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Hot‘lanta:
ASL Thrives in Active Market
By BlairJackson
From left, Zach Bitterman, Roby Dail, Steve Land (EDA ProGroup), Brian Hatten, Jon Waterbury, Mike Ertle, Scott
Waterbury, Steve May, Jay Easley (Midas USA), Mark Adamson (EDA ProGroup), Tom Smith, Dale Wasson.
Atlanta has been one of the Southeast’s
major entertainment hubs since the late
1960s. It was home to some of the first
large-scale rock festivals, and it has always been
an important stop for any significant touring act.
Along the way, Georgia has spawned its own regional
scenes as well, from early 1970s Southern
rock gods like the Allman Brothers to the New
Wave boom in Athens in the early 1980s (REM,
B-52s, etc.) to today’s explosion in hip-hop and
R&B, Atlanta is home to some of the hottest
producers in the business, and that in turn has
spurred many bands to call the area home, and
clubs and recording studios have sprung up to
accommodate the influx of creative types.
Not surprisingly, there are numerous sound
reinforcement companies in the area competing
for work in what has become one of the most active
entertainment centers in the country. One
mid-size operation that has been around for
more than 30 years, weathered many changes in
the market and always managed to keep moving
forward is Atlanta Sound & Lighting. ASL general
manager Scott Waterbury notes, “One of my
partners had visited SIR [Studio Instrument Rentals]
in L.A. back in the mid-1970s and thought,
‘You know, it would be cool to have something
like that in Atlanta,’ so that was the original focus
of the company — doing rentals and backline.
[That company was known as Soundz Music
Atlanta.] I moved down here from Chicago in
‘78, which was about a year later, and then in ‘79
we incorporated,” then increasingly moved into
event production and sound reinforcement.
Organic Growth FOH
“We were never really overly funded,” Waterbury
continues with a chuckle, “so the way we
grew our inventory was, we’d have to buy two
of something and later sell them to get three of
something else, and then three would turn into
five, and five would turn into 10, and then we’d
sell 10 and buy something different; it grew naturally
like that. Before long, too, we started building
our own cabinets, but it seemed like we were
better at using stuff than designing and building
it, so we let designers and builders do that and
we just started choosing whose equipment we
wanted to use, and life got a lot easier.”
Through the years, ASL branched off into
many different areas, including large and small
productions in every sized venue imaginable,
from clubs to concert halls to legitimate theaters;
complete SR and lighting for corporate events;
custom installs in restaurants, clubs, houses of
worship and other facilities; political events;
multi-stage fairs; private parties and weddings;
you name it. “I guess our mainstay is musical acts
coming through town,” Waterbury comments,
“but we have guys that are interested and excited
about all those other areas, so when they call
up and need a problem solved — like if a restaurateur
calls up, they get a guy who really understands
restaurant problems and knows what we
have that fixes that problem.
“One of the nice things about my company
is that because we do so many things, and we’re
not 90 percent one thing and 10 percent something
else, we’re not completely dependent on
one market. Like right now, when corporate is
down, there are other markets that have been
up for us. And it also helps that there is that
‘& Lighting’ in our name. There are some tours
where lighting is extremely important and ‘Oh,
by the way, they need a sound system,’ and others
where the sound has be impeccable and
‘Yeah, if the lights would move that would be
cool,’” he laughs. “Clients have all these different
objectives, and what we’ve gotten good at is understanding
what their vision really is and then
helping them forge a path that cost-effectively
takes care of that.”
Not Just About the Gear FOH
ASL is the rare SR and lighting company that
doesn’t trumpet their massive gear collection on
the their website (atlantasoundandlight.com)
because, Waterbury says, “We’re not about the
equipment any more. About four years ago we
threw away the price book and it’s nothing to do
with gear. It’s all about the end result and the service
people want to get. So we just buy stuff we
believe in and then people hire us because they
believe in us. Yes, it makes a difference what gear
you have, but that’s not what makes the difference.
The difference is the attitude and the effort
that the techs bring with them to the table.”
That said, the folks at ASL are happy to talk
gear and pride themselves in keeping a broad
range of well-maintained equipment for any
application. They also have some favorites, as
Waterbury explains: “A number for years ago,
my rep at Electro-Voice looked at me and said,
‘You’ve got something like 160 lines you’re handling
— five different power amps and 70 different
speaker manufacturers; all these others. You
divide your sales by 160 and to each guy you’re
1/160th of a good customer. But if you spend a lot
of your money with E-V, we’ll think you’re a pretty
big deal.’ It sounded like salesman stuff to me, but
honestly, it changed my life. It turned out that E-V
had something as good or better than anything
I was buying from all these different companies.
So instead of having a low-line contact from one
company and talking to that rep, and a mid-line
contact at another, and so on, E-V had everything
from a mom and pop PA-on-a-stick to full-blown
stadium stuff, and everything in between. So it’s
www.fohonline.com
been really good for us. We actually feel like E-V
helped us grow, and in a small part we probably
helped them grow, too.
“I’ve got an X-Array system, and I’ve also
got 30 or 40 ZXA1s — this teeny, eight-pound
speaker, which people really seem to love. I’ve
got Tour X, I’ve got Sx250 systems, I’ve got XLD,
XLE, XLC. When EV was doing Dynacord, I got
Dynacord Cobra and XA systems. It’s worked out
really well for us to stick with one high quality
company instead of bouncing around and trying
mix and match. Their gear is engineered to work
together; it’s fantastic.”
Going Digital FOH
When it comes to consoles, ASL’s higher end
inventory is still based largely around beloved
analog Midas XL200 and Heritage desks, but recently
they took the plunge into the digital realm
when they purchased the highly-touted Midas
PRO3, which was just announced at InfoComm
this past year. Waterbury says that ASL had
bought digital boards from “the usual suspects”
in the past, but didn’t feel that they were the
Regional Slants
sonic or ergonomic match of their popular analog
boards. The PRO3 changes that, he believes.
ASL currently has 12 full-time and 44 parttime
employees, with most of the latter group
encompassing “specialty guys,” Waterbury says.
“We have someone who makes custom enclosures
or adapts enclosures to environments for
us; somebody else does rigging; somebody else
knows about motors. We try to let people who
really excel at something excel at that area, rather
than forcing them to be good at something they
don’t enjoy. We have a ‘Don’t take the fun out of
it’ attitude. We’ve got great jobs; we get paid to
have a lot of fun.”
And they’ve developed a solid foothold in a
still-growing metropolitan market. “We’re fortunate
in that this little cubby hole of the United
States has been very good to us,” Waterbury offers.
“Most of our guys are married and/or have
children and while we will tour and do tour, it’s
really not our mainstay. There’s enough work
right here in our backyard that we don’t have to
be going more than 200 to 300 miles for work.
This level is working out really well for us.”
2011 JANUARY
29
bill abner