Great news for my company... I haven't seen it so busy in the Live Events Industry as it was in 2017 in several years. How refreshing! You seemed to have given us enough time to book great AV technicians for your shows, our technicians came through and took every call they could take even though they were on their 70th hour that work week. Hey, it's overtime after 40 hours at our company. Why? Because we play by the book... The Department of Labor book that is. Hourly employees have to be paid overtime after they work 40 hours within a work week in most states in the country. The only state I know of that you have to pay overtime after 8 hours in a day is of course, California! The great unfriendly to businesses state of California. There are so many laws there I will never open up an office there. I should never say never, right? I have been thinking about it so let’s say, not right now anyway. If there is a need out there please give me a call and let's talk about it.

It was back to back, overlapping and lots of smaller av shows and what I mean by smaller shows are av crew calls of 20 or so technicians, for a 7-day period. We did have 2 huge shows where we had to provide 20 V1's and 20 A1's for Super Meeting rooms in Boston, one was in the spring and one in the fall. Of course, they went off without a hitch. IC has such a deep resource pool of professional av freelancers to pull from, it wasn't hard to do it well! IC has 32 years of experience booking freelancers and I know so many of them locally and nationally that they want to work with us and are proud of being a part of a great show that IC is involved in. Still, the biggest need in the industry are the technicians that do the load ins and the set-up of the shows. The audio visual guys that work the physical end of the business. The set-up crews. That is the toughest job and that is where we know you need the real experts and experienced live event technicians. So, we place them accordingly.

Dan Walker our FIeld Operations Manager did it all! I have heard clients say, "you can't do it without him". Yup that is our infamous Dan Walker, the leader of the pack! He is loved by everyone. He works so hard for me and has since 1994. He came on full time in 1999. I remember when he couldn't take freelance work because he had to take his kids trick or treating, he is now a Grandfather. The man is a legend... Thank you to Dan and his crews!

As some of you know I faced one of the toughest times in my business ever this year. We faced this last 4 months virtually without an accounting department. It has been really tough going for me. We were and are behind in invoicing as all I could concentrate on was getting payroll out on time and out the door during the busy season. Now I need cash! I apologize for the delay in getting our billing out to you but we are getting caught up and appreciate all of our clients for pushing payments through early for us, sending checks by Fedex, giving us credit cards to make faster payments so we can continue to be in business! I can't thank all of you enough. It has been a great year even with this vicious terrible attack on my business and on me. It is personal, no matter how you don't want it to be. I have cried too many times for it not to be personal. I'm better and I'm moving on!

All and all it has been a great year for Immediate Connections and HireMeDirect.com. I do hope the business continues into the new year and it certainly seems like it will as we are still getting some good business for December. We are planning our Christmas party for the 13th of December and as usual I will be taking time off around the holiday to spend with my wonderful family. Hoping to go to Florida for a short trip. I'm wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and a safe and happy new year. Thank you for your business! And to all of my important technicians I wish you a happy holiday and a prosperous new year!

Cheers,

Patty McGoldrick

Immediate Connections, Inc. Boston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Orlando, Washington DC & New York City

HireMeDirect.com - *Anywhere you need us in the country on a small scale! Book technicians on-line cost effectively, on payroll and insured!