News

11 Dec 2012

Rumor today: Norwest to acquire Cairellie

11 December 2012

(Fresh denial at bottom)

CX usually lets these fly through to the keeper. But today the biz is abuzz with the possibility that Sydney production firm Cairellie will join Norwest. Cairellie is a technical production supplier who supply sound, lights, vision and communication systems – a one-stop shop. They have arena capability, and a relationship with massive US audio firm 8thdaysound.

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We called Norwest last week to confirm this, and were told that generally Norwest is seeking to become more of a one-stop shop, a little like its Oceania subsidiary in New Zealand. The word we got was that Norwest doesn’t want to start cold by building on lighting and vision systems to its audio deployments across Australia. The Cairellie part was denied last week – but without much gusto. Something is cooking.

So until we are expressly told this is not happening, let’s imagine Norwest with Cairellie.

Cairellie have something Norwest would dearly like to have – d+b J Series. Norwest wouldn’t buy this top end, rider preferred arena line array system while JPJ Audio (Jands) and Cairellie already have it. Three is a crowd, and Norwest have enough of everything else, including a lot of v-Dosc and Adamson to cater to the large gig market.

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But JPJ have been eating Norwest’s lunch this year in the arena tour dept.

Cairellie on the other hand face an uphill battle to convince promoter reps that they have the right stuff, even though they have the right equipment. Their relationship with 8th Day Sound means a lot of a-grade tours will consider using them, if only the firm had a little more in the way of senior mature technical crew. They have a patchy record in retaining crew – needing a little more in the way of human resource management, and a little less in the way of burn out the troops.

Of late there’s been a big shift in the Cairellie story, as they have kind of ‘come out’ in the sense they are now much more visible. They were very secretive, to the extent they ‘hid’ their address, leading to wild and imaginative rumors about the origins of the firm and the background of Steve Knight, the boss (pictured below with new Digico console).

ImageCairellie would give Norwest the ability to deploy d+b J Array, and to bring lighting and vision packages to their corporate clients.

If and when this rumour is convincingly refuted, we will update here.

* Norwest denied this. They are ‘looking at something’ and will advise when that something arrives.

UPDATED:

Cairellie Acquired by Norwest Productions

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