Well, hello, and here you are at episode 300.
Wow. Like who knew?
Who knew we were going to make it to 300?
It's a pretty cool accomplishment and I'm kind of
excited about it. And today's guest I'm very
excited about as well. Steve has been a great friend of
mine for probably over 30 years now.
We've had a lot of fun together. We've made some pretty good
business together as well. And.
Just a great guy and have a lot of fun with him and stuff.
And we had some pretty interesting conversations that
went from early lighting all the way through to where we're at
today. A little bit about AI, of
course. And and yeah, we even got into
some politics, which was something I try not to do.
But anyways, it's a great podcast.
I hope you like it. It was fun.
Hello and thank you for joining me today on a very special
episode number 300. Today's podcast is brought to
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Pulse Series. Here we are episode 300.
Who knew? Who the heck knew this was going
to last 90%? I want to give you some
statistics here. It's pretty wild.
I looked this up because I was like, what are we doing that's
so special? And so 90% of podcasts stop
publishing within their first 3 episodes. 33 episodes.
That's crazy. 90% of the remaining 10% quit after 20
episodes. So that means by 20 episodes,
there's only 10% left, I think, if I'm doing the math correct.
So wait a SEC, no, 10% of 10%. So what the heck is that
anyways? Not very many, not very many are
left after after 20 episodes. And less than 20% of new
podcasts launched in 2025 are expected to survive into 2026,
which is wild. And finally, just over 2% of
podcasts get a three get to 300 episodes 2%.
So 2 out of every 120 out of every 1000 podcasts make it to
300 episodes. So we're now in officially in
the top 2% of podcasters. Yay.
And Speaking of new podcasters, So I love talking with
podcasters, people who are getting into it and who need
support and help and ideas and thoughts of how to do it.
So I'm putting this out there if if you happen to be starting a
podcast, feel free to reach out to me.
I'm happy to share information, ideas, what gear you should use,
what gear you shouldn't use, what platform you should use,
just all kinds of things. I'm constantly evolving.
In fact, this week you might notice I have a new microphone
and I'm actually I've gotten away from using a mixing
console. So now instead of a board, the
microphone plugs straight into USB in a USB hub and then makes
its way into my laptop. So and all the DSP now is
digital. It's an app on my computer.
So instead of going into a console and managing the sound
there, I'm doing it through ADSP in my computer.
And it just makes it easier to travel.
I can use the exact same setup wherever I go.
I don't have to carry a bunch of gear around with me.
So very cool. But Speaking of these new, new
podcasters, So I've had two people reach out to me in the
last week alone. And 1 is a friend from racing
who's a former GE engineer, very smart guy, very, very bright
man. And he's a flyer.
He's a pilot and is is he moved very rapidly through becoming a
pilot and then next thing you know he's a trainer and he's
training and gliding and all kinds of stuff.
He's just, he's head first into it and very smart guy.
But he says, hey, I want to start a podcasting, a podcast on
aviation and you know, I've done a lot of research on gear and on
tools and on software and stuff. Can you help me?
And so originally I thought, you know, this is going to be 1/2
hour, 45 minutes. We've literally got probably 10
hours of talking to each other, just geeking out on new gear,
new technology, all kinds of stuff.
And at the end, he's using almost the same thing I'm using.
It's just he's got this big empty room in his house and he's
turned it into a full blown podcast studio.
So it's all really nicely lit. He's got color back there and
cool images and pictures and stuff.
So I'm a little bit jealous that you know, this newbie who I'm
teaching how to do a podcast is, is, has already got a better
setup than I do. And then the other one is in
Wellness. He's, he's got a Wellness
business and around his Wellness business, he wanted to create a
podcast. So I'm helping him.
So again, I'm throwing this out there.
Anybody needs help to start up a podcast, just let me know and
I'm happy to help you as I always AM.
And that's for free. I'm not a consultant or
anything. I'm a consultant, but I'm a dumb
one who doesn't charge anything for my consulting.
And So what else did I want to talk about?
Oh, I want to mention that we get support in in a couple of
different ways. First, from our listeners who
can like subscribe, share any of our episodes with friends and
that helps us a lot. It increases the numbers.
And at the end of the day, people love listening to
podcasts that have big numbers. And we're in a very niche
industry, so our numbers are never going to be that big.
But we'd love for every podcast to get at least 5 or 6000
downloads. And right now we don't get that.
I would say very few get to 5 or 6000.
Most will get to at least 1000, which is still a big number for
our industry, but we're definitely looking to increase
those numbers and we can do that by you liking subscribing and
sharing. Pardon me, our podcast and 2nd
through sponsorship. So obviously you here at the
beginning of all of our episodes, you're hearing these
sponsors, you see them come on podcasts and talk about their
amazing companies, products, life, whatever.
And so through sponsorship, we are able to pay our bills.
We're able to pay the lovely Sarah and we're able to continue
growing the podcast. So if you, your company, are
interested in becoming a sponsor for Geezers of Gear, you just
have to shoot an e-mail to producer@geezersofgear.com.
That'll go to Sarah and she'll reach out to you with more
information. I think you'll find it's a lot
less expensive and there's a lot more value than you might even
know. And as an example, Future Tech
that just came out a few weeks ago is wildly popular.
It's getting great numbers and and so that's a very high tech.
It's made with AI and that is available currently anyways for
free for our exist existing sponsors.
And so we don't charge anything additional for that.
So you're getting basically double the exposure and you're
getting your press releases put out on a podcast, which is
pretty incredible. So reach out to us if you'd like
to become a sponsor. And finally, I just want to
really thank everyone. You know, this knucklehead in
2019 decides to go out and do something I probably had no
business doing. I started a podcast and thought,
you know what, I'm going to have enough interesting stories and
interesting people to talk to. And God knows, I might get to 50
episodes and it'll be fun doing it.
And then next thing you know, it becomes a lifestyle.
And I'm doing practically 2 episodes a week right now.
So I appreciate every single one of you for listening.
I appreciate all three hundred of our guests.
And I appreciate Sarah, my sometimes Co host and and
producer. And she does all the hard work
to make sure these things go out every week.
And yeah, I just, I love doing this.
I appreciate it. I appreciate the position I'm
in. I it's a lot of gratitude here.
And so thank you for the first 300.
I promise you we're going to do another 300.
So you're stuck with me for a little while longer if I can get
rid of this cough. And so today's guest is a good
friend of mine for a very, very long time.
And he reached out to me a long time ago.
It's pretty funny. He reached out and said, Marcel,
I don't care what it takes, but I am #300 I want to be on #300
And so I said, you know what, let's make that happen.
And so we decided to make him #300 And I'm sorry, but I got to
take a sip of my water because I can't stop choking here for some
crazy reason. So today's guest, if you're in
England and you're in our industry, you probably know him.
If you're not in England and you're not in our industry, you
probably don't. I mean, unless he owes you money
or something. Steve Watts is the founder and
managing director of Abstract AVR.
He's a pioneer in LED lighting, innovation and architectural,
entertainment and commercial sectors.
With over 35 years in the industry.
He's designed groundbreaking products like the Twister, one
of the most reproduced disco lights, and the VR8 Intelligence
scanner. From his early days as a DJ and
lighting designer in Europe to revolutionizing LED solutions
for major brands like Topshop, Asda, Asta, Asta, Sorry, Steve
has always been ahead of the curve.
A licensed helicopter pilot had been on his helicopter.
It was a scary experience, but we'll talk about that later.
And relentless innovator, he continues to push the boundaries
of lighting technology, ensuring Abstract AVR remains at the
forefront of the industry. I'm really looking forward to
this. Please welcome Mr. Steve Watts.
Steven, Hello myself. How are you?
You know, I'm, I'm very good, thank you.
Yeah. You have the fanciest background
I think we've ever had on this show, except the last time you
were on it. Look.
I I owe, I owe, I owe my entire life to the entertainment
industry. Don't I really?
Yeah, like literally probably. It was literally I started in
entertainment when I was 13 years old and I and I went and
bought myself all the kit on my mum's credit card, obviously
started my own mobile disco roadshow.
And that's what's behind you there right now.
Well, that's kind of, I guess it's a little.
Updated it's got some LEDs and stuff, but yeah, it looks it
looks cool. Now I know you've you've been in
it for life like you absolutely. We'll get into how you and I
met, but so you you were a mobile DJ at 13 and then what?
Yeah, 13. And then kind of like, I guess I
came a little bit entrepreneurial, started trying
to build my own speakers as you do.
The solder pair blew up on the first night.
And you thought maybe, maybe sound isn't my thing.
I learned very quickly that customer service wasn't my
strongest point. Right.
Yeah, well, you've figured it out a bit over the years.
I. Think out over the years that
sound was not for me and and I did an awful lot better job with
lighting than ever did with yeah, we tried I tried smoke
machines. I tried a bit of everything over
the years, but lighting was the one and it was kind of a real
funny twist of fate. You know, like when you were you
were a mobile on DJI was working for a High Street store selling
high is ironically, and this bloke came down and says, oh,
can you sell me hi-fi. So I played a a tape to him,
which I was a DJ on trying to sell him the eye Fi and he goes,
is that you on there Says yeah, he goes, why don't you you DJ
says yes, why don't you become an international DJ and come and
work for me in in Denmark. And so it like 17 years old.
I left home. An offer went to Denmark.
That's hilarious. OK, right.
Here's the kicker, right. Two years later, I was in in a
nightclub called Mikmak in Carlton Kirkin in Hamburg.
And this German guy came up to the DJ Pipuv.
He's talking to me. He says, oh, do you speak
German? I said, yeah, yeah, I could
speak German. Yes.
Well, I speak no English and I need a a translator.
Would you like to come and work for me?
But in this go lighting company in Madrid, Spain, right.
And I went, yeah. Well then you spoke enough
German to be able to translate for this guy.
You can I'll find this as good as Deutsche.
BECKEN, OH. Not as good as.
Would you? Would you like cream and sugar
with that, Sir? Not as good as, but.
Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's where I,
that's where I went to, to, to Spain and started to learn to
manufacture disco night. It's in Pepe's copper loose.
It was called where all the where all the sort of like, you
know, the satells and all those early, early adopters of disco
lights. I.
Remember Satell A? Staff that and their own
businesses, right? And there I was and I couldn't
speak of a single word of Spanish.
So that was a real problem because they're all Spanish,
right? Yeah.
So I remember Dave, Dave from Jive Life, who was a massive
distributor of disco lights in England, rang up Coppola and
said, oh, these scanner things, you know, the motors keep
dropping off, can you fix it? So I had to go on the production
line and fix the problem, then show the Spanish how to fix it.
Right. So I'll learn to build lights.
Really. Yeah.
Interesting mission. I said, look, you, you started
designing them. So I designed probably a range
of 10 lights, including one bin, of course, a twister.
But it was like I was the size and the way we, the way we built
it was, you know, the, you know, the old sort of like sort of
spotlights, searchlights, massive big lenses.
So I got one of them, a 575 Watt bulb, yeah, which was discharge.
And then we had these like dustbin lids, I used to call
them right. And we put mirrors all on it and
turned it into this huge moonflower.
And that was the twister. And that was a twister.
So when I came back from from Spain, I thought to myself, I've
got to make one of these for mobile DJs, haven't I?
That's how the Twister started. That was the very, very first
Twister, and we went to Plaza in 1991.
So wait a second though, were you abstract by now?
Yeah. Well, when I came back from when
I came back from Spain, I started up in a garage in the
garage, right, Tiny little house.
I had two-bedroom house and a garage and that's where I
started building the twister, right.
Yeah. And that's where abstract was
was formed out of a garage. And I used abstract because it
began with an A And in the olden days you had the Yellow Pages.
I don't know what you had in America.
Right. No, of course.
Yeah. So it was like AAA lighting A A
a lighting company. AA lighting because it didn't
make any sense. AB was the next nearest 1, so
you'd come up first the search, right?
Yeah, that's abstract. That's why it was abstract.
That's funny. It is, but the the you know the
fun thing is in 1991. Try.
Explaining that to your kids or your kids kids, you know what I
mean? They'll be like.
You know, it is that Chuck Davis from American DJ came onto the
stand in 1991. He saw this twister, right?
And he went, Oh my God, that's so spooky, right?
Because no matter how loud I've made the music or how soft I
made the music, it's still dance to the music.
It was the circuit that's inside.
It was an old dancing flower. Do you remember them?
I don't. Them, them flowers.
And you, you, you make a sound. Oh yeah, that's right.
That's hilarious. That's the sounds light system
in a. Twist.
Is that true? Because you know, I was going to
ask you like you always had the best sound to light of like the
Chinese, the European fixtures, none of that stuff worked near
as well as yours did. Your sound to light was just
smooth and on time. What?
Do you think right is I was coming back from Cornwall with
my first wife Marcia and we'd got about £20 left right and
times were hard back in the early days and so it was either
the £20 were on petrol or a split it 10 LB petrol £10 and I
bought a dancing flower and when I got home she.
Probably wanted to kill you at this point.
Split dancing power in half right Took me to pieces all over
the floor. She's like what?
What the hell are you doing right?
And so I said I'll need the board out of this because it's a
little 5 Volt battery board. And then I took it down to the
electronics place and turned it into a triac driven 240 Volt.
Yeah. Let me ask you though, you see
this dancing flower in the petrol station and you think I
got to have that? That's my new lighting fixture.
Absolutely like that and it when all right and I went when come
on, hang on a minute. This is really that's hilarious.
So so that's why I had to have it right.
And so that wild twister and the twister was like insanely
excellent sounds like but. Did you go to the company that
like did you find out who made that little chip and or did you
just copy the chip, reverse engineered it?
Like, yeah, and this was something in it, yeah, bits out
of it and reconfigured it into a.
Maintenance. I mean, can you tell me at this
point what was so special about it, why it was different?
It what it had was an automatic gain control on it and AG's
which allowed it to go up and down ramp and then just take the
difference. Between the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, because they usually had a little volume control and you
could either set it for really loud or for really quiet, and it
was always screwed up somewhere in between, you know?
Program systemi obviously we're very annoyed because they had
the knob on the back, so you know, so mine had none of that.
It was just microphone and it just went right.
Yeah, we sold over civilian like, Oh no, it's it's retarded
amounts here. Yeah, it's way over 10,000 more.
It'll be way more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not many. It was absolutely ridiculous.
It was obviously the twisted one.
The twist 2 the twist, 3 the twist.
Well, I remember I used to take the piss because like every year
at the trade show, every year you'd you'd get up with your
suit on and you'd go accept your award for the Twister, whatever
number it was this time, right. That's the just the lighting
product goes to Steve Watts from Abstract for the Twister 17.
But the but the fun thing is that every and even to this day,
every single Chinese light has got the DNA of that dancing
flower in it. Yeah, well, I mean, it all
started somewhere, right? And that's one of the things
probably I like the most about this podcast is almost every
person on here is some sort of a, you know, the beginning of
whether it's a speaker system or a technology or a lighting
package or controls or something.
All these people were there at the formation of this industry,
right? And you were, they were very
early in the disco lighting side of things, you know.
I know you, you often laugh and you always giggle because
obviously I've, I've had a major sort of following, you know, of
PT Johansson. But that's only because at the
time, Peter was so pioneering when it came, you know, with the
robo scans and all that, it was super pioneering.
And every time I brought something newer, it was like,
for me, hard. That's great.
Because I can take that concept
now. I can make it even a little less
expensive than what he's done in a little bit more.
Yeah. And sell a ton of them.
Right. And.
Don't get me wrong, I admired the hell out of that guy.
Like, it's just that in the end it kind of went sideways, you
know? And, and I was a victim of that.
Like I, I would have loved to have continued my career at
COMAR, but I couldn't. I had to leave because I would
have gone to jail. You know, I didn't really have a
choice. I had to get out of there.
Yeah. I mean, it was Well, don't, I
don't know if you remember, but the CFO for Komar in the US, his
name, he was a, a Danish guy, you know his name, the CFO, the
guy who was. Controlling the money flow like.
Peter. Say it to me, I'll know.
Bent. His name was Bent.
Go figure. I mean, I don't know.
Could that be a sign? I don't know.
Yeah. So of.
Course every summer went to Plaza and I see PCI haven't seen
it and I see Gerard coming with it.
Yeah, yeah, Gerard's still doing it.
He's did. You see, he started a lighting
line with his sons, but Gerard's involved.
Gerard's in his 80s now. He's like 82 or 83 and God bless
him, he's still passionate about it for some reason.
When are you sitting in your blood though?
You're ready on here. I guess like he's he, he is a
peddler to the core. He loves selling things.
He loves talking to customers and finding solutions and stuff.
And he still loves it. Like every time he, he lives in
Belgium now and he flies in through Miami, spends a few days
and always calls me and we'll go out to lunch or dinner or
something. So I still see him.
It's a funny thing and and I I believe with podcasts, you know,
you can only ever tell the truth on a podcast because 2P too many
people. No and then no.
You'll get called out. Right.
And you're going to get called out.
Oh. Hell yeah.
And and that's why I love our podcast, because it's so honest
and so truthful. Another problem, though, Steve,
is as we get older, sometimes I spin a story because I forget,
you know? So I just kind of fill in the
blanks with what I remember and people will call me and go, you
idiot, that wasn't Bob, that was John or something.
It's like, you know, it's like people like say Joseph, Yeah,
for Robe, you know, analysts would never have been analysts
if it wasn't for me, you know, and that's in reality because
AVR started all of that stuff and then he got I analyst in it.
At the end of the day, that's the true.
I find it looks kind of similar. How you want to look at it, it's
the. Trick and then they hire your
your mate and. Then they hire, yeah, we get
that done because John, I think it was John and Connor, I think
was involved in something. Yeah, I mean in the house.
I'm not certainly not going to get into the insurance now.
You know it doesn't matter anyway.
Manufacturing then was done over it robe yeah, that's that's how
I would put it together whether it's yeah, don't know, but
that's how I see it. Yeah, yeah.
And I think whatever that was. Became analyst.
Yeah, exactly. It's not that shocking to me.
You know it it like again, nothing against Robey or
analysts or Han or anybody. I like them all.
I was. Looking at I was looking at
their website, Robey the other day and you have to admire,
don't you? You have to admire how far
that's gone from Jesus in 94 and 95 when it was.
Incredible. It was applying somebody like
Steiniger or something in Germany.
They were and Komar, Komar. They were making the low end
Komar stuff. They were making those, those
like the future light line, they were making for everyone.
Of course, their growth then was, was restricted by how well
the distributors did, wasn't it? So I guess, you know, I guess
Jody thought, you know what, I think I can do better than this.
But it was also and I had this, I'll never forget the
conversation and Joseph, you know, conveniently forgets it.
But Joseph and I, we were at Remini and he had his little
booth there and, you know, tiny little booth back in the corner
next to Co F or something, you know, and and I said, Joseph,
why are you doing this? Like white label stuff, you
know, this OEM manufacturing for other companies or whatever.
Why are you doing this? And he said, well, because, you
know, we're very popular now because not everybody wants to
buy from China. And I said, but you know, the
problem is you have to have the lowest price because as soon as
you don't have the lowest price, people are going to buy from
your neighbor or the guy down the street.
And there were other companies starting up in Poland in check.
I think it was bold with him to, to, to sort of like sack all
that off and go, right. I'm going for Robe.
But, but we had that conversation and, and we both
agreed like you have to go out as your own brand because
otherwise you're going to be a low margin company that
eventually you're going to get priced out and you won't be able
to compete in this white label market and everybody will be
buying from China. And so at least with your own
brand, you can protect it and and we had a great conversation
about it. So maybe it was you there was
this. No, no, it certainly wasn't my
idea. He had plans, obviously, and he
obviously had capital too because you know, to build what
he built, you don't need to cheap.
His office in his in his office, he's got every single magazine
ever from the, from every single disco Mirror magazine, every
single really magazine, every magazine you can think of to all
that. That's a bit obsessive.
History of the entire industry. Yeah, industry backwards because
research is just insane, you know, Is it in in that respect
it beats, it beats probably 90% of all manufacturers in that
respect, because I guess it's I guess it's OCD in it.
Yeah, he really knows the history and stuff.
I I actually spoke with him recently, sadly at a, at a
funeral for one of his employees and a long time friend of mine,
Craig Burrows. And we were talking about the
history of the industry and the history of Roby and how well
he's done. And I said, you know, when do
you actually sell? And he said.
I'm in there. What is it?
He said he won't he he his family loves the business.
His family are already working in the business.
His kids love the business. And most of the people around
all the towns. He's not going to sell it.
He said what for? You know, we have enough money,
we're good. You know why?
Why sell it? Like he doesn't need a big
payday? He loves the business.
He still loves travelling. He he loves the business.
So why would you, you know, and I mean, as long as you're on top
of the world, hey, go for it, you know?
But you and I both know, and everyone typically knows, that
eventually somebody knocks you off that perch and.
And it gets problematic. The bubble burst is it and and
it's how you respond to that bubble, that burst, which is
most important. And we've all had a knock backs
through throughout the years. You know, the last, you know,
the last couple of years for certainly for me as abstract was
a was a really tough time. You know when we when we lost
the factory to fire. Yeah, that was crazy.
Was that arson or what? What was it?
No, no, it was a, it was a, a laser cutting machine that cuts
plastics that we believe malfunctioned in one way or
another. And we couldn't get in it to put
it out because they kind of like clamp themselves down.
And the heat was so intense that we, we couldn't the lid on the
top, the the kind of like plastic lids on the top.
And once that imploded, then the flames just went and went over
everybody's heads. At that point, it's like, get
out. And was that the same building
that I was in years ago where your office was upstairs and.
Rebuilding now it's, we've got a new place.
We've got two factories now, so one which is very much now,
although it's supporting abstract massively at the
moment. Abstract will go back to its
original home. Yeah, cool and new.
The new sort of abstract, as I call it, will obviously be
developing still out all the stuff we're doing.
Aeronautical, yeah. What's that?
Helicopters. Oh, so not helicopters but stuff
for helicopters? Stuff, lots of stuff.
That's interesting. So much irony, right?
There's so much irony in this because when we go back to
1990s, when I first started and and before that, we was using
the lighting off aircraft as the past 36 is the past 60 fours.
They were all lighting from aircraft.
That's what they were. Yeah.
We use them in pin spots and pin spot scanners and helicopters
and power, you know, 64 cannons, didn't we?
Yeah, that's what they are at the end of the day.
And of course now it's reversed around where a lighting
manufacturer is now designing lighting for aircraft.
It's. Wild, isn't it?
Well, it's also cool when you can make money off of your
passion, you know, like I tried that for a minute in
Motorsports. I was like, that's a great idea
and it didn't work. It was a nightmare.
It cost me money. But I always like, like if I'm
going to get into something, whether it's boating or
something that I'm interested in, I want to find a way to make
money on it to pay for that hobby.
You know what I mean? Like that's not.
Is it? It's not in principle sounds
great, but. Yeah, let's see, you probably
tried breeding horses or something at one point, I'm
sure. Or that's another game.
That's that's quite, quite expensive, But you know, one
thing that you're reminding me of, like because you know, I'm
not blowing smoke up your skirt or anything, but you've always
been an innovator. You've always been an extreme
innovator. Like, and you know, I'm going to
name a few things like so the the twister, as goofy as it is
today, and it's it's a little moonflower, but it did, and I
know this because I sold them. It did have the very best sound
to light activation of anything like it just it moved better and
it triggered better. Like the other thing was like
Martin once went like this very erratic.
Yours was like, it was almost like it had brakes at both ends
and it was just really smooth how it moved, you know it.
Had to what? What I call elastication, yeah.
No, it's just awesome. Good.
We as we, we, we put in acceleration and the
acceleration curves, yeah, but. So I mean there was that and and
then there was the, I don't remember which came first, but I
remember being at Plaza and seeing your downlight, your AVR
downlight. And at the time, I mean every
club and restaurant I knew wanted color changing downlights
and there was no such thing, right?
This was pre. LED Oh this is pre.
This was an MR16 lump. With a color wheel.
With a colour wheel in front of it with diaper filters, right?
It was. It was.
Yeah. Bloody amazing, as you would
say. And I mean, I remember that and
we had a problem because we couldn't get UL on it or
whatever. But aside from that, that thing
was the cat's meow. Like everyone I showed it to was
like, I won 1000, I won 1000, I won 100, I won 500.
It was ridiculous. It the the first one starts off
square and then eventually we moulded it and made it round,
yeah, and made it tiltable with a tiltable gimbal.
On it, that thing was. Killer piece and.
That thing was killer. Yeah.
And the irony is that that specific products ultimately
ended up in going into retail as the world's first of light white
track light. That same Alden was was used as
a track light just about. It's a bezel.
Yeah, so there was that, there was the the VR8 scanner, which
is like to me that was one probably the most like artful,
you know, lighting fixtures ever.
It it was the void acoustics of lighting.
It was the void acoustics of lighting.
If you think of VR eights next to void speakers, perfect mate,
right, You know perfect we. Sold a lot of them and.
We sold a lot of them in the US. That's when you and I got
together and I started distributing them for you for a
little. While it went in the main into
like, you know, like sort of bars in the daytime want to be
coffee bars and stuff that not became discount to those places
brilliantly because they didn't look ugly.
And beautiful. We're on the wall and and not
even bother switching him on. Yeah, that thing, that thing was
outrageously beautiful. It was.
And then I, I mean, again, you, you were one of the very
earliest, if not the earliest LED manufacturer who sort of
flipped the bird to color kinetics and said we're not
copying anything you're doing. We're going to go ahead and sell
our products and. Why?
So you had all kinds of color changers and stuff and, and, and
managed to sell them. And, you know, I, again, I know
I sold a lot of them in the US as well.
And so I mean, what I'm getting at, the point I'm getting at,
I've also in my career, I've been an innovator and not that
I've actually come up with, you know, physical products that
I've made or anything, but I've been behind the scenes saying
make this, make this, make this, make this.
And also, you know, one of the things I'm really proud of.
And I was talking to somebody from Martin about this the other
day. I named the, the Mac like it.
That was, that was me when they came out with that first
obnoxious Mac 1200. The the big huge thing that
caught fire and stuff. Peter Johansson comes in into
the office in Florida one day and he goes, OK, he brings the
whole team together and he says, OK, we need to name this new
product. And he shows us pictures and
brochures and stuff and tells us what it does.
And he says, I'll give you a 30 days and whoever gets it right
I'll give you 500 bucks or I think it was, I'll give you 7
days and whoever gets it right I'll give you a 500 bucks.
And I go, how about Mac? And he goes, what's it mean?
And I said Martin automated color wash.
And he goes, that's it. And so he says that's it, that's
the name. So he walks out of the room and
I go, hang on a SEC. You know, little bit of business
here mate. You got to be far under.
It yeah. So, you know, Peter was classic
for that, though, like offering something that never really
turned up. You know, the other thing was he
stole your pen. Like, I'm sure he's stolen some
of your pens, but I always had AI, always had a Mont Blanc back
then, and he stole it every time I saw him.
Oh my God. Can I borrow your pen for a
second and I'd hand it to him. He never see it again.
Never see it again. I.
Remember, the greatest, the greatest Martin moment we ever
had is at abstract. Because Marx, it was always a
big thing, right? And we always wanted to to get
one over on, on Martin, which was always difficult until we
went to the show in Rimini, right, And the Rose and Crown
pub. We decided we're going to
sponsor it. I remember I was there.
That's right. And then I was there. 22 bus
loads of moth tin people turn on and the first thing I did when
peace came in he pour cocktail stick in his top pocket.
I remember, I remember I was there.
I was with them. That was just a genius.
Moment. Yeah.
And Ian Kirby was furious. He was so mad.
He was pissed. And we got, we, we had VR as
everywhere. Do you remember?
Yeah, I do. I do that.
Show was so much fun. I missed that show, but but the
long point I was getting at was this industry like you've done
very well, I've done very well, but I haven't done Joseph well.
I haven't done Peter Johansson well, nor of you.
And you know, it seems like the innovators get run over and the
other people grab the ideas sort of mid flight and sell a billion
of them. You know, it's like, look at all
the products you designed that Chuck Davies ended up getting
manufactured in China and then just selling a billion of them.
The rave. Oh my God, The raves we sold
was, yeah, this incredible. You know, because it just had
the, it was just totally different, wasn't it?
But it was like it was a take on the Robos app.
Yeah, off the front, I remember. Right.
Yeah, I remember you did very well with that.
Think what it's done for us all though.
If he was honest is, you know, we haven't really worked a day
our lives, have we? Because I just do what?
You know, we do what we like to do and we.
Yeah, at the end of the day, when I was 14, I was playing
with disco lights and I'm still playing with lights today.
Yeah. Real reality, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I can't. There's been.
I'm not complaining, you know, there's been bad times.
Sure there has. But you know, in the main it's
been a fantastic, fantastic. No, no, I'm not complaining.
I'm just saying this seems to be how our industry evolves is, is
you get scrappy pioneers and they, they create these
incredible innovative ideas and, and come up with all these
things. And then, you know, someone
who's better funded perhaps grabs the idea and says, I'm
going to go run with that. And I'm not saying necessarily
that anyone's stealing anything. They're advancing the ideas
because every great idea requires capital.
It requires A-Team, it requires sometimes manufacturing
facilities or whatever it is right it.
Takes really brave as well, doesn't it?
Because, you know, you take a product that's maybe not
necessarily your own, let's say and decide to run with it and
you run heavily with it. You know you've got to throw
some money at it, right? Yeah, it might not work out.
Yeah, 100% guarantee is. So, you know, I think the, the,
the people that have run with great ideas do deserve it.
Yeah. I have I have no, no thoughts to
say that anybody that's ever followed in my footsteps.
I don't feel bad about that. I just see it now, you know, I
see it actually is, is quite a positive thing, something right?
Well, no. And at the end of the day, like
it's also the way I was raised, you know, like when I, when I
lived in Canada and I was a kid growing up and we didn't have
any money. And at the time, like now in, in
Calgary where I grew up, there's there's Ferrari dealers and
Lamborghini and Rolls Royce and everything, right?
There's huge money there. But back in the day when a
Mercedes drove by, I would stop my friends and I'd be like.
Whoa, get that? You know, and nowadays people
would go, what a douchebag, you know, he shouldn't be driving,
that he doesn't deserve it or whatever.
Back then it was like, man, I want to work hard and, and earn
one of those like I whatever he's doing, that guy's the man.
I want to, I want to follow him and, and learn from him and
stuff. Right.
Like we appreciated it. Yeah.
But now it's, I think most many of us automatically go to like
some sort of jealousy or something when someone is doing
better than you or has a bigger car or a better this or a
whatever. And I just don't buy into that.
Like, I love what I do, like you said.
You don't really. Work a day and.
You know, we, we will never, we will never be necessarily, you
know, at the top of the tree, but never be at the bottom of
the tree, right? As long as we're not the roots.
As long as you keep pushing on, you know, pushing forward, it's
going to be it's going to be good.
And innovation is something that, you know, I've not stopped
to that when when we brought out the the abstract X life, for
example, that because it all had DMX macros in it was created DMX
to pixel macros. You know, we were the first to
do that. And then, you know, I've, I'm
not saying for one second that anyone's copying anybody.
I'm not saying that. Yeah, for certain.
I'm sure that the inspiration of some of the American pixel
controlled by DMX macros, you know, is definitely has adna of
abstracts in it. And I'm pretty sure of that.
Yeah. Well, and you know, I can think
of immediately, but I'm I'm not going to say.
This, but sometimes it's not even, it's not even that direct
of a line, like sometimes it's because some manufacturer from
offshore, let's say. So we're not picking on anyone
in particular, but an offshore manufacturer sees your product
at a trade show or at a club or at a dealer or whatever and
says, oh, this is, this is interesting.
I like this. And they'll buy one and they'll
take it back to their factory, reverse engineer it.
Yeah. And then and then they just
offer it to the world. Right.
And the, the challenge with innovation for you and for most
of the industry today is that it doesn't pay well because you
innovate something. And, you know, one of the
examples I always use is I remember going to LDI and seeing
the clay Paki, I think it's called the Valero wave or
something, that thing with a bunch of lights.
And they go like this and they do the wave.
And I saw pictures in a press release leading up to LDI and I
thought, what a stupid idea, Like what the hell do you need
that for? And then I saw their show at LDI
and my mind was blown. I was like.
It looks so good. Oh my God, Like I couldn't
believe what they did with that thing.
And it couldn't have been more than a few months later and
Chauvet had one. I think it's.
Called the wave or something. Yeah.
And. That's it's like my son Sam.
He's he's now joined abstract and he will show light inside of
things going. He's he's coming in too slowly
because I said to him, don't rush in.
I just let's, let's say that you, you really, really want to
do this first before we go mad. Yeah.
And I said, look, there's no point in you looking at what
everybody else does and go, oh, I'm one of them.
You're never going to catch them up.
You're never going to catch them up because they've had too much
of A head start now, right? So let's just say you take a,
you know, a robe XXY and you go, oh, let's make one of them.
There's no point. It's just that's right.
So what you've got to do now is you've got to come up with
something that is niche, something that's totally
separate, totally individual that a lighting designer is
hopefully going to pick up on a room with, right?
Because when they run with it, everybody's going to run with
it. But let me ask you this, Steve,
like are you? So does it go into your head now
when you're thinking of new products like that?
Like I'm going to get a good 12 months out of this.
So I want to put X amount of dollars into development costs
and and R&D and all that stuff because I'm going to get 12
months before it gets copied and and I lose out to the people who
are copying because their prices are 50% less.
True reality is I think that that your return on investment
has got to come back within two years.
I think you've got two years. OK, right.
That we brought out the excellent, basically was brought
out to to stick one up pretty pretty much up the freedom
stick. Yeah, because the Freedom Stick
was short and stubbly. Yeah, Paul, right.
So of course we then became the king of the stick.
Yeah, right, right. And and what I want to do is, is
take it, take their freedom stick and turn it into a high
resolution super product, which is what it became right?
And behind me now they're X lights, ironically.
But at all though, they, you know, they stand well on a
stage. They look amazing that, you
know, everything about them. It's just a really stunning
product. Yeah.
And and of course then, you know, two years down the line,
maybe three years down the line, then you'll see all of a sudden
freedom stick that's high resolution and got a bit taller.
Yeah. And and that's, that's this
industry. For you, Yeah, it is, of course.
Meantime, we've we've moved on. We've moved on to the next
level. Yeah, that's what you've got to
do. You just got to keep me set
forward. But one thing I try not to do is
shout about stuff anymore, only because I think it's not my age,
I think. And.
Calm down a little as we get older.
I was 20 or. 30 I'd probably be shouting about everything.
When I prefer to design something, show it to select
people, keep my mouth short. Yeah.
Why? Lots and lots of them.
Yeah. Yeah, he knows I'm doing it.
Did you say what I mean? Well, I mean those, those the X
thing, like you sold a ton of those things.
I started seeing them everywhere and and it was kind of quiet.
And the other thing is like you've never really said, most
manufacturers immediately go, OK, now we got to conquer the
US. You know, the US is the diamond,
it's the jewel. Like we got to conquer the US.
You've just said I don't need to, I need these few little
countries over here and I'm going to do, you know,
£2,000,000 in this product and 2 million in this product and a
million in this product and that's going to be just fine,
you know, and. And not have pressure, not have
the, the, the pressure, the monetary pressure, because when
you in, you know, many people have said that that the US is a
graveyard of British companies. And I think there's a lot of
truth behind that. It's.
Not, not a lie. You know, the everything is
different. The customer service has got to
be absolutely spot on. Everything is right.
So again, be quiet, you know, and just do your own thing and
just be quiet about it. And for me works.
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying it's going to put abstract on
the top of Trump Tower. I'm not saying that.
Yeah. But it certainly keeps business
like mine in a very stable position and and you're stable,
you know, things stick to. You don't they what's what's
your model though like are you still distributor, dealer
etcetera or do you have like ADTC?
Is what we've become. I think more than anything is
I've surround myself with like a number of partners.
No, I don't call them distributors, I don't call them
that. I call them partners.
They're very heavily evolved in abstract.
So when when we lost abstract to the fire we had because we made
everything in house, I mean absolutely everything we make in
house an abstract, right. So when we lost the the factory,
we were super screwed because we couldn't buy a contractor and
say help us here because we didn't have any contractors,
right. Yeah.
I. Sat up immediately.
Within three days, 5 pop up stores where one was a board
manufacturer, 1 was an LED populator, 1 was a yeah.
And I said to the customers, if you want your lights, you've got
to come over and help me make them.
Oh my God, that's hilarious. That's really, that's what they
did. I, I had like customers
spending, you know one of them spends over £1,000,000 a year
with me and he was there building lights.
That's wild. But I said to him, like, look,
we've got to, you know, all you're going to do is worry.
You're going to be in your office worrying that I'm going
to go out of business, right? If you come down to me and help
me. That's going to take all you
worry. Away, isn't it?
Yeah. You could answer all your
questions, right? You haven't answered.
Ask me anything you know yourself if you're going to
survive it, Huh. Because you're going to be with
me. That's wild.
Wow. And it works and it got through,
you know? Yeah, Well, good on you, man.
Like that's, you know, it's one of the probably the biggest
things in business is, is you know, to to finish first.
You got to how do they say it? To finish first, first you got
to finish or something like that, like, but I mean, you got
to get there, you know, alive and, and you know, my business
has probably died 10 times over the years, you know what I mean?
It's like, you know, it's like Monty Python where you're dead
laying on the ground and somebody comes in to pick you up
and you're like, I'm. Not dead yet.
Feeling better. Look.
Dead. I'm not dead.
Promise. Yeah.
Promise. Yeah, yeah.
To become something you've never been, you've got to become
something that you've know, you know, or have it done right.
So, yeah, a change your outlook. And I could have laid down and
died two days after that because I, I'd lost everything that I'd
worked for for 35 years. Yeah, I could sit and cry or,
you know, I could say, well, look, Weebles wobble, but they
don't fall down, right? Yeah.
So what we're going to do, what we're going to do, how we're
going to get, you know, so we put respirators on, we cover
yourself in all this plastic sheeted and we all, you know,
four of us, we'd be like the main team number 1/4 of us went
in and dragged all the machines out.
Really. So you were able to save most of
the machines. Well, there was pockets.
There was pockets where the fire had not killed everything and it
would just damage. So we dragged all that stuff out
and Connor, we ended up kind of with one of everything that we
needed. We probably, that's wild.
We ended up with one of everything and by the bits off
the others we got one working. Does that make sense?
The lighting guards wanted you to continue.
They wanted us to wanted abstract to live on.
What is to live on? And it was, yeah, wild.
But that. Is awesome.
And so that my, my, my message to anybody, right, that when you
hit shit time, right, this is, this is the measure of you, this
is a true measure of you. Because if you, if you're going
to lay down, then you didn't want it bad enough to start
with, did you? Yeah, just got a, you got a, you
just got a headache head, you know, hit the problem head on
and get on with it. I, I just listened, I just
listened to a podcast. The guy's name is Yuri something
or other Israeli guy who founded Waze, you know, the, the traffic
app, Waze or the navigation app and his, the whole podcast was
pretty much about that. He was like, I died so many
times in business. And you know, if you don't allow
yourself to die, you never really die, right?
Like if you just keep going and and you know, I don't know if
you remember on my weekly Zoom calls during COVID, but Mike
Strickland used to constantly say, what did he say?
He used to always say you're not, you're not dead until you
quit. You're you're basically not dead
until you quit. You're not out of business until
you quit. And isn't it?
Yeah. And so, you know, as long as you
never quit. And some days are frustrating
for sure, you know, especially as we get older.
Like, I wish I had more easy days than difficult days, But
it's just not in my DNA. You know, I'm a problem solver.
So, you know, at the end of the day, we solve problems.
We fix things. Well, that's it, isn't it?
And, and yeah, I think you become stronger as a result of
it. I mean, it's sometimes you say
to yourself, but I don't want to be stronger.
It does kill me already. Will you?
I don't want to hug in a blanket.
Yeah. Yeah, we.
Weren't built, we weren't built that way.
And the challenges were obviously clearly sent to, you
know, to tries and that's what it's about.
And I think future of abstracts is, is, is bright because we
haven't, you know, we, we, I, I always say that abstract's like
a, a, a beautiful swan on a calm lake.
But when times get rough, she turns into a battleship.
Yeah. And that's the reality, you
know? I I was going to say, when you
said it's like a beautiful swan on a calm lake, I was going to
say run by a donkey. That's it.
That's about it. Yeah, I think it's the future of
abstracts. I think is, I think, you know,
this year it it's all about just getting ourselves back together
again and and getting swift at manufacturing again after our
little turmoil. And then next year, I'm looking
for, you know, serious growth again.
Yeah, yeah. And so doesn't it get like, I
know for me, I'm constantly looking for serious growth, but
some days you wake up and you just think, OK, today I'm just
going to maintain, you know, I'm not going to grow today.
I'm just going to go out there and try not to die, you know?
I think that's an age thing. Well.
I have a huge amount of energy still, but I still get tired
every once in a while, you know? But what we have is wisdom, I
think, and and probably your wisdom is probably saying to
you, don't bother. Yeah, some days I wish it did,
you know, but I the problem is I love business.
Like I just love the game. I love the battles, I love the,
the challenges, the, you know, it it really business and
entrepreneurship is, is basically jumping from crisis to
crisis. You know, I mean, that's, that's
what it is. You're everything's a crisis and
you're just jumping from 1:00 to the next.
I think the rhythm, it's like the seeing it, it goes problem,
problem, problem, crisis. Yeah, yeah.
And you're either just coming out of a crisis, in a crisis, or
about to end to one. Yeah, right.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's a crazy world.
It's, you know, it's like my son.
Every once in a while, I'll talk to my son about, you know,
because he's he's sort of in transition right now, somewhere
between being a professional race car driver and realizing
that he probably won't make a living doing that.
And I might want to start thinking about a different
future. And, you know, he's like dad,
you know, should I be an entrepreneur like you?
And half of me wants to say, hell no, go work for some big
company, give them the problems, you know, like certainly some
days I think, God, it would be easy to just sit back and
collect a paycheck, you know, and, and go home at 5:00 and
have dinner with my family and not even think about work till
the next day. I think if you're an
entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur and it will come
out of you. And of course, yeah.
And it didn't. It didn't.
I guess it came out to be at a very early age, but I didn't
know that I was entrepreneurial until probably when I started
Abstract. Yeah.
You know, but I've made mistakes.
I've made mistakes. I mean, Gordon Addison, right?
Gordon Addison, right? Had it set up.
Yeah, I turned up. I was, I was in my Ferrari,
right? This is when abstract was really
kicking right? I.
Was in my Ferrari and and Gordon Addison says, Steve, I need you
to come. I need you to come up to see me
immediately. I said all right mate, I'm on my
way up. We flew up there, pick Gordon
up. He gets in the Ferrari.
We drive off to this, like high, you know, high skyscraper
building, and he says not right. I've got to tell you, I've sold
your business for you. I said you are.
Gordon sold your business for you.
Siri, My property. That's hilarious.
It goes into this office. Yeah, seriously.
Goes into this office and the bloke's there and they're all
talking around there and they offer that proper serious offer,
you know, noise. You'll be like, I'm just in 5%,
you know? Sort of thing, yeah.
Don't forget me. I was horrified when it when I
said it's not for sale and the money was telephone figures,
right? Yeah, and it and I said it's not
for sale. Yeah, right.
And Gordon's not. What do you mean it's not
everything's was upstate? Yeah.
Snare, it's not for sale. Yeah.
And. And to that, and I still think
to this day, Gordon's probably still wonders even to this day,
why was it? For sale.
Well, I did, I did that one time Steve and and you know
evaluation was given to me for the LED company and it was a
significant number and I basically had been led to
believe by all the geniuses. And I won't mention any names,
but you know at least one of them that the bill business
would eventually be worth three times that number and it
probably wouldn't take more than three or four years to get it
there. And so I just listened to that
and I said, no, we don't want that.
However, you know, we'll take an investment and we'll sell you
10% of the business now and the other 90% later.
And so we did that. We got a fairly significant sum
of money for the 10% and of course my genius team spent it
all into. That's the problem in it.
All bad things. And we ran out of money, and
they no longer wanted to buy the other 90%.
And now we're stuck with a company with huge expenses, a
big bloated inventory of stuff that nobody needs, way too many
employees, a huge building. And, you know, it was like, now
what? Yeah, So.
But I mean, since that moment, I decided if the number is big
enough to change my life and somebody offers it to you in
cash today, take it and take the damn number.
What are you doing? Don't be a hero and take the
freaking money, you know? But that depends on age and
where you're at in your in your life and your career and stuff
when you're. Building a business.
When you're building a business like we've both done, you are
very personally attached to it. You know I don't.
Think this, this sort of oh, you know, you can't be attached to
business. So I don't believe that.
I think you're very attached to business, right?
And so you see it is, you see it like your own kids don't hear in
a funny sort of way, but in a financial way, right?
And you will stick in and dig in to save that business or do
whatever you got to do. With it, of course.
Yeah, you. Know, and that's just of course,
and I'm sure there are plenty of people that are in business that
would watch this podcast, for example, they sit there and
think, you know what, I could have been out of this 10 times
where I'm still in it. Yeah, yeah.
And I think there's a there's two things.
There's the. Drawer of.
There's a drawer of. Becoming more successful than
you're on it. How there's the fear of not
achieving what you set out to do.
Is it? Yeah, there's two things right
there because. Hell yeah, people don't want to
fail. Right.
Yeah, and but you know, failure is sometimes inevitable, right?
And sometimes fail fast and fail hard in order to become super
successful. Yeah, I don't know though.
You know, as I get older, all the other things in life become
equally if not more important than.
Building the biggest business in the world or whatever, like it,
it gets to a point where you're thinking, you know, I'd like to
do some other things. I'd like to maybe do this or do
that or do whatever. And you know, the problem is I'm
too stubborn. Like I just love my business.
I love growing my business. I believe in the future of the
business and all of that stuff. So it keeps me from, you know,
making any of those crazy moves. But you know, I've kind of set a
timeline now for myself. I've said at X period, I'm
selling the business for whatever it's worth at that
time. I'll start putting it up for
sale a year before that. And basically when I get to a
number that I think is at least X, then I'm selling the business
and period, that's it. So, so at that time, one day
after that time, I will have sold my business and not going
to tell you when that is because that way in my own head I can
change it and nobody will. Know and you can move it right.
I can move it around, kick it down the road a couple more
years. I'm just.
About there. Well, I think, I think, I think
you must be very proud of yourself and you must
congratulate yourself for 300 podcasts.
Yeah. That one too.
Isn't that isn't. That it's pretty funny.
It is really, I mean you stick in and to achieve 300 I think,
yeah. You know what?
And some days it's not easy, but but it's always fun.
I mean, I love doing it. I love doing this.
Like I, I was telling, I think I was telling my girlfriend the
other day or someone that if and when I sell my company, I'm
going to keep doing podcasts because I just love doing it.
I love talking to people. I love hearing their stories.
I love helping people. So I'll keep doing it.
I think, I think it's incredible though to, you know, because
many people will get to set a certain stage, you know, but
you've pushed through that barrier.
Well. You've hitting that incredible
number. I mean 3. 100 I actually, I read
the statistics at the in the intro of this podcast, but I'll
tell you right now, 90% of podcasts stop publishing within
how many episodes. 10. 333, 90% stop within their first three
and the 90 and then 90% of the remaining 10% quit after 20
episodes. And it says less than 20% of new
podcast launched in 25 are expected to survive into 26,
less than 20% and just over 2% get to 300 episodes.
So I'm in the top 2% of all podcasters.
You just hit it. You just hit it.
Wow, the top 2. I'm in the top 2%.
How good is that? I think that's fantastic, isn't?
It, well, you know, the, the thing was like, I started it
before COVID. So I didn't start it because I
was bored. I started it with a purpose and
that purpose didn't change when I went through COVID.
So I know a lot of other people who who started podcasts during
COVID because they were bored and they had some stories to
tell and that was great. But then they went away as soon
as work came back, right? Mine, I've always found a way to
make time and make it work. And now I've got this, this
lovely lady, Sarah, who's taking care of most of the stuff that I
don't have time to do anymore. And, and so it works out great.
It's fun. I love it.
Well, well done and congratulations on that.
Thank you so much. And it was funny.
You reached out to me, yeah, a while back and said I want to be
the 300th podcast. I want to be #300 because I'd
push into the same club. There you go, you're in the 2%
club now. There you go.
Well, you know what? We should do it again at 500.
Yeah, 2, right? Hit the next.
Do it again at 55. 100 is the next miles.
Stay right. I think so, yeah, I think so.
Maybe 301 is the next bus, Don't, I don't know.
Who knows, you know? You never know, do you?
Yeah. But your your business abstract
is what, 35 now, right? 35 years, yeah, that's why.
And I don't think there's many, many companies that survive 35
years, so I feel. A tremendous accomplishment.
With with still a purpose. I think we're, you know, we're
doing, we're, we're changing lives for, for, you know,
various people in various industry marketplaces.
You know, like I said, we're doing it quietly, which is the
way I want to be. I think abstract lighting will
be more noisy when Sam takes the helm of that.
I just want to make sure that, you know, he, he has the correct
mental mindset, you know, before he sort of goes polling in.
Well, I mean, the The thing is, you've got a great brand, you've
got great pedigree, great history.
One of the things that I admire about you and about abstract is
you've always been very stubborn to a point of it will always be
made in house, it will always be made in the UK.
That's where it is. Like, let's face it, the twister
could have quite easily been made in China, which it was by
50 other companies. But yeah, I mean, you could have
probably made it for for 6070% less in China in a sense.
But you know, you said I'm Auk company.
It's going to be built in the UK, in my factory by my
standards and you know, you've always been very proud of that.
You haven't hidden the fact at all that it's bait, that it's
built in the UK. Every, everything and we still,
you know, still to this day, we're still manufacturing away.
We've got all of our ace machines, our own, you know,
everything metal facilities, powder go, you know, we've
rebuilt all of that over the last year and all that all
functioning again. We're making another big
investment this year in a new plant that's being installed
into Westfield, our original manufacturing place.
So that's what modernise that substantially.
When will that building be ready?
We we hope to have we hope it be reopening April 25.
Oh wow, very soon, couple months from now.
Yeah, that's, yeah, good for you.
Well, good luck on that. You know, then we'll seriously
start to start to make a bit of noise.
Yeah, yeah. Abstracts now become ETL listed.
So beautiful take on the American market.
Beautiful for for that. That's a big step because I know
we've tried, you know, and, and it was always expensive and
painful. They don't make it easy, which
is funny because if it's made in China it's quite easy to get ETL
or UL approval on fixtures. There's a lot of, you know, I
think there's a lot of smoke and mirrors regarding that, yeah.
Yeah, I think they're like. The logo on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. The criteria to get ETL is
quite, it's quite challenging and we get, we get inspected
every quarter, yeah, you know, and they go through every,
everything, I mean everything. But I don't know how that
process works for the larger Chinese brands, you know that
that are doing it properly like the the elations and chauvets
and stuff. I don't, I don't know.
I think don't they have to get tested even in their US
facilities? But how you know how, I don't
know because all I can tell you is that if you want to change,
let's say you want to change an LED house, right, you've been
going to have, you've got to change that out.
And that goes for a certification process.
Cost you like £1000 just to change one not over if you know.
Yeah, you know. The way that manufacturing is
done in the Far East to be changing Sofia there and
everywhere old imagine. Right.
So you know, I don't, I don't know how to do it, but me
neither no is it's very tight, but we and we've got our number
and we're getting ready to manufacture now under the ETL
certification. Good for you.
Congrats. Yeah, that's a big, that's a big
change. Q.
Two, this year we're going to, we're going to start our first
US manufacturing, which is up to US manufacturing standards.
Yeah, yeah. So we are going to.
We are. We are coming, yeah, but we're
coming quietly. Good.
Yeah, good. Coming quietly, Very quietly.
Well, if you want to borrow my garage to store your inventory
or something, just let me know you know.
Right. I think there's something about
quiet. You know, there's something
about it that that just allows you to just get on with your
business day-to-day without being a you know, when you stick
your head above the parapet, you know you've got a chance of
getting shot at, haven't you? Well, the other thing is,
instead of saying I need to deal with all 100,000 customers out
there, what you're saying is basically no, I just need to
deal with the 2000 best ones, the ones that are at best fit
for me and I'm the best fit for them, right?
And. And that's it.
That's done here in the in the UK and it's, it's, you know,
it's paid dividends to do that. So I want to roll that now out
into the US the you know, it's it's the right move for us with
the Betty got now and with certification.
You know we we we're coming. Yeah, yeah.
So and and I'd like. Good luck to you, man.
I, I, I obviously like you a lot and I like the brand a lot.
And I, I, I always believe there's room, You know, it's,
it's just like I was talking with Gerard, you know, Gerard
said he's, he's always talking to me about this lighting brand
that he's got. And, you know, it's always about
finding the business model that makes sense to a group of
customers that are big enough to make you successful given your
model, right? So not everyone can be a 50
million or $100 million company, but if you're targeting 5
million now you've got a lot more options open up to you on
how you get. To those 5 million, if you, if
you think we're all our business model has always been to, to try
to make 20% net profit. Yeah, well, if you, you know, if
you're turning over 5 million, you're making £1,000,000 net
profit, right? Yeah.
And as one individual, why do you ever need any more than
that? It's not.
It's not necessary. If you have a kid in horses or
Motorsports. Well, yeah, hoops, right?
No, I. Then you need more than that.
Have one, this is in that. But you know, I've slowly got
away from that because me too. Yeah, me too.
Me too. Trust me.
That's I went through that over the past couple of years.
I had to. I had to say Jeremy.
I think, I genuinely think that helicopters.
Are cheaper. It's probably true.
Why? By the way, you could make money
with a helicopter. You can't make money with a race
or with a a, you know, show jumping horse or a massage horse
or something. I've been flying for what, 25
years? And in that 25 years, it's
probably cost me no more than to own helicopters and would to own
a Range Rover. In true reality, really, Chin,
is the depreciation is no worse and the running costs are not
really any worse, right? Yeah.
If there's two of you involved, which there always has been when
I've owned some, always owned it with somebody else.
Yeah. If you get an AED, an air
weapons directive on a blade or something, you know, you share
that cost between two of you, Yeah, that way that works
brilliantly, you know? Everything's 50% off.
You want to join on your own. You got to be a little bit, you
know, in the world. I remember right after you got
your your helicopter license, I think you take me up in the
helicopter, I'm dumb enough to go up with you and you shut off
the friggin engine and, and I'm like, what the fuck are you
doing? What's, what are you doing?
And the friggin thing's starting to fall out of the sky and
you're telling me, no, I'm doing this on purpose.
And I'm like losing my mind, like we're going to die.
And then you fire it back up again and we land safely and I'm
like, I will never fly with you again.
He was always a person likes to excitement Mars.
I like excitement, I just don't like dying in a helicopter.
And shutting the motor off in mid air is pretty dumb.
Like at least an airplane can float like this, you know?
And land nicely. Did we?
Helicopter pretty much becomes a rock when you shut the motor
off. Did we land?
OK? We did.
Didn't. We we did, but I think I might
have shot myself. I might have had a bit of a
problem, Yeah. What scared the hell out of me.
Yeah, that's the way. So what else?
What else is what's, what's the UK like?
Do you struggle because of all this Brexit and EU stuff?
Like has it made it harder for you to do business in Europe?
The the problem with the problem with the UK for for me anyway,
yeah, I don't want to talk about anywhere else in the world
because that's, that's not for me to do so.
But the problem with the UK is it it is no longer what it used
to be. I mean, back in 1990s, it used
to be work hard, play hard, right?
Yeah. Went on to a housing estate
state and you saw, for example, the Range Rover on the drive or
you saw a BMW. There's a very good chance, not
totally, but a very good chance that the person that was in that
was a businessman or woman. Right.
Yeah, yeah. And and it was work hard, play
hard that was these days it's work hard gets screwed harder.
Yeah, work hard so they can play hard.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you know, and, and I've
never really been into politics. It's not who now to see the
positive in everything, but I'm struggling really badly at the
moment to see any positive in anything.
Right. Yeah.
And any small to medium sized business is seriously being
screwed as hard as possible. Yeah, that's terrible.
And of course, a normal person living in in a normal way on
normal wages have been sort of, you know, that that that income
is being. Yeah, it's terrible.
It's terrible seeing what's happening, the same things
happening in Canada and you know where I'm from, as you know, But
a lot of it is it it again, without getting too political,
but a lot of it seems to be coming down to just a way too
liberal policy on immigration. You know, you can't, you can't
take a country with 25 million people and invite 25,000,000
more in who? Half of those people, by the
way, if you've got social medicine, which you do in
Canada, does. They've never been to a doctor
in their life. And now they come in and it's
all free. They're like, hell yeah, I'm
going to the doctor. And now you can't see the Doctor
anymore. I think you know one I think one
thing some things out with like I say, without getting personal
political, but. Even though we are normal.
Parents, normal person, unfortunately in the UK, if they
have to go to a doctor, it's pretty difficult to do that at
the moment. Yeah, pay in and you know, it's
just, it's just really quite difficult.
Yeah. For people that are coming in
into the country it seems to be they get put a bit of a nice
hotel and have 24° of heat. Wherever they go.
And they've got private healthcare and that seems to me
a little. Weird.
It seems unfair, doesn't it? It just seems again, again it,
I, I think this is common in politics and in government and
stuff. So we go too far One Direction
where, you know, there's people dying in the streets in Africa
and different countries and stuff, and we turn away and
don't look at them and don't help them.
And then we suddenly hit the brakes on that, which is the
right thing to do. And we say, hey, let's do our
part to help them. And then we go extreme in the
other direction and. Be the way.
You know, like United States is a perfect example too.
You know, we, we have almost 40 trillion in debt, yet people are
screaming because we're not sending more money to Ukraine or
to other countries, right? So how can you like, if my
friend comes to me and I'm 40 trillion in debt and he asks me
to borrow $5, I'm going to, I'm going to give him one of these
because it's how can I lend you $5 if I have no money and I'm
massively in debt? I I'm not in a position to loan
you money. Very good, very, very good
friend Mick Bentola, who's an incredibly good friend of mine.
He he's a businessman, He's Italian, clearly.
Yeah, His mum and dad, you know, they, they came into the country
and when they came into the country they were told when you
get here you got to work and you got to work hard.
If you don't work hard, you're not standing here.
Yeah, it's good. I like that. 11 became A1,
became I think worked in the service industry doing the
laundries of hotels and stuff, and the other I think became a
Baker or something like that, right.
And they worked. And Mick, they stored into him
that he had to be a super grafter.
And I would say Mick works harder probably than I do.
Yeah, that's, that's the culture that you want, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. He's paying his taxes and paying
them well, his mum and dad have paid the taxes for their lives
and they've been an asset on every lap, right.
And, and, and I think that's where it should be in life,
isn't it? But.
I hate to be negative. That's so rare right now.
Like it is just so rare right now.
And, and I'm not, I'm not saying it's all young people.
I'm not saying it's all foreign people.
I'm not saying it's all anything.
I'm just saying as far as a general cultural thing, it's
it's rarer to have that type of what can I do for you, what can
I do for you versus what can you do for me?
When I first started abstract, right, this was the reality of
it. We had 778 employees at one
point, which was a good number of people.
Seven days. Yeah.
And but I used to be able to, if somebody annoyed me, I used to
be able to go and grab them by the ear, pull them into me
office and give them a right, you know, tell them right and
they'd accept system. They go out and they go back to
work. Where in today's you know you
can't do that and just doesn't, it doesn't seem, and you might
think, well, that seems a bit unreasonable, but when people
work for you, you're paying them money for a service, aren't you?
Right. Let's say you pay. $20.00 an
hour, right? You want one hour's work for
your $20, don't you? Yeah, well, most people work
half of that. Yeah.
Really. Now you're paying them £40 or
$40.00 an hour, aren't you? Just say where I'm coming from.
So. No, I, I know exactly where
you're coming from and it's, it's a sad state.
Like the good news is though, that that mentality creates a
lot of opportunity for kids like yours and mine who work their
ass off for that $20. You know they will.
What they'll do is they'll say I'm going to give you an hour
and a half for for $20. You want because that's what's
going to, of course. Yeah, you're is.
That's what that's what will make you the one person
underneath the managing director.
And if not, the managing director, of course.
No, and it's just going to make you a winner in life, you know,
as opposed to the opposite. So yeah, I mean, again, I think
we went too far off into the politics.
But the it's frustrating because especially, you know, you know,
I live with a British woman and, and she's sick to her stomach
because she's our generation, she's our age and she, she
misses the England that she grew up in.
You know, she grew up in London and it's not the same place that
it was when she grew up. And of course people say, well,
that's progress. You know, things move forward.
You don't want anything to sit still.
But it's not moving forward. You know, it's, it's moving a
different direction. And and so maybe it's moving
forward for some people, but I don't think it's moving forward
for all people. And so.
We can. I don't think we can change any
of this. I mean that that's the true.
You know, I was listening to a Pierce Morgan.
Was it Pierce Morgan? No, it wasn't.
No, it was Jordan Peterson, Canadian.
I don't know if you know who he is, but he does a podcast and
writes books and stuff. But he interviewed and I don't
know who this woman is, but she's she's a black lady, I
think maybe from Nigeria. Who is?
I believe she's the head of the Conservative Party in the UK
right now. OK.
Yeah, I can't remember her name, but I listened to about half the
podcast. Very sensible young lady and you
know she. I didn't really get in.
I don't really get into politics too much because.
Oh, you don't. I'm not really that, you know.
I never was either until it really started costing me.
You. Know when I when I when I
couldn't afford the my employees health insurance anymore, I
went, wait a second, what's going on here?
There's something going on and I need to pay attention.
But I mean, what I'm saying is I do think there's hope coming up
in the young people. I think, I think there's some
new generation stuff coming up where they're coming up with the
same work ethic that we had. Very smart, want to do better,
want to change things for the better.
And, you know, like I heard her on this podcast and she was
saying, when I came to the UK in 1996, it's not like that
anymore. We'll try thinking back to the
1976, you know, it was way different back then.
And so I, I, you know, again, I'm, I think I'm an optimist.
I know I'm an optimist. So I always think that it's
going to improve. And I think, you know, some of
the young people coming up right now and, and you know, there's a
lot of young people coming up in the US political system as well,
who I think are going to be very strong in the future and they're
going to help bring things back to some level of normalcy.
And, and so I think the same in the UK, hopefully in Canada, I
don't know, but yeah, it's interesting.
But there's this thing going on, I don't know if you've seen it,
between Canada and the US right now, where it's.
Becoming a little bit a little bit whole because to me in
America they are they always won.
Really. It might of.
Course, yeah, Well, but but legally they're not.
And so so the current president obviously is is just basically
saying, hey, you know, we've given you a lot of free stuff
and we want payback on that now. And that has become very, very
political because he's, you know, he doesn't say things in
pleasant ways. You know, he, he like, if, if
you know, he'll just say it how he feels and how, how it is or
whatever, right. And but it's created this grift
between Canada and the US and, and Canadians are just basically
like Americans are mean and, and nasty.
And I'm Canadian and American, right?
I I have both passports. From both both sides.
But I also, I'm taking it from both sides, you know, because
my, my family and friends know who I voted for and, and you
know, so sometimes I don't know, it just doesn't feel good.
Like, I wish we could get past this part right now because it
feels really. I, I I totally agree with that.
They just kept me charges plugged in because it's it's so.
Is your computer blinking? Yeah.
We don't want that to happen, no way, because that we.
Don't you? Wouldn't be the first one
though, remarkably. I'd say that well, ah, there we
go. My podcast is my podcast is
called Geezers of Gear, Steve. So we do get some older folks on
here who don't really know how to work their computer very
well. And so sometimes it's.
But it's on the hell. It's charged you beautifully.
So real good. Yeah, it gets a bit sketchy at
times, so. If that's because it, because
you see, like if, if my son was doing this computer stuff, it'd
be all sorted and organised, right?
Yeah, yeah. What's this button do?
What's that one do? I'm pretty good at it.
I'm pretty good at. It you've had a very good with
my. Yeah, and I don't, you know,
like you've always had employees so you could call somebody in to
fix your stuff, right? I can't, you know, I'm, I have
no employees here. They're my employees are
scattered around the world. If if I was just challenged you
right and and say how you see the entertainment industry
moving forward, you know, with AI and all of these things
that's happening, how do you see the future?
As as well, you know, industry, it's a great question because
I'm constantly talking about that kind of stuff and I see it
very different. You know, I see, I think we're
going to have AI and enabled light fixtures.
I think we're going to have AI enabled all kinds of things.
So you're going to have less brains in the control system,
probably more brains in the light.
So if you think back to the twister with the really smart
sound to light chip in it, you're going to have twisters
that are able to look out at the dance floor, figure out the
dimensions of the dance floor and adjust their movement based
on the dimensions of the dance floor.
And they'll be able to not only pick up the beat of the music,
but the genre of the music. Oh, this is reggae.
So I should probably, you know, do this type of movement or not
move at all and just change colour or whatever.
And so you're going to have AI enabled products across the
board, whether it's speakers or sound or lighting or control
systems or whatever. I think we're going to keep
seeing smarter and smarter controls.
An I think the people running those controls are probably
going to have to do less tedious work.
And so right now it all sounds very threatening to people.
I think they're thinking, you know, programmers are not going
to be necessary anymore because, you know, AI is going to do all
the. Programmes so it feels it could
feel very threatening to. It does.
Yeah, it does to a lot. Of people all these are in
reality kind of very powerful commodity within the
entertainment industry because they will decide what fixtures
they're going to use which then generates that hire companies
have got to have the stock of those type of fixtures yeah you
know that and and I. Don't know that that's going to
change anytime soon because I think someone's always going to
have to sort of read the room, speak with the artist, speak
with the production manager, figure out what the budget is
like. Yes, could you have an AILD?
Probably, but it, it just, I think that that's a relationship
that's going to stay in the loop when you, when you talk about
the operator though, and the programmer, like I, I don't
think it's, it's much different than anything else.
Like I, I just think that we're going to be advancing to a point
where we don't have to be the guy working the shovel anymore
because now you have, you know, front end things with the scoop
on the front of it, those tractor things, whatever they're
called caterpillars. And so we don't have to dig
holes as much as we used to, or. We don't have to assist the
oldies and the programmers and all the rest of it to make it's
quicker and probably become more, more if it, you know, more
efficient. Do you use AI at all yet?
No. New stuff that's coming,
clearly. That's why I asked.
No, I mean yourself, just for your day-to-day work.
We, we started to, we started to experience and, and and work
with AI, but I'm not using it in, in any accounting or
anything like that. I'm not doing.
Yeah. I mean, you and I should have an
offline conversation someday because like for example, you
know, I will, I will like we do because my staff are all
completely remote all over the world.
I don't have any staff in the same room as me at any time.
And so all of our business operates around a platform
called Rome, which is a virtual platform.
And so I can look and see who's in their offices, in my office
building on my screen, and I can go knock on somebody's door and
say, hey, how are you? You know, so, and we'll talk,
we'll have a conversation just like I'm in his office, right?
Well, the system takes notes on every one of those calls.
And so after the call, the next day, a month from now, I can go
back to those meeting notes because I don't have to write
any notes anymore. I can go back to those notes and
I can say what was Steve saying about the twister?
You know, why was the sound to light better in that twister?
I can just ask it a question and it'll say great, great question.
You know, he looked at this little moving flower thing and
he took the chip out of it and it had this incredible chip in
it that did things like this and this and this and that's why it
was better. So you can just ask questions of
it. And so that is something I use
that all day everyday just to. And so another thing it could do
is let's say you have a meeting with one of your engineers, for
example, and they're not doing a very good job and there's a lot
of problems with the fixtures. And you could have a meeting
with that person and it takes notes.
And after that meeting, you could simply say, should I fire
him or not? And they tell you, you know,
he's got really good ideas when it comes to this, this and this
and and he made a mistake over here and here, but I think he
covered it up with some really good information.
And based on the history, you say that he's been with the
company for 17 years and blah, blah, blah.
I would give him another chance. But here's one.
Here's a a step by step plan you should put in place.
One, make sure he shows up for work on time 2.
Make him read this book. Oh my God, it's unbelievable.
Like so it's it's my best employee now don't tell my staff
that, but it is my best employee.
I use it all day every day for so many different things.
You know, I don't know, you probably haven't seen it and
I'll I'll I'll tell you what I'll do one for you.
I can so I do an AI podcast now, not me podcasting about AIA
podcast completely done by AI. So the the logo is AI, the intro
music is AI and the podcasters, the it's a man and a woman and
it's 100% AI. And so you could send me a press
release or some documents about a new product or something and
these people will put together like a 15 or 20 minute podcast
to talk about those products. They'll be like, Oh my God, have
you seen this new abstract Twister 97.5?
It is unbelievable. Oh yeah, it's just like the old
Twisters, but it's LED. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible.
And. It goes, this flower, it's.
Not the dancing bloody flower, but it's it's so damn cool and.
On the next light, yeah, it's going to stay on the back,
powered by the dancing flower. Perfect.
Why don't you just do a light called the dancing flower?
That's. British yeah, you know, that
could be that's that's the perfect 35th celebration light
in it, the dancing. Yeah, the dancing flower.
Yeah. It's got a ring to, isn't it?
Yeah. Dancing flower?
Yeah. You just got to figure out what
is a dancing flower. 100 dancing flowers on the tour.
Yeah, that's hilarious. But yeah, so I, I mean, I use it
constantly for all kinds. You know, I, I had AI had a
slight medical problem this week and I had to go to, I did some
testing and I think basically because I'm pretty healthy,
believe it or not, I'm probably 35 lbs lighter than I was last
time you saw me. And I exercise every day.
I eat right. I, I live pretty well now.
And, but I take a bunch of supplements and I think what I
did is I've added a couple supplements and I think there's
a, there's a conflict in there somewhere and it's caused my
blood pressure to start spiking. And just right after I'll drink
a smoothie and I'll take my supplements and boom, my blood
pressure jumps up. So, so, so yeah, what I've done
is I've loaded in these like 12 supplements that I take each way
into AI and I've said I'm having a problem with blood, blood
pressure. Can you tell me what might be
happening? I mean, it gave me like, I'll,
I'll tell you what, I'll text, I'll send you the link.
You can see what it says and you'll be like, holy shit, it's
wild. It is wild.
And he's told me how to fix it. Told me how to fix it.
It gave me a point by point plan on what to try.
Here's the probable culprits. So try eliminating this one
first and then this one. And yeah, I mean, it's
unbelievable. It's, it's so good.
One of the challenges, it lies to you occasionally.
So if it doesn't know an answer, it won't say I don't know it'll
make one up. Oh my God.
Yeah, yeah. Sort of like a guy you and I
know he he would do the same thing.
He would always do the same thing.
He would just make up a bullshit answer and you'd be like, well,
it sounds smart. I guess he's telling the truth.
Must be right. Yeah.
But yeah, So, you know, I, I like if you ever want to really
jump in and start using some AI stuff on your day-to-day, just
let's jump on a different call and I'll go through four or five
things that you could start using that'll change your life.
I promise. We're going to Yes, it was.
Brilliant. Like even you know what you
could do? You could go to your fridge and
you could take a picture of the inside of your fridge and say
here's all the food I've got. Tell me some things that I could
make. What?
And it will swear to God. Or you could take a picture of
your spice rack and say, these are the spices I have.
What? What could I put together with
these spices and a couple steaks, you know?
I never do it for you. Oh my God, that's that's just.
It's insane. It's insane.
I mean, imagine having a tool that has access to all the
world's information and all you need to do is ask a question and
it can answer it. That's what it does and that's
on the simplest level, like it does so much more than that.
So yeah, I mean, you can have it look at, you know, here's all
the files I've got stored about the twister.
Can you read all of these different documents and then
tell me what the next twister which I want to call the the
dancing flower? What should it be?
It'll tell you.
That's just fantastic, isn't it?
It'll tell you. Yeah, yeah, it's.
Interesting. You need to, you need to, you
need to get AI to scan all 300 podcasts right?
And then tell it to make its own podcast stove.
It's funny because we're actually working on something
there, my friend. I'm.
Going to be brilliant. It's scandal.
Yeah. Podcast yeah, yeah yeah.
And makes it like spurious. That's a lot of work though,
because what you'd have to do is you'd have to download the
transcripts for all 300 podcasts and then have it review all of
those transcripts because you can get it to watch YouTube
videos. And based on these YouTube
videos, tell me blah, blah, blah.
Like I could, I could put in a video of this podcast that we're
doing right now. I could just put the link to the
video in a certain AI app I've got and it'll watch the video
and basically tell me, you know, the 10 cool things that we
talked about or whatever. Or it could do a podcast about
this podcast. So right.
I just showed you the the where the future's going, isn't it?
Exactly. So all I can tell you is for
sure it's going to be different. I don't believe in I'm not so
big on like these virtual concerts and stuff where people
wear like those meta threads on their face and and they go stand
in a crowd and and this is a concert now.
I think there's always going to be live bands on stage audience
over here, you know, and like, I don't know, like maybe custom
mixes. I could see people going to
concerts with headphones on instead of, you know, instead of
just blasting the sound out at them.
I think there's going to be some sound things like right now a
lot of the sound technology is going to like these multiple
points, smaller speakers, but lots of them where you've you're
completely surrounded by sound everywhere, like this sphere in
Las Vegas. I'm going to go.
I'm going to go there hopefully this next to this year, yeah.
So are you going? To be at LDI this year.
No, no, I'm not going to hold it there, but bummer.
You know, we're just going to go on holiday.
We're going to go holiday in. We're.
Going to go to. Vegas and what I'll be Yeah, all
good that'll be. Fun.
Well, I mean, it's, it's certainly been a blast catching
up with you. Yeah, and you too.
Well, so brilliant. Thank you.
And we should have a longer personal call at some point and
we can talk about AI and we can tell the real truth about what
we think of the industry. And just kidding, I love the
industry. It is a fun industry.
I mean, if you have to do something, this is a pretty fun
place to do it, you know? Yeah.
And, and at the end of the day, the reality is this, this
industry is, you know, it's billions and billions and
billions of dollars, right? There's not many other
industries that really expand out as massively as what
entertainment does because it just, it just captivates
everything, didn't it? From truck drivers to cooks to.
Pioneer everything. Yeah.
It's huge, right? Yeah, no.
And and you don't feel that like when you go to a trade show or
something, it feels like a really small industry and you
know, all the people in it, like I know everyone in this
industry, right. But even that's changing like as
we get older, you know, there's three generation under us now.
And and so even that's changing. Like I walk around trade shows
and go I don't know anyone here. When when we first bought out
the X lights, right And some of the first customers were sons
and daughters. Yeah, the.
Of those companies you used to work with?
Because the parents used to have abstract.
That's wild. That's really cool.
Because the parents had abstracts the parents.
Abstract The thing with the generational brand and.
The thing with abstracts zigging.
Generations with abstract. Well, they, they, they were, you
know, well, that's kind of it. But they always say one thing is
that the the product never breaks.
Yeah. And there's a lot of truth
behind that, you know? Well, you know what I mean?
At the end of the day, like you take a lot of pride.
You've been doing it a long time.
Every fixture, every product that goes out of that factory,
you've touched it or looked at it or something, you know?
And yeah, I mean, it's meaningful.
That's meaningful. I love buying local.
I love buying, you know, but in our industry, it's getting
harder and harder. Like, look at a country and A
and a market the size of the US. There's not that many US
manufacturers anymore, you know, very few, very few.
That it might change now under the new regime.
Who knows? Who knows?
Like I think that's a lot of noise right now.
That'll probably quiet down, but pretty nice.
Yeah. Yeah, Right, Steve.
Thanks mate, appreciate it. Good to see you and I hope to
see you in real life at some point here.
My girlfriend's going to London on Thursday to see her her mom
but but I'm not going with her this time so.
You stay at home. I'll stay at home.
Hope you enjoy your your cabin anyway.
I'm not there. I'm I'm in Florida right now.
All right. So you don't.
You don't. You don't.
I go to Canada in like June, May OR.
It's a lovely place, isn't? It it is nice.
You should come up there. Yeah.
Let's go visit. It looks to me somewhere really
special. It is.
You should come and visit. And I have loads of space too.
So you could have your own floor in it.
Oh, wow. That's how you got your own.
It's not a big floor, but it is a floor.
Floor, right? The floor is a floor.
You got your own floor. Yeah.
All right, mate. I really appreciate it mate.
All right, see you later. Cheers.
Bye. And today's podcast episode
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