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A Short History of BP

How did we get here? That’s the question you ask yourself when you’re looking back on a long journey. But really the path is a quite natural one from musician to lighting designer to business owner. For Troy Bishop-Petty, owner and founder of BP Lighting Sound & Video aka BPLSV, connecting his creative outlets came about overtime. A guitar conservatory student and then working musician, led Troy to spend years touring in the US and Canada. It was somewhere in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada that Troy started buying lighting gear to enhance the show of his band. He was able to combine his knowledge and love of music with his creative and artistic flare for the visual aspects of performance. It was combining these talents that created the foundation for BP Lighting Sound and Video.

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Once the touring ended and Troy decided to settle down in San Antonio, his hometown, he did what a lot of entrepreneurs do: start a business in the garage and max out the credit cards. And thus BPLSV was born. In the early days, it was Troy working gigs with his soundman buddy, David Seurer. They would take their gear and do shows for local bands such as Passing Strangers and The KLOCKS. He and Dave moved their gear to a small warehouse on Caribou Street, after Troy’s wife and co-owner, suggested that the garage would be a great place to park cars. As the business grew Troy bought a large warehouse and moved into the current location on Polar Bear Street affectionately known as the “green warehouse.” It seems that all the years of touring in a band in Canada followed Troy to Texas in the form of streets named Caribou and Polar Bear.Image

With the demands for larger and larger productions, BP upgraded their lighting and sound equipment and expanded the video production with video walls that their clients requested. Not only did BP have the reputation for highly professional concert production but they also expanded to accommodate the production needs of corporate and church clients. The integration of lighting, sound and video is what has allowed BP to continue to grow and include installations and integration of AV control to their repertoire. Now Troy and a team of talented lighting designers, audio engineers, and video techs work together to meet the needs of an array of clients, including the sports teams, bands, corporate and church clients and special events.

But don’t think that Troy’s gone Hollywood after 30 years in business or that he has forgotten his humble beginnings. On any given day, he’s meeting with clients, drawing lighting plots, working in the warehouse with his friends, loading gear into trucks and helping customers with a rental order. Of course his favorite job is checking in the back-line gear, when it’s returned to the shop. After all, you have to test out the guitars, preferable at high volume.