#225 - Jean Larivière

0:00 Thanks for joining me for Geese of Gear Episode #225. Today's podcast is brought to you by Stratum Productions. Stratum is rooted in the Midwest and committed to setting themselves apart. They're not just in the audio visual industry to meet expectations, they're here to exceed them. As Stratum works toward becoming true partners in the AV world, they bring expertise, creativity and a passion for turning visions into reality. Also recently, Stratum announced the launch of their new staging arm called Midwest Stage Pros with mobile Staging to support their Midwest customer needs for professional staging solutions indoors or out. To learn more about Stratum Productions and what they offer, please visit stratumpro.com.

0:52 And of course, today's podcast is also not really brought to you by, but brought to you in cooperation with our friends at Coffee Cult who create the amazing geezers of gear. Geezers grind, Coffee blend. And so again, I talk about this all the time. I drink it, I drink 3 cups a day. I think my doctor would probably say I should have two. It's an amazing, amazing blend of coffee. It's really, really good. Honestly, we wouldn't have it here and we wouldn't promote it if it wasn't great. But so it starts with the foundation that it's really, really good coffee. And then secondly, which is more important, is that coffee cult give away all of the proceeds from your purchases of geezers grind to Roby backstage, which goes out to support people in need in our industry. And so please, when you're buying your coffee, go to coffeecult.com Coffee with AK Cult with ak.com. Search for geezers, grind.

1:56 And if you buy 2 bags, I believe shipping is free anywhere in the United States. And again, great coffee. Please support it, man.

2:37 I'm still bummed about that previous episode #224 with Eric Wade. We had such a great conversation and lost the first, I think, half hour of it and I apologize for that. It's technology that usually works. Occasionally it doesn't. And when it doesn't, it's really, really frustrating. So Eric and I both talked yesterday after the podcast and we said let's do this again, let's wind it back basically. So we are going to do another podcast, but if you haven't listened to 2:24, we still got about half of it recorded. I tried to cover some of the stories of the half that was missing. And you know, it's not the same.

3:22 But sorry about that and I'll try not to do the same thing today. So I'm going to try and get the whole podcast today. And so today's episode is another fun one. Of course they're all fun. You know, I I love the people in this industry. I love the people who join our podcast. Many of them don't consider themselves geezers. Lots of them are women. Some of them are younger than Eric Loder's official Geezer age, which is 50 and and so today's doesn't look like a geezer, but he, I believe, ages into the Geezer Ville age. And so today's guest is John Lariviere, and he's probably gonna give me a bit of poking for the way that I pronounce his name because I'm supposed to be French, but I don't talk like a Frenchman.

4:16 And so John is currently the channel relationship manager for touring and broadcast at Chauvet Professional. And fortunately, I got to see him a couple of weeks ago when they opened their brand new facility here in South Florida, right next door to Roby, which is an interesting position and beautiful building, really, really nice place. Jean was there, got to spend some time with him, which was amazing. It's always amazing. Super nice guy. I've always been a big fan of Jean. Prior to Chauvet, he he held a similar role. I think it was designer relations or something, adulation. And I met John when he was I think, still in his relative early days at high end systems. When I went to high end for a brief stint back in, I believe it was 97 when I went to high end. I think he had just been there maybe for a couple of years at that point, and he was on their support team in the on the tech side of the business, helping to make sure that stuff kept working on shows and stuff.

5:22 And I got to know him really, really well at that time, and we stayed friends ever since then. So I'm looking forward to talking to him today. And here we go. Jean. The man. Yes, the miss. How are you? The rock star. I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. Happy Valentine's Day. Yes, and to you as well. Hey man, last time I did and last time. Happy Valentine's Day is kind of strange. It's Yeah, it is. It is strange. It's very woke. Let's be woke. Let's be woke for just a yeah, just for one day. Like both? I love you, man. Just for one day. Hey, last time I did a podcast, I was in College in 1979, recorded on a reel to reel, you know, and then played back on a college radio.

6:08 Gosh, I wish I had those rings. Well, that's not really a podcast. Last time I did podcast. That's a radio show. That's not a podcast. Well, it's kind of. That's sort of the prequel to podcasting. Like, who was the very first podcast ever? I think. I think it was that guy. What the Hell's his name? The man Show guy? Yeah, the guy that was with Jimmy Fallon. Or no, the other Jim. What's the other Jimmy? I don't remember I had the space. But they had that show called the Man Show, and then he quit and went and started a podcast and everybody was like a pod. What? And that was when it was just an an iPod, right? There wasn't even an iPhone yet. And you could download these shows into this iPod. And he was the first guy I ever heard doing it. And to be honest, Joe Rogan was not that far behind. He was one of the one of the ones who came right after that. So it worked out.

7:01 I mean, none of those guys did it for money. They just kind of did it cuz it was, you know, a simple way to get your story out and to talk and not have any of the governance of of radio. Well. There's a podcast right now. It's going blowing out of. I mean, it's everywhere now. It's with Jason Bateman. Yeah. Yeah, it's there's three guys. I don't remember the name of the other two, but. You know, I think I've seen it. Smartless. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. That's great. Well, I saw one episode there. I think they had like a really controversial episode or something. And and I saw that one. Like, I'm honestly addicted to podcasts. You know, I I do a four mile walk every morning and I'm supposed to like in my head I should be listening to really productive audiobooks, you know, And I just keep sort of falling back into these podcasts. And I listen to, I try to listen to somewhat educational, sometimes political, sometimes news based podcasts. I try not to go to any of the crazy right wing guys or anything cuz that just makes me angry. But you know, there's so many good ones right now, like whether whether it's health or or Wellness or, you know, money or investments or business.

8:16 There's podcasts about everything. I fly a lot, so I listen to a lot of podcasts too. Yeah, you do it. You do it when you're flying. Yeah, I do as well. Yeah, I I do as well. You know, it's relaxing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, it's usually pretty light too. So, like, they're not too intense. They're not too structured, you know, it's just a couple of goofballs like us just sitting, talking about nonsense. And some people find that interesting. So I think, you know, between your mom and my mom and a couple of your family members and maybe, you know, your wife and my girlfriend and you know, we'll have a few listeners. We'll have some listeners.

8:59 It's the Valentine's Day special. There you go. Yeah. So I want to get into a whole bunch of stuff with you, including, you know, up to modern day, your current role and some of the stuff you're working on now. But I was realizing this morning when I was thinking about doing this podcast, I was thinking that I met you during high end when I went to high end for a pretty brief stint. And you know, you were just one of the guys that I got to meet there and got to know really well. And that was in like 97 and I think you had been there for two or three years at that point, right?

9:41 Right, I started there in 94. 94 And so before, before high end what? How did you get into this industry? Oh. Gosh, I've, I've, like I told you earlier before the recording, I've been to every single aspect of this industry, right? So I started back in high school. I volunteered for the lighting, you know, to be the lighting guy at the auditorium. So. Where was this? I was in the Montreal outside Of Montreal, in the center as Blaineville, in that area. It's about about half an hour outside Of Montreal. OK. And I volunteer to, you know, to be the lighting guy at the auditorium. So I started to learn about Fresnels and whatnot and stuff like that.

10:28 And I was doing theater plays, special event, and I was lucky enough to have bunch of friends that are musicians. So we had bass players, guitar players, you name it, drums sense, you know, the whole thing. So once a month, I think it was the first Thursday of the month. I don't remember. I think it was during the lunch hour. We'll charge $0.25. They'll come over. The auditorium was packed and would just jam a jamming session. It was great. And I was doing the lighting, but back then we didn't have an, I didn't have an FOH. So I was stage right working on that Big Bertha, you remember that strand like light green Bertha with the levers and stuff. And I did.

11:14 I couldn't see, I couldn't see the show, so I turned. I was just, you know, seeing the show sideways, so, you know, from from stage, right. So anyway, it worked. And then from there, from there, it got me to theater production in college as well. I did theater production, then I was DJ ING in a club not far from the college I like to DJ so we all everybody's. I'm not gonna elaborate on my DJ career cuz everybody started as a DJ apparently in this industry. So DJ are a musician? Yeah, it's pretty common. Pretty common. Right, exactly. Exactly. So anyway, Fast forward. My uncle is Danny.

11:56 Richard. I don't know if you know Danny Denny works for started. My. He started. He came early in the early days of Christie lights. Yeah. He works for Huntley. Yeah. So Denny for me had the chance to have a an uncle that was 10 years older than me. OK. So when he was a teenager, you know when he was 20, I was 10. Right. So 2111 and so on. So, And he was obsessed about lighting as well. And that's the reason why in high school I wanted to volunteer to be, you know, a lighting guy at the auditorium because he taught me a lot of stuff he used to bring me to. Idea. I didn't know that. I didn't know that you were related to him. Yeah, a lot. A lot of people don't know that because when I started in the industry, I never used his name to be where I am right now. And he was happy about that.

12:46 Well, because I didn't want to say, oh, you know, my uncle's Denny Richard. Yeah, OK. Well, you know, I didn't want. You want to hear a funny story? So when I was a musician going through school and then leaving school and being a musician, I never There was always this producer named Bruce Fairbairn. He produced Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet and Aerosmith Pump and some huge albums. He's got a a bunch of good Elvis and stuff and was always like, you know, producer of the year and all this stuff. Just huge, huge guy. He's dead now. But I never even gave it. Two thoughts. Nothing. And so, like after I was no longer a professional musician and I was earning a living somewhere else in the business, I finally went, you know what, I wonder if I'm related to that guy.

13:36 And I asked my mom and she said, Bruce, yeah, that's so And so's son. And I was like, get out of here. And so, you know, like one of the top record producers in the world is my cousin and I had no idea, no idea whatsoever, never thought to check into it. It's like the kicker for the Houston Texans. His name is Fairbairn. And people keep asking me, is he a relative? And I'm like, no, no. But honestly, I have no idea because it's not that common a name, right? Maybe he is. I don't know. I have no idea. It's like mine too. La Riviera. There's not a lot of them, and there's one lighting designer in the industry. He's called Alain Lariviere. He lives in New York.

14:17 I tried to reach and I cannot reach the guy. That's wild. He's not answering. You know my mom's maiden name is Lapierre. I don't know if I ever told you that, but it's not that far off, Lariviere. Lariviere Lapierre Lapierre. And there's there's a lot of them, like if you go looking for Lapierre, that's a pretty common name in in Quebec. So anyways, sorry, back to your story Sir. All of my stories. I mean after college, high school and everything, DJ ING, blah blah blah, I went to work for Jacques Tongue. Jacques was my first mentor and like I said, for those who don't know me, I've been to every single aspect of the business. Okay.

15:01 I've swept shops, I've made cables and I was soldering. So CapEx cables and fixed dimmers, preparing kits, unloading trucks, unloading trucks. I drove trucks OK, I was a stage hand loading load out. I was a follow spot operator. I ended up behind the console for corporate events. So I was the lighting director for that and which took me to, and that was the time when I was with Jacques Tangey. So Jacques taught me a lot of stuff about life. Maybe tell people. Who tell people who Jacques is because he's infamous, but maybe not to people who weren't in Northeast.

15:43 Area Well Jacques was the founder of Yeah. Jacques was the founder of ETI Itlerage Tangey Incorporated. Jacques was well known in Quebec City, Montreal area. Jacques was very hard worker. He always got bands around. So he got tours, you know, he had. Denis was working for, actually for Jacques. He worked for Jacques for a long time. Louis Racine worked for Jacques for a long time. JP Cotton, Yeah, we JP. He always knew how to surround himself with good people. This is what smart people do, you know. So Jacques basically started the company, sold the company to Solitech.

16:29 Solitech never had lighting up to that point. When Target decided to sell his company to Solitech. I remember that because they didn't want to have any lighting. They were a sound company. Yep, and Solitech was back. When it was Denny le Francois, right? Not. Not Denny solo tech. Yeah. And I remember Denny saying I don't want lighting what's what do you want me to do with this? OK And then then he they purchased his lighting everything his inventory. So Jacques moved to Toronto and open ETI Toronto instead and he had a non compete with with solitech in Montreal anything. And then after that, you know, the rest is just to read Denny, work with Jacques. Louis Racine was there, and they all moved up to a certain point. They all moved to Christie lights. Yeah, You know, Canada is such an interesting market. And I don't know that people in the United States know this, but most Canadians know it.

17:25 Even Western Canadians don't know it so much. But Canada is a couple of different markets. You've got Quebec and then you've got the rest of Canada. And you know, I learned it multiple times in my career. I learned it again when I was in the franchise business because we sold our very first franchise anywhere in Canada, in Montreal. And you know, what I learned was #1. That was the dumbest thing you could ever possibly do in a franchise company, because most American franchise companies don't even sell franchises in Canada because it's all different laws and it's very complicated. And then you've got new, different laws entirely when you get into Montreal. And you know, The funny thing about Canadian companies, like you have companies typically that are either in Quebec or somewhere else, but not both.

18:22 You know, it's it's relatively uncommon that companies serve both, you know, French and and and English Canada, you know, Right, Right. And I'm sure you know all that stuff you grew up. In Solitec, Solitec was able to do that, you know, which which surprised me at the at the time. But they got out of it now. They got out of Quebec and they went to Vancouver. They went to Toronto, they went to and then, then United States and now the rest is history. Of course, yeah. Yeah. They're ginormous now. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So that's interesting. So then you're still in clubs and and Oh no, you you were working with Jacques and then where did you go from there? What?

19:07 What did that lead into? Czechoslovakia, really. I lived in Czech Republic for two years. I lived in Prague. Why? Doing lighting, actually refurbishing old theaters of new lighting and stuff. It was an experience from Jacques, said. Man, go, you need to go there. You met a girl in Montreal. I'm guessing she was from Czech Republic and she said I want you to come back and meet my family. No, actually no. When I was DJ and there was a club called Metropolis and one of the owner was checked. Oh. Yeah, yeah. And then he's. And then Jacques had Metropolis was one of their clients. OK. So Jacques said, I know Julius there, you should talk to him because he needs some people in Czech Republic and you should travel, you should get out of here, go travel and this, this, that's the thing. That's why we do, we do this here is to travel, you know, we get to travel.

20:00 We get to see cities, people, you know. That's wild. I didn't even know that that's that had to be quite an experience. So how old were you at that point? Gosh, that was 2829. Oh, OK. So you were an adult. You weren't like 19 years old or something. Oh no, no. Yeah. So what was that like? I mean, going over there and, you know, I've been, I've been to Prague, I went to Prague with with Michael Jackson for a few days when he opened a world tour there with Peter Morris. And I don't think Eric Wade was there. It was Arnold Sarami, and maybe Eric was there, but I don't think so. But anyways, that's that's the only time I've been to check. I've never been to the Roby factory or anything, but how was?

20:47 That well, it's the fun fact is that Julius hired a couple of people from Montreal and he said stand by, we have all your tickets. But there's a there's an election night tomorrow night. If Havel gets elected, we get to go. If Havel doesn't get elected, we're not going. So we we we sat at a bar and waiting for the election results and he got elected and we got all got drunk and stuff and partying and on the plane on the way there. And even even people were celebrating in Czech Republic and we were flying Chesky Airlines CSA from Montreal to Prague. There was a direct flight and there was a big party on the plane. Even people that were not with us celebrating. We arrived in Prague or smashed, but so, so we started there. So it opened up a lot of opportunities for us to refurbish all theaters and stuff and now Julia said, hey, you were DJ said yes.

21:51 He said do you mind opening a big the biggest club in Prague, You mind opening it for us? No, I said yeah, I can open it. I can work, you know, for a couple of weeks, you know, open the club and stuff. So they came and interviewed me on a radio, check on the Czech radio. I have an article, actually somewhere in the Czech magazine. I was right next to Paula Abdul. You know me. Yeah. So anyway long. Story check. I didn't know that. Yeah, I don't know if Paulo was check, but I was in the magazine. I was next to Paulo Abdul for the articles. It was less weird, I get, yeah, because Paula was very popular back in the days.

22:34 Yeah, Did you Did you ever have to learn the language over there or anything? Or you just got along speaking English? No problem. We we had a translator. OK. And this is how I learned to speak English, by the way. Really. So at the time you only spoke French. Yeah, a little bit of English. I could understand English back in the days I couldn't speak so. You learned English in Czech through a French to Czech interpreter. Through a French interpreter and yeah, yeah, we had, we had people at I was I was in charge of a crew of people. It's a great story behind that by the way. It's like Czech people.

23:17 You know I've all got elected. So they were kind of got free you know to do whatever you wanted. You know it was not you know it was free time. So there was, they're really hard workers, those guys, OK, they were super hard workers, but after a week, I hired those guys. I'm like, man, there's missing tools here. There's stuff missing. What's going on? It's like, you know, we have to go buy some more tools and everything up to the day where there was no tool, nothing. There was nothing left. I said, OK, wait a minute here. So I I did a meeting on stage and said, hey, if you guys want to work, you need to bring back what you stole, OK? What was stolen? You need, you know, you need to bring it back. I understand. You know, we took it home.

23:57 But you can't work if no, no tools, no work. And they back up the truck with refrigerators and speaker cabinets and televisions. Yeah, they came back the day after with stuff. I'm like, you stole this. Oh my God, you know, I was like, oh, but they brought everything back. They brought everything back. They say, OK, sorry about that. I know. So, yeah, so that the transition was from Czech Republic to work for high end systems by the way, because we were using intelibeams there. So there's the solution. Yeah, yeah, I used to call in Austin for a service and stuff like that with the intelibeams and they I I spoke, I spoke to Richard Bellevue back then. And Richard say if you're ever in Austin, man, you need to come, you know, you need to come and meet me and you know the people and stuff.

24:52 So it's weird because through I met, I met a girl in Czech Republic, which was my first wife, lived in Houston and she knew West Lane really well. So West. I asked Wes, I say, hey, can I work for High End Systems? I'd like to come there because, you know, I did not reach Richard and maybe Richard and you know, didn't Remember Me and stuff. So Wes got me to work for High End. So I started at High End building fixtures, building Cyber Lights. I was QC ING Cyber Lights and then it was a project called Studio Color. And then I went on that side and the rest is history and we, you know, Studio Color from scratch and yeah. So that's around when I got there. I think was when Studio Color was already pretty hot and and I think you were like the main product manager or something for Studio Color I think when I got there. I was a product support specialist, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:49 So you know, at high end like I know and I, I keep bugging Richard to come on and he keeps promise promising me he's going to. So sooner or later I'll get it right out of his mouth. But I always heard these stories and it never happened while I was there, 'cause I guess they had maybe grown up past that or something. But I always heard these stories that if there was like, you know, certain types of problems, or if there was the same problem more than once or whatever, Richard would shut down production lines and wouldn't reopen production until the problem was solved. Postpone the project. Yeah, it happened about four or five times with suited color. Yeah, which is wild. You know, you're selling as many as you can build and you're that stuck on quality and stuff that, that you're willing to just stop production lines and say we're not shipping another light until we figure out what's going on here. That's commitment.

26:45 Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I know you're probably still pretty close with Richard and I always was as well. I, you know, I am a guy who really appreciates that kind of leadership, like just really intense leadership, really passionate leadership, like someone who breathes this, whatever it is, he's doing his business, his product, his brand. And to me, Richard exemplified that, like he lived and breathed that product. Well, Richard was my second mentor. There was Jacques Tanguay that taught me about lighting in general.

27:26 And Richard taught me a lot about manufacturing. Yeah, you know, yeah, he says. Yeah. And he was obsessed with quality. So I I learned. I learned at the right school. Yeah he was obsessed with quality and he was also obsessed with with customers. You know like especially designers customer service talk about listening to what the designers wanted and and I mean they strayed obviously when they built products like the X spot and stuff but but you know that was just in a panic necessity. Oh no. You know Martin has the Mac 2000. We need to come out with something quick and obviously it wasn't the perfect answer but but sometimes you have to do that. You just have to respond to something that's happening in the market.

28:10 But yeah, you know I remember when I first started with high end. It's funny, I, I had dinner with Wiseman the other night and my girlfriend and and Wiseman's wife Tracy were there. And we told him the story of when him and I started at High End the same day. And it was a surprise. And so we both kind of walked into the building and everybody like I remember Mokri looking at me going like, what the fuck are you doing here? Like get out of this. But you're a spy. Get out of here, you know? And people were just like, what is going on here with these two clowns? And we were talking about that. And I forget where I was going with this story, but what were we just talking about?

28:52 I completely lost my track. That's age. Me too. Yeah, I lost track too. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, it was a really good story. I promise, man, we'll laugh later when I remember. You got hired. I remember sending an e-mail and through Lowell and everything and I don't know, something happened and he called you and he said, hey, come work with us or something. Something weird happened like that. I don't remember exactly the story, but. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a crazy story. I I I had this brand new Acura NSX and it had a car phone in it. Remember, this is 1997. And so it had the little phone in the glove box thing in the middle or the whatever that thing is called console.

29:36 And so I I pick it up and it's got like the LED readout, not an LCD screen or anything, the little lights, you know, And I see this 512 number and I'm like, what? Who the Hell's calling me from Austin? And I answer and it's like, hey, Marcel, this is Lowell Fowler, you know? How you doing, Marcel? You know, we heard you left. And literally, I had just walked out the door of Martin after faxing in my resignation to Peter Johansson. I just walked out the door, got in my car. I'm halfway home and I get this call from Lowell. You know, a couple people in my office knew and Peter Johansson knew because I sent him the fax and presumably his secretary or whoever answers the fax machine.

30:17 And that's all that knew. And here's he him calling me saying, I heard you left, you know, we'd like to talk to you. And I'm like, this is messed up, man. So that was weird. But the story I was thinking of was Richard invited us over to his house for a little get together. And I was there, That thing. So. So he asked me what kind of car I drove and I said, well, right now it's an NSX, but you know, I know you like Corvettes. I've had a bunch of Corvettes and he goes NSX. That is, you know, you can't drive that car. I know he said Bob had one of those and he almost died in it because it was such a bad car and stuff. Well, Bob drove the tires till they were completely bald and almost went off the road, right?

30:59 But but he was just completely ripping on me because I was driving a non American car and you know, how dare you basically. And I'm like, well I'm Canadian first of all. So, you know, I'm not that loyal to American car manufacturers yet, but I said here's the thing, you want me to buy your product, make the best product. I don't care where it's made. I don't care if it's made in Canada or America or Norway or wherever. The hell, I couldn't care less. I want the best product. The Acura NSX is an excellent product and I've had Corvettes, they rattle. They're they're, they've got problems, they've got shortcomings.

31:39 The NSX is a fantastic car and man, he was so passionate and he fought me to the freaking ground and finally I just said OK, time out, you know, let's just let's be peaceful and and agree to disagree on this one and we moved on to a different topic. But yeah, I I loved the passion in that guy, though. I I think like when Peter Johansson left Martin, like when Richard really wasn't a part of high end for a long time. You lose your mojo, you lose your sort of heart and soul of the brand and of the company when those kinds of people step away. Right. I don't like it, yeah. No, no, not really. So that got me to after high end to be in the use equipment business. I was moving.

32:25 Use equipment like you did. Remember it well, I remember it well. Yeah, yeah, no, you, you know, I think everyone at some point in their life says, you know, I want to try doing business on my own. I want to, I want to be an entrepreneur or whatever. And there's obviously, you know, something alluring to that and it's kept me involved in it for a long, long time. But but it's most days suck. Like I will tell you, as an entrepreneur or as a business owner, most days really suck and and it's almost like, you know, golf or you know, maybe even motor sports where you know days are so hard and challenging and then you hit a hole in one and it's like you forget about all of that stuff, right? Right, right.

33:10 That's. That's like being an entrepreneur. You know, you win occasionally. Sometimes you win really big. And that feeling and that just, I don't know it, it it makes up for all of those really, really hard days somehow. So I don't know, it's a bit of a disease. It's a second. I had the fun part of the job. I was traveling. I was sourcing. So travel you know a lot and. Remember that. And our main market was Asia so they they all wanted Mac 2000s. So I I got I rid France of their Mac 2000. I'm telling you, I sold punch of them out of France. And and plus the clients were happy because we were moving the fixtures. Where where are you gonna move this? You know, because they were worried we're moving volume, right. 200 fixtures, 300 fixtures.

33:54 Because wait a minute. Where are you gonna sell this? Oh, Asia. Oh, OK, fine. Perfect. Yeah, it's perfect territory for us. We don't, we're not in Asia. So yeah, you can sell. Them. Yeah, I I remember it so well when you when you guys started doing that and and you know it was a very different business model than mine. But obviously we bumped into each other quite often because of the size of the deals that you guys were working on. And often times we knew the same people, we were involved in the same deals. And so yeah, that was, that was a lot of fun. And you know, from a standpoint of of doing the travel and stuff, like first of all you were already a bit of a world traveler having lived in in Czech for a while and also with high end, I guess you probably traveled a bunch.

34:37 Naughty, Yeah. I don't remember 26 countries. I think in 3-4 years, Yeah, yeah. Wow. So somebody would buy a couple 100 studio colors and you'd fly over and make sure they were working properly. Oh yeah, Richard will send me there right away, right away. Because you got to go there. You got to go there and support support and and teach them how to and it was easy. The fixture was easy, easy to fix and easy fix like 4 screws. You replace the modules, you put the module back in, it's working like a champ, and then you fix the module later. In some sense, Studio color was probably the first step in that direction for automated lighting. For modular automated lighting like I mean cyber lights I guess were modular.

35:21 Obviously Martin was copying and making some of their fixtures modular where you brought pulled out sections of the light instead of. But the problem with some of that stuff is it failed all the time, right? Whereas Studio Color was pretty reliable and modular. And no. Fans remember, no fans in that fixture. Yeah, yeah. And it worked like a it worked like a sham. But anyway, so yeah, so this is the reason why I'm here now because of my, my travel. And I got to meet a lot of lighting designers back in the days. You know Peter Morris and you know Roy Bennett and all those guys you know that I had relationship with back in the days that now I do have a relationship with. Yeah, well, and it's a good relationship too, because as much as you're there to fix a problem and they might be mad at you while there's a problem, they love you when the problem goes away. And you know, you're the Fix It guy and everyone loves the Fix It guy, So it's a good position to be in. I have a great story about that because I knew studio color like the back of my hand, right.

36:17 We work night and day. I mean it's wow, a lot of hours. I I did one year. I did 1100 overtime hours in one uses. I know it was weird. That's a lot. So somebody called. I just happened to be in town. I'm on my desk. The guy said, hey, I have a problem with studio, with with my fixture. It's making noise. I said well put the fixture on the phone. He goes, excuse me, I said put the fixture on the phone. He goes, well, I don't have it next to me right now, but I can call you back. And so, well, call me back. So he calls me back and he says, I said, OK, so let me listen. So you know, I listen to the sound. That's OK. It's this. I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but I told me it's this, this and this, you guys.

37:01 OK, all right, all right, man. Bye. So 45 minutes later, I get a phone call, the phone rings. I said hello, this is John. He goes, FEU man, Fui said. What? What did I do? He goes, you fixed the problem. Listened over the phone, listened to the noise the fixture was making. You knew exactly what the problem. Was. I see. Yeah. You know what I mean? You spend that much time with that fixture and you've seen most of them being born, you know, on the factory floor and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From scratch, yeah. You know, one of the things that was so interesting about the early high end days and I remember getting there and seeing this and going how does this work was that they had all those little buildings and you know you'd have to get parts from over here, bring them to assembly line over here, bring something else from over there, bring the finished product down there, then take it over there to ship it.

37:54 You know, I mean it was just like constantly moving between all of these different buildings. And it was, it was a funny business park too, because Dell Computers was expanding so quickly at the time too. So every time one of those little buildings was available, High End and Dell were fighting over it because they were both trying to grow at the same time. And obviously Dell would win most of those arguments. But yeah, it was neat. I mean, high end, I was so weirdly excited when I started there because, you know, yes, they were the competitor. Yes, it felt like I was walking into you know, the the bad guys clubhouse or whatever. But like I had such a an appreciation and A and a real respect for what High End had done. Like they were not a formidable competitor but a company that, you know, in my career I could never get past because I had, you know, garbage compared to what they had. Like I didn't have, I didn't have near the product that they had to sell.

38:54 So I had to be really, really nice and really humble at the time and and kiss a lot of ass to make people buy robo scans instead of cyber lights. It wasn't easy. Yeah, yeah. So that's that's that's basically where you know what it got. You know it got me to after the used equipment business. It got me to. I'm here at Show Bay now. Yeah yeah. No you your your journey basically took you through elation for a while and and COVID I know upset that situation and that was sad because I know they obviously didn't want to lose you. I don't think you necessarily wanted to be lost. But you know Chauvet being as well funded as they were, they were grabbing people, which was a brilliant move by the way.

39:38 Grabbing people during COVID, knowing that they didn't really have work for you at that time. Like you couldn't travel, you couldn't really sell much. But it was a good move because coming out of COVID everybody was going to be gone. Everybody was going to be positioned somewhere else. So they got a they got a real winner out of that deal. But yeah, so, so Chauvet, you know, again, lots and lots of of interesting stories there for me because I'm a South Florida guy and I was talking to Albert about this at your opening. I saw you at your your big grand opening for your New South Florida facility a couple weeks ago, and I was talking with Albert Chauvet about it. By the way, everyone calls it Chauvet except Albert, who calls it Chauvet.

40:25 Really. I don't know. It's it's Chauvet but. It's the only name I've ever known, but I was listening during his speech that he made. He called it Chauvet. Really. The whole time I think I might have even recorded his speech. I'll send it to you. But he called it Chauvet and I was like, that's bizarre. He he pronounces it Chauvet, It's his name. But I I was talking to him about this when I first started with Trackman, like this is in 1990 or something, 91. And one of my one of the accounts on the list that I had to communicate with was Chauvet. And at the time I think it was called Chauvet and Sons DJ equipment or something, right. And it was one of those little, you know the little roll up door like garage, not garage, but the little tiny warehouse things where it's just one Bay and just tiny tiny like maybe 600 square feet or 500 square feet or something. He had one of those buildings that that had the roll up door and then a few shelves and we sold him fog fluid. He was importing at the time these really, really bad smoke machines and rope light and and he was selling just tons of this rope light and stuff to like Sean Farrell at Farrell Lane and to some of these DJ companies out there. And you know, he was doing OK, but he was tiny and I used to deliver fog fluid to him every,

41:55 I don't know, every couple of weeks or something it'd be like 8 or 10 boxes of fog fluid over to him. And you know to see what that company has has grown into today is is just unreal. It's massive. It's a it's a great company, man. This is the the group at Chauvet. This is a group of indefatigable, passionate, focused people, and it starts at the top. And Albert's a genius, he's a businessman. He lets you work your magic up to a certain point because there's a great synergy, but there's a plan of action. Yeah, there's a focus and we have the fixtures. We're very competitive and it's adopted by more and more lighting designers. So yeah, it's a great company.

42:43 Yeah. And again, there's only two companies that I'm aware of who have sort of made, well, three. I mean, the original Martin was a DJ lighting company and Mokri made sure to remind us of that every time we went up against him. And aren't they some club lighting disco company or something? And Martin made it out of that whole obviously American DJ slash Elation made it out and are a very professional company as well. And Chauvet, you guys were all sort of these import DJ companies. And then all of a sudden, and I'll tell you where I noticed the transition going to LDI and seeing the Martin and high end booths and and Klaypaki booths getting smaller and Chauvet and Elation getting much larger. So they went from being the little booth out in the back corner to being the big booth up front. And Martin was now the little booth in the back corner. And I was like, whoa, something's happening here. Roby started like that too, you know. Roby started as a as a OEM manufacturer. Yeah, absolutely.

43:48 Yeah, I remember having that conversation with with Joseph Joseph Valchar at at Roby at the Rimini show in Italy. Were you ever at the Rimini show? Did. You ever? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I got stories about. I got stories about that. But we're not going to talk. No, you don't want to talk about. It Boy, oh boy. No, Yeah, it's, you know, it's by the beach, right? the Rose and Crown. What was it called that pub? The Rose and. Crown or crown and anchors, Rose and Crown No. I. Think Crown and. What one of them? Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. No, that place was great with the with the wild looking trannies in there, like the, you know, one of the most beautiful Italian women I ever met in my life was a man, right?

44:29 And it was in that bar and I I just happened to be with a bunch of industry guys who are laughing their asses off at me, 'cause I didn't know the difference. And. Remedy. Remedy was in March, right? So this is where and every single manufacturer were running their prototypes. That was the start of the cycle of trade. Shows, right? Yes. Yeah. And you could smell, burn plastics and electronics blow up cards that's everywhere in the in that trade show space, you know, because we're. Closed until like 9:00 AM because they were working on lights and rebuilding them and stuff overnight. They were all prototypes, you know. If you wanted to see what the future looks like in in the lighting industry, go to go to Remedy.

45:12 Yeah, Speaking of which, were you with high end when they had that cyber light problem, the the cyber light launch year at LDI when there was a bit of a bit of a smoker? No, I wasn't there. Yeah, that was problematic. No. You know, again, back to Chauvet. So, you know, to me, like over the past probably 10 or so years, it's been so impressive to see the companies who like right now, every light is amazing, You know, whether it's Chauvet or Ariton or Clay Paki or Martin or whoever, they're all really, really good. And back when you and I started and more so me, it wasn't like that. Like, these lights were sometimes quite shitty, not very reliable, you know?

46:04 You were constantly opening them and fixing them and changing things and whatever these new lights are just built so well. They're so good. Yeah, that's there's a lighting designer was talking to me. I went to the Sphere show a couple of weeks ago and. The you two thing. Yeah, and afterwards we went to a pub for drinks and food and he was telling me he said a lights, a lights, a light at the end of the day, right. It's very comparable everywhere. At the end of the day, it's about pricing and relationship. Yep. That's that's all it is. Yeah. That's not not false, you know it it really does come down to to what's your deal and and who are you buying from who, who are you calling when you got a problem, you know and do you trust that person.

46:51 I guess now it's it's it's a good point and not only are all lights good, but everyone basically has the full line. You know everyone's got the wash, the spot, the profile, the this, the that all of the different line. And so you know you just basically choose the people who you want to do business with and at the end of the day that's what's important. That's why every company now has a genre, you know, and maybe not as good as genre, but every company has to have someone in that role of designer relations and and you know, someone who can massage those those relationships and manage the network, you know?

47:31 Oh, yeah. We got to constantly stay, stay in contact, you know, with with old friends and new friends too, you know, because we're trying to appeal to young designers as well, and all all manufacturers for that matter. Everybody's trying to appeal to young designers now. They're the future, right. So it's yeah, it's interesting. It's a it's a fun job I have because it's a relationship job. Yeah, it's a it's an ambassador job. You know, I act like as an ambassador when I travel and stuff and you know, representing Chauvet and. Yeah, and which? Is a lot a lot of dinners. A lot of dinners, a lot of conversations, a lot of dinners, a lot of activities and stuff like. That it's good you don't drink anymore because it's so easy to become an alcoholic when you're traveling for business like that and taking people out to dinner every night.

48:18 Unbelievable, yeah. Yeah, it's too easy to fall into that lifestyle. You know where it's like, OK, I'll just have two drinks tonight and next thing you know it's five and. Too much of a good thing, man. 100 percent, 100% I get it. So your your role today, I explained I think in the intro that that you know really again it's down to designer relations and being an ambassador for the brand and stuff like that. So it's it's global. It is global for now, yeah, because I have so many relationships, you know, a lot of relationships in Europe, in the UK as well, yeah, in the Middle East and stuff.

48:59 So I travel a lot. I keep, I keep traveling, yeah. Yeah. What what percentage of the time are you travelling now? 80%. Really. Yeah. And you're somehow maintaining your home life. Yeah, their home life is fine. The kids are grown, you know? Yeah, it's just we're we're we're OK with that. It's no problem. That's cool, because that that always takes a special, special partner. You know what I mean? To To accept that you know the. Fact. And I love my. 80% of the time. Yeah, and she knows and Lindy knows. I love my job. So I travel. I don't mind traveling. I don't mind doing anything. And I book my own hotels and my flights and everything.

49:41 And yeah, and. And and it's fun. It's fun traveling because it's a fun group of people. This industry is great. It's absolutely great. Good people out there. Unbelievable. Yeah, I know. It's not like you're going to visit hardware stores and take out your notepad and take orders or whatever. No, it's it's all about relationships and just enjoying those situations and stuff. You're right. I mean at the end of the day that's the foundation of all of it. The, the travel part though like in for me I think it's harder now because I don't travel as much and so I don't have all of the good loyalty stuff that I used to have with the airlines. And so upgrades don't come as often. And and you know when you're sometimes when you work for larger companies, they have deals where like you know, anytime you go over a certain number of hours, you fly in business. I've had those deals in the past and I've paid for it myself through my own company.

50:35 But you know, it's one of those expenses that now like business class tickets are 8 to $10,000 now. It's crazy, you know, it's just crazy. So you know, it's hard to justify when you're going over for a meeting or a couple days or something to spend 10 grand on a business class ticket. So I find myself flying coach more often than I than I really like, and fortunately I've only had to do it a couple times for Europe. But yeah. But we have, I gather points, you know, during during the year, my travel year, I gather I gather points. So I'm able to upgrade when I can. You know when I can upgrade? I do it most of the time I try to upgrade on the way to Europe.

51:16 Yeah. So I can sleep. And the way back, it's like it's like a long day. So if you're in coach, it's OK, you know, close your eyes, listen to podcasts and stuff, and then. Yeah, I'm the same way. I I can't sleep decently sitting up in a seat, I have to lay down and so going to Europe I have to have, I have to have a a flat, lay, flat bed thing and then coming back, if I can get premium economy, at least I'm OK. And so I've done a few of these dodgy airlines, you know where where they have cheap business class and the most recent one that I did was Miami to Gatwick and it was an airline called Norse and I do not recommend ever trying it on the plane. It's amazing.

52:04 It really is amazing. The check in process is very similar to what I would expect Spirit to be like. It's just it's disgusting and and God forbid they lose your luggage, which they did with me. Forget about getting a hold of anybody. I mean, you know, like I had to go buy all new clothes. I haven't been reimbursed a nickel. And then they got me my bag. I was there for a week. They got me my bag on the last day I was there and so I was grateful to get my bag back. I get to the airport to check in. I had already prepaid for my bag to go on the plane because it was a big bag and it was now like 1 1/2 kilos overweight.

52:49 And so they charged me like 30 lbs or something for the overweight because I had to buy new clothes to replace the ones that they lost. I mean that's the only reason it was overweight. So I tried to have that conversation with them nicely. And this lady comes up and goes, Sir, if you don't shut up right now, you're not getting on that plane. That's exactly like EasyJet in Europe. EasyJet don't fly EasyJet. This is a message. Yeah, no, I know. When you try and save a buck, it's again, it's like spirit here in this country. I I assume I've never flown spirit, but for a different reason. Like I used to live in a place called Pembroke Pines in South Florida here, and one day I think it was a Saturday or something. I don't even remember what day it was, but I remember these smoke plumes in the sky and we got in the car and drove over because it was right by our house and in the Everglades a plane had gone down and it was it was value value jet which it was packed flame spirit.

53:47 Yeah, the batteries because of those. Batteries, aerosol cans or something. I don't remember what it was, but it was something that caused it to to blow up. But yeah, so you know, just seeing that plane down there on fire and the big smoke plumes and stuff. And so a good friend of mine at the time was a was a airplane mechanic for United and he said Marcel never fly those super discounted airlines and I said why and he said the biggest cost cutting they do is on maintenance and I'm like. I believe that. Yikes. I believe that I've been with United for gosh, 25 years. Yeah, and I'm sticking with them all the time. I just, I just not so long ago I crossed 1,000,000 miles and I'm sitting on the plane and the the pilot comes to me because he says oh Oh no, pilot's coming towards me and he goes congratulations, you have 1,000,000 miles, you're a million mileer now like Oh my gosh. Yeah, you know what I have?

54:45 I have two million on American and a million on Delta and neither one means anything anymore. Like try to get upgraded. It doesn't, you know, unless you're in their super premium, you know, like I stayed with United, I stayed in Platinum, whatever it's called. I forget what their thing is called, but I was always Platinum and this year I let it go like I just quit trying because even on Platinum I wasn't getting upgraded anymore. Unless you're unless you're whatever it's called 1X or whatever it is. 1K. 1K, yeah, one. K, I'm 1K with United and here in Austin, because there's so many people traveling and it's not a hub city, every time they say now we're going to board the premium 1K, we're like 2025 One K, so it's hard to get an upgrade.

55:35 From Boston to anywhere. Well, just since COVID. Like, The thing is, before COVID, I got upgraded on every single United flight I was ever on without even asking for it, right? I just automatically got upgraded all the domestic flights too. And since COVID, I think I've like really early. Right after COVID I was getting upgraded still, but as soon as flights got full, that was it. I I haven't had an upgrade in ages. Nothing. So I just. Gave up. So I'm back down to like silver or something now. Medallion silver, which means I'll never get anywhere. You're good, you're good. Don't worry about it. Yeah, I don't care. It doesn't work. I'm going to LA next week and I'm flying on JetBlue. So you know, if that's the only, the only direct flight out of Fort Lauderdale. So do you.

56:21 Most of your stuff is on the designer side, right? Not on the supply side. Like, do you deal with rental companies too at all? I do. It depends where and what and but I deal. Yeah, I try to deal with them as much as I can with their designers as well. I'm not gonna reveal my secret sauce here, but yes, I. Do no, but I mean you're not responsible for like a sales quota or anything like. Where or no, no rental comp numbers. Have to buy product from you or something. I don't have a price sheet. I don't know how much it costs. I have no idea of price. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. But. It's like a sales gig without a quota. Yeah. But there's more and more designers that are asking for price.

57:02 I'm surprised on that. I was very surprised. Yeah, it is. So. So what's the, what's the price on this? I said, why do you care? Why is it? Because I'm trying to do my, my plot here and I just want to know, you know, basically, you know, what's the street? Yeah, So I have to call Deanna and stuff. Another trend that I'm sure you're you're pretty familiar with is that a lot more designers are buying product for long run tours or long run shows or whatever, especially consoles, but certainly lights as well. And and you know, one of them I spoke with yesterday on on Recording a podcast was Eric Wade owns a lot of lighting product now. Eric's a great guy. By the way, you must have told him that right before he got on the podcast with me because I asked him a question at the end of the podcast yesterday. I said what are your favorite products? And I think the very first one he answered was, I can't remember what it's called, but it's the Chauvet version of the clay Paki wave, which he said is like the wave on steroids. The pixel curve 12.

58:05 Pixel curve. Yeah, pixel curve. Yeah, he he loves. It. Yeah, he loved it. So I guess he's using a bunch of them on something. Janet Jackson or something. He. Was we have them out on tour a lot everywhere now. So it's cool, it's good. Yeah, product development did a great job. We have a great, like I said, we have a great team product development from product development to you know, sales department marketing and everything, which is it's a well oiled machine I like. It, yeah. No, I mean and it's big, you know show has gotten very, very big like I think more so than most manufacturers. Albert early on realized the need for capital.

58:47 You know if you want to keep continue growing in an industry like this where the artists are getting bigger and bigger and the packages are getting bigger and the needs and demands are getting bigger, you're going to need to be well capitalized. And and he probably did that before anyone that I know of. So that's a really good thing. What like other than having 100 competitors these days in the automated lighting world, which does make it tougher because you know again back in the day as old people say, you know it was Martin, high end Vera Light, Claypakke and Comar weren't really a thing at that point. It was very few companies and now you know there are at least what, 10 really good lighting manufacturers.

59:33 Yeah. Yeah. So other than the fact that you've got loads of competitors, what are some of the challenges in in the touring lighting industry today? Well, you. You, I don't know. It's it's there's a lot of challenges but when one of them is availability of product, right. So it's always when we release a product let's say at LDI. So LDI is kind of late because the tours are are starting, you know the designer is starting to design their tours for the year after and everything and then they come to me and said when is this available, Gosh, I don't know when. So we don't know, right.

1:00:14 Sometimes it's in March, sometimes it's April, May, June. It depends. So it's it's hard because designers are usually after the new stuff, you know, the newer stuff, what's new here, What can I use, what can I do, you know. So that's one of the challenges to to get it out on time and. You you pretty much have to have product out in January to hit the spring touring. But that's hard. That's hard because of Chinese New Year and stuff like that. So it's it's, it's. Super hard to do that and but yeah, it's it's it's timing that's that's the challenge. Yeah, no, that's that's a big one. What about even just like this? I, you know, I know this is gonna sound stupid but the size of the packages now, like the fact that when when when we were at high end or Martin or whatever, you know, a big package was 100 moving lights, like I'm selling you 100 cyber lights to put on this show that was a big package. Now you're getting shows with six and seven and 800 fixtures, right?

1:01:16 Right. Quite easily. And so again, from a capital and resource need standpoint, a stock need which also falls in line with resources, that's gotta be challenging, I would guess, but it's sort of the same answer, right. Stock, right. Yeah. Yeah. Stock, yeah. Absolutely. Well, and you know, when you're building overseas, it's, it's much harder because you can't just ramp up the production lines and say, let's build twice as many for the next 4 weeks or whatever. It's not quite that easy. So I get that one. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. So what's what do you think is different in the industry today than when you were at high end like other than what we just talked about like the size of the shows is obviously a big difference.

1:02:07 You know again we went from 100 light, 100 moving light and maybe 2 or 300 park hands was a big show to now several 100 or 1000 moving lights plus LED screens plus plus, plus plus. So what are some of the some of the nuances, some of the differences today in the industry? I think. I think one of them is faithfulness. Being faithful to 1 product, it doesn't exist anymore. Back in the high end days we had dealers, high end dealers, you couldn't sell margin in the high end and playback. No, it was, even though you were impenetrable. Exactly. So there was a lot of faithful, you know, everybody had their own group of people brand. Loyalty, yeah.

1:02:54 Exactly. Now it's all over the place. Yeah. So that's that's a good point. That's a good point. So now does price become much more important than it maybe used to be? Because now like to try and break into that situation you might need to be more price competitive or whatever. Absolutely, yeah. Price and availability, if it's a very different fixture than others, yeah, you might have, you might. The price is probably not an object, but it's very rare. Yeah. Most of the time it's the price, price, price, the price point because every like you said, everything. They're so lights are reliable now, so you know. Yeah, it's. It's they're they're built solid, you know, quality, everything.

1:03:38 So yeah. Well, that was the other thing I was going to say again is, is that the gear is all so good. And you know, again it doesn't matter what name is on it. And I'll tell you when I really, really discovered that is I I was in France and I decided to go to the Ayrton factory and you know, they were a big sponsor of Jeremy and and my son. And so I went to their factory to check out their lights and I asked they put me with one of the engineers to show me through. And I don't remember which fixture it was. It was one of their newer fixtures. And so he opened it up and first of all, I was just blown away by what they look like on the inside now. Like I hadn't probably seen the inside of a moving light since. Maybe a maybe a Viper or something, but maybe even further back than that, it's what. It's pretty cramped in now.

1:04:29 It's like. There is so much shit in there now. There's no space for a dime in between the stuff. But it's all so neat, like the wiring and everything is so beautiful. Everything. And you know, because of the LED lamp source, there's not as much heat. So they can pack stuff in much closer, much tighter together, more stuff. And but I was just blown away by what it looked like on the inside. And then so I was I was saying to him, So what breaks? I said to the engineer and he's a French guy, right? I said what breaks? And he goes, what do you mean? And I said what breaks? And he goes nothing. And I said no. But something breaks.

1:05:09 So let's say for example I've got I, I, I live on an island and I've got a generator and I want 8 lights for my parties on the island and I'm going to have them there for years. What spare parts do I want to bring with me? And he goes, I mean, he really had to think about it. Maybe, you know, maybe a power supply, maybe like, I mean, he couldn't come up with a list of parts that I would need on on a deserted island somewhere, right? So that was impressive to me and I feel like he was being sincere. You. Know and the LED engine on most lights are very stable, you know, Yeah, I was surprised. I mean, I'm not surprised, but I was worried about that when we released first release, you know, back, you know, six years ago, seven years ago, the first LED engine and lights and stuff was like how, how, how is it going to last? Yeah, it's lasting.

1:06:03 It's good. It's reliable. Well, that's, you know, I think I had that argument with Craig Burrows or maybe it was Peter Moore or somebody at Roby when they came out with that light engine thing. That was a replaceable light engine. I said what for? And they said, what do you mean? This is amazing. You can replace the LED light engine. And I said, have you ever had one fail? You know, like I don't know of very many. Usually it's a power supply. If something fails, it's not the, it's not the actual LED chips. They don't fail, they fade, but they don't fail. And and he said, yeah, but they can be replaced. And I said, well, what's the life expectancy? Everyone's saying, you know, 7-8, ten years or whatever. Nobody owns their lights that long, you know, So kick the problem down the road.

1:06:49 You can replace LED engines and. Make a fixture. I know. So yeah, that was the other argument is, you know, you can replace them anyway. Yeah, OK. So it's not like a plug and play replacement. There might be a few screws involved or something. But you know, again, I thought that was incredible innovation and I was looking for the reason that that is cool. One of the reasons was they they were saying that a designer or or a lighting company might have different engines for different shows or something, perhaps a different color temperature perhaps just so you can monitor hours or or save hours or whatever.

1:07:29 I don't know, but I mean the light engines, probably half the cost of the fixture, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense in my opinion for for the most part, I don't know. Again, it's cool. You know, it's probably something that's gonna we're gonna evolve into at some point where they're all super easily replaceable. But one thing I forgot to mention, when you were talking about the SLS thing, where you started your business after high end was, as I recall, you guys were one of the very first people who brought in waterproof lights. IP rated lights. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it. Was called the Aqua Beam. Yeah.

1:08:10 I mean, I don't think a lot of people know that, but I remember that you guys were one of the very first. I mean, I think SGM was the first with that one spot fixture. You guys had the first wash or whatever, a beam. But yeah, so yeah, that was cool. That was really cool. Did you just see a need in the market or an opportunity or whatever? Yeah, we saw a need in IP65 beams. It was well that one was not IP65, it was an IP 55 at first we went, we went to Light Sky to manufacture there and and in China which we did a couple of trips there and and you know showing them and say OK this is how we want it. This is how we, you know we want to do that. And they said well we can't do IP65 right now but we can do IP 55.

1:08:55 I said well it's if it's good enough, it's good enough and it has just happened to rain outside and it had a bunch of fixture outside. So we took a video in the rain of all those. It was great actually. It was good. That video went viral online. I remember that. Oh really? And yeah, yeah, and this, this stood up, so. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, it's funny. What what is the the Mac Aura IPX or whatever It's called IPXIPXIP. What? What is that one? It's IP 54 or 40. 6666. No, no, it's much lower. It's lower, I don't. Know. Yeah, because I remember when it came out, it's like IP 40 something or whatever. And they said it's IP rated, but it's not IP65.

1:09:40 But they have fixtures mounted on top of their building in Denmark with cameras on them and they've been running ever since they released the product. And that's snow and rain and all kinds of stuff. And supposedly they've never, you know, repaired them or replaced them or anything. So you know, yeah, if you're just wanna do an install and set it and forget it, leave the lights there. Obviously it has to be 656667. Oh, those, Yeah. But those, those movers are not recommended for permanent installs. It's never, it's never recommended for that. Manufacturers are not going that route. They don't say, Oh yeah, you can do a permanent install. It's not recommended. Yeah, you can do it. And it's you know they they're so far it's been great. You know.

1:10:23 Yeah, there's no no failures, so to speak. But it's not recommended. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. Cool. Well, we, I feel like we've missed 52,000 things that we should talk about hockey. You know? I know we before we started recording, we were talking about the Stanley Cup and and how shocking it is that this this viral, you know, young girls cup apparently or maybe all people cup. I don't know. I don't know any men who have them, but maybe they do. But it's like the most viral retail product right now, and it's called the Stanley Cup. And you said that the NHL sued him. Yeah, it's they have they added an S now it's called Stanley Cups.

1:11:07 So it's not. It's not Stanley Cup. So I've been in an IP battle for my life and what I would say is they must have the same lawyers as Google has because if they got away with that, just changing it to an S because Google stole my trademark and and got away with it. And you know, even in the final judgement says, yeah, we acknowledge that they stole your trademark and that they do have damages and blah blah blah, but we're not giving you any money. There's also a product, if I'm not mistaken, there's a product, there's a Stanley product. They do tools, they make tools and stuff, right? Yeah, Yeah. So I don't. I don't get the fact that they would go with Stanley to start with. No, because brand names. It's like you can have Chevy's restaurant in in Texas there or whatever isn't.

1:11:53 Don't you have a Chevy's I? Don't know. Somebody, there's a Chevy's Restaurant somewhere, but you can have Chevy's restaurant and Chevy the car. You can have, you know, a Mars bar and Mars, something else, like, as long as they're not in the same category. Yeah, if they're in the same. If they're in the same, it's called a class. If they're in the same class, then you know the the Patent Office will not issue you a trademark for something in the same class. But if it's a totally like if it's Stanley, you know, over here and Stanley way over here. But Stanley Cup, that's just an identical rip off of the name of the like.

1:12:36 I mean, I'm going to put out a Super Bowl and I'm going to go viral with it. It's just going to be a bowl. That's freaking super, you know, actually the name. Super Bowl came from a Super Bowl. The the kids were playing with a Super Bowl and they were meeting. Yeah, they were meeting in the. I don't remember the name of those guys that were meeting together to to put the Super Bowl together. But he said what? What are we going to call this? And one guy turned around and saw his daughter playing with the Super Bowl and he said, hey, how about the Super Bowl really. And they said it was Super Bowl and then he came up to be the Super Bowl. Yeah. Do you know this to be true? Yeah.

1:13:16 Here's true. It's true. True story. True story. Wow. We're gonna have to Google that one. That sounds pretty fishy to me. That's hilarious. But The thing is it it could very well be true because in the early days of the Super Bowl, it wasn't called the Super Bowl. It was called like the the Something Championship. I can't remember either, but it wasn't called Super Bowl, and it wasn't until a little bit later that they called it the Super Bowl. So, yeah, who knows? Maybe that's true. You know those super balls. Funny story, cuz I was I was in like a toy store or like a department store or something with my family when I was a kid and there was like a not a racquetball, but a squash ball. I think.

1:14:02 No, it was a racquetball. And remember racquetballs, you could throw them really hard and they barely bounced. And so I it was either that or it was like some kind of a sports ball or something. But it didn't bounce. So I was throwing it as hard as I could at the floor and my sister goes try this one. So I go to throw it as hard as I can at the floor and it's one of those super balls. And it came up and hit me right in the face and I had like a fat lip and I was all beat up from it. And I hated my sister cuz of that. Yeah, that was a what could possibly go wrong ball playing with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot. Yeah. All right, John. Well, where are you going next? Where are you off to in life? Where are you traveling next? Oh, you can't tell me. It's a top secret.

1:14:43 Did you go to ISE? No, Not this year, no. I haven't been. I'm dying to go. Everyone says. How amazing. It is. It's growing. It's growing. It's getting there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's going to replace Prolite. I think Prolite's gonna become like the Plaza local show. Yeah, in the UK. Interesting, cuz that used to be huge. They're like, gosh. Yeah, yeah. Well, especially because of music, Mesa and stuff. So yeah, lots and lots and lots of but. Such a pain in the ass because of music Mesa because it's such a big show. It was just a pain in the ass going there, you know? Hard to get hotels, hard to get around cuz it's such a huge facility. Yeah, hotels are cheap now.

1:15:24 They're much cheaper than it was, believe me, because there's nothing. I mean Pro Light and Sound Music. Mesa is not even there anymore, so. Oh, it's not. I didn't know that. No, no, there's no sound there either. This year it's just Pro Light, no sound. When did they split from Music Mesa? Since COVID. Really. So is that show just gone or? I believe so. Wow. You have to. The music show was was much bigger than than Pro Lite. Yes, yes, TJS and stuff and music mess, yeah. That's incredible. I didn't know that. They pulled out, yeah, they pulled out. So it's gonna be difficult for them, I think. Yeah, yeah, I I wouldn't rush to Frankfurt to go to that show without having that massive audience there. Yeah, I'm going this year because I have appointments and I have to go see some designers, but I don't know next year. I don't know if I'm going to go.

1:16:19 I'm going to go to ISC for sure next year. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to try and get to ISC. So is it in Barcelona for good now or is it moving back? Oh, OK, No, it's Barcelona, so it's it's a great venue. I saw it right after COVID when they started. Again, the venue's great. And if you go, if you don't eat at restaurants around the venue and around town where all the tourists are, if you go where their locals are, it's much cheaper. Good food, Yeah. Everything cool there. I love. It yeah. I think. I think I'm going to try and go next year because everyone keeps talking about it and I I hate that I don't go, but I'll try next year. Cool. Well, thank you so much, buddy. I appreciate you finally doing this. I know we've been talking about it for a while and and you've been shy.

1:17:05 You've been playing hard to get. But now that it's Valentine's, I got you. I'm a shy guy, so yeah. You know. Yeah, I've. Always known you as a shy guy. You don't like to talk or nothing? This went well. Yeah, no, it's all good. Yeah. Yeah. All right, my friend. Well, I hope to see you soon at a hockey game somewhere. Thank you again for having me. And then, yes, let's go watch a hockey game. For sure. All right, buddy. See ya. Ciao. Yep.

1:17:47 Yeah.