Too Much Regulation.

When I first started in this lighting business here in Los Angeles, I worked for a great company, Light and Sound Design. I loved it. The atmosphere was sort of laid back. Like a group of friends who owned a bunch of lighting gear and were lucky enough to rent it out on big shows. There was enough regulation and people to keep the business a float, but it never felt "corporate".

A few years later, there were rumours that the business was going to be sold. When the rumours became fact, and Light and Sound Design was going to become Fourth Phase, a division of Production Resource Group, all us old hands were given the rousing speech, "Nothings going to change. We're still the same shop, just new people in the offices."

But it did change. Regulation began to creep into places you weren't used to. The best example; In the old days, you used to be able to walk up to the supply area and grab a couple of Sharpie and Marks-a-lot pens, then walk down to the tape cabinet, have the warehouse manager unlock it, and grab a roll or two of gaff or electrical tape then go label up your cables. When ownership changed, someone decided everything needed to be requisitioned. Suddenly, you had to know how many pens and tape you needed, you had to fill out a requisition form, submit form, wait for people to approve said form (salesman, account manager, expendables manager), have person pull requested items from stock and then you can pick them up at the counter. Is that regulation or what?

I understand why they did it. It was sort of loose and fast, and I'm sure many people took more pens and tape then they needed.

In the old days, most of those items would find their way back. Half rolls of gaff tape in the cabinet, a blunt Sharpie in the supply.

If you have an exact count of pens and tape, you can charge your client an exact amount. Pens and tape (and all expendables for that matter) are no longer complimentary with your million dollar tour.

Then, without warning, Fourth Phase just became Production Resource Group. And corporate sunk in. How corporate? How regulated? Hows this for an example. Here's a bar code from an item on a show I'm doing now.
LSD (Light and Sound Design) like PRG (Production Resource Group) had bar codes on all their lights, their dimmer racks, anything large and valuable. But this bar code I took a photo of? Here's what it was on.A desk chair. PRG has bar codes for desk chairs. It's a $100 desk chair. Who knows how much they charge for it. Some how I get the feeling they didn't even buy the chair. I think at some point, gear came back from a tour, and the lighting director out on the tour spent $100 of his per diem to have a comfortable chair at the console. At the end of the tour, he had no way to get it home so he just threw it on the truck like always. It's just a $100, he'll get another one for the next tour.

The chair gets back to the shop, someone slaps a bar code on it, enters it into the system, and bam! PRG has a new desk chair. Somewhere, there's a line item that says, "desk chair" and with that line item comes a cost, and that cost can now be transferred onto the final bill to the client.

Again, I understand why these things happen. When I started in the business it was still sort of a fledgling. If you think about it, big concert touring has only been around since the late 1960's early 1970's. Sure bands toured before that (The Beatles did shows in arena's everywhere), but no one carried a lighting rig. There were no lighting designers or art directors way back when. It was just a band on stage with some speakers and the sun or the stadium lights for illumination.

Today, lighting is big business. If we continued to play fast and loose like the old days, money would be lost in large amounts.

I've adapted to the new lifestyle of regulation and corporation. But it doesn't change the fact that I miss the ability to go get a pen.

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