#233 - Josh Allen / 3LR Design

0:03 Hello and thank you for joining me today live for the intro and promos for Geezers of Gear Episode #233. Today's podcast is brought to you by Stratum Productions. Stratum is rooted in the Midwest and is committed to setting themselves apart. They're not just in the audio visual industry to meet expectations. They're here to exceed them as they work towards becoming true partners in the AV world. They bring expertise, creativity, and a passion for turning visions into reality. To learn more about Stratum Productions and what they offer, please visit stratumpro.com and this episode is also brought to you by our newest sponsor, Row Visual.

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2:46 Hello and welcome back, episode #233. And so it's been a morning, and I will tell you I've been determined and praying that I wouldn't screw up one of these live intros. And I just did with Roe, of course, our newest sponsor. So I apologize that I had a little brain freeze there, but yeah, rower amazing. We're super happy to have him on board. Obviously you know, leading the LED screen, LED panel charge for years now. And Frank Montero who runs the US side of that business is a great friend of mine for a long, long time. We appreciate them very much.

3:30 We appreciate obviously them sponsoring the podcast, but we appreciate the brand as well. They're just a great product, great line and so we're happy to have them on board. Speaking of sponsors, I also want to mention our new newest sponsor who just got signed up. I believe they'll be sponsoring an episode in the next week or so and that is RZARRZI Lighting from New Orleans. Not only great sponsor, but great company, Ray's Ray's company, Ray Ziegler's company, RZI is the premier lighting and staging and rigging company in New Orleans. Trusted local source for 25 years and raised a guy I've also known for a lot of years.

4:15 Done a lot of business with. We spent a lot of time together on zoom calls and stuff during COVID and honestly, sadly, like most people we haven't since. So it's going to be fun to catch up with Ray. Hopefully we'll get him on the podcast soon and just talk about his business, how it's changed and evolved and you know, like usual talk about how he got into the business and stuff. So today's guest Josh Allen has been actively contributing to the lighting industry for more than 30 years. He held the position of Principal Consultant with Theatre Consultants Collaborative, where for over a decade, as member of the American Society of Theatre Consultants, he consulted on the design of hundreds of performing arts venues throughout the United States, Canada and beyond.

5:04 In 2016, Josh Co founded 3 LR Design, Inc, a firm specializing in cohesive design, rigging, rigging, design and control systems, entertainment for entertainment, themed environments, cruise ships, architectural, immersive and architectainment lighting. That's a lot. His projects ranged from ship wide lighting and control system designed for Carnival Cruise Lines and Viking River cruises and multitudes of professional and educational facilities, performing arts and sporting venues, houses of worship, television and broadcast studios and museums to provide the lighting specification documentation for the new MGM Las Vegas sphere and everything in between.

5:49 Wow, that's a lot to talk about. This is not gonna be a short episode, so please, let's welcome. Actually, let's say goodbye to live and let's say hello to Josh. Hey, Josh. Hey, hey, Marissa, how, how's it going? That was pretty anti climactic cuz I counted you down and then just went, hey Josh. Hey, I'm good. How are you today? I'm good. I'm sitting here in Bonnie Bonnie Scotland, but it is the weather is not so Bonnie today so it's the heck are you doing which is Scotland. So I actually live here most of the year and yeah, and I'm back and forth to the States.

6:30 So you know we're we're recording this at 2:00 in the afternoon my time. So what you're Are you on the East Coast? I'm on the East Coast. Yeah. Yeah. You're on the East Coast. That's right. So it's, it's 1111 for you now, Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, we had, we had somebody on last week who was in I think Austria and you know we were recording same time 10. No, it's 10 right now, sorry. So we. Were recording. At 10:00 in the morning, my time. And he had a nice glass of white wine that he was sipping the whole time. And I'm like, you know, I feel like I should be day drinking, you know, Like I should be morning drinking with you, you know, so. Yeah. But I I do that all the time.

7:11 But I mean the the, the toughest part of it all is that you know we have projects on the West Coast of America, we have projects in Europe. So sort of kind of dividing those time zones and trying to figure out where everybody is at a certain time and there's oftentimes this little window of of hours in a day where we can all kind of come together. So it's it's we're used to it. I had no idea you were were. Not in the US And So what got you over there, I'm guessing? Oh gosh. Something to do with a partner mate. No, my my wife's actually a screenwriter. But what got me here, I guess it's it's kind of a long, convoluted story.

7:55 We we've been doing projects here for, you know, the good part of a decade and in some way or another I started started 3 LR design in 2016, which was a kernel of an idea that came from my my dear friend Matt Lloyd who was the founder of GDS back in the day and then sold GDS to ETC. But we had a lot of different projects going on. So we have, you know a number of projects in the cruise industry. Of course the ships are built in Germany and and France and Italy and Spain, so this this made for a much easier spot for hopping off to to get to those projects as well as the.

8:35 European project out of Italy or? Spain. Well or France? Well, actually we. So maybe six or seven years ago I did some ancestry. Some ancestry. What What research, I suppose. Did a little archaeology into my family's history and dug up quite a bit of information that I'm my family actually comes from Cornwall in England. And oddly enough, we start looking online, getting into a little bit more and we find out that the home that my 12th great grandfather built was actually for sale in in Cornwall. And it was built in 1637. So of course it was astronomical. It was like this estate in Cornwall and Cornwall is not an inexpensive place to be.

9:28 So we go to Cornwall and we go and we see it. And the company, a company bought it that runs a boutique hotel called the Pig. And they were turning it into this boutique hotel. And I asked could we go and walk through. They said no health and safety all of those things. So we we met up with the foreman there and he said tell you what come back on the weekend, I'll walk you through the sights of we went into that. So there's a lot of family history in the UK and if we Fast forward a bit we thought, OK, as we move three LR design over to the UK kind of as a home base. We initially thought let's let's do that in England. Matt's in England And then my son said hey dad, I'm looking at universities in Scotland and he said I'm, I'm looking at University of Saint Andrews.

10:23 And we had come to Scotland numerous times and we loved it, loved it, especially on the East Snoop of Fife. And basically he made a decision to go to school here. And we thought, well, let's be somewhere that maybe we can take him out for a meal once in a while pretty easily. Or you know, if he wants to come home and do laundry on a weekend, we're we're close enough that he can do that. Let him live his own life. But you don't want. To be on the top of him, but you want to be. Close exactly you can see. Him every week, yeah. That's cool. Exactly, exactly. So, So yeah, we we see him probably over a couple of weeks and I think that was the sort of the final decision bringing us to Scotland rather than than down in England, but. My so I told you earlier my son's a racing driver and and he raced all year last year in England and for part of the year he raced for a Scottish team and I can't remember what town they're from or anything but and I can't remember the name of the town that he ended up in. But Jeremy went they do you know who Jim Clark is? Was He's dead now, But Jim Clark? Just like the name sounds for.

11:25 Me, I think he was either. He was like one of the very early champions of Formula One and Scottish guy and so every year they do the anniversary of him winning the Formula One championship in his town that he grew up in, which I could tell you later I forget what it is. But he so they they were doing the 50th anniversary last year. And so they invited my son to come bring his car there, his race car, and sit under a booth, a tent thing, and answer questions, take pictures with people and stuff. What a cool event. And to see the trucks, It was in front of a castle and the trucks couldn't get to the castle to unload the cars.

12:12 So he had to drive his car through the streets of this little village to get to where the truck could park, right. And so, you know, just waving at people. Hi, how you doing? How you doing in a formula race car? Driving down the streets of of Scotland, right? So that's really cool experience. Yeah, that's really cool. How? How exciting. So so. For yeah, it's a cool. It's a great place to be 8 years. Now you've been in. I mean, other than the weather, the weather sucks. Well, you know, it's on where we are. We're on the east nook of Fife, so it's just the little peninsula north of Edinburgh. And it's almost like a microclimate. So, you know, it'll be raining over the hill, past Saint Andrews and on toward Dundee and all of that.

12:56 And it'll be sunny over here and it'll be, you know, I'm doing math in degrees, you know, Fahrenheit versus Celsius here. But it's, you know, we're always a few seems like a few degrees warmer Celsius, maybe 1010° warmer Fahrenheit than than they are just, you know, 10 miles down the road. So it's How long did somebody take you? Learning metric did. That take you a while. Well we've we've we've only been here officially full time for about a year and a half. So we we were kind of back and forth a a bit before that but we finally bought a place here about a year and a half ago and I'll tell you where it still gets me is I I go to the gym quite a bit. So I'm a I'm a CrossFit Masters athlete and that's a whole other podcast I can talk to you about. But doing metric measurements in weight is always something for me.

13:47 That and it was a quick quick learning because it's it's 2.2 kilograms per pound pounds per sorry, pounds per kilogram. Yes, see I'm already doing the math. Well, I'm and. I'm Canadian and and I'm of an age where I was in like the 6th grade I think when Canada switched over to metric. So I knew both and I also learned the conversions in school, so I learned it all properly. So for me, it's always been second nature. Like you could tell me in miles or kilometers and I'll know exactly what you're saying. Right. Well, I, I, I think they should teach this to every American. I mean because it it it's extremely useful any anywhere else you go in the world it's extremely useful and all this back and forth stuff.

14:28 So I'm constantly doing doing that kind of math, you know, really quickly I learned to to do that conversion when I went and loaded up a bar for a back squat with a bunch of with a bunch of weights on it and thinking in pounds and stood up off the rack and quickly realized it was it was kilos so. I made a mistake here, yeah. Exactly. Well, you're becoming 2.2 times as strong then. That's it. That's it. Yeah. That that's the good news. Well, that's really cool. I I I like that. So obviously your family back here, do they come visit you or anything? Like are they like cool Josh lives in Scotland. We're going to go over there all the time. I know.

15:09 Yeah, they do. And they. Never do it. Family, family and friends. My my brother who I'm probably closest with still has not been over. Had had mom over last year. She enjoyed that and she's getting up there in age, so it's it was a hard trip on her, but it was good for her to do that. And my my wife's family the same. Of course. We had a lot of friends saying hey, you're in Scotland now, I'm going to come over. Seems like everyone wants to come over in August, which is in Edinburgh, the time to be here. You know, we've got Fringe Festival going on and the tattoo and everything else, so yeah. Yeah. My son, the doors always open. My son got a whole bunch of pictures at the castle, the Edinburgh Castle, and thought it was pretty cool and stuff.

15:50 He, he, he had fun being a tourist there for a few days. But yeah, you know, when I moved from Calgary, Canada to South Florida, similar, you know, like for the first year or two, because it was Florida and because Canada's so damn cold, you know, I'd get some visitors in the winter and then even that mellowed out because it's a long trip. It's it's almost like going to Scotland, you know, from Calgary, Canada. Right. You can't really get a direct flight so it ends up being an 8 or 9 hour day of flying and and so yeah, I don't get a ton of visitors and now I go back and forth. I have I have a place in the mountains in Canada that I spend the the warm half of the year and then come back down to Florida. So I guess I'm truly a snowbird now. Or whatever they call them these days, the kids these days. So.

16:40 These days. We got a lot of stuff to talk about, I you know. I Oh, yeah. I don't know if you've heard any of our podcasts, but I like to find out how people get into this, this crazy industry of ours. And you might be young enough where you actually came in with a legitimate, you know, college degree and stuff like that, versus so many people who came in by accident. How? How did that happen for you? Let's see. Well, well, I am in my 50s, so that does qualify me as a geezer now, I think. I think these days you look. Younger. You look younger. Yeah. Yeah, Eric. Loder from. Elation. Eric Loder from Elation put the definition at 50, he said. At 50, you're a geezer. 450, you're not.

17:22 But I've had a you know, I've had. I've had young ladies, young men, you know, I don't care. Like a it's just a name of the podcast. You don't have to be. A little. Although many of my guests are so. No, I think that's great. Yeah. Gosh, I mean, getting into this industry, I mean, for me, honestly, it goes back to when I was, when I was. I'll give you the abridged version when it when it goes back to when I was probably 4 years old and my parents decided to put me in plays locally, you know, community theater, those types of things. Oddly enough, I ended up, no, I don't think so. You know, my mom was always like she loved to do skits and things like that.

18:07 You know, that's what she called them. So you know I kind of started in the theater and she kept enrolling me into these like Fine Arts, workshop type summer programs and you know all of these things and and so I actually had some on stage experience as a child and I was in a couple of commercials and and various things. And so you know by the time high school rolled around I knew I wanted to work in this industry. And I by the beginning of high school I really started designing scenery. I was really into like architectural design and my initial thought was I want to be an architect but I could be a scenic designer you know. And so I I focused on what can I design for the stage and thought, well, I can always just roll that into going to school for architecture or doing something like that. So I never rolled.

18:59 Yeah, bridging. Bridging the two together, basically. You know, architecture and theater. I'll do scenic design, yeah. That's correct. Yeah. Well, I never really rolled it into to architecture that way, right. I did. I had a wonderful professor or what a teacher in high school Joe Burnsworth, who really I think shaped, shaped and molded me as far As for a career in and what I'm doing doing now, I I don't think I would be here doing what I'm doing if it wasn't for him. So a shout out to everyone out there who has had that teacher at some point in their life, that's really made a difference. You know teachers are teachers are so important, whether it's just a mentor or a teacher.

19:42 I mean unbelievable. So, you know, he kind of let me run wild with with design throughout throughout school. And I did some things I probably shouldn't have. You know, especially like nights and weekends in the school where I just decided to, you know, turn our, turn our stage with some friends into a black box theater and just build it on the stage without him knowing. And then, you know, quickly being taken down to the principal's office on on Monday morning because what did you do? You know, nothing like walking into a National Honor Society ceremony where they're supposed to tap everyone and there is no stage because we've put up flats across the whole front of the stage and so.

20:25 Well, because I was at first, I was thinking, that doesn't sound so harmful. What's the big deal? Like, jeez, sticklers, you know? But yeah, when when everything's missing, that's a. Bit of a problem. Well, I, you know, I remember actually going into the principal's office and I hadn't even planned to talk about this and I probably haven't talked about this for 20 years. But I remember, I remember going in there and and he was with me my the theater teacher, drama teacher and and the principal was looking at me kind of sternly but with this smile on her face. You know, she was trying not to laugh about it and and and I remember her saying to him well, he's so serious because I was like serious about all of this stuff. And I, you know, I was apologetic that that happened but I just thought I was doing something better for for everyone and in the theater department and she said he's so serious and and my my professor said or my teacher said well he's just serious about his craft. And and I remember that it's always stuck with me and it's one of those things that really I think kind of launched me into, Yeah, I am serious about this. And that was something that, you know, you know, I started designing more scenery, more lighting, really getting into lighting.

21:38 I mean we had a handful of like Cleagle fixtures and you know, some Altman, you know, 360 QS we had just gotten and you know, that were kind of newish. So, I mean, you know, those kind of things, scoops and you know, all those old school fixtures that, you know, most people today go, what is that? But decided, yeah, decided to go to school. Decided to go to university for that. For lighting design, technical design, Went to Otterbein College in Ohio. And no, I'm from Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA, originally. Yeah, it's funny.

22:18 I know, I know. One other Josh, and he's from Virginia Beach. Yeah, what's this like? Josh Ryan. Do you know Josh Ryan? Josh Ryan Don't know Josh Ryan. There's actually another kinetics. He worked for Color Kinetics for years, and now he works for another LED manufacturer. I forget which one. He's a sales guy, but worked for Color Kinetics in the early years in in the heyday of Color Kinetics, and he's about 7 feet tall, built like a football player. You'd you'd know him if you if you knew him. But yeah, he's the only other guy I know from Virginia Beach, and he happens to be named Josh. There's actually another Josh Allen from Virginia Beach.

22:58 I think he was, he's a dancer, was on one of those you know, reality dance shows back in the day. So anyway, but yeah, I went to, so I went to to college at at Otterbein in Ohio and you know, the professors there were great and befriended them And and I thought I was going to be a scenic designer at that point. And I was getting more into lighting. And I think probably what influenced me really to get into lighting is that I had an opportunity to work with Tom Skelton and he was designing the Ohio Ballet and I remember focusing with him.

23:45 This was probably in the last couple years of his life and just sort of watching him work. And I was so intrigued by the way that that Tom Skelton worked as a designer and it just it's just always stuck in my mind. I remember standing on stage and and focusing a dance plot with him and he would not say anything. He would stand there and he would chain smoke and you know, he would just not say a thing. He would look up and just do this or, you know, just put up a hand for a shutter cut but never spoke. And if you had to speak, it was like one of those things where you didn't want him to have to speak, You just needed to do.

24:30 You needed to understand what he had to do. And then I was so intrigued by that. So you know after school we decided to. I met my wife in college and she was a performance major but she really wanted to get into casting so moved to New York and she was working for casting director's office as an associate and I decided to just start knocking on stage doors. I had only done three years of of college she was a year ahead of me. So I said well screw this 4th year I'm just going to move to New York with with her.

25:11 We weren't. We weren't married yet, but that's what you do for love and started knocking on stage doors and trying to get work. And so it was kind of there back and forth for a year in the city with her making contacts, doing what I could. We got married. I decided to go, go back and finish my degree just to do it. So yes, I do have that college degree, So. That was what, like mid 90s or something, right? 95 Yes, 95. And I got my BFA in theater, emphasis in lighting design. My wife is from South Carolina, so sort of have these steps along the way.

25:57 We kind of moved to where she was from. And for almost a year, because I couldn't, I couldn't get anything else going. I was pulling Skytrackers around behind, behind a truck and doing a lot of like, you know, Piggly Wiggly's and strip clubs and those kind of those kind of openings and there's some. Back up a second though. You got your lighting, Yeah, degree in in New York. Yeah. The place where you'd want a lighting degree and. No, I got my light, got my degree in Ohio. Oh, but then had been to New York for about a year and went back and finished the degree in Ohio. Oh, OK.

26:44 OK. So you were back in Ohio, because obviously that degree would come in pretty handy in New York. You know, there's a few. Places, Absolutely. You could use that and you know, but who knows? I mean, maybe had you stayed in New York and and used that degree in theater in New York, you'd still be in New York homeless right now with, you know? Well, that was, that was just New York round one. So yeah, it's a it's a long and convoluted story and I am giving you the abridged version you've done. I did. It was. Let me back up a SEC Right out of high school I went and did a show on the Outer Banks of North Carolina called The Lost Colony Outdoor Drama.

27:28 I don't know if you've heard of that show. It was the longest, the longest running, and it still is the longest running show in American history. I believe they're about to hit their eight, eighty 80th season, 80th season this year. So The Lost Colony, it is the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth sending over the first colonies to America. This colony completely vanishes. They don't know what's what happened to it in 1587. So it was a sort of an outdoor symphonic drama. I met a lot of people on that show who are still my friends today and we're really influential people that I ended up working with in New York. People that are still working on Broadway in New York. You know you know the the the the production costume designer at the time was was William Ivy Long of course he he had won a number of Tony Awards.

28:31 So there were it was a good place to be in the summer. So while I was while I was going back to school and my wife was in New York and we moved to Charleston for that year and I was pulling things around. It never failed. Each summer, for the next seven years or so, we would go back and spend our summers on beautiful Roanoke Island doing the show. It was almost like that summer stock retreat that you just love to go back to. And it didn't matter until it just didn't make sense anymore because you're like, OK, we can't just pick up and leave. We have, like, real lives, you know? So back up to Charleston. I didn't want to pull sky trackers around. That wasn't what I went and got a degree to do. I wanted to be a lighting designer and my wife wanted to be a casting director.

29:21 And we said, well, Charleston, SC is certainly not the place for that. So we had very little money and we were like, what can we do? We were willing to sell, you know, sell our souls and plasma to to get enough money to scrape together to to move to New York. So I got a call from the general manager of the Lost Colony and they were renovating their, their theater and he said, Josh, and this is like before the days of like solid Internet. I mean they were like, you know, you had your AOL and you had, you know, your prodigy, if you remember that kind of thing and those sort of things that were out there. And he said, Josh, we have a problem. And he said, I know you're a resourceful guy. The seating manufacturer that we had chosen to go in for, and this is about 1800 seats in this amphitheater, has gone under and we don't have a seeding manufacturer and the seeds are supposed to go in in six weeks.

30:22 And do you know anyone? And in that moment I think is what really changed things for me as far as getting back to New York and getting into the industry because I could have said no, I don't know anyone, I'm sorry. I, you know, I wish I did. But instead I said, well, I I may know some some folks. I mean, you know some good possibilities. You know some good options for this. Let let me come back to you. So I hung up the phone and immediately started calling friends, friends of friends who do you know, who you know in seating ended up with talking to the Rep from Irwin Seating at the time. And I said, look, if I hand you a deal to do 1800 seats I need and they had given me what they needed to pay for them and I said can you do it for this amount and figure in $10 a chair for me as a as a Commission on this. And they came back to me and said yes, we can do that and we can deliver in six weeks.

31:29 So I had them send a sample down and so your cuts 18. Grand just for saying yes to something that you had no idea where you were going to find seeds, right? Well, it exactly. It didn't end up quite being that much, but still at the end of the day they got their seats. They didn't pay any more than they were going to pay before. I ended up getting a Commission on it. And we took all of that money. We moved to New York, paid for six months rent upfront to our landlord and basically said we're going to give our six months self six months to a year to not have to worry about money. Let's just go and get work and figure things out and and so that was a huge thing and that's something that I always tell people it's like when you're faced with a question that's like can you do this or do you know this is the answer always no if if if your initial answer is no or should you take a beat and say let me think about this for a second and and I and I think that's really what got us back to New York and really got me going to get started in the industry.

32:33 Yeah. Well, and you know. It's funny because it's a common theme and it's not even really, let me think about that, You know, rock'n'roll business especially. It's yes. You know, Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've I've. I'm a seating expert. You know no problem without getting yourself into trouble by, you know, BS ING people and without obviously causing a problem to the customer. But you know, most of the most successful people I know in this industry are people who say yes and then figure it out, you know, somehow. Yeah, exactly. I I like to say I I like to jump off the Cliff sometimes and just learn to fly on the way down. I mean, that's the you know, Yeah, I. Agree with you. I agree with you.

33:14 Yeah. Yeah. So you're in New York. Rent is paid for six months, which is cool. That was a smart decision. And So what was? What was work? So I kind of picked up some of the contacts I left off year or so before started picking up some shows for design. I was actually doing some production electrician work and kind of realized, OK, if I'm going to design, I kind of need to put down the wrench and, you know, and focus on design. Yeah. Because you do get to a point where you don't want people thinking of you as, oh, that guy's such a great production electrician. He's not a designer. And so they do.

33:56 They do and and it's, you know, I, I will say that and and I love doing production electrician work. I love getting my hands dirty doing those kind of things. And I think that anyone who does that who is also a designer benefits from having their hands on on the gear and and being able to do those things. I certainly worked with a number of designers in that time that I won't name names. When I was production electrician and they were what I call book designers, you know, they went to school, they learn by the book that was the design work that they did. But when it came to physically putting a show in and making things happen, some of the conversations that you'd have, it was, it was pretty apparent that they didn't quite understand what someone was going through to be able to give them what it was that they were asking for.

34:45 And I think that, you know, people that actually have that experience on both sides, even when they do put down the wrench, they they gain a lot from that. So yeah, it's a good point. Yeah, you. Know, I tell. You back to a racing analogy. So you know when my son first started racing and he was in carts and you know I had to buy a trailer and I had an F-250 pickup truck and I never wrenched on any of his carts. Thank God, because he he would have crashed. But I I'll tell you what by driving the truck, I learned how to pack the trailer. Because when it was packed wrong, you know it was doing this down the.

35:26 Highway people. Were flipping me the bird and stuff and when it was packed properly, so I went, what's the deal here? And somebody said, well it's all packed wrong. So I said, OK, show me how it should be done. And they did. And from then on, whatever mechanics we were using or whatever, I'd say, hey, make sure you do it like this, you know. And so sometimes you have to put the show in to learn how to design the show. It's it's a very, very good point. Yeah, actually and that's a great, that's a great analogy and I think you know. I have many. No, it's not that wacky because I I will tell you, I mean, when I was in New York during this time, I was, I was, I was designing a show. Gosh, where was it?

36:08 It was in the theater at Marymount Manhattan College, and it was a show that was supposed to be workshopped for what would hopefully be, you know, a Broadway run or something moving. Moving on didn't. Didn't get that far, but I remember there was no one that could. We we needed some additional fixtures. We got to a point in the show, Some numbers were added. Things happened. We didn't have things in place. You know it. It wasn't because it was dance. They wanted some very specific lighting in certain places and we just didn't have the fixtures to do that. It wasn't like we had a bunch of moving lights, you know, at the time or we had, you know, LE DS that could change color. It was like you plan for every fixture and what every fixture did.

36:57 And so I remember thinking, OK, well, I need to get these. I'm calling around, how can I get these quickly? They have to be put in tomorrow. Who's got them? It ends. It ends up being that Altman Lighting had had what we needed. They were the closest to that could get it all together that quickly and said we'll send someone up. So we got a truck, we rented a truck and I was the only one that could end up driving up there to pick the stuff up. And I didn't mind. My my brother was with me and he was often my production electrician when I was designing. And so we drive. We drive up to Yonkers. And have you, have you ever been up to the Altman lighting of Yonkers when it was up there? So friends.

37:39 With Bobby Altman. Oh yeah, great. So you know when you come out of there there's like there's this big hill that you kind of have to have to go up and and just thinking about you and the and packing the truck. Well they they would because of the the union agreement and everything you know they would sort of drop the gear and then you had to put it on the truck And so you know it's like pile a bunch of cable at the back end of the truck to keep the boxes from rolling and and all of this. And so I remember that happened yeah you you did have to plan and as we're pulling out that big hill at Altman my my brother and I hear like this really loud banging noise and we're like oh crap. And I feel, I feel the truck like doing this. And so we get up, we pull over, we go back the back door the the roll up door is completely just bent out. We can't get it open.

38:32 We had to like put a Jack in there and try to straighten this thing out, destroyed it because it wasn't packed properly, right. It was just chucked in there and and that's that's the way it happened. So not about analogy to understand how you have to do something before you have to. Oh, absolutely. No. And I mean, I I also, I grew up playing in bands and you know, when we toured it wasn't very glamorous. It was a converted school bus where the front half was passenger seats and the back half was our gear. And if you wanted to sleep, you'd usually crawl into the back half and sleep on top of some speaker boxes or something or drum, you know, cases or whatever. And if it was packed right, you were kind of safe. If it wasn't then things moved around. You ended up wedged in between 2:00, you know two sets of speakers or something.

39:22 And so yeah, I've I've always sort of learned to appreciate a a well packed truck, I guess in really weird ways. Right, Yeah. Absolutely. So that's cool. You. You. Had that, so you had the tech experience that probably helped you design better and and probably thinking about the crews too, thinking about the people who are going to have to work on this stuff or put it in or take it out or whatever. Like, I think rock'n'roll shows are designed like that these days, but I I don't even know that theater shows are even to this day. Oh no, I still, I still feel like theater shows to this day. Even being a part of them and being being just the designer and and not doing all that other stuff.

40:08 You know, I I see that. I feel like there's a lot of magic that kind of happens with with theater shows or expected magic that just happens. You know. I do feel like sometimes people think they can just wave a wand and. That's all it takes. Go and and make it happen. And it it is important to understand all of those people, the crew and staff and who who has to do what to make those things happen. So yeah, yeah, really important. So how did so you did that that I think you said it was a dance thing at at Marymount and I think that ran for a little while, right, Like for a couple years or something? No, actually that was a really short run on on that one. Yeah, it was.

40:56 I was doing another show where I was the designer and we did it. We did a production. Do you know Herrick Coleman? I do know Herrick, yeah. Yeah, Herrick. Has Herrick ever been on on the podcast? Herrick won't come on. I've. I've asked him a few times. Everyone other than Herrick has come on, but Herrick won't. And I think it's come on. I think it's 'cause I always ask him during an election cycle and you know, him. And I, let's just say I don't vote the same as him or most people in our industry probably. But I'm not vocal about it. Like I'm not. I've never, I'm not a winger of any wing. You know, I'm Canadian. Like normally we're pretty liberal people, but I'm also a businessman. So when you become a businessman, generally you start looking, OK, what are my costs looking like here?

41:41 Why am I paying this fee for whatever? And that gets you leaning to voting a particular way. But I don't care about it. Like, I've never even asked my friends who they voted for or any of that kind of stuff. But I I just have a suspicion that that's maybe. Part. Of part of. The decision you do you Herrick does him, I'll do me. I like. I like Herrick. You know, like the reason I ask. Go go ahead. I did AI did a zoom thing during COVID. I don't know that you ever came on one of them, but we did a weekly, like a happy hour every Wednesday at 5:00. All for, I don't know, I think we did 70 episodes or something. And. And it would be, you know, anything from 30 to 120 people on there any given week.

42:27 Right. And sometimes it was heated, sometimes it was really fun. But Herrick was always there, you know, bitching about everything while he's sitting in a beautiful library, drinking probably, you know, $200 Scotch or something, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and I mean, it was just classic Herrick, right? But, you know, it was always a lot of fun and I got to know him really well during that period. Like I I hadn't really done any business with Herrick prior to that. And we've talked a lot since then. But I like the guy. I wish he'd come on. Yeah, well I bring him up because we, I mean we're we're friends and when whenever I'm in the city, we try to you know try to see him and of course at all the trade shows and we like to hang out.

43:11 We talk Scotch because I'm in Scotland. But he the reason I bring him up is because I think I first met Herrick and I was either 98 or 99. I designed a show at at the new vehicle on 42nd St. and Herrick had just was just finishing a show that was coming out of there and that's that's where we met. I think he was doing a show called Crash Test Dummies and it was this crazy crazy show where these acrobats were on these big car springs. You know another car analogy for you to come up with something with and they were jumping around like crash test dummies and doing this whole thing.

43:53 And I thought this thing is crazy. It was the first time I ever really saw, got my hands on some Color Kinetics gear to kind of bring that back into conversation. Actually talked to the folks at Color Kinetics in in Boston at that point about, you know, if they needed a representative in the city and you know what that looked like. But yeah, so I I did a show then that went in there and we were kind of touring it around the US. So it's sort of every other weekend I would fly out to the to the new place and you know put the show in, make sure it went in OK and then fly back and then do that a few weeks later. And so it was it was a it was a fun time where I felt like I had all of these things going on.

44:40 You know, like when you're really getting things going and at that age in in your 20s and and you're just like you don't say no to anything. You know, I was taking whatever show came up I was doing, I was lighting shows. I was lighting some television as well, so did did quite a bit of work, did some work at Screen Jump Studios and then also out in out of Kauffman, Astoria doing some things for Nickelodeon and Lifetime Networks. And you know, like you said though, an exciting. Time like you could see it becoming a real career at this point. Obviously. Oh yeah, I mean it was just. Like, shit, I've.

45:20 Made it. I'm, I'm actually. Made it doing lighting, yeah, you know. I I had joined United Scenic Artists. You know I was doing you know, I mean it was the whole thing. It was right. I was living, living the dream at that point in time. And I think you you learn things during that time. You learn good life lessons. And I think one of the things I learned was you can't always say yes to everything because you you only have so much to give and and if you can't give 100% to to what you're working on, then you're not giving enough to the projects that you're working on. I mean you you can't you can't get 50% to 10 projects if you can only do five projects and give 100%. So I remember there was 1 winter in the city and it was so cold and we had these big snowstorms and I I got so sick I walk in ammonia.

46:08 I was doing like I think 4 shows at one time. So I was literally walking across town, back and forth, theater to theater as these things were happening. At the same time I was doing a showdown in down in the village, little little tiny off off at HP playwrights down in down in the village. And I remember walking into that space and thinking I am so sick. I am so sick. And I just crawled in under the seating bank and like laid next to dinner racks and had to fall asleep. And the production managers would not let anyone bother me. And they essentially let me just sleep down there for 8 hours.

46:50 And I think after, I think after that show is when I really kind of leveled off and went OK, OK. I felt like I've, I've made it to this point. I'm doing what I want to do. I'm doing what I love. But it's getting insane. So we have to like really, you know, level this, back it up. Yeah. So. But a fun time. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it. It sounds, you know, again like my son right now he's, he's off, actually he just flew out today. He's he's coaching a bunch of drivers right now because you know, racing is difficult in that it's really, really expensive when you get into cars and and you don't have full sponsorship.

47:31 So he's been very fortunate to have some sponsorship, but it just keeps getting more expensive, like into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars for a season kind of thing, right? So you need massive corporate sponsorship or a team that just says, hey, we'll hire you as a driver. And he's got some of those options sort of rearing their heads. But meanwhile he's out making money coaching other drivers, young drivers and stuff. And you know, it's it's sort of one of the things that I've always taught him and I say to everybody, like when we used to have mechanics who worked for us and you know, generally they'd always complain I'm not making as much money as you, you know, I don't make enough money, blah, blah. My answer has always been, look, you know you're doing exactly what you want to be doing.

48:15 You you're doing what you'd be doing if you had to pay to do it and you're getting paid. So you have one life, you've one life, shut up, smile and and you know, go to work. And my son said that to me. He said, dad, I love coaching these kids. It's a blast. I can't believe I get paid to do it, you know. And he coaches on simulator too, which, you know, because he got very good at SIM throughout the whole COVID thing. So he he coaches drivers on on simulator over like they're on discord during the whole time and he's. He's. Watching what they're doing and saying you're turning too early, you're turning too late, whatever. So yeah, I mean, that's amazing that you managed to and probably, you know, the whole Frank Sinatra thing, you know, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. So you did it in New York, you know, Which is kind of cool, right?

49:06 Yeah, yeah, it was. It was very cool. Yeah. My, my wife was doing her thing there at the same time. I mean we we were like ships passing in the night sometimes. You know, she, I, I would be coming home from a really late, late call and she's literally walking to the train in the morning to to go to her office. Yeah. But yeah, it was really good. You know, I and I continued that on into the, you know, early 2000s and then just really, really enjoyed that time in New York. I think we we've made a lot of contacts and we got to the point where we felt like, OK, we want to have a family. We don't, we don't necessarily need to be in the city anymore. I think a lot of people go through that where they're like, I got to be in the heart of it all. I got to be in the in the middle of the rat race and then you get to a point where it's like, OK, I can, I've established enough that I can I can do what I'm doing from outside the city. So we so we made a decision to move to North Carolina to Raleigh, NC, which is we had a lot of friends kind of in that area and we had North Carolina ties from our Lost Colony days. And you know, all of that sort of thing. And and you know what I was going to do was just continue to do, continue to design.

50:25 I would go back and forth to the city. I would go to regional theatre, I would go do you know fly out to wherever. I just needed the airport, and Raleigh had a pretty good airport, so it made sense. So we decided to have a family, had our son Sam That was a great place to to really raise him. When we got there, I took a position I had I had somebody once tell me you you can have no one pull the wool over your eyes on anything because you've really seen all sides of this industry. Took a position as a installations manager for a small theatrical dealer lighting company doing doing install work. I was there for about a year and as I continued to design and and do what I was doing and then was approached by the ETC Rep in the territory and, you know, said, you know, hey, are you interested in in coming to, to work with me as a Rep And I thought, well, I've never been a Rep I've seen what he's done and I got to know him.

51:28 And he was a wonderful, wonderful man. His name was Bill, only he's no longer with us. But he said, yeah, come come to work. So he took me out on a job interview on his bass boat, as you do in North Carolina. And yeah, and I ended up working with Bill for, you know, about the next four years or so before having conversations with Robert Long and Curtis Case Fang at Theatre Consultants Collaborative. I known Robert who had been a lost colony guy his whole family had for so many years. And turns out Robert and I lived only a few blocks away from each other in New York and never knew it. But they had started a a a consultant agency called Theatre Consultants Collaborative and talked about me coming to join them to design, to design theaters. You know, I was designing a lot of lighting and control systems. I've certainly gotten a lot of experience doing that on the Rep side of life with with Bill at the WH Only company and went on to be a theater consultant with them for more than a decade, designing hundreds of hundreds of facilities, you know, all over, but primarily US and Canada. So now you're designing projects, though you're not designing.

52:53 Shows you're designing, installs. You're designing the. Actual theater designing theaters, Yeah. So as a theater consultant, I mean, so we're, we're constantly working with architects and engineers. I mean, those are typically our clients. You know, here's a concept for a for a new theater building. And then of course, we would design all of the theater components, the room shaping, the systems. We work with the acoustician. We designed all the lighting control systems, rigging and automation systems, you know, putting all of those things into into place. And I found very quickly that I loved doing that as much or more than I did putting, putting shows into theaters and designing shows.

53:37 Because the thing with a show is that you never know how long that show is going to run. You know, unless it's a set run and it's a short run, you know you don't know. So you put all this work into it and then the show may run six weeks, it may run, you know, six months. It has a lifespan typically unless you're a, you know, phantom or or something that just runs, runs forever. Not many of us have had those those kind of shows, but we where you have where you're designing a building, you're really thinking long term. So it's you know how are the users going to use this building for the next 25 years, what is that going to look like? How can, how can it be scalable for technology purposes, Where are we going to be with technology in 25 years, you know when it comes to, when it comes to our industry. So I found that really trying to plan and design for those challenges and and those types of spaces was something that I absolutely loved and and and continue to do to this day and it's so I was with TCC for more than a decade actually Apple contacted me to to do a commercial for on how we use iPad for theater consulting.

54:52 So if you Google you know if you Google theater consulting iPad there there I am you'll see in the Apple commercial. Yeah yeah. But I mean, we we, we did a lot of wonderful projects and I love those guys left left on the good terms with them. Started 3 LR design in 2016. You know, TCC was primarily living in the theater world doing only theater projects. I wanted to do arenas and cruise ships and other types of other types of projects that didn't fit into that, that theater mold and architectural or containment type design and so kind of ventured out no sooner did that happen, Marcel. Then.

55:42 Then I got a phone call that my dear friend and previous employer Bill only had passed away from WH only company and I got a call from his widow and she basically said I think Bill would want you to have this company. Would you be interested? In. In buying this company and it was never on my radar to do that. Never, never on my radar. If you'd said do you want to be a Rep again? I would say no it wasn't my radar. I was happy doing what I was doing but she put it to me in such a way and and it was a really good opportunity that you know my wife and I talked about it and I decided OK I I think it's the right thing to do. So we we purchased the Rep agency but you had. Already started 3LR.

56:37 Already started 3 LR. Yeah so. So now we have this sort of situation where I had a a design firm and a design company designing projects and I had a Rep agency that we we have purchased. Now our our territory for the Rep. Agency. Exactly. Our territory for the Rep agency was the Carolinas and Bermuda, North and South Carolina and Bermuda. And we, I tried to really draw a line in the sand. It was like, OK, here, here's how we do this and here's how we avoid this conflict. I, you know, won't take projects that will pay out commissions. You know on the website that I'm designing, I won't you know or or if I do take a project there's no Commission paid on that particular you know on that project. So there was a lot of kind of balancing that and we're working that out.

57:35 But we try to be very transparent about that and owning, owning both those companies added a number of great people to I I renamed it Huko Lighting and controls people called it Huko anyway because it was The Who only company and it took on a lot of great folks there and really built that company up. And then five years later was approached by Cesco, the largest Rep agency in the country and they wanted to acquire Hookah. So we we did a deal they they took Huko, I stepped away and went right back to three LR which I had kept going you know through that whole process.

58:17 So that really allowed me to refocus on on three LR and and and doing what we were doing. Very cool at that point. The pieces just all seem to fall together so well for you, you know, throughout. I know. It's almost like you did it on purpose, you know, All of it. It's. Well, I did have people say I Did you plan all of this? Like, yeah. I mean, it sure looks like it, yeah. It looks like. It it looks amazing. I can't be that. Yeah it can't be that that fortunate to to plan it but but yeah so 3 LR was going great. We were doing you know a number of projects, some larger scale stuff of course a lot of things we were you know signing ND as on things we can't talk about you know with with three LR we we designed a lot of projects that you know I I like to say we we white label projects for people.

59:08 So there may be other consultants, other designers that everyone knows that we we get, we can be the guts behind the glory and we're OK with with. Doing that, somebody else gets the credit. Is that what you're saying? I'm not going to, I'm not going to say all the work. I'm not going to say all the work. But yeah, but we, we actually do a lot of white label design for for other companies. We do that here in in the UK and and in the US and of course we do, we do, we have. So there's, gosh, there's fourteen of us now AT3LR design. So we have offices in, let's see, we have a person in are they all remote?

59:53 We have a person. They're all remote, all remote. Yes, we have. We have folks up and down the East Coast. We have Louisville, KY. We have a person in Austin, in San Francisco. And then we have some people over on this side of the pond as. Well. So everyone works remote. I should say that that I, I did kind of borrow that model from TCC. It's a it's a tweaked version of that model. But TCC was one of the first consultancy firms to say we're all going to be remote, we're all going to work from home. People thought we were we were crazy for doing that. And then after a while they started to realizing maybe we don't need all of these brick and mortar. You know what, So. You know, I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's boring.

1:00:36 But my company, my company, Gearsource, was remote before. Before it was cool. You know we we've been remote for I don't know probably 2015, sixteen something like that. You know sold the building just completely got rid of all offices and everybody worked remote. And so when COVID happened, I was actually helping people and companies to become remote and I found so many companies had like these on Prem servers and and software and didn't know how to get into like cloud and didn't. Know how to? Yeah, they just didn't have Google Drive.

1:01:18 They didn't have any of these tools. So I was helping people. I was teaching people how to use Zoom. You know when COVID happened and you know now it's funny to even talk about that because everyone knows. But I wanted to mention and you know it's not an advertisement or anything. They're not a sponsor. They don't pay me. But I use a remote product called Rome. RO dot AM is the is the web domain. You should check it out. So it's it's basically it bridges sort of the gap between remote with like occasional zoom calls and an actual in person office. And so on your screen you actually see an office building.

1:01:58 It could be multiple floors, you could have a design floor, whatever floor, a purchasing floor and you see all of the people, you see who's in their offices, you see if they've got a guest in their office. You can knock on the door of any of the offices and then you've got conference rooms and you can name all of these different conference rooms. And conference rooms can have all kinds of different assets in them. You know, you can have video conference rooms, audio only, You can have whiteboards. It saves the whiteboards in the conference room. So if you pop back into Conference Room 3, whatever you were working on in there is up on the screen. It's amazing. It's been a game. That sounds really cool. It's yeah, I just pulled it.

1:02:39 I just pulled it up here. Yeah, I mean, if you need an introduction or anything, just reach out to me and let me know and I can connect you directly. It's a really new company, but they're amazing. They're it's It's been the coolest piece of software I've I've latched into in the past few years, so. Yeah, no, that's that's great. I mean we, yeah, we back in the day with with TCC we were you know running stuff like Microsoft Groove. It was like one of the first like remote sync to computer bits that they had, you know that pre dated so much of the cloud cloud type products that we have now. So, yeah, when we got to COVID and we were just like, oh, another day in the office, I mean, because it was just, that's what it was, yeah. Same for me.

1:03:21 Same for me. It didn't. From a standpoint of being able to communicate with our staff and being able to do our job, nothing changed. In fact, it got easier, right, because everyone else was so attentive. You know, everyone else was available to jump on zoom calls with us and stuff. So yeah, so yeah, so now you've at that point, I guess. So when did you sell 2221? We sold in 22, OK 22. So then you just leaned completely into 3 LR at that point. And So what does 3LR mean? I There's got to be a meaning behind. Sure. It's just random letter, random number and letters that we we chose out in there.

1:04:03 No. Yeah. You're serious there. I was like, wow, sure. Why not. We're like, this sounds good. It rolls off the tongue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were actually, Matt Lloyd came up with it. I I mentioned that before. So we were, we were sitting in, I forget where we were at AUSITT or something and we're sitting in a bar and he was wanting to watch Six Nations rugby and we're we're having this conversation. And anyway he said, so I have this idea and he's telling me about it and he says, you know, do have you read about the third lighting receptor in the human eye? And I said no, tell me about that. So he starts telling me about it.

1:04:43 And do you know about this? Do you know, do you know about the third light? OK, OK. So there's a, there was a maybe almost 20 years ago or so, there was a, there's a third, a third lighting receptor that was found in the human eye. And basically that receptor is what allows us to experience emotion through light. And so even blind people we find out have this have this receptor. So someone who can't physically see can still feel emotion through different types of of light. But those of us who can't see the lighting really effects our emotion.

1:05:24 So he was like wouldn't it be cool to have, you know company and we called it 3 LR because we're essentially we're we're lighting by by motion or lighting by emotion. I mean he was coming up with all these things. So the idea is that whatever we do in our industry when we're designing, we're not just doing it because something looks good because there's we're trying to evoke emotions and and people and make that connection through light whether they know it or realize it or not. And I and I like to always say if you're if you go to see a show and you have you have this beautiful scene on stage, seeing that scene is going to make you feel one way or another. You know it immediately made me think of watching Jennifer Tipton do do a session on various angles of light and talking about how do you feel, how do you feel when we have direct sidelight.

1:06:20 How do you feel when it's just top down? What is the feeling if it's coming up from under the chin, under the eyes, what what does that do? That's and it's very in a simplistic way that, you know, that really kind of hits true with what what 3 LR is. But but really, it's just everything that we do should, should, cause us to to feel certain emotion. You know, I hate to, I hate to sound negative or anything, but has anyone ever, like spoken to lay persons about this and said, you know, how does that make you feel? How does this make you feel? And they're like, I don't know, like, I don't feel like, 'cause, you know, I remember way back in the day when when, like a nightclub owner would would say, but you know, this light's more expensive with than this light.

1:07:09 So tell me, how many more beer will I sell with this light versus this light? And you know, the answer is usually none. More beer, Sir, you know, but. None more beer, yeah? None more beer, Sir. But you know, like is this just a bunch of us lighting geeks talking about this kind of stuff and the third receptor and all of these things or or is it really a thing? It could be, but I mean, personally, I believe it's really a thing. Have I ever gone, have I ever gone to a bar and had those conversations? No. I mean I know that's just an example, but I I do feel like it is something you know and obviously studies have been done on circadian rhythm and you know how lighting affects us in a in a daily environment, you know, sunlight at certain times, how that really effects our psyche.

1:08:01 You know, there are whole buildings now being designed around. You know, what do we do inside that's emulating what's going on outside so that our bodies think it's a normal thing. It doesn't affect us in a negative. Way and people buying like $100,000 red light beds and stuff like that. You know it's lighting is definitely becoming a thing when it comes to health and sciences and stuff. You know, myself I was in the LED business from a very early time in that business. So I followed that whole wave of circadian rhythm and and you know companies that were actually creating lighting that was automatically following, you know the natural and and so yeah, you know again, but trying to use that as a selling point on a customer is a tough one because you know you're like this is really going to change your mood or whatever. And they're like, I don't know, I don't feel any different. You know, I I I'll give you a really interesting little story about that and it has to do with Penguins, which I'm not going to say where.

1:09:06 Yeah, period. That's all there is. Penguins are Penguins are interesting. I'm not going to say where, but maybe five or six years ago was at a gala in in a large aquarium and we were we were in town for some some other project work and there was this fundraising gala. So where we go to this thing? And we're kind of all wandering through the having our sipping our champagne and you know, having hors d'oeuvres. And oddly enough I think they serve fish cakes in the aquarium, which was hilarious. So. So we're we get to the Penguin, the Penguin exhibit. And I'm standing there and I'm looking at the Penguins and one of the animal husbandry, you know, aquarium staff people are there and and I'm looking at the Penguins. And suddenly the lights on this side of the of the Penguin area go and go out and the other side, these lights come on and and and there's sort of more of a blue light, you know, And and I looked and I look at this, this person standing there and I'm thinking about this.

1:10:22 And when it happened, it was almost like when you see in a film and of course they have to add the sound effect, like like all the contactors are going off. That's what it felt like. Right. And I look at her and I said, does that always happen that way? And she said, yeah, because what I noticed was as soon as that happened, all the Penguins come up out of the water. They crawl up onto their little concrete pads or whatever by their cave. They all huddle up into a little ball and they go to sleep like that. I mean they were, it all happened like within 30 seconds the light changed. They did it. It was like a Pavlov's dog type of effect. And I said does that always happen that? And she said, yeah, that's how they know it's night time now, you know, So it was day and now it's night. And I said is that how it happens in nature? And she looked at me and I was like, what do you mean? And I said, I mean when you go outside, does the sun just go off and the the the moon is just on or you know, stars are up and she's like she's like, no, but we're in an aquarium. So and I'm thinking, OK, there's got to be better ways to do this.

1:11:31 So we started going down this whole Rd. of like how can we do better for the aquariums and animals and all this. And we start working with these zoo people. This is 3 alarms. So we're putting, you know, we're putting all this together. I had an assistant at the time named named Noah and he really got into it. And we were, as we were going through this, this process, what we we come to find out that a number of aquariums do it this way for the Penguins. And one of them, there were case studies where the Penguins were getting cataracts. And the reason they were getting cataracts is because the light angle of the light bouncing off of their their cages or their environment was incorrect because they live in a very low angle light typically. But because the light was coming like this, it was bouncing up into their eyes and giving them cataracts. And we said we can, we can come up with a solution to change this in a lighting way that tracks the sun, makes it a more normal thing, puts the lighting at an angle that does what it's supposed to do.

1:12:33 How much is that going to cost? We put up all this and we say here's what it's going to cost. They come back to us and they say, well, it's less expensive for us every year to just send the Penguins over to the whatever, vet such and such and have their cataracts removed, Oh my God, and put them back in than it is to to do the lighting. That's terrible. And isn't that crazy, crazy story so I mean. Yeah, well, I learned a little bit of that stuff too. Again, you know in the LED business when being here in Florida, you know, turtle lighting is a pretty big thing. And you know what was happening with a lot of the big condo buildings and hotels and stuff during mating season, Turtles think that these deck lights, patio lights and stuff on the hotels are the moon.

1:13:25 And so they start going towards these lights and they end up getting run over on the road or or they lay eggs by the pool or you know, just bad things happen. And so they started forcing them to use a particular orange. I can't remember what the bandwidth was or anything, but so they they had to use these orange lights on all the pool decks and houses and stuff. And a lot of still a lot of the billionaires and stuff who have houses on the beach, they still they pay the fines because the fine is like $15 a day or something and they just pay the fines and kill the dirtles, you know, but, but. Yeah, that's a yeah, yeah we we went through that. We did during COVID I mentioned we designed a Viking ship, so we did the the Mississippi ship and we do ships, we do the ship wide lighting and control system.

1:14:16 So not just the venues or things like that, but ship wide lighting and control and that was one of the things we had to take into account was you know what's the wildlife situation is this thing floating up and down the Mississippi, turtles, bats, bats were a big thing. How does what we do with lighting affect all of these animals. And so it's it's so much more than I think of like I walk into a theater and think OK we have to make the scene look a certain way. We have to get lights in this certain place. That's it. Right. This is. A whole lot of problems floating up and down the road. You don't want to piss off the bat people, you know, they're they're not good people to piss off. Yeah, that's wild. So you know, I know one of your big projects, obviously one of the biggest projects was the Sphere and I know that I think you warned me.

1:15:03 You can only talk so much about it, but can you talk about how you were involved or or? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would say there are, there are literally tons and tons of different firms involved with that project. Obviously, it's a massive, massive undertaking. We were, we were involved in, you know what I think is a probably a very, very small way, but I mean essentially we we did some, we did some white label design for some other firms. We we did do specifications for for the lighting and control systems in the sphere, architectural lighting and control system. Yeah, yeah, I should say, yeah.

1:15:49 And and it was amazing. It was an amazing project. I mean, there's so many people involved that seeing everyone come together because there's so many silos of work that are happening simultaneously, and to see the whole thing come together to be what it is, is is pretty pretty incredible. Well, you. You know Brad Nelms, who works with me at at Gearsource. He he was telling me one time about how all the video panels went together. You know, as far as being built in sections and then taken over in sections and the exterior LED panels and it was just wild. It's wild. Just the scope of that project.

1:16:29 It's just completely insane. It is when it is. I love looking at the exterior up close to, because when you see it, you know, on the horizon it's, you know, it's just this amazing, beautiful display, right? But you get up close and to realize how far apart those pixels actually are and that you can see right through it. It's just on. The exterior. Don't. I don't remember off the top of my head, but it is impressively distant from one another when you're when you're up. Push like something like that. No, no more, more than that. I think. Really, I think they're a a foot or more.

1:17:09 I have to. Don't don't don't quote me. On that it's all good. I'm just. Curious. Yeah. I'm just curious. Yeah, I. Have to far apart. I don't think I've actually been to Vegas since it's been open. So I've, I've seen it multiple times in being built, but I haven't been there cuz I missed LDI last year and so I haven't been there in since I guess almost two years ago, a year and a half ago or whatever. But yeah, I mean, you know, I think everyone I talk to has a different opinion of the sphere. You know, I've talked to locals who hate it. They think it's an eyesore from the outside. I think it's kind of cool from the outside. I think from a marketing standpoint, it's as big as it gets.

1:17:51 You know, you're not going to, again, going back to racing during the F1 race, like watching the, the happy face guy, you know, with his eyes following cars as they were going down the track. I mean, that was just really cool, you know, corny, but cool. Just a lot of really cool things that I've seen that that do, you know, that maybe again, as locals they go, OK, I get it now let's move on. Right. You know, from a show standpoint, I'm just not. I don't know, like everyone talks to me, every single designer, every friend I know in the industry keeps talking to me saying you gotta see it. It's incredible, the U2 thing and I missed it. It's over. And I'm not sad.

1:18:33 I missed it, to be perfectly honest, cuz a I'm not a fan of YouTube, so I'd be there looking at just the technology and to pay 1200 bucks a ticket or whatever to go see a whole bunch of video gear. You know, I'll wait. I'll see it like, you know, when it's got the planetarium playing in there or something and I'll go, I'll go, wow, this is amazing, you know, but. Right. But I I wouldn't want to see a band like I mentioned to you before we started recording. You know, I I've always, since I was a kid, been a huge Led Zeppelin fan. If they were ever to reunite for one more show and do it in the sphere, I wouldn't want to see it. I just wouldn't want to see it. Like to me, you know, you can't see the band. All you can see is all this other stuff that's going on and and so yeah, I don't know.

1:19:18 That's just my opinion, and I'm sure there's a lot of people rolling their eyes listening to this, but it's. Just no, I think it's, I mean I think it's certainly impressive in there. I I agree with you. Like when you when you're up in there and you're looking down, it's like to see the band and you know where are they? They're down there. Baseball, I mean it's it's it's obviously an immersive experience and and I think when you're going to a show there, you're probably going for that experience just as much if not more than going to see whatever, whatever event that you're going to see. And that I think as we were talking a little bit before, it will be interesting to see once they start having other types of events in there, you know, whether it's a fight or some other type being a sporting event or whatever that may be.

1:20:02 Yeah. You know. I'm a big fan of Dana White and the UFC and and he's taking a big risk by doing this and he's doing it on Mexican Independence Day and and so it's a big, big deal for the UFC, for him and for the sphere to show that, hey, you can do a normal thing in here but make it, you know, a spectacle. I'm still curious as to what that's going to look like, 'cause you got two guys fighting, you know, and all this stuff going on, on the screens. Like is it just a big imag? Is it you know, I? Don't know, right. Are they just like massively fighting? You know? I don't know. Like, it's going to be interesting. I don't. Know it's going to be interesting, you know, like every time somebody punches, is it going to be like Batman and Robin with pow bang, you know?

1:20:44 Boom ripples across the whole. Space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a video game. Like, make it into a video game, right? Like, you know, we punch something in a game and and it all goes slow motion and you know, like, who knows what they're gonna do? Like they're having creative meetings every day, I hear, you know? For that event, so. It's gonna be interesting, but yeah, I mean that had to be cool to be a part of it. It's a nice thing to put on your resume. Even if you were doing white label work for another design firm. You were there. You did work. You. You. Spent some. Stuff and whatever, right, so. That's cool, right? You know another? Yeah, that was definitely a cool project. Another topic I will I actually wanted to ask you about. I got a whole bunch of things and we're gonna run out of time at some point today.

1:21:27 But you know, another conversation that I've been having with people that's a little bit controversial and certainly opinions from way over here to way over here. AI specifically relating to lighting design, systems design, lighting controls, when and how it replaces lighting operators. You know, just all kinds of of sort of topics around that. And you have some designers who say, yeah, it's disgusting. Anyone who even talks about it is crazy, but you know what I mean. It's one of those things like the Internet and the iPhone and whatever else.

1:22:07 It's not getting put back in the bottle. So you know, Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, I I feel like we're still very much in its infancy and I don't know, you know, who knows how far it's going to go. I mean we have dabbled personally 3LR with with some different AI platforms that are kind of out there. Of course everybody knows chat BT and and then Google has their Gemini now and and and how how those roll and we do in our industry I think is is yet to be seen. But I I know people that are actively trying to to work on some of these things. I mean from from my perspective, you know we're we're constantly putting up concepts and pitching concepts to clients and those those types of things.

1:22:59 So from a visual standpoint, it's been interesting kick some prompts into an AI knowing what we want to end up with and saying, OK, let's develop our concept visuals like we normally would and then using the tools that we would normally use. And now let's see if we can feed some prompts into an AI and tweak those prompts to get to get AI will come close to what it is we were trying to do. So we've kind of dabbled in and using it from a conceptual, conceptual standpoint where, you know, we can feed prompts into an AI, have it generate some images and try to create something similar to what we have spent oodles of time putting in in concepts.

1:23:44 And it comes up with some pretty wild and funky stuff. So I, you know, from that aspect, you know, I feel like it's a ways off, but I I understand it's constantly learning, yeah. Well, the. Big thing is the prompts. The big thing is the prompts, You know, that's like people don't necessarily, I'm not saying you don't understand this, but anyone who I've been on my own team or friends of mine who I've been talking to, they're like, you know, I'm even just trying to to get it to write a blog for me. And it's stupid and but you know how you set up the prompt and how you set up what your role is or what the A is role is? You know, you're a lighting designer or you're a sound engineer or you're a whatever, you're a theater consultant and you're looking at it from this viewpoint as you're designing it.

1:24:31 But the other thing like where I think, and sorry to interrupt here, but where I think some of the big change is going to come is when you get into purpose built GPTS. You know, like when you get like Dolly right now for images is useful, but it's it's not entirely useful for very basic stuff. It's really good for for anything beyond that it's not. But have you been watching Sora at all, like? For. That is getting insane. That's getting like there was one with balloons and stuff just a few days ago that got launched. That's just incredible. And that one, you know, like if I was in that world, I'd be a little bit more afraid because that seems to be coming really fast. Right.

1:25:18 Yeah. No, I agree. I I yeah I think I mean my opinion is we do need to protect ourselves and at in and I don't know if that's some kind of you know official legislature or something that there need to be some rules. I I think that our industry and and in general we all need to follow to make sure that anything that is being creative by a creator, a designer or consultant, someone like that that we are protecting protecting that person and the and the work that they do to the extent where they cannot be replaced or attempted to be replaced by by an AII mean obviously I know there were a number of strikes in in Hollywood for for this very reason you know recently and what was happening with film you know we we we sort of look at it a little more simply What's that? That's a slippery slope like to.

1:26:25 It is to say. That we're going to legislate. You know, we're going to put up boundaries, put up walls that say, you know, you can't create AI that replaces a human in lighting design or in whatever, these these specific roles. But you know, believe me, there's a lot more coders out there than there are lighting designers. And they're being replaced too, in some sense, you know, or they're going to have to move into some very specific, very specialized places. Meanwhile, there's a massive gap in in AI people, you know, people who understand and can figure out how to use AI in every company or situation or whatever. But yeah, I don't know, like I as much as I agree with you that there's a need to preserve the industry and to preserve jobs and all of those things.

1:27:12 Historically that hasn't gone well to stop technology, you know, otherwise we'd still have horses and carriages and. Things. Oh, sure, Yeah, yes. And I'm not suggesting that we don't use it at all. I'm just, I'm suggesting that we find, we find we lay down a set of guidelines that allow us to utilize its strengths to help us do better what we already know how to do. I I don't see any problem with that. I mean, to me that it's a tool. If we treat it as a tool that we are using to do what we need to do, that's great. And I think time's going to tell is is is what you know. All we could do is try to keep up and see what we can do and try to think about new ways to use it and how that might work and. Yeah, I don't know.

1:28:00 You know, I saw what's his name, Kurzweil, on on Joe Rogan couple weeks ago or last week or something. You know, I just don't know that we're going to be able to slow it down. You know, And like I think one thing where you're saying, you know, to protect or whatever, like 1 area that you might look at is that drafts or whatever require you to say that this was drafted using AI. If it was drafted using AI or if it was designed or programmed using AI, it has to be mentioned and then you know, God knows the unions or somebody will come in and say if anything has AI on it, you know, it's gotta be a higher fee or something, you know. But I just don't know that that's gonna work. Like, I I don't have great confidence that that we're gonna be able to, you know, because otherwise we're going to end up with with, you know, programmers. If we don't allow AI programming, for example, we're going to end up with robot programmers that look like humans but they're robots.

1:29:03 And I know that sounds insane, but how far away are we? You know, we're not, we're not 20 years away. So it's coming fast. I mean we've been talking to, I've got a device, an Amazon device sitting right here, right. I mean we've we've been talking to these devices now for years and years and you know having them do things for us and those have gotten better. But obviously those have limitations on what they can do or what they should be doing special things. But you know I won't lie when I said it was probably five or six years ago as I as I'm talking to these things in my house thinking how long is it until we can just talk to our lighting desk and does that remove the programmer from that situation will will the lighting dust know what we need what we mean does it learn what we say if we say things in a certain way as a designer to a programmer you know such an important thing in a show is is developing that relationship with with your programmer. They they know what you want when you say a certain thing. They think like that designer they have you know what I mean and and will we get to a point where AI can do that and is that a good thing or a bad thing.

1:30:09 I mean, I personally love the all human connection with anybody of. Course, of course. But I mean again, you can't deny the fact that this is coming. And and I'm not saying you are, but like for example you know me talking to the desk and saying OK, act like Eric Wade and program this show like Eric Wade would and or Patrick Dearson or you know, name your programmer put him in here. You know. You know act. Act like this person and pretend that I'm you know Peter Morse or Ken Billington or whatever and design A show like I would.

1:30:51 And you know it'll take you probably a couple hours to build the prompt properly. But at the end of the day, like it's gonna go through piles and piles and piles of history and give you something pretty close to what you're asking for. And you know, again, like, I think one of the challenges there and one of the things that's going to protect people is manufacturers are going to be very nervous about making AIA part of their platform to where it's not human controlled AI. In other words like where it would replace the programmer or operator I think any like if MIMA or or AVO or Obsidian or ETC. Or one of these companies was to say, hey, we have the first AI fully self driving console that's gonna cause some real problems to their sales you know in the. Short term.

1:31:49 Anyways, you know. That would be great It it will be interesting. I think we'll start seeing it maybe in baby steps. I mean I you know one of the things that I thought of at first if you're talking to a desk for instance is you know we're we're just trying to base in some different looks. So you know maybe I'm able the the desk understands the the rig it knows what what I have up there we're already doing we've been doing previous forever. So I mean it's, you know, it understands the rig and I say to it, you know, I want, I want to create this Moody scene with the backlight coming from this angle and blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, maybe we don't even have to give it that much of A prompt. Maybe it's. Similar to what I did on ABC show or on this show or on that show. Take this.

1:32:30 Look from that show, this look from that show and this one from over here. But I would think from your standpoint too, like from a from a systems design standpoint, like the ability to some of the basic functions, you know, give me, give me wiring schematics for blah blah blah, or set this up, you know, I want you to. Build. This for me and some of the the tedious, you know, repeated work that you have to do as the foundation of every job. You know, I could see AI taking care of a lot of that kind of stuff. Yeah, specifications. We write long form specification. If I'm writing a spec and it's 100 pages of a spec for a spec section you know then it's interesting to go.

1:33:12 And I've tried this with an AII wanted to see what the AI would come up with. I need a specification, you know, written in CSI. You know, 2018 format for blah blah, blah whatever. The spec section is mechanized rigging systems, you know, using these products here. Here's what I want you to do. And it would spit it out and it's like certain bits of it. It was like, I got this certain bits. It was like, I have no idea what this AI is talking about. What what is this? Yeah, sometimes. It just goes some. Generic. What are they doing? No, I've seen the same thing. I've seen the same thing. But you know, and again, I mean, then you can dial in the prompt and stuff. And some of the big changes I think are coming just from the conversational prompting to like, you know, now I'll sometimes I need an agreement for something, a, a contract that I would normally call my lawyer and talk to him and then I might write it myself or he'd write it. I've know way too much about the law, unfortunately. But now I'll just sit and talk to my phone and I'll say, yeah, I'm I'm thinking about doing this thing and I need a contract that would be written by a 10 year, you know, lawyer, contract lawyer who's involved in real estate and I need it to be blah blah blah.

1:34:23 And you end up with something pretty damn good, you know? And you might want to have it checked by your lawyer at the end of the day, but it's a lot cheaper than your lawyer writing it. So he'll charge you 4 hours to write it, or 1/2 hour to read it. Perhaps you know. Or Or he just feeds a great prompt into an AI and does it himself, right? That's the. Why you gotta. I mean, lawyers and doctors should be worried right now because the doctors are the other one, like, you know, with all the people using Google doctors already, you know, like I got a sore throat. What should I do? You know, a lot of those types of things I think already have displaced doctors, but now with AII mean, it's incredible.

1:35:04 And it's better because, you know, your doctor's just Googling it on their end. Like, you know, it hurts when I do this, you know, And they're typing that into the computer, you know, moving left arm to a 90° angle, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it spits out, well, it's probably this, right? So AI does that, but even better. And you don't have to pay all those fees and stuff. So I think we're going to see a lot of those changes happening. Unfortunately, some people will probably get sick and die because they're listening to AI instead of a doctor. But I think for the most part, AI is going to do a pretty good job. It's got a pretty large model to follow, but it's gonna be interesting like I saw at LDI this year.

1:35:44 I don't know if were you there. Yeah. Somebody told me there was a control booth. I think it was an architectural control booth or no, it was. I don't remember what it was, but there was a control booth that said AI powered controller or something like that. And I talked to a couple of designers and stuff who went in there and gotten arguments with the company, basically saying, you know, this is trying to replace me, right? Like you're trying to get rid of me. And oh, no, no, no, we're not. We're just trying to make it easier for you. OK, well, explain to me what this thing does. And you know, as they walk through it, you know, you didn't really need a lighting operator anymore. So.

1:36:25 But I mean, it was pretty basic. It was like, you know, it was following music or it was following different things that were happening in a show or something. So it wasn't quite the same as replacing a designer, but it's such a big topic cuz I think every industry's talking about it right now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I don't I I may have seen that. I can't remember the name of it, but I've seen ads on social media for there's some product that's like you know you no longer need a lighting designer, you know, and I think it's it's geared towards clubs and and I think it is. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. I don't remember what it was but I think it's like a you know a smaller like wall mount kind of controller for a a lounge or a club or something. I I don't really recall you know I don't even know where I got this.

1:37:09 This might have come from your notes but what is this? Why did they build it that way fart snatcher thing. Tell me what this? Is. Oh my God. That's two different things. Two different things. Yeah. One, gosh, why did they build it this way? So I I've done, I used to do a number of sessions at various trade shows. LDI when did did it, ETCETC asked me to come do a a keynote at their Q conference and I did a a number of different sessions and one of them was called Why'd they build it this way? And that's basically from all of my experience kind of in various sides of the industry and realizing, you know, when you walk into a theater, there's always something or or any venue, there's always something that you go, why'd they build that this way?

1:37:58 Why is this like this? Why what happened, you know? And and really I, I always found it super interesting And and I think that's one of the things that really got me more interested in becoming a theater consultant because I did wonder every time there I come across something. And what I learned is there's so much that can happen from the very moment someone says we want to build a facility or renovate a facility to to the time that that first show opens. And there's so many players involved. You know, we've mentioned dealers, we've mentioned reps, we've mentioned contractors. You know, you've got construction managers at risk, you've got, you have all of these scenarios where things, corners can get cut, things can happen differently, you've got designers, you've got consultants. I mean it's just one thing after another. So I do love that session.

1:38:51 I think I want to bring that back. It's probably been five years since I've done it and it's always a great time putting a panel together to have those discussions and we get a lot of great. Questions. Yeah, yeah. And those are, those are so valuable. Like, I love people like you and others who take your time to to do these things for sometimes for younger designers, but sometimes it's just your peers in the industry who are sitting there listening to and going, wow, I never knew that, but I love that that, you know, our industry is like that, like a bunch of giving people who are are willing to donate their time to help other people, you know, succeed or become better or whatever. Yeah absolutely.

1:39:32 The the forge snatcher thing is kind of a a a byproduct example of that. It's you know I we were doing a doing a check out in a on a on a project and and you know the the electrician can't find a particular circuit and we don't know what's happened where where's the circuit for this. It's a lighting circuit. It's coming off the dimmer rack at that point where where's this lighting circuit and and the the Rep was in the came on site and was in the in the bathroom and you know while in the bathroom starts here in the bathroom fan going crazy and the bathroom fan's just like you know making these noise and comes out and says I think I know where that lighting circuit went. I think the electrician hooked it up to the fart snatcher. So it was hooked up to the bathroom fan and sure enough the the electrician had done that.

1:40:28 I mean that that kind of stuff happens all the time, but I I still have fun. Yeah, what about this? What about this nickname, Josh the Destroyer? Where'd that one come from? That's really recent. So last year at USITTA year ago, where was that? Saint Louis? Saint Louis I'm I'm at that show and my my good friend Solvig bustler from Schnick snack is there with her stand and I go to and I'm talking to Solvig and I'm wearing my big winter coat because it was freezing. I said can I do you mind if I store my coat on your on your on your booth. She had this little space around one side of the table and and it was kind of a small stand because it was USITT. So she had these blocks all set up of all of their their lighting and everything.

1:41:18 So I store my coat over there and I come back at the end of the day and I didn't realize it but she had this like DMX cable or something that was kind of running down along the side behind there. And I was wearing this big peak coat that had these big buttons on it. And I go to pick up the my coat and the button catches the cable and the cable pulls on the top box. And these were like staggered step boxes, about two by two boxes and it was a domino effect Booth, booth. The whole booth goes over into the booth behind it and it was luckily there was no one in that that booth behind it.

1:41:58 It was just a empty booth, but it made the loudest noise. Of course, everyone stops on the entire show floor and it just gets quiet. And I'm standing there watching this happen in slow motion. I turn around and I look at Sulvig and I'm like, did I do that? And she's like, yes. And in her very German accent said, you know, from now on, I'm calling you Josh the Destroyer. And I felt so bad. But I mean, we got it back up. I helped her, you know, get back up. And run out at her company. What's her company called? Schnitzel. Schnatzel or something? Snick Snack Systems, a really, really great product. They really do some great stuff with control. They do a lot of exterior, custom and bespoke fixtures as well. I will promote it because I did destroy the booth so. Well, I'll have to check it out.

1:42:46 It sounds interesting. Yeah. So what else? You sent me a whole bunch of cool notes that, oh, a prank call that you made. Oh my God, all the little stories. Now, my wife was a, my wife was casting director and we had an assistant. Well, actually, I guess it was more of a administrative person that was working at front desk. And I used to call every week when this person was working and pretend I was some celebrity. And, you know, my wife would be in a session, like a casting session. Yeah, to watch actors so that she can cast them for a show.

1:43:28 And the assistants like knocking on the door, saying, my God, you know, Tom Cruise is on the phone for you or you know something like and it went on and on and on and and. She always took your call, like thinking it might be. Tom Cruise this time, Yeah, I would. I would like to disguise my voice and like this. And yeah, and I mean, but if sometimes it is obscure stuff like the guy that played MacGyver, you know, this is Richard Dean Anderson calling and I was like, you know, all of this, It was just a thing that we did and had fun with so. Yeah, and you're still married somehow. Still married 30 years this year. 30 years? Oh, good for you. That's that's. She'll hate that I tell this joke, but I like to say it only feels like 30 minutes. And then I pause and I say underwater like 30. Months. 30 minutes.

1:44:17 Thirty months. 3030 minutes, yeah. We're still having sound. Buggy problems. She's not laughing either. So fine, yeah, no. No, it's all good. It's all good. It's it's just every once in a while a word gets clipped off. So I couldn't tell if you said 30 minutes or 30 months, but and you know, it's funny, I saw this note about coffee that you were also in the coffee business. And I don't know if you saw, but we've got, it's not really a sponsorship, but we've got a partnership with a company called Coffee Cult and it was founded by a guy named Jamie Mardis who's from the industry. He was a touring guy in the rock'n'roll industry and worked for me for a while at one of the lighting manufacturers.

1:44:58 And we've been friends for years and years and years, and he owned his own lighting company and then also power company. And during all of this, he was just a coffee freak. And so it started as a hobby. And he's just one of these guys like me. Like, I don't start any hobbies because of this, because I just go all in. I go deep. I'm the same way. Yeah, so he started. He bought a small roaster, put it in his in his garage and he just kept perfecting and going to different parts of the world looking for beans and he'd try different beans and and you know, so he started making bags of coffee and handing them out to his friends and and they'd be like, wow, this one's amazing. You know I need 10 more.

1:45:38 And you know so it really was very, very grassroots granular kind of start of a business. And then he sold his, his other company bought a bigger roaster, bought a few more of them, bought a a building and he's been doing very well as a brand called Coffee Cults. So they make so sorry for the long story trying to end it. So they they make a really good dark roast called Rd. Dog and then and but it's really dark, it's really strong. And my girlfriend was like, Oh my God, I can't drink this, it's too strong. So I was mixing at home, I was mixing their medium beans with their Rd. Dog beans.

1:46:19 And one time I was talking to Jamie and he said, why do you always order, you know, medium and road dog? And I said, well, because I got to basically damp it down a little bit. It's too strong. But I really love the flavor. And he goes, well, why don't we make a blend for you. And I said he would do that and he goes, of course I would. I wouldn't do it for everybody, but I'll do it for you. And why don't we brand it. And I said OK, let's call it Geezer's grind. And and he said and why don't we give away all of the proceeds to a charity in the industry. Pick one. And and so I went and talked to Craig Burrows at Roby and and said, hey, let's, let's put Roby backstage on on this charity for coffee cults. So now all kinds of our listeners and my friends and our customers and stuff buy this coffee all the time. It's really, really good.

1:47:08 And the proceeds go to this rogue backstage which helps fallen soldiers in our industry. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. That's very cool. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't go that long. You're serious? No, I didn't. But when I lived in the city, I was home roasting. And so we would open our windows in our apartment and our landlords lived upstairs from us. And they were always coming down like we can smell it. Can you give us some of those fresh. You know that fresh roast. That's good. Yeah. Been to Origin, Guatemala, visited number of farmers and you know, it's not a documentary 2013. Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah, yeah, coffee. Yeah, yeah.

1:47:49 About coffee, coffee growing in Guatemala, it's really interesting, but never saw the light of day. There's a lot, there's a lot of politics that go along with that in that part of the world. And I think ultimately we felt like if we would have shared some of the things we found, that would have put some people into danger. So we decided not to, not to let any of it out. So it was. Yeah, I talked to Jamie about that, he said. That's part of the hard part about a coffee be being a coffee company is you want to you want to do the humanitarian thing and and and you know get organic beans that are grown in a very nice way where you're not taking advantage of these people and stuff.

1:48:36 And he said it's hard. He said it's harder than you would think. You know in a lot of these regions, Sumatra and and some of the some of the regions where coffee is is sort of their way of life. People are just treated badly. Right. Yeah. So I don't know if you're talking about, but yeah yeah just just crazy the the small amount of people that that are the ones that own and run so much of that and everyone else behold into them and you go against that. It can they're bad things can happen. So, and it's like a number of industries, I'm not just not just coffee, but it's in very around the world. Yeah, of course. No, I mean, you know, if you look at the, I don't know if you've seen any of the documentary footage on the the the battery technology and stuff, cobalt mining in in Africa. I mean it's brutal.

1:49:25 It's it's so like it's just like, Oh my God, little kids in bare feet digging around through these mines and it's just disgusting getting paid. You know, I forget what it was $0.20 a day or something, but so were you thinking of this as a business? You were you were intending to do it as a business? I think at one point, yeah. And then, you know, lighting kept just demanding my time and then it was something that never happened. I never say never that I wouldn't go back to it, but I still love it and. I'll connect. You and Jamie. Through an e-mail and and and just say, hey, I had this guy with a similar passion to yours on and you know he did a documentary and I'll connect you guys in an e-mail. See if see if anything comes from. It that's great.

1:50:10 Yeah, and so now gins too. Scottish gins. Yeah, Jen, I think I'm probably closer to but to putting in a real still and doing doing some gin distilling really. I think there's actually and and I love a good gin, although these days I'm not drinking as much alcohol as I as I used to. Yeah. And I feel like there's a real place. I just can't do it. I feel like there's a real place in the in the market now for non alcoholic versions of of these things and no one that I have found has made a really truly great non alcoholic gin that actually tastes like gin. Interesting. So kind of, I think that's going to. Be a huge market, Like the whole non alcoholic cocktail thing is already coming big. But I heard, you know, I keep reading articles and stuff that it's just going to be monstrous.

1:51:01 Yeah, yeah. And Scotland, believe it or not, has some of the best gins in the world. I mean, it's obviously well known for for whiskey, but yeah, some of the they are just amazing. So yeah, when? I saw these notes. Oddish gins. I was like Scottish gin. Like that Just sounds weird to me. You. Know, Right. Yeah, yeah. But now some amazing gins. Yeah, for sure. That's was that a passion that you picked up since you've been in Scotland or or you were a big? Fan of gin? Prior to that, maybe the past 10-15 years I really got into gin. I, you know, I didn't used to like gin at all. And I realized that's because I'd never really tried a good gin. And yeah, I don't think I ever come to think of it. I might have to, yeah, I might have to research that.

1:51:41 I don't really. Drink like I think the main stuff I've become a real. Wimp when it comes to drinking. Like I drink red wine and that's about it anymore. An occasional beer, but you know, usually it's it's a glass or two of red wine and that's it for me. And I used to be a drinker of pretty much anything you put in front of me, so especially at. LDI Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Or or any trade show. I just, I just got back from Pro Light and Sound on Saturday in Frankfurt, so of course that's the same situation. Yeah, but how it was, I heard it's a lot smaller. Obviously it is. I thought it was still a really, I thought it was still a really good show this year. I think it's coming back a bit. You know talking to a number of people there, I feel like they're they're going to try going to ISE in Barcelona next year as opposed to Frankfurt.

1:52:33 We'll see what happens with that. But yeah, I mean back in the the old days been going to that show for a really long time and you know used to take over all of the halls and then you had the music, let's say happening next door with all the music, the music manufacturers and now it's just all 12 up and down is is lighting and hall 11 is is sound. So it's a much smaller show. Yeah, yeah, it's too bad. I mean I used to love going to that show in Frankfurt and been doing it for a number of years. Cuz I actually, before I got into lighting, I was in music. You know I I owned a music store in Canada and so I went to Music Mesa as a music guy 1st and and then eventually you know as as sound lighting, whatever. But yeah, I mean I I've just heard from everybody that it was such a smaller show and if you look at the lighting boost like robe was big elation.

1:53:32 There were a couple two or three big booths, but then a lot of them were much smaller this. Year. A lot of them just. Shut down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, have you been to ISC yet? I've not been. I almost went this year and I said no, I'm going to stay because, you know, you can't go to every trade show. But I know I was just like, I'm going to do Frankfurt and I had too much going on. But I said next year I'm definitely going to go to ISE, check it out, yeah, and sort of get a. Everyone has told me it's it's the important show now you know Pro Light not so much ISE, you know, it's pretty much taken over a lot of the big budgets and stuff like that where Pro Light used to be.

1:54:12 So it's interesting. Right. Yeah. So I was made aware that in July you're going to be competing in a charity thing, right? What? What is that? Tell me about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I do. I mentioned early on so I'm a a CrossFit Masters athlete and Level 1. What is a CrossFit? Master that means I'm and that I compete at the Masters level I. Get it? OK. Yeah. I thought it meant you were like, you know, the Master Semolonier, you know? Or I'm the master. Yeah, exactly. No, it's it's a charity event.

1:54:54 This one's in Edinburgh called Battle for Cancer. It is. It's just that where we have a team of four of us that we put together. So we'll go in for competition over that weekend and essentially the the majority of it is we have one set of workouts where we have to do 20,000 reps in 90 minutes amongst the four of us and the idea is that. We're 5000 then. Right, exactly. We're we're raising, we're raising money basically at a per Rep kind of scenario. So you know, you can sponsor, sponsor our team per Rep So if we get up to that point, that's great. It's tough, tough to do that, but yeah, good, good 'cause just giving money to Cancer Research and and and charity there and and bro, yeah.

1:55:50 So we're gonna, and Sarah, I'm telling you this now, we're gonna include all the information for that for your charity and and ways that people can donate and stuff. We'll include that with any of the promo that we're doing for this episode to make sure. That people. Can get in touch with with that. That's really and I really appreciate that and and if I could just follow up on that something completely different. I have done been a part of the ET CS Fred Foster mentorship program for maybe 12 years now and have helped helped lead that program, bring a lot of new students and talent into the industry, pairing them with mentors in the industry to kind of help them find their way as they're getting started. I know so many of us, like I said, we're knocking on doors and trying to figure out anything we could do. This really gives these, these exceptional students a leg up on really getting that start in the industry that that program is starting up again for this year.

1:56:53 They're taking applications as of now and I'll give you the link to that if you wouldn't mind putting it up there. It's for students to apply for that program, so absolutely. Yeah, and if if you know the link, like is it something that you can say right now that people could write down or anything or is it incredibly long whereits.com/this dot that slash this because. If you can say it, it might. Be helpful as well? Or if there's a place they could go to find it, like if it's just, ETC. Yeah, go to the ETC website. It is yes etc. etcconnect.com and then slash student mentorship I believe.

1:57:35 Let's double check that yes, etcconnect.com/studentmentorship. That's easy enough. So people go check that out and so you're taking applications now for that and then So what, what does that involve? Like if someone applies you know is it it's it's a full scholarship or how does it work? So there's a, there's a a North American program and then there's an international program. So it used to be all together. But I think we quickly realized that in recent years that we're getting more and more international students applying. So we need to separate them out. That makes sense. It used to be that students were pared down. You might get, you know, a hundred 200 applicants. You know, we all go through those applicants and there's a lot of really great people in there. And it's tough to kind of pair them down to a core group. There's never a set number.

1:58:25 Sometimes it's eight, sometimes it's up to 20, perhaps students. It just depends on what we all feel is best. And it used to be they would all go to LDIETC, would take them to LDI, we'd put them with mentors at LDI. We'd have an evening where they could get to know each other, ask questions. So you know, we have these are people like Ken Billington and Don Holder, and I mean, this just goes on and on and on. And small names. Yeah, small, small, small names. Yeah. Nobody's. Yeah. And pairing these students with with those industry veterans. And so I think what we've realized since COVID, COVID kind of put a stop on like let's bring the students to LDI, we had to rethink that. So we started doing zoom meetings with breakouts and we would have opportunities for the students to share portfolios and ask questions and and really have round tables with these designers.

1:59:25 And then the designers would say, yeah, I'll take that student on as my mentee for it's not like for the next year or six months, that's essentially for life. That's part of the program is anytime that student needs something, they can reach out to that. And the idea there is we kind of cut them loose. We make those introductions, make it happen. And then it's up to the student really to go and develop that relationship with that designer. But we've had students that, you know, have gone on to assist, become associate designers for for numerous folks. We've had, I mean students that are working now all over the industry, working for companies like Disney and doing things that, you know, they may not have had an opportunity to get a foot in the door to even begin to understand how to do that. So it's it's a really great program for these students. Yeah, Yeah.

2:00:13 Well, and you know, Fred Foster was such a great guy and and cared so much about students and and theater and so the fact that it's in his name makes a huge amount of sense. I've known about the program for a long time. But yeah, it's really cool that you're doing that and that you're involved and and that you know, young people coming up into the industry have that resource available. It's big. Yeah. Anything else we've missed to promote or to talk about or anything? Oh gosh, no. I mean, I mean, we've talked about a lot. Happy. Hour. I'm trying to keep you all the way through happy hour so you can't get drunk in Scotland. There, you know it's.

2:00:53 It's 4:00 PM here. It's time to time to go and do that. Yeah, there you go. That's a good idea. Yeah. For me, it's lunchtime. So. Well, I I appreciate you very much. I appreciate you taking time to do this. It's been a cool chat. I feel like we could talk for another two hours, but. Oh, absolutely. Even just looking at the notes you sent us, I'm looking at it going, Oh my God, we missed 20 things. But yeah, I. Mean, right. Yeah. I'm looking at some stuff here going, yeah, another year, if there's an extra space, we'll come back. I'm happy to come back anytime. No, absolutely. I'd love to. Yeah, I'd love you to. You got a really interesting business. You know, I like getting past this first interview too, because then we can talk about the industry and we can talk about what you're up to now and all of those things a lot more. But I do like to get people's background. It's just I never do it again on the second time. So we've had.

2:01:41 Loads. Of of people on 2/3 four times, you know. So we'd love to have you back on again and. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, cool. Good. Well, and tell Herrick to get his ass on the show, too. Yeah, I will. I'll poke him and see what happens. Good. Promise. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. All right, man. Thank you None.