I wanted to expand the distribution for the Vari-Lite rental equipment as quickly as possible, so in 1984 I began by setting up US rental offices in Los Angeles and New York City and international distributors in Tokyo, London and Sydney, Australia. We eventually had Vari-Lite rental offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Orlando, Chicago, Toronto, London, Cologne, Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia. We were able to not only service the worldwide concert touring market but we were able to develop new markets such as television in Los Angeles, theatre in New York City and London and industrial shows in Chicago and Orlando. ## Founding of Vari-Lite Asia in Tokyo, August 1984 During the fall of 1980, when we were demonstrating the original Vari-Lite VL0 prototype to various people in the large conference room in our Dallas headquarters during the fall of 1980 to various people, Yoichi Aoki, a lighting designer who worked for the Dallas Theater Center, saw a demonstration and was very impressed with the VL0. Yoichi lived in Dallas but was born in Japan and he travelled back and forth between the countries promoting various business interests; as such he had many contacts in Japan. When we were initially considering licensing the Vari-Lite technology, Yoichi arranged for representatives of Marumo, the largest stage lighting manufacturer in Japan, to visit Dallas and see the VL0 demonstration. When Marumo and later Strand, the largest stage lighting manufacturer in the US and UK, expressed no interest in licensing the technology, Yoichi suggested setting up a company in Tokyo to rent the Vari-Lite equipment into the Japanese market. Yoichi found an investor, Mr. Ikemoto, who agreed to invest in the new company, named Vari-Lite Asia, for a 20% share to fund the initial rental inventory. Yoichi also hired Keizo Akimoto from Tokyo Butai Showmei (Tokyo Stage Lighting), a lighting rental company in Japan, to move to Vari-Lite Asia as President and establish the new company in Japan. Akimoto-san proved to be a brilliant leader and manager. He put together a wonderful team of people that built VLA into a very successful business with the highest profit margins of any Vari-Lite rental office. {{< StoryImage id="showco-033-keizo-akimoto-vla-1" title="Rusty Brutsche and Keizo Akimoto" caption="Rusty Brutsche and Keizo Akimoto the President of Vari-Lite Asia in Tokyo 1995." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} Employees of Vari-Lite Asia: Yoko Susuki was hired in 1984. She was the first office staff employee and she served as the company’s Accounting Manager. In the early years, Yoko handled day-to-day bookkeeping, payroll, sending out invoices and collecting receivables, paying rents and suppliers and handling employee benefit payments for health insurance and retirement benefits. Miki Sasaki joined VLA in 1987. Miki possessed excellent English reading, writing and speaking skills and she supported VLA with translations of documents and daily communications with Dallas. Hiromi Tagusari joined VLA in 1989 to help with office administration. She assisted Akimoto-san with road staff scheduling and equipment bookings. Kazumi Nemoto, a former Tokyo Butai Showmei veteran lighting designer and board operator, joined in 1984. Nemoto and Keisuke Matsuda, from Tokyo Butai Showmei, spent a few months at Vari-Lite in Dallas learning everything about VL systems, including operation and programming of the system as well as assembling and repairing the units. Kazumi pioneered creating designs and techniques for using VL in concerts and TV shows in Japan.

{{< StoryImage id="showco-kazumi-matsuda-vl1-assembly-1984" caption="Kazumi Nemoto and Keisuke Matsuda assembling Vari-Lite VL1 luminaires in Dallas 1984. Kazumi and Keisuke were chagrined to discover upon their arrival in Dallas that their \"training program\" consisted of assembling several hundred VL1 lights! Photo courtesy Kazumi Nemoto." credit="Photo courtesy Kazumi Nemoto" size="large" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-japgohome-party-1984" caption="Kazumi Nemoto and Keisuke Matsuda at their inappropriately named \"Jap Go Home\" farewell party at Vari-Lite Dallas after the completion of their \"training program\" 1984." credit="Photo courtesy Kazumi Nemoto" size="large" >}}

Reiji Koshigoe, from Tokyo Butai Showmei, joined VLA in 1985 as electrician and electronic technical expert. Akio Watanabe, from Tokyo Butai Showmei, joined VLA in 1985 as a lighting operator and designer. Akio did many TV shows and concert tours of major Japanese artists for many years. There were several more people from Tokyo Butai Showmei who supported VLA as VL operators and technicians and did many shows in the first five years but never became VLA employees. We also hired people other than from Tokyo Butai Showmei. Hiroyuki (Hiro) Hosojima was introduced by Yoichi Aoki and joined VLA in 1984 as an electronic technician and shop manager to maintain the VL systems from the very beginning. Hiro worked in a small garage in the parking space of the original Hiroo building where all of the VL systems were stored and repaired. Hiro was instrumental in assisting communications in English with American engineers, operators/technicians and Japanese counterparts in the early years. Yoshihiro Tsuchiya was a freelance lighting designer/operator who learned about VL and moved to Tokyo to be a VL operator. He joined VLA in 1988. Jun Umemura joined VLA in 1988. He was a lighting designer/operator who formerly worked for Kyoritz, a large lighting service company in Japan. In addition to working with regular VLA clients, Jun operated a lot of theatrical works, using Vari-Lite luminaires, including Super Kabuki, the series of Kabuki performances lit by automated lighting fixtures. Hiroaki Nishimoto (Nishi), a devoted Genesis fan, decided to change jobs and came to VLA in 1988. Nishi worked as a touring lighting technician for the first five years, then became a shop technician. Atsushi Sasatani joined VLA in 1989. He was a lighting designer/operator who did a lot of concert tours using a large number of Vari-Lite luminaires. Shin-ichi Koshiya was a veteran lighting designer who joined VLA in 1990 to work as the operations manager. Koshiya-san managed the day-to-day operations at the VLA Technical Center, handling all of the equipment logistics and personnel arrangements. All of the lighting designers/operators who came to VLA by the end of the 1980’s had been working for lighting service companies or as freelance. After around 1990, VLA started to hire young people who had just finished studying stage lighting or performing arts in colleges. Therefore, the younger staff at that time had no experience handling conventional lighting equipment such as dimmers and PAR cans and started fresh working only with Vari-Lite automated fixtures at VLA. Some members of the US Vari-Lite staff worked closely with VLA in the early days. These people included Tom Littrell, Jim Waits, Robert (Gersh) Gershenfeld, Dale Polansky, Rusty Lowrey and Erick Dismuke. Fuminori Kobayashi, formerly an executive with the Kenwood Corporation, who had extensive experience working internationally and who spoke English was personally recruited by Akimoto-san to serve as President of Vari-Lite Asia after Akimoto-san retired in 1998. Kobayashi-san was an excellent executive and leader who performed exceptionally well as President of Vari-Lite Asia.

{{< StoryImage id="showco-edit-vari-lite-asia-photos-04_at-akimoto-retirement-party-tokyo" title="Keizo Akimoto retirement party 1998" caption="Left to Right, Fuminori Kobayashi, Rusty Brutsché, Kazumi Nemoto, Loren Haas and Miki Sasaki at the retirement party for Keizo Akimoto 1998" credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-supplemental-image-09-vla-t-shirt-with-all-location-names" title="VLA staff tee-shirt" caption="One of many tee-shirts produced at VLA for staff and promotions. All of Vari-Lite’s international offices are listed. Akimoto-san carefully selected the font for each location to give the atmosphere of each city around the world." credit="Photo Courtesy of Hiroshi Adachi" size="medium" >}}

Akimoto-san loved to travel and spent his retirement years going to many foreign destinations that were on his extensive bucket list. He was fascinated with the cultures of other countries. One year we held our annual Vari-Lite International Distributors Conference in Bandera, Texas, “The Cowboy Capital of the World” and we all stayed at the Flying L Dude Ranch in Bandera. When I was growing up, my parents took our family for two weeks during the summer to a dude ranch in Bandera named the Peaceful Valley Ranch. On Saturday night we would go into town in Bandera to the Arkey Blues Silver Dollar Saloon and Dance Hall where they had a large dance floor and a live country western band. I was fascinated with the live music and the owner of the Peaceful Valley Ranch, Art Kitzman, gave me an old acoustic guitar that was the beginning of my life-long love of music that directly led to the founding of Showco. So on Saturday night during the Vari-Lite conference, we all went into town and visited Arkey Blues. The dance floor was full of the local cowboys who were all decked out in their Saturday night finest of starched western shirts with pearl snap fasteners down the front and on the pockets, cowboy hats and cowboy boots and crisply starched Wrangler jeans with a wide leather belt with a large silver buckle and they were all doing the two step on the dance floor with their partners. Akimoto was totally fascinated with the scene and he began recording with his Sony video camera. He asked me if the people on the dance floor were actors. I explained that everyone he saw was from Bandera and most of the men were actual cowboys that worked on the local ranches, hence the Bandera nickname of “Cowboy Capital of the World”. Akimoto was amazed that the cowboy culture was still so alive and well in Texas at that time and he never forgot the experience. {{< StoryImage id="showco-arkey-blues-silver-dollar-saloon-bandera" caption="Arkey Blues Silver Dollar Saloon in Bandera, Texas, circa 1990, where Akimoto-san was impressed with cowboys and cowgirls dancing the two step while listening to a live country western band." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="large" >}} Akimoto-san passed away in 2013. Here is an excerpt from the parting words compiled by his friends and shared at Akimoto’s Farewell Gathering on June 23, 2013 after his passing: “From the moment he “set foot in the world of lighting” until his retirement nearly half a century later, Mr. Akimoto devoted himself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of excellence in stage lighting. His intellectual curiosity and breadth of interest were boundless—film, history, travels, literature, painting, current affairs, baseball, home-made smoke preserving, videography, and English conversation, to name only a few. A passionate reader and keen conversationalist, he possessed a deep knowledge of many subjects and an infectious enthusiasm for discussion. He delighted in conversation over coffee and a cigarette, or a drink shared among friends. A free spirit who cherished independence and authenticity, Mr. Akimoto lived life with warmth, humor, and integrity. On May 6, at the age of seventy-eight, he brought to a close a remarkable life filled with achievement and creativity.” ## The Development of Vari-Lite VL2 and VL3, Artisan Console & Series 200 System 1984-86 We designed several versions of the VL1 luminaires and VL1 control system during the years 1981-1984 as we expanded the worldwide inventory of Vari-Lite equipment to over 800 VL1 luminaires and 45 VL1 control systems. In 1984 we decided to begin a development project to design a completely new generation of Vari-Lite equipment. The new equipment consisted of the VL2 spot luminaire, the VL3 wash luminaire, the Artisan control console and the Series 200 ACS power and signal distribution system. The VL3 was the lighting industry’s first automated wash luminaire and it featured a cross-fadeable color change mechanism that used the patented pivoting dichroic color filter system that Jim Bornhorst invented in the VL0 prototype in 1980. The control architecture of the Series 200 system was also radically different from the VL1 control system where the console stored all show cue data in the console memory and broadcast all of the control parameter data to each light for every cue recall command from the console. In the Series 200 architecture, each Series 200 luminaire contained a microprocessor to control all functions of the light, onboard memory that stored all of the cues that were programmed from the Artisan console for a given show for that particular luminaire and a bi-directional high-speed datalink that provided control and cue recall commands in one direction and status feedback in the other direction from each luminaire in the system to the Artisan console. When the Artisan console programmer executed a cue recall command, the Artisan console would broadcast the cue number to all of the lights simultaneously and each light would execute its programmed set of commands, if any, for that cue. The Series 200 system was designed to control very large numbers of automated luminaires with instant, lag-free response to cue recall commands from the Artisan console and the computer power of the system expanded as lights were added to the system because of the microprocessor in each light.

{{< StoryImage id="showco-vl2-spot-luminaire-1986" title="Vari-Lite VL2 spot luminaire" caption="Vari-Lite VL2 spot luminaire introduced on the 1986 Genesis world tour." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" previewSize="large" lightboxFull="true" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-vl3-wash-luminaire-1986" title="Vari-Lite VL3 wash luminaire" caption="Vari-Lite VL3 wash luminaire featuring a cross fadable dichroic color changing mechanism introduced on the 1986 Genesis world tour." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" previewSize="large" lightboxFull="true" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-artisan-control-console-1986" title="Vari-Lite Artisan control console" caption="Vari-Lite Artisan control console introduced on the 1986 Genesis world tour." credit="Photo Recovered Showco Archive" size="medium" lightboxFull="true" >}}

The introduction of the new Vari-Lite Series 200 system was scheduled to debut on the 1986 Genesis tour along with the debut of the new Showco Prism sound system. We continued to develop many Vari-Lite products until 2002 when the Vari-Lite manufacturing operations were sold to the Genlyte Thomas Group. Jim Bornhorst will discuss those products in his Vari-Lite memoir.

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Showco History