Ran into Bryan Hartley at InfoComm in June in Las Vegas; I hadn’t seen him since we met at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tour in Philadelphia last winter. He was walking the floor at InfoComm with Holly O’Hair of Q1 Production Technologies, the gear provider for Hartley’s tours. He was just back from Kiss in Europe, Latvia, etc. and ready to go out with Motley Crue, his gig until TSO starts up again in the fall, being a deisgner who goes out on the road with the bands. I hear his rig for Motley Crue is “very Nine Inch Nails, with lots of smoke and strobes.”

Here are a few shots from the Kiss tour, also no slouch in terms of a wild rig:

Bryan Hartley’s bold designs for Kiss on tour

Kiss Europe

Kiss Latvia

This is horrible, and it just goes to show why safety is of the utmost importance in our business. CNN reported yesterday that “A laser show at a music festival injured more than 30 people, Russian news reports said. Some concertgoers lost up to 80 percent of their vision after attending the Aquamarine Music Festival on July 5, the newspaper Kommersant reported.”

Now, granted, it also says that the festival was illegally organized and that it didn’t have the proper permits. Let’s all try to steer clear of such productions, shall we? If it’s not worth your integrity, then perhaps actually keeping your profession and livelihood is a motivator! Lots of folks are refusing to comment. Hmmm.

Here’s the full story:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/15/laser.russia.ap/index.html

I received a press release yesterday containing results of a survey conducted by Suffolk University and released by American Management Services, the results of which say that a majority of small business owners (that’s a lot of you out there) are incredibly dissatisfied with how the federal government treats small businesses. And the future doesn’t look too bright, either, as the polls say the candidates don’t have their acts together. Here’s a brief summary of the findings:

“81% feel we are in an economic recession

78% feel economic stimulus checks are useless

86% say the federal government is doing “nothing” or “little” to help small businesses

Labor costs and inflation considered much larger problems than healthcare

72% believe that the federal government bailing out Wall Street and big business

80% have no idea what McCain’s and Obama’s platforms are on small business

Romney and Clinton are overwhelming choice of VP candidates for small business owners

90% of small businesses did not participate in the administration’s small business week

77% feel that the US needs to open up the restricted oil reserves in Alaska, and off-shore in Florida and California”

Now, I don’t want to get into a heated political debate (Go, Obama!), but I wonder how may in our little niche industry have the same complaints. I would guess the majority of folks out there working freelance or even small manufacturers (you know those hundreds of smaller booths at LDI?) qualify as small business owners. Is it as bad as ever out there?