Viewing page 3 of 6

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:09:14]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
So how are they gonna pick you? You know, you hope that they pick you out of the book.

[00:09:16]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
Um, as far as small neon manufacturers like myself and my father, one-man/two-man shops, they are non-existent.

[00:09:27]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
But there are hundreds of shops that advertise neon.

[00:09:30]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
Oh, so there's no actually handmade hand-bent glass here in the city?

[00:09:38]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
No, there are other neon shops in the city, but as far as like small traditional passed-on neon shops there's a couple at best.

[00:09:48]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
Most of the shops are big shops with guys that are just paid to be glass-benders, and all those guys do is bend glass all day.

[00:09:56]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
And of course, they got salesmen who do the selling and layout people to do the layouts, yada yada. Um.

[00:10:02]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
Whereas small, traditional, one-at-a-time, we know all our customers individually kind of shops are pretty non-existent in New York.

[00:10:12]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
And if I might add, most of these companies they'll keep people working maybe like on a production line,

[00:10:18]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
maybe one person will be making a U-bend, maybe somebody's going to make a double-back or a splice, so everybody really doesn't know the whole craft in the other sign companies.

[00:10:27]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
Right, they keep them at a certain level that way.

[00:10:29]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
And then what happens is these people, maybe they'll get some experience and they're fed up with the factory scene and they open up a business on their own.

[00:10:36]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
They'll produce some glass, and it'll work for a while --

[00:10:39]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
A lot of straight lines --

[00:10:39]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
Eventually, it's not going to work anymore.

[00:10:44]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
And that's when Robbie's recommendations come in. Most of our business is done on recommendations and word of mouth because that's the way New York is.

[00:10:51]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
Things just travel through the streets.

[00:10:52]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
Robbie is now known as just Robbie Lights. Not Artistic Neon, oh you have to have Robbie Lights make your sign.

[00:10:58]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
You know, he does it right. He's gonna do you right, it's gonna work for you.

[00:11:03]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
Um, if you're on a street and maybe your signs are broken all the time and you're looking across the street at someone else's store who's been there,

[00:11:09]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
and you never see a problem with his neon sign, you're gonna go in there and say "Hey, who makes your sign" and most of the times maybe it's going to be Mr. Robbie here making it.

[00:11:17]
{SPEAKER name="Robbie Ingui"}
Hopefully.

[00:11:18]
{SPEAKER name="Teresa Ingui"}
Making good signs that doesn't break.

[00:11:21]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
Is it one more question? I just want to let everyone know if you guys have any questions at any time for any of the artists up here just shout out and we'll try to answer it.

[00:11:27]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
One other question is just that now that New York has kind of changed in the past few years,

[00:11:32]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
people have seen Disney move into Times Square, and some people have complained about that, a lot of mom-and-pop stores have closed down.

[00:11:38]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
When you have those big corporate chains and that sort of stuff in the city, does that change the business?

[00:11:43]
{SPEAKER name="Elena Martinez"}
Um, change the kinds of signs you are making or the kind of clientele that you work with?