On ce on-site, he worked closely with the Stage Production Manager, David ‘Pev’ Peverley and the other heads of department to ensure that the load-in, show and load-out were completed efficiently and with time to spare. “This included managing a team of up to 10 audio crew and dealing with the last-minute scheduling changes that added hours of extra programming to our stage,” he commented. Li sting the growing number of projects on his CV, Crump reflected on some of the biggest lessons he has learned during his formative industry years. “Early in my career I got very used to saying ‘yes’ to everything,” he said. “As I was being offered more – especially in the busier months – I needed to learn how to manage my time so that I had some time off and could recover mentally and physically. This is sometimes tricky as it can be difficult to know when and where your next job will come from,” he acknowledged. “It’s very easy to burn yourself out when you add the financial pressures of freelancing into the mix.” What advice might he give to someone following in his footsteps? “You can go a long way with the right attitude. I think it’s particularly important to remember that when we’re all working to tight deadlines on limited sleep.” While he acknowledged the value of having good industry contacts, Crump was also keen to stress the importance of staying up to date with technological advancements. “T he audio side of the industry seems to have changed significantly in recent years,” he commented. “If you can get your head around the technology and its associated software, all while being personable and easy to work with, you’ll be able make the contacts along the way.” Having capped off 2019 working with SSE Audio to supply an L-Acoustics K1/K2 system for Dermot Kennedy’s hometown shows in Dublin, Crump is looking forward to another Rick Astley arena run in March. “I’m not sure I could have predicted my current position five years ago,” he said, looking towards the next five years. “If all goes to plan, I guess I’ll be making a lot of noise somewhere...” TPi Photo: Mark Cunningham www.productionfutures.co.uk www.olicrump.co.uk

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