History – the 1970’s

This is the start of our trip. We go way back, further than many can remember. What was it like? Today’s entertainment industry had its genesis in two camps – theatre, and touring rock and roll. But visit any backstage now and chances are the more senior technicians all once had weird nicknames. This is where we expose them! NOTE: all the photos go larger when you click on them. Please email us with updates – AND send us more old pix! Warning: some of these photos are embarrassing!

PREFACE

The producers of 30 Years Of Rock Lighting and Sound – A Retrospective museum held at ENTECH 2002 have put together this brief History of the development of the professional audio and lighting industry through the decades since 1972, in support of the exhibition.

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The Seventies are regarded the most-influential decade of them all, because everything happened at virtual ‘light speed’, the changes and progress were astronomical. But the Sixties were where it all really began, so we had to sneak in a few tidbits about the sixties to create a platform for the seventies and beyond.

It’s important to understand that there WAS audio and lighting before the 1970’s. We are simply dealing with live production equipment in this exhibit. There were cinema and theatre systems in use at the time, and the recording environment also had a history, which is not dealt with here.

Those who responded to our requests were great, contributing information and photos which have helped enormously to create a history of our progress. The task of logging exact dates and other associated information has been extremely difficult and many hours of research and collating has gone into representing the most accurate history available, based on the information at hand.

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If we missed out on mentioning any particular person or item we apologise, with limited resources and funding as our collective memories only go so far. And, we are based in Sydney, where most of the material came from.

Please enjoy the memories and have an enlightening and illuminating experience. For the younger enthusiasts, we hope that you will find the exhibit to be informative and amusing, remembering that in 30 years from now, today’s technology will seem just as historical…..or perhaps hysterical!.

So let’s have a look at the past…….. Go to our other articles here at cxnetwork.com.au…..