April 2023 was a busy month for Allen & Heath and their US distribution partner American Music & Sound. Starting with The NAMM Show in Anaheim, the brand presented its wide range of products in a sprawling booth in the convention center’s Pro Audio hall. The popular booth featured opportunities for hands-on mixing with everything Allen & Heath has to offer — from small format analog ZED consoles to powerful 128-channel 96kHz digital dLive systems. The booth also featured a dedicated section for the brand’s expanding AHM series of installation processors and peripherals.
Meanwhile, on the second floor of the convention center, Allen & Heath Live Sound and Touring Manager Michael Bangs offered multiple jam-packed live sound training courses to NAMM attendees. Those who could make their way into the crowded training room had the opportunity to learn about a range of subjects, including dynamics and frequency control, mixing high channel counts on a compact console, quick festival mixing changeovers, house of worship mixing, and modern workflows.
Astute visitors to the NAMM show may have also caught several Allen & Heath consoles in use at the various performance stages — including a dLive S5000 surface at front of house and an Avantis console at monitors for the show’s outdoor Arena Plaza stage operated by sound company Avante Audio. Another pair of dLive systems could be found in use at the Hilton stage (provided by DJE Production Services), as well as an SQ-5 for the lobby stage at the Sheraton hotel. At the Pre-NAMM Hang sponsored by Worship Musician, another Allen & Heath SQ-5 was in use supporting a special performance by guitar legend Doyle Dykes.
The A&H team did not leave NAMM empty handed, as the company’s versatile 64-channel Avantis console earned the brand a fifth consecutive Dealer’s Choice Award from Musical Merchandise Review for its feature-packed V1.2 update. The awards for Avantis V1.2 didn’t stop there, as the new console firmware also captured the Parnelli Award for Indispensable Audio Technology. “The Parnelli Award win for Avantis was certainly a highlight of the NAMM Show for us,” noted Allen & Heath USA Marketing Director Jeff Hawley. “Often referred to as being the Oscar of the live event industry, the Parnelli is a tremendous honor and a moment that we’ll all remember from NAMM 2023. We’ve been amazed at the continued success with Avantis and we plan to keep updates like those seen in V1.2 coming in the future.”
The Allen & Heath USA team also presented their annual sales meeting at the show, awarding top performing sales rep firms and individuals for their outstanding 2022-2023 activities. The company awarded the coveted ‘Bulldog’ awards to a special pack of tenacious and highly effective sales professionals. This year’s recipients included Zak Rickard (Geer Tech), Gilbert Perales (Brownestone), Jaylon Shane (Pro Tech Marketing), Dan Ankney (Online Marketing), Shawn McLoughlin (Audio Biz), Wes Pitzer (Highway Marketing), Chad Rigler (HWPco), Brooks Platts (HWPco), and Craig Kutteroff (Mainline Marketing). The Outstanding Sales Support award was presented to Julie Boatright of Audio Biz. Dennie Edwards (Highway Marketing) was awarded the Marketing Excellence award. Outstanding Performance awards (based on overall territory sales performance) were awarded to Audio Biz, Brownestone, Cadon Technical Sales, Excellence Marketing, Highway Marketing, HWPco, Mainline Marketing, Online Marketing, Pro Tech Marketing, and Richard Dean Associates. The Rep of the Year award went to Audio Biz.
“Congratulations to Audio Biz for their outstanding year and the Rep of the Year award win,” said Pat McConnell, National Sales Manager for Allen & Heath USA. “All of the Bulldogs, Julie, and Dennie also deserve a special thank you for all of their work in the last year. Combined with the sheer number of Outstanding Performance awards, these results point to the fact that we’ve got one of the greatest sales and support teams in the industry. We’re set to level up once again and I look forward to seeing who gets to stand on the awards stage in 2024.”
Immediately following The NAMM Show, the Allen & Heath team made its way over to the Las Vegas Convention Center to host its largest ever booth at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show. The Allen & Heath booth at NAB once again featured products from each of the brand’s diverse product series, and was visited by a variety of attendees, ranging from longtime fans to curious newcomers. “It was really rewarding to see Qu consoles in use ‘organically’ across the NAB Show for training areas and breakout rooms,” adds Rob Impala, VP of Pro Audio for American Music and Sound . “We had a chance to catch up with broadcasters, church technicians, installers, consultants and engineers who rely on Allen & Heath to tackle a wide range of audio applications. As always, we were all ears when it comes to product feedback and requests from the field and we’re certainly energized and ready to get to work on releasing the next round of new and exciting software and hardware updates soon.”