Giants of the Fest: L&R Security keeping the fest safe
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — When you think of Jazz Fest, you’re probably thinking of the great food you’ll eat or the awesome bands you want to see, but never about security. And that’s a good thing!
When you head to Jazz Fest, you can’t miss the folks in the yellow and blue shirts posted at the gate, in the parking lot and just about everywhere you look on the Fairgrounds. Ensuring that you have a good time is L&R Security, who, by the way, had an unlikely start.
“We didn’t know we were going into business. In 1975, when I went to work for the dome, there was a guy called Frank Hayward, came to use me and my partner, Odell, and said I need some people fore Jazz Fest,” said L&R Security President Ed Robinson Sr.
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That arrangement worked until the partners decided they could strike out on their own, but Robinson admits they had a lot to learn.
“They gave us a contract and we had no business license, we had nothing. We were paying people cash at the end of the festival and all, and then, eventually, we actually wound up getting our license in 1978,” said Robinson.
Lessons were learned, and just as the fest grew, so did L&R Security, working hundreds if not thousands of events throughout the country, including 11 Super Bowls. Robinson runs the company with his daughters these days, and Jazz Fest remains their baby, but it is a gargantuan effort.
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“Starting like late December, early January to start prepping to get enough people in. We have to gather about 500 to get the 300 that we need,” said L&R Security Vice President Edris Robinson-Dupard.
The Robinsons have help! The blueprint to pull it off was designed and executed by their late mother, Octavia. It’s a success plan that’s worked for decades but also put food on the tables of families throughout the city.
“It’s really, really worth it, knowing that we’re helping people, and they also get to experience the Jazz Fest too, something that they normally don’t get to do,” said Robinson-Dupard.
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