ENTECH’s launched a direct gateway to training and employment called EntPathways with carefully curated seminars at the roadshow that help students and new entrants understand the realities, and give them a road map in.
“Our tradeshow floor has always been just that: trade,” said CEO Kate McKenzie. “We always knew the growing skills shortage needed a solution, and we have it: EntPathways.”
The website (entpathways.com.au) is now a gateway for anyone considering a career in entertainment and AVL tech, and at launch has gathered some high-profile supporters sharing their journeys. Their stories are on the SUCCESS page, where each explains how they started. A pattern emerges.
Clayton Davies is production manager and monitor engineer for The Whitlams. After an audio degree he realised work wouldn’t come to him, so he cold-called emerging bands and production companies. “I learnt more in three months on the road than in the classroom.” Five years full-time with a production company followed, then sole trader. His advice: “Cast a broad net: don’t limit yourself to one role early on… be kind, reliable and easy to work with.”
Lighting designer Craig Boyes came up through a youth drama group in South Auckland. He started an engineering degree, landed followspot on Rocky Horror, and dropped the course. A service tech job at Selecon Lighting led to Melbourne, a US tour with Jet, and his current role as Head of Lighting at the iconic Palais Theatre.
Kait Hall is lighting designer and creative director for Missy Higgins, with Dan Sultan, Peter Garrett, Jet and Kate Miller-Heidke on her CV. She planned a science degree, but the Year 12 school musical beat the calculus. Work experience at a lighting company led to loading and tech jobs, then a Vari-Lite tech role. She went freelance and designed an arena show within a year.
Toby Sewell grew up in small-town WA, where his parents took the kids to theatre. Work experience at a Perth theatre company led to Stage Management at WAAPA, then a junior role in Opera Australia’s lighting department at 19. Fifteen-plus years there, then Chameleon Touring Systems, which “opened my eyes to a whole array of lighting equipment and production techniques I had never seen in a theatre environment.” Credits include Fashion Week and Bulgari events in Australia and Italy.
FOH sound engineer Chris Braun did a backstage tour at Phantom, saw the FOH position, and it was “instant: I wanna do that.” He started at System Sound, “first learning how to make French press coffee right, then how to coil cables and test speakers.” His list now includes Royel Otis, Ice Cube, Katseye and Jessie Murph, and earlier All Saints, M.I.A., Portugal. The Man, Sheppard, Chet Faker, Gotye, The Rubens, Kimbra, Allen Toussaint, Dean Lewis and Vera Blue.
Mandylights CEO Richard Neville lit high-school performance nights from Year 7. Sydney Youth Musical Theatre gave him access to bigger installs; pro-am shows and hire-company work experience built a network, “a number of whom I still work with today, twenty-something years later.” He has been the lighting designer for Ricky Martin, Backstreet Boys, the musical Cats in China, Robbie Williams Live in Sydney and the Sydney Mardi Gras party, and has worked in over fifty countries.
Paul Collison does production design and lighting. “My pathway into the industry felt more like a hike through an unmarked trail. I volunteered my time with school productions, then further afield to local production companies and local theatre spaces. Once I had proved my worth, my local production company, called Lots of Watts, started to offer me paid work. I started low on the food chain, loading trucks, running cable and stacking cases, much later graduating to a larger scale.
“Today I run a design company that delivers projects on almost all continents of the planet. My path was organic and I wouldn’t change a thing. The things I’ve learned and people I’ve met have all moulded me into the person and profession that I am, for better or for worse!”
Tamika Liddle is a video tech who started nine years ago as a loader in Melbourne; working for Gig Power. “I found I really enjoyed helping the video team and started concentrating on that department”. She learned video working for Woohah Productions. “Now I am on tour with Powa Productions for the Red Hot Summer Tour as a camera operator and loving every moment of it!”
The pattern is adaptability. Pathways often start with school drama. Formal work experience openings are limited, but there is plenty of work through crewing agencies, the national Show Support company, for example. And every one of these top crew has a diverse CV.
EntPathways also brings future customers to ENTECH exhibitors. Students know they are not there to get a job from an equipment distributor, but they will remember the brands they see.
“ENTECH is about making friends and one-on-one networking,” McKenzie continued. “For 33 years it has brought the industry together, and now with EntPathways we finally have a way to bring the next generation inside, without disrupting our primary role: providing exhibitors with a solid stream of current and new customers who are there to see tech and gather creative ideas.”
