Melbourne-based WooHah Productions provide a one-stop-shop solution for professional audio visual equipment and to be able to do that, they have an extensive inventory of equipment particularly large range of LED Screens. All of this expensive gear needs to be protected – as do the talented staff – and so the WooHah crew started looking to expand their back-end infrastructure systems to match the growth and frequency of their larger scaled LED screen system.
“With power distribution being one of the key components in our industry, we began looking at what the options on the market were for Powerlock based systems that ticked the boxes for us in terms of safety and functionality,” explained Ben Nickel, Production Manager at WooHah.
While there are plenty of products on the market as far as straightforward Powerlock distros go, when Branden Butler and the team at Show Technology in Melbourne introduced the WooHah guys to the StageSmarts range of distros, Ben says that it was pretty clear that this was the product that they were looking for.
“Moving into the summer season with many generator based outdoor shows, the built in ‘loss of neutral’ protection the StageSmarts offers was an immediate win for us to protect our equipment in the case of any event power supply failures,” added Ben. “LED panels tend to have a high in-rush current, and have been notorious for having ‘leaky’ earths. The ability to monitor the load on each channel of the distro via an inbuilt display, paired with the high quality RCBO’s used for the unit, have been a game changer for us on shows.”
Ben further remarked that the browser-based remote monitoring of the unit, the mixture of 32A, 63A and general utility auxiliary outlets, and the customizable modules in the back to plug feeder looms directly into the unit, the StageSmarts functions as a great central hub of power distribution to their systems.
“Our number one priority on shows is always to ensure that our system techs and crew have the right equipment to maintain the safest possible workplace, especially in regards to the high usage of power we deal with on a daily basis,” said Ben. “Not only does the Stagesmarts deliver on this, it affords this same level of protection to the gear in use, and fits perfectly into our strong focus at WooHah on clean, streamlined and functional back-end infrastructure. I wouldn’t be surprised if these products were to become an industry standard for power delivery.”
WooHah Productions opted for the smartPDU 48 Channel engineered to meet the tough requirements of the events market and are looking to purchase more C24 units and another smartPDU48 unit.
