What were you doing prior to joining Lightpower in 1981?
Firstly I listened to my parents who did what all parents of rock 'n' roll addicted kids told them to do - learn a proper profession. Immediately after school I trained for three and a half years as an industrial manager. I finished in 1978 and then had another three years commercial experience which was very helpful when I first joined Lightpower.

Why did you join Lightpower?
To join Lightpower was the opportunity to continue on a professional level, what was started as a hobby in the early '70s - to be on the road with local bands. The two founders of Lightpower, Leo Howelkroger and Jurgen Proppe, who started with an official trading licence 1978 as a 'weekend' lighting hire company, started Lightpower for the same reasons. We knew each other for a long time so when they needed some help - they were both brilliantly practical but not so good commercially - I took over the responsibility of the sales activities as a partner.

You took the unusual decision to sell artificial plants when business was slow in the 1980s. How did this happen and did it work?
During this time we had reduced the rental business to become very active with the follow up of 'Saturday Night Fever' - installing lighting into discotheques. When the 'UV-fashion' started, we not only had requests for light sources but for UV-active decorations as well. Of course my partners thought I was crazy - as all technicians would have done - when I additionally started to sell white, artificial plants. But because nobody else took this chance, for a long period we had the whole market for ourselves. So we were well prepared with the trade of all kinds of artificial plants, when the first recession reached the German disco market in the early eighties. This was a crazy time for us - that we could compensate poor technical sales in Germany for fully equipped artificial palm-gardens in Tunisian tourist hotels!

At what point in the 1980s do you think Lightpower became a real force?
We became a real force when we realised that our best attributes were sales and marketing in combination with sophisticated technical products. This happened for the first time in 1983/84 with Safex fog machines and their non toxic, water based fluid. After Gunther Schaidt, the Safex-owner, together with Rosco's Stan Miller, were awarded with a technical 'Oscar' for this invention in Hollywood in 1985, we created our first international success as their distribution partner. This success, which is still running in Germany, was increased step by step to reach today's distribution level of twelve international leading brands.

How did the launch of MA Lighting come about?
This is quite an amazing story. After having started selling the MA 24 and 48 channel desks in 1987, we were looking for bigger touring boards as well. During that period this was not easy because the other 'beauties' such as Avolites, CELCO and Compulite were already with distribution partners. But during a visit to the 1988 Plasa Show, an alternative was shown. A company named DLD presented a product with 180 channels in Real Level Memory Mode plus a 5 channel Moving Light Option. Considering that during this time the Golden Scan 1 from Clay Paky was the first buyable, industry standard moving light, this hybrid-console-concept was a revolution. To be ahead in competition, we bought that console - the DLD 6502 with serial number Lightpower 001 - and proudly presented it in Frankfurt at the Musikmesse in spring 1989. At the time this ambitious concept had a lot of bugs but it was creating a lot of attention in the industry. So Michael Adenau, the founder and co-owner of MA Lighting, came to see the desk on our booth. After a while he said: "We don't have such a concept but we do have a new - and working - big touring console. And you seem to have the right visions. Why don't we work closer together?" We took this chance at once and a short while afterwards we started the worldwide distribution of the MA Lighting range, whereas the two remarkable DLD talents - Nick Archdale and Tom Thorne - released the Wholehog some years later. The history of this famous family is in our company's product archive and our personal relationship is still very good.

Why did you begin the Open Days in 1994?
We wanted to show our individual understanding of service and communication quality. Not primarily talking about commercial ideas, new product features and daily business, where we normally use the exhibition platforms or direct customer visits, but to arrange a real 'competence' transfer for our professional users and customers. Competence meaning experience and knowledge, and this to be transferred by independent and objective personalities in our market. This could sound self-important and we are and shall stay a wholesale company. But more than just distributing leading products, we are selling tools and solutions for best performances. Those results are impossible to imagine without the people behind the scenes. More than this we all are part of a 'people industry'. Our Open days, with all their facets, are dedicated to this mental state and only here can we be authentic.

What made you decide to create Rainbow Colour Changers GmbH?
We did it for the same reason as we created the MA Lighting International GmbH. If a brand's name is known all over the world, nothing can change this image. Even the people working for these brands must have the possibility to feel this identity. Of course everybody knows that these companies are ultimately Lightpower subsidiaries but this is less important. And to be honest, what 'Rainbow' is cannot be explained to the responsible project people of the 'Theatres on the Bay' in Singapore as they have never heard of Lightpower before.

What about Lights & Color?
This is a sad story. Although Lights & Color prepared the German market for the upcoming LED techniques which started three years ago, the success of this company was mainly on the image side but not on the profit account. At the end we had to recognise that we could not be a project company for Color Kinetics' ideas and the other product activities could in no way justify keeping up the whole structure of an independent company. Beginning this year we moved back L & C's core business into the Lightpower. This does not effect our Pulsar sales activities. Quite the reverse - the Chroma Range is doing better than ever before.

What are you most proud of during your time in the industry?
The foundation of CP & P in '91. Even if today Lightpower's good reputation is for our own achievements, this concept, which I initiated for Clay Paky and Pulsar, created a highly successful partnership in the lighting industry.

Any regrets?
Not really... with the exception that some market principles, which were valid in the past, are disappearing more and more. Copied products are booming today and the market seems to accept this way down - not aware that plagiarism can never regenerate progress.

Any products you would have liked to be involved with?
We have been involved with many leading products so there are none that I wished I had been involved with that I hadn't. But the moving video/light philosophy shall cast its spell over some of us...

Where do you see yourself in ten years time?/B>
Now I am 46 years old and I must have been around 25 when I thought about that question for the first time - obviously with no definitive result. Despite that, I admire those entrepreneurs like Ken Sewell who made a clean break but I am still so fascinated by our industry and the upcoming challenges that I shall try to stay where I am at the moment for the next few years.