With our Parnelli NextGen series, we profile up-and-coming live event professionals who have been making their mark on the industry. All are in the running for the “NextGen of the Year” Parnelli honor, which will be announced at the 21st Parnelli Awards ceremony in April 2023.
We caught Krysten “KD” Dean on a rare break when she was home (Orlando), catching up on all the life-stuff that is so elusive when one is on the road. “I needed the short break to come back and check on the house after the hurricane,” she says. (Whew — all is good.) After school and a career as a mechanical engineer, she has since refocused to her first love, audio. And she’s doing it with great success, having worked pretty much every touring audio crew position and doing it well. She’s also positioning herself to help others learn that … well, yes, you can make a living at this.
The Technical Side
Dean grew up in the Cleveland area where her interest in music began in the church. Her Mom was active in the choir, but that was not the part that caught her attention. “I was more interested in mics and the technical side of things,” she says. She kept her hands in it through high school and then her career path took a hard “practical” turn. “I grew up in a family of teachers, so not going to college was not an option,” she laughs. So off she went to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro where she got a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering.
After graduating, she worked at Chrysler for eight years. During her time at there, she continued her studies and received her Master’s degree in mechanical engineering. She spent time in Detroit, and then moved to the Dodge Durango plant in Newark, DE. “I remember working about 300 days straight one year, so between the burnout and getting overlooked for promotions, I had enough, and I quit.”
During her time in Delaware, she commuted to Philadelphia to attend West Oak Lane Church of God, and fell back into her first love, audio. “I would volunteer whenever I could make the time, and it was a major commitment because the church was up to an hour commute one way.” The church took noticed and offered to cover the expenses of attending Full Sail in Orlando in return for working for them for five years after graduating. She took them up on it.
“It took a long time to figure out that I could do audio as a living,” she says, pointing out that it was an uncommon college degree to pursue when she went to college. Then there was the parent factor. “It’s not like I was going to tell my Mom and Dad that I was going to be a roadie and travel around with a band and do that whole sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll thing — even though it’s not like that anymore!”
She graduated from Full Sail in 2008 and returned to the church, which also has a school, and Dean was put in charge of all things tech. Then the recession hit and she moved back in with her parents in Cleveland. Then she reached out to one of her Full Sail Advisors who told her about Eighth Day Sound, located there in Cleveland. It was a revelation. “I had no idea that from where I lived most of my life, a major pro audio company was literally around the corner!”
Eighth Day Work
Dean sent in her resume and was immediately brought on as an intern, and then hired full time. She was later told that they hired her not because of her audio experience or even because of graduating from Full Sail, but because of her degrees in Mechanical Engineering. “They said they figured if I could handle that, I could handle anything at Eighth Day.” That proved to be correct.
She got her feet wet with an Earth, Wind & Fire mini-tour, and then got sent out with Drake for two years and “loved it. Everybody taught me a lot.” For that tour she was P.A. tech and stage tech. Next up was a Lil’ Wayne tour where she learned first-hand that when working on a tour, you can find yourself with many “hats.” “I started as a P.A. tech and a stage tech, and then someone left so they also added monitor tech to my duties,” she says, adding with a laugh: “I lost a lot of weight on that run!” It all proved to be a real-world education, and she says she had great experiences with all the different crew members and engineers. Additional acts she’s worked on include Beyoncé, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Eminem, Prince and Stevie Wonder.
Dean has also since added crew chief and systems engineer titles for her touring career, including her current Earth Wind & Fire tour. “I’m one of the first in the building, handling the daily logistics of unloading my gear from my trucks and making the local crews feel like we know what we’re doing,” she says with a smile. “I do a lot of interfacing with my stage manager and production manager.”
The move to system tech of course requires a whole other level of smarts and she put her college study skills to good use. “I’m familiar with most major P.A. systems nowadays,” adding that Eighth Day tends to work mostly with d&b audiotechnik and Adamson sound systems, but since its acquisition by Clair, Cohesion and L-Acoustics are heavily in the mix as well. “But each brand has their own software, and the first step is learning that so you can deploy the system correctly in a venue. Over time, you learn the tricks and shortcuts to do that.” There’s a lot to keep up with, though. “All these companies are constantly improving their software, and sometimes I need to call them ask them how to do something. And of course, they want feedback on how it’s all working in the field, too.”
Another big tour earlier this year was Tyler the Creator, using a d&b Soundscape System. “We had the most speakers deployed with a stadium amount of P.A. in arenas, and Soundscape has this immersive sound with new software that I learned just before we went out,” she says. They had about 170 speakers in the air on that one, with an A and B stage, and the latter had to be just as good and dynamic as former. When Tyler moved from one stage to the other it had to be seamless. “It was just a cool effect, technically. I had a lot of questions, but then again, I have a lot of people I can call.”
She’s also doing install work, primarily in churches. “That’s satisfying because I started in church, and I know what they go through. They can take a lot of steps before they figure out what they need and what they can afford. Often, they turn to their musicians and assume they must know live sound, which is rarely the case.”
In 2019 Dean started a nonprofit, kMISSIONd. “It was created to increase the representation of women and minorities in the live event industry,” she says. She sees the organization “amplifying the voices of others,” exposing people to new and diverse faces and stories in the industry. “We also offer coaching and mentoring for individuals who may want exposure to our industry, something that wasn’t readily available when I started and was trying to figure it out. We are always looking for volunteers, stories, networking and coaching opportunities and individuals who would like to explore further.” For more information and to get in touch with her on that, contact her at kd@kmissiond.com.
What’s next? “I have been asking myself that a lot lately,” she says. “I’m a tech person through and through and really enjoy it — but maybe not the load-in and load-out so much [laughs].” She’s done some FOH mixing and likes that, but she also says she feels like she’s organized and could be good at project management and accounts. No doubt.
