In our pursuit to grow and expand our business, we must look beyond our current inventory and capabilities and be willing to take on risks and challenges that might be beyond our current level of comfort.
Sometime last year, we were awarded the contract to do a large event for the City of Albuquerque. "Freedom Fourth" was scheduled to run over four days with multiple acts each day at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Grounds–a large 94-acre park. With more than 30,000 estimated to attend the final day, it was an ambitious undertaking for us. But hey, there's nothing like putting up a big honking sound system to crank out your favorite tunes. You know how it goes, right? When you get that big gig and find yourself stepping up to the next level? After we had all finished jumping around the office giving each other high fives, the reality of the situation started to sink in–like the fact that you'll have a half-empty warehouse on the same dates because the gear has already been booked out on other shows.
When we started Audio Excellence, it was always part of our master plan to be doing much larger shows in the future. Since we had a clear picture of what the company's objectives were in the beginning, every purchase and system we built was a piece of that larger picture. In the early days, I spent a lot of time looking at what some of the larger sound companies were doing and how they were doing it to get an idea of how it could be done at a larger level.
I also spent a lot of time making new friends with other companies nearby and forming working relationships with them. These relationships became paramount to our success later on. First, a level of trust was established that made it a lot easier to do business with each other. We knew we could get gear when we needed it. The other guys knew we could work the equipment in the correct manner and that they would get their equipment back in the same condition they sent it out in. They also knew we would pay for it in a timely manner. Yes, having payment terms can sometimes make or break your ability to do an event, unless you have large amounts of working capital available to you. As a small or medium-sized company, it can be tough to pay out thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars before you even see a cent of your money from an event.
Being that we had prepared ourselves well for this level of show, we began putting the event together. The first task at hand was to get the key personnel together and map out our plan of action. Then secure the additional equipment needed to do the event. Guess who I called? Yeah, a couple of good friends; done deal, we were on our way.
After weeks of preparations, we walked away from our offices the night before load-in, everything looking great. The weather showed no sign of rain, the crew was in place, all the subhired equipment had made it in, the system had been prepped and the trucks were all loaded and ready to go for the following morning.
Load-in day. We all arrived at the event site, the trucks were cracked open and the hands started pushing. We opted to fly the main arrays off two 65-foot reach lifts, as we have had great success with this on a number of past events. These lifts also work well on political events, especially when you have put everything in place and the lead guy decides he wants to change it all around again. That's a whole story in itself; maybe another time.
The reach lift arrived and we got onto getting the first array up in the air. The second lift arrived, and we realized it only had a 45-foot reach. We called the vendor to see what was going on as we had been very specific about having two matching lifts. "Oh, the one you need we don't have right now," said the vendor. I informed them of our agreement and they said they would take care of it. The rest of load-in went fine, and we walked away that night with only one array to fly the next morning.
At about 10:30 p.m. that night, disaster struck. I got a call from one of the key coordinators: "Someone neglected to turn off the park's sprinkler system and our equipment is getting wet." My reaction? "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh, what the bloody heck is going on here? Breathe, mmm, hhhh." There was nothing I could do about it. Fortunately, most of the equipment was out of harm's way and the few pieces that saw any water dried off pretty quickly. There were no casualties, and we didn't need to pull out the contract and have the client write us a check for damaged equipment.
Show day rolled around, and we were still waiting on our second reach lift. Everyone was starting to get a little concerned, then finally, we got it taken care of. The last of the speakers went up in the air. We did our final tweaking on the system, then the show began. Setup, show, strike, setup, show, strike, etc. for the next four days, load-out and go home.
The event's audio met all expectations, and we walked away happy.
The success of this event can be attributed to just a couple of key points:
• The ability to think bigger than you are, and the belief that you can achieve it.
• The event was completed on paper before it was started.
• The forming of great relationships with other vendors.
• Great people were put in place to execute a plan.
I have saying I like use about what we do: "It's just a mic, a mixer and a speaker." I like to keep it simple. It also puts it all in perspective about what we do, large or small. Lay it out in its simplest form, and then THINK BIG!
Steve Poulton is the president of Audio Excellence, Inc. He can be reached at steve@audioexcellence4u.com.
