BUSINESS: COMPANY PROFILE
Vivid
Driven by passion L–R: CMG’s Aaron Taylor, Tobi Pinazza and Steve Biermann
Established just five years ago, CMG has grown into a dedicated Meyer Sound rental house and full-service event company. Caroline Moss looks into the success of the relative newcomer
The CMG team greet their new Meyer Sound Leo system at the Wollongong warehouse CMG AUDIO VISUAL WAS FOUNDED IN JULY 2015 BY four business partners: Aaron Taylor (managing director), Tobi Pinazza (general manager/technical director), Steve Biermann (chief financial officer) and Ben Wright (director of marketing and partnerships). Heralding from diverse professional backgrounds, CMG’s management team offers a broad skill set to its Australian clients. The concept of launching a new audiovisual company grew from humble beginnings, namely a friendship that developed between Taylor and Pinazza who met while attending local events in the regional town of Wollongong in New South Wales. The pair discovered a common and defining interest: while Pinazza had almost 15 years’ experience in senior technical roles in Australia and overseas, including stints on cruise ships and as general manager of a production company, Taylor had a passion for AV and lighting products, having purchased, experimented with and traded in a range of equipment since his early twenties. By 2013, this had included the purchase of his first-ever Meyer Sound loudspeakers – a pair of UPA-1Ps – which were supplemented by a set of USW-1P subwoofers later that year. By 2014, when Taylor’s fledgling Meyer
CMG’s truck stage is in demand for outdoor events Sound inventory was enhanced by the arrival of a compact Mina curvilinear array, an idea had started to form that would define the beginning of a new era for Meyer Sound in Australia. The duo had identified that Meyer Sound’s next-generation Leo family of loudspeakers was not being represented in the
Australian touring and events markets, despite experiencing much success overseas. Seeing the opportunity this provided, in 2015 they teamed up with Biermann and Wright to launch CMG Audio Visual with Australia’s first Meyer Sound Leopard linear line array and 900-LFC system. The company moved into its first office and warehouse space in Montague Street, North Wollongong, shortly thereafter. “The Meyer Sound Leo family of systems was already very successful in international markets, and we were confident that the strong demand and brand preference experienced overseas could be replicated locally,” says Pinazza. “There was an opportunity to be the first to bring these best-in-class, highperformance line array systems to Australia and, to date, this decision has proved a success for our business, much to the satisfaction of our clients.” Following its official launch in 2015, CMG delivered mainly charitable, not-for-profit and local government and community events throughout regional NSW. This quickly led to much larger corporate events, launches and private functions, as well as a series of shows and live performances across Sydney, Wollongong and further afield. These include the Vivid Sydney festival of light and music, multi-stage festivals such as Subsonic Music (Newcastle) and a series of arena shows ranging from Grease – the Musical in Perth to national ballroom dancing championships across the country. “A special event for us that’s close to home, and that we’ve delivered since our establishment in 2015, is the i98 Illawarra Convoy,” says Pinazza. Held every year in November to raise funds for local children and their families who are affected by serious illness and disease, the event is one of Australia’s largest one-day fundraisers. In 2019, it raised AU$2.76 million with the participation of more than 750 trucks and 900 motorbikes, plus an audience of over 10,000 at the Family Fun Day and fundraising concert that marked the end of the convoy throughout the Illawarra coastal region of NSW. By 2018, CMG had launched CMG Touring, a dedicated Meyer Sound rental company, adding a mid-size Lyon linear line array and 1100-LFC system to its inventory and moving to larger premises three times the size of the original space to accommodate its growth. The new investment underlined the team’s passion for delivering audio experiences and commitment to the Meyer Sound family of products. By now,
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