#242 - Steve Warren

0:01 Hello and thanks for joining me again today for Geysers of Gear Episode #242. Today's podcast is brought to you by Elation. Elation is pleased to offer the new Proteus Radius, a high intensity beam FX fixture with solid-state phosphor converted light engine for intense power at long distances. IP66 rated the Proteus Radius delivers an ultra narrow .9° beam that leaves a lasting impression across vast distances. Fast 360° movement on both axes, CMY color mixing, Gobos, Prisms and Frost allow designers to create an array of stunning aerial effects. Check out the Proteus Radius today at elationlighting.com and today's podcast is also brought to you by Main Light. Main Light is a national dry hire rental provider specializing in supplying the latest lighting and staging equipment technology.

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2:52 again for joining me today on Geese of Gear episode. What did I say, 242? Awesome. It is an awesome day. 242 is an awesome number. We're pretty happy about where we're at right now, so thanks for joining us. We love that you come every week and listen to our crazy ranting or mine. Anyways, so today I'm recording this on the same day that I think we launched our first Riverside recording and it went OK. It was a lot of work. Editing was very different for us. We had to change some things around. We've kind of gone back to, as you can see here in this intro, we've gone back to sort of a hybrid of our old system in the new system. I liked the intros and and promos better on the old system than I did on the new system.

3:42 So we're probably going to keep both and kind of straddle one leg across each and that's the plan for today anyways. But you know, things evolve, things change. And in other housekeeping news, there is a another newsletter being created right now by the lovely Sarah and she should have that out, I believe by the end of this week, maybe early next week. It's a work in progress and she's all over it. So if you know Sarah by now, you know that she likes to get stuff done. So probably by the time you're listening to this, it's already out. And one of the pieces of news, which again a week later is probably going to be old news, but it's relatively new right now, is this Rock Nashville thing. And so very cool.

4:35 You know, one of the things that's been a common theme about among everyone I've spoken to is that there's still a massive need for more rehearsal space. As much as companies, you know, like Gateway, who we had on recently, and others have created rehearsal space, there's still not enough. And So what we're finding is that you know more companies are talking about it. I'm starting to see more and more sort of whispering going on of other opportunities out there or other you know deals that are are being made or whatever. But this Rock Nashville one is big.

5:16 It's you know, of course Rock Lititz, same company, same people, same mission and vision. So it's a 55 acre campus. I'm reading this from an article that was posted on PLSN. So giving credit to PLSN for this. So the it's a 55 acre campus, 609,000 square feet of production company vendors, which of course includes Clare Brothers sound image and who else. I saw it somewhere in the drawings. Oh, of course. Sound Check, which is big news. Sound Check is moving in. Sound Check has been in in Nashville as long as I can remember, probably as long as I've been in the US anyways, I think I remember when they opened Sound Check actually in Nashville.

6:06 So yeah, lots of production stuff going on in there. There are going to be thirteen band and production rehearsal studios ranging from 600 square feet to 2100 square feet. A full size arena, stadium, production rehearsal facility which is 200 feet by 125 by 95 with a rigging clear with a rigging grid at 80 feet clear which is going to get most shows through there. One full size amphitheater, arena size production rehearsal facility which is 125 by 100 feet, 75 feet high with a rigging grid at 60 feet clear, backline rental 300 plus lockers, set storage, artist, relation offices, community cafe and collaboration space, etc.

6:55 So to find out more information about that or to go rent 100,000 square feet from them go to rocknashville.com. So that's a big one. I think that's going to solve a lot of problems for a lot of performers who are struggling to find rehearsal space right now for their shows. So what else? That's it for news today. I'm not going to go into any AI stuff because I'm actually going to cover some stuff with the guest today. Today's guest is one of the happiest and and most colorful guys I think our industry's really ever been introduced to. And that is Steve Warren. Steve was last on the podcast back in November of 2019. I can't believe it was that long ago. He was also on a bunch of the weekly zoom calls that we had. He was a a fairly standard fixture on those zoom calls. You know, Steve's just I think one of those guys. He's everyone's favorite guy to run into at the pubs, at the trade shows or whatever.

8:00 And but anyways, for to check out that episode that he was on last, that's episode #55, which you can get at either Geezers of Gear, up.com or search from it for episode #55 wherever you get your podcast. Or you could actually just go to Google and type in Steve Warren Geezers of Gear and you'll find it. It was pre YouTube though, so you're not going to find him on YouTube. We just started YouTube last summer, summer of 2023, so a little bit earlier than that, a lot earlier than that. So Steve Warren was a shareholder and director of Avolites Limited until its recent sale to Roby.

8:42 For over 35 years, Steve was the public face of the console and dimming manufacturer. He began his career designing electrical layouts for hospitals, police stations and public buildings before joining AVO in 1984 and working his way up into a technical sales role. Then the opportunity came in 1991 to purchase save lights from the original owners. Steve bought the assets of the company and became the new general manager or managing director, where he stayed until the recent sale. Steve has done a lot of other interesting things along the way and I personally, and I'm sure you share this with me, I can't wait to hear about what he's had going on in his life and what he has in store for 2024 as well now that that sale has completed.

9:29 So please join me and welcome the amazing Steve Warren. Oh, Steven. Marcel, good to see you. How you doing? We're now recording. You can still text me the picture. I want to see the picture. I'm going to send you the picture of the big house, OK? In fact, I only wanted. Of course, when Steve says the big house, it's very, very small. It's, it's just. Bigger than the tiny, minuscule house. The one I sent you exactly, To be honest, we wanted to buy this one house and make it into something like a, you know, nice family dwelling that we could have guests over and add space for a pinball room, which is really important to me, a pinball and a table tennis room. So I keep telling my wife and in the end there was legally attached to three other ruins.

10:21 One was a olive press, which is quite large, so that can become the yoga studio and a community space. And then these two small ruins. And you thought, you know what, let's start with the two small ruins because we know nothing about what we're doing and and actually learn something, you know. So yeah, the pictures, I said. You were the two small ruins that were just, they're going quite well, so exciting. When you say ruins, like are they actually, you know, a couple, 100 years old or? What are they? Literally, and we don't know exactly, but the builder who was on it, who is working on it, that's exactly the figure he used, he said. Look, these have been there for 200 years. They're still standing. Some of them are in good shape, some of them are not. The pictures are just with you, the second of the larger. Place I'm looking.

11:07 At them. Wow, this. Is. Crazy. I wish I. I could share them, but I won't. But no, it's OK but more than welcome. But basically they're stone houses built out of something called schist, which is like slate. So it's a stone houses. Built out of shit over here. Too, I know that's what people. Tell me I'm my house in. A shit house. Actually, I've got a house built out of shit. Shit. It's the land of shit, yeah. Yeah, so they're literally stone cottages. Been here like 200 years. One of them had sort of a roof, but it's pretty much fallen in one of has no roof at all and the two large ones have no roof at all. So literally just a pile of rock, but four walls and no windows, no doors, no roof and we're going to go in. Got them with the aid of some very good, knowledgeable local builders and it's been really fun. It's, I mean, when they put in that roof beam, it's huge, you know, this massive, great piece of wood, you know, it's oh wow. That's it.

12:09 There we go. I figured out how to share a screen. I've never done this one before, so this is awesome. This is. Awesome. Yeah, so this is going to be home. This is in central Portugal, near the mountains. Everyone thinks you're on the coast if by the beach, if you move to Portugal. But no, we are right between the the beach and the Spanish border. So about about an hour up to the mountains where it snows occasionally, and about an hour over to the beach where all the surfers are. So it's a good spot. A lot of runaway hippies up here, you know? Yeah, and there's a few. So. Awesome. I love that. Hey, let me tell you, Marcel, I'm very near the Sales Director of Function One, David Brummel. He's all seasoned. There as well.

12:50 Yeah. And do you remember Clive? Clive Stanley of. Course. You're too young. What do you mean? Really. Yeah. Clive is 2 villages away from me, so how about that? That's incredible, this. Isn't old. Old retired industry people never died. They. Just go to. Portugal. He was my. Boss, he was the sales. Director of Eight Lights originally and that's how I got into sales, he he convinced me to do it. Think I actually met him when I met you in like 1990 or something like a long time ago. Yes, you. You. Remember meeting me 'cause I was a young punk at the time, but. I'm not always. I'm sure we hung out, 'cause that was the LDI's. I mean, they kept moving around back then, didn't they? They were always in the city.

13:34 It was really, it was a great way to see America and learn America because, yeah, I've got family in Florida, as you know. I love Florida. What a great place to be. But it was really good. I actually like these different cities, you know I liked. It better, Yeah. I. Got bored of going to Vegas every year. I know Vegas is the greatest place for trade shows. And you know, The thing is like unlike you know you who has fun anywhere you go. I think a lot of people, you know, they're married, they have kids and they like to get away to Vegas for a few days and have a party. And you know, it's really sort of let your hair down time for me, you know, just to go and do business. I, you know, Vegas is the hardest place to do it in a sense, you know.

14:15 What? But nobody turns up on the Sunday 'cause they're all burned from Saturday night. Yeah. So you lose 30% of the trade show anyway, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's a lot to pack into two days, isn't it? That's what I it. Sure is. And you know, but unlike you, I I actually have really slowed down a lot. And so when I go to, when I go to LDI in Vegas, I'll be at the bar with the usual crowd and I'll be like, hey guys, I'll be right back. I just got to go to the bathroom. Boom, I'm up to bed. It's, you know, freaking 11:45 or something. I'm in bed sleeping by midnight. So no. You might. I think, listeners, I think he's saying this, for instance. He didn't spoil this man, so I'm not so sure I'm looking into his eyes right now.

14:59 No, it's it's funny because I've started to to strategically place my hotel or hotel room based on the ability to sneak out of, you know, dangerous situations. I only recently heard that that was called an Irish goodbye. Oh, is it? Yeah, I thought that was quite sweet. An Irish goodbye is when you don't say to anything to anyone, you just disappear. And of course I. Always just. Called it a Houdini. I just call it a Houdini. Well, you know, my partner's, my wife is Colombian, I'm half Jamaican. We could take an hour to leave anywhere. We have the opposite of the Irish, Dubai. We just say goodbye to everyone like five times. So it's really hard to go and we went to a crazy raid. But I mean, you talk about still, you know, staying up late.

15:44 I'm like, well, it's not far from the truth, 'cause I went to a free party here in Portugal and I think I've been to a free party since Stonehenge, both in 80. 4 Where's the Free party? A free party is is terrible. A free party has two quite large stages, but nobody's in charge, no security, no dog, no. They have a license, which was amazing. They have piece of land. Nobody pays, which means that the toilets are dreadful. There's packs of dogs wandering around dogs inside a festival. Man it was. Like some scene from Mad Max. I'm like, are we sure we want to stay here, baby? And she's like, there's music going, we're staying. So and believe it or not we slept in the car, which thank God I've got.

16:28 I used to have a really small car, but now I'm in now the Q5 and we just put the seats back and pretended we're in first class 4:00 in the morning when it's. Good in the car. So yeah, it's still still staying up to you late. It was great. It was nice to take part in, and the next day we went to a really nice, much more family, had some kids there now, and some friends were playing in the band, and that was much more akin to what's going on up here. There's a lot of community events where you know the band, the French, couple of friends will do DJ ING, and quite often you're raising money for the school or the hippie school or for somebody's workshop at Burndale, you know, some crazy shit. And it's really nice to take part in those things, you know, because quite often, you know, I'm looking to get some lights up here. I'm really keen to do that and just let people borrow them for the events and I'm hoping to train up some of the kids and hopefully they'll get into our industry. That's the sort of long term background agenda. So you're like a Portuguese gypsy hippie? Sort of.

17:25 Gypsy, sort of, you know, And there's a couple. Of we've got a few other. Production people in the area. I think what happens is other production people from and from some sizable for German festivals, from a big circus group that plays some notable venues in London and as I say, the function one sales director, he's here as well and there's looking mirror. But another. Dies anyways different music people. So. Well, it's a lot of people out here and it's great because it's a mix of of country, living quiet and living, you know, really sort of wholesome. But every so often, every couple of weekends, we have a big party and everyone gets together and and you hang out with people like 90 people and that's really, you know, to me, that's perfect. So what's the nearest city?

18:08 Nearest airport. It's OK. The nearest city is called Coimbra, which is the third largest city in Portugal. Yeah, And basically it's halfway between Lisbon and Porto. Everybody knows. Yes, but everybody knows Porto, right? And those two are on the coast. And so literally, we're halfway down the country and halfway between the sea and the Spanish border. OK? It's almost like dropping a dot in the middle of the country. It's like Orlando in Florida. Right, Yeah. Same thing. That's right. Long and rectangular. That's right. Yeah, long and rectangular and Orlando's right in the. Center right in the middle? Exactly. Yeah. It's. Yeah, it's And I suppose why Portugal? It's interesting. It's had a really well running.

18:49 You know, I'm not particularly political, but I read somewhere that had a it's the only place in Europe that has a really well running socialist government. So the taxes are a little bit high for the people that are working. But I'm working a lot less now, so that didn't really affect me. I love a little bit of the crypto space and there is no tax on any crypto sales. Not that I've sold, but hey, maybe we do one day. If it doesn't all turn to shifts, you know, yeah, but. As I say, a lot of friends were talking. About it, And it had a sort of sort of they're very welcoming in Europe because so many Portuguese are living outside of Portugal. They're very keen to attract. People there. So there's very little, there's very little tax on your savings or pension when that kicks in. But mainly we just had a a.

19:34 Few. Really good friends. We'd moved and we said, hey, let's go have a look, you know? I tell you what's. Really good. It's in. It's in Europe. It's part of Europe. You can get a European passport after five years. I'm really pissed about Brexit. I could not be more angry about Brexit because I do feel European. We're UK, but we're Europeans for God's sake. So you know, there are quite a few people who have said, you know what, screw this, I'm going to go live in Europe and I'm going to live in five years. I'll have a European passport. I am actually European. So that was part of it. And to say just a sort of very open attitude. When you go to the beach, there's free parking, there's recycling, there's it is everywhere in my town there's free parking.

20:14 It's now it's not just about the parking, it's more that the government is really sort of looks out for the people. There are lots of picnic spots and. They're really well. Kept and there's pizza ovens outside and seating for people to use and you're like wow it's it's you know they they seem very focused on keeping the the people of the country happy and. Crimes. Crime is reasonable. It's relatively low. It's apparent what they claim. It's the third safest place in the world. Now I struggle with that because what more than Singapore, You know, like there's Singapore in that group and there's Japan in that group, but they have incredibly low. Yeah, they buy. Exactly. They have incredibly low crime rate. And in fact, the friends that I stay with again involved in the production industry.

20:55 A video guy who hooked me up with a place I came to visit him. He never locks his doors and sometimes I look after his off grid house. And I. Swear in my cell, we walk out the house and I think, you know what, I'm still. Just going to put all the. Computers underneath the sofa because it freaks me out that I'm walking out of the house with all my technology and there's no locks on the door. That is. Crazy. There's no locks on the door now. He's not in the city. You know he's in a little village, he's in little valley. You walk down to his house, cross the river, got to his house, but there's not like 6 houses around and people know that he's a foreigner living there. So if I was a criminal, I'd think, hey, I'm going to go rob the foreigner. Say they're the ones in the back and they just don't worry about it. Other people tell me they don't bother lock their cars they so, you know I still lock my car.

21:44 I I'm, I was brought up. You know I've been spending a lot of time in the city, so I'm not quite converted. Yeah. But you know, I I have, I have a beautiful house in in a mountain town in Canada. That's much more, much more. What would you call it? Sort of a. Newer. It's a newer area. It's it's not like Portugal, you know what I mean? But small town. And when we first built the house there in 2005, I guess a lot of my friends left their doors unlocked. I left my door unlocked most days, like almost always, and had no alarm. Nobody had alarms. And my buddy had a beautiful BMW in the driveway and he left the keys in it all the time, too. He never took the keys out of his car. It's changed, you know, in in whatever almost 20 years, it's changed a lot.

22:32 And so there are, you know, there's burglaries and break insurance and you know there there's still no, you know, violent crime to speak of. But it's just unfortunate that, you know, with population, movement and and different things that happen, different cultures that blend together, sooner or later you're gonna end up with someone who goes I want. What he's got. Over there. I want his stuff, you know? It's. It's really strange and I wonder if it's because it was under a fascist dictator till 1975, which is quite recent. And so they have a very, they've been very controlled in the past, super secure crime just didn't happen, you know.

23:14 Yeah, I wonder. I I really have a feeling that that very strict upbringing, if you like, for a country has left this hallmark. Of. There is just so little violent crime and. Certainly none out. Where we are, it's just, it just doesn't happen. And everyone knows each other, you know? Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes that's just culture. You know, like, I I know I grew up where you didn't steal someone else's bike, bicycle. You didn't, you know, you didn't go to school and start fights. Unless you, you know, unless you were some kind of a really bad person or a thug or. Something. But yeah, I mean it was just a whole different sort of mindset like whereas now it's it's all obviously very different today. Than yeah, the news was shocking. When we were.

23:58 So there are a lot of families moving here and I think for the same reason as they all mentioned the same thing, that kids can walk around, they'd have to worry about it, you know, that whatever the. Yeah, it's funny, I think the older you get as well. I grew up in Jamaica, as you know, and I'm used to having burglar bars on the House. And my wife, when we go back to Colombia, obviously it's in a gated compound just like you would in in Rio or Sao Paulo. And it's sort of weird. You're like, Oh yeah, this is how we used to live, you know? And. And when you're so, you just become used to the fact that you've been in Europe, which is a much safer place and now you're in probably the safest place within Europe, maybe outside of Switzerland or somewhere.

24:42 You know, so yeah. Yeah, it's it's a nice feeling and it's I just, I just. Learned a Swiss thing recently. You know, I, I I'll try and keep it short. You know my son's in racing and so we had a sponsor reach out to us who wanted to get heavily involved in his career to the tune of you know more than €1,000,000, more than €2 million and you know, so we took it pretty seriously. I got my lawyer involved, we we really reviewed documents and everything was totally legit until I flew over to Italy to to meet these guys from Switzerland. I met one of them and there was crypto involved.

25:23 And when we started digging into it, I realized where the scam was. It was exactly where the only place it could have been was where it was. And so basically there was going to be a funky little exchange of money where they could steal it from me and and So what I learned was because I had to dig heavily into how crypto worked and stuff because I didn't know. And so one of my friends is an expert in a very a technology guy basically. And he. He really knew how things happened in crypto. And he said as long as you don't do this, you're OK And I said, well, that's exactly what they're asking you to do. And he says run away, run away, go, you know, and plus the platform that they're asking you to be on is, you know, definitely problematic.

26:12 So he explained to me that there are only a couple places in the world that do not recognize financial crimes as crime. And Switzerland and Dubai, I think were the two really. And so that's why so many of these scams are based out of Switzerland or Dubai. You know, So yeah, cryptocurrency. If you get. Ripped off. It's it's your fault, you know. Well, this is the thing that's right. Well, there's nobody to protect. You everyone talks about self custody. And how great it is scares the. Hell out of me. Because I'm just not that organized, but I don't know, just feeling. But I suppose I just. I like the idea of a bit more autonomy, and I think maybe that's also with sort of being here, we're quite an autonomous community sorting out our own stuff. And I think, yeah, that's sort of forcing mine. But it wasn't the main, let's say. It wasn't the main reason.

27:04 It was mainly that where in Europe can I find a good sandy beach, a hot summer, a long spring and a long autumn? The winter is super teeny tiny short and you still. Have the seasons. But. Who needs a long winter? You know that great drizzle in the UK? That that's I suppose. I think it just broke. Me in the end. Can you say as far as, yeah, but it's a long way away here. I can fly back in like an hour and a half and and it's cost nothing. Yeah, well, Jamaica is the opposite end of the spectrum. You know, it's it's worse. Than Florida, where I live. Yeah, you know. It's the opposite. It's, you know, the summers are just unbearable and yeah. Yeah, you don't walk in the street, you know, you don't walk in the street.

27:45 You do look like your shoulder a bit. And so I think, yeah, it's it's different. So I would recommend anybody wants to come here and have and stop by there. You know, we'll be, we accept a lot of guests. We were just saying today, wow, we've had so many guests and we're not even living here at the full time yet. Just. Building that house. My friend just dropped windows. I was telling you this afternoon, and he's ADOP, you know, he was DOP us big films as well, send about movies and so on. Yeah, he's living down South. He's looking to buy some land up in central Portugal where it's a little bit, little bit less dry. And yeah, so it's just nice to hook up with another production guy, yeah. See. You don't need to speak Portuguese to be there. No.

28:26 Poor. I speak a little bit of Spanish. I speak a little bit more Spanish than I used to. I say my wife's Colombian and I'm desperate to have longer conversations with our mom and dad because they're so much fun. They're trying to learn English. I'm I'm on day 192 of Duolingo. I'm doing my best and I'm certainly getting somewhere and the language is very similar. They don't like to be spoken to in Spanish because they're not Spanish but the the Portuguese. The same with the Brazilians. The Brazilians and Portuguese understand Spanish, but very often the the Spanish will not understand Portuguese. So Portuguese is a little bit like Spanish plus. It's got. Spanish plus some extra sounds. So if you speak in Spanish and speak slowly, they'll understand.

29:08 And because the two languages are similar, I'm starting to pick up a few phrases and start. But my wife is going really fast and so I'm picking up stuff from her. We do intend to because if I want to go for a passport then I do need to have basic Portuguese. So I know that within five years I need to have some basic. But what you find is all of the really old people, the as well as, you know, the grandmothers and grandfathers, they you'd have to speak in Portuguese or Spanish. But of course, anyone under 40, they'll speak a bit of English, and anyone under 30, they're speaking English, yeah. But it's. It's like Italy, you know, when when you get outside of the cities, I would guess, you know, and you get into the smaller towns and stuff. There's people who've never spoken a word of English. You know they. Don't they don't.

29:49 Know any English? Like when I used to have to go to Castell, Gofredo all the time. Or como. You know, you didn't speak a lot of English there. They just, I couldn't mention, you know, and even sometimes in the big cities. Do you speak English? A little. You know, a little means a little means forget it. Good. Morning. Yeah. So yeah, without my wife, it would be a lot more tricky. It would be a lot trickier. But you know, of course, she's got Spanish as the first language and they understand her really well. So between the two of us, we sort of manage here. It's cool. Well, as a side note, so I I think I've told you before, but my girlfriend's like you, she's British mixed race, kind of part Jamaican mixed in there somewhere. Her family came from Jamaica, many of them. She's got Colombian and Chinese and all kinds of stuff in in her upbringing or in her, you know?

30:44 Bloodline, I guess. But her son is married to a Peruvian, Peruvian who has a language school, so she teaches Americans, Brits etcetera, Spanish, but she teaches them properly and she also teaches Latin people English. So I mean if you ever want a connection to that cuz. She's quite. Good at at, at like you can learn Spanish from someone close to you who teaches you, but a teacher does it differently. A teacher does it differently and it makes you concentrate. That's right and I think. Yeah. You could hook up. You ever want, if you ever want to hook up, yeah.

31:26 And it's all on Zoom and stuff, so And she's lovely. She's a real decision. Would be super helpful because that's it. You can learn a lot in Duolingo, but you're sort of scared to speak. So the speaking comes last, I would say. But it's been interesting. I have to say I'm enjoying it more than I thought. I've tried a little bit in the past to learn another language and really, really struggled. It doesn't come naturally. Yeah. Stuck with the Duolingo for so long and then speaking to our parents and spending a couple of months in Colombia recently. And I'll probably carry on doing that for month, a year or two months a year. I think, you know what? I'm going to crack it. I'm going to get there. You'll never get super fluent, you know, whatever. But you know, you at least I feel I'm getting somewhere now.

32:08 There's a point where you almost want to give up, you know, visiting. Oh man, it's too much like hard work. I don't know if you, I know Steve, but I'm trilingual, so I speak Canadian, American and now British as well, so. I I. Know all three of them? Yeah. I know all. Three of them. They are very. Different. Believe it. There's a lot of differences. There's a lot of every once in a while my girlfriend throws a word at me and I go, what the hell are you talking about? You know? And she says it's a word, I'm telling you it's a word. And and of course, her phone connects to a British dictionary and she goes, see, and I go, but it's not in my Google. My Google says there's nothing, you know? So yeah, it's funny, It's. Quite a small world and it's getting smaller.

32:50 It's good. And I think, but I'm glad that the languages are being saved. I mean, we're very lucky we all speak English, aren't we? How lucky are we? I mean, listen to, you know, all of your listeners, but your American listeners. Aren't we lucky that we were born in the country, that we just speak English as a first language and we have a really good command of it? I think about that so often, yeah, and all that respect. It's great to learn other languages, but more and more I know just the young people in the company when they. Travel. Like if I went to Japan 35 years ago or whatever. Oh man, you're you're struggling and you know and and it's difficult and the places you you just wouldn't manage. And now they just walk up to people and speak in English and expect them to reply, which is a bit sad because hey, it is their country.

33:31 Come on, it's you know. But but ours is such a global blessed. You know. We're really blessed. Our ours is such a global industry, you know it really and and like I mean if I had a little sound company or lighting company in the middle of China or the Philippines or you know, Romania or wherever, right, I, I would probably want to be able to conduct business with people. Yeah, Commerce and English is obviously the widest language. Like I think for some of us we like to think it's the only language. But I don't, you know, I've always grown up in Canada around French speaking people and. Now we're in South. Florida around Spanish speaking people. And so, you know, I I think it's great that the world has finally sort of accepted that, hey, if we want to kind of do business with everyone, probably this is the thread that kind of goes between us all a little bit.

34:27 Yeah, sure. But but like you, I hope that all the old languages don't go away. Don't go away. Exactly. And so good, you know, whatever. I've become quite supporter of that I would say, you know, I think, OK, Steve, stick with it, deserves it. Otherwise, they will. Disappear. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So you know, we kind of just dove in and started chatting here, but I mentioned in our intro at you know, for those who are listening to this who maybe just landed on the planet Earth and have no no idea who this crazy man is that I'm talking to right now. So of course this is Steve Warren. Steve is is best known as the guy who worked for managed owned Ava Lights for a long, long time. You know, probably the most prominent trade show goer. Yeah, I do love a trade.

35:21 I do love a trade. Show. Probably one of the wildest men I've ever known. You know, I I, you know, again, being a relatively naive Canadian, moving to the United States and then starting to go to these big trade shows. And I remember the very first time I saw you show up at a party or something dressed as a woman. And I was like, who the hell is this man? Oh, that's that's just Steve. I do like, I do like to cause some trouble. It's great when you go to a front of house like that, I tell you. I mean sometimes on the main stage I can get really like, Oh my God, everyone's being so serious. On the smaller stage, there's no problem. But I think you know what, they still need a little bit of shaking up.

36:04 That's why we're in this business. You know it's. Hilarious. It's hilarious, I. Have to tell you, I have to. Share with you, Marcel. That that whole sort of dressing up thing was came about in such a weird way. We used to host the parties, those Ava life parties. We had some great parts back in the day and. And at one point I thought, I thought that starts. You know, theming them. And so we had different themes and we'd wear costumes again just to add a bit of sort of frivolity to it. And then one year, I can't tell anyone possessed me but our our strap line was always from rock to opera and. I. Thought you know. What I'm going to do? I'm going to turn up dressed as Mozart for the opera part. I'm going to have all of the calfs, all the frilly calfs.

36:46 I rented a whole suit. And I mean really, look the part, the boots, everything. And I thought then when it comes to midnight, I'm going to change into my Donner outfit. Really. Oh. My God. Blow everyone's mind. You could have been Jagger. Or something too, you know. That. Would have made the same point. No. I think I just wanted to wear the gold breasts. There's points of gold breasts. That's. Still somewhere in the back of the cupboard. That's. Hilarious. I tell you, Marcel, the face of my distributors in Japan and my distributors in Korea, the Philippines was just priceless in life. They don't. Get it? Oh no, man. Oh, the Japanese they expect.

37:28 It after a few parties they were like. Wow. What's coming next? Yeah, because it's stuff that they wouldn't do. And I think the corporatization of our industry, it's, it's been OK, it's a mixed bag really, isn't it? People. Bitch and mine. Especially if you believe people. People of my age bitch and moan. I've heard more of it this week and more of it today, where people bitch and moan about the corporatization of our industry. But the industry has grown much, much larger than any of us would ever expected. It employs 1000, you know, multi, you know, magnitude of people more than we ever expected. So it's a great career choice. It's a big industry.

38:09 It's something that your parents are not going to tell you off for going into that industry when you're a kid. And people are much safer. They don't fall out of trusses. I used to remember when people used to fall out of trusses regularly. I I didn't even want to get. I told riggers I don't want to know your wife or kids because you, you know you guys are too dangerous. So. All of that stuff is good. But what's not so good is when people just take it a little bit too seriously, because we're not saving lives. We're doing a great light show. We're going to, you know, we're going to entertain people. We're going to help them have a great weekend. So put your goddamn feet back on the floor. You know, stop being a prima Donna. You know, it's we're all going to make it work and we're going to pull off a show. And it's not heart surgery, it's lighting and it's great and we love it. And so for me, if I go to Glastonbury and after midnight I decide, you know what, I'm going to put on my girlfriend's shorts and a pair of fishnets and I'm going to make some people laugh, then that's.

39:02 What I'm going to do? If they go to. Banking or. Something, you know, that's what they should do. But anyway, but that's after midnight. Anything can happen after midnight. Anything for a laugh. I think that's anything to raise a smile is, is one of my watchwords. You know, I really like to see people. Smile. So. This you say? You know. The Avril lights thing has been, I'm like, so just to say say myself but you say you know the face over lights. A buyer. I did do a lot with Avril Lights. I I was the one who said, hey, we should buy this. You know when a when the corporation that owned it back in 91 decided that they weren't interested anymore, All of them is true. But I'm so aware that I'm a small part in a very large call. When I look at the design, use the software people, it's just I'm the one that people meet.

39:51 I suppose I really like introducing people to Ava lights and that's why this this summer we'll be at like 7 or 8 festivals, maybe 10. And we will meet loads of new young technicians who will be super happy to meet someone from the company and have a personal invite. And I'll hook them up with the, you know, technicians inside the company. Only. Get them going, you know, and get them for the confidence in themselves. But I don't know if the festival is an excuse for pitching Ava lights, or if pitching Ava lights is an excuse to go to a festival, you know? It's a beautiful synergistic. Relationship. Yeah, yeah, I know you love a good music festival. I do love them, I thought. I spend a lot of time there and it. Surprises me because you're.

40:35 Moved to the. Netherlands, you. Know because. Like someone told me, someone told me last year, what do you think the number is of of festivals in the Netherlands? I think there's what, like 15,000,000 people there or something, 17,000,000? People, It's not big, is it? It's a really small country. How? Many festivals do you think they have? It's a hard. One because I think UK used to have like 600 and I put it at probably 700 now so. 1400 festivals. No. In the Netherlands 14. Country. Festivals which is a. 5th of the size of the UK is. That insane. 20% of the UK? That is insane. It's. Insane. Like how many did they go to each? And that was from someone who knew, you know? It wasn't.

41:19 From some schmuck. It was from someone who knew. I was like, you've got to be kidding. And part of that is because again, small country, they don't get a lot of tours that go through there. So a lot of the music that they consume comes by way of festivals, and some of those festivals are tiny, but you know, in total 1400. Festivals. So wild. And. And it's great. And I think the festival thing, I mean you and I have seen that grow as a niche, you know, in the same way the table dancing bars grew as a niche, you know, popped out of nowhere and suddenly became a big part of our industry. I remember when they were like festivals, you could count on one hand almost in the UK and they just started springing up and now there's I see festivals.

42:03 Yesterday I was hearing that we're involved. We've got like 8 consoles at a like a a nerds festival and I mean that in the most polite way, like no, no, he, he said. He said, Steve, I'm a bit of a nerd and I love this festival, love it because you've got so many consoles. It's a Science Festival called EMH, you know, and yeah, like electromotive force, but it's for something Electro field something because it's in a field and they have science talks all day. And they have. Music at night and you think and it says it's. Just. Poor people like me. Computer geeks. Just computer geeks. And nerds. And we just love it.

42:45 And this is something. My son. Would go to he's into VR, he's into creating virtual worlds. He's he's got degrees in it. University, the highest united postgraduate. But that's the something. He would go to comedians and science talks and doesn't really care about the music too much. But there's a festival for them. There's food festivals, as you know. There's everything you know, whether it's cars, motorbikes, whatever you like. There's a festival for it and I think that's great because it gets so many people out to start, people who wouldn't normally as the things have got into it. Right. And now have a reason to go and it gives us something to light. I don't know. We were just. Starting to have fun, Steve? Were we censored by somebody, I mean, the Internet I've checked said it's on Airbnb.

43:27 High speed Internet, it's always. Good. I don't know anyway. I don't know. Something happened we. We used to. Ship the consoles with a with a note inside saying. Never let something technical know that you really, really need it. It's right now, I really. Really need the Internet? It's like, I think I've just disappeared for a while. You're like, what? And being back on or moving to mainland. Europe. Especially down here in the South where it's sort of quite old fashioned because I'm speaking to the builder and he says that and he's chatting away about the schedule and he sort of says, well, and we're talking about August. And he went well on on holiday. And he looks at me like I'm crazy, like, yeah, don't you know that? Don't you know that we're all on holiday in the whole of August and you're like, oh, I didn't know that was still a thing.

44:10 Yeah. But that's that's. Great, they spend. Time with their families, they they go back home for lunch every day and they have lunch their families and come back to work. You're like the whole town shuts down my local town. Shuts. Down at lunchtime, you can't. Everything is close. You know I was a part of, I was a part of the the US company that bought Comar and I remember the first year that we were going through this. So we closed on the deal like in spring or something, right. And you get to summer and we decided we're not going to close in August. You know, we're going to continue continue building and shipping product and it became quite apparent that the entire country said no, you're not going to do this because you couldn't get components, you couldn't get anything picked up, you couldn't get like you just couldn't do anything and you. Could build them, I guess on your warehouse floor. Yeah, yeah, we well, if you don't run out of components or food or anything else, you know, it's like I mean because they don't function that way.

45:13 So we did it once, tried it once, it didn't go very well and and that was that, you know, we said OK, I guess we follow. Sometimes you gotta go with the flow. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So going back to AVO, so you know you obviously had a very long and successful run with AVO and recently you had the opportunity along with the rest of the ownership group to make a deal with a much larger company. And in having spoken with you in the past, I know that you know, I think it became important in our industry and this is, this is a pattern and a trend by the way, it's got nothing to do with AVO.

45:59 To succeed in this industry you have to be well funded. Right now, you know whether you're a rental company or you're a manufacturer, you have to be rather well funded because the costs of everything and the just the size, the scope and scale of everything has just gotten that much bigger, right. And so I think for AVO, you know when, when and correct me, you know anytime you want on this. But I always saw AVO like it reminded me of when I was at Martin and high end became so dominant and you know we didn't have the ideas, product or resources to compete head to We tried like hell.

46:42 And you know, we we gained a lot of fans and friends in the industry because of how hard we worked and tried and finally got ourselves in a position to to compete head to head with them. But I kind of see like Ava was so dominant for so many years and then when these digital consoles, you know, got bigger and more expensive and more elaborate and everything else, you know, I think you needed a larger manufacturer to partner with to. To. I I couldn't agree with you more and you know, it's been on my agenda to. Or, you know, sort of. Something wanted to achieve and think right how do we take this to the next step because it was quite a cottage industry and certainly in the beginning and and as you say we're all you know totally dominant 8080% of the market all of the big shows in a similar position to the German company now finds And then if you like, as you say we took our eye off the ball on the larger stuff and really focused on a lot of smaller high volume stuff which is very successful, brought a lot of people into the industry. But it's really important to have those headline shows you know and other companies shouldn't it And so it's great to be a it's great to be back in the ring even though the the newcomer and like all right let's see how these guys do. We've got some really interesting touch points, you know, on.

48:04 In. The way that we work because we it's sort of very focused on being intuitive and create you know, creative and less about learning a programming language. And I think to me, I think there's still a great scope for that because you know, I'd like to believe and I really do believe that a lot of creative people come into this industry they're not code writers, not programmers and and so the more you can cater that and make it a a pleasurable experience to to create your vision, the the more successful you'll be. But back on on to the commercial line, you know, when I look at the outlay, you know for to get the Diamond 9 running and even more so with this D7, the the Diamond 7 console that we've just shown at LDI and Frankfurt, the advanced orders are huge and they're huge. With Roby they would have been very large anyway, but with the power of Roby behind us and their sales force and their awareness, it's absolutely taking our breath away the hundreds of of orders before even the production models been produced.

49:06 But of course that needs a big check to to buy those components and and you know that you have to place the orders for the components like months and you know so far in advance and you have to have that production line funded in advance and and as you say it's become it's just not able to run. It was great being a small ship, agile ship on a turbulence you know in a turbulent ocean. But for many years I've thought right we did a great job we've had really good time doing it. You know a lot of things we're really proud of but we need to be a part we need a partner and we need the right partner. We've always been really close to Roby, you know, as you know, they use our consoles for their trade shows and we.

49:48 Get a lot. Of feedback from them and to me something that's also interesting is them buying artistic license. I don't know how well your listeners know artistic license but they're all using artistic license products in a sense because artistic license Wayne I've known since he came out of university and you know when he when he graduated in 1985 or something he was the one who invented artnet that everyone has used and and that's become and he now has is it a Talkback protocol he's he's developing art Nets over over network as well you know so he's he's really sort of stretching he he's going to come up with other fundamental changes that are really cool.

50:30 He is so clever and if you like he focuses on the networking part of it. We focus on what we're doing in the consoles and control and making it fast and furious, so we can talk about how I see the industry moving in terms of fixtures and so on. And we've got LSC in the group now who bring a lot of sort of technology in terms of dimming, but more importantly in terms of mains distribution. Because as the rigs get into hundreds and thousands even of fixtures, mains distribution is another whole ball game that you know. And so I feel between us with the power Roby has with all the fixtures at different levels us for the consoles, the the main distribution products from LSC and artistic license, it's like a really powerful you know shoulder to shoulder group and. So.

51:20 I keep telling people I feel really strongly about this, This is chapter 3. You know, we have the original Founders, Chapter One back in the day when it all started in like 8078 and they did some amazing things and and then as they started to slow down if you like or lose focus on where it needed to be, we were there, we took it over. We took it over as a group of owners and we kept, you know, managed that for 32 years, built up the distribution. Network. And this Chapter 3 is just it's blowing my mind because it's got the Diamond 9, which is doing great, and people are starting to see why. It's an interesting platform to work with and a pleasurable platform to use. The D7, the type T3 again, we, we completely got the forecasting wrong.

52:07 We saw so many of those, yeah. And so we've got a whole new product range, new management in place, a new parent, new manufacturing, you know, might behind us, new buying power for components. They're just so many things that have changed for the goods. And I'm really glad to be part of it. You know, I don't want to be standing in anyone's way. I don't want to be the old guy who slows it up in any way, but I'm totally there to keep meeting people at. Whatever. Events and bring them into the company, you know. You know it's it's interesting because you say a lot of we stuff and and I think I like a lot of people was under the assumption that you were basically out now retired and and had left and and then you just recently told me no, no, no, I still work there and very much a part of it.

52:53 And you know I know you know your heart and and pride and you know many, many years of your life were invested in that company blood sweat and tears literally. Right. Yeah. And so it must really be a proud moment for you, like, you know, watching it become. You know, sort of blossom, I would say. Yeah. That's right. And so and as you say on the retirement thing, I'm just going to throw in there because occasionally people come up to say, hey Steve, what's it like in retirement? How's? Your time now they. You know. Their fault? Yeah. I've never. Went so hard. I've got four buildings to build and I'm still picking up the phone trailer lights. Yeah, you know, and it's great, but great team there. So it is totally not all about me. It is totally about hooking people. I meet up with the right people in naval lights and that's great because the people are there but just glad to be parts of it. Do my one day week thing, you know. Yeah.

53:46 Is your role basically brand ambassador? Yes, I think it's hard to know. We've had business development brand ambassador gets put in there. I'll tell you I I mean at the end I just took everything off and just had director and now I'm thinking actually I don't think I'll go with the job title. I just sign off with Steve Warren because I worry I think quite often. I see you know actually marketing people come and go. I've seen a business development managers come and go. I've seen brand. Ambassadors. Come and go, Yeah. It's like it's not a real job the the managing director, that's a real job. Sales director, real job. Finance, yeah. Real job. I see. Well, I can't really lose jobs anymore, so I'll just be me A. Title.

54:28 Less man. A Titleist, man. That's that's the way forward. And as I say, a day, a week when people say So what, you only pick up the phone on Fridays? Is that what you're saying? Like no, no, no. I pick up the phone to anyone I tell anyone out there who knows me, wants to contact me, send me a message, send me a WhatsApp, send me an e-mail. You'll get reply always and I'll check it every day, but it sort of works out, you know, if you think, if you're not sitting at the office doing that all day, you think, OK, I'll bill one day, one day a week. And that that. Covers it because I like speaking to people when they pick up, when they call me now. So yeah, still part of it. Let. Me ask you a couple questions. So has manufacturing moved or is manufacturing still in? No.

55:11 Manufacturing is still in the UK, still in London and what we'll see is an incremental change that was there's been a question from a lot of people. Saying, oh does everything. Get built in Czech Republic now are you? Like, hey, it wouldn't be great just to change everything overnight. Robi are busy doing what they're doing and so even if we wanted to, it wouldn't be possible. So what we're looking for you know is initial things like Robi have a great PCB plant, they've bought their own PCB plant. Well, there's no point in us getting PCBS made by any other supplier other than the parent. So we can have really fast turn around for prototyping stuff which has been great.

55:51 So you have an immediate benefit from that because the prototype being much faster now within the group. So the first thing is like PCBS will get, will get be like produced by Roby and next second step would be metalwork because you know metalwork facilities are huge and expensive. So we've always had the metalwork produced outside of our our physical building And so that would be an easy next step to say right, OK, we'll get 100 pieces of this and 100 pieces of diamond front panel and so on. And so these steps are slowly coming in. So there will be I I would expect there's no great, it's not how it has to be. But let's say I would be surprised if in five years or seven years if most things were not being built in a central factory that's capable. Of building.

56:40 It makes sense. It makes sense. It's good for the cost, is good for reliability. Well, it's such an. Efficient manufacturing facility, you know, it's a large efficient manufacturing facility. They do a very good job manufacturing product and the the actual construction of a product versus the sales and support and everything else totally separate functions and they don't have to be in the same facility in in my belief anyways so. I think it's an absolute, it's an absolute win to to separate because I think that's the point. The point you've just made is something this so often that almost I think people, I remember somebody saying oh they're they're talking about the merit, the Mercedes in the American market. They said well you know Americans seeing the Mercedes are built by like scientists in white coats, you know, together, you know things are not hand crafted anymore. When I started everything was you know, things were wired together and sold it together with care and attention. Now you have SMD machines and metal folding machines, you've seen them.

57:44 I mean the Roby facility is just off the scale. It's it's an amazing and So what it is it's about streamlining and getting things to a price point because customers customers don't realize and especially I, I quite often look at this and you think wow you know what goes into that manufacturing wise it's it's amazing that you get it for the money you do people bitch and moan about it. But if it was built by companies like you know myself or Roby or Martin or Revolight and probably cost you 100,000. Yeah. Yeah. But, but having said that, The funny thing is like 2530 years ago when you were making, you know, whatever consoles, QM5, hundreds. Or whatever right like.

58:30 Could you imagine 25 years from then that you'd be selling lighting consoles for 80 or $90,000? Yes, Well, that's right, like I mean. That just blows me away that that the market is so. Strong. At that price point. But I would also refer back to I think that customers are getting great value for money. And I'm not saying that there's a sales week like up in the sales week for my life. Because if I look at those 28 grand consoles, apparently grand consoles back in the day, they were still expensive. And somebody has shown me the the devaluation of money, especially since they started printing money like no tomorrow, your government, our government, and we watch our money dissolve.

59:15 And. It's only year by year. So if you look, you know when you see those graphs, let's say if you took £30,000 back in 1980. How much is that worth? Today, yeah. Let's say it's worth probably 100 and 5200 grand. Yeah, it's a similar scale, yeah. So I think. I think things have dropped by like a. 3rd by the fact. That we we used to hand build them and we and now they're built you know my SMD machines robots and then engineers put them together and test them and another one goes out the door. So yes it is a shop that they're, you know whatever. The price of a Porsche or a cheap Porsche. Yeah, that's. You know what I mean? The other.

59:56 Thing What doesn't get? Seen is the sorry is the software development and and it's not a super exciting subject for a lot of people. But I suppose when they get close to the company and it'll be the same for MA, same for Camsys, same for us, you know is that when you look at the real cost of the console, what they people don't see because a lot of us in our industry, especially rental company owners, they're guys who used to build stuff, you'd build trust, build lights, you know, we're all pretty hands on, we've all done, we're all quite sort of handy. And so we look at the cost of something and we sort of guess how much for PCBS, how much for the processes, how much for the cables, how much put it together. And then we still can't understand like wow, you guys must be making a fortune on this. You want, You want even? Well, look at the $2,000,000 software bill that has to get amortized across the.

1:00:40 Well, here's the thing, Steve. It's funny because this is such a hilarious conversation, because last week I had Michael Nevitt on, and Michael, of course Flying Pig, and then the M series stuff from Martin. And then a couple weeks ago I had Matthias and so on. And you know, so a couple of console guys and both of them said the same thing, which is when people are thinking of the price of a console, they don't think that there's a lifetime of software upgrades included in that. And so when you start putting a price tag on those software upgrades, you know, whereas some other industries or some other types of businesses or whatever, they'll devalue the hardware. But then charged 5000.

1:01:27 Dollars every time you upgrade the software, right? You know, like. The licensing, Yeah, that's right. The monthly license fee like for a DB or whatever. You know, yeah. Exactly. All that Adobe suite and so on. But when you look at what you're paying over a lifetime, that's a really big number. Of it was like, oh. Yeah, it only costs me $30.00 a month. You're like well. I remember every time we used to have to upgrade AutoCAD in one of the companies I owned and I was shocked by how much they charged to upgrade AutoCAD each time, like $10,000 or something. I forget what it was, but it was a a sum of. Money, right? And so again, you either pay the price all in in that price of the console and then they're pricing in you know 20 years or 10 years of of updates or you? Charge you can get.

1:02:15 Transcript. By that. That's right. And you can see that. What is it? Micro billing. I remember when that phrase came out. What a great phrase. I remember standing when I first heard that and I thought that as a sale, as a commercial vehicle. That's an amazing concept. It means that if you're buying like tracks on it, I think it was to do with iTunes when they first started selling single tracks on iTunes. Yeah, for 99. Cents micro billing, exactly. Because. Nobody minds spending $0.99, yeah? Look at all the tracks. You own by $0.99 you know. Yeah, I've got an iPod that can hold 10,000 songs. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. But it's it's like slowly drip, drip, you know, drip bleeding you. So yeah.

1:03:00 And so you guys are. You. Guys are console people saying that. Other console people say that. You guys are just charging $10,000 for the iPod? Off the bat. And then you give them free, free music. Just the music's free. Yeah, 10,000 for the iPod, yeah, now and of. Course there's a fixture support, but these are, you know, not exciting subjects or transfer. No, no it is. But you. Imagine that every day there's new fixtures coming out, and not only that, they used to come out with 30 or 50 channels. Yeah, they're coming out with 500 channels. Maybe. Well, maybe 2 universes of channels and somebody has to map those, figure out all of the boundaries and we pay somebody to do that. It's a full time job, you know, We pay someone to do that as a surface and don't charge for it.

1:03:44 It's, yeah, it's all going to be paid for somewhere. You know you were. And you know, it's going to sound like I'm just pumping you up a little bit here. But you were a visionary when it came to realizing that consoles were going to control a lot more than just Parkins and a few moving lights. You know, you were very early on the whole media server thing and you know a light show being basically video nodes or or pixels or whatever. Like you were really early on that that? Sort of a lot. Of attention to that. And I feel sort of quite strongly about that. I have to say overall it's, it's sort of a bit funny because, you know, I'd like to say, Oh yeah, I saw that coming.

1:04:25 The trouble is, I saw it coming way too early. Yeah, remember back in 19? 90 exactly 1990. Nine and I gave a talk for my distributors and say, hey, video lights are. Coming and we need. To be ready, we need to be integrating control of video servers, getting used to those functionality, treating things as one homogeneous canvas, the lighting rig, rather than separate fixtures like we did with park hands back in the day. You know, because the moving lights are really just an extension of, well, we've got a really smart park hand now, so we'll treat it like that. He's like, no, no, we need to be thinking about the whole picture because I thought those video lights would be there very quickly with their infinite zoom, infinite iris, super fast iris, infinite gobos, and of course they just couldn't get the output.

1:05:12 High enough? Yeah, and. Lights just got brighter and brighter and brighter with the existing technology, which is really like a go, but you know, like a thing in front of the flashlight. Yeah, yeah. They work really well. So and I'm still convinced that the the projector lights, profile lights, projection lights will go that way because the benefits are so huge. But it probably needs another breakthrough like that Texas Instrument chip that the the DLP projectors. But what I would say, yeah, is just to carry on what you were saying is that the wash lights became multi celled and so I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting the projection side to be like video but the multi celled fixtures, they have just grown as everyone has seen and they're like little, they're like little video panels.

1:06:02 Right. And so in the same way that we're really fixed on, we have all the features that you'd expect in a console and all the programming features, which I won't bore people with. We were super happy to come up with keyframe shapes and we've seen that in lots of other consoles now because it's a really good way to work with with really complex fixtures. But the synergy thing allows you just to dip in and out of video. I think Seth Jacksons using it soon on The Doobie Brothers thing and. Yeah, I just told us he's. Gonna blow some people's minds on on how he's using it because it's it's simple and it's a it's a way of getting dipping in and getting the whole thing to look as one picture and I think that really is important you know is this. The thing that I remember you demonstrated in, I believe it was Las Vegas in a a building that was off the Strip somewhere and you had this sort of secretive demo and you had a rig set up in there where you had like like old park hands or something.

1:07:03 And then you had strobe lights, and then you had wash lights, and then you had. Video like you mixed. A. Bunch of different media. Together. Basically, and they all operated as pixels in an image basically. And it blew my mind. I I'll never forget seeing that. I was like, what an amazing way to look at this, you know, because. That's. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, the lights became an extension of the screen behind them or whatever, right? As opposed to. Working exactly that, exactly that, and the big message for me and the worry for a lot of lighting people. Is that they say what are? You trying to give away? Our control, you're trying to give it away to the lighting department, to the video department.

1:07:44 I'm saying not at all, really not at all. There's any of people are doing what they do and they're doing more, you know, more and more shows have really high level, beautiful video in them. So they're there, they're not going away, and you're doing your lighting things. But there are times where it'd be really nice for you to be able to just synchronize. And I do mean times. I mean like individual cues within a show or one track within a show. So for example, on Banco Left Field, which was doing arena tours here recently, there was one point where it was really fast dance music and the video was bursting out from the middle of the screen and and flashing out with these sort of like lightning points and all. I could see that all of the strobes around the edge of the lighting rig were being triggered by the points as they reached out. Now, there's an interesting way you could ever program that you you.

1:08:35 If you wanted to program that, you'd be in the studio for like 2 months. That's amazing. Whereas you could just say, hey, pick up the video, when the video runs over that light, trigger that light and boom is there. It was so simple and it was just and you didn't quite know what you were looking at it. Just. Looked that like suddenly the video was in your face with the strobes and it was cool. And then he uses, then he goes back to using normal lighting cues. You know, it's not like we're taking over your show. We're just giving you another tool like, like the shape generator was another tool, you know? I mean, it was when I saw that demo. And I'm not lighting designer, board operator, programmer, nothing.

1:09:16 I'm just a sales guy. At the end of the day, you. Know I'm a business guy and a. Sales guy? No, but The thing is, I don't know anything when it comes to like I'm not a technical guy. However, I understand a lot of things because I'm very curious. But when I looked at this, I was like you're smart guy that was on the board, gave me a little speech and I was like, I have no idea what the hell that guy just said. Like I had no idea. But then he said let me show you a little demo and he did the demo. I got it immediately. Instantly I it just went Bing. I was like, whoa, the lights and everything, strobes, all of this different stuff going on is just an extension of that LED screen, you know?

1:09:59 That's all it is. It's basically it all becomes one big image you. Know thing that's right. Yeah, yeah. And. Sometimes that's the right thing to do, and sometimes it's great that they're both doing their own thing. So it's not about taking power away. It's just like, hey guys, here's another cool trick he could do. Yeah, and isn't a nice thing for you to do. Thank you. Yeah, it's really cool. I'll tell you what, Marcel, one of the extra side benefits, which I hadn't really thought about in the beginning, but now that we're part of the Roby group, there are a lot of people looking at us for the first time. You know, if people say, Oh yeah, it's no way though. You guys, you know, whatever, you're everywhere now, whatever. I saw you in a lot of big friends of houses or somebody else. And so there's a lot of people looking at us almost for the first time where people haven't looked at us for a long time. And that that that awareness of synergy as well as some of the other things like key frames that we we invented really are just people are really like wow, I wasn't expecting that and that's really cool.

1:10:56 So because people say have another look, you know? If you're 40 or younger, you probably grew up on a Hog console and then transitioned into a MA console and so you might have missed AVO all together and and I get that. Like I completely get. That and so. So they tie in with Roby. But you know, like like me, I'm sure you you would probably recognize or agree with this. It wasn't that long ago that it was really taboo and scary for a lighting manufacturer to pair up with a console company. Interesting, you know from. A political standpoint and a commercial standpoint like, oh, you're just going to make me buy your consoles now because I'm buying your lights.

1:11:43 And I would say for the most part companies have behaved really well in that regard. You know, beginning with probably Martin, I think was the first one. Weren't they with? This, the keeping are quite separate. That's right. They kept it pretty separate people when they took it completely under their wing. And of course I mean the sales people of course are going to you know I'm not talking about rugby but it's been you know previous you know whatever relation and so on. They're trying to sell their console with their lights and of course I get that something that I think and I'm sure this will be the way forward for Roby. You will see that they're kept very separate. The brand identity people say is the name going to change. No, we're still able lights, we're doing our thing.

1:12:25 We've got our own stuff, you know. Such a strong brand. That's right. Yeah. And when you go to the website you you don't see, you know they're kept in separate things. And I I think that really is the way forward. And it and it was important for all of us because we need to keep our relationship with all the different movie light manufacturers and they need to keep their relationship open with all of the designers and the designers choose what they want to choose. And so, yeah, as you say, everyone has played really fairly and I think I'm convinced from what I've seen, Roby are going to play most fairly of. All, yeah. You had you had high end and and Flying Pig and you had obviously you know and then ETC and Flying pig and and ET C's own own consoles as well and ACT and and Airton and MA and you know there's been a lot of these sort of partnerships and stuff camps is with with Shimano.

1:13:21 Yeah, that's. Right. So it's almost like it's shifted from taboo to have a console and and lighting manufactured together to it's the norm now all. Of the new. Manufacturers have have a. Console company It's almost. Like you have to. So. It's an interesting thing. It'll be interesting as it moves forward as well, I think, because one side is, as you say, keeping it playing, playing fair and playing well like you just said. But as fixtures get more and more complex, I I think it's going to be quite interesting to see what happens because there will be a point I think where we control everyone's fixtures on the level playing field. But because you're inherently tied up, you know, and working closely with the R&D department of of someone of your parents and they come up with something really technologically advanced, you would expect that those consoles that are owned by the parent to have a better a Sonia head start, not intentional head start because everyone gets the data and so on.

1:14:25 But you'd know it's. Coming you'd you'd you'd be having those conversations about Wow, where could we take this, how could we use that functionality of that new fixture, So I think. That's a good point. Imagine that if we rolled the clock forward 10 years, it might be different. Like we say, well we're trying to consider with everyone, but we just inherently can control this better than anyone else because. That's gonna be interesting where that goes. You're you're right. That's such a great point because. Well, and I. I don't know. Like I I keep, I ask so many questions on this podcast of people who are, you know, 80,000 times smarter than I am because I'm trying to always understand where it's going. And the older we get, it's, you know, we we lose sight of that sometimes because young people, you know, will tell you exactly what you need to be investing in on, you know, social media platforms or anything else.

1:15:17 Like, I'll I'll always ask my son, you know what's popular now and he'll tell me me and he'll be like that. Facebook's for old people, you know and. But. But The thing is, you know, I think that there's something like AI and robotics are really going to change what everything looks like in the future. And exactly how is that going to change? And you know, like, I'd love to hear your take on this, because I know you've drank the blood of weird frogs and eaten plants and stuff that aren't meant to be eaten, and you've had a lot of time to think about stuff, let's say, I could deny.

1:16:02 Everything. And when it comes to the frogs, that was completely legal. I just want to make that really clear. But it's true, They. Wanted to be eaten. Yeah, No. Apparently they. Strength the frogs as well, I'm told They stroke the frog, saying maybe it's good marketing and I'm sure there's some people not stroking the frogs, but the frogs live and they secrete their poison and. And then they burn. It into your skin to make you really sick. But hey, why not Remember that? Remember that I was. Like I know. I was like, Stephen, what are you doing? What the hell are you doing to? Yourself. My wife will do anything if she's considered. If she believes it, make me more healthy. What's supposed to help? Your children always talks about DHT or something or. Oh. That's a different, those are sort of, I think DMT probably.

1:16:45 DMT. DMT. Yes, yeah. Yeah, have you? Ever tried that one? Because that's supposed to be like AI. Think we're being recorded? I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never heard about something. No. But. You know, it's almost like you have to try it at some point because it's it's supposed to be this like wacky, out of body experience where you come back and you remember everything that you just experienced and you can confirm nor deny. It doesn't matter. Well. I mean if I had a friend, if I had a friend who had shrine it, then you would have told me that yeah, it's like a complete out of body 3 dimensional experience, being somewhere that has no physical form but being able to jump back to the real reality and then return to that. We have a very.

1:17:28 Old place said. Memory of it and stuff too, right? Like I tell. You what's really interesting, and I think America's really leading the way on this, is psychotropics with mental with depression. I have AI have a friend through the yoga connection who is studying at a degree level the use of psilocybin with depression. He's a therapist, went to the same school as Prince Charles. He's a particularly very, very posh chap, super educated. And it's been so nice this year. So interested to hear about me, you know, 'cause I have a connection to some rock'n'roll people that, yeah, the dark bit more dubious. I'd like, yeah. So yeah.

1:18:09 But is it great to? Hear that, people? Getting off prescription meds for years and years and years, you know, taking. Natural therapies. That's right. And things that actually can can fix you rather than just keep you subdued. And you know it's funny because more open minded as you say about things like DMT or psilocybin or any of those things. People I'm I. Was a young. Young musician. Young musician. Grew up in Western Canada and you know, the friends would just say, hey, you go over there to that field and you just, you pick up cow shit until you find these particular looking mushrooms. And you know, so of course everyone did them back then and I did and but never since. And and now I'm hearing very smart people, extremely smart, straight and narrow people.

1:18:59 Like. These aren't druggies in, you know, they're more like the guy in the lab coat than than people in like, you know, you know, long. Hair ponytail. They're not hitting Afghan coats, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you know, but especially micro dosing, like the whole mushroom micro dosing thing is a big deal right now too. So But anyways, where I was going with all of. This was if. We go back to the console. You know, I'm always curious when I talk to console control companies of any kind on when do we see AI coming into consoles and how do we see AI coming into consoles.

1:19:46 Because you could do it today and and you know, you could take away repetitive lines of code and all the, like you said, people didn't get into this business to be coders. You know, they got into it because they're creative and they want to create things. And so AI can very easily today, you know, without waiting for new technology or anything, using GPT 4 or a number of other methods. You could remove all of those lines of code and have it do it for you. And so that would be sort of call it the easy step because no designers or lighting people are gonna get pissed off because console companies have made their job a little bit easier. But what happens when you start getting into the stuff where your borderline stepping beyond that lighting programmer or operator and you're saying make this desk or create a look that looks like Peter Morse on Michael Jackson in 1999 or 2000 or whatever year it was?

1:20:46 Yeah, yeah, using blah, blah, blah. And you know, boom, all of a sudden you've got this look that looks just like that, right? Things like that are doable. And so I'm just wondering, how does AI in your vision make it's way into lighting consoles? And and I think it there's a lot of what you're saying I think on the right track #1 to me without answering the question initially is it's such a difficult question because I can say I remember and it was a festival maybe two years ago and I remember where I was standing when a really competent young programmer designer running a stage and and you've done a beautiful job with the stage and what have you. And he said, Oh my God I I made such an effort to get into this industry just at the time when my job's going to be replaced with AI and it said Shiplestown, my back. You know I was like oh shit he's really young and he's worried about this and I can see why because I couldn't turn around and say that's never going to happen. You're like.

1:21:53 Oh, wow. There is. There is stuff. About say for example, like club operation, let's take it. Yeah, good nightclub operation. It's great when you have a good nightclub operator, but of course the operator of the club is very keen to spend as little money as possible, You know that. And they're like and they're looking at every overhead and every personality have to. So you've got a situation where where there are people trying to push those people out of the job they have. Hopefully they recognize that when they have a good operator that brings people to their club and adds to the vibe, but they don't quite understand why. But you know, there's still operators in those clubs.

1:22:36 And I suppose what I worry is that you start thinking those situations where it will read different types of music and output, you know, different scenes that I remember. As I say. But you know, even on Sound to Light, I remember having a really clever. Operator. Saying Steve, this is what you do with the base channel and this is what you do with the mid range and this is what you do with the treble. And he'd already sort of analysed it and he was laughing with me but he wasn't touching the desk. He we were leaning back from front of house having a hug at Glastonbury and he was doing this great live show and he wasn't touching and you're like fuck when he he's on average for it. It was a moment and as you say, AI is going to take that to the next step now.

1:23:18 So that's the worrying part of it. However, I also listen to many people talk about AI. You know, AI and say, look, you know, human beings have been through so many steps with industrialization, and at each step we've been scared and worried. And at each step it's required more people. It's created more jobs, more productivity, more wealth, better standards of living. Now, yes, that's all true, but I could imagine a young person going. Well, that's all right for you, old guy. But this is different to you know, Chloe cloth looms you. Know this is all. About it doesn't printing presses. This is about a thinking machine, a real thinking machine. So, so I don't be patronizing and so don't worry about it.

1:24:01 You know, human race has been through that before, but I do believe in my heart, and I really do, that. We just integrate new creative tools. So there's a lot of stuff I suppose. I imagine one of the things I've talked about and I've sort of imagined for a long time is, you know, if you took a huge array of of moving lines, you know, lots and lots of moving lights like pixels, we can sort of do this now with Synergy. We can obviously run the color across it and you know we put this video, but I would like to see those lights opening up like a Rosebud Petals, you know, so they're all overlapping and they're doing like the organic movement, not straight lines opening up. So you have really complex with you know each 5 fixtures doing a little organic shape but opening up the same way that a Rosebud opens up in fast, you know stop motion photography and and something like that is still a bitch to control. We can create that now.

1:24:57 Hey, if there's anybody out there who wants to do that, we can do that with Synergy and I'll tell you how, but it's still a beast to control. You're talking about hundreds and hundreds of fixtures by hundreds of channels. It's a, you know, mammoth task. And so things like that, I think AI are going to make into a doddle. Let's say hang on, look. I think my wife is not really loud. She's wondering why she can't get into the house. We're. I could be. Problematic. Why? I just want to come and say hello. Maybe. Maybe. Let's talk to her for 30 minutes now instead of you. I'm bored of you already, Steve. I know I've got a bicycle in front of the plate.

1:25:41 My mountain bike is here, getting a bit of. Work. No, I want to speak to you. What have you got? Say hello. You know, you're the one who came back early. Hey, Marcel is. Carolina, Hello. How are you? Oh, she can't hear me. Because I'm in your ears, yeah. So this is the crazy big crime yoga teacher who has got me to this crazy country and we're. Going to build a A. Studio and all sorts of yoga space. She's up there. She can't hear those, Steve, because I'm in your ears. You. Are in the areas. Yeah, Yeah. So she can't. We might have to send. You guys, back to the park or a restaurant? Here somewhere.

1:26:23 Yeah, come. You can come and give a wave, but they won't be able to hear you because I'm on headphones. This is my DOP friend I was telling you about. It's fun to visit. It is. Video, I thought I. Thought this was an audio course and hello everyone out there in TV Land, so I show you. Guys A. Bitch. It. It wouldn't be a. It wouldn't be a podcast with Steve Warren if there wasn't a party going on in the background. She likes a goddess, she likes a guy. So come back bang on time. She's Colombian. She's never on time. That's funny. Yeah, we'll be done right around. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:27:05 Just when you don't want her to show up on time, right? Yeah, so. We have taken lateness to another level, but that's another story. It's all good. Yeah, but you're you're working a day, a week now, so it's all good. And I'm sure yoga teachers, you know, as busy as she might be, the world isn't going. My yoga teacher's 5 minutes late. You know, maybe in Miami, but. Not so much. Important. Yeah, that's right. Everything is late here. And it's great because. We've all, you know, you like us, like many people out there listening. We're not the healthiest in industries at times. You know. Yes, whatever. You used to drink too much. Not crazy, too much, but too much too much times and used to smoke analogy, whatever.

1:27:48 Yes. And it's all bad. So it's been great. But many of us are looking at, you know, hey we want to be here for a lot longer. And for example and it's great. We see a lot of young people, you know, also doing a lot better than we did. So the yoga is. Equally on a. Even keel. I listen to so many different like longevity podcasts now and stuff. And you know, it's just, it's just about not not trying to live to 150, but certainly trying to live healthy until whatever age that is. Yes. So if I if I'm gonna die at 80, I wanna be healthy all the way up to 70. Nine point. 8 fives. You know what I mean? Yeah, I want to be sick for a week and then die. That's it.

1:28:29 You know, I don't want to, I don't want to be sick for five years or in in a dementia hospital or something, you know? Not being able to run around, but being able to, yeah, walk and yeah, whatever, don't. Be successful as you do. Exactly that, yeah. Sometimes people. Go what you're way too old to that. You like? I don't even think. About it I just. Turn off that part of my brain and I get raving with the rest of them, and that's awesome. I love that. The great thing about being old is I just tell myself, hey, they probably think that, you know, it's your festival, like you own the place, just walk around like you own the place. So yeah. You know. You must be. That's always worked for me. It does. We look like the promoter just. Yeah, yeah. I remember one time, one time in Vegas for an LDI show, Peter Morse had Reba McEntire at the arena down the street.

1:29:16 And I know it was in Reno. It wasn't in Vegas. It was in Reno. Yeah, and. And I was working for Martin at the time, and this is how long ago this story was. But I I went and Peter was supposed to leave passes for me and another, I don't know, one or two people or something. And something happened as it always does. And the passes weren't there. And I said, well, let's just go walk in through the back. And they're like, what? And I said, yeah, come on, let's go. And we had our, our laminates from the trade show we're on around our necks. And so we go to walk in the back and the guy, the security guy goes, hey, excuse me. Who are you with? And I said Martin and he goes, OK, come on in.

1:29:57 So like, four of us just went walking right in the back door of the venue and. It was. Hilarious though it was. Just so fun. It's just a look on your face, isn't it? That's it. Look like you're supposed to be there. Exactly. So often. So exactly. Well, now, now they scan you, You know, like now you're just being tracked and scanned and stuff, so you can't get away with as many things. That's what I was saying, you know, because I was saying that, hey, you can imagine that in a few years time, you know what? I start, one of the things I stay away from is is or I tell people, I I find myself with a lot of older people and quite often they're saying, oh, Glastonbury, it's not like it was 20 years ago. It's not like it was 30 years ago.

1:30:37 The industry is not like it was 20 years ago. Hey, guess what? Nothing's like it was. 20. Years no you. Know Life changes, you know, and you got to still find the party, find the good people to hang out with, find the right places to be. There's always the good place to be. You just need to keep up with it. And if you're hanging around backstage bitching that things aren't the way the way they were, you're probably not at the right place. And we all there, we all do it. At some point of our life, we all sit around saying, jeez, you know, 20 years ago it wasn't like this, but it doesn't matter. Now it is. Guess what? Yeah, exactly. Find the cool places. Find the place to be. And that's the view. That's my view on all this AI stuff, Steve. It has been just exactly that.

1:31:19 Like the bus is coming. You either get on it or you get run over by it, but it's coming you, you can't stop it. AI is not going to stop. You can't just, you know, some people are saying there need to be laws and legislation around. The arts. Protecting the arts and do you know Glenn from AED? Yes, very well, yeah. He stayed in my house for quite a while. I helped him find the property in the UK. We've yeah, we've found out a lot. Well, it's funny. He did a He did a podcast with me a few weeks ago and he was in Portugal, I remember. Yeah. So he must have a place. Not far from you too. Right, but he's a talk. With him again, I used to date him one of his wife's friends. So, yeah, so. Really. He's such a great guy. But we talked about AI and you know, he has a a movie studio, ATV studio, and and I said does that make you nervous at all? And he said, you know, not really. You know, there's always going to be a need for for studios to film in or whatever.

1:32:15 And he said the problem with AI in movies is yes, AI is able to take movies all to a very high level and everything's just gonna go like this. Every movie will be like this, right? And then it's gonna plateau. Everything will be the same. Everything will be an 8.5, for example. They'll all be exactly the same. There's no nuance, there's no differences between any of them. Everything's at the same level. And it was an interesting point, like I had never looked at it like that. You know, I think some movies are great because of their flaws. Some lighting designs are great because of their flaws, or because of nuance, or because of attitude from whoever's programming it or whatever.

1:32:57 If we just wanted perfect lighting designs, you would just go out and go. I like that Roy Bennett show right there. Let's just make everything look like. Recreative. Yes. Yeah, I mean, that's not going to work, you know, so. And I. See your point about you know, the bus is coming. You're right. And sadly, there will be some people who get run over. I don't like to say that, yeah, you're right. Especially the ones who sort of resist and the ones who say, actually, no, I want to learn how these programming tools are getting healthy because this could take me to another level, and I think so. It's almost like everything is true. When some people say, oh, it's it's all gonna be bad. Yeah, there's gonna be some bad things because with every change there's winners and. Losers.

1:33:39 As you see, but there's no doubt that the level of creativity is going to get accelerated so. For me, it already has. Like for me, I've been able to become more creative. I've been able to put out more content. I've been able to like within these few hours I have per day to get away from my normal job and do these other creative things. I've managed to stuff a lot more into that because of AI and because of AI tools that are out there and available. And I love that, you know, so for me, it's been a really great relationship so far with AI. You know, like I know there's big famous podcasters out there who are concerned that there's going to be no market for content because AI will just produce content.

1:34:27 And, you know, you could go out and say, like I said this to to Glenn, You know, we could have Godfather five or six or seven with Marlon Brando in it, you know, why not, right. Why not? You could have Michael Jackson. You could have new Michael Jackson music and music videos and stuff by whoever owns Michael Jacksons. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean. So who knows what's going to happen? Who knows? What's going to happen, it seems? Exciting. I feel it's a super exciting time. Obviously we're in a privileged position because we're of a certain age where we're not having. To worry about our career. Development in like 10:10, 20-30 years. So I can see why that young lighting design, we're not going to see him again.

1:35:16 He's running a stage at Glastonbury and and you know, whatever. And I I can see he's doing well in his career. So I'm really pleased. But I can see why he and people like him are are concerned. But it's a case of, yeah, it's a case of accepting. It's a case of using it and wanting to use it. And it's like there was so many things. I've had this with the trying to introduce lighting people to sort of video techniques and it's not about I want. I'm trying to teach you to be a video engineer or I'm trying to replace anyone's job. I've had video people accuse me of that which hurts. It's in more a case of no, I want the lighting guy to understand what you do so that he can you know encourage more. The more use of video within your show. It's going to grow and they're going to be people who grow with it and they're people who resist it and they're they get left by the wayside, you know, and.

1:36:04 So. Well, I'd like to. It's not difficult tourism. There's always two sides of this. You know, it's it's you know it. It's all change is good, change is bad. You know and and you know, I've known people on both sides of that and I've always preferred change is good. You know, for myself like change is good. You just have to find your place in that change and and constantly be evolving and constantly be upskilling and you know, and this was always you know, because you were on a lot of our zoom calls and stuff. It was always my messaging during the whole pandemic. You know it's going to be different and just position yourself well for the change to come. Out of it.

1:36:48 It's come out of it. Well, yeah. That's right. And so many people did, you know. Yeah, thank goodness. I'm not. Sure, and most people. Reposition themselves in a lot of different ways, not just their careers, but their life. You know, whatever, whether they move, move country, move career, you know, they spent more time with family, whatever, you know, got out relationships. It didn't work. You know, there, it's funny, there were a lot of, there were a lot of Silver Linings in those clouds. There were certain some big clouds somewhere. You did an amazing job. You're on the team there in terms of keeping people's spirits, tires. Yeah. Well, you kept people connected. You kept them on the purpose. It was great. And it was really. You know what? That was important because, again, you had people who were completely freaked out by this.

1:37:29 And then you had some people like me that took this as an opportunity to exhale for a moment, you know, and to kind of look around and go, OK, what's this world all about and stuff and to reconnect with a lot of people. And I got to say, I thoroughly enjoyed a lot of that stuff. Like I, I, I look at COVID as having been good for our industry, not just because we're so big and there's a lot of wealthy companies and stuff, but I mean, there's still a lot of people who look back and say my life was ruined by COVID and all this stuff. You know, then you missed an opportunity. I'm sorry. Like there were a lot of opportunities in COVID and certainly you know, there are some businesses that just got crushed by it because they had debt.

1:38:11 I mean, just as they're, as they say, yeah, with every change, their stories that, you know, I'm not whatever no one would say. I'm sure you're not saying that. Whatever. You know, they should all done better. There were some people. That's in wrong place, wrong time you think. That's. Just not fair. That's so not fair. And the way the whole thing was run and it's, you know, you know, whatever. I have a lot of issues with the way it was run. But as you say, there were other people who said, right, well, it is what it is and how am I going to make a best of a bad situation? And so often life is like that, isn't it? You know? Yeah, totally true. Yeah, I'm so. Married to a very positive person and. I have to. Say I was having a bit of a wobble yesterday like, this is wrong and this is not going right. And she's like, look at your life. Look at, not look at, the life you. Had look at what you're doing now you're in Portugal. You're doing this.

1:39:00 You're like, yeah, she's right. I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes we all need. Conversation, quite. Often, we all need. That, yeah, I'm not. Sure. It's so perspective, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you, are you seeing us in sort of an innovation lull in this industry right now or do you think we're in a good place? Wow, Isn't that an interesting question? That's that's a tough question. Because you know what? I don't know if I'm like you said, I don't know if I'm right in a position in any authority to answer that. There was a time where I would have felt, yeah, I'm right on the money in terms of new fixtures. You know, I try and keep up.

1:39:41 I see some of the new stuff coming out. But I do think. There's a lot of polishing of existing technologies. You know, there's interesting new things, you know, and it's whatever you see new products come out and sometimes they're really successful and then they bring out a new version of that, you know, and you think. What else? Are they good? To do with it, what they've normally done is made more pixel mappable cells. Where you had some, maybe I had nine before and now you've got 50 pixel mappable cells and you can certainly do all the colors they did before, but it is really just sort of step stepping up what was there before. And I think for me, I'm still waiting for that moment and it's to me frustrating that you've had to wait 24 years because what we need is a super high power projector light, you know, we need something that does have infinite gobo, that does have infinite iris and zoom.

1:40:37 And without an incredibly small and the the plasma, you know, this plasma bowls almost made it, but never quite. It was a point source and incredibly bright and incredibly white, but it just couldn't get it stable. You know, lots of reasons and people, and I know people who claim they've got it working and they look up anyway, let's see what happens. But if they? Came out. That's good. Yes, yes. That's right. So I don't want to be unfair about that. So I think I guess it's a very good point. But so, but here's the. Thing that I think went wrong the first time around with those video lights is I think it was a projector that tried to be a light and what we need. Is a light that. What we need is a light that's got some projector technology in it, but it's a light, you know it's a light. And because all these square moving projectors on a yoke. Just.

1:41:24 They just never really. They never. Work. Yeah, that's right. They just never really did it. And we'll see if you think, well, what? Else does the industry. Need I think more flexible screens are interesting. I think you know building LED into all sorts of things and making things light up is there's certainly been a lot of development in that and it's an interesting area. And I suppose with my interest in in the merge of video and lighting, that's a super interesting point to see lights being built into all sorts of things because LE DS are now so small and easy to root. Although of course I'm looking at routing them behind wooden beams at the moment. So the other good. Times, yeah.

1:42:06 Good times. You know you're. Probably going to. Have your house like totally pixel mass pixel map so you can see. It from space, right? There will be color changing LED everywhere, I can assure you that. But what about on the roof? What about on the roof? So that planes. Can see. Planes can see. My friend. Just turned up today. He was reading my mind because he looked at all the flat land and he said, Steve, you can have some great raves here, you know, we can have the bumper cars over there, we can. Have the 2nd. Stage here. I say you are not far from the truth, my friend. That is. Awesome. We we're. Gonna have some parties here. So. Yes, there will be times you can see it from space. I'd like to. You know, on the whole innovation front though, like I, I keep bouncing back and forth because like everything is so good right now.

1:42:49 Like Roby, if you look up and down their line, it's amazing. Yeah, all the fixtures are amazing. If you look at, if you look at. Chauvet if you look at Chauvet up and down their line, it's all good. Ayrton and Elation and all of these lines, Clay Paki, you know, they're all amazing from the bottom to the top. And but you know, like, I think innovation in our industry right now reminds me of children playing soccer. They're all just following each other around in a bunch. So somebody. Comes. Out with a pixel mapped wash light that does a certain thing with a ring around the outside. Then everybody has a pixel mapped wash light with a ring around the outside, right?

1:43:31 Right. And so all of the lines are very similar, like every manufacturer is a little bit similar. And I remember how it used to be very different than that. You know everyone. Was. Very unique. Every line was completely unique and you used a little bit of this, a little bit of this and a little bit of this in in each design. Now it's much more. I could use anything so. The good side of that? Like a whole model, didn't I? Yeah, that's right. That's the house style, if you like. Yeah, that's right. The the good side is, you know, it's down to who the relationships are with or who the vendor has in stock. So if the vendor is a big Roby house, we'll take all your Roby stuff. If it's a big Ayrton house, we'll take all of your Ayrton stuff, if it's Martin, whatever, right? And then?

1:44:15 We can work. But the downside is it's becoming a little bit How did the boots say it Homogeneous. Homogeneous. Homogeneous, yeah. That's right. Yeah. And. It's a hard thing to listen to, but it's. I cannot disagree. Because you're right, there's the polishing and polishing and polishing where manufacturing techniques and one thing is great is things just work. You know, just like in the old days, things used to get, things used to break, you know, all take electronics. Now we buy consumer electronics and they just work always. If it's not working, it's all. Weather user era. Yes. And it's all weatherproof you can for you and your festivals, like you don't have to put bags over fixtures anymore.

1:44:59 It's beautiful. Fairness to the R&D guys, because I feel like here we are saying, oh, there's no innovation and I'm sure there's R&D directors who would want to cut our throats, you know? I've had those conversations. They're. Like Marcel. You're an idiot, yeah. The same here, you know, because I think in one sense though, you know, I think it's fair to say, hey, that was such a Holy Grail to get fixtures waterproof but still able to lift them out-of-the-box, still bright, get rid of the heat, all of those issues and it's been dealt with. So if you like, if there's been one big innovation, you're right, the IT. Innovation. Whole IP surge has been incredible, but what we it would be great to see some artistic innovation, if you like. Almost like time now to see maybe some visual innovation. And it would.

1:45:46 Be cool. Yeah, it would be, yeah. So we'll see where it goes and it's great. Well, I think some companies have. Done it. Some companies have done it a bit, you know, like I would say GLP, you know, getting rid of the base on a lot of their fixtures that was kind of edgy and out there, you know, even though original Vera lights had that. But I used to, I used to really love Ayrton for doing things like they came out with the little tiny fixture, I forget what it was called. And then they came out with a square one, you know the the square fixture and like and it was pixel mapped. Yeah, but. Actually, I thought they were both cool, both of those fixtures, but both of them didn't do that well. I mean, I don't want to, you know, make we say. That, but we're all in the industry. And we don't see lots of them.

1:46:29 And so then you wonder if then. Companies start to be a little bit afraid of of off the wall innovation because both of those fixtures they're, I've had really interesting applications for those, but they were never big commercial success and I want maybe like you, I wonder why if you know, yeah, so what's the same? Same reasons Ferrari now makes an SUV and Lamborghini makes an SUV. You know this? Is what the market? Wants This is what we give you know you want the ugly truck, We give you the ugly. Truck. Yeah, I know. Maserati SUV first when I saw you like, are you serious? Sort of. Bentley. Oh my Lord, Aston Martin looks so cool. Why would you do that?

1:47:10 Yeah. Yeah, the most beautiful. Cars in the world. Right now, yeah. The Bentleys. Not. Goes on. Yeah, Nuts. Well, see, we'll still keep going and it's nice to have those things to look back on, you know? Whatever I look. Like it? Yeah. Different rehearsals that you've been part of. Things that you've fucked up there. Yeah, almost setting fire to Paul Simon's rehearsals. Well, not quite. Just thought it was smoke. What happened there? You know, I've never. Heard that was. No, it was. I mean whatever, not so young and in fact the rehearsing Gracelands in the UK for the Gracelands tour and I think it's great because we were really part of that whole. We weren't supplying South Africa. We did supply.

1:47:53 We supplied to Live Aid. We supplied to the Nelson Mandela concert was a real groundswell of like, this is unacceptable. And I know some people had the issues of poor Simon bringing out that album, you know, misappropriation and what have you. But I felt it really helped open up the world's eyes to like this is there. The Africans do really cool music and there are people like us and you know let's do it and let's all be together. And he had the lady Snip Black Mambazo in in the rehearsals and the two things was AI fixed the console, it was only like a broken fade or something fixed it. And then the show's going on, the rehearsal's going on and then suddenly people are going out. There's smoke, there's smoke.

1:48:35 And I think, well, there's always smoke, There's bloody lights, of course there's smoke, there's smoke machine. And then you got smoke here, smoke here, till the place I thought I smoke. And then realized the fucking smoke is coming out of my toolbox and it's coming out of my flight case toolkit. I'd left the soldering iron put it back in its wax sleeve. And it was. Slowly. Burning. Through honestly, I never. Forget it, I looked at it. I thought. It's that smoke coming out of my my fucking toolbox. This is possible. And everyone's looking at you, you know, rolled into a little hole. But I'll tell you what's really sweet is it was the first time that you'd seen a Big South African black wire singing and these production girls would go up with their clipboards and they'd be say, hey, can I get you a cup of coffee or a glass of water, A cup of tea, And the Africans would take two steps back and, like, leave me alone.

1:49:26 Are you going to call rape or something? No, they were just not. Used to people treating them as they should be treated. You know, it was a real. Life moment, I think. Yeah, damn nice this is. How you should be? Treated. And I hope we get to the point very soon where it's not so strange for you for somebody to come up because you're an artist, you're amazing singer, and they're offering you to bring you water, tea, whatever you want. What's so sweet, man? What's so sweet? Steve. Let me ask you crazy, let. Me ask you a crazy, crazy question. When was the first time you ever saw somebody doing blow off the drawer on your desk? Because I know that's not what it was made for. It's not, but there's been an awful lot of that and I. Used to be the.

1:50:10 Service department. So I used to see it when they come back to service, feel like I turned the amount that come up with grass as well, You know, grass. Really like, yeah, it's a little bits. Of green. I mean, you can spot open it when you open it slightly, yeah. So of course, back in the 80s and 90s, there was so much of that. I'm sure there's still a lot of it going on, but it's sort of good that the industry has really cleaned up its acts. I mean, and they're just. Being more careful. That part is really good. That. Part is really good because not only a little bit. Extreme. Not only was it. Extreme, but it was dangerous. You know, like, I mean, I knew rigors that were climbing stoned out of their brains and, yeah, you know. Not having.

1:50:55 I mean for 48 hours. Exactly. Yeah. No, it was a bad lifestyle from a health standpoint, but also safety, and I'm glad for everyone that the industry has really cleaned up its act in that regard. But but it was. Funny, because then I've told this you're not. So let me turn on some. Light. I know she's still a very. No worries and it's. I'm in Portugal. I told this story before, but one of the first shows I saw when I moved from Canada to the US and I was working for Martin and I was. I was invited to go front of house and I want to say who the act was or who the LD was. But so I'm front of House and and you know, all of a sudden I see that drawer open and I'm watching what he's doing and I'm like right here in the middle of everyone. These guys.

1:51:48 Snorting lines out of the console right here in the middle of like 20,000 people. I was shocked. I I just. Had never seen anything like that. Just. Because they open up the link, don't they? They open up there. You remember. I mean, was it Selka had a big tour, had a big open flap and then the whole hog had the biggest you? Know because it was like a. Barrier between you, you know, between them and the audience. It's like, yeah, I'm just checking my notes from like 3 inches of. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, funny. Yeah, I know like you said it's it's good that our industry has cleaned up and and it's just it's such an exciting time to be alive in our industry. Like you know the Stones are touring in their 80s. You know, this is an amazing thing and the production for that show is outrageous, like stunning. You know if you figure like you probably had AQM whatever console on a stone show in the 70s or. 80s many. Times in the 90s, yeah.

1:52:43 During the 90s, yeah. With maybe you know, a dozen or two dozen moving lights on it, if they even had moving lights at that point. Now this probably has 1000 moving lights on this. This current stone. Show. Well, we have the Diamond Three with Ethan until quite late, you know, And so that must have been up till up till 2000, up till 2000, and just after 2000, so all the way through all of their shows. And in fact, it was so good. And he gave passes that allowed me to take like 30 people from the company to the Rolling Stone Stadium show. Oh wow, that's my, my, my partner. I mean, everyone was just blown away and he took everyone into front of the house afterwards.

1:53:24 He's. That's cool. Guy, He's like #1 cool guy. He's in whatever. But I'll never forget my financial director e-mail crying, just crying with joy to see her product on in Arena. Show for the rolling. Oh. So she's Sri Lankan, She doesn't go to rock shows. And yeah, it was a life moment that was just. So cool that you brought her. You know what I mean? Like yes. To. Give her that kind of exposure to a show like that, you know? I've really tried that. Experience. In the years to take the company to as many shows, it gets harder and harder because of course, bosses get more and more than the theater. And these days, people invite you personally see if you and your wife. Yeah. So yeah, I can't do anymore, you know? Can I bring 20 of my closest?

1:54:07 Friends. Exactly. But it's so nice we do, you know, like I know if it's state we do something like go to. Yeah. It's just an ad on guard art stuff and but every so often it comes up where you can get like an arena show for comedian. I go right, send out a company e-mail. Who wants to go out tonight? You know, I'm getting the drinks, I'm getting the food. Just turn up. We're all down now. And it makes such a difference, It makes such a difference to all go out together and see what you do. Because a lot of the guys in the, the technicians in the in the workshop who build all these things and test them, they very often never get to see them used, you know, And yeah, they're technical people and quite often from different backgrounds and they just wouldn't have that opportunity. So yeah, it's something I'm going to keep on doing, yeah. That's so cool.

1:54:52 No, I love. I love that. About you, you know what I mean? Like I I stopped going to shows when you know you couldn't get backstage parking passes anymore and you know when it when. It. When you when you became a pedestrian, I I I was really like, unless I really wanted to see the band, I would go during the day for sound check and see see the guys that I wanted to say hello to. And then I wouldn't go to the show at night most of the time, right? There's just so few bands anymore that I'm really interested in going on and being part of the crowd and stuff. I I don't know. I I probably should change that again because I used to love live shows more than GO. To The Doobie Brothers. And I'm told it's gonna be amazing. Seth's gonna make it.

1:55:33 Amazing. I will anyways, because I I, I love Seth. And yeah, and they're a great band. And it's like last year was their 50th anniversary, so it's their 50. 1st. Anniversary now and like. The McDonald's going back out with them oh is. He really. Really. For the whole. Tools. Yes. Yeah, apparently. Wow. That's what I'm told. So let's see. Let's see. Damn, you don't know me, but I'm your brother. It's gonna be good. That's my. Singing debut on the podcast? That's about it. It's over, Yeah. So you're traveling. A bunch still, right? Like you you, I know you bought a a caravan thing or something. Yeah, well, a camper van, yeah. Caravans are the ones that you hook up to your car. But yeah, it's like trailers.

1:56:15 Yeah. But you know, like a little RV. Really, I suppose. Yeah. So yeah, no, because RV is great. You just get in it and you go, you move your house to wherever you are. And we'll say we're doing a lot of festivals. There are a lot of festivals this summer, but also because of New Portugal, we we have places in the UK but they're up for rent and I'm not just going to leave you sitting empty, So whenever you rent your place in the in the UK, so we're homeless in the UK basically. So when I go back there, we'll be, yeah, we'll be in the mini RV in camper van and driving what a. Great way to do it though. What a great way to do. It I mean. Where do you live Right here. Right here. Exactly. You're in my yard. Get out of my yard. And as you say, there's so many festivals in the UK, so not only we're doing big ones that we normally do, but I'm now looking for a load of little piece of ones.

1:57:02 They think oh great, let's go to some like 10,005 thousand people ones and and hang out with friends and they're really easy those festivals because they'll be stressed. They do the lights you have a drink with master it's it's really nice so, so that's how travelling and I'm going to be doing some more European festivals as well so. I. Want to try to open up bar when you go? Do you like to be front of house or do you like to be part of the crowd? Both always positive people, the crowd. We'll always spend some time in front of your house because and it's great and it's so nice to put your bags down and and raining. Apart from that, what you really want to do is we love seeing the people. Karen and I. We like machines for hey, seeing the people, you know, But it's really important.

1:57:47 I'm not just saying this as some sales message or ablex message. We come back from Glastonbury with so many names of new technicians who are getting into it. New people, people who speak to you say, oh, you know, I'm, I'm here because my uncle is production manager, but I'd love to get into this industry, I don't know how. And we're like, mate, here's my contacts, I'll take your contacts, contact me afterwards, you know I'll get you into the company. You can jump. On a training. Course you can see if you like it, you know and point them in the right direction. And so often those things are the things that start people off in life. You know somebody just giving you that little leg up. So, so we're always in front of house. But what I don't understand is I know lots of people and I can even think of some big main companies who will spend all of the time in front of house.

1:58:34 You're like, I have a Colombian wife, she's a bit younger than me and we are like we are off dancing with. Yeah, that. Was. Amazing. I love a dance. You know, I don't need much encouragement, so and we're in the costumes. We're. Always in the costumes. That's unreal, you guys. Are. Dressed up? Yeah, she has to be dressed. Up and we go have some fun with the audience. So yeah, that's. Fantastic. So are you still going to go to trade shows or no? Oh yes, yeah. I'm planning to be at Frankfurts Frankfurt next year. Plaza is the first one coming up in September and then Frankfurt next year. I'd really like to be LD I I think I will be. So you know. That'll be. Management decision but I would really like to 20,000 LDIS and I I really like that kind of and even if whatever if if not there I think might just come personally yeah I've been I've missed a couple in the last two years with all this changes and what have you in Europe.

1:59:27 So yeah, I need to be back in back in that next. Yeah, I missed I. Missed LDI last year because I had a lot of fixing to do in my own business and I really just had to keep my head down and and continue doing what I was doing. And I really hated missing it cuz people were texting me and calling me and, you know, trying to line me at the bar and stuff and yeah, and they're like, what? Do you mean you're doing here, you know? What do you? Mean I call it and I got. Well, and everyone kept saying it's the greatest show that they've had in. Many, many years maybe. Ever. Best one ever, you know? And I'm like, what? So yeah, I'll be back this year. I like to record podcast at LDI too.

2:00:08 It's always fun, but it. Was fun when we did that one Sunday morning. I don't know how I did that last. Time you were. I think you were still up. I think you were still up. Nothing. Yeah, You were still up, I think, as I recall. Yeah, you were a little bit sloppy. That's fine. That's probably a good way to be sometimes. Well, I'm going. To let you get back to your guests and your lovely. Yes, is she? Your wife now or still your partner? She. No, we're married. Yeah, we got married and we had a little mini festival in our backyard and it was pretty cool. Yeah, it was pretty cool. It was. When was that? The farmer let us use the field behind, so that really opened up whenever. I lived slightly outside London.

2:00:50 So the garden is, yeah, you know, big enough. But when the farmer said, hey, if you use the field behind the garden as well, you're like hey, we, we borrowed a big marquee from one of the one of the festival marquees from. Glastonbury like a big and we had some. DJs and you stayed up for like dancing till four or five in the morning. Oh my goodness, parents. Were there? Dancing with us, four or five in the morning. It was fun. What? Are they thinking they must think you're batshit nuts, right? Well, I'm sure they will think, why isn't it their daughter marrying A significantly older chap, you know, Well, I suppose maybe it's the young, hard thing. And I I would keep people focused on that because, you know, you just got to keep doing it because I think as soon as you start saying, oh, I can't be doing that, I can't be doing that, is when all the problems set in.

2:01:37 So yeah, we get on great. Let's face. It I try. You don't get. Responsible all the way. Yeah. And we get on really well, Yeah. The parents get on. We get on. Really. Well, they come and visit here. I guess spend time with them. We've got a little place there. Spend a couple months a year over there, so. They still live in Colombia then? In Colombia? Yeah, they're in Bogota. Oh wow, Nice, nice. Yeah, nice Part of Bogota. Karolina went to Swiss school for mathematics and they decided she liked mathematics so much she was going to be a yoga teacher. Screw mathematics. I never want to add another two numbers together. In my life. I can see a perfectly straight line between those two mathematics. And yoga. Yoga. I know.

2:02:18 I think you put her off. So she's like, I'm doing something more involved with the people. She's quite amazing. She has a a talent for never forgetting. She's almost at an Aspergers level of never forgetting someone she has met Serious. It's freaky. She remembers their names, their what they were wearing, where we. Met. So Can you imagine that if we do festival art festival, art festival and meet and I'm talking about, you asked me, if we go in the crowd, we go in the crowd and dance with random people all the time. And then she spots them at other festivals and it freaks them out. She goes and say, how you doing? Oh. Yeah. When do you have a oh, you had a baby or you're getting married and they're like. That's why.

2:03:02 You see? Her because you? Don't Remember Me, do you? And and we have so much fun with that. It's like a superpower. Yeah, but did she remember? Everything, you know, like all this stuff that you don't want her to remember. Like Steve, remember that time two years ago you told me? That you were going to. She's too good. I'll tell you what's great as well is because she's very healthy and the whole yoga thing going on the front of house, you know, all of that naughty stuff you're talking about in front of house, there's a lot less of it because they can't be in public in front of her. They're all friends with her and we know all of them. And so they all have to sneak off somewhere to do whatever naughty things they want to do. So, so we're like the little health fairies?

2:03:44 Good. Good. That's good. I like. That I like that, Well, I look. I look. Forward to I don't think I've met her. I don't think she's been with you. No, she hasn't. That's right. Not to the, no, that's correct. I'd love to meet her. We're going. To come over to Portugal. Yeah, come over to Portugal, come to Plaza, but mainly come to Portugal because we'll have a roof and a guest room by next spring, and that would be so. Cool the The roof is important. The guest room, I don't. Know where I can sleep on the floor? Oh yeah, but no. Yeah, the guest room needs the toilets, the to kill. Da da da da da da. But yes, we're expecting to be finished, but I'm giving us a little bit of leeway because spring comes early here. Wow. I'm telling people, hey, if you want to come book in a slot in the spring, be really nice. I'm guessing we're going to have to calendar it like a long time in advance because you know, knowing you, you've probably got bookings.

2:04:34 Yeah, you invited a few people, but getting early. Yeah, yeah. Steve, thank you so much for taking. The time to talk Today it's been. So fun to catch up with you again, I. Apologize to your to your listeners for talking so long and so randomly. But hey, you know, just, you know, people can always call me. People always call me. I'm always up for a chat and if I can help in any way, I'm yeah, that's what I feel I'm there for. So always. And thanks for the opportunity, Marcel, top man. You're a great human, Steve. Oh, you too, man. You keep up the good work. You did a lot of good work in Pandemic and you keep it flying. Take care.

2:05:26 Yeah.