Inside Elite Event Technology’s Massive JBL A-Series Investment

The biggest news at Integrate 2025 dropped as the show opened; Canberra’s Elite Event Technology, headed by Darren Russell, had made what I think may be the largest purchase of PA by an Australian production company in a single order; 96 JBL Professional VTX A-Series line array speakers, including the A12, A8, and A6 models, paired with 50 VTX B-Series 18-inch subwoofers, all driven by Crown amplifiers. All the more remarkable is that it marks JBL’s return to the top of riders after years in the pro audio wilderness.

I sat down with Darren Russell, Peter Kubow, head of tour sound for Harman distributor MadisonAV, Robert Lackey, Head of Sales for MadisonAV, and Rodney Houston, Senior Director of Sales, Entertainment, APAC, Professional Solutions at Harman, to get the full story on this bold investment, and how JBL has turned around its fortunes with wise investments in its people and technology.

Firstly, and notably, Darren points out that Elite are not discarding any of their existing PA stock for JBL. “We’re not replacing anything,” affirms Darren. “We’ve been with one major PA brand for some time now, and we’ve decided it was worth having another brand as an alternative. We’re seeing a lot of JBL VTX A-Series on riders, both international and local. Given that there was no serious quantity of it here in Australia, we decided to be the people to have a serious quantity of it. It’s quite interesting the markets in which it’s moved up the chain on riders. It’s very big in the KPop market and in the Indian pop (I-pop) market. It’s the current tour PA for Lenny Kravitz, Pitbull, Bruno Mars, and Rhianna. In the KPop and the I-pop markets, it’s actually the number one preference.”

Darren’s interest in JBL A-Series was piqued over two years ago, when MadisonAV ran their product launch (which later won an international award from Harman). “There’s an element of nostalgia with me and JBL,” admits Darren. “When I started out in the late 80s, pretty much everything I ever mixed on had JBL parts in it. 4560s, W bins, Roy bins, and all that stuff. As an audio guy, when JBL lost its way for a period of time, that was a little bit heartbreaking. MadisonAV’s Jeff Shoesmith encouraged us to come along to the A-Series launch, and to be brutally honest, I went along with quite low expectations. I heard it, and saw the presentation from George Georgallis, Senior Director, Product Management for JBL at Harman, about the technology that’s gone into it, and walked away very pleasantly surprised and quite impressed.”

With MadisonAV wisely investing in a full-size A12 rig to demonstrate it to the industry at large, it was MadisonAV’s Peter Kubow’s job to get the PA into Elite’s hands for a proper evaluation. “Darren and I talked extensively about what gigs he had coming up that would be best for a demo,” says Peter. “There was a country music muster in Queanbeyan, NSW, that was perfect. Darren was going to be mixing, and we provided a system with 12 A12 per side, G28 subs, and A8s for front fill.”

“There were eight bands on the country muster bill, and I mixed five of them,” says Darren. “We got to take VTX A-Series for a really good test drive, which was great. We had a nice time with it, and we got a lot of positive feedback from the client, the audience, and a few of the other acts that brought their own touring engineers. It was all positive; it went up nice and quick, came down nice and quick, and ticked all the right boxes. One of the things I really like about VTX A-Series is that the voicing of the HF device in all three boxes is nice, smooth, sweet, and very musical sounding, but at the same time, there’s no power compression. It doesn’t run out of horsepower; you stomp on the gas, and it just keeps going.”

The question everyone was asking Darren at Integrate was; how did you decide on that massive quantity and model mix to purchase? “We had the initial conversation with Harman about what a good quantity and mix would be,” outlines Darren. “They came back with a good recommendation, but that turned out to be a lot less than we’ve actually bought. Because this can be seen as a re-introduction of the brand to pro audio, I thought if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to go big or go home. To do it properly, we needed to have enough in the country to do any size arena. Peter Kubow modeled a design for really high SPL at Qudos Bank Arena; that gave us the quantity of boxes, and then we rounded all the numbers up.

Then we went through things like numbers of amplifiers, and how many amp racks we’re going to have. There was the full system model, and then the case to split it up into three A12 systems, two A8 systems, and a couple of A6 systems, all at the same time. Amplifiers, power distribution, cabling infrastructure; we went on a really big journey with all of that.”

This purchase has created a hire ecosystem for JBL VTX-A Series virtually overnight. “Elite does a lot of sub hiring; it’s a very big part of our business,” confirms Darren. “It’s across all disciplines; audio, lights, video. For any major purchase like this, it’s a big part of our decision-making process.” This should make Peter Kubow’s job easier in now spreading VTX A-Series purchases to other companies; “I was having a lot of conversations with companies before the Elite purchase,” explains Peter. “Understandably, many companies were concerned that if they bought say, 12 per side, where they could get more if they needed them for a bigger gig. There were already a couple of systems in Queensland, but that’s not logistically feasible all the time. Now there’s this stock in ACT and NSW, I can revisit these people and let them know there’s as many boxes as they’ll ever need, just down the road.”

When Samsung acquired Harman back in 2016, many in the pro audio industry, this author included, assumed that the parent company would adapt its IP for the car and home audio markets and abandon the pro market forever. Not only did this not happen, the exact opposite has occurred. “With the amount of money Harman have put into R&D, they are clearly invested in Harmon Pro as a brand,” agrees Darren. “It’s not just the line arrays; new ceiling speakers, new BSS DSP, and all the other things that we’re now aware of that are in the pipeline; they’re all good products. Every new thing they’re bringing out, they’ve got right. Their investment in dollars, and in the right people like George Georgallis looking after the products is really good to see, and we’re looking forward to the journey.”

Robert Lackey, Head of Sales for MadisonAV, is understandably pretty pleased with Elite and looking forward to the future. “If we go right back to before the VTX A-Series launch, MadisonAV originally approached Harman to get access to a wider range of line arrays for our installation business,” explains Robert. “We had no idea at that point that Harman would then decide to give us their full product range. We’d already brought Peter Kubow and his live audio experience into the team, and we then started our journey of learning what the broader pro market was about. Darren was a big part of that, and he helped me understand what was needed to build a lasting partnership in this space. It is a big purchase for Elite, but it’s a partnership with us, and it’s a partnership with Harman. My role was to make sure that we built the trust, we built the confidence, and we had the right people to support it. I think it says a lot about MadisonAV that we look at an opportunity, and then we invest in people, stock, and our partners. We want the JBL VTX A-Series ecosystem to works for us, for Darren, and other companies, as tours and gigs come into the country.”

From the Harman side, Rodney Houston, Senior Director of Sales in Entertainment for APAC, is helping put together the pieces across Australia, New Zealand, and into Asia. “Darren and I have had many discussions through the process,” says Rodney. “We’ve had a lot of detailed discussions around how the A-Series accessories work, and we’ve been supporting the MadisonAV team on the overall go-to-market. Madison has done a lot of the heavy lifting, with Peter Kubow running the demos and the technical discussions. I’ve been keeping engaged with Elite and then tying together a bigger discussion across the region and globally about who is using A-Series, what it is being used for, and what shows we’re going to see it used on in this part of the world.”

Elite had already put out multiple proposals for A-Series gigs by late August. “We’re feeling reasonably confident they’re going to happen,” confides Darren. “Now we’ve got the ecosystem, we’re looking at a few things that we can deploy it on. We’re already having a conversation about doing something with JBL’s integration with FLUX:: Immersive in a big-top at a major EDM festival. Towards the end of this year and into next year, there are a lot of VTX A-Series tours that are coming to Australia, and our current venues and corporate gigs are already planning to run with smaller A6 and A8 rigs.”

---

Main pic: L to R – Robert Lackey, Peter Kubow, Darren Russell, and Rodney Houston