Robe | Creative Productions Australia brings A New Energy
Creative Productions Australia is a new full-service technical production facility providing design, equipment – lighting, video and audio – plus crew for all shows, tours and live events, created by the merger of two leading Australian rental houses – Gold Coast based Creative Productions and Melbourne based MPH Australia.
The new enterprise also unites the energy, passion, imagination, and drive of two well-known and popular industry characters – Dave Jackson, founder of Creative Productions and Matt Hansen founder of MPH Australia.
After many years of both collaborating and competing, and around two years of serious discussions about the merits of consolidating their aggregate experience, knowledge and client bases in an exciting business venture, Dave and Matt now head up an independently owned and operated tour de force engineered to take the art of technical production to new levels!
Three bases – Gold Coast, Melbourne, and Sydney – are ideal for offering clients the best and most cost-efficient coverage and continuity of service, kit, and personnel across the whole country, and in particular the busy south eastern Australia region.
Melbourne and Gold Coast will be the two main touring hubs.
With these considerable resources to hand, lighting, video, and audio rigs can be duplicated or triplicated and trucking costs reduced allowing Creative Productions Australia to offer a fantastic service that is competitive and viable.
It also makes Creative Productions Australia the largest stockholder of Robe moving lights in Australasia – and possibly the Asia Pacific region – with over 2000 fixtures. Both companies have steadily invested in Robe in recent years.
Creative Productions’ most recent Robe purchases include Robe BMFL WashBeams, Spiiders LED wash beams and MegaPointes, while MPH’s include MegaPointes and RoboSpots delivered by Robe’s Australian distributor Jands, so they have a good cross section of Robe products which they see as reliable and robust rental items that will give great service.
Dave and Matt enjoy a great synergy. They share core values as well as expansive senses of humour and reputations for straight-talking, and both directors of the new company fuse their lively and proactive management styles, with Dave as CEO and Matt as head of Business Development.
“It’s a bit of a crazy time to do this in some ways” comments Dave referring to the coronavirus pandemic, explaining that the original plan was to announce the merger at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt on April 1st, but once the pandemic went global in March, the expo was cancelled and most of the world went into lockdown.
“We both see this time as a great chance to prepare a strong and stable operation able for moving forward as the lockdown starts being lifted and the industry gets restarted. We are confident for the future.”
Matt comments, “Both companies were in a similar position when we started talking! We both wanted to expand, and we had similar inventories, outlooks and goals and a lot of mutual respect! Joining forces enables all of us – all employees of both companies remain in place – to grow, develop and continue being at the forefront of production excellence for many years to come.”
In addition to the equipment, resources, logistical and strategic advantages, there will be substantial investments on the horizon to ensure Creative Productions Australia keeps ahead of all the latest technologies.
“Being privately owned and in control of our own destiny will ensure that we can make agile and smart decisions and take opportunities swiftly and decisively” emphasises Dave.
Right now in the world of Covid-19, Dave and Matt see a long road ahead for rental companies until it’s deemed safe to lift the restrictions substantially on public gatherings, and until that time, they are all for keeping these in place.
The Australian government has won widespread praise internationally for its containment of the virus.
However, Creative Productions Australia has also been extremely busy during this period, and that’s not just with looking after the staff, maintaining and servicing the kit, rationalising administration and implementing new systems to optimise their substantial infrastructure.
They have been talking to promoters about drive-in gigs, a concept gaining traction as a way to get at least some live gigs safely in front a music-hungry public!
They have built the technical elements of TV / streaming studios in Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne for hosting artist performances, album launches, etc. and they have also been continuing their various charitable work and projects throughout the crisis, supporting the industry and those less fortunate.
“We are sitting in a sweet spot, inspired by our fantastic team who are all looking forward to helping achieve our goals and ambitions as we get back to work.” concluded Matt.
