The Parnelli Board of Advisors have announced the three lifetime honorees to receive Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 24th Annual Gala on January 23, 2026. They are: Tour Manager Marty Hom (Lifetime), Whirlwind Founder Michael Laiacona (Audio Innovator), and Production and Lighting Designer Marc Brickman (Visionary).
“At the beginning of every year, the board gathers to discuss candidates who could receive the honor for the coming year, and often it’s challenging to pick three out of the wealth of talent in our industry,” explains Parnelli Awards co-founder Terry Lowe. “This year was no exception, though we certainly landed on well-deserving, influential, and innovative people to honor at the next Parnelli Awards. We are all excited about honoring this trio of industry artists in January.”
Marty Hom is a 40-plus year concert touring veteran who is one of the most award-winning professionals in our industry (he has previously received three Parnelli Tour Manager of the Year Awards – 2004, 2013, and 2018). Hom grew up in Sacramento where he managed small bands during his college days before moving to L.A. In 1985 he became Tour Manager/Accountant for the great Bill Withers, and in 1989 he started working with Paula Abdul when she was doing an MTV tour with Milli Vanilli and other video stars of the day. When Abdul exploded into doing world tours, she took Hom with her, and he’s been busy ever since. Janet Jackson, Shakira, Lionel Richie, Van Halen, Barbra Streisand, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, and the Rolling Stones are just a few of his clients over the decades. Most recently he’s been Tour Director for Olivia Rodrigo. But it’s his efforts off the road that has also earned him wide respect: In 2019 he became the Talent Producer for MusicCares Person of the Year, and most recently he was named a member of their Board of Directors. He is frequently seen participating in conferences and panels and active in mentoring the next generation of live event professionals.
Michael Laiacona hails from upstate New York where he was a bass player in those ubiquitous garage bands of the day. In the early 1970s, he helped launch MXR, the effects pedal company (John Lennon was just one of his appreciative customers). In 1975, with his late wife Bonnie Gardner, he founded Whirlwind. From personal experience playing clubs and halls, he noticed musicians and crews trying to build their own snakes and guitar cables with questionable concern for safety and reliability. Starting first with the simple guitar cable, he quickly expanded into connecting everything needed in the live-event and studio worlds. He’s built a wide variety of clients who use Whirlwind cables and connectors including The Pentagon, the White House, NASA, Disney World, Major League sports stadiums and arenas, and rockers like Cheap Trick, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and Tedeschi Trucks Band. One of his early innovations was the first 48-channel snake. Whirlwind was the first to take interface connections to a professional level and was a pioneer in this area of entertainment technology. Designed and built in the U.S., today their wide range of products include patch bays and panels, broadcast/AV production products, digital audio/networking products, mixers, electrical distribution, and more.
Marc Brickman’s visionary work as a Director, Producer, and Production and Lighting Designer has reached audiences of millions worldwide. His visual spectacles include Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, The Barcelona and Nagano Olympics Ceremonies, Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, and Bruce Springsteen, among hundreds of others. Brickman’s work has also been seen on Broadway (Young Frankenstein, Once Upon a Dream); feature films (Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence); and in fine art (Noor Riyadh Festival drone light art sculptures). Transcending traditional entertainment, Brickman reimagined landmark lighting when he lit up the Empire State Building in 2012, and with his design and art collective Tactical Manoeuvre, he’s created every light show on the building since. Technological innovations over the last 50 years include: First use of moving video screens (Genesis 1992), implementation of the world’s most powerful copper-vapor lasers (Pink Floyd 1994), first designer to assemble a team of programmers who specialized in control of their respective technologies (Pink Floyd 1987), patents on a smoke curtain (for Steven Spielberg’s A.I.), an audio sync app (used at Empire State Building), and an inflatable touring venue/soundstage, as well as revolutionary changes in computerized lighting control and fixture automation. Last year, he created the visual landscape for David Gilmour’s Luck and Strange tour.
Chairman of the Parnelli Board of Advisor’s Marshall Bissett, explains, “The Board of Advisers meets in a series of Zoom meetings and tosses out names of worthy candidates until consensus is reached. The bar seems to get higher every year and rightly so. I am delighted with this year’s celebrants and look forward to seeing them finally become their own show.”
Along with handing out 27 “of the year” awards, these three will be honored on January 23, 2026, in Anaheim during the NAMM’s show. The Parnelli Award event will take place at the Hilton Anaheim Hotel. For more information, go to www.ParnelliAwards.com.
