Saturday Night Lights Shines All Week at SXSW Club Venue for the British Music Embassy
Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, South by Southwest (SXSW) is the largest music festival of its kind in the world. Best known for its convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries, the live music portion of this year’s festival took place over the course of a week in mid-March.
At its core, SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together. That might explain how Saturday Night Lights, a Mom and Pop lighting company based in Morris, IL came to be the vendor, installing a Martin rig at the Latitude 30 Club, a pub that serves as the showcase venue for the British Music Embassy every year.
An Opportunity Arises
In 2007, Rod Reusch was married with two children and well into his career working with AT&T. He and his wife often went to the local clubs to see and support his son Sean, who was in a two-piece band called World Wide Riot. Rod thought what little lighting the local venues had to offer was “pretty bland.”
Seeking to further support his son’s band, Reusch decided to build a lighting system. “I had always been interested in the technical side of things when I went to concerts,” he says. “Yeah, I was primarily there for the music, but I always kept an eye on the lights and sound and the guys working behind the scenes.”
So, he literally built a lighting system, the old-school way, from scratch.” The console had triac dimmers in its body with on and off switches and flash buttons. I made my own par cans with store bought spotlights.”
During that time, he started getting requests for the system from other local bands that had seen the rig in action. Realizing he needed more gear, Reusch began investing in the Martin product line of automated fixtures, consoles, and more LED pars. As a result, while still working for AT&T, he founded Saturday Night Lights (SNL) LLC.
His son had relocated to Dallas to work on his musical career and spoke often about SXSW to Rod. “He was always talking up the festival and that I really needed to come down and make sure I hit the Latitude 30 Club, since it is where the British Music Embassy showcases all the bands from England, Scotland and Ireland.”
In 2011, that is exactly what they did. “My wife and I are in the club,” recalls Reusch, “listening to this band play, and the lighting system is just, ‘on.’ There is no one running the board. I see a guy with a SXSW lanyard on [named James Morales], and I ask him, ‘What’s up with the lights?’ He tells me that the people who supplied them just set them up, turned them on and left!”
Reusch adds, “We shoot the breeze a little bit, and I find out he is a production manager with SXSW, so I give him my business card and a bit of info about my company. He had to leave, and I did not really think much more about it until he came up to me 45 minutes later and asks if I could “do anything” with the lights. So, I got some looks going and stayed and played around for a while.
“Later that day, a gentleman comes to the board and introduces himself as ‘P.C.,’ a production person with the British Music Embassy. We exchanged business cards, and that was the start of our business relationship. SNL has been providing the venue’s lighting every year since, and each year, we add a little more to the lighting system. “
It turns out P.C.’s full name is David Per-Christian Rae V, and his full title is Chairman at Upfront Artists, Impresario at British Music Embassy and Role Model at Slottsfjell. Morales, meanwhile, works for Apple and is an assistant production manager for SXSW.
An Assist from Martin
For several years, Reusch had been suggesting to Harman’s Martin that they supply some additional product for what would essentially be a live demo at this showcase venue. This year, Brad Schiller, business development manager, Rental/Touring — Lighting, made it happen.
Martin took on a sponsorship position with the venue and provided additional gear to SNL’s package from a wish list Rod had created, which Reusch, who credits the Martin gear as “dependable” and “versatile,” appreciated.
He used the Martin-supplied fixtures in conjunction with his own inventory to light the venue. The Martin fixtures used at Latitude 30 Club for the 2017 SXSW festival, controlled via Martin’s M1 lighting console, including six RUSH MH 1 Profile Plus fixtures, six RUSH MH 6 Washes, three RUSH Par 2 CT Zooms and a Magnum 2500 Hz hazer, with two Show Solutions 1208 box truss sections and two Global Truss IB-4052 ladder truss units for support.
Martin shipped its gear directly to Latitude 30, while Reusch trucked in his own inventory from Illinois. He, his wife Susan and Eric Manuel then set up and ran the system.
They got the downstage truss in and flown before doors opened the Saturday before the event started. After closing that night, they came back, hung the upstage, and programmed. On Sunday, March 12, the live music portion of the 2017 festival officially got under way, and the week was off and running.
Seven Days, 60+ Acts
During the next seven days, more than 60 performers appeared on stage at the club. All were up-and-coming or virtually unknown bands (to the U.S., anyway) from England, Scotland and Ireland. Reusch got a lineup schedule about a week before the festival started and spent a lot of time learning their music from various Internet sites, as the bands rarely brought an LD with them.
“The beautiful thing about all of this is how well everyone gets along,” says Reusch, noting how the production people, Cato Music, Allen & Heath, the bands, the management staff from British Music Embassy and all the local folks from Austin work smoothly, “just like a well-maintained automated lighting fixture. It is a small venue and a small stage, but everything fits, and it all clicks into place like it needs to.”
As he reflects on how this all started five years ago, Rod says, “I was just down here to enjoy some music. I could not imagine at that time that I would be doing what I’m doing today.”