There is a part of Vegas known to its denizens, every cab driver in town and a large percentage of male tourists and convention-goers as "The Fun Zone." Once the industrial guts that supported the glitzy Strip, as Vegas has shed its attempt at being a "family" destination and moved ever further in the "what happens here stays here–it's a place for adults to go and be bad" direction, the warehouses, light industrial and machine shops have been joined by a bunch of strip clubs of varying degrees of raunch, debauchery and even attempts at real class. (Not that I know from experience, but I've heard…) It makes getting directions to Larry Hall's HQ a bit more interesting. "As you're coming away from the Strip, you take a left at the Crazy Horse, and you'll see Jaguar's down that way, and we're right next to and behind the Spearmint Rhino," he says. Welcome to Vegas.
I first met Larry at the Blue Water Casino in Parker, Ariz. I had driven out to the Indian gaming joint on the Colorado River to check out the then-new line array from D.A.S. He walked me through the system as they were finishing with set-up for a pair of Roy Clarke shows that evening. In a business fraught with politics and too many people who are more concerned with making themselves and their vendors look good than really telling it like it is, Hall immediately impressed me with his willingness to lay it on the line. While he liked the system and told me he planned on buying the rig he also, right in front of the D.A.S. rep, told me what was wrong with the rigging and how it needed to be fixed (something that D.A.S. has since addressed). Hall is, to put it bluntly, not full of crap.
He got his start, like so many of us, as a musician, but it was not the typical case of not being able to cut it in the band and becoming the tech guy by default. "We were playing a lot of casino gigs," he recalls. "And they always had P.A. provided, so I started renting my own gear out on the nights when we weren't using it. It wasn't that long before I figured out that I could do a lot better providing sound gear and expertise than playing casinos, so I started to build up an inventory and the company just grew from there. I hooked up with a partner who did lighting and we were soon able to offer full production services–staging, lights, sound, everything."
That one-stop service is one of the things that has set Hall apart from the other mid-sized sound providers in town. "The client likes dealing with one guy and writing one check. That way, if there is an issue, they know who to deal with. There is never a nameless faceless entity, or a that's not my department attitude. It's all my department."
Ironically, shortly before my trip out to Vegas to talk with him, Hall severed his relationship with his partner and was in the process of starting his own in-house lighting division. With an inventory that includes everything from Midas and Soundcraft consoles to a warehouse full of D.A.S., EAW and Turbosound speakers, H.A.S. is able to fill just about any rider request. Still, he leans hard on his D.A.S. Aero rig and has had a lot of success with it. Some acts may not have heard of the system, but he consistently has it requested when an act that has used it comes back trough town for another gig.
"The Aero 28s are less expensive than other systems, and I am charging the same price as my competitors with 'bigger' brand names. I guess the joke's on them," Hall laughs. "As to the 'rider friendly' aspect of D.A.S. Aero–or any speaker for that matter–I have found when advancing shows, most FOH guys want their consoles, EFX and mics. The rest of the rig seems to be second, third or even fourth on the list. I'm not saying this is a hard and fast rule, there are some guys who just care about the boxes, but I have not had an issue with those types either. If a guy is not familiar with the system (which happens less often these days), I send him to the Web site, and use the "Anklebiters" approach–tell the guy everything I have on his rider. 'I have your Midas, your SPX2000s, your PCM 90, 81, I have got all the tube compressors and Drawmer gates you want as well.' That pretty much settles the conversation."
H.A.S. has pretty much anything they need for the good-sized corporate and concert gigs that are their bread and butter, but, like many other regional operators, Hall is feeling the pressure that digital technology is putting on everyone–especially in terms of investments in new gear. They get those gigs where, for example, a digital console is on the rider and not negotiable.
"We recently did a couple of shows for a big national act, and they were okay with the console we offered for FOH (a Midas XL-4) but insisted on a Yamaha PM1D for monitors," he explained. Like any company in that position, H.A.S. was forced to rent the piece they did not have in stock, but in an apt illustration of how brutally competitive the Las Vegas scene has become, it was far from an easy task. "The one guy who had a 1D for rent wanted so much for the rental that it ended up being more economical to rent it in L.A. and have it trucked here!"
Was it a case of the competition trying to keep someone else from a plum gig by making it too expensive to provide the gear? "Maybe," says Hall. "It has gotten pretty brutal out here. Most of the national companies have some kind of presence, and since PRG opened here, it has really made some of the smaller companies scramble." Hall has been a Vegas guy for long enough, knows enough of the right people and, frankly, is good enough at what he does, that H.A.S. is "slammed. We are very busy pretty much all year.
"It is all about providing good service and making sure you are covering all of the bases so that the client does not have to worry about anything at all. If there is a problem, I need to deal with it in a way that the client never even knows the problem occurred. It is that kind of transparency and service that gets us lots of repeat business and keeps this company growing."
That and a willingness to invest in the future. "We were just asked to bid on a national tour by the same band that we rented the PM1D for and if we get it, I will be buying my first digital console. I could just rent it for the tour, but having one available will make H.A.S. even more attractive to some clients, and what we make on the tour should pay for the console. It makes it a break-even rather than a put-money-in-your-pocket gig, but it gets us a tool we will be able to put to good use–and make money with–in the future."
