Pre-teen's hobby lights way to million-dollar business
By Christopher D. Parker

At the LaVergne branch of Bandit Lites, Inc. , providing lighting and stage effects for entertainers and events is more than a job, it’s an art form.

" We paint the air with light and smoke," says Michael Golden, vice president and 17 year Bandit employee. " Every event we provide lighting for is going for a certain look, and we try to use our expertise in the field by using lamps, smoke and gels(colored filters) as our medium to provide that look.

The company had it’s unofficial start in 1968, when then 12 year old Michael Strickland went to a concert being held in his junior high school’s gymnasium and decided he could do a better job creating ambiance than the overhead lights in the gym. At the next concert, he got together some theatre lights, and doused the over-heads. The promoter liked what he saw and started offering Strickland steady work.

" It got to the point that if any act in the area needed lighting, they would call me. When my parent’s home phone would ring, it might be Frankie Valli asking if I could set up some lights for him for a show in Birmingham," says Strickland. "At that point, all I needed was the help of someone with a driver’s license."

Today, privately held, Knoxville based Bandit Lites is the second largest lighting company in the world. The company maintains production and design facilities in LaVergne and Knoxville, with the world headquarters in Knoxville, and other offices in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Taiwan, London and Dublin.

The company posted a 70 percent revenue increase last year compared with 1995 revenues. Between the main offices of Knoxville and La Vergne, the company provides services for about 2,400 acts and events each year .

The company got a foothold in the country music business when it signed on to do the stage work in 1980 for a then little-known band called Alabama.

"These guys were touring hard back then," says Golden. "So getting on with an act like this provided us with 50 weeks of steady work out of the year."

As the prominence of it’s clientele grew, so did the reputation of Bandit Lites. The company has provided lighting effects for literally dozens of major acts such as Frank Sinatra and R.E.M., and is currently supporting tours for Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw and John Michael Montgomery.

Bandit Lights has been able to build its reputation a number of ways, including the ability to quickly provide for a specifically designed set and to provide honest, knowledgeable information, says David Butzler, lighting designer and director for Garth Brooks.

"The particular system that is on tour right now is one that has been customized and built specifically for a design that I created," says Butzler.

The set-up that Garth Brooks is currently touring with weighs 40,000 pounds and consists of hundreds of lights and 98 motors, each capable of exerting one ton of force.

In addition to working with major music acts, the company also provides services to the extremely popular "Lord of the Dance" show currently touring the United States, WWF Wrestling and lighting for the pre-game shows at the Nashville Kats Games.

Marketing the company towards these smaller, community-type events is one of the first steps in a 15 year marketing plan that the company began about five years ago. Another part of that marketing plan is to break international ground in the Asian market. In preparation for that, Strickland has just completed a three-week market trip to China.

"We see a lot of future there. They have the exact same lighting needs that we have here, only they are about 20 years behind. But we are going to change that."