President Tyler Phillips recaps BSC Expo and Whites February Freeze

Valerie Taylor |

And, “We’re back, we’re back”… to quote the famous Dave Donaldson of Grip Tips!

It was a long trip starting off in London for the BSC Expo and then making our way through Europe and all the way to Toronto for the Whites February Freeze show!

These were two of my favorite expos, where we got to meet the best of the best in two great countries. The BSC Expo was fantastic! We got to work with our partners at CirroLite to show off the latest and greatest and reintroduced legacy products like the award-winning Max Menace arm. Martin, Joey and I had a great time talking shop with customers and looking at the “wow” faces of people who had never seen Max at work holding a large 65-lb Kino Flo LED 20 feet in the air over the main walking isle of the show.

The BSC Expo was packed with grips, gaffers, DoP’s, camera techs and operators from all around Europe. And CirroLite…Wow! What a fantastic group of humans who really know their craft and are absolutely fantastic to work with. We are so blessed to have such great partners on that side if the pond!

The Whites February Freeze…wasn’t as “freezing” as previous years!  As always, it was great to see and spend a good amount of time with my Canadian brother and our Canadian rep, Brian Collins. The Whites show was packed with a couple thousand of our closest friends. It was really a special event to attend as we kicked off our 50th year in business, and to celebrate my dad’s life and his many accomplishments.

And there was a big announcement from our dear friend and Chairman/CEO Paul Bronfman who announced the sale of Whites to Sunbelt: “This transaction with Sunbelt is a watershed moment for me personally and Whites. As Canada’s production industry undergoes exponential growth, Whites faces our most exciting chapter in the company’s history over the next few years. I feel the timing is right for Whites to align itself with a firm that has the resources, scale and culture to create growth opportunities for our employees. This enables the business to better serve our customers’ ever-expanding needs and allow Sunbelt to take Whites to the next level. The deal is in the best interest of Whites and my employees.”

Congratulations to my friend Paul as well as the new owners at Sunbelt on this new venture and chapter. 

Sincerely,

Tyler Phillips

Pictures from the Freeze: