This Soundco’s Secret Weapon? Touring-grade Service from a Regional Company
Steve Poulton, president of Audio Excellence in Albuquerque, N.M., recalls his first gig under the new company moniker. “It was out at the Journal Pavilion, which is a 15,000-seat venue just out of town, for radio personality Jim Rome,” he says. “We didn’t have enough equipment to do the show, but I convinced the promoter that we could definitely handle the show and take care of it.”
Poulton traveled from Albuquerque to Colorado Springs, Colo., to rent a JBL line array from Audio Analysts, got out to the venue and then set up the system. “I was flying by the seat of my pants, [but] I was convinced that we would do whatever we needed to do and had the know-how and wisdom to figure out how to do [it],” he reports. “I definitely jumped in at the deep end on a lot of big shows in the early days. My philosophy was always to act as if we were providing touring-level service in a regional area. We always acted as if we were big, and I think it facilitated us getting there rather quickly.”
Spreading It Around
Renting from Audio Analysts for that show was actually the first time that Poulton looked to another company for help, but it wasn’t the last. In fact, he points out, the company could get its hands on 400 boxes available within a six-hour drive. “We’ve had Richter Scale or On Cue come and do a show for us when we’ve been overbooked and vice versa,” he says. “We’ve gone out and even done arena shows for some of those companies. So, it’s been real nice to have people to work with — people you can trust, people who know that you’re not going to take their clients, they’re not going to take yours, that you can get the show done, and we all do well. Also, I’ve found that working with guys who have been in the business for 20 years plus, who I can call up for a bit of advice and figure out how to do this thing [has been helpful].”
Poulton needed some of that advice, he admits, because he came to the sound company business after spending 10 years on the road working for such bands as Crystal Method, Pink Flamingos (a band that played an assortment of corporate shows) and “a lot of no-name acts to fill in my time and week. It got to the point that I had some children, and I wanted to be a little closer to home, so I started doing more stuff around New Mexico.” Over a year or so, he worked in many of the state’s venues and built relationships with dozens of other regional companies.
After getting tired of begging and borrowing gear, Poulton started collecting his own. A mic package was first, then a BSS Omnidrive 366 and then a set of Meyer MSL4s. He also approached one of the men he had worked for over the years who had a P.A. in storage and asked if he could refurbish it and then rent it. “He agreed and I stripped all the boxes down and rebuilt them,” he says. “I bought a Lake Contour processor, and the system sounded incredible for a double 15 front-loaded box. That was the first large rig we had — it was a 32-box system with some double 18 subs.”
Of course, the company’s inventory of equipment has grown and now includes a host of top-notch gear. In fact, Poulton is in the process of looking for a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot warehouse to move into during 2008.
The Driver, Not the Car
Nevertheless, gear is only a percentage of what makes a company successful, and Poulton seemed to grasp that early on. Indeed, when he moved to town, he looked around for people who were interested in audio. He founded the Albuquerque Audio Engineers Group, and then started to teach them about speaker technologies, live analyzing software, crossovers and digital processing. “I offered all the resources I had — all my books, videos, equipment, whatever I could pass on to people to teach them,” he says.
During the process, he looked for potential employees with good attitudes. “That was my number one thing because this business is really about relationships and getting along with people. So, I had people who had great attitudes and were willing to learn.” These days, Audio Excellence boasts six full-time employees and has a roster of 30 freelancers who can be picked up with a phone call.
Building and keeping talented pros, who are flexible and knowledgeable enough to go from show to show, has become important as the company continues to service the various venues around New Mexico. Indeed, Audio Excellence staffers can be found at any of the local casinos, at 3,000-seat venues or at the Journal Pavilion. Also, Poulton reports, the town is becoming a film and television destination, so he’ll get called on to provide playback services on set with a couple of JBL EONS or asked to record a looping session with a visiting star. The company has also worked at the Santa Fe Music Festival, the New Mexico State Fair and the Balloon Fiesta.
On The Road Again?
In addition to hometown work, Poulton reports that he’s thinking of expanding the company into regional tour work. “There’s a possible 10 weeks of stuff with a band in the new year,” he admits. “Another intention of the company was that we always had plans to send a major package out on the road. The possibility is here that in the new year, we will be doing some road dates. We’ll have a couple of consoles, some P.M.s and a mic package.”
That move, he adds, is the culmination of a five-year plan. “We were going to buy the gear, go bigger and better than we needed for our market and then pay it off,” he says. “Then we’d open up some lines of credit, so we could just about buy a whole new speaker system, but already have the infrastructure in place. We went multipin right from the beginning, and a lot of it was redundant — we had a $10,000 effects rack out on a $2,500 show. A lot of the way that we packaged stuff and built stuff right from the beginning was with the intention that we would be ending up on the road. We’re kind of there now, but we need more gear because we would lose what was happening here in the region.”
Poulton is also opening a handful of complementary divisions, including backline, installation, sales and a recording studio. “We’ve diversified a little bit just because the opportunities have been there,” he says. He’s toying with moving into the lighting and staging business. “It seems that the marketplace is turning to a single source. I’ve always been a little reluctant because it’s been my philosophy to stick with what you know and what you know well, but I think there’s that possibility on a regional level in the future — at least to accommodate some of our primary clients. I want to continue focusing on the audio, continue refining that and doing that well, while growing the inventory and the client base.”
