It’s 9:40 a.m. on a warm January South Florida morning, and gathered around a conference table are three lighting professionals who have been brought to Chauvet’s HQ for a visit. Typical of lighting guys, they are sharing war stories on the challenges of providing lighting and video (in this instance, as it relates to the house of worship market).
At promptly 10 a.m., Albert Chauvet enters and takes a seat, presumably to start talking about new Chauvet products. But he doesn’t say a word. The conversation continues, and his wife and business partner, Berenice, has joined the table; she too is listening intently.
It’s not until 10:22 when Albert finally says something, but it’s not about one of his products. He asks a question. How could a video screen be rigged more easily? Other questions from him follow, and he studiously makes notes.
And so it continues.
When asked about this later, Albert says: “Part of the strength of our team is we make sure we’re all grounded, and stay humble. Keep the ego small and listen. We listen to identify a need, and then we work to fill it. A lot of people have a big ego with no patience for listening, but we believe in being good listeners.” He smiles broadly and adds: “Believe me, I learn a lot more listening than when I’m talking!”
Engaging the client is a cornerstone of Chauvet’s success. They want to know the challenges of the live event professional, what he or she would like to achieve. As Chauvet has grown — and their growth has leaped into the double digits primarily because of their success in the pro market — they’ve remained flexible, able to move fast. “We identify the need, what has to happen to meet it, the features that need to be included, and price point in has to be at,” states Berenice. “And then we hit it.”
The Chauvets have much to celebrate this year, and not just because they made it to the quarter century mark. More than any other company in live event entertainment, they looked into the future of professional lighting and it shined back at them in LED. When others were shrugging off the technology, Chauvet plunged into the research and development of it, and from an early DJ moonflower fixture to the COLORado to the Nexus, turned the world onto LED possibilities.
Yes, LED fixtures are ubiquitous now, but that wasn’t always the case.
A Thoughtful Gamble
While Albert and Berenice both spent childhoods in Haiti, their paths would converge much later. Albert’s family was in manufacturing, and he had already developed a predisposition towards business at age 13, when he and his family moved to Miami.
Berenice would leave the island for an education in Spain and France before ending up in Miami herself. They met, married and started a family, and she got hired as a reporter for the Miami Herald. Albert launched what would become Chauvet Lighting, creating inexpensive DJ products. “It was crazy times for both of us,” Albert admits.
The early years were a struggle, but Albert’s entrepreneurial spirit never wavered, and his interest in all things lighting grew exponentially. He attended all the trade shows, read all the magazines and enjoyed the small victories among the setbacks. Ten years in, Berenice decided to join the company full time.
“He was just making that turn, and I could see [Chauvet Lighting] was going to be something big,” Berenice says. “And because I was in the communications business, I felt I could help. That we’re both passionate about this business is the real driving force.” When asked about marketing, she corrects: “It’s not really marketing, I’m just telling a story.” When prodded further, she admits she has a good eye for details, and her love of graphic design and having a good team has allowed her to build a strong brand.
In the early 2000s, Albert noticed LED technology and saw something others missed. “We embraced LED technology from the very beginning and never looked back,” Albert says. “Yes, they weren’t bright enough at first. But by jumping in early, we knew we could establish ourselves with this technology, and I had confidence that our research and development team could solve the challenges at hand.”
“It was a gamble, but it was a thoughtful gamble,” adds Berenice. It would be their bridge into the pro market. “We saw the success we had in the DJ market with LEDs, and knew we could go up against more well-established companies as our technology advanced, as our output increased, as our features became more attractive,” Albert says.
In 2006, they debuted the COLORado 3, their first Pro LED light, which would be used by LD Mark “Fifi” Miller on the following year’s Poison tour. Then in 2007, they turned heads by having the first booth at an LDI show to have all LED lights under the theme, ‘It’s Green Thinking.’ “By doing a booth in all LED at LDI, it showed that LED had arrived and meant business,” Albert says. Their bold move would garner an LDI Booth Award that year.
“Yes, it was scary, but don’t worry about Albert, he always sleeps well!” Berenice laughs. And while at that show the recognition and response proved that they were on the right track, “We remained hardworking, but not afraid to try to make a difference.” Once they started to get noticed, the other trademark Chauvet elements were in place: the right price for a dependable product with more features than the other guy’s.
The road to LED had its typical challenges, “There was a lot of trial and error in the development of it, of course,” Albert says. “But we have 15 product managers/engineers dedicated to product development, and with our talent and determination, we’re able to overcome obstacles.”
Rapid Growth
All their products for all markets are conceived and tested in their South Florida area location, and then built in China. “We’ve always partnered with manufacturers and have built solid relationships,” Albert says. “We can get a sense of who we can work with just by walking through the shop floor.” For their Chinese partners, they’ve often taken on the role of coach, saying that by working together, the Chauvets will make the factory better, more efficient, and able to consistently create quality products.
“We have a good quality control team here, as well as in Asia,” Berenice says, adding that because they are so well known over there at this point and tend to place large orders, manufacturers are eager to work hard to meet Chauvet standards. “When Chauvet embraces a supplier, it’s good news for them. So it becomes a situation of mutual respect — a true partnership where we share knowledge and benefit from working together.”
In 2008, they began building a 75,000 square-foot headquarters. Completed in 2010, it also reflected their commitment to the environment, with “green” features including an extensive skylight system that keeps the need for artificial lighting to a minimum. It also allowed for an expansion of in-house quality control, under the watchful eye of Lance Shirley. The marketing and product development spaces are in one room, set up newsroom style with no closed offices, just a lot of open space that fosters communication.
Then there’s “the pit,” dedicated to testing for product reliability and longevity. “It can takes months, but we run products and do things to them to make sure they don’t break,” says Ford Sellers, senior product development manager. “We try to have failures here,” he says, noting how they run the zooms constantly and otherwise put the fixtures through other rigors. “Nothing gets shipped until we run it into the ground here,” he notes. The company also has an impressive customer service department featuring 12 dedicated technical support staff with ongoing training to assist customers with any questions that might arise about Chauvet products.
All of these investments help propel more expansion, to the point where they’ve recently spilled over into another 50,000-square-foot warehouse in the industrial park. When asked to look back and name their biggest breakthrough, the Chauvets cite making the leap to establishing Chauvet Professional. Chauvet strives to create products “that offer the best performance at the best value, and with our experience with optics, cooling, and everything else we’ve learned in manufacturing lighting, when we dive into the pool, we knew we had mastered the technology,” Albert says. “Yes, it was challenging to get into the pro market, but we had such a great product with the COLORado 3.”
They were working against misconceptions that Chauvet was “just” a DJ company, Berenice adds. “We took the time to introduce ourselves to that market by making a grab for the attention of the right people,” she says. “Fortunately there was great interest immediately by some of the top LDs and artists who constantly seek the best tools for their work, no matter where it comes from.” To make clearer the distinction, they would create a separate Chauvet Professional division to cater to the specific needs of that market.
Berenice has a favorite moment that involves one of the most sought-after, highly respected award-winning lighting designers in the concert business, Patrick Woodroffe (AC/DC, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, etc.). “When I learned that he had used the COLORado Batten 72s on the Lady Gaga ‘Born this Way Ball’ tour, I knew we had arrived,” she laughs, adding that she sent him an email saying they were honored to be included. “Then he came to my booth at LDI, and it was the closest I’ve ever come to being a groupie! He was so gracious and nice, and he’s such an amazing talent. That was a high point.”
An event that told the world they’ve more than “just arrived,” they’ve transcended, took place in Paris in 2009. Barely a year after its inception, Iluminarc, their the architectural and “architainment” lighting brand, was incorporated into a “shoot out” of their lights against other better known companies for a historic opportunity at being part of the 120th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower. Albert was standing in the Champ de Mars when they lit it up a three-month extravaganza that included more than 400 Iluminarc Ilumipod 48 IP RGBW fixtures.
One of their most recent breakthroughs is the Nexus 4×4 Panel fixtures, which won the 2013 Parnelli Indispensible Technology “IT” Award for Lighting Product of the Year, the first light manufactured in China to win that coveted honor. “We spent years getting it right, getting the proper color mixing, getting the proper brightness,” Albert says. “It fills up the whole area, and has quickly become mainstream with major designers who have remarked on its performance, consistency, and control.”
“There was a lot of back-and-forth with designers when creating that light,” Berenice adds. “We went through 72 different versions and would give prototypes to LDs and get more feedback.” Those efforts paid off. Award-winning LD Oscar Dominguez of The Voice was an early adopter and specified 86 of the Nexus units for season three of the hit show. It’s also been used on scores of other high-profile shows like America’s Got Talent, the Billboard Music Awards, the MTV VMAs and also such mega-events as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Continuing to Listen
Stéphane Gressier, international sales director, and Michael Brooksbank, general manager of Chauvet Europe, are heading up expansion in the U.K. and Europe. The company is also now setting up an office in Belgium in addition to the one they have in the U.K. “This way, we are better able to support our clients in France, Italy, and Germany,” Gressier says. “We are truly a global operation now.” Their brands are distributed worldwide in 103 countries through a network of distributors and dealers.
Gressier, who works with both Albert and Berenice Chauvet, notes that while they have “two different styles,” they “complement each other very well. One of the best things about working here is that while they are the drivers of everything, they’ve tapped some super talented people who get autonomy in taking care of what needs to be done,” he adds.
DeAnna Padgett, the company’s national sales manager, came from Barbizon and has been with Chauvet close to three years. “I had been watching them, and they’ve been doing some really good stuff,” she says. Today she handles the Chauvet Professional and Iluminarc divisions. “Albert and Berenice are fantastic people, and I’ve learned a lot from them,” Padgett says. “They have assembled a great team, and everyone is excited about the growth.”
Judging from a continued emphasis on product innovations that reflect an ability to listen and solve problems facing designers, the company is not slowing down in its 25th year. A recent case in point: Ovation fixtures. While Chauvet has not had as big a presence in the House of Worship market as others and was hardly in the theatre market at all, they nonetheless noticed that cash-strapped theater companies and worship spaces were hesitant to change out old lights with new, more efficient LEDs because of the initial all-or-nothing costs. Their answer, featured at LDI last fall, was the Ovation ED-190WW ellipsoidal and the Ovation FD-165WW Fresnel wash. Each works alongside traditional incandescent fixtures using constant power dimming systems. They also work with DMX systems (as LED fixtures typically do). This means that theaters and churches could start replacing their old lights in small numbers, or even one at a time, and have the lighting be consistent with whatever else is being used. “They don’t have to throw out their whole rig,” Berenice says. Recently, LightTech Group (Jamaica, NY) provided 18 Ovation E-190WW fixtures for the 1,500-seat St. Joseph Cathedral in Brooklyn, NY.
The company has taken on the LED video screen market as well, starting with their first LED video product launched in 2007. “We had challenges, but now we’ve mastered it very well, and the last three years have just rocked for us,” Albert says. “It’s our fastest growing segment.” The company also markets a line of truss products under the Trusst banner.
But what’s it take for a husband and wife to work together so closely? “For me, it’s like having the best partner in the world,” Albert states emphatically. “We both want to build something special and make a difference. The other part is, she is really gifted and has a strong passion for the business, and good sense for marketing. I would not want to do her job, I would not be good at it!”
“I feel blessed to work with someone like Albert — he’s a role model for me because he’s so focused,” Berenice says. “It doesn’t matter what gets in his way, he’s going to get it done. I have become a workaholic working with him!”
“You can’t always outsmart [your competition], but you can always out-work them,” Albert smiles.
“At the end of the day, we’re both so fascinated by this industry,” Berenice says. “We both like using both sides of our brain, which is the challenging part. On the one hand, it’s art, and you have to have an artistic sensibility. But then it’s technology and business and everything you do has to make sense [financially]. But it’s all pure fun.”
