NICKY BIGGS
The hardest working man at the recent 2018 Gentlemen’s Club EXPO at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is also the guy who had the coolest name at the show.
Nicky Biggs.
Sounds like the name of a platinum-record-selling LA rapper or a Detroit drug kingpin. It’s definitely a cool-ass name that’s easy to remember.
And the owner of that name lives up to the second half of his name. My guess is Nicky is at least 6-foot-5 and close to 300 pounds. He’s a huge guy, one you would love to have backing you up if you accidentally spilled your beer on a Hell’s Angel in a dive bar.
Nicky is a former industry DJ who is now consulting with clubs about upgrading or installing sound and light systems in their venues. Through his company Nicky Biggs Entertainment, he combines his years of experience working in the clubs with his contacts at the major sound and lighting manufacturers to custom design the best production packages for adult nightclubs.
So why was he the hardest worker at EXPO 2018?
Well, Nicky volunteered to design, deliver, set up and run the Mainstage at the EXPO 2018 Tradeshow for us and he did just that in spectacular style. He filled a 40-by-40 foot area with staging, trusses, speakers, microphones, video walls, 3-D mapping and a whole lot of hardware items that I don’t even know the names for. The end result was an action-packed stage that feature entertainers performed on during the Tradeshow and where DJs made show announcements and directed attendees to specific company booths on the Tradeshow floor. We do the Mainstage each year to keep the Tradeshow lively so show attendees will spend more time on the floor—and hopefully buy lots of products and services from the exhibitors.
What’s remarkable is that Nicky basically built a nightclub stage on the Tradeshow floor in less than a full day. He and his team started at noon on Sunday and at 1 pm on Monday the Tradeshow opened. In that time frame, every time I saw Nicky he was a blur of motion, beads of sweat on his forehead.
It’s a minor miracle that Nicky could get all of that equipment from the outside parking lot into the middle of the casino and have it all set up—and working—in less than a half day on Sunday and less than a half day on Monday. It takes me a whole day just to put together a Home Depot barbecue grill.
Nicky had a few hiccups—a key staffer didn’t show up, the hotel whined about the smoke haze for the lasers, and the dynamic 3-D mapping wasn’t available until the second day of the Tradeshow. But Nicky didn’t lose his cool, and the show went on.
When the Tradeshow opened on Monday and one of the entertainers was working the pole on the Mainstage and the DJ was playing a rousing rock song, I went over and talked to Nicky, who was finally standing still for a minute. I thanked him for doing the Mainstage and asked him how everything had gone.
Here’s what he didn’t say:
“This was a lot of work.”
“I had these problems.”
“I better get some business out of this.”
No, Nicky Biggs didn’t say any of those things. What he said to me was, “Are you happy?”
Because that’s what mattered most to Nicky Biggs.
A class guy.
