Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Knight.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born and raised in Dallas and growing up; music was always a huge part of my life. I played violin, piano, and I sang. Because it was such an important passion for me, I knew I wanted to pursue music as a career but I wanted to be more behind the scenes. I chose to attend Loyola University in New Orleans and earned a bachelor of science degree in music industry studies and an MBA in entrepreneurship and marketing. While there, I discovered my passion for live music and was fortunate enough to work at many of the music festivals they hold in New Orleans every year. I met my husband and business partner, Randy, at Loyola and while we were down there, we ran a sound company for a few years along with working with some big names on the festival circuit before officially moving to Dallas.
When we moved to Dallas, we stared Callisto Sound & Lighting with the mission to bring higher quality sound to the city. This is also when we started our second company, Io Audio Technologies. With Callisto, we are a service-based AVL company and with Io Audio, we are a manufacturer. Io Audio Technologies manufactures the cables and connectors that we use every day at Callisto. We discovered how expensive it was to get basic cables to run Callisto for one event and we knew we could make them for a lot less so we wanted to offer that to other sound companies and musicians as well.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s never a smooth road when you start a business, especially not when you start two at the same time. Our biggest struggles with Callisto come from being new in the market. There are several friendly competitors who do great work and have been helpful to us, but others who swore they would put us out of business in a year because they would just undercut us until we couldn’t survive. Dallas can be a very friendly but very cutthroat city so it’s always difficult to build trust with other vendors in the area.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
With Callisto, we specialize in event sound and lighting but what we’re known for is our projection mapping. This was a skill that my husband learned on his own and it’s one of the most popular services we offer. We’ve adapted the projection mapping to mostly do it on wedding or birthday cakes which is referred to as cake mapping.
What sets us apart is our attention to detail. We create all the animations in-house and we do all the mapping ourselves. Each client has the opportunity to showcase pieces of themselves in the animations so it is a much more personal service that many other competitors can’t copy.
With Io Audio Technologies, we manufacture audio and lighting accessories. We put our heart and soul into each product. We don’t skimp on quality where many of our competitors in this market do. Every cable has the same quality connectors no matter what price range you purchase in. Because we work in the live sound industry, we know where our competitor’s products fall short, so we know not to make the same mistakes in our manufacturing process. We have a huge amount of pride for the products we produce.
What’s next?
We hope to continue to grow and inspire others to pursue their dreams because I’m living mine and I’m so proud of the work I do to change the industries I work in for the better.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@callistosound.com
- Website: www.callistosound.com, www.ioaudiotechnologies.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callistosl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/callistosl
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVph3Cd-73wNZ1eDyd8MfNQ
Image Credits
Allen Tsai Photography Caroline Jurgensen Photography Kiss Me For Eternity Photography Celina Gomez Photography
