Fred Heuves wins TPI Award

Fred Heuves, co-founder of Ampco and founder of the Synco Europe Network, was handed the highest honour - the Lifetime Contribution Award - in Total Production International (TPi) Awards 2010 at London's Hammersmith Novotel.

It takes a special kind of person to keep alive the spirit of the pioneering early days of the live sound industry in the commercially challenging era of the 21st century, with an organisation that has grown to span the width of Europe, but Fred Heuves has done just that.

Fred retired last year as CMO of the Ampco Flashlight Group and founder of the Synco Europe Network, and was replaced last month as Synco Commercial Director by Dutch music entrepreneur Marcel Albers.

Fred began his career, like so many industry colleagues, working with local bands - in his case, in his native Utrecht in Holland in 1976. His first sound rental company, Protone, went on to forge a partnership with sales company Ampco, and in 1997 the two companies, along with lighting company Flashlight, were acquired by Dutch broadcaster NOB.

Five years later, an MBO saw the new Ampco / Flashlight Group emerge as a major rental, sales, distribution and product development group employing 350 people in several European countries.

Fred was also inspired to create the Synco Europe Network, in which independent rental companies share equipment and expertise. With members from Gran Canaria to Bucharest, its success is testimony to Fred's special blend of sociable, multi-lingual diplomacy, vision and negotiating skills - and has brought Synco, in the shape of UK network member RG Jones, to Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage, the Reading and Leeds festivals and the main stage at Latitude.

As Fred's wife Rolanda would doubtless agree, the past year has involved a lot more emails, phone calls and deal-making than the dictionary definition of ‘retirement' deserves. But at least they now have time to enjoy the fruits of 33 years' work as one of live sound's true pioneers.