Mark Bowman has been kicking around the Phoenix performing arts scene for over 20 years now, beginning when he was working with the City of Phoenix as a recreation leader.
"I was doing events like running sound for President Reagan when he was campaigning for President Bush," Bowman says. "I managed an entertainment series called Sights and Sounds at Patriot Square downtown, a theater and Patriot Square Park."
Total Immersion
That total immersion gave him a great education in all things audio and it gave him a reputation that bred success. "I built relationships back then that I still have today," Bowman says, "and with that I was able to very slowly and methodically build this company."
After 10 years or so of working for the city, Bowman felt that there was enough demand for his services to go out on his own. Many of Bowman's first clients under the Total Sound Productions moniker were city entities, before he moved on to team up with a handful of local bands and production companies.
"The key is that I had my clients first, and then I started the company," he says.
The first rig that Bowman purchased while he was still working for the city was a pair of Peavey International 12-inch speakers with a powered mixer. "I had a heart attack buying that on my City of Phoenix salary," he recalls with a laugh. "My wife equally had a heart attack."
Double Duty
Yet, that rig was the one that helped him build his reputation with a collection of Phoenix bands and venues. For the first five years of TSP, while he was still a city employee, Bowman would pack his minivan and work until 2 a.m. "Then I'd go back to work at 8 a.m. and do it all over again," he says. "I worked very hard doing that."
In 1999, he went out on a limb to purchase a JBL MR series rig after taking a second on his house. The money he spent on that JBL rig was recouped after a bit, and he started to thinking about adding lighting, a roof and a bigger rig. Yet the evolution from audio provider to production company was a lengthy process, Bowman admits. "I would say methodical. I would not move forward unless I had an assured client to sell this stuff to," he says. "You can only move as fast as your current clients are moving."
A Production Company
In decade that has passed since 1999, Bowman and the TSP staff have added video, lighting and a roof. "Now I'd say we're not only a sound company, we're also a production company," he continues. "We subcontract staging out, but we have everything else. Even when we didn't, we've taken the whole job to establish a one-stop shop service. In this town, the turnover for event producers is pretty rampant, so you kind of have to educate your clients with who to use. We tried to take their guesswork out."
After the JBL gear, Bowman started bringing in EAW boxes. The first was a KF850 system. "At the time I bought my first boxes EAW had a reputation and they were the big boys. The line arrays had not come out on the market yet and it was the most popular speaker that I had heard of," he says. "Still use those to this day, because they are a workhorse."
Bowman has also brought in some new QSC pieces. "We brought those in based on the economy and the fact that people are scaling down," he says. "The QSC powered equipment is quite impressive – it's cost-efficient and it runs off of next to no power. I was convinced that by doing that, we could offer the bread and butter gigs a small PA. What's been happening as of late is that people will hire these bands with their own PAs and they come and realize it wasn't so good. So, we had to produce some kind of system that we could put out there that was fast, could run on next to no power, and keep up with what the economy was demanding."
Those smaller gigs are just part of the book of business at TSP, and to ensure that the company has proper coverage during the larger arena shows, Bowman has formed relationships with local sound companies that are typically eyeing national tours.
"We have aligned ourselves with companies that we don't compete with in the local market. When you hire TSP, 90 percent of the time you'll get in house, but there are times when we're doing a very large show where we need greater resources," he says. "These are relationships that we've developed over 10 to 12 years so there's not a lot of animosity when it comes to who got the show. We utilize companies where their strengths are not the local market, but the national market."
Taking it Outside
Lately TSP has kept busy servicing a number of local civic events, including the three-day Fall Frenzy music festival at Tempe Beach Park, the 98 KUPD End of Summer Scorcher, Gay PrideFest and the surrounding stages for the Tempe Block Party that was thrown during the Fiesta Bowl. "TSP did 75 percent of all the large outdoor shows that came through Arizona in 2009," Bowman claims.
At the same time, Bowman is pointing the business towards charitable events. "In these times when the economy, especially in Arizona, is really bad, we're reaching out to charities even more to help them make a difference," he says. "We can do an event at a more reasonable price, so they can gain more money for their charity. That's where I would like to look for where we are going in the next two years."
After that, Bowman believes the company will be ready to expand again. But, he's quick to point out, "We don't try to go in and take shows away. I would say 95 percent of our jobs come to us. We're not active in seeking these shows away, because our philosophy is that once they come to us, we put most of our attention in maintaining and keeping those clients. We're not about that, but that's not to say that's not being done to us."
So, just how has Bowman and TSP retained clients in this tougher business environment? "Reputation," he remarks. "First and foremost, I do a lot of praying. Secondly, I rely on our reputation and our relationships we've built over the last 15 years as a company. If there are politics involved, there's nothing you can do about that. We are a medium sized company, humble in what we do, and that's it. We maintain the relationships and pray that they hold up."
