“Nothing else really looks like [neon],” craftsman Billy Tam tells Business Report in a feature from the current issue. “It’s just really distinct.”
What’s also really distinct is the way businesses and consumers are shifting from traditional neon lights to light emitting diode, or LED, lighting. As a result, Tam is one of the few remaining neon craftsmen in south Louisiana. Like other glass benders across the country, he no longer works as a full-time employee, but as an independent subcontractor pulled in for intermittent neon jobs.
A lot has changed in the sign world since Tam began his career more than 30 years ago.
“In the late eighties, I worked in Orlando, sometimes pulling 12- to 14-hour days doing neon,” Tam says. Projects there included a 14-by-40-foot billboard for Sea World that featured magenta and blue neon trimming the famed orca, Shamu.
After a few years, Tam and his wife returned to Baton Rouge to be closer to family. He continued in the neon sign industry. However, business gradually has diminished. Over the last several years, due to the rise of LED lighting, neon has become a niche business staffed by a shrinking number of craftsmen.
“LED has definitely started to take over. It’s cheaper and nearly service-free,” says Jay Graham, owner of Thompson Electric Sign. “Society is more conscious about energy consumption and longevity, and that has played a tremendous part,” as LED consumes less power than neon.
The transition from neon to LED has been gradual, but recently picked up steam, Graham notes.
“Initially, LED modules were expensive and unproven, so there was a delay in people making a wholesale change,” he says. “But beginning about five years ago, it’s pretty much become LED.”
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