Mocksville, NC (December 15, 2020)—Special Event Services (SES) was founded in a garage in 1986, but this past fall saw the audio, lighting, video, design, staging and live event production company move into a massive new facility that could take that garage—and the house it was attached to—and swallow them whole.
Located on a 15-acre site at 216 Angell Knoll Avenue in Mocksville, NC, the 52,000-square-foot, pre-engineered metal structure includes conference rooms, offices, warehouse space, numerous loading docks, a rigging workshop, a lighting and video studio, extensive parking and, most importantly, a lot of storage space.
Live Sound Turns to Livestreaming
The need for more storage had been plauging founders Jim Brammer and Jeff Cranfill for decades. In 1994, SES acquired a former RJR Tobacco Warehouse and fully expected that the building had all the room SES could ever need. As both the company and production technologies matured, however, the warehouse became overcrowded to the point that during slower times of the year, some gear had to be left on trucks, simply because there was not enough storage space inside the facility.
In the ensuing decades, Brammer, along with SES partners Cranfill, Don “Bogie” Cates and Jason Farah, began envisioning a more functional building; in fact, SES attempted two other times to build a new headquarters, but the projects never broke ground for a variety of reasons. Ironically, with the new facility at hand, SES has more construction on its To-Do list, as the company plans to build a rehearsal facility that will allow productions to develop and practice in a full-sized space matching a tour’s typical performance venues. Ultimately, the company expects to create 14 jobs and invest $8,850,000 in the expansion project.
Like many event production companies, SES originally expected to spend 2020 building on the momentum of the previous year, having spent 2019 working on 46 tours and more than 850 shows for clients like the Avett Brothers, Luke Combs, the Zac Brown Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, Ed Sheeran, Lynyrd Skynyrd and others. Despite the pandemic’s blow to the industry, the SES team’s enthusiasm for finishing the two-year construction project never flagged.
“Opening a building in the middle of a pandemic may not seem like the wisest decision,” said newly vested partner Michael Brammer, “but for our staff, it’s been a beacon of hope we can rally around.”
Link: Special Event Services • www.specialeventservices.com
