I began working on Special Events lighting shortly after graduating university in 1999, when I was introduced to the concept by a number of people I was working with on various short film and theatre projects. While I continued to work one various theatre projects during this time (including a position as house electrician/board op. for Dance Theatre Workshop for several seasons), I also began to freelance for several special event and event lighting companies. Amongst the first companies I worked with were Robert Isabel Inc, and Bentley Meeker Lighting & Staging Inc (BMLS). BMLS specialized in event lighting, and worked with dozens of event planners and designers in and around NYC, and Robert Isabel was a full-service event design, planning and production company, with it's own in-house lighting department. Between these two companies in particular, I got a very good look at the way the special event industry works, and the wide range of events covered: from social events like weddings and parties, to galas and fundraisers, to product launches and corporate meetings, award shows, premieres, and even fashion shows and art installations. I found myself really enjoying the variety of events, and styles of lighting needed for them.
In 2003, after 4 years of freelancing, and close to 1000 events, I took a full time position with BMLS as a lighting production manager, where, working with the sales team, I could have much more say in the design of events, while learning more about the logistical side of production management - building equipment lists and crew break-downs, dealing with vendors and much more client contact. It was the right time for me to make this jump, and I learned a huge amount. At the time BMLS was going through a huge growth surge, and was beginning to become more involved in deals with permanent event spaces, as well as its existing one-off events. This meant that I was intimately involved in designing and installing semi-permanent lighting rigs for multiple event spaces, including Gotham Hall, 55 Wall Street, several Cipriani venues, and a space at the UN. In addition to this, and all of my pre-production duties, I still spent a considerable amount of time overseeing events on-site, and I continued to learn more through working with the various designers and programmers that I came into contact with.
One of the amazing things about working in special event lighting, is that I got to design and operate lights for dozens of amazing performers whom one would otherwise never be able to work with. In this time period I got to either design or program the lighting for performances by Elton John, Lionel Ritchie, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Beyoncé, Marc Anthony, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Grace Jones, and Alicia Keyes, amongst many others. It was this experience that helped prepare me for the touring opportunities that would follow. The scale and volume of the New York special event industry gave me opportunities to learn and grow in a way that very few other places would have, and I'm very grateful for the opportunities I've had.
As I grew in experience, I began to also be hired as a crew chief, leading the on-site lighting department, and discovered that in Event Lighting (especially when it comes to social events) the line between designer and crew chief can sometimes become very fuzzy, and so where it was appropriate, I began to take on more responsibility for the final look of the events. At the same time, I began to pick the brains of the programmers on many of these events, to try to pick up some knowledge of automated lighting programming. I already had some experience of programming theatrical style lighting desks from my theatre days, but I became increasingly drawn to the wider palette offered by the moving light desks I saw in use in these events, that would have been beyond the scope or budget of any of the theatre projects I had been involved with.
Fortunately both BMLS and Robert Isabell encouraged me to learn these desks, and gave me opportunities to start programming smaller shows for them, whilst still learning from the more experienced operators on the larger shows.
In addition to designing our own events, we would also often work with other designers that clients would bring in to spaces that BMLS had contracts with. In this way, I got to work with designers like Tom Kenny, Steven Landry, Brendan Grey, Phil Hymes, Jeff Ravitz and Butch Allen. Likewise, I got to see some of the best programmers in the industry at work, both on my own shows, and on these joint shows. Some of the programmers I learned most from include Mike Appel, Steve Garner, Dale Polanski, Craig Caserta and David Arch.
I continued to develop my own programming skills on events as the opportunity arose.
I left my full-time position with BMLS at the end of 2005, somewhat burned out by the pace of the work - in the past 365 days I had worked in at least some capacity on about 350 events. I returned to the freelance world, where I could focus on fewer shows at a time. This turned out to be fortunate timing indeed, as shortly after this, I was recommended by a colleague for the role of Lighting Director on a short tour with James Taylor, and that began my now 14 year career with Mr. Taylor.
When I was not touring during this period, I continued to work in NYC as a freelance designer, programmer and PM. Through my relationship with PRG from the James Taylor tour, I was able to program a number of other corporate and private events for their special event department, the highlight of which was programming and operating the lighting for the Presidential Stage at Obama's 2nd Inaugural Ball in Washington DC.
In addition to working with PRG, and continuing to freelance with BMLS, I also began to work with a number of other event and lighting companies in NYC, including Production Glue, WorldStage, Frost Lighting, Glow, Eventions, L&M Productions and several others. The ability to move back and forth from the more long-form lighting of a tour, and the very short term of event lighting helps keep everything feeling fresh, and I find a great deal of useful pollination between these worlds.
