The evolution of structural technology forges a new partnership
In 1980, John Brown founded Brown United by combining Mike Brown Grandstands and United Production Services. At that time, both compa-nies were owned by Mike Brown — John’s father and 2002 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award winner — who had given John his first experience in the business back in 1975, working for Elton John at Dodger Stadium.
“I’ve always called myself a third-generation structural steel guy,” says John. “My godfather was my father’s mentor, and I have the fourth genera-tion coming up behind me, so there is a long, rich history behind Brown United.”
Part of that history was reshaping how staging and structural steel worked on the tour circuit. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, grandstand and structural companies were all regional. Since nobody toured with the shows, production managers had to deal with different regional companies as they crossed the country. John saw an opportunity and took it.
“Concert touring helped the grandstand business because nobody in the grandstand business toured,” says John. “So I took it from a regional busi-ness to a nationwide business. That is where I was able to grow Brown United with my other core products from the touring staging business.”
Brown United has parlayed that success at concert touring into serving the grandstand, scaffolding and truss businesses throughout various indus-tries, like sports (they’ve been involved with the ESPN X-Games for over a decade now, as well as the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour and the And 1 Streetball Tours), the construction industry (providing industrial scaffolding and structures), the corporate events industry (cli-ents include Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Sony and Herbalife) and the Special Event industry, with its parades, schools, fairs and private parties.
And success beget success. With the addition of post roof structures to the company’s staging products inventory, they were able to pick up more tours from production and tour managers, people who John is quick to credit. “Production and tour managers are completely responsible for Brown United’s success,” notes John.
Recently, John rededicated his business to the larger shows, festivals and stadium tours by forming G2 Structures with Jim Brammer. The company is a large-format stage and roofing provider.
“I sliced off the staging and roof structure division and formed G2,” says John.
Brammer has a bit more complete explanation as to how G2 came about.
“I am the site coordinator for the CMA Music Festival in Nashville every year,” Brammer says. “We had been using a Brown United Structure for three years. We were at the end of our contract, so we were getting ready to renegotiate or seek bids, and I was looking at the structure that I had been using quite frequently at the CMAs, The Billy Graham Crusades and other events. And of course, you come up with ideas and improvement for things you’d like to see done. So I went to John and said, ‘I’d really like to continue using the product, but I’d like to change it in a lot of ways.’ He thought about it for a while and said, ‘Let’s give it a go together.’ ”
All that was left was choosing a name.
“The reason for the name G2 is that we took a product that Brown United had developed, the post roof system steel grid, and we re-engineered it, redesigned it and improved it a lot,” says Brammer. “So we called it Generation 2.”
They based the company in Nashville. John is the inventor, while Brammer tweaks the designs and markets the company. To help with capitaliza-tion and organization, they brought on a couple of Brammer’s partners from Summit Staging, Mike Drew and Linn Vogt. Together, they all manu-factured the new version, complete with weather protection, and debuted it at the CMA Music Festival this year.
“We kind of launched the company based around a couple of events and a tour and got quite busy last winter manufacturing,” says Brammer. Their new product was built around increased strength and protection. They beefed up the stage so it could hold more weight, including a full enclosure, so that the structure could have complete weather protection. And because looks matter, they gave it a bit of a facelift.
“It has new decking, new understructure, new base detail and a new lift package,” says Brammer. But the duo is taking the Generation 2 part of their name seriously and is working on improvements for next year.
“This winter, we’ll spend time making more improvements and modifications on lessons we learned in the field this summer,” says Brammer.
G2’s stage has finished its inaugural year on some high-profile events: Kenny Chesney, the Country Music Festival, Bonnaroo, Coachella and Dave Matthews. They were all quickly won over, and where weather protection had never really been asked for before, John says that clients now “de-mand it.” John is quick to credit Brammer for his new ideas, bringing in soft goods and deploying their “next generation” stage.
“All in all, we had a pretty darn good launch,” Brammer adds, modestly.
However, even with the success of his new venture, John won’t be giving up his other steel. “Brown United will continue its growth in the bleacher, corporate, sporting, industrial and special events industries,” says John.
After all, with three generations of steel in you, you don’t just walk away from construction.
