#MyFirstEvent : Campbell MacLeod

Looking back on early events

I started working for Cameron straight from Strathclyde Uni, back in the days of the Glasgow Garden Festival. We had bought a video wall from Cameron for the university pavilion, and it was my job to write the programme, install and look after the wall for the duration of the festival. Some great days, with great weather and a great atmosphere. Just before the end of the festival, I joined what was then Cameron Communications.

Star encounters

My first big job was installing two video walls on a stage as part of Fife Aid 2 Music Festival in St Andrews for Jesse Rae.

Looking back, there was an amazing line-up headlined by the mighty Marillion.

We built the walls on the Friday night, just before the headliners sound checked. As we clambered off the stage, Marillion were sitting around on some flight cases and started playing an acoustic version of Pink Floyd’s ‘Us And Them’. Made my night.

From memory, it battered down the next day and we de-rigged in the pouring rain. In true festival style, our van got stuck in the mud and I believe we got pulled out by an ambulance!

Check out a recording of the mighty Marillion at Fife Aid 2 below.

Not long after, The Cannon and Ball Show saw us spending 16 days in Leeds in the Yorkshire TV Studios with a 5 x 5 video wall featuring as part of their set. Perhaps not the most glamorous of TV programmes, but they did have some big stars of the day playing – including Dusty Springfield and Hothouse Flowers. It was a good laugh.

Tech gone by

Another one that stands out in my mind is the 1995 JCI World Congress hosted by The Junior Chamber International Glasgow, which welcomed thousands of JCI members to the city from all across the world. Being part of the technical team for this event was a wonderful experience – in the run up to the Congress, we were talking with people from every continent to determine their needs.

We worked in conjunction with the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to provide large-screen projection in the main Auditorium, Strathclyde Suite and Buchanan Suite. Our brief was to supply machines that would play any format of videotape from any country in the world.

We used our brand new Barco 9200 projector in the main auditorium – the projector cost about the same as a decent flat, the lens about the same as a small car! It was the brightest projector on the market, with a massive 6000 ansi lumen light output. And we literally had stacks of video tape machines, probably valued at well over £150k.

Amazingly, equivalent spec nowadays would just be a desktop projector, a laptop and a USB stick – but that’s not nearly as much fun!

#MyFirstEvent : Campbell MacLeod​

Looking back on early events

Italian Trade Agency at the City of Glasgow College

Insight: Issue 180 | Wed 14 August