#176 - Chris McMeen at LDI

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1:04 If you're here at the show, stop by the elation booth #1142 and discuss how elation can help you achieve your lighting vision. OK, so for those of you who are not in this room, you are about to be told that this is the second time time we're recording this because we just had a nice 30 minute talk and some knucklehead at the control helm here forgot to hit record.

1:57 So that would be me. So anyways, here we are at LDI, busy, great show, you know first day so but two nights so we're all a little groggy and tired and beaten up and at our age we shouldn't be drinking anymore. And but I did want to take some time today A to record a couple of really great people and and hear some history and talk about some of their you know, doings. But more importantly or as importantly I also wanted to talk about the show and the gear, the new gear, a lot of great manufacturers here. It's an excellent show. It's very busy. There's, you know, a lot of really high quality people, high quality manufacturers, a lot of really high quality new products.

2:43 And so, you know, it really feels like an extension of the show last year and you know, last year everyone said yeah, you know, it's lightly attended but really high quality attendees and that was actually really true. There was a lot of great conversation, a lot of, you know, just people coming back out, like you know, they've been locked up for a couple years and they came back out, they got to see some gear, shake some hands, hug some people after all this COVID stuff. But so this year feels like another just sort of leap in quality, really good, great show, well attended, blah blah blah. So today with me for this podcast for the second go round I have first of all I have Brad Nelms who is my coworker in Gearsource and is very knowledgeable, knowledgeable about gear and stuff. But more importantly I have Chris Mcmean with Christy Lights.

3:44 And Chris, for those of you who have been living under a rock, has had a very lengthy career in lighting and most recently I think about 10 years with with Christy Lights, who you will all know. And so welcome, gentlemen. Good morning again. Morning. Yeah. Thanks for the 2nd mornings. So the second time we record this, I'm going to tell you we were a little bit late and that's why I forgot to hit record because Chris lost his car. I did. I lost the car. I like how you passed the blame though, on that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it can't be my fault. Yeah, Chris lost his car this morning, so he. Came a little bit late. I literally walked along three floors of a parking garage with my hand in the air, pressing this button over and over.

4:29 Where the hell did I at? The park? What the? Why can't you just look at your iPhone and it'll tell you where you're parked? It's in the garage. It's all on the same. Floor it helps very much, no? Yeah, I put. I put air tags in everything. Now, like, the older I get, the more air tags I buy. There you go. And I put them literally in everything. I mean, you're laughing. I do that. In each of those two bags over there. I use the little tiles and I give them to the family, but eventually they run out and I have to. And then you're like, oh, where did I put that? And you only realize that they're out when you can't find your exactly. Yeah, yeah. How long do the air tags work? I don't six months or eight months or something. Quite a long time like tried to.

5:11 Put some on our dogs, but we live in the woods so they don't do very good because there aren't any phones there. Yeah, that's true. There's nothing to ping, yeah. You need other people with iPhone. Why do dogs just running around with a silly tag around and? A lot of notifications that we don't know where they are. Yeah, yeah. My son has one on his dog and and his dog has a tendency to shoot out the door when you know you're somebody knocks at the door to hand you an Amazon package or something and you go Bing out the door. So they've lost them for two or three days at a time. So the the ear tag's pretty helpful. So Chris, again for for the people who are listening who don't really know you give me the give me the like 5 minute spiel on your background, your history.

5:55 How'd you get into the business? So as a kid, my my mother and my stepfather were both in the business. My brought my mother was a Broadway producer. She did Crimes of the Heart on Broadway, various other projects as a little actually, I'm I'm. Here's another tidbit I didn't even tell you before. I was on Sesame Street as a baby and I'm the first kid to ever nurse on national television. Wow. That explains so much like that. Just answered so many questions for me, Chris. I have a lot of questions about what that looked like on Sesame Street, but. Yeah, that's true.

6:37 Like big birds in there. Yeah, no, it's like a little music video they did and they have like all these animals nursing and then they're like, and people nurse too. But it was like a big faux pas to show breastfeeding on television. Yeah, like back then it was like, whoa, we can't do that. That's crazy. That's what was it. Nudity and disgusting. And nobody wants to see that, right? Was it? Just a random breast or was it like your mother it? Was my mother's? Yeah. No, they weren't giving out breasts. No. Sesame Street. That was something that happened. The one you want. Yeah, which one do you like? But yeah, so there's actually I could show you the YouTube if you're ever interested. I'd. Love to see it.

7:17 That's hilarious. Hilarious. So you're full of all kinds of tidbits, yeah? Yeah, little tidbits, so. You grew up, your mom was a Broadway producer, so that's cool. Yeah, I was in theaters. Like, I would sit there and memorize all the lines for like the shows she was working on. Because back then there was no, like, child care. You just kind of pushed your kids out into the world. There's none of this helicopter parenting or, you know, daycare. You know, kids literally just walked out into the street. Like, yeah. Good luck, remember. In New York City, yeah. In New York City, true you. Know with gunshots going on and you know, bums everywhere. And you know, I was riding the subway by the time I was 8 years old, You know, Damn. By yourself.

7:58 By yourself. Really. Eight years old? That's crazy. You just go to him. That's wild. You'd have token, you'd go to him. Your parents leave tokens on the table. You could always go grab a token and just go. Wherever you felt like and. Just go anywhere in the city you felt like crazy. Nowadays you're like, Oh my God, well. I'm afraid to do it by myself and I'm 58, you know. So yeah, I mean, Huntley was like, like the first time he came to the city and like, really hung out with me and went around. I'm taking the subway everywhere. And he's like, you take the subway like every other Rep picks up a car and gets, gets, gets a taxi or an Uber around. And I'm like, that takes forever.

8:39 He wants to sit in traffic, right? I'm like, we could be anywhere in the city we want in 15 minutes. Yeah. So is that what got you into the business because your mom was? I mean, I think someone that's in the blood, you know, you just end up, you end up continuing to work, you know, like I thought of as a really fun thing. But I also saw that most of the people in the theater business were broke and exhausted. And, you know, I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to make money. Like when I was a kid, I was like, I want to be successful. I wanted to, you know, do well. And that was a lot of my focus. Yeah.

9:19 So which is also, you know, my focus in biology and and why I wanted to be a doctor. I I do think things are very connected between theater and science. Yeah. You know, a lot of people are like, Oh no, like the create. No. I think that those two fields are much more connected than people realize. The. Creative and the technology. Anyway, I got to repeat it because I've forgot when doing the skin. My major in college was biology pre Med. I graduated with a 3.95 GPA. My minor was theater, so I was sort of feeding my artistic side by, you know, doing theater on the side and then, you know, pursuing the biology, you know, medical degree one. And the biology helps you to collect on a bill from some of your clients and stuff, right?

10:08 You know where to press. You can. Find which orifice to go into to find the money, right. Yeah. So everybody hides money in their butts, yeah. Yeah, so, but how'd you get into the rental business? Like I met you at High Output and I don't even remember what year it had to be 20 something years ago. I guess we. Got to go through a little process to get the high output so. We're going way back, yeah. We're going way back. So my mother, my stepfather, my stepfather was in the lighting business, although by the time I was around he was retired. He had sold his company. He owned the biggest company in the country in the 70s, a lighting company called TFA. He did.

10:50 Woodstock, he did all The Rolling Stones tours, all the Bruce Springsteen tours, you know, everything. Mark Brickman was doing Pink Floyd. You know, like any rock tour that was done in the late 60s, that's. Wild. I never knew that about you. And I've known you for 20 something years and I had no idea that I never. Really wanted to be judged on the fact that, you know, I was kind of born into the business. I wanted to be on my own merits. And my stepfather and I kind of always kept it quiet. Although he actually still works with us. Oh, really? Yeah, he's part of the Christie Lights team. So that's incredible. Yeah, So. But anyway, so I was insistent that I wasn't going into the lighting business or the theater business. I was going to be a doctor.

11:38 So got through school. After college, I got my AMT license, was an AMT at Beekman downtown. Lots of great stories there as well, Non lighting related. And then while I was working on research, medical research, I was working on the Sleep Heart Help study, which is the largest study ever done to link heart disease and sleep disorders. Which is why they'll now actually test you because they realize that sleep disorders cause heart disease and cardiovascular issues, which kills you. Avoid that, Avoid that. Take care of yourself and make sure if you're not sleeping well or you're falling asleep during the day, you go get checked. Yeah.

12:22 And so anyway, I I've done work for my stepfather over the years. You know, like, he'd be like, hey, Chris, you want to come work this weekend? And I'd go pick up his truck, drive it up to Maine and set up some lights for a show. Like, that was really the beginning. Like I would go up. How? How old were you at that point? I got my license when I was 16. So like, I dig his truck when I was like 1718. Oh wow. And back then, you know you I would drive all the way down to Auburn Stage Lighting and pick up follow spots there, put them on the back of my stepfather's pickup yellow pickup truck.

13:09 I would then drive all the way up to Maine. We would set up the follow spots. I would then work security for the show. Oh wow. And then we'd strike the follow spots. At the end of the night, I'd go get the money and then I would drive all the way back to Jesus. That goes. Back to the orifice, to. Yonkers. Yeah. But yeah, back then, like the way the lighting business worked was, you know, for rock'n'roll, you would walk in and set up your light system and then you go to the box office to get paid and they would count you out cash. And you wouldn't turn the lighting system on until you got that cash because you knew that if you didn't get that cash by the time the show was over, you no longer had any leverage to get paid. Jesus.

13:55 And you probably weren't. That's incredible. What kind of shows are from your world like? Any show was like that or that was? All rock'n'roll shows, yeah. Really. Every single rock'n'roll show you were, you were, you know, all the ones I was doing in Maine and stuff. You know, that's wild, I mean. It's a pretty big lever to pull to say it'll be dark until you give me my money. Yeah. And and and the tour managers knew, you know, that it was a promoter. You, you're dealing with a promoter and you know they knew. And you know eventually you'd get to a point with a promoter who you were working with on a regular basis where you would turn the system on. He was giving you the money by the end of the show. Sure. But even if you were friends with him, you got the money by the end of the show. Yeah, right, right.

14:39 You didn't walk out of there with no cash. That 30. Then was not 30 minutes, Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you guys know Patrick Whelan, right? Yeah, Yeah. Have you had him on the show or no? Yeah, Patrick Whelan. So I I love his stories about prints like going to the vault and you know, opening the safe and taking cash out and handing it to, you know, to the vendors, you know that that's how people got paid back then. That's wild. And so anyway, that's what I was doing as a kid. I was collecting money, I was setting up lights, I was running security and it was all for me, just extra cash and sort of a side business. And then so my stepfather was actually renting space from a company in Boston called High Output. And they had like a full time position open. And so I went up, I started interviewing there and after six interviews, they finally decided to make me a job offer. And at that point I moved my family to Boston. You know, I was living with my then girlfriend at the time and our son and we moved up to Boston And that was sort of the beginning of like my real career. Yeah, like not running follow spots or dealing with theaters or chasing money.

15:56 Chasing money, you know, collections. Yeah, that's what they call it now, right? Which? You still do today. Actually I do. More of Yeah, yeah, like the job's not done in Huntley's opinion until the bill is paid. It's an important opinion. It is an important part of every deal, isn't it? It is shocking to me though, like how many places seem to like, not even focus on that at all, right. Just sell, sell, sell, sell, you know, and then the companies don't get paid, you know, and three years later, they're like, you know, hey, we need this money. Yeah, well, I.

16:37 Mean we've all done a deal like that, that's for sure. I can tell you a couple that I remember where it was just like, no, I'm not going to pay you. What do you mean you're not going to pay me? You took the product, right? Did you use? Presumably you used the product. Are you still using the product? Give me my money. Right. It's shocking. You know it is. Shocking I still. Think some manufacturer needs to get us like, a credit card swipe on electronics where we can, like just, you know, like you pay your bill, like, oh, sorry, I shut your lighting system down remotely. Yeah, put it. Into an MA console and yeah. I remember. Swipe here and turn on just. Like a credit card swiper right on I. Remember many years ago we were putting that into lighting controls in club installs?

17:25 You know, where you could shut the lighting down remotely. Down remotely. Oh wow. Yeah, for what purpose, Martin? We were doing that because. Somebody. Didn't get paid? Oh. Literally for that purpose, I thought you meant for some like troubleshooting. Somebody didn't get made for you, you shut the system down. So I need one of those. Yeah, so that's. Really interesting because I always just thought that, you know, like most people in our industry, you just kind of fell into the business. You know, I tried to. Avoid it, yeah. Which is incredible. Like you grew up in it, tried to avoid it, and ended up in it anyway, right? Yeah, well, I mean, it seems to have worked out OK, Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, I mean look you know the the the business, the, the business is the nice thing about the entertainment business in my opinion is you've you work really hard and you bust your hump, you can do well. Yeah, you know well.

18:16 The other nice thing is most of the time you're working with people you actually like to be working with. You're doing something you actually like to be doing. There's a result that you look up and go like we all still get pretty excited when you know, house lights go out or whatever and. I mean, when I left High Output and came to work for Sheriff Weisberg, I really wanted to be in New York because that's where the big business was, like that. That's where the big shows were. That's where Broadway was. I wanted to see Broadway shows. I wanted to work in New York City. And that was always the goal. Even at High Output, you know, we had a plan to open an office in New York City. And, you know, before I left there, they were like, hey, we're not sure if this is actually ever going to happen. Like, we're not sure if we take the whole financing. Yeah.

19:03 Yeah, it's definitely, you know, I always try to leave as amically as possible. Amicably well. In this business, it's a small enough industry that you don't know when you're going to need to use that bridge again, whether it's as a client or as a supplier, as an employee or to buy the company or whatever it is. Yeah, I mean. High outputs a client of mine. Still, yeah. It's a good company too, yeah. It's it's one of those industries where, you know, if you screw somebody everyone knows and that lasts a long time, that sticks to you for a long time. It doesn't just go away right away. It's. I mean. Like her. That's the other thing in this business and IT. Hangs around forever, Now your. Integrity is important within the business.

19:43 It's a small enough community that people know, yeah, you know, if you walked out and screwed somebody or somebody screwed you, so. How's? How's business? How's things going now, 2022, I mean. We're bonkers, we're, we're, we're, we've waste. Waste surpassed 2019. I mean, we came out of the pandemic in a really good position where we were able to, you know, provide a lot of projects equipment, but we still didn't have enough to provide all the projects, equipment like we were turning down shows on a regular basis. You know, The funny thing is not funny, but the interesting thing, whatever you want to call it is, is, you know, I'm pretty close with Huntley.

20:23 I like Huntley a lot. And he was seemed smarter than most people. You know he shut down earlier. He He sort of he. Got a lot of heat for that from an. Expense standpoint earlier? He he got a lot of heat. You know, he did a whole article because, you know, a lot of people didn't understand why he did it. But he he did it to get the press out there, to get the politicians to react to the fact that they were decimating us like they were decimating our industry. Well, he. Also had incredible insight, foresight, whatever you want to call it, because he said. You know, I'd been through this before with SARS and I just felt it coming in a really bad way and I felt like this was going to be like a a year or a two year problem and nobody felt that and it was incredible to remember very. Strongly the 90 day mark was where we were trying to get to. Why do you got to keep?

21:20 Going there. Why does everybody keep reminding me Day 91, man, you're the day 91 guy, OK, I screwed up. No, it wasn't. Just you. It was everybody. Except apparently apparently. Well, it was interesting. You know, I had connections directly to the governor's office. And the governor's office was like, we can't say, yeah. And we can't say this is going to be a year, but we know this is going to be a year. And they were even wrong on that. Like, it's even longer than that, you know. And and look, you know, we're all still recovering from that. And I think Humley did. Look, Humley did a great job sort of at the beginning cutting it to the bone.

22:06 Yeah, you know, piling through. But you know, like every day we were having phone conversations like, you know there we keep saying there's there's no school on how to run a company on no income, right. Well, the. Other thing is like you know as a small business owner they tell you to keep you know a month or two months in. Reserve right, so. Everybody has a month or two months in reserve. Nobody has 24 months in reserve. No. Like I certainly didn't. Most companies in our industry didn't you know that was that was a big ask. But so today, like you mentioned it already, you're you're bonkers, you're crazy busy, you're probably working crazy hours. You're doing way more shows than you've ever done.

22:48 You're out of gear. Everybody's out of gear. And so yeah, and. Nobody can deliver more gear. I mean that's that's currently the biggest problem is like, you know, we have, we have millions and millions of orders out, millions of dollars of orders that just can't be filled. Yeah, like I'm waiting on consoles. I ordered. I'm not going to mention manufacturer. I'm not here to shame anybody. But you know for over a year that we ordered during the pandemic and we were told, you know 8 to 12 weeks and we're here in a year and a half later still undelivered and the. Audio consoles like Yamaha is is back ordered for so freaking long like Yamaha what's the console that we're getting like 20% over dealer cost for used ones right now double double dealer cost on used ones. Wow because they're like back ordered for 18 months or whatever right.

23:45 They just can't deliver and and it's a super hot console too. So, yeah, I mean, what's your opinion on when things change Like what what's your view of 2023? I know you've probably got some bookings on the on the books already and yeah. I mean 2023 is going to be huge for us. I mean and we have some big bookings already on the books. How far out? Are you booked at this point? I mean how far I mean I've I've all my yearlies are you know re happening for next year. You know I have four year contracts on a lot of projects that are, you know, you know they want the same year for the next four years and make a deal. You know, we bought gear specifically for them and they'll they'll they'll keep going in and happening over and over again.

24:32 So you know most of those were only year two or three. So you know we got another like 3-4 years on that. It's good. And again look, I always try to tell people this business is about relationships. Nobody's telling me they're not doing shows next year and there's not a ton of, you know, there's a lot of gear out that's not necessarily coming back. You know, my TV shows are still running. You know, there's more movie stages running any than ever before. And you know, the the movie projects, they don't order, like, hey, you know, we need, you know, 2-3 light now. They're like, we want, you know, 200 RE Sky panels. We need, you know, 400 motors and three miles of trust for the next six months. Wow.

25:20 And you'll like it's a hell of an order. Oh, you could have these 20 Because that's what's left available of our 2000. I have some triangle Truss. Will that help? 011 Big project in Canada I heard about. They basically changed. They couldn't get the panels from anybody, so they went all with moving lights. They did 240 encores on the stage for an entire season shoot, that's crazy, you know, And and they had a really good programmer there who, you know, programmer slash designer guy who was just like, he's like, I can do more with the moving lights than I can do what they are sky panels. I'm going to put up, you know, I'll put them up and he programs them and basically created, you know, an entire season of a show.

26:08 Again, I don't want to get into who and what, but you know, there are other ways to skin a cat. I know a lot of people are like, oh, we need our sky panels. And I'm like, how about 100 moving lights? And they're like, oh, and wait, I could, I could, I put gobos in there and I could do texture and I could do there are all these other things we could do. Wow, that's cool. But. But I'm sitting here thinking, Chris, you got moving lights. Wow. That's. Amazing. We have them arriving and then they go right out and then arriving and then going right. The arriving part is good though. Yeah. I'm getting calls from people who are like, you know, PRG said. They didn't have the gear. And you know, other big shops called, you know, we called everybody and they didn't have the gear.

26:51 We've never worked with you guys. Are you interested in working with us? And I'm like, I'd like to. I don't know that IA 100% can do the project either, right? Well, you. Know your business is obviously different than some other people, but like a lot of the people I'd speak to in the touring business specifically are saying like ticket sales are starting to go soft now they're going down, They're starting to be some concerns about 2023. You know people are unbooking because like everybody tried to go out at the same time for the last 18 months or whatever and so. But corporate's just starting to come back. Like the big corporate shows are just starting to come back. That's true. If they had come back a year ago, we wouldn't have been able to do it like it just would have been like, you know, sorry, good luck.

27:37 And I heard. I've heard crazy stories like something in San Francisco. One of the big companies I'll leave unnamed again, was doing a giant trade show. They had a call for 167 riggers in the morning to hang all the points. No one showed up. Not a. Single one God. No one showed up. Wow. That's incredible. That almost seems planned. No, it wasn't. They just had nobody. That's crazy. That's. Incredible. So they. Ended up the production company ended up flying people in from Vegas and. They couldn't just retrain a bunch, a bunch of Twitter employees or something.

28:18 Yeah, there's a lot of those. Those people just got free. This was last year. This was last year. OK, yeah. You know, we haven't invented The Time Machine yet. If I can get that going, well, it can all make more money. Well. Now we need to remember how. Who was? Was it Biden or somebody who said we need to train truck drivers? How to program? How to be coders? Oh, how to? Be coders, yeah. Now we need to train coders how to be drug drivers, right? Isn't it funny how it's a we just? Train everybody to do everything A. Circular world that we're in right now. We need drivers, not you Think about. Our company. So at the end of the pandemic, we have like 202, around 200 employees, yeah, now we're up to 500 employees. Holy. Shit. Wow. That's incredible.

29:00 That's incredible. So, gear, what have you seen? And you've only been here for a day. You lost your car. I you know I lost my. Car in a garage garage. You've had some trouble. Here last day I was, I got to the trade show floor. Like I'm always here first thing when the doors open. I go right in and I beeline for, you know, a few places that I want to see. And then I do my rounds. I go up and down each aisle. I try to look at all the gear. I was completely unable to do that yesterday. Oh, really? Like every five feet I was bumping into somebody I hadn't seen in two years. And then conversations would start and we'd start getting into stuff. I did get to see some great gear. That's a good.

29:41 Point though, that you just made is that there's a lot deeper conversations happening. Like for me too, you know, I I tend to bump into people. And it's small chatter, though, you know what I mean? Like now it's deeper. Like, how's the family? You know, what's been going on for the last three years? I'm glad you're still alive. Yeah, I'm glad you're just not. Everybody made it well. And you know, sadly, like I'm looking at some people in poor health right now, you know, and I'm, I'm worried about them. Like I'm thinking everybody's. Stressed a bunch of weight. You're stressed out, you're not living healthily, obviously so, but yeah, back to gear. So. Did you see that that? Let's see the big things.

30:22 I think that stood out for me yesterday, just walking around. I mean, the Lustre 3 for me is is huge. Yeah, you know, Did you? See the new the color source 5. Did you look at that at all? I haven't really gone through that one yet. I plan to, I plan to you know, I mean the color source has been a great product for us. I mean, you know, it's definitely like, it's exactly what ETC Designed it to do, which was be that B level, you know, that B level thing that people could afford and still get, you know, color mixing and etc, Reliability. And oh, I dropped my light and it's not broken into 1000 pieces because it was made with plastic, right? You know, so what's? What's great about the The Luster 3? I think the the the output factor you know and the color mixing on it's unmatched, you know I. Have to ask about that because not the not the quality of the fixture or anything, but for you guys in particular at the scale that you are.

31:17 The. Lens tube thing is that not just totally screw everything for anybody who doesn't know the the ETC. Luster 3 Lens tubes don't fit. Old fixtures like legacy lens tubes don't work, you know. There's a workaround right there is. I didn't know that. I hadn't heard that. I haven't looked at it, so that's good to hear. There's a workaround. You can get a legacy attachment, and then you can put old barrels on it. Oh, OK, You lose some output, though you do lose some output. All right, that's good. Let me. Ask you a question about that though, because I got a pitch from someone at another manufacturer, which it's elation yesterday they showed me their leco and no lens tubes. It's got internal zoom and there's no additional fittings that you have to put on. It's got zoom.

32:00 It's got all the stuff. We're actually. Going to try that out of those etcetera. We're actually going to actually try that product on a couple with a couple of my theater clients to see how the LDS react to it. See, in theory it sounds amazing right? Like I don't need all, Especially for a rental company. You don't have to have all the different lens tubes and make sure they go out and make sure they come back in and and the accessory. Hold, we've been trying to do that in this business since the like, right, the the robo color, do you remember the robo color? Of course I do. I know. So I bring them I had. A lot come back. I got yelled at a lot for them, the robo. Color 400. Oh, I remember that one too. Yes, I do so. Again, you know, people have been trying that for for a while, he probably.

32:42 Still has some. You guys probably still get 100 bucks a week for them, you know? Probably could if you actually had any. But yeah, you know there's, there's everybody's been trying to replace that Lika product for years. Yeah, we'll see. Like I just. I'm not against it. I. Said to for me. My. Feeling is you're going to have hard feelings from people one way or another. Like they're either going to go, no, I have to have my 36° lens tubes or whatever, right? Or they're going to be like, hey, like I think designers going to want the old way, lighting companies going to want this thing with no accessories, right? Because it just makes it so much simpler. 1 skew one thing in a box, you know, whatever.

33:25 Right. So but then you can swap out the leco for the Fresnell front. Yeah, but. Unfortunately, everybody who's being trained as a lighting designer right now is being trained with Legos. Yeah, so, like. And they're not even trained with moving lights, Most of them, because the schools can't afford the moving lights. Yeah, So which is? Kind of crazy, you know, which is moving. Lights aren't new anymore. Let's make no right. No. And and you know, I'm, I mean I know when VER at one point was moving along, they're like we are not going to carry Leakos. Like we're not doing it. No pipe, no Leakos, no C clamps. We're just not going down that road. Everything's trigger clamps, Truss like we're going to modernize it. And then two years in they were like they were just punished for it. So, So what?

34:06 Else other than the luster. Oh, so yeah, the Luster 3, I think's really, you know, big product, everything. I put it on has gone really well, looked great and yeah, there's there's a product so you can use your own tubes. I definitely think you know the I saw the elation leco. We're going to try it out on a few projects and sort of see how it how it weathers the storm. I do like the fact that it's IP rated like that to me is big. I mean, it's not. I'm pretty sure they have an IP1. The one. That's here on the stand isn't because I asked them that question and it's not IP, OK? So, well, the ones we're putting outside on a couple of projects are going to be yes or or they'll fail quickly one of the two. I know they haven't an IPKL panel now. Yeah, yeah, I've seen the showing here and I opened. It up and it looked pretty similar inside. I'm like why is there's a?

35:03 Gasket. Like, I guess the power supply needs to be protected inside something. But what else? Yeah. And I Lex is making an IP Distra wreck. Oh, I hadn't seen that. That's interesting. That's that was pretty cool. That was. Now they built a whole bunch for the Olympics. Apparently they sold hundreds of these to the Olympics and they weren't, like, allowed to talk about. It's kind of a joint venture because the Olympics picked up, I guess, some of the research on it. Sure. And some of the initial production costs, sure, the certification. Costs were the highest of any of that, right? Right. And and they were just tested on the Olympics, so, you know, they work.

35:48 Yeah, right. You know, that's kind of like festivals. Here we come. Yeah, that just. Seems like I'm sitting here thinking counter. Intuitive. Well. It's no. It seems like something that would have been around for the last 20 years or something. Like there's no IP. Yeah, I mean, we build. Tents for you know, we put tents up and yeah. That's, that's you know? The, you know, there's no IP Dimarack. You know, there's no IP distro. You know, we we've just in the last few years gotten really IP cable, you know, and got IP cable true, you know, approved, done, you know, worked, you know and it's interesting at Christie Lights we kind of bought some products that we thought were good products but not because they were IP but because they were good products.

36:33 And then they were hugely successful in our model where, you know every piece of gear is judged on how well it does. Everything that Christie lights is judged on how well it does, you know, like how well it does from a utilization, utilization of profitability, reliability, reliability, all those things that scores. There's all kinds of scores that go into the consideration of what gear we make, core inventory and you know I'll take the elation Paladin panel that was the product. You know, we wanted a Blinder Strobe product. We got a few of them and they just went like gangbusters and they just kept going and going.

37:14 We can't get enough of them like you know, and and I was, I worked with a great lighting designer to get them on Rockefeller Center lighting, you know, the the skating ring in there and now they're and they bought them and they installed like they rented them from us for you know like for two years. And then they bought all their own and put their own in and it was on, it was funny. They did what was the show, The Hawkeye Disney series did a whole shoot down there with like the Christmas tree falling down and you know, like a whole shoot out with Hawkeye and and it was all lit with these, you know, with these Balladin panels. Cool.

37:58 That's. Awesome. But did you see the the inner circle thing? The min min Ute or min wheat or however the hell you say it, 1. The min minute the circular. One or the the round. Thing with all the mirrors in it, yeah. That actually saw the new one's. Called the Photon, I guess. What's your? Thought on that because I I have like I to me it's super friggin cool. It's like almost over engineered, like it does so much cool shit. Where do you use it other than a nightclub? I mean, it's a scenic piece. It's going on tour. You know, it's the backdrop. You know, it could be the backdrop for every band in the world. You know, like, like basically you, right? 'Cause last year I saw it and it was kind of a black box kind of effect.

38:42 They still? Show it like that. But I've used it in sit, you know, in clubs and you know, I it's certainly not going into arenas, right. You know, but certainly all the club tours could be taking them. Yeah. And it's basically in like, you know in the past people put up like light towers and light trees and all that stuff to like do this whole background. You can put four of those on a pipe and base. Yeah. And you have a, you have a full set background. Yeah, you know. They do a lot of shit like they. Do a ton of stuff like people are are are blown away and you don't need any of the laser license. You know, people are like, oh you need no you don't. You need nothing for that.

39:23 It doesn't put out any laser. It's using laser as a source, but by the time it bounces around in there 10 times, they're not, you know, it's not putting out any laser level power. So but it it gives you effects that are great. Yeah, you know, no. It's it's ridiculously cool it. It it's almost like everybody tried to do a show in a box years ago. I don't remember if you remember that like you know it was like it was it was the little like and it was like the pipe with like 10 lights on. It went on a tripod, you know pre programmed with flashy, flashy for every DJ in the world. Like to me, every DJ in the world should have like two of these because they.

40:04 Just do everything. They do everything. I have no idea how much money they are, but they're not. Cheap, but so, So what? Like, that's the whole, like, you know, how much money are you saving on labor? How much money are you saving on trucking? Trucking. You know, having ten pieces of gear. You know, those four of those could go in the band van. Yeah. And, you know, you don't need a whole truck, you know, a whole trailer. All of a sudden you're like, oh, let's put four of these in the band van with a console. So from. A sort of effective standpoint. What about the the wave bar thing from Klaypaki? The snake bar. I call it the snake bar because it's like a snake, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it kind of does. I used. To do that with track spots and clubs, like many years ago we just we put all the track spots right next to each other and made. Them do the.

40:50 We do a sine wave with it. Sine wave action. Yeah, with the mirrors down, yeah, it's a. Programmer Ian Davis A programmer Ian Davis, who I'm friends with, and he he was a programmer at the Tunnel and on the old light wave controller. He set up track spots all the way down through the tunnel and he and he spent days exactly. I think I actually worked. At high end when that went down or Oh yeah it was even before that, I don't remember. But anyway. So he, he would do a whole wave all the way down this like, you know, 100 foot, you know, so the tunnel was like an old subway station. It was a subway, a train station.

41:31 And so you know, like the whole thing was just ramped and he put him down the sides and he just had the giant wave like trailing down. So it was like an ocean sky effect, you know going down the whole club sine way. What do you think of? The Klay Paki thing. Do you think it's cool? Yeah, I definitely. Think it's cool? I, you know, it's not going in any theater projects, I mean. Bars are obviously hot. You know, bar fixtures are hot right now, everybody. 'S got one though, but. The wave thing is that like an added wrinkle to it that could make it stand out in the crowd or? Yeah. I mean, I mean, and that parabolic mirror, you know, so there's a parabolic mirror behind there. Yeah. So the source is shooting onto that parabolic mirror and the parabolic mirror can move too.

42:15 So not only do you have the ability to kind of have a pan. And Dell kind of thing, right? So you you have full control of the parabolic mirror within that sort of like? What the charbar wanted to be. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I didn't. Know that that's cool it. Is very cool. It's definitely like a very innovative product that I think, you know. Again, Claypaki brought us a Sharpie, right? Yeah. Like when that fixture came out, I went to those guys. I'm like, that's the best thing I've ever seen in the last, you know, since since we started. Like that's going to be big. And you think about how that's affected our business, like, oh, hell yeah, You know, Yeah, it's huge. I mean, that's really when. When But a lot of lighting became more scenic than anything else.

43:00 Speaking of Clay Paki, have you heard the worst kept secret in? There's some kind of they're getting sold again. Yeah. To who? That was the big question. I can't tell you exactly. I think I'm pretty confident I know who and it rhymes with Shmari and but yeah so I'm I expected it to be announced at the show but I think it's. I mean, I. Think it's interesting when they, they, they, they try to do these combinations where they put companies together. Yeah. And and I'm always like. That was A to me. It's. Kind of like watching car wrecks, yeah, but well, you know. It's everybody.

43:44 Slows down and they're like, oh, I shouldn't be looking at this as much as I am. Why am I? Still here? Why am I? Still here, going so slowly and holding everybody up behind me. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I mean look. Oh, I think that's a good one. I mean to me at. Least it's a lighting company. It makes more sense to the lamp company buying them. It's. Sort of the opposite of the the shave quinoflow thing though, right? I can get you into both sides of that, but LED with the other foot I hate. Those deals, when they happen, like I hated the Barco High End thing. You knew it was just going to suck the life out of High End and Barco's a great company. High End was a great company, but that doesn't mean anything, you know? It's like if if GM was to buy Apple or something, you know, it doesn't make any sense.

44:31 It doesn't. One of the good. Examples though was the ETC High end deal. They've they've like totally saved has. Been great, but I think that that's what this other deal matching Ari with with Clay Pack could have the same sort of effect. You know you've got basically. I think it would put Ari in competition with ETC, perhaps more definitely. In Europe, definitely. In Europe, yeah. I mean, we got to realize too. Like, you know, like I I go to this show, I go to Plaza, and then I go to Pro Light and Sound. Yeah. And Pro Light and Sound makes them all look small, right? Yeah. Yeah, it does. Like what about? Is a huge. Huge markets, Ed. Act. Ed act the the Zonda the big round thing with the liquid effect face.

45:18 It's another pancake light, yeah. You don't like pancake lights? I. Mean Air De makes great products. I love their stuff. I don't feel like it's anything earth shattering. It's different. Enough. Like it's got such a cool that face effect is just different than the other ones that I've seen. I think it's kind of. The equivalent of, like, what the BI did in that spectrum, right? It's it's like a new way to think about that adventure, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the the new. 31 is cute. It's just like a miniature. It's like the Source 4 Mini, but yeah, but I. Mean the nine, it's so bright, like that show that they're doing at the booth. It's in red, I mean. I mean one of the important things like I hope the manufacturers listen. I think the important, important thing is when you make these things that have a cool effect, they better be a good light too.

46:01 Yeah, because that's not going to take you that far, like the success of the auras, right? Yeah, you know. Like the effect effects are cute and they sell a few lights at the beginning, but if you want some, you know steady, you know, steady return on the investment. Like when I was at high end, we were still selling, you know, the last of the studio colors and the molds were like falling apart, you know, But we're like how many more can we get out of it? Because we still had orders for them, because it was still the only moving wash light with no fans in it. You know, like when you when you have a product that does what it's supposed to do good and then also has an effect great.

46:44 Like you know that that's a great gimmick. That's an. Interesting point and I'll be curious to see because there's the Zonda 9 and then the Zonda 9 FX. And I'll be curious to see how sales are for those two for that very reason of like it does. Drive me nuts when there's like three or four different, like, you know, again, the Christie model is really about focus, focus, focus and depth. So what we do is we buy a lot of one thing. So when you need more, you have more of that one thing, right? Yeah, like, well, you guys are responsible for. Making some of those fixtures take off because of that model, right? Yeah, right. And there's a huge analysis that goes into like, you know, all those products like, yeah, every product becomes core inventory, becomes core inventory for a reason, you know that. Makes a lot of sense.

47:30 What about the Proteus Brutus? Did you see that thing? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. Eye tracker. Looking light, I think. I think. It's pretty cool looking. It's a beast, you know, But I think amusement, I mean, again, I think that and the Excalibur are amusement park products, not necessarily rental products. Like, they don't really care about us buying them. They're thinking Disney cruise ships, amusement parks. You know, you got to have a. Long enough reach to then. Use the throw. Yeah, yeah, maybe Stadium. Stuff. Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe stadium, stadium tours. I mean, I haven't seen them on any stadium tour specs yet. But you know, I I think it could be, you know, well, it's. Pretty new still, yeah? Yeah, Well, and and I also tell, I tried to tell manufacturers like realize that there's a year or two, like you come out with a product, people want to see it out there for a while before they're going to put it, you know, put it into a lot of specs and whatnot.

48:25 Well, first. It has to be able to ship. Yeah. And then you have to and. Then you have to get look at the parts. And then be able to ship it. Anything else cool? I thought these, the new little, the new little Estera cubes are cute. Yeah, those are definitely. I could see people buying packs and packs of those, like Estera tubes. Yeah, you know, we finally got them in stock now. Yeah, the Estera tubes, those guys are doing. They're they're useful. Crazy. You. Can't even make enough of them. I'm like, you know, and clients are like, you know, again, it was like the Sharpie, You know, it used to be like, oh, you know, I need 12 lights. Now they're like, oh, I need 12 lights and 24 Sharpies, Right. And they're like, oh, I need 12 lights, 24 Sharpies and 48 tubes. Yeah.

49:08 And you're like, wow, that's just amazing. Yeah. No. They've killed it. I'm very curious to see how this new Roby thing does. It's the. I don't remember the name of it, the PZ 11 or whatever that's got their Posi lock thing. It's like a they they claim it's, you know sort of the evolution of like what the source for revolution tried to be. It's a. It's for those that need a remote, focusable ellipsoidal. I don't. See that it's. I I haven't seen it on the show. I hear good things about it, but I saw the press release about it. But apparently the deal is that it's you know, it's a moving light with all the Roby things. But they can do like a no homing position system so you can lock it so that it doesn't have to home when it powers on and off.

49:51 So you can put it in tight spaces or in a theme park or in a theater or whatever where it, you know you're either hover. You can do that with. The Ultra though, can you? Yeah. Yeah, you can set the limits on the ultra. Oh, I didn't. Even know that, yeah. You can set limits so it's it's not as. Innovative as full. Spin. You know, so like, hey, we're in a small space, right? Right. You set it right at the menu and be like, only go to here, only go to there. Yeah. And so yeah, you're not running through a whole. Maybe it's all marketing. Gimmick. I don't know, but it it sounds like a lot of tech behind it with whatever they do with the sensors I I still. Have to say, the BMFL follow spot system is sure cool as hell is the bomb. Yeah, you know, it's outperformed everything, but I did see the everybody's other version going. Back to the ACT booth, the Zach Track Mini. Did you see that?

50:38 I have. Zach tracks on a few projects but the Mini. Is like 20 grand for the whole package and 45 by 45 stage. So it's a smaller package, but it like you don't have to have a separate server or anything. There's a little box that's the server and really super simple like plug and play version of Zach Track. I'm really hoping the Zach track stuff is successful. Yeah, like I have it on a few projects. How has it done so far for you? I I was at act when that sort of started. So I saw the, I mean we. Just started buying them, you know, for specifically for projects, yeah. Everybody I know who's using them loves them, right? So that to me is the next.

51:20 Guy coming in here right after you, Ben. Ben Coker is with the Live Event Productions guys. Uh huh, And Zenith thought of Orlando, and they have a few of the packages that they use on pretty big stuff and have been really. That's. Exciting to me, like that, to me is like new tech. Super exciting. I'm looking forward to see seeing how it works. There's. Two angles to this remote follow spot thing, right? Like the BMFL Roby angle where you've still got a spot operator, it's just their remote, correct? And then you've got the auto tracking systems right and Zac track from what I've seen appears to be the better of the of the tracking systems. There's a few it definitely.

52:04 Seems to be the one that the people are. How bad it was. Oh my God, I was there with. The one, Yeah, had to fly in the guy. The one guy who could make it work. Yeah, right. One, the Martin one, just didn't work. Like if there was any noise at all or any interference at all, the light just went Bing out there into the corner of the arena or whatever, and you're like, it's supposed to be over here on the performer. What's going on? That was and worked on. Paper. I think though that if Zach Track goes the way that I expected to with what that tech does and how simple it is to set up and how quickly you can set it up, that that will be a game changer for that once it's fully adopted. When I got to say I like the way they show it on the floor here with the where you can go up to the computer screen there and it shows you where all their sales guys are and you can hit a button with a sales guys name on it. It's a fun puts a bunch of lights on to the sales, I think. That was around the booth, I think. That was Aaron Hubbard.

52:59 I have. To say it's a killer. Idea It has done. An amazing job over the years on their booth, yeah. They really. It's functional. They have a, you know, in past years they've had great light shows. I mean, I remember when they were doing Clay Paki and that show was, was the bomb. Yeah. You know, Yeah. It's hard. It's expensive, man, these shows are expensive. It's, you know, it's like between a half a million and $1,000,000 to do a an LDI booth and you start going, is this shit worth it? Yeah. Like, is this really worth it? It is. Though if you think about all the things that have come out of like this trade show, like if you think about all the product launches that have been done, the Sharpie, the Aura, the Mac 2K. Yeah, the cyber light, Yeah, the. Cyber Light in the studio color like like I remember you being on stage like introducing Martin stuff and and I was like this is the coolest thing ever what?

54:03 I hear the Martin stuff you doing. Like showing the new Martin product. I'm like he's on the stage getting to talk about a product and show it to people and do it. Do it like a cool show. I want to. Be that guy. I know. I was like, I want to be. I want to be hanging out with those dudes. You know, and then you met me and you were completely disappointed. No. Yeah, I wonder. If if we're going to get back to the point where release cycles are strictly at trade shows, again, I don't. Think so? It's too, you know. Virtual. I'm not going to say who I did. See somebody go up to the one of the people at this show and say, hey, we're thinking about doing every other year. Oh, attending.

54:46 Every other year. Oh yeah, Well, surely they'd. Have people, they just went out to a booth every other every year, right? Yeah, yeah, right. And but hold their product launches a problem. Hold their product launches to every other year too. Yeah, you know, that was the conversation that went on. It's going to be a problem next year. Apparently. We're backing up with there's a whole FI don't know if you heard about this F Oh yeah, no. We're on it. So let's get your hotel and your plane ticket now because it's $5000 for a night or something, because it's the same. Then I'm not coming. Yeah. Nobody will like nobody. Will it's like don't do the show then my. Son's a race car driver. I love F1. I ain't coming right. Hell no. You want to be in Las Vegas during the F1 race? Hell no. I wanted to go to the race, but tickets were like $8000. No, it's.

55:30 Retarded. It's going to be a billionaire game, you know. I mean, that's all it is. It's rich and famous people are going to be here. Everybody else is going to watch it on television, myself included. You know, unless my kids driving in it, right. And he ain't going to be here next year. So yeah. No, it's definitely like, you know, that's. Problematic. They needed to get the hell away from this city. That couple of weeks, you know and I know I tried to move, but it's not far enough away. Yeah, like there's crossover. Yeah, there's crossover. Well, the. People setting up, the booth says. As I understand, the people who will be here to put the booths in and stuff will be here during the F1 thing, right? Like, they'll be practicing or something. Like, Yeah, Yeah.

56:13 Like, they'll start practicing on Friday and they start loading in booths on Tuesday. Right, so. And apparently with F1, I don't know that much about racing. Pretty stupid in that regard. But apparently people come out specifically to watch. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, they may not come. People come in just to watch, you know, them practice and then leave. Well, yeah, because. Then you don't have to pay for the race tickets, right? You're seeing them out on track, going around the track and stuff, and you don't have to pay the crazy exorbitant prices for race tickets. Or sometimes like, people will buy box seats. Big corporations or whatever will buy box seats. They're not coming out for the practice or anything. They just want to see the race and the qualifying and they'll give away all the practice tickets to other people.

56:58 So yeah, cool. Well enjoy the hell out of the show today. I mean, between me screwing up and forgetting to hit record and you losing your car, we're kind of out of time. But is this? A sign we're getting old. Yeah, I think we both showed serious signs of that. Brad seems to be the only one holding it together here, and he had the most to drink last night. He didn't. Bring us any coffee, though, so no coffee. Underwater. We're dying over here. Yeah, I might have to, but I was. Going to choke in the middle of it, so it's fine, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think. I feel my a little bit but swelling up in the dry air of the desert all. Right, gentlemen. Well. Enjoy the show doing this. Chris, enjoy the show today.

57:38 I appreciate it and have a good one. Do you remember where you parked? Do you want to tell me so that you've got a backup and you can say, hey Mars, I have a receipt. All right, gents, later.

58:19 A young girl, Sweet 16. A perfect picture from a warm wet dream. Come on over for a rendezvous Competitionism is a fuel. You like that out in the God old band Y'all wear other warm nights stand that don't bother a girl like you. You get your cake and you eat it too. You're my sweet sweet thing You'll never buy But you're always thing. You're my sweet sweet child. Come on over and try to be wild.

1:38:01 None.