I don’t watch much television, and if I do, its usually “late night”. I’m always surprised to see how prominently musical equipment manufacturers logos are displayed when you see bands on programs like Late Night With David Letterman or The Tonight Show. While its true that some of these players have endorsement deals with the equipment makers, others don’t. More importantly, in most cases companies like Yamaha and Tama aren’t paying the networks directly for this tremendous exposure. Meanwhile companies like Ford and GM are paying millions for advertising on the same shows that might be nearly as effective.

Its a lot easier to get video exposure for your band than it was a few years ago. You Tube, cable and satellite TV, and other online channels mean that performers using musical equipment have tons of opportunities to be seen. If you are interested in the possibility of getting some sort of endorsement deal, try using a little well placed gaffers tape to cover up the logos of any equipment that might appear in your video.

You can be sure that if someone from Marshall or Fender sees you using their equipment with the logo obscured they will realize that they are missing an opportunity to put their name in front of lots of eyeballs. With a popular YouTube video getting millions of views, this type of exposure can rival that of a 3 minute performance by a popular artist on a network program.

Equipment manufacturers pay lots of money to popular performers to use and be seen with their gear. There’s no reason that you should miss out.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. We’ve got gaffers tape in 13 colors!

Sun Kwak, a Korean artist, is using over three miles of black masking tape to create an abstract art installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

Deploying a special six inch width black masking tape provided by Shurtape, Kwak has developed a method of applying and then tearing the tape she applied to columns in the museum’s rotunda.  This appears as wavy lines and patterns contrasted against the museum gallerie’s walls.  The effect is stunning.  To a casual observer, it looks like thousands of feet of painted patterns.

The artist has spent almost 300 hours on this installation.

After that,  its three miles of tape headed for the landfill.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Click here for lots of useful graphic arts supplies.

When comparing tapes, here are the three most important specs to check out:

1.Thickness-Gaffers tape is offered in thickness as thin as 10 mils. Choose a tape of at least 11.5 mils (12 mils is better). It won’t c-u-r-l back and stick to itself, is stronger and tears more cleanly.

2.Adhesion-“Adhesion to steel” is the quantifiable spec for determining how sticky a tape is. Look for an adhesion number of at least 60 oz. per inch to insure that the tape will hold properly.

3.Adhesive composition-The best gaffers tape uses a synthetic rubber adhesive. Less expensive products use an acrylic adhesive which is not as strong and which will not stand up to tough environments. Our comparison page includes both products we sell and others that are offered by our competitors. Hope you find it useful.

We have been a supplier for both touring companies of The Lion King for a number of years and we enjoy working with their great crews. I had been to the show in New York a couple of years ago and was anxious to see how it would adapt to a road production. Since the music, props, puppets and costumes translate well into touring halls, the bulk of the show travels well. Some of the large set pieces have been reduced in size, but that really doesn’t reduce the impact of this huge production.

Our friends Mark Colvin and Chris McKay, Lion King property masters, use gaffers tape, friction tape and other products they get from us to keep the puppets and props in the show in working order. They really have their hands full and do a great job. This show is stunning in its beauty and its complexity.

While I’m on the subject of Broadway touring shows, what’s up with the way they price tickets these days. The face value of the tickets were a reasonable (when you consider the cost of a production like this), but by the time the got into my hands, they cost considerably more.  Why so many additional added on service charges, handling fees, mystery charges, etc.? I can’t think of any other industry that prices their product this way. How about just charging an honest price and simplifying this ridiculous surcharge system!

Got an opinion about the cost of seeing a good show? Let us know about it.

This company uses the neon colored gaffers tape to label equipment cases in their stage equipment rental business.

A different color is used for each type of instrument case (e.g. neon green for drum cases, neon orange for keyboard cases, etc.) This allows for quick preparation of customers’ rental orders (they have hundreds of cases in their warehouse) and cuts the check in time when an order comes back to the shop for unpacking.

Colored Pro Gaffer gaffers tape can be written on with a Sharpie Marker, so additional information can be added to the label (e.g. exactly what is in the case, associated cases, etc.). Even further “quick identify” info can be added by using multiple stripes of one or more colors.

Gaffers tape is extremely durable and long lasting and can be removed cleanly from a case without leaving adhesive residue.

These guys keep the color red in reserve to mark incoming cases that might need to be repaired or put on the bench to be checked out for possible problems.

The colors are really handy on an event site as well, as no one else on a site that might involve a dozen or more vendors is likely to have labeling like theirs. Its quick and easy to instruct a stagehand to put all the cases with neon green and electric blue labels together. Best of all, a 60 yard roll of tape will make hundreds of labels.

Maybe you’ve got another useful labeling idea? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

So, what did I learn that I consider really valuable today?  I can coil cables, level stages, mix sound for live TV and focus lights from the top of a 20 foot ladder.  Those were all hard-won skills that served me well, but they don’t have a lot of value today.

The most valuable skill, by far, was being able to make decisions.   As a producer of large events and concerts, every day was a string rapid-fire decisions, all focused on the starting time of the show.  There was never a chance to kick around a lot of options or “sleep on it”.  There just wasn’t enough time.

Fortunately, these were not decisions of the life-or-death variety, and if I was able to get two out of every three right, I was usually a hero.  There was never the option of putting off the decision until later.  The show would be today whether I made a decision or not.  Choosing “not to decide” was the same as “choosing to fail“.

I reality, the more decisions I made in a day the more likely I was to get really good results.  Making a couple of decisions before my first cup of coffee always gave me new options that got me closer to an on time show.  That was the goal.

Actually providing good entertainment was the job of the performers and their hands on technicians.  My job was to make enough correct decisions to insure that they got to do their job.

Making lots of decisions can be risky, even painful.  Rarely will it do the sort of damage that is almost guaranteed by making no decision at all.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  I enjoy sharing good business ideas with our readers and customers. Let me know what you think.

Over the last 25 years we have continued to see consolidation of manufacturing and brand names in a process that should have made information easier to obtain, but, instead have made it more and more difficult.

In the early years of our company a roll of tape (gaffers, duct, cloth, paper, you name it) was two inches wide and 60 yards long. Seems like it had been that way forever.

The first major change was reducing roll sizes to a metric dimension (55 mm) from imperial (2 inch), but the industry continued to refer to the products as two inches.

Following that change came a number of consolidations among manufacturers and converters who held on to parts of a product’s name or description but not others. Perhaps the most obvious example came when Shurtape (which already made and branded gaffers tape) bought the rights to Permacel’s line of gaffers tapes. In addition to making their own brand of tape, Shurtape was also the maker of Permacel 665 and Permacel Professional Grade gaffers tape. A couple of years later, the Shurtape’s rights to use the Permacel brand expired, but they continued to make the product, rebranded as Shurtape A&E Gaffers Tape while continuing to make the Shurtape brand as well.

As if that was not confusing enough, lots of vendors (primarily online) continue to call these products Permacel years after the brand was gone.

Now, to add to the confusion, Shurtape and their distribution partner, Pro Tapes & Specialties, have downsized the standard roll of gaffers tape from 60 yards to 55 yards. Most web sites that sell these products still describe them as 60 yard rolls, even though they have been shipping the 55 yard rolls for almost a month.

With so much information in control of so many providers, some of whom don’t seem to think the details really matter, it is unlikely that there will ever be a “standard” roll of gaffers tape ever again.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

I was disappointed to learn that her television show was ending, but I came across an article in Front Of House magazine that made this a little less painful.

It seems that one of our long time gaffers tape customers, Special Event Services in Winston-Salem, NC was involved in producing Oprah’s last televison shows, taped at the United Center in Chicago.  SES, along with On Stage Audio put together the largest Martin Audio MLA speaker system ever assembled to provide audio support for the tapings.

If I couldn’t be there in person, its good to think that we might have insured that Oprah didn’t trip over a cable.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

Anyway, responding to complaints about mall window advertising that featured a partially clothed model with gaffers tape covering her breasts, General Pants agreed to “censor” the campaign.

Well, it’s a month later and the General Pants campaign is still making the news.  A story in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald (General Pants is an Australian brand) gives the story even longer legs.

At this point,  it is difficult to believe that General Pants wasn’t hoping for and planning for “negative” publicity from the beginning.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Occasionally we also rant!

Tape is a great tool and we’d never get the show open without it, but prices for products like gaffers tape have reached the point where some new strategies are in order.

In doing some research for my writing on this subject, I came across a great idea for a velcro-backed cable cover that replaces the task of taping a cable down across carpet with a reusable cover that will last for years.

We are looking for a manufacturer who could help us add something like this to our product line, but, in the meantime, you can make your own.

Here’s a link to an excellent YouTube video that will show you exactly how to do it.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every speaker cable we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

You don’t have to apply much thought to this before it becomes apparent that the cost of shipping has to be rolled into the cost of the product. The merchant would not be able to survive, much less be profitable, if this was not the case. “Free” is, no doubt, the most powerful word in marketing, but there is a catch. A big catch!

Customers ask us every day if we will give them free shipping.  Regrettably, the answer is always “no“.  Here’s why.

Everything we sell is heavy.  A case of gaffers tape weighs 48 lbs.  When you place an order online, our shopping cart asks for your zip code, calculates the weight of the shipment, and gets your shipping cost directly from a UPS shipping database.  This cost is added as a separate line item when you complete the purchase transaction.

We ship our products nationwide from North Carolina warehouse.  If you are ordering from Greenville,  SC your shipping cost would be $18.14.  The same order shipped to Phoenix, AZ would have a $43.19  freight cost.  If we offered free shipping, then the customer in Greenville would have to pay more for the product to cover the cost of “free” when we shipped the same case of tape to Arizona.

Following the same logic, the customer in Reno, NV who orders a pair of shoes from Zappos (they are located in Las Vegas) and pays the same price as someone who orders those shoes and has them shipped to Norfolk, VA is paying more for the shoes than is necessary.  That’s because they have to cover  Zappos’ costs when they ship something across the country.

I don’t know when or if the “Free Shipping” craze in e-commerce will fade from fashion, but I do know that it is not free.

Share your observations on free shipping.  We’ll pass them on to our readers.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Every extension cord we sell is “Satisfaction Guaranteed“.

This involves churches that hold services in spaces not normally intended for worship. Holding church services in a storefront, a school auditorium, or a hotel meeting room is nothing new. It has been going on for years, and it is the way many churches get started. Building a church is expensive, and until there are enough members to sustain the cost, some temporary space is necessary. This is not the trend I am talking about.

What I am talking about is a church service focused on youth that is done as a full blown concert experience. This means a full band with a concert quality sound system, high end lighting, video image magnification and special effects. The whole set up loads into a local arena or amphitheater like a regular show and is run by church staff members who are experts in various areas of special event production.

Having to set up full sound, lighting, video and staging is a tremendous amount of work, but bringing their message into an environment where young people are open to new ideas is proving to be really effective.

We salute these technicians in their efforts and are proud to be a part of what they are doing.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

When we started selling expendable audio visual supplies over 20 years ago, I didn’t really expect that I would someday find myself closely tracking agricultural commodity prices.  Little did I know.

Apparently, that gaffers tape we sell by the pallet load is made of the same cotton as the pair of Levis you are probably wearing.  Well, it seems that the cotton that Levi Strauss buys for their mills to make your pants has increased in price by 80% since July and the cotton futures market suggests that more increases are in the pipeline.

You’ll see this price increase reflected in any cotton clothing you buy and it is going to impact the price of cotton cloth tapes as well, probably before the end of the year.

Flooding in Pakistan, poor crop yields in India and bad weather in China all impact the price of this raw material.  Things are so bad this fall that even veteran cotton traders are surprised at what is happening in the market.  They now think it may take a couple of years before world supply can again match demand.

Oh, don’t let me forget the rest of the story.  The other major component in gaffers tape is a synthetic adhesive made from oil.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

My Facebook page

Little did I know, these games (and others) are generating huge income for a company called Zynga.  Zynga develops incredibly popular social networking games and they make their money in an amazing way.

It appears that those who play the games are willing to pay real money for “virtual” goods.  That pink tractor my friend was bragging about having-it turns out she paid $3.50 for it.  Yes, the $3.50 was real, but the tractor is not.  Zynga needs no warehouses, no trucks and no maintenance facilities.  The pink tractor exists only on their servers and costs essentially nothing.  The bulk of their costs (minimal) are tied to the credit card transaction fee for the purchase.

This article in last week’s New York Times values Zynga at $4.5 billion dollars and estimates their annual revenues at $500 million, almost all of it from the sale of virtual goods.  The Times goes on the crown Zynga “the Google of Games”.

We sell real things, and the cost of warehousing, shipping and guaranteeing them is the majority of the cost of running our business.  If we could figure out a way to sell “virtual” gaffers tape, we could become the “Google of sticky stuff“.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Got an observation about social network gaming that you would like to share with our readers?  Let us know.

The most recent (and our favorite) way to solve the issue involves something dear to my heart-gaffers tape.  It seems that much of the problem caused by how you hold the new iPhone can be solved by putting a small piece of  gaffers tape over the part of the external antenna where you might normally touch the phone.  This keeps your hand from interfering with the antenna transmission.  (CBS News video of this solution)

Naturally, we are intrigued by the fashion statement that your choice of gaffers tape to stick on your new $300.00 smart phone would make.  Pink for Pink.  Neon green for Al Green,  and, of course,  black for Steve Jobs.

I was pretty excited about this potential new market, until I realized that a single roll of gaffers tape would be enough to handle every iPhone in North America.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Got an iPhone 4.  How did you fix yours?

Their most recent adventure is building a duct tape bridge, a potentially death defying project.  The episode aired May 12 and you can watch it online.

While it’s unlikely that any viewer would actually build a duct tape bridge fifty feet up in  the air (it took over 200 rolls of tape), this high profile promotion of the strength of duct tape might lead someone to take on a less challenging but possibly just as dangerous project.

One of the many things that the show fails to point out is that there are many different strengths of duct tape and some of the tapes most easily obtained are the ones with the least strength (and the lowest cost).  Failure to understand what these specifications related to strength mean could make a project like one you see on television turn out with very different results if you do it yourself with the wrong tape.

As long time sellers of duct tape (25 years and counting), we are always happy to see this lowly product get good publicity.  We don’t, however, believe that all publicity is good publicity.  It’s one thing to make a prom dress from duct tape and quote another to trust your safety to a product you know only generically as “duct tape”.

This Mythbusters episode has generated some interesting discussion in the physics community (real science!) about duct tape.  If you’re interested in following up, click here.

If you’re interested in the different specifications that are used to measure and compare duct tapes, take a look at this.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.  Bringing duct tape to the masses since 1986!

An article in Pro Sound News about Harman International caught my eye over lunch.  It was about Harman’s finances and it was as dry as toast.  I read every word.

Why?  Because Harman’s customers are my customers.  This company that did almost $3 billion in sales last year sells some of the most desirable brands in pro audio.  If you use equipment from makers like JBL, Souncraft, Crown, dbx or lots of other well known brands, you are a Harman customer.

Harman reported a decrease in pro audio sales of 26% in their last quarter.  If your sound business is not strong enough right now to buy a new JBL line array, then you are probably not doing enough shows to need a lot of gaffers tape.  If a new AKG wireless mic is not on your shopping list, then you probably aren’t going to be ordering ProCell batteries for it.  No dbx processing gear means no Hosa patch cables.

Two years ago the stock price for a share of Harman International was $100.00.  Yesterday, it closed at $37.00.   That’s up almost 10% since the first of this month and a near doubling of the price since October of last year.

How goes Harman, so goes the pro sound industry.  We wish them well.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.   Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Here’s a link to our new “How To” animation series.

It’s all but guaranteed that 30 minutes before the event is over, but well after dark, the bottom will drop out of the sky, promising a load out in the rain and a truck full of wet gear.

While the standard hardware store blue tarp is the industry standard for quick cover ups in the rain, they can really cause you some problems when the rain is accompanied by a stiff breeze.

A simple modification in a cheap tarp can make it many times more useful when the raindrops start falling.

Turn the tarp into a plastic bag.

Just take your tarps, fold them in half, and stitch up the edges.  If you’re not handy with a sewing machine, gaffers tape or even a stapler will work almost as well.

Larger tarps can be turned into bags that will cover up your entire PA stacks, and you can make smaller bags for covering up things like monitors.

Since the tarps can be easily cut and normally do not unravel, you can take one large tarp and turn it into a lot of custom covers for things like your consoles and amp racks.  No hemming necessary.

Since the tarps have grommets, you will have some tie down points, but you probably won’t even need them.  Since wind can’t get inside the bag, the harder the wind blows, the firmer the bag stays in place.

Make sure you label each bag with a large label (try using a Sharpie marker directly on the bag) in letters large enough to be seen in the dark.

At the first mention of rough weather, place each bag close to the location where it will be needed and instruct stagehands or volunteers how they are used.

This might well be the best piece of sound equipment you ever buy.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Lots more good ideas at our Twitter feed.

Knol is an acronym created by Google, and it means “a unit of knowledge“.

Knol is a new content creation index from Google that has a lot of similarities to Wikipedia.  Individuals are allowed to post articles on any subject of their choosing and then the articles can be commented on and edited by other users of the service.  Unlike Wikipedia, knol will allow the creation and viewing of multiple articles on the same subject and the author can control how his or her work is edited.

I first came across it through an online posting by Jason Calacanis, a highly regarded web guru.  Mr. Calacanis went to great lengths to draw interesting and accurate between KNOL and traditional content creators like the New York Times.  These parallels led Calacanis to determine (and I agree) that this project was Google’s latest attempt (not unlike YouTube) to get into the content creation business.

It should be obvious that a business that has become the defacto provider of indexed search results faces potential conflict of interest problems if it is the creator and controller of the content it returns with its search results.

Since we are currently indexed at the top of page one for a number of  Google search terms,  I have created a couple of KNOL articles on microphone stands and gaffers tape to see how quickly Google might index them and how high they might rise in search rankings.

You can take a look at these articles here:

microphone stands

gaffers tape

If you’re interested in whether this test turns up any interesting results, check back here from time to time.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

The first several times we got online orders from “usfirst“, frankly we thought they were coming from a bank or other financial institution.  I’m glad I took the time to look a little closer.

First sponsors a national program for for middle and high school students who design and build robots  and then compete against other teams.

It turns out that they use gaffers tape to lay out the “arena” where the robots compete.  The lanes and end zones are marked with different colors of cloth tape.

You can see an example in this video.

First was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, a well known inventor and entrepreneur probably best known for inventing the Segway.

To date, First has awarded almost $10 million in scholarships.  This year they will work with over 196,000 students making up 1680 teams.

This year the national First championship will be at the Georgia dome in Atlanta April 16-18.  I hope they will take us along.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands.  We are proud to be a supporter of our local schools here in Chatham County, NC.

We’ve had pretty good success with gaining Google Page 1 rankings for key words like gaffers tape, mic stands and extension cords. There is nothing better than gaining high search engine rankings for building your web business.

Most recently, we’ve jumped to page 1 for the search term “hoop tape“(tapes used for decorating hula hoops). This on the strength of one of the smallest and least useful sites we have ever published, www.hooptape.com.

Hooptape.com is a total of two small pages which link back to buytape.com. It took about 15 minutes to build and post this site and there is almost nothing there. Why do Google and Yahoo (#1 on on Yahoo today!) rank this site so highly.

While I’m no expert on search engine optimization, I believe that the success of this site’s results in search engines is primarily based on having found a niche. There simply is not that much real competition for the search phrase “hoop tape“, yet this is term most likely to be used by someone who needs tape to decorate a hula hoop.

We’ve had comparable results with the term “Route Setting Tape“, the tape used for setting routes on climbing walls. Route setting tape is simply another name for one inch gaffers tape. Using  a name more specific to our customers needs gives us a real advantage when search engines index our sites.

Need better search results for your web site? Find a niche and Google will find you!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables. Count on us when you need specialty tape items and sound advice.

Scientists at UCLA were able to build a simple tape unrolling machine that generated enough X-ray bursts to actually image one of the technicians’ finger bones on an dental photographic plate.

This phenomenon is not completely understood nor is apparent that there is any commercial application for such technology.  A charge is generated when the tape is peeled off the roll.  Sudden jerking of the tape seems to cause electrons in the tape to give off energy in the form of protons.  A slight glow is even generated.

Next time your flashlight batteries go dead, maybe you just need to unwind (really quickly) a roll of duct tape.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables. You can occasionally also count on us for some fairly useless, if interesting, information!

The article, by Mike Lawler, features Gideon Banner of the Green Theatre Initiative .  It is one that anybody involved in using or selling expendables to the theatre industry needs to pay attention to.

To date, the green theatre movement has primarily focused on infrastructure and on conservation.  Its great that new theatre facilities building is taking into consideration concepts like solar lighting, water conversation, and environmentally sustainable construction techniques.  Unfortunately, it takes generations for these sorts of changes to work their way through the system.  Theatre buildings last for decades, and quite often they are not able to easily be upgraded in an environmentally responsible way, even if funding is available.

More immediate results can be realized from simple conservation techniques.  Upgrading lighting fixtures to LED technology, using more efficient sound system components and addressing wasteful uses of energy and water are something that every theatre facility can address every day.

My concern, honestly, is how this green movement will impact our own business.  It is regrettable that the nature of expendables means that a lot of what we sell will end up in the landfill at the end of the show.  You can’t reuse tape, and rechargeable battery technology has not reached the point where sound techs are willing to trust them in wireless microphones.

We are always on the lookout for reusable solutions for cable management and we are working with Sanyo on their Eneloop rechargeable battery line in hopes of offering this product to our customers who buy batteries for wireless mics.

We are anxious to be part of the dialog and I welcome your comments.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables.

Between the price of the petroleum derivatives in tape adhesives and the cost of trucking these very heavy products, the cost of oil impacts the cost of every kind of tape we sell. There has been some short term moderation in the price of a barrel of oil, so we are hoping that our suppliers can hold the line a little longer. It is hard to connect the price of filling up your car with what you pay for a roll of gaffers tape, but the connection is real.

After peaking at $4.00 a pound in April, the price of copper is down about 10%, closing at just over $3.60 earlier in the week. As our cable business expands, the cost of the most important, and heaviest component, in an extension cord or speaker cable has forced suppliers to raise prices several times this year. Maybe those increases are over for a little while. Hopefully, this decrease in will help battery makers hold the line as well

Unfortunately, it seems like what one market gives back, another takes away. Dow Chemical’s announcement that it will raise chemical prices by up to 20%, effective this month, is going to impact much of we sell. Tape adhesive resins, battery components and cable jackets all have chemical components, and even if Dow isn’t the supplier, most other major suppliers are sure to follow.

We are grateful to our loyal customers and will do all we can to work with major suppliers to address pricing pressure.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables.

We’ve been working with the US Volleyball Assoc. over the last year to help develop some new floor marking products. Volleyball matches are often played on basketball gym floors and this means that a temporary playing court must be laid out over the existing basketball lines. Its a lot of work!

Gym floors require a tape that won’t damage the floor finish when its removed and we have been supplying Shurtape 724 to a number of college programs for their floor.

Laying out a playing surface on a synthetic floor requires a different product. Vinyl tape works better and this is where a really clever technique comes in.

Our friends at USA Volleyball put their vinyl tape in the refrigerator. They learned that when the tape is cold it doesn’t stretch, meaning that the lines are straighter and the tape is less likely to contract and pull up from the floor. It’s a great idea and it really works.

Need some tape to put temporary markings on the floor? Check in the refrigerator!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands , Dance Floor Tape and “value added” customer service. Check withus for all your temporary floor marking needs.

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“Marley” has become the generic name for portable vinyl flooring, even though there are lots other companies that make similar products. Almost any stage manager or lighting designer will refer to the “Marley” when talking about a stage surface to dance on.

It took me a while to come up with any info on “Marley” but I eventually was able to learn that Marley was a German manufacturer who has been out of business for at least 20 years. Even though there are probably very few genuine Marley floors still in use, their brand name is still the generic term for portable vinyl dance floors. Today’s versions of this dancing surface works much better than Marley’s product but none of the current manufacturers have been able to change the term used when talking about dance floors.

I guess we will continue to call our dance floor tape “Marley Tape” as long as this is the term the dance industry uses. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands , Dance Floor Tape and “value added” customer service.

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I recently came across an online ad for duct tape that listed this information under “roll length”.

60 Yds.-180 Ft.-55 Meters

Yes, a standard roll of duct tape or gaffers tape is 60 yards, or 180 feet, but that is not the same as 55 meters. 55 meters is longer than 60yds. Just a little longer, but nonetheless, it helps me make a point.

Tape manufacturers seem to constantly mix standard and metric measurements at will, usually to serve their own purposes.

The width of a roll of gaffers tape was two inches for decades. Simple, easy to remember, and true. About ten years ago, all the major manufacturers of this and other cloth tapes changed to a metric standard for width, and reduced the width of a roll of tape to 48 millimeters. The change was hardly noticeable on a single roll of tape but when you spread that size reduction over literally millions of rolls made by a major manufacturer in a single year, the difference was huge. It adds up to almost a full roll of actual tape in a case of 24 rolls.

By using the metric standard for width they reduced the roll size by 4%, but by not adopting the metric measure of 55 meters for length, they didn’t have to increase the roll length.

To confuse things further, the thickness of tape is measured in “mils” with “mil” meaning a thousandth of an inch. Here they mix standard (inches) and metric (thousandths).

If you’ve got any good ideas on how to standardize this system, let me know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. We’re your first choice for “Satisfaction Guaranteed” tape products.

Its a lot easier to get video exposure for your band than it was a few years ago. You Tube, cable and satellite TV, and other online channels mean that performers using musical equipment have tons of opportunities to be seen. If you are interested in the possibility of getting some sort of endorsement deal, try using a little well placed gaffers tape to cover up the logos of any equipment that might appear in your video.

You can be sure that if someone from Marshall or Fender sees you using their equipment with the logo obscured they will realize that they are missing an opportunity to put their name in front of lots of eyeballs. With a popular YouTube video getting millions of views, this type of exposure can rival that of a 3 minute performance by a popular artist on a network program.

Equipment manufacturers pay lots of money to popular performers to use and be seen with their gear. There’s no reason that you should miss out.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. We’ve got gaffers tape in 13 colors!

Unfortunately, those who moderate these forums (a thankless task, I know) have become so concerned about members using their forums to sell products that they are denying their membership the chance to take advantage of some of the most expert opinions available in the marketplace.

We have a very large product user base of stagehands and theatre techs, and almost every problem they face is going to cost them something to solve. Why deny these hard working technicians access to information from those who know these problem solving products the best.

I tried for a while to post solutions and start legitimate discussion on some of these forums, but I was constantly being threatened with banishment because the moderators did not want any links in their forums to any commercial sites.

Here’s a couple of quick examples.:

A number of theatre techs were discussing how to best remove adhesive residue from cables. I’ve done a lot of this and we sell a product that does the job really well. A link to this product on one of our web sites might have saved somebody a lot of time. Not Allowed!

I came across a post from a church sound technician who was concerned about poor battery life in her wireless microphones. It turns out that the church was using old-style carbon batteries in an attempt to save money. A simple link to buybattery.com where we sell the most highly regarded wireless mic battery around at very competitive prices might have been of real use to this person. Not allowed!

I understand the need to control spam and prevent postings from people who are selling something completely irrelevant to the discussion, but as long as these forum moderators attempt to block information from those who have the most to offer, they are not serving their members the best they could.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

Shurtape now has a new 130,000 square foot distribution facility in Hickory, NC . That’s room for a whole lot of tape. This new center has 45 foot ceilings, 33 loading docks, and there is room to grow. The Shurtape facility is the anchor tenant of the Catawba Industrial Business Park a 45 acre development in Catawba County.

Shurtape’s acquisition of the Arts & Entertainment division of Permacel, along with their strategic alliance with Pro Tapes and Specialties assures that they will be at the center of these rosy growth projections.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Count on us to meet your pressure sensitive tape needs.