# Chapter 31 - -Showco Develops Arena System Sound System 1983- {{< MultiGalleryComponent galleries="1981-arena-system" >}} In 1983 we began a development project to design and build acompletely new Showco sound system that would outperform the Clair S4 system. We hired Jim Brawley who was recommended to us by Mark Gander at JBL. Jim is an acoustical consultant from Clemson, South Carolina, and he immediately connected with Clay Powers and Richard Bratcher from the Showco engineering staff. They formed the core development team for the new project. The Showco Pyramid system was not competing well in the market against the Clair S4 system, so we felt a sense of urgency to do something to become more competitive. We decided as a first step in the development process to modify the Pyramid system by gutting the cabinets down to their shells and rebuilding the interior of the cabinets with a new updated design. This new design was named the Arena System or AS system. The AS bass cabinet was fitted with three 18” JBL speakers mounted in a ported reflex configuration. The three-way cabinet was fitted with two 12” JBL speakers each with a custom designed aluminum front loaded horn for mid bass, two JBL bi-radial horns with JBL 2441 drivers for mid-range and two Yamaha 4281 ring radiators for highs. The 12” mid-bass drivers were repurposed from the Pyramid system. Three Crown PSA 2 amplifiers powered two pairs of AS cabinets and there was a passive crossover mounted inside the three-way cabinet between the JBL 2441 mid-range drivers and the Yamaha 4281 ring radiators. The first use of the AS system was on the 1983 David Bowie Serious Moonlight world tour that started in Europe. The tour was intended to be in indoor venues, but the ticket sales were so strong that the promoters began booking stadiums and outdoor venues. We began having major problems with the new AS sound system. The biggest mistake was that we had failed to properly test the new design. We had mistakenly chosen a low efficiency 18” speaker and we had wired three speakers in parallel on one channel of a PSA2 amplifier which delivered 540 watts at 2.6 ohms which underpowered the 18” speakers. The passive crossover was not designed correctly and was “ringing” and sounded terrible. And we just did not have enough equipment on the tour to do the large outdoor venues. Because we had gutted the Pyramid cabinets, we could not go back to using the older proven design and we did not have enough AS cabinets to adequately supplement the AS equipment on the Bowie tour. And all of these problems were happening in Europe, thousands of miles and an ocean away from the Dallas shop. We shipped new JBL high efficiency 18” speakers to the next tour city in Germany. On a hotel parking lotin Bochum, Germany, we removed the passive crossovers and we sent and installed more amplifiers to power the Yamaha tweeters directly from the master crossover panel. We also hired additional sound equipment from Turbosound in the UK. But we were not able to improve the sound quality of the tour enough. Although we finished the tour, we lost David Bowie as a client which was very harmful to our reputation. It was the first time we had failed to perform since the Leslie West show in 1970. And the primary reason we failed was due to rushing the development of a new system and not adequately testing the new design before deploying it with a major artist like David Bowie on a European tour. We did make the corrections to the design and converted all of our Pyramid systems to the AS design configuration - and we worked hard to repair our reputation in the industry. There were, however, silver linings to the Arena System issues. The Bowie European tour debacle led to the development of Showco’s PRISM system, by far our most successful sound system ever (see Chapter 33 below). And we successfully served as the global production general contractor for David Bowie’s 1983 Serious Moonlight and 1987 Glass Spider world tours. <<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>> As with the Stones US and European tours in 1981 and 1982, our newly formed Vari-Lite Concerts division subcontracted the conventional lighting rig and stage set for Bowie’s 1983 and 1987 world tours – and, due to our 1983 European tour sound problems, in North America, Europe and Japan(?) Clair Brothers provided the sound systems for the 1987 Glass Spider world tour – with Jands providing sound and conventional lighting in Australia and New Zealand. Each tour also used substantial complements of Vari*Lites. Alan Branton was the lighting designer; the innovative sets were designed by Mark Ravitz to fulfill David Bowie’s visions. Michael Ahern (RIP), Benny Collins (RIP) and Mick Double were the production managers for various tour segments. David Alley was our tour production accountant – proficiently handling payrolls, contract payments, cash management and records. David also deftly managed our foreign currency exposures using futures contracts. Robin Magruder, Showco’s VP Operations, was again the tour advance production coordinator and our tour manager for all the global production elements – once again including sourcing, contracting and managing all the subcontractors, freelance crews and site coordinators – plus specifying, arranging and managing all the air and sea freight (including chartering intercontinental wide body DC10 freight aircraft), customs and outdoor stages. Magruder was again responsible for controlling Showco’s production budgets ensuring that our costs did not exceed the fixed prices that we guaranteed. He also assembled a stellar team of some of the top production and site coordinators of the era – including Michael Ahern (RIP), Mick Double, Joe Baptista (RIP), Wendy Stein, Benny Collins (RIP), Ken Graham, John Morrison and John Conk. David Bowie’s 1983 and 1987 world tours were very successful, setting many ticket sales and attendance records, and we made unprecedented profits from the contractor fees. {{< StoryImage id="showco-2-control-86" title="The Showco Arena System 1983" caption="The Showco Arena System 1983" credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="large" >}}