Parnelli Awards
annual awards for live event professionals and technicians
The Parnelli Awards are annual honors recognizing excellence, innovation, and leadership in the live event and concert touring industry. The awards acknowledge individuals, companies, and technologies that contribute significantly to touring productions and live events.
History
The Parnelli Awards were established in 2001 by tour manager Patrick Stansfield and Terry Lowe, founder of the trade publications Front of House Magazine (FOH) and Projection, Lights & Staging News (PLSN). The first awards ceremony was held as a small industry dinner in Southern California. Over time, it expanded into a formal annual event recognizing achievements across multiple disciplines in live production.
The awards are named in honor of Rick “Parnelli” O’Brien, a respected figure in the concert touring industry known for his work in production logistics and artist touring support, who died of cancer in 1999.
Comparable awards
The Parnelli Awards are distinct from artist-focused honors such as the Grammy Awards, which recognize musical performances and recordings. Instead, the Parnelli Awards focus on the behind-the-scenes professionals in lighting, staging, sound and production management responsible for live touring and events.
The awards are most closely related to the TEC Awards, which recognize technical achievement in audio and production across live performance, recordings, and broadcast media. Both awards are presented annually in conjunction with the NAMM Show.
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This entry incorporates text from “Parnelli Awards” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.