In 1998, Canadian Jacques Tanguay observed a product at the PLASA trade show in London that he had never seen before. It was a product he felt certain no one in North America was using yet, and one that delighted and tantalized his mind with the possibilities it presented. Tanguay started in the entertainment business in 1975 when he founded Éclairage Tanguay, Inc. (ETI), a rock ‘n' roll touring company, which he owned for 19 years. He eventually sold the company and began freelancing as a stage manager and technical director. He was well-versed in the unique people, knowledge, and equipment an entertainment production requires when he saw this product for the first time. The product was the German-made Vario-Lift, a variable speed chain motor that could be controlled using a computer. Tanguay guessed correctly that North Americans would find the motors as exciting as he did, and lost no time creating a new company called Show Distribution to bring the Vario-Lift motors into the North American market. This year the company is celebrating its ten year anniversary.
Pushing Buttons to the Limit
Show Distribution made its début at the 1999 LDI in Orlando. Matchbox Twenty was the company's first major client and others quickly followed. Willie Williams became a client when he took the motors out on U2's Elevation tour. Blink 182 followed Williams and U2. From there, the business expanded rapidly. Reading the list of clients on Show Distribution's Web site is like looking at the pages of Who's Who in the entertainment business. It includes names like Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, AC/DC, Madonna, Eminem, Faith Hill and Celine Dion.
Ben Richard of Millennium Lighting Design, Inc. worked on the first Matchbox Twenty Tour that Show Distribution supplied with equipment. He says, "I have known Jacques Tanguay for over 20 years and have worked with Show Distribution since 2001 on the Matchbox Twenty Mad Season tour," which was designed by Marc Brickman. "We were the first touring production to use 36 Chain Master Vario-Lift automated hoists to move 11 vertical trusses over the stage. Every song had a different physical look. Since that time, I have worked with Show Distribution on several tours with Matchbox Twenty, Dream Theater and George Michael. The precision, operation and reliability of the Chain Master hoists are unrivaled in the industry."
"My passion is to push limits," says Tanguay. His enthusiasm is evident even though he has a sore throat that is bad enough to make speaking difficult for him during this interview. "I was always pushing the technology and the high end equipment, first when I was involved with lighting, and now in rigging. Ten years ago I wanted to develop a market where nobody was. Now I want to go even further. I want to expand what people can do with motors and moving equipment."
Dancing Set Pieces
In this case, that means turning set pieces, LED screens, truss or just about anything that can be rigged into moveable objects that execute cues so quick and precise that they become performers themselves, capable of dancing, soaring, or swift and silent flight. It means developing new systems like those in the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles that use microwave signals to control motors. It means revamping the Vario-Lift motors and trolleys so that pre-existing control software can be integrated.
It also means constantly developing new technology like the Load Cell System which was introduced at this year's LDI. The Load Cell System, Tanguay explains, "allows anybody in any facility using the system to find out online what the loads are on every rigging point in their venue. Further," he says, "the theatre manager can get a call on his Blackberry or receive an email when a point is being overloaded and the system can shut itself down until the problem is corrected. I joke about this," he says, "but it's a true story. I was out hunting, and I got a call on my Blackberry. Someone had overloaded something in my office."
Most of the equipment Show Distribution now supplies would not have been thought possible 10 years ago. But pushing limits isn't the only thing on Tanguay's mind or on Show Distribution's agenda.
The company is expanding. Currently they are in the middle of opening a new location in Las Vegas and they have plans to expand their market into South America. Sebastien Truchon, VP of operations, elaborated. "We've already got a warehouse for the equipment in Las Vegas but we are concentrating on, and looking forward to, building on that, putting on employees there as well," he says.
1,000 Shows, No Accidents
You might think their expansion, then, would be what the people at Show distribution would want to talk about most, but you would be wrong. Safety and their safety record are what the company is most focused on and what they are most proud of. "We've done over 1,000 shows," Tanguay says, knocking on wood and explaining with a laugh, that he is superstitious. "And we've had no accidents."
Sales director Bob Bélanger elaborates on that by saying that Show Distribution's equipment is made for, and held to, higher standards than have existed in the U.S. and Canada previous to now. "Stricter standards have existed for years under German and European regulations," he says. "In the U.S. and Canada we were never obliged to comply with them, but there was a demand (for safer equipment). There were more and more requests from different facilities, a lot of architects, a lot of people in theatres, concerned about the safety of their equipment. And we were already there, already offering the safest equipment on the market. So we've been able to bring to the client the standards they were looking for. We've been working in the field for 10 years, and we've been trained by the German manufacturers to comply with the higher standards."
Pierre Guillotte, directeur de production, Spectacles en Aréna (production manager, Arena Shows) for Cirque du Soleil, mentions the convenience of using equipment which is already up to European safety standards. "We currently use Lifket products (from Show Distribution) on several of our big top shows and are exclusive for our arena shows. The entire range of Chain Master products are quieter and lighter than the competition. For instance using Chain Master for our two current arena tours enabled us to have only one rigging truck on both shows and still have "legal" loads in the U.S. Since we also tour Europe extensively and since Lifket is made in Germany, we automatically comply with European norms," he says.
Safety Pays
Tanguay is proud of the company's safety record and he speaks like a man who has fought the right fight and won – and is seeing the realization of his hopes for an expanding client base. He speaks about some of the safety systems built into the motors and trolleys, things like the fully integrated backup system bypassing the controller on the Tour Lift motor, the friction clutch for overload protection on the Tour Rig, the panic buttons, and the slack chain systems. "This cost us some business in the beginning," Tanguay says. "Our equipment was a bit more expensive, but we believed the industry wanted that kind of precision and safety. And we were right."
Bélanger jumps in to add another thought. "We don't want to go into too many fields," he says, "We don't want to add too many products. We want to focus on a few products that we master and that are the best in the market. We want to keep it simple and keep it safe," and then expand by bringing proven products to more markets.
It's not just equipment that Tanguay and company are proud of. Tanguay, Bélanger and Truchon all agree that Show Distribution's success is due in large part to the people that make up the company. "A big part of our success is because of our crew. We've got people on tours like U2 and Metallica. The people who are going out with our equipment, loading in and loading out, they're making it work well, and work safely, everyday," says Truchon.
