Think of recent history as divided into two archeological time periods: the craft-driven epoch and the market driven era. The former goes back many, many, many eons–at least to 1970–and was characterized by technology-based connections between parties in the live sound continuum: artists, sound companies and mixers chose each other almost solely on the basis of how good the technical fit was between them (with allowances, of course, for economics). The market-driven era, which we're in now, still has a technological dimension to it, but it also takes other factors into consideration. For instance, the kind of musical instruments used on a tour or in a music video is a function not only of what the musicians and technologists on the project want but also of what kinds of cross-marketing deals might have been made at levels above the trenches. The kinds of microphones in a venue might depend on which company has paid to banner that place. Those sorts of considerations only increase in importance and pervasiveness in a market-driven environment. That's why I thought that a new company, Guesthouse Projects, which launched earlier this year, fits the zeitgeist so well. Founded by Greg McVeigh, former vice president of touring sound at Meyer Sound, Guesthouse Projects takes the conventional relationship between touring artist and touring sound company and creates a multidimensional object by bringing a tour sound equipment manufacturer into the picture in the earliest stages of the relationship. Instead of a deal being struck between the first two parties, and then the manufacturers of the equipment leveraging their presence on the tour by following up with press releases, Guesthouse Projects proposes to have the equipment manufacturer become a dynamic rather than reactive participant in the process of putting sound systems together for artists and tours. "Equipment manufacturers do have PR and marketing departments, but they're not acting in a coordinated or timely manner," McVeigh states. "It really is a much more market-based business than it used to be. The equipment makers need to be part of the process from the beginning."
This concept is the essence of a market driven action; the promotional aspects of the gear used on a tour become part of the decision-making process, not add-ons after the deal is done. It works for shoes and beer, so why not for the technology used on a tour?
There are two major issues that this all raises. The first is, can promotional considerations potentially trump practical ones when it comes to matching equipment to a tour? Yes, they can. That's an implicit danger in any market-driven enterprise. Once purely technical parameters are no longer the sole criteria of choice, the entire process becomes subjective instead of objective. Achieving a balance between the two then becomes a necessary goal.
It's not as though a manufacturer has never used other types of incentives to get artists or sound companies to use their stuff. But what's useful about Guesthouse Projects' approach is that it can take what might be a rather messy and intricate process of offline deals made in the Marriott hotel bar and organize them, perhaps even shedding a little light on how they're arrived at.
Secondly, while we may be in the market driven era, the echoes of the craft-based epoch are still very much ingrained in the business. Mixers, and to some extent artists, want to feel as though they are active participants in the process of deciding what sound reinforcement gear they'll be working with. But, McVeigh says candidly, except for the handful of star mixers and those Front of House engineers that are virtually considered part of the band, mixer input into what goes out on tour has steadily diminished anyway. "The gear has gotten really, really good–you don't need as much technical guidance to make those choices as you once did," he says, with the implication being that marketing concerns have taken on more weight in that process. He adds that the mixer is always going to be a technical voice in the show, but that voice may increasingly become reactive, perhaps raising flags after the decisions are made. In short, the mixer may become more like what McVeigh describes the position of the manufacturers as today.
If indeed the mixer's role in these decisions has diminished, it's not because McVeigh or anyone else says so. It's because the tilt of the industry has changed. I've never actually met a mixer who had retained PR, though I know plenty of recording engineers who have over the years. There are about a half-dozen major agencies dedicated to representing record producers and engineers, but I'm not aware that any of them have ever represented a Front of House mixer. That's something to think about. If I get a contact at William Morris, I'll pass it along. Otherwise, it's time to think about how to keep the live sound mixer in the marketing mix.
