On the rental front, recent supplies include the UK and European leg of David Bowie’s “Reality” tour, and other artists like bands-of-the-moment Scissor Sisters and The Coral, plus Texas, The Charlatans, Fun Lovin’ Criminals and many more.
ADLIB is also a prolific manufacturer of speaker enclosures - both standard and custom ? for all types of projects from live performance to installation.
They’re currently working closely with Living Ventures, owners of the Living Room brand, where music and sounds are vital ingredient so the success and ambience of their venues ? each one featuring a carefully crafted custom designed and installed ADLIB system.
For the Isle of Man’s new multi-million pound Villa Marina complex, their flagship live multi-purpose venue, ADLIB worked with Harman Pro UK to design, install and commission a complete audio system. This features JBL VerTec line array speakers, Soundcraft consoles and Crown amplification- check
Other recent ADLIB installation projects utilising their own brand include Liverpool’s Blundell Street supper club and The Hope Street Hotel, the City’s first ‘boutique’ hotel. Liverpool, with it’s 2008 European Capital of Culture status well in sight, is a hive of construction and business opportunities, particularly for leisure and entertainment ventures.
ADLIB is 20 years old this year ? although founding director Andy Dockerty can hardly believe that two decades have zipped by! It employs 40 staff and has 4 directors, all of whom are very hands-on. Andy Dockerty and Dave Kay are also respected FOH engineers in their own right.
Dockerty believes that ADLIB’s ‘PA mentality’, their lust for perfectionism, ability to think laterally and practically to find solutions not to mention their ongoing harvest of talented engineers offers huge advantages to their installation projects and the manufacturing side of the business.
All the elements combined gives ADLIB a massive flexibility. If required they can make exactly the right speaker for the application, rather than being tied to using a pre-existing model or brand.
Back in 1984, Dockerty started the company against a backdrop of unemployment and the infamous Toxteth riots, one of the events putting Liverpool on the map during the 1980s! The positive outcome of events was to kick start the UK’s most successful urban regeneration programme which is now culminating in it being one of the coolest cities in the country.
Dockerty was working as an electrician and doing sound (self taught of course) for local bands after leaving school in the late 70s. Music was an important part of his life, and so it is for most of the people now working at ADLIB, 80% of whom also have their own music-related projects.
The incentive to found ADLIB was one of the Thatcher government’s Enterprise Allowance Schemes, which gave £40 a week for a year to anyone starting their own business. He consolidated the various bits of sound kit he’d accumulated up till then, swapped his Beetle for a VW van, and hit the road with 1 and 2K rigs and much enthusiasm for local bands around town. With Liverpool’s rich musical heritage there’s never been a shortage of bands or venues needing good sound.
Soon after came the first venue residency ? this was where it was at back then ? and ADLIB grew steadily. Engineer Chris Leckie was integrally involved in ADLIB’s early development until 1992, when he moved on to concentrate on a freelance career. The late eighties saw the first bank loan, used to invest in a ‘black box’ system and Soundcraft consoles which took ADLIB into another sonic league at the time.
The early 1990s was a period of rapid evolution. Dockerty met both Dave Fletcher, who now runs the speaker design and manufacturing side of the company and Dave Kay, technical guru and active FOH engineer, who started with ADLIB whilst a student at Liverpool University. Kay walked out of his last final exam in 1994 and drove straight to Glastonbury for a gig. He became a director in 1998 when the company became ‘Limited’ and is now also an engineer in his own right.
Dockerty met Dave Fletcher whilst the latter was working for a nearby amplifier manufacturer, actively seeking new challenges. Dockerty by this time was also bursting with his own ideas about speaker design! They joined forces and by the end of 1993 had already designed and produced a whole range of speakers ? the original ADLIB DF concert series. These went straight out on tour with Texas at the end of that year, with Dockerty at the FOH controls.
The speaker manufacturing facility has grown steadily, fuelled by “Producing a full range of excellent quality products for sensible prices” explains Dockerty. This fulfils a whole range of local demands, from small live installations to local bands and artists, schools, colleges and theatres as well as more sophisticated installations like the Living Rooms.
In 1999, ADLIB invested in it’s first ‘other’ brand PA system ? Martin Wavefront ? for the upcoming Texas arena tour. ADLIB’s hire stock also now offers industry standard brands like Nexo Alpha and JBL’s VerTec line array.
ADLIB moved to its latest premises in Speke 6 years ago, when Mark Roberts joined the management team as a business development manager, becoming a director and shareholder in 2003.
Sister company ADLite came on line in 2000 to supply tour, event and installation lighting services.
ADLIBs growth pattern has been helped by many things thinks Dockerty. One has been a cautious approach to investment, financing and expansion rather than a boom/bust attitude.
Another is their ongoing proactive training and programmes that encourage young people wanting to get a break in the industry to come onboard. This has been incredibly successful and has produced many first class engineers, sound designers and technicians over the years. “Having a new generation of young and grounded people active in the company works for everyone” says Dockerty.
Another is the obvious advantage of having several independent income streams from the different elements of the company, which can help spread the balance if one area goes quiet for a period.
Looking to the future, Dockerty hopes to get back on the road and engineering a bit more, having spent considerable time recently in restructuring and putting the right management team in place to allow this to happen.