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Randy “Baja” Fletcher

Randy “Baja” Fletcher

Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award Winner "Wore Many Hats" for ZZ Top, Waylon Jennings, Randy Travis and Brooks & Dunn

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn issued a joint statement upon hearing the news: "We can't imagine what we did to be blessed with the likes of Randy ["Baja"] Fletcher. We hate to think about what our career might have been like without him, as so many have been won and lost on the road. The importance of a trail boss like Baja is impossible to put into words. Not a show goes by that someone doesn't talk about the quality of our crew, and it all filters down from him."

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PLASA 2010: LED Spotting

Although the exhibition hall didn't open until 10 a.m. on the Sunday morning of Sept. 12, the networking before PLASA started on the streets of Earls Court in London in the days prior to the annual production industry exhibition. That's where the real gathering of the tribe began, where you were more likely to run into your industry friends and neighbors than in your own back yard.

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Joe Branam: The Rigger’s Rigger

You could say that Joe Branam's story is one about a guy who ran away with the circus and made good. Of course there's more to the man than that, but it starts with the uncommon fact that he began a rigging career on the performance end of the equation.

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Choosing Video Displays Wisely

With the proliferation of LED video products in the market today, how does a live event production company even begin the daunting task of finding the right product for their applications? After all, distinguishing quality products from those that merely appear to be is no simple proposition.

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The Last Video for the Last Rodeo

Brooks & Dunn's Last Rodeo tour went out on top, with the video support for their last shows as crisp and well-executed as you'd expect from a major tour. At the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in St. Louis, a few weeks before the last tour marked its Sept. 2 farewell at the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville, the crew brought their A game as fans partied, sang, cheered, and even let themselves get misty-eyed a few times.

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Catwalks for the 21st Century

In the Information Age, the least high-tech items tend to be the most overlooked. The high-flying but low-tech catwalk is chief among them. Both the balm and the bane of riggers worldwide, the catwalk is as cumbersome and expensive as it is necessary, which explains why they are often routed worse than flying commercial out of a small town in northern Wyoming.

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Lighting Geeks Unite!

When I was growing up, the terms "nerd," "geek," and "dweeb" were synonymous with someone who spent too much time reading, computing, or just being different. Generally, people did not want to be considered one of these things. However, somewhere along the way that changed (or maybe I just grew up), and now being smart is a good thing.

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Ground Control

I was about 10 years old when I first learned just how important grounding is. My older brother had a garage band, and you couldn't have one of those back then without having a Bogen dual column PA system with two 8-inch speakers in each column. Nor could you have a legit garage band without the requisite electric guitars. And it goes without saying that no self-respecting garage band could exist without a garage.

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Tape Gaffes

Over the years I have seen tape used in just about every conceivable way to prep gear, label road cases, truss and cables. I don't claim that any particular way is best, but I have certainly seen a lot of wasted tape. And any production cost waste peeves me.

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