In the pristine setting that is northeastern Pennsylvania resides the staging company known as Mountain Productions. The 17-acre spread is an unlikely location for a business in the live event production industry, but from there they have served local, regional, national and international clients in concert, institutional, educational, religious and commercial productions for exactly 30 years. They provide staging, roof systems, grandstands and bleachers, soft goods, production accessories, as well as rigging needs. They also collect clients. And once they get them, they work to never lose them.
“I have been working with Mountain for 25 years, and I have many good memories with them, too many to list,” says John Stevenson, a director of production for Live Nation. “But what stands out about [president] Jim Evans and his team is they never say ‘No.’ They always find a way, whether it’s ‘How can we build this?’ ‘How can we hang this?’ ‘Can we have it tomorrow?’ ‘We only have so much money…” No matter what the problem is, they always find a way to help.”
Today the company participates in around 300 events a year and has handled some this generation’s most important special events including Live 8 in 1995, visits by the pope, a Dale Earnhardt tribute and several presidential inaugural events. Touring acts that regularly call on Mountain include Jimmy Buffett, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, among many others. Special festivals like Woodstock ‘99 and Crossroads Guitar Festival of 2004 were aided by Mountain’s expertise. Their corporate resume includes BMW, Toyota and many more. And for 13 years they have helped ring in the New Year by helping to drop the Ball in Times Square.
Among their many accolades, the company has twice received a Parnelli Award.
Real Big, Real Fast
Jim Evans grew up in the area and found himself selling building material to a wholesale supplier when the 30-year-old was asked to build a stage for the National Guard Armory. It was more then just a side gig, he found; it was a true calling. In 1979, Mountain Productions was launched.
The company got a big break in October that year when they were hired for the Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert in Central Park. Working with Parnelli Visionary Honoree and Yes set designer Michael Tait, they built a stage with a roof using German scaffold. It was quick to set up and some people said it was remarkable for its strength and smart design. Mountain and Tait Towers were the first to use the scaffolding, but today many companies use it. Mountain became a sought-after production company. “We got real big, real fast,” says Evans.
Even in the early days, those who worked with him weren’t surprised at their growth.
“Jim Evans recognized that outdoor shows were growing in complexity and scale and built equipment to meet the demand,” Tait says. “His foresight transformed Mountain Productions from a small regional steel company into a national colossus. A ‘can do’ attitude and the right product at the right price proved a winning combination.”
In 1980 they were hired for the No Nukes Concert, followed by Genesis in 1981 and Journey in 1983. Then in 1984, the call went out for a bid on the Michael Jackson Victory tour, a massive live show that would go on to set the bar for future arena tours. Mountain was one of three companies bidding on it. Evans went to L.A., sat down with Jackson and his team and convinced them that Mountain could do it better than anybody else. Then they went to work to prove it.
By the end of the 1980s, the company had 30 “mostly home grown” employees. In the 1990s, they continued to branch out into the corporate world, something that the team had already been doing before other companies followed. One highlight was a car show in Japan where Toyota hired them to rig a car in a Sumo Wrestling facility. Their team had developed a way to fly cars where the tires were strapped to a frame that made it look like the car was indeed airborne.
Part of their destiny was determined in part because of geography. Take soft goods, for example. Being located in northeastern Pennsylvania, Evans describes needing something and being told they had to wait, even when they needed it “yesterday.” Evans response was to buy a couple of sewing machines, hire some young women out of fashion school, thus expanding his business. They’ve long since fabricated all their own drapes, backdrops, roof skins and more.
“They are very creative,” he says of Mountain’s soft goods crew. “We have a digital machine that does all the painting for backdrops and can paint scrims.” They also have a rigging department that sells 1,000 chain hoists a year.
“Best Staff in the Business”
Last year in New York they created a building out of trusses for an American Express event. More recently they supported the Rothberry Festival with Stuart Ross in Rothberry, Michigan. They have been involved in several inaugurations and the last eight times the Pope has come to America they have supplied the staging. This included Pope Benedict’s 2008 visit, when he gave mass in Yankee Stadium. It was a Herculean task about which much has been written, because of the scope, the security issues and limits inherent in working on a baseball field where a game was to be played the next day.
All their jobs, big and small, start, it is said, with an emphasis on Mountain’s team. “They have the best staff in the business,” Stevenson states.
When they had to create a completely waterproof stage in Toyota Park in Chicago, Evans said they sat down and listened to what they needed, took pictures and asked for blueprints. Design team Ron Wilkinson and Paul Serkosky made put it together. “It rained and the groups stayed bone dry.” Evans again defers to his associates when asked about pulling off difficult assignments. “I tell [the client] what we’ll do, when we’ll do it and, oh yeah, we’ll make it waterproof! I just tell these stories and then my crew makes them all true.”
Evans does, however, share in the pride of work that’s well done. With Toyota Park, he was told that he put the venue on the map and made it viable for live entertainment. When walking out of Yankee Stadium after the whirlwind of the Pope’s visit, he was patted on the back by the grounds keeping for pulling it all off without harming the grass.
“We like to say we can do anything from the barricade back,” he says. “The ground cover turf protection, make own barricades, do all our own staging, provide the rigging… We are completely self-contained.”
Teamwork
From the earliest days to all the highlights, to the projections they are currently working on, Evans again and again credits his people. Steve Thomas and John Callahan were both critical to the company’s early growth. They have long since moved on, something Evans is actually proud of. He’s quick to say that many of his employees have moved into enviable positions. Randy Townsend went to work for Van Halen, while Rick Monnie ended up being production manager for Celine Dion. “We fostered quite a few people who went on through the ranks,” Evan says proudly.
As for the innovative work, “There’s no one guy here that we point to and say, ‘He invented this, he invented that,” Evan says. “It’s such a team effort. We really put things together by working together.”
As to how he keeps his staff working for the company, he says that they give young people a chance in the company, helps them develop a great worth ethic, and then “get everybody on the same sheet of music.” Mountain treats everyone as full-time employees as opposed to hiring part-time help and summer workers. “We don’t lay them off. We take care of them. We make it a real job and once they come here, they don’t leave.”
“The nature of the work leads to a team atmosphere,” adds operations manager Jason Miller, who has been with Mountain for nearly a decade. “There’s not one project that any one person can do by themselves, so everything we do requires input from many people.” Of course there are honest disagreements, and those are usually resolved by bringing in still more people for further discussion until a consensus is reached. “We’re all good at seeing past a single person’s preference, stepping back and reaching the same goal: providing the client with the best possible experience.”
Capital Concert’s Michael Colbert has worked with Mountain on many high-profile events. He says: “As producer of the National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth, the two premier patriotic events broadcast live on PBS from the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., I continue to work with Mountain Productions year after year because plain and simple, they deliver. Not only are they on top of their game, but also they really care about what they do. When you are doing live national television, remembering all of those who have served and sacrificed for our country on Memorial Day and celebrating our freedom and Independence on July 4th, at the United States Capitol Building, you don’t take risks.
“In 2002, we introduced a new larger band shell at the Capitol for these events. As a result, Mountain Productions was asked to be a part of the team because so many additional elements were now required to support the shows: A significantly larger stage; LED screen towers were added; front of house towers were needed to incorporate sound, lighting and followspot operators as well as countless other support elements. Mountain not only had everything we needed, they made the shows better for the millions watching at home as well as the hundreds of thousands in the audience at the Capitol.
“We are grateful to all that we have accomplished together with Mountain and look forward to many more successes to come.”
