‘This has never been done before’: Inside 22live with Paul Timmins and Alex Penn

22live founder Paul Timmins and commercial director Alex Penn have spoken to Headliner about the inner workings of the new pro audio rental firm, as well as their plans for the market and the trends shaping the business.

Founded by and constructed around some of the most influential figures in the world of pro audio, 22live is a start-up unlike any other. Officially launched in January 2023 by Paul Timmins, the former Capital Sound exec quickly assembled a team of fellow rental and event production veterans. Former SSE (now Solotech) stalwarts Alex Penn and Spencer Beard were installed as commercial director and managing director respectively, while several other high-profile appointments were made in swift succession.

The goal, it seems, was to enter the top tier of rental companies with the lightness of foot of a start-up and the expertise of a long-established market leader. And while it is still very early days, 22live is certainly showing signs of delivering on its promise.

A partnership with fellow British brand Martin Audio was inked early on, which saw the loudspeaker specialist drafted in almost immediately for a Sigur Rós tour and a run of dates with the Australian Pink Floyd.

Of course, like any start-up, despite the wealth of expertise and talent within its ranks, there are always challenges to contend with in an already highly competitive marketplace.

Headliner caught up with Timmins and Penn for an inside look at how 22live came together and what the future holds…

Talk us through the origins of 22live.

Alex: We all have a long history working in the industry and all ended up where we ended up after multiple trials and tribulation to get to the top of our game. Paul founded 22live on the premise of wanting to wind back a little bit and get back to the origins of what we do. We had all been in businesses that we were in control of, which went on to become much bigger organisations where we didn’t have the control to make the decisions we wanted to make. So we wanted to go back to having a smaller business with more control. After me and Spencer left SSE we decided that sounded like an attractive proposition for us.

We left the industry to reset and it gave us an opportunity to reflect on what we wanted to do. And there was lots of other things I’d like to do but nothing I knew how to do quite as well as this. And it became quite clear that this would be exciting and we’d be doing it for the right reasons. We wanted to reset the focus to being passionate about the industry and not being on endless Zoom calls and talking about spreadsheets and budgets. And by keeping a leaner overhead it gives us the opportunity to work with people who want to work with us, rather than trying to hunt down everything, so we get to work with people who really want to work with us.

Paul: I took some time off and I was at a point where I wasn’t ready to retire but wasn’t sure what I was going to do next. As time went on, I started to miss it and I thought an ideal situation would be to blend my experience with some younger guys. And we’re all quite lucky in that we’ve been in the business long enough and made a little bit of money along the way, so we can get into something for the right reasons. The first thing was sniffing around a few businesses that might be for sale, but ultimately, I thought we’d be buying baggage, so I decided to start something from scratch.

Alex: It’s never been done before in the way we’ve gone about it. That’s because at this stage in our career this is like a second phase for us. That’s unique in itself as there aren’t many people who start a business as a second phase in their career. Because of the team we have from the outset we are a bigger team of directors than most other start-up businesses. There haven’t been any start-up audio businesses playing in the top tier in the last 20 years, so we’ve started with a massive step up in terms of the experience and the profile that brings. Where we are up to as a management team is where a normal start-up would be after at least 10 years. That also means we can grow faster and add more people faster. We want to build a younger management team beneath us over the next 10-15 years who can take it forward. We want to be a next generation business in every way.

Does assembling such a team for a new company come with any additional scrutiny from the rest of the market?

Alex: Generally, the industry has been very supportive of us because they feel that they want independent companies in the mix. And the production managers and sound engineers want to work with companies where they feel they are getting full attention and are not just one of 100 other gigs on a long list of jobs. Everyone recognises the need for what we are doing. The only ones putting pressure on us to make sure that everything is 100% spot on and better than anything we’ve done before is ourselves.

You selected Martin Audio as your core loudspeaker partner. How did that partnership come about?

Paul: When I first worked for Capital Sound in around ‘92 it was Martin Audio, a one brand company. So, I got to know the people, the history and the products very well. Over the next 10 years I went from being a crew person to hooking up with Capital and working with just the one brand and then it became inevitable that I was getting some clients who wanted a line array when there wasn’t a lot of options. Martin Audio had a line array coming but it wasn’t anywhere near ready, so at Capital we took on the Meyer Sound product and that worked really well for a while. But, I got to know the business really well, and then there was the generation with MLA and the Hyde Park project, and at the time Rob Lingfield was still around and running things there. And I was very close with Rob, so it’s always been in my heart.

With 22live it was the fact there was a new generation of Martin Audio. All of the products we buy into we try to buy in at the front end of their life rather than the back end, so we get some legs out of our investment. The Precision range was all coming online during the pandemic, so it was evident that if we went with Martin we’d be at the front end of a range of products.

With the investment from Focusrite you can see that is starting to pay off big time with the engineering and the products that are coming through. And we want to support companies close to home, so that played a part as well. But ultimately the product has got to be top notch.

Alex: And Martin Audio is very much perceived as being on the up. Ever since Dom [Harter, MD] took the company over it’s been on an upward trajectory. Obviously, there are two brands who are dominant, but from the rental companies there is a sense that people would like the opportunity to buy something else, and if you’re going to buy something else Martin Audio is one of the best options. That’s why we are seeing a lot of uptake on it. It’s a brand with legacy and with some of the shows it gets specified on, like Glastonbury and Hyde Park, that does a lot to demonstrate that it’s a capable product. We believed in that and hence invested in it, and now it’s part of Focusrite they have the opportunity to really invest in R&D to compete with the biggest brands in the world, and we want to help them on that path.

Paul: Our aim is to drive that brand forward and close the gap with the other two. That’s been happening over the last 10 years.

Alex: Ten years or so ago they turned their focus to being the brand being used in all the nightclubs; they had line arrays but it wasn’t really the bread and butter of the business. But since Dom came back he’s really redressed the focus and they are a touring loudspeaker manufacturer. Yes, they still cover the install market but Wavefront Precision, TORUS, and FlexPoint are all touring focused products and that's what’s given companies like us the option to really look at it as a serious thing to invest in.

Now that the live events industry is back up and running again post-Covid, have you seen any long-lasting changes in the way this sector does business?

Paul: Sadly, it’s back to business as usual [laughs]. It feels lie there were lots of promises but largely things are back to how they were. It’s a little sad in some ways. The crew thing is interesting, as there was a percentage of people who left the industry and found that life outside of it can be better for them. Burt we are starting to see some fresh faces and they have done their homework, come out of university and spent some time with manufacturers. We’re enjoying seeing that; there is a big interest with younger people wanting to get into the industry and that’s encouraging. Of course, it depends on who you speak to.

A healthy situation is a good balance, and that’s something we’re trying to focus on. We are trying to create a new base of experienced techs, as well as some of the younger people coming in. We want to give them that opportunity. But of course, we have to do it in a balanced way as we don’t want our clients to think we are a new company just working with a bunch of young kids as that wouldn’t work either.

What are the biggest challenges facing 22live?

Alex: The biggest challenge right now is cash flow, because it’s very expensive setting up a new business. But we’ve been pretty successful in getting all the funding we have. We’ve made a really strong start and we’ve got to keep growing. We aren’t looking to be the biggest, but we want to be able to take on the biggest projects we can. It’s probably the same for any company. But the biggest opportunities are that we’ll have the chance to work at the highest level and provide audio to the biggest jobs because we are proving to the market we are capable of it.

Paul: If we hadn’t come from where we came from then we’d be trawling the clubs trying to build a roster of artists, but of course, the phone is now ringing from past clients and contacts and people who do want to work with us. And you don’t want to say no to anything. It’s trying to facilitate everything that comes across you.

Headliner recently sat down for an exclusive chat with Harter and Martin Audio brand marketing director James King for an in depth chat about the company’s raft of new products this year, as well as current pro audio trends, the ongoing impacts of Brexit, and more. You can read and/or listen to the interview in full here.