Welcome to the July issue of PLSN, with our special focus on Festivals. We’re right in the middle of festival season and we round up some of the Production Support for recent festivals as well as have a Resource Guide on some of the production companies that support festivals with lighting, video, staging, rigging, and crews. This month we also highlight the work of the Eggshell Lighting Company, one of Hawaii’s leading lighting vendors, owned by Jay Robert Harmon, Eggshell is celebrating its 50th year in business. All of us at PLSN, we raise our glasses to Bob and the Eggshell team on this huge milestone and look forward to more of their great work on a wide array of productions.
Here at PLSN, we try to always be at the center of the industry conversation. We look to highlight and elevate topics and issues that matter to the live entertainment and event industry. As part of these conversations, we know that the future is often informed by the past, so we value covering the history and stories of our relatively young industry, which really got its start in the early 1970s. There is, in that time, already a rich history with a lot of bigger than life characters, tall tales, legends, and enough stories to fill volumes of books. Unfortunately, many of these stories don’t get captured in a way that today’s early, or mid-career people can access. Sure, they may catch them on the tour bus, on breaks, or in the shops of production and rental houses, but for the most part they are starting to get lost to time.
PLSN Editor Emeritus Nook Schoenfeld, a longtime designer, programmer, and technician in our industry, used to post great industry history stories on Facebook on Fridays, and eventually he even published many of them in book form before his untimely passing. Bob Harmon of Eggshell has picked up that story sharing mantle, posting stories on Facebook from his over 50 years in lighting. [For some of Harmon’s great stories, be sure to check out this month’s Milestone article on pg. 40, including how the name ‘Eggshell’ came to be; there is actually a freezer involved.]
In last week’s PLSN Newsletter, we shared a Video of the Week of Van Halen’s David Lee Roth telling the story of their ‘No Brown M&Ms’ clause in their tech rider; a ploy used to catch out promoters who weren’t paying attention, which could result in dangerous accidents or costly problems with their tech-heavy shows. This had been shared on Facebook by Parnelli Award-winning Lighting Designer, Rob Koenig, saying, “You get to a point, being in your line of work for so long, of being desensitized by the many stories that shaped our business. You just assume everyone from the oldest to the youngest knows these stories.” He is right, and his point that we need to remember to share our stories is important. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the great stories on the production side of the live entertainment industry.
I would like to make an offer to everyone working in our industry. If you have a good production story, a behind the scenes legend, or a tale of something that shaped the industry, an origin story on gear or practices, or a great anecdote that highlights the pioneers of our industry, reach out and share your stories and photos with me at meddy@timelesscom.com. We will share your stories with PLSN readers—via the magazine, on our website and in our newsletter. Let’s capture some of these tidbits of rich history about the people, gear, and companies that shaped our industry. Let the newer members of our industry have the benefit of your experiences, wisdom, and knowledge, as well as our missteps and humorous lessons!
Shared stories, passed on history, understanding of where we came from as an industry and the laughs and camaraderie in the production trenches is what make us a community! I look forward to helping bring everyone together through sharing all our stories in PLSN.
Michael S. Eddy
PLSN Editor
meddy@timelesscom.com
