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Bandit Lites 40 AT 40: Matt King
Job Title: Project Manager
Matt King started learning about lights in his high school auditorium. After graduating, he worked the bar band and state fair circuit, and soon found himself touring as a lighting technician for Reba McEntire. It was on that tour that he met Larry Boster, and was recruited to work for Bandit Lites. Here are a few questions we asked to get to know him better.
Q: What job responsibilities come along with that position?
A: Being a project manager, we take the plot and equipment list given to us from the Bandit client reps and transform that into all the technical data, which is basically everything that the rig needs. We also do something that most other companies don't do. We create artwork for each artist and then the artwork is used for case labels, which are printed out instead of hand written, making it easier to read. We also use the artwork for motor controllers and the book covers, which contains all the information that we produce for the road guys.
Q: How did you get involved with Bandit Lites?
A: Brooks & Dunn was touring with Reba, which is who I was with at that time. Larry Boster [Brooks & Dunn's LD] kept pestering me to call Mike Golden and so I kept pestering Mike Golden. By the end of the year, I was working here. I came in as a lighting tech. Then, about the middle of that first year, they were talking about adding a project manager. Mike Golden approached me about it. I finished up the tour I was on and that next year I became the project manager. I've been at Bandit for ten years and in the office for nine years now.
Q: Do you have any advice for someone that is looking to get into this industry?
A: Just be willing to do whatever people ask of you and try to learn everything you can. It's good to learn all the technical stuff even if you'd like to be an LD. You'll eventually have to deal with costs and budgets. You may not be working on lights but you may have someone tell you that a light can't be fixed and because you've learned how the light works, you can say, yes it can and this is how you do it. Also- when I was first starting out, I was given the advice that if you want to get out on the road, you need to do something that no one else likes. Working on motors was my ticket to the road.
Q: What is the best part about working at Bandit?
A.:The best part about working for Bandit is probably the folks I get to work with, both within Bandit as well as our clients and outside vendors. You show up at a gig and you will most likely see someone you've worked with before. The industry really is just one big family.
9th June 2008
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