Do you own a lot of trucks, or rent, or a combination?

Not too shabby!

We own 2 tractors, 3 trailers, 2 straight trucks with sleepers, a small delivery truck and a van. We still rent when there is a need, usually during peak season. One tractor trailer is nearly always out with Tom Jones, often for over 200 shows a year. We are not a trucking company but by having our own trucks we can service some of our customers needs better. All of our staff engineers and support staff have at least a Class B CDL.

How much electrical capacity do you now have, and how big a rig can you set up to test indoors? Or, is that not something that you need to do very often?

We don’t usually put up a huge rig inside the shop, but we do have 2 sets of 3 phase 100A Camlocs available; one in the prep area, the other in our multi-purpose room. There are also Edison & Hubble twist outlets on each support column in the shop.

Are you about to handle any holiday extravaganzas?

Well, there’s always the annual Teamsters Christmas party! We’re waiting to see what confirms for New Years Eve this year and I’m sure there will be some of the late season radio station fests as well. One great tour we do each year during the holidays is the Lorie Line Holiday Concert Tour, which runs from 11/14 thru 12/30. However, with 9/11 and the current questions about the economy, I think that the holiday extravaganzas will not be as extravagant.

Since you had the new warehouse built to your specs, what cool features did you include, that make the work of storing and transporting large sound systems easier or more efficient?

One cool feature is the rigging we put in place in the multi purpose room; there are slidable header beams on rollers that we can position in such a way to hang any of our rigs; V-Dosc, d&b audiotechnik or Flashlight. We can hang a rig and pre-configure the fly looms before we show up at a production rehearsal or try out different angle settings on speaker arrays and test the results, etc. The multi purpose room itself is a unique feature; we can give sales demos, teach classes, have band rehearsals or prep a rig in there without interrupting office or warehouse operations.

Another efficiency feature is all the industrial shelving and mezzanines are utilized, which really opens up floor space and allows us to keep less frequently used items out of the way. We also designed one of the four docks separate from the others and designated it the unload dock, so that we can load and unload multiple trucks simultaneously without mixing up gear. Closest to this dock is the speaker test equipment and a bar-code scanner to ensure that everything is working before it gets returned to inventory. Our cable area has cable testers mounted on each nearby column so you can check everything before hanging it back on a peg. There is also a built in roll-on scale to weigh cases.

The really cool things that were built into the facility, however, have more to do about how we work together then where we put audio gear. In addition to the multi purpose room we have 3 conference rooms and several meeting areas in the facility. Our main conference room has a table that seats 20 comfortably and still has room for seating along the wall; it’s big enough that we could hold international negotiations in there!

Official Mascot Wembley

There are three different types of offices for the different types of work that is being done in addition to an elaborate phone and computer network that promotes better communication on all levels. We have even noticed that our staff is eating together more often at the shop now, instead of going out, partly because the lunchroom is so nice. In short, just as there are great venues that make doing gigs easier, having a great facility can make the service we provide better as well.