Scott began his career in entertainment and event production in 1981 at 14 years old in the high school theater. He learned how to light a stage for theater, and soon got in with the local production company, Reel Rock Productions. There he quickly learned everything from electrical distribution to mixing live audio for bands. Some of his fondest memories of this time are mixing monitors for large festival stages in Panama City Beach. In 1985, he learned first aerial rigging, then ground rigging for arena shows. Scott spent an awful lot of time climbing 90’ up on the structural beams of several arenas in the Southeast.
In 1988, Scott moved to Los Angeles to work as Audio Engineer & Production Manager for the Hollywood band, Pair-A-Dice. The band sold out every show in famous Sunset Strip venues like The Roxy, Bill Gazzarri’s, and The Whisky-a-Go-Go. With so many great shows under their belts, and all the talk of a forthcoming tour, it seemed the group would be the next Guns-n-Roses, but it was not to be. They imploded in 1989 with member issues. Scott worked as a freelancer in Los Angeles for Supermick Lights and Stage Mechanix, doing special events. Most memorable was when Stage Mechanix took him to Hilton Head Island and the Castle Vizcaya Miami Beach to do some large scale and especially challenging corporate events.
Scott moved back east and wound up in Atlanta in 1990, running the lighting shop for Seriously Sound. Most of the work was weekend warrior stuff, taking out two pre-rig trusses for one-off shows. He had to learn how to be fast and efficient deploying in venues that were not always ready for the scope of the hardware they were bringing in, skills that he finds incredibly valuable still today. He worked at nearly every venue in the southeast, from arenas and amphitheaters, to farm fields and old skating rinks, and put every musical act you can think of on stage. Joe Walsh, Michael McDonald, George Clinton, Eddie Money, and Gladys Knight epitomized his schedule in any given week, with emphasis on lighting, audio, special effects, and rigging.
Scott was introduced to trade shows and Kohler Company in 1991, and his life changed forever. Kohler needed him to design the lighting for their huge exhibit, and he did some groundbreaking work for them. To be closer to Kohler, he moved to Chicago in 1993 and worked with a few companies doing corporate events and music tours. Scott toured with Huey Lewis & the News, Pantera, Boys II Men, Type O Negative, Mary J Blige, and others, and incorporated his first company, Mercenary Lighting in 1994. These were very exciting times! He was offered the Lighting Designer job with Santana at one point, but had to turn it down as it conflicted with something else.
Mercenary Lighting was just Scott, but at the same time, he partnered up with two buddies, Dave Ward and Rick Maldonado to form Imagination & Technology, Inc in Atlanta, even though he still lived in Chicago. Mercenary got a warehouse right by O’Hare Airport and bought out the lighting equipment from a local company. He had a staff of 6 people and did corporate events and music shows all over the US. He continued to maintain the relationship with Kohler, which had moved to 2 big shows each year, and these were growing rapidly. With Mercenary, he worked with Lenny Kravitz, Duran Duran, Faith No More, The Scorpions, and Fleetwood Mac, and began to travel extensively all over North America for work. Scott sent equipment down to Atlanta for I&T to use, but I&T was not ready to take off for real until he moved back to Atlanta in 1997.
In February of 1998, Scott and his remaining partner Dave made the big move. They set up shop just north of Atlanta and began buying equipment – trussing, motors, lighting, cabling, dimming, and even some audio and video. Kohler took off as a client, and they found themselves with two office locations, Atlanta and Chicago. I&T grew and grew, and by 2006 they had 20,000 square feet jammed full of gear, including a scene shop, and 10 full-time employees. They were doing everything from trade shows to corporate meetings, rock shows to hair fashion, galas to product reveals, and all over the US, Canada, and Mexico. With Kohler, all sorts of events unfolded throughout the year, including a movie premier for Open Range, starring Kevin Costner, with Herb Kohler in a smaller role. The movie folks told the Kohler folks that this outdid the Hollywood premier. The PGA Championship at Whistling Straights in Kohler had a huge stage for headline music acts between golf rounds. Scott developed an innovative method for building climbing truss towers, which started with a need to comply with one trade show rule that nothing be attached to the ceiling. Designing and building ground-support structures has grown into one of the things he is best known for.
For 19 years, Kohler came to rely on Scott for nearly everything they did in the live event field, and he really enjoyed working with them as a company and a culture, and especially as friends. For some shows, they ran 10-12 semis around, half of them carrying just trussing. The great recession came, and I&T was forced to downsize dramatically, and by 2009 it was time to make some changes, even as they did their first event with Delta Air Lines.
Scott took a gig as Tour Rigger with Paramore in 2010, which went all over the US and Canada, and eventually to Australia.
Scott was fortunate to land the Bassmaster Classic in early 2012, and that was quite a different show than he was used to. It quite literally, is the Super Bowl of Bass Fishing – a real spectacle. Sponsor trucks towing fishing boats into the arena immediately after a day of tournament fishing on the lake, for a live fish weigh in on live television. 2023 marked the 12th year of producing Bass with his old mentor from his first job in the business.
In 2012, Scott took a dream gig from childhood, a position as Tour Rigger for the Scorpions. This tour went all over North America and was huge fun.
In September, 2012, it was time to reinvent post-recession, and Scott and a partner formed Next Page Event Services. Next Page started off small, just as I&T did, and grew just as rapidly. Next Page grew into first one shop, then another within 6 months. They began working with the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York and Delta Air Lines events all over the US and even Shanghai in 2015!
There were some landmark jobs in these years with substantial innovation. Scott designed and built a massive 329 foot long video screen for the Delta Leadership event which encircled the entire audience. Blended projection made this event unforgettable!
For Tribeca one year, Scott played on Willy Wonka and turned the entire room upside down, with trees and flowers on a grassy ceiling and clouds on the floor.
In 2019, Scott rebranded again as Event Production Services, and moved into a 16,500 square foot warehouse in the village of Stone Mountain, a close suburb of Atlanta. Despite the challenges of the Covid shutdown, the business continues to grow and thrive. Scott feels the best years are still ahead.
“I have been extremely fortunate in my career, to have enjoyed a diverse set of talents and opportunities. It has also been to my benefit to have been continually challenged by the need to do events in some unusual locations, and under some unusual situations. I continue to grow my skills and still love what I do. I am often given enough creative freedom to be able to innovate and try new ideas in a real-world situation. I have been blessed with thousands of friends and acquaintances in the industry all over the world, several of whom have grown into lifelong friends. I still work with many of them today.
If there are anecdotes I would repeat, one is that the countdown to doors starts as soon as you start setting up, another is that no matter how bad you think your show is, the kids are always still going to scream, and lastly, you start planning your load out before you start your load in.
I live today in Tucker, Georgia with my wife Laurie Imes. My kids are adults and live out on their own while going to school. I love traveling the world, cycling, hiking, camping, cooking, fishing, hunting, and just being outside.”
