Graeme fell for theatre on trips with his grandparents to London's West End, where he saw The Lion King. Years later he would work with it and right next to it in Hamburg, assigned to the Stage Theater an der Elbe for the German-language production of Disney's Mary Poppins. That's where he earned his rigging certification, one of the most sought-after credentials in theatre.
The technical side started even earlier: summers in middle school as an IT assistant with his dad at the high school. When they needed someone to run the light board, they called him first, because it's basically just a computer, right? Lighting, digital audio and live broadcasts of concerts and sporting events followed, and so did a never-ending pursuit of the ultimate technical test.
A U.S. Department of State scholarship took him to Germany: studying in Cologne, working in Hamburg and at Oper Frankfurt, then a summer traveling through 17 countries for the culture, the food and all the beauty in the world. Back home, he earned a triple BA from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point in Theatre Arts (Design & Technology), German Language & Literature and International Studies, with a 4.0, the Chancellor's Leadership Award and the Albertson Medallion, given to fewer than 1% of the senior class.
He trained as a lighting designer, but the toolkit grew. He mixes on everything from large analog desks to fully digital Dante consoles: one wired microphone, a whole band, or dozens of Shure Axient Digital wireless packs in a crowded RF space. He runs camera and live video production on multiple systems, including live keying and graphics. He's proficient in English and German, functional in Spanish, and gets by in Portuguese and Italian.
Then the tour bus. Then the ocean.
Since then: a North American tour for Netflix's Bridgerton, a season at sea with MSC, corporate A/V for national clients, multimillion-dollar weddings with Events By Design, and his own company, Gross Events.
