You can tell you've got a growth sector when more people want to sell services and products around it. For instance, there's a business in iPod accoutrements that's almost as big as iPod sales themselves. If the education sector is any indication — and it is — then live sound is a bull market.
Several key college and universitylevel media technology operations have been ratcheting up their live sound offerings. Full Sail in Orlando has a training area about the size of an airplane hangar to support the show production and touring courses that they upgraded in 1998, from a component of the audio engineering path to its own 13-month degree program. "It was one thing to win over the manufacturers of the technology to the idea that live sound professionals could be trained academically," says Dana Roun, the director of the program. "But once we were able to do that with the Clairs and ShowCos and Vari-Lites of the world, it became clearer to people that live sound was a viable career path."
Academic directors at schools that have highly evolved touring sound and production programs are unanimous in their assessment that there are more jobs, and better-paying jobs, in the live sound end of the entertainment industry. "The job placement track record for live sound has been excellent for several years now," says Wesley Bulla, dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University in Nashville, which has three venues — a small club, a 1,200-seat auditorium and a 6,000-seat arena — on campus to teach lights and sound. "What's more, the work is consistent; it's the kind of work that turns into a career," he continues. Bulla also cites growth sectors within the live production side, such as churches, which have been on a media tear in the last few years, adding line arrays, theatrical rather than architectural lighting and jumbo video screens. "The churches cannot get graduates fast enough," he says.
The phenomenon has several forces propelling it, not least of which is the substantial shift in emphasis from royalties to touring revenues for many recording artists. (According to a study by Princeton economics professor Alan Krueger in 2002, 31 of the 35 top-grossing music artists made more money from concerts than from record sales.) The touring theatrical market has also increased in size as more local and regional theatres have been upgraded to accommodate complex shows. Academic administrators also cite the fact that the live sound industry has been more readily accepting of the idea of formally trained entry-level personnel. "Live sound recognized the need for trained people far faster than the recording studio community, who were very resistant to the idea," says Bulla.
Not that everyone's on this bandwagon. Many media academies still view live sound as just a component of their larger audio engineering and music production tracks. "We see ourselves as not just preparing students for a particular niche in the world, but for a broader ability to do many types of audio-related jobs," says Jim Rosebrook, director of the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio. However, he adds, when the school moves into larger quarters this summer, there are tentative plans to allocate some space to live sound applications.
In fact, space is perhaps the main barrier to a school considering adding live production courses. Josh Grau, who was recently named director of live sound at SAE's school in Miami, agrees that Pro Tools can be taught in a closet, but that hoisting a line array or rigging a cluster requires a lot of vertical space. "Until we have that kind of space, we're limited to teaching theory — decibel and power equations — instead of practice," he concedes.
It would seem that teaching live sound techniques requires access to real estate. Some schools compensate by creating alliances with local venues, though local union and municipal regulations can limit that. And at least one entity is taking a shot at teaching live sound online. The prosaically named Web site Career Prospects, in Virginia, has a fairly detailed section (www. careerprospects.org/briefs/K-O/LiveSound. shtml) outlining what candidates would need to learn, where and what the jobs are and what they can expect to get paid. (The site estimates that live sound engineers can earn between $1,000 and $1,500 per week, but adds the caveat, "… live sound engineers don't always work every week.")
They will have to pay, though. Taking the academic route to the FOH booth will set you back from about the $5,100 Omega Studios charges for its 190-hour certificate course in live sound and production to the $12,000 to $30,000-plus at degree-based programs at schools like SAE and Full Sail.
But while students will have to make economic decisions based on their ability to pay, and an expectation of getting a value proposition, it's worth some cost. "The work is out there," says Ed Petersen, president of Maryland-based Omega Studios. "When I started out you never had a sound system at a Broadway show; now, you don't have one that doesn't," he states. "Every hotel of any size at all needs someone to set up, operate and mix a sound system. Other areas of entertainment should be so lucky."
Expect manufacturers and touring sound companies to increase their interaction with the audio academies, to the benefit of both and to the students. It's also a good hedge tactic as the industry continues to see more consolidation.
Contact Dan at ddaley@fohonline.com.
