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I have rarely taken on a brand without meeting my suppliers, whom are actually now friends...
ZAHID R. ELIAN MD OF TRIANGLE ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES
Can you tell me a little bit about how the company first began and the motivation for creating a company such as Triangle? My parents were never involved in high-end consumer electronics, pro audio or similar business. They were, especially my mom, against that business. We first established Triangle Sound & Image in 1991 as part of the Major Holding Company, Maison Zahid R. Elian, originally established in 1904, and which dealt with everything except what we do. Maison ZRE was involved in textile, agricultural, tools, machinery, juridical and entrepreneurial affairs... and even now has one of the most prestigious furniture gallery and businesses running to date. I had a passion for AV. I’ve gathered audio and photo reviews from magazines since the age of eight. Since childhood I’ve loved high-end audio, electronics and photography, and always wanted to go into that field. I started this business once I graduated in 1991, immediately after the end of the major Lebanese war. I realised that there was a lack of choice, lack of service and professionalism in our market, so I grabbed the opportunity by starting with custom car audio, and home custom installation.
Triangle Sound & Image will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, what are the key elements to maintaining the business? Know-how, vision, perseverance, and passion to perform. These are elements that every member of the Triangle team possess to be able to go along the standards I create. The region has seen and is presently seeing many within the same field leaving the business or going bankrupt. The region is a true jungle and you have to understand it. Triangle is here to stay, hopefully for generations to come. I’ve been known to take and grab opportunities, and my vision, if shared, is bringing success to the parties involved, staff, suppliers, and clients alike.
You are highly regarded in the Middle East, representing many well-respected manufacturers such as KV2 Audio, Renkus- Heinz, DiGiCo, Rane, Samson, Griven, DTS, MDG and Antari, to name a few. What it the secret behind sustaining such relationships? Vision. Wisdom. Trust. I have rarely taken on a brand without meeting my suppliers, whom are actually now friends. I like to meet them in person, and try, on most occasions, to visit them before embarking on what I always call, hopefully a lifetime relationship.
What makes Triangle stand out from other Middle Eastern distributors / installers? Besides our strength in marketing and public relations, it’s the quality of our service at all levels. I’m personally very picky about details, and I make sure the team carries that passion for detail in their work.
You must have worked on many amazing projects, but which has been your favourite? Wassouf Club in Lebanon was an amazing project. My friend, Lebanese singer George Wassouf, asked me to design and build a complete system for his live performing club, without any interference or question on budget. This led at that time to the best sound ever done for such purpose. I recall after the first performance on opening night, he said: “Thank you, thank you thank you; the sound was amazing.”
What are your hopes for the future of Triangle? I hope my two boys (now 10 and seven) will start taking over once they’re ready. I wouldn’t push them, but I have a feeling they would be up to it and like it.
How does the lighting and sound industry compare to when you first began working in it? The main changes we’ve seen in lighting is the almost unlimited choice of brands and fixtures, offering limitless imagination for creativity in any project: fixed,
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rental, staging, or architectural, especially with LED. And most importantly the way you can control these fixtures with the advancement of communication technology via ethernet and wireless. Sound was too bulky and time-consuming to install for live performances, especially for the rental market. This has undergone substantial changes especially in line array technology, aided by the usage of the respective software for control and processing. A digital sound console includes all processing and replaces now hundreds of pounds of audio racks.
Do you have any predictions about the future of the professional lighting and audio industries? LED is here to stay for a while, and is gradually changing conventional lamps, the tough challenge I think, will be reducing significant weight, and materials with higher performance. Lighting and visuals are becoming more and more interconnected in many ways. Live performances do not consist of a band or singer and the settings, but rather a complete production, and margins of errors are no longer acceptable. For sound, the laws of physics are the limitation, and the challenge, I think, is to go beyond the conventional to apply these physics. I can’t say more, but engineers I’m sure will understand.
If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be and why? I would be me, Daddy, to be with my boys.
What is your greatest achievement? In less than four years since starting Triangle, I’d reached what other businesses hadn’t even reached in 30 or 40 years. It wasn’t easy, and still isn’t. Honestly, whenever I ‘achieve’ something, I think of it as a door to the next achievement.
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt? I’m still learning to be patient...
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