The challenges are numerous and ever-changing for those who slog it out in the pro audio trenches, and really there needs to be an award going out to every company out there who makes it through another year. But you, FOH gentle reader, have selected six who aren't just surviving, but are thriving. Gear, smarts, and passion are the common link, with an emphasis on the passion.
Many of these are new to the regional sound company award winner circle, and all offer compelling stories. We hope you get to know them all, and that it helps in your vote for the 2010 Parnelli Hometown Hero Sound Company of the Year. The winning company will receive the award at the 2010 Parnelli Awards, set for Friday, Oct. 22, 2010 at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.
Southwest
Richter Scale
Denver, CO
Richter Scale is a full-service event production company that began with leftover gear from just another metal band gone south. Today, they rely on their inventory of JBL VerTec Line Array speakers and Yamaha PM1D. They serve a wide variety of needs, from small lectures to conventions of 20,000 to … well, a lot of political events. How much do clients like Richter? Well, one client – Judy – married the owner and went to work for the company. At the time, she was producing large festivals in Denver and needed to upgrade the sound for an event that involved 100 bands in two days.
"Richter is the dream and vision of Harold Richter, founder and owner who started his career as a drummer in a hair band in the 1980s," executive vice president Judy Richter laughs, adding that the clichés stopped with the hair and spandex – no drugs and all business sense. When the band broke up, as owner of the gear and a talent behind the board, Harold started his business in his garage.
"In the early 1980s, he incorporated and focused on corporate work, as he had had enough of the smoky bars and drunk people," she says. "He wanted to work with projects that had a higher budget and more design elements." Two years ago, they decided to expand – amidst the shadows of the Great Recession.
"People said we were crazy, but we're not crazy, we're pioneers. We're a firm believer that yesterday is gone and won't come back. We want to work with great ideas and create partnerships. We don't want to just supply gear for clients, but help them realize their mission." Richter Scale is reaching out to everyone, including notoriously cash-scrapped municipalities, asking how they can partner with them. "We want to help generate awareness and revenue – we don't just want to throw speakers at a project."
Clients include the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and more recently, vice president Joe Biden at Longmont, Colo. (But they happily work with all candidates – they were there when people wanted to listen to Colin Powell in Fort Collins, Colo.) They do plenty of festival work and concerts too.
Southeast
Beachsound
Miami Gardens, FL
Beach Sound founder Andre Serafini first wants you to know that he's actually a native of Miami – something that is as hard to find in his hometown as it is in places like New York and Los Angeles. He brings 16 years of pro audio experience to every table he sits at, including international tours. In his proverbial pocket are Dolby Lake and L-Acoustics CVT certificates.
"We've been in business for 15 years," he says, adding that he's been a lifelong musician who studied sound engineering and recording. Initially the company started as a recording studio, which Serafini parlayed into live sound. (He still records in the studio on occasion.). No starting-in-a-garage story here: Beach Sound started in a 4-foot-by-8-foot trailer.
"I was doing a lot of the underground alternative punk and metal scene in the beginning, and have experienced steady, moderate growth ever since," he says. "The years 1998-1999 saw a growth spurt where I was getting better accounts and dabbling in more corporate work. I wasn't just doing events that were music-based, but industrial and theater projects."
Today they have 16 full-time staff and handle high-profile events like the Bellator Ultimate Fighting Championships for ESPN. There's also the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, one of the largest electronic music festivals in the U.S. "Every year we get more involved, picking up an additional stage. Now we're doing four or five, and not just the main stage."
He brags on his crew, which includes Jim Brightenfield, a FOH monitor and systems engineer who graduated with top honors from Full Sail in Orlando, and a 13-year veteran of the company. Steve Roesink handles similar duties and has a similar tenure with the company. Jeremy Dubois is also from Miami with national and international touring experience. Juan Ugas hails from Caracas, Venezuela, celebrating his first decade with the company.
What's it all take? "Very hard work. Sleepless nights. Going from one event to the next without sleeping. Constantly investing in the company in terms of staff and equipment and not myself." As for the honor bestowed: "I'm super excited – I'm walking around telling everyone!"
Northeast
Concert Quality Sound
Egg Harbor City, NJ
John Heinz started Concert Quality Sound in 1991, and its first decade was humble. "The first 10 years was just building ourselves through the whole Philadelphia club market," Heinz, president, says. He kept his day job during most of that, working at an electronics repair shop.
The company then began doing work for the Atlantic City casinos – in fact, he was offered a full-time job to run the audio at one of them, which he did for a while, but "over time I missed having my own business – I missed the rollercoaster that it is!" In 2000, he went back into business with Earl Girls. They share a building filling up 25,000 square feet of warehouse, but their businesses are separated.
Today, Concert Quality has seven full-time employees with another 10 freelancers. They do corporate, college, and hospital events, but the bulk of what they do is serving the region's casinos. Their biggest client is Harrah's and they have provided audio support at four of their casinos. Heinz notes that they have a lot of trust in Concert Quality Sound.
"When they were putting in a new lounge, rather than buy the equipment, they looked to us to provide the gear and the people," Heinz says. "Their feeling was they really trust our engineers and knew we'd come up with the right solution for them. It's the engineering service we provide that's so important. And there were no bugs, no failures, and we were always available to them whenever they had a question about anything. That's something I'm very proud of."
Recent acts Concert Quality Sound has worked with include Night Ranger and "The Big Man," Clarence Clemons.
Very much the hometown hero, Heinz attributes their success to being just the right size. "Over the history of Atlantic City, there have been some big-name sound companies who come in and try to set up, but after a period, they fold up," he says. "We're the right size and at the right location." People don't come to them for the 48-box line array systems, but they are proud to do a high quality job on the not-so-big clients. "I pride ourselves on being the most B-act-friendly sound company there is."
Midwest
Harvest Productions
Kansas City, Mo.
"We serve a wide range of clients," says Harvest vice president of production services Bill Hartnett. "Everything from corporate work to concerts."
Bob Ditsch and Ron Davis founded Harvest Productions in 1986, and they started big, supplying sound for the likes of the Kansas City Symphony and Starlight Theatre of Kansas City. They also focused on installations, providing for houses of worship.
Today, Harvest has grown to a multimillion-dollar operation with 40 employees serving clients ranging from small churches to large corporations and major sports franchises. Waddell & Reed, an asset management and financial planning firm, is among their corporate clients. They have also provided gear to the Community of Christ Temple in Independence, Mo.
Harvest also does significant install work, developing, designing, and installing audio for clients using the latest computer design technology. Their engineers and designers are trained in the latest acoustic modeling software, EASE, and will design a 3D rendering of a room that will show how the acoustics will perform. And they have one of the largest inventories of wireless microphones in the Midwest.
They are particularly proud of their work with the Kansas City Symphony, which they've been serving for 23 years.
"Our clients tell us that it's the level of service they receive from us that keeps them coming back," Hartnett says. "One likes to say that dealing with us is as simple as just pushing a button." Their people are well trained, and not just in technology. "Everybody can get equipment, and there's no secret to how things work. Artistry and skill is involved, but we also have all our technicians go through some customer service training so they can communicate well with clients."
Harvest has also benefited from Kansas City's downtown revitalization. The newly revamped "Power & Light District" has been successful, and they are part of the team that handles the concert series that is bringing the locals out. "We also just completed the TEDx talks, which involved 180 sites around the world. We produced that here and did a little broadcasting that was part of the event over the Internet. That was a new adventure for us and pretty cool."
Canada
Wall Sound & Lighting
Ottawa, Ontario
"We're very diverse in what we do," says production manager Neil Collier. "We do everything from being here for people coming in to pick up small rental sound products to full productions and installations." Clients include clubs, restaurants, and houses of worship, on up to sporting facilities and arenas. "We don't do too much tour work, and really specialize more in keeping everything regional. We're actually so busy with what we're typically booking that we don't have enough gear or people to go out on the road anyway!"
They handle the region's biggest festivals, and for the last 15 years have provided for the Ottawa Bluesfest. It's one of the biggest in North America, with 400,000 turning out to hear bands on six stages; this year Rush and Santana performed there. "It was awesome." But they do indeed do a lot of festivals – pretty much every month. Yes, every month. "We go right through the winter where sometimes it's minus 30 [Celsius; or about -22 degrees F]. Sometimes it's hard to get the gear to work when it's that cold, but we have invented ways to do it!" he laughs. And people come out in those temperatures? "Sure! We have clothes for that up here."
Wall Sound & Lighting also handles a lot of community work, including the major holidays like Canada Day celebrations.
Terry Wall started the company in 1979 when the band he was in broke up, and he was stuck with the P.A. He started renting it out of his basement, then that grew, and today they are one of the largest sound companies in the region. A full-service event production company, they offer a creative, technical, and production team of professionals.
Collier has been with the company 25 years, and credits their superior service and attention to detail as a reason for their success. "We have a good group of people to work with, and we're focused on the service and keeping the cost of an event under control," he says. "We invest all the time in new equipment, and that too has been a key to the company's success. The constant investment is really the biggest key. We keep up with the new standard in gear all the time."
Northwest
Sound on Stage
Hayward, CA
"I wasn't as good a musician as I was a technician!" laughs Jerry Pfeffer, owner/CEO of Sound on Stage. "I was working in a hi-fi store in college and playing in a band," and that evolved into doing sound for the local bands. The local bands at the time included Journey, the Doobie Brothers and Jefferson Starship. Others who submitted to his ability to tweak knobs included Elvin Bishop, Tower of Power, Pablo Cruz, and Huey Lewis (with whom he still works).
Sound on Stage was founded in 1973, and the San Francisco-based company grew from the burgeoning music scene lighting up at the time, to serving event planers and national corporate shows.
"You go along and the next thing you know you're doing corporate events," Pfeffer says, though he maintains his company's work is still live-music related. "We're crazy with festivals. Last weekend we did the Outside Lands Music Festival, and before that the Mount Diablo Jazz Festival."
They are pleased with being hometown heroes. "We work with people to plan things," he says. "We also keep up with the gear – the digital consoles are the hardest part. We have to keep up with the rider demands, and that's where we shine. We made our niche that way."
The crew includes the likes of John "JT" Taylor, who's been with the organization for 35 years. "You need to have good people, and most of our guys have been with us 12 to 15 years. That's what keeps the company good. Equipment is equipment, but without good people it doesn't mean much."
The corporate work is plentiful though. Oracle relies on them for events that turn out up to 18,000 people and has little-known acts like Aerosmith firing them up or, as more recently, the Black Eyed Peas. What may surprise many is that the Golden Gate City that spawned Haight-Ashbury is home to one of the largest bluegrass festivals in the country, and Sound on Stage handles the duties for seven stages and 70 bands in just two days for up to 200,000 people.
"We also do the sound for the 49ers, for our 31st year!" he says, adding that that gig would be more fun if they won a bit more.
