Stephen Smith

In March of 2023, I received an offer to become a Production Manager at Shepard AV. I have happily been there since, where I began my foray into corporate AV. In this role I provide AV consultation for major conferences, up to 40,000 in attendance. I am responsible for planning the equipment, labor, and logistical needs for these conferences, with budgets to manage exceeding $1 million in revenue. I work directly with clients to design their general session stage layouts, as well as their meeting spaces. I am responsible for managing the crew on site, and ensuring labor law compliance in every state I work in. This is a challenging role in an exciting industry, and I look forward to continuing to grow as I transition away from my roots in the music industry.

As festival season slowed down, so did the paychecks, and I wanted some stability to take care of my growing family. I found a job at Rent For Event, where I worked as their production manager. I was responsible for managing a crew of 10 people, who would implement up to 10 installations per day.

I performed live visuals for major DJs in headlining slots at major music festivals. I mostly did this as a side gig, working with artists such as Dillon Francis, Dombresky, Drezo, k?d, Madeon, Malaa, Tchami, Zhu, and many more. In 2022 I got my biggest opportunity yet, to tour with Diplo as his Video Director. I left my job at Liminal to accept this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and toured the world.

I went full time with 3DLive in 2021, becoming their Production Manager. I assisted with their biggest project to date, codenamed Project Hero during its concept phase. Eventually this project debuted as the finale in the Stranger Things Experience for Netflix, a multisensory experience that traveled from city to city giving fans of the show a real-world experience.

At Liminal, formerly 3DLive, I took over as the lead video engineer for Flying Lotus' Flamagra tour in 2019. I was responsible for managing the media server running 3DLive's proprietary 3D LED systems, and oversaw the assembly and teardown of the 3D screen on each stop of the tour. After the tour, I continued work with 3DLive in a freelance capacity, helping the company as they advanced their patents and modernized their technology. I traveled to oversee multiple long-term installations for them, and strayed from the music industry as I delved more into the experiential art space.

At Production Club I was introduced to the live events industry. I helped produce interactive activations for Amazon's re:Play party, I built media server racks for The Chainsmokers' world tour, I built a render farm servicing a team of 20+ global 3D artists, and I did creative lighting installations for Notch. I managed inventory and IT systems for an office that grew from 10 to 55 people during my stay, and I helped produce worldwide events at a grand scale.