The Early Days

The first couple of gigs as Knees TVs were rough on the back end, to say the least. My setup was a patchwork of cords my mum had owned since before I was born, the camcorder she had used to film me as a baby, and old wooden boxes with peeling paint to stack the TVs. I even used black bed sheets to cover the tangled messy wires. It wasn’t the cleanest or most professional setup, but it worked… most of the time.

I always brought more equipment than I needed because I’d often have to scale back my original plans. Something would inevitably not work, or I’d run out of time during setup. There were plenty of moments when I’d leave a gig feeling like I could’ve done better. But no matter how chaotic things got behind the scenes, the reactions of the people who saw my TVs made it all worth it. Seeing their joy, fascination, and interest reminded me why I was doing this.

Fortunately, from my time bartending and DJing, I had a good amount of connections in the industry I was stepping back into. My first gigs were for people I already knew. DJ friends, another friends art market, my siblings band. These people had followed my journey from the start, and their trust and encouragement gave me the push I needed. Word of mouth spread quickly, and before long, I was getting job offers from people I had never met.

It wasn’t just gigs I was being approached for. Film students were reaching out wanting to use my TVs for their final projects, and established filmmakers asked if they could rent a wall of TVs for music videos. These requests made me realize there was a broader market for my services than I had initially imagined. I started thinking about CRT TV rentals and was surprised to find no one else had jumped into this space. Maybe they didn’t want to deal with the logistics of storing 20+ TVs, but for me, it was worth it.

Those first gigs were full of challenges, but they also sparked ideas that shaped the future of Knees TVs. Every moment whether it was troubleshooting a faulty connection or seeing the joy on someone’s face, built the foundation that my business stands on today.

– Knees 🙂