Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guests today are the brain trust and owners of
Speaker 1: Bottle Rock. This is audio only. There's three guys here.
Speaker 1: Maybe a little confusing, but why don't you introduce yourselves
Speaker 1: briefly one by one maybe people can get the voice
Speaker 1: associated with the name.
Speaker 2: My name is Dave Graham and that is my voice. Jason,
Speaker 2: your next.
Speaker 3: Okay, Hey Bob, this is Jason Scoggins.
Speaker 4: Well I'm justin Drigo. So nice to meet everybody.
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, you know, toss up for twenty as they
Speaker 1: used to say on gi College Bull. What makes Bottle
Speaker 1: Rock different from every other festival? Well, where do.
Speaker 2: We want to start? Justin, Jason, I guess we can
Speaker 2: start at kind of. We always call it our fourth partner. Well,
Speaker 2: we're partners with Live Nations, so it's actually our fifth partner,
Speaker 2: and our fifth partner is probably the most powerful partner
Speaker 2: we have, and that's the Napa Valley. And I think
Speaker 2: what differentiates us is that we're at that intersection of
Speaker 2: food and wine and music, and so everything we do
Speaker 2: as it relates to the customer experience is in line
Speaker 2: with trying to deliver on that kind of brand expectation
Speaker 2: of the Napa Valley, what people think about the Napa
Speaker 2: Valley before they come, what they think about, what they
Speaker 2: wanted in terms of what they want to do when
Speaker 2: they're in the Napa Valley. We try to bring that
Speaker 2: to the festival and then add music. Justin is really
Speaker 2: in responsible in large part just Casey two for the experience,
Speaker 2: and so I kind of jumped in and spoke about
Speaker 2: a lot of the work that the two of them
Speaker 2: do to create that experience, which is pretty pretty hard actually.
Speaker 1: Okay, justin conventionally it's about the lineup at festivals, except
Speaker 1: for very elite festivals like Colla, not everybody is nap
Speaker 1: affluent or is that wrong? Is Napa a draw into
Speaker 1: itself so that you can sell tickets?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think it's more of what Dave was referencing about
Speaker 5: the standard of quality that we're looking for. It doesn't
Speaker 5: necessarily have to be someone that associates with the Napa
Speaker 5: Valley brand itself. But when people think in Napa Valley,
Speaker 5: generally they're thinking about things that are done well and
Speaker 5: done the right way. And and then let's say it
Speaker 5: was a restaurant or let's say it was this food
Speaker 5: and wine, or it was a spa, or it was
Speaker 5: you know, you have it. There's a level of quality
Speaker 5: expectations that whatever the subject is.
Speaker 6: If you're going to do it NAPA, you're going to
Speaker 6: do it right.
Speaker 5: And so that's really the mindset that that Dave reference
Speaker 5: to that we've we've been after. So even if you
Speaker 5: don't reference or like have an affiliation for Napa Vallee
Speaker 5: and you don't drink wine, but.
Speaker 6: You don't even have to, you know, you know, you
Speaker 6: don't have to resonate.
Speaker 5: With the brand itself, but when you get there, you really, hey,
Speaker 5: this place is different, this festival is a little different.
Speaker 5: Like what does that mean to some people? Means Hey
Speaker 5: there's more shade. Hey it's really clean, and hey it
Speaker 5: feels real safe, and you know it's really comfortable and
Speaker 5: it's there's no dust and so those aren't necessarily NAPA
Speaker 5: Valley brand attributes, but it's really more that you call
Speaker 5: it that quality standard that we try to hold ourselves to,
Speaker 5: and it doesn't necessarily tie the NAPA, it ties to
Speaker 5: the quality.
Speaker 1: So who comes to Bottle Rock, Jason, do you want
Speaker 1: to hit that?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 7: Hey, Bob, Well, I mean Yeah, Justin was about to
Speaker 7: say people of all ages.
Speaker 3: I think that's a fair statement.
Speaker 7: I mean, in terms of the demographic or regional demographics,
Speaker 7: it's you know, eighty percent Northern California attended festival. You know,
Speaker 7: so from Silicon Valley and San Francisco to Sacramento people
Speaker 7: are coming to Bottle Rock. And then in terms of
Speaker 7: the you know, the age profile, you know, we're looking
Speaker 7: at probably a bit of a unique festival relative to
Speaker 7: some of the what I would call write a passage festivals,
Speaker 7: which are you know, a much more younger demo. Bottle
Speaker 7: Rock is is a little bit more of a something
Speaker 7: for everybody type of festival insofar as you know, the lineup,
Speaker 7: all the food quality that Justin and Dave talked about earlier,
Speaker 7: in the wine quality, So you're going to attract people
Speaker 7: from you know, fifty percent of our audience is going
Speaker 7: to be from eighteen to thirty four and the other
Speaker 7: fifty percent is going to be thirty five to fifty four.
Speaker 3: Is kind of what our demo spread is.
Speaker 1: We kind of look at.
Speaker 2: It as a as a bell shaped curve, and so
Speaker 2: like if you if you're looking at a bell shaped curve,
Speaker 2: probably the mean or the fat part of the curve
Speaker 2: would be in that kind of thirty two thirty five
Speaker 2: year old range, and then there are long tails and
Speaker 2: so what We'll have a lot of young people that
Speaker 2: will come, and we'll have a lot of people I'm
Speaker 2: fifty two that'll be my age and older. But the
Speaker 2: real fat part of the curve would be around that
Speaker 2: thirty two thirty thirty f five range.
Speaker 1: And to what degree is the repeat business.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's massive, it's it's it's it's really hard
Speaker 2: to quantify because a lot of the everything's purchased with
Speaker 2: with credit card tickets with credit cards, of course, and
Speaker 2: what that means is that one year I might just
Speaker 2: buy four tickets for myself and my family, and the
Speaker 2: next year my wife might buy, you know, the tickets
Speaker 2: for us. But generally we know that the customer is
Speaker 2: a repeat customer because prior to the announcement of our
Speaker 2: lineup each year, we sell out of of of all
Speaker 2: levels of our our VAP tickets and our suites through
Speaker 2: our loyalty loyalty.
Speaker 5: Sales, and roughly maybe half of the GA tickets are
Speaker 5: also sold without anyone knowing the lineup yet, you know,
Speaker 5: it's like one of those is the lineup important or not?
Speaker 5: The lineup is massively important still, I know you were
Speaker 5: referencing that there's other things, but it's because people expect
Speaker 5: a big lineup from.
Speaker 4: What we're doing.
Speaker 5: They know that we're going to invest the money and
Speaker 5: the right type of artists, and so all these tickets
Speaker 5: sell ahead of time. It's like, oh, the artists, you
Speaker 5: are not that big a part of it. It's like
Speaker 5: the artists are massively a part of it, and you know,
Speaker 5: kind of we're held to that same quality level and
Speaker 5: all these pre sale tickets and even though they're buying
Speaker 5: a ticket before they know the light up, but they're
Speaker 5: counting on us to deliver a top line up every year.
Speaker 1: So if the higher tier tickets sell out through the
Speaker 1: loyalty program, to what degree do you feel pressure to
Speaker 1: deliver a different experience from what you've delivered previously.
Speaker 6: I guess I could comment on that whether whether we've ever.
Speaker 5: Got this expectation from a fan or not, or whether
Speaker 5: we just started this ourselves, which which is what we did.
Speaker 5: Was it was really a plan, and we've done this
Speaker 5: every year to change the VIP experiences significantly enough each
Speaker 5: year that if you said, oh, I've already gone plat
Speaker 5: at ball Rock Guard, you know what that is. I've
Speaker 5: already done the VIP experience. I know what that is.
Speaker 5: I don't need to go next year. But if every
Speaker 5: time you've gone it's been different, then you realize if
Speaker 5: you skip a year, you're going to miss out on
Speaker 5: something right, and you're going to see it in the
Speaker 5: photos from your friends. So so we you know we uh,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say we like invest a totally different amount
Speaker 5: of money every year. We just take the same amount
Speaker 5: of and invest it in a different way each year.
Speaker 5: So we take a lot of time to come through
Speaker 5: that good question.
Speaker 1: Can you give me a couple of examples.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's there's a there's a theme to it
Speaker 5: in these lounges and like you'll see the Platinum Lounge
Speaker 5: and the Platum Lounge might go from everyone walks into
Speaker 5: a Platum lounge, that's a that's one of the higher
Speaker 5: the highest ticket ticket type that we have, and they
Speaker 5: see it and it's like a New York speakeasy from
Speaker 5: the nineteen twenties or you or say something like that. Right,
Speaker 5: it's got to stir and feel to it. Like you
Speaker 5: could be you know, in you know, Lower Manhattan, etcetera.
Speaker 5: And the next year you walk in and you could
Speaker 5: be on the beach in Cabo Saint Lucas, Right, it
Speaker 5: could be like a Baja beach team. And it's the
Speaker 5: same ticket in the same place, but you create a
Speaker 5: different energy around it, and then we octivate different fan
Speaker 5: experiences based on kind of what that theme is for
Speaker 5: the year. So it's still in the same place, it's
Speaker 5: still generally has the same attributes in terms of the
Speaker 5: seating and and we do the food and such.
Speaker 6: But they're walking into an entirely new.
Speaker 4: Design every year.
Speaker 5: And we do the same thing with our via well
Speaker 5: color vip fhillas as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if it's Cabo or New York, what experiences
Speaker 1: might be attached to that to make it unique on
Speaker 1: the theme?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I mean, for example, and I think we
Speaker 5: might have even chatted about this with you another time, Bob,
Speaker 5: Let's say, with that New York experience and that you know,
Speaker 5: kind of that speakeasy vibe and you focus some tastings
Speaker 5: on like you know, rare bourbons, you know, or it
Speaker 5: could have been more food that was more tied inspired
Speaker 5: from a New York chef. And then the next year
Speaker 5: I mentioned it's the same place, it's the same ticket,
Speaker 5: it's the same you know, overall feeling a luxury.
Speaker 6: But if I had that more like Baja name, we're going.
Speaker 5: To compare like a bunch of highest end tequila right in.
Speaker 5: What it really is the difference between you know, Don
Speaker 5: Julio in nineteen forty two and pass Azul and five
Speaker 5: others like and let's have you sit down and taste
Speaker 5: and pick them apart and see which one you like.
Speaker 5: It's it's not that someone needs to go to a
Speaker 5: music festival.
Speaker 4: It tastes tequila, but.
Speaker 5: It's kind of an unexpected thing and you know, and
Speaker 5: certainly an unexpected lower equality we're trying to bring to
Speaker 5: just you know, get people to say that's different.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the very beginning of the
Speaker 1: fan experience. Let's assume the festival is mature, which it is. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have to do any advertising? What do you
Speaker 1: do to make people aware of the coming year?
Speaker 2: Well, you got your typical, well kind of marketing strategy
Speaker 2: that I would say is very similar to what other
Speaker 2: festivals would do.
Speaker 1: But then.
Speaker 2: Throughout the year, as you're leading up to the festival,
Speaker 2: you've got announcements that you make with partners that you
Speaker 2: bring on that are at the restaurant level, that are
Speaker 2: at the food level, sorry, at the wine level, at
Speaker 2: the call it culinary stage level that everyone waits for
Speaker 2: and everyone anticipates. And so these are kind of, let's
Speaker 2: put it this way, like if we're talking about the
Speaker 2: culinary stage, everyone is waiting to see who is going
Speaker 2: to be on the culinary stage. And I can unpack
Speaker 2: with the culinary stages for those that don't know.
Speaker 1: What it is.
Speaker 2: But we release that that announcement in the form of
Speaker 2: an ad maat, and in that ad mat we you
Speaker 2: will see celebrities. You will see the very artists, many
Speaker 2: of them, many of the very artists that are playing
Speaker 2: the festival that year, and then you'll see rockstar chefs.
Speaker 1: All all build in a way.
Speaker 2: That is very similar to how a festival would build
Speaker 2: build its musical lineup. And so we make these large announcements,
Speaker 2: and then of course we do social media around it
Speaker 2: and creative kind of call it products to kind of
Speaker 2: promote that even though in many of those announcements we're
Speaker 2: not doing those and making those announcements to sell tickets,
Speaker 2: but instead just to deliver on what people are expecting.
Speaker 2: But again to Justin's point, it's going to be different
Speaker 2: every single year. The food lineup, the wine lineup, the
Speaker 2: culinary stage lineup.
Speaker 1: Okay, festival plays at the end of May. When will
Speaker 1: the first tickets be on sale for the subsequent year
Speaker 1: November of the of the of the prior year. And
Speaker 1: why November is opposed to July or February.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, we want to give people and our loyal
Speaker 2: customers the ability to actually not have to have to
Speaker 2: wait in the queue and to worry and distress as
Speaker 2: to whether or not they're going to actually get the
Speaker 2: tickets that they want. So we make it a very
Speaker 2: pleasurable experience and do multiple levels of loyalty sales for
Speaker 2: different categories of our customers, so that no one that
Speaker 2: is planning and coming to Bottle Rock that has come before,
Speaker 2: that wants to come has to be in a queue,
Speaker 2: but instead they buy the ticket within a given timeframe.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's assume I've come before. Am I going
Speaker 1: to have constant contact with you, email, whatever, or all
Speaker 1: of a sudden I'm going to get noticed that the
Speaker 1: tickets run sale in November.
Speaker 2: You're going to be notified in a couple of ways.
Speaker 2: You'll be notified via text assuming you signed up for SMS,
Speaker 2: and you'll be notified via email, and also social media
Speaker 2: will will make you aware that these loyalty sales are
Speaker 2: in the hopper.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I've signed up to be reached, but is
Speaker 1: there any follow up between the end of May and November?
Speaker 1: Do I get you an email with pictures or is
Speaker 1: it relatively quiet? And to what degree are you worried
Speaker 1: about overloading the customer.
Speaker 2: So, at the risk of being the guy that's the
Speaker 2: only guy that's talking, I'll let justin give an example. Justin,
Speaker 2: if you can give them an example of how the
Speaker 2: customer experience starts with the way in which they purchased
Speaker 2: the ticket, all the way through almost what we will
Speaker 2: call the advance of that customer, and then to the
Speaker 2: actual on site arrival and then egress and perhaps maybe
Speaker 2: use the Platinum customer experience as an example.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can give an example of that. I guess,
Speaker 4: Bob start.
Speaker 5: I guess they answer one of your questions first, in
Speaker 5: terms of do we go darker? Do we content? And Hey,
Speaker 5: the festival ended in call it the end of May
Speaker 5: or early June. Are we reaching at to them in
Speaker 5: July and stuff? So other than the what you'd expect,
Speaker 5: which is kind of a pretty deep survey process to
Speaker 5: try to understand feedback, that's what happens right after the festival.
Speaker 5: So we take that really seriously, and in fact, a
Speaker 5: lot of guests are surprised to end up saying, hey,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, I commented in on some random survey
Speaker 5: and you.
Speaker 4: Guys actually did it.
Speaker 5: So we get a lot of that, which is which
Speaker 5: is fun to hear, right, It's like we're listening to you,
Speaker 5: so we, you know, take the time to fill this
Speaker 5: thing out.
Speaker 4: So we do that right after the festival.
Speaker 5: And then you did make a comment about some what
Speaker 5: do you could you touch a customer too much? It
Speaker 5: is what we are really sensitive on that, right, So
Speaker 5: we don't send out a bunch, We don't really hit
Speaker 5: social very hard, We don't hit emails very hard in
Speaker 5: that fall time frame because we don't want people to
Speaker 5: unsubscribe frankly, right, and to get tuned.
Speaker 4: Out of it.
Speaker 6: And then then we ramp up, like David.
Speaker 5: Just mentioning in that early fall time frame, to make
Speaker 5: sure before the holidays people have a chance to re
Speaker 5: engage with the brand and re engage with the ticket
Speaker 5: sale process. And then yeah, I will go into the
Speaker 5: whole the whole thing that Da've cheed up right there.
Speaker 5: But like you know, we spent a lot of time
Speaker 5: on what is that, what is that ticket purchase feeling like?
Speaker 5: If we were a customer, what would we want right?
Speaker 5: How fast would we want it to be? Can we
Speaker 5: actually reach somebody through customer service?
Speaker 6: What is that when you get it in the mail?
Speaker 5: What does that packaging look like? And in regards to
Speaker 5: the higher end ticket sales, there's a very hands on
Speaker 5: approach to it. There's a concierge, you know, that's kind
Speaker 5: of take care you need to you know, help people travel,
Speaker 5: you know, make sure that you get you know, from
Speaker 5: the hotel in the way that you want to get
Speaker 5: from the hotel. And then you know, we're greeting you
Speaker 5: on site and there's you know, you're greeted with the
Speaker 5: glass of champagne and you're you know, showing your way
Speaker 5: through the backstage area. And it's really a handheld type
Speaker 5: process that isn't that different than some other luxury experience.
Speaker 5: You might have in the world, but it's really different
Speaker 5: what we found in the festival space. So that's why,
Speaker 5: you know, we didn't necessarily try to say we're going
Speaker 5: to have the most hands on, high service festival.
Speaker 4: That wasn't one of the goals we had.
Speaker 5: Again, they teed it up by saying, we're really just
Speaker 5: trying to try to put ourselves in the customer shoes,
Speaker 5: like what would we want here, right, what would you
Speaker 5: want if you bought a ticket at this price?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: And we just listed it out as we were a customer.
Speaker 5: You know, in the end, it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 5: simple if you just jump in the customer shoes and
Speaker 5: try to design it that way.
Speaker 1: So forgetting when these tickets go on sale in loyalty,
Speaker 1: how many different kinds of tickets are there?
Speaker 2: Well, there's there's three day GA, there's single day GA,
Speaker 2: there's single day VIP, there's three day VIP, there's three
Speaker 2: day skydapp, there's three day a platinum, and then there
Speaker 2: is well, I don't know if we want to talk
Speaker 2: about that other ticket, but.
Speaker 8: There's another merit.
Speaker 2: And then and then of course suites, and within the
Speaker 2: suites you can and Jason can really impact that. But
Speaker 2: there are two different types of levels, the VIP and
Speaker 2: the platinum.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, wait, wait, wait wait, let's go very simple
Speaker 1: by price. First, GA, everyone understands that you pay a
Speaker 1: price like a regular festival. You stand, you watch the acts,
Speaker 1: and you can buy food. The next level up is
Speaker 1: it's VIP. So what do I get? How much more expensive?
Speaker 1: So this year GA for let's call it the whole weekend?
Speaker 1: How much was GA for the whole weekend?
Speaker 2: So GA, roughly, if you're talking three day, is about
Speaker 2: four hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the next step up from there.
Speaker 2: Well, then there's a single day GA, which is two hundred,
Speaker 2: and then the three day VIP is the next step up,
Speaker 2: and that would be about twelve hundred dollars, and then
Speaker 2: the single day VIP would be just under five hundred.
Speaker 1: Okay, I pay my twelve hundred dollars. What am I
Speaker 1: getting for twelve hundred dollars? If the GA people are.
Speaker 2: Not getting I'm going to let our VIP guy describe that.
Speaker 5: Justin I will, and then we're gonna By the way above,
Speaker 5: you'll you'll find this out. It didn't matter what question
Speaker 5: you answer, any three of us could I answer any
Speaker 5: question that comes up. So I feel like that Jason
Speaker 5: answers one of these. I'll see this one up just
Speaker 5: because it's VIP and I'll give the answer to that.
Speaker 4: But then, Jason, I'm going to make you talk after this.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so in general, the GA and we.
Speaker 5: Can you Actually this comes as a surprise because of
Speaker 5: the focus on or I guess the tension that gets
Speaker 5: paid to the VIP experiences. But you know, we put
Speaker 5: a majority of our investment the last couple of few
Speaker 5: years into the GA experience. So we have a goal
Speaker 5: to say someone shouldn't feel like, oh I got a
Speaker 5: GA ticket right and then to it. But it's going
Speaker 5: to be just as clean. It's going to be the
Speaker 5: same sidelines, it's going to be all the shade and
Speaker 5: all the things you might expect. But to answer your
Speaker 5: question on the VIP things that we do, so we
Speaker 5: build this thing called the VIP Village, which essentially is
Speaker 5: just like a broader lounge area. And what does that
Speaker 5: really mean. It means you're gonna have seating, and you're
Speaker 5: gonna have shade and kind of the the I guess
Speaker 5: just you know, basic comforts.
Speaker 6: Of of you know, being an.
Speaker 5: Outdoor event all day in that in that VIP tent though,
Speaker 5: is something they've touched on just a little bit where
Speaker 5: we have private performances so in the artists, and the
Speaker 5: artists are obviously compensated, uh for this, but is an
Speaker 5: extra play. So if someone's on the main stage, say
Speaker 5: at four o'clock, they might do an extra performance just
Speaker 5: for the VIP guests and it's kind of an acoustics
Speaker 5: strip down. They might play three songs, might pay four,
Speaker 5: might pay five, a little bit, whatever they want to do,
Speaker 5: but they engage in a really close intimate proximity to
Speaker 5: the guests that are in VIP. So that's definitely a
Speaker 5: key part of the VIP ticket. The VIP guests, you know,
Speaker 5: get upfront viewing. You know, you're kind of a right
Speaker 5: up right up near the front of the stage. There's
Speaker 5: these elevated decks on both of the main stages, so
Speaker 5: there's like elevator.
Speaker 4: So it's essentially it's elevated viewing.
Speaker 5: It's better bathroom, it's the VIP lounge, it's the VIP performances,
Speaker 5: it's up close viewing.
Speaker 4: It's preferred parking that you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to go back a step. What's capacity? How
Speaker 1: many are GA you know, how many are.
Speaker 3: VIP Dave, You're probably looking at that, so go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, sure. I mean the capacity in general is
Speaker 2: is roughly around forty four thousand a day paid, and
Speaker 2: we do a mix of VIP and and GAS, you know,
Speaker 2: but we really lean towards like single day tickets. So
Speaker 2: the total number of tickets that will sell this year
Speaker 2: will be roughly seventy seven thousand tickets, and you'll roughly
Speaker 2: have call it, ten thousand VIPs at different levels per
Speaker 2: day within that, and then the rest would be ga.
Speaker 1: Okay, why would people buy a single day as opposed
Speaker 1: to a three day Well, I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons.
Speaker 2: One would be that maybe they're coming to the Napa
Speaker 2: Valley and they want to experience the Napa Valley in
Speaker 2: addition to Bottle Rock. So they come to Bottle Rock
Speaker 2: for one day and then they decide to do wine
Speaker 2: tasting the next day. Number two is, you know, Napa
Speaker 2: is kind of off the beaten track. Depending upon the
Speaker 2: time you leave let's say San Francisco, it can take
Speaker 2: you an hour, it can take you two and a
Speaker 2: half hours. And so if you leave at the right time,
Speaker 2: it can be quick, and it can be a fun
Speaker 2: experience just for the day. The third would be perhaps
Speaker 2: you're coming in as a ga and you know the
Speaker 2: hotels situation can be difficult and nap up and can
Speaker 2: be pricey, and so maybe that's not within your budget
Speaker 2: staying the night at a hotel and going to the festival.
Speaker 1: And so for those reasons, a.
Speaker 2: Lot of people will will opt for the single day
Speaker 2: and we've kind of embraced that and turned kind of
Speaker 2: some of those difficulties that that customers have coming to
Speaker 2: Napa Valley because it is off the beaten path and
Speaker 2: hotel rooms can be hard to get to and expensive
Speaker 2: into a strength and and and and so if you're
Speaker 2: going to sell out and you have a fixed capacity, financially,
Speaker 2: it makes more sense for us to sell more single
Speaker 2: day than three day because you'll have a higher growth
Speaker 2: on the box office overall over the three days. And
Speaker 2: if you look at what the average pers spend would
Speaker 2: be for customer on a single day basis, it's much
Speaker 2: higher on average than what it is a person coming
Speaker 2: for three days would spend each day on average.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the VI I P experience
Speaker 1: you talked about like these acoustic performances. Would the VIP
Speaker 1: customers be notified of that or would they just have to
Speaker 1: be near where the performance takes place when.
Speaker 2: It occurs, justin you want to hit that.
Speaker 5: Sure, Yeah, there's a yeah, so they customers know that's
Speaker 5: part of the ticket type. Again, there's a lot of
Speaker 5: there's no one thing that sells the ticket and gets
Speaker 5: all the loyalties, so you'll hear a lot of it,
Speaker 5: whether it's changing the design or incorporate the artists experience.
Speaker 4: So and so I just know that we're not hanging
Speaker 4: our head on any one of these things.
Speaker 5: It's the combination that really, at least we feel will
Speaker 5: drive the long term loyalty to it.
Speaker 4: But they're they're aware that this is.
Speaker 6: Going to happen.
Speaker 5: So does someone know what what artists are going to
Speaker 5: perform when they buy the ticket? No, but they know
Speaker 5: there's going to be these intimate performances and then they'll
Speaker 5: find out through the app and through email correspondence as
Speaker 5: we get really close to the festival. Sometimes the hardist
Speaker 5: we don't know exactly who's playing what timeslot because these
Speaker 5: are only short, very short sets like we mentioned twenty
Speaker 5: minutes or so thirty minute.
Speaker 4: Sets, and so we release it up and it's.
Speaker 5: Kind of a it's like a little bit of like
Speaker 5: a holiday present for someone to unwrap. Like they know
Speaker 5: they got a ticket and they know what's coming next week,
Speaker 5: All right, when are they going to when are they
Speaker 5: going to tell us who the private performances are, you know,
Speaker 5: and it's something and we're not selling any extra tickets
Speaker 5: because of the tickets have already been sold a long
Speaker 5: time beforehand, so people get excited about that. And then also,
Speaker 5: like David mentioning on the culinary stage, it kind of
Speaker 5: works the same way, where all the tickets have long
Speaker 5: been sold out by the time we announced who's on
Speaker 5: the culinary stage, and so it doesn't mean that that's
Speaker 5: not something that the fans.
Speaker 4: Are excited for.
Speaker 5: They already bought the ticket, but they just they can't
Speaker 5: wait to, you know, figure out what's also part of
Speaker 5: their experience the when the headline up is revealed.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I have a g A ticket, I have
Speaker 1: access to the culinary stage absolutely, Okay, v I P.
Speaker 1: What's the next level up from V I P.
Speaker 5: I'm laughing because it suggins you want to you want
Speaker 5: to answer that or you won't be sure.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make Jason answer a question.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's forcing me. This is this is Justin's world, Bob.
Speaker 7: But but to this point we all kind of overlap here.
Speaker 7: So the next level above the vi P is uh
Speaker 7: what we call the sky Deck program, and it's it's
Speaker 7: literally and figuratively above the vi P that Justin mentioned
Speaker 7: the decks that we we build uh for the festival
Speaker 7: for viewing and shade while we build a double decker
Speaker 7: on both stages, uh, and on that upstairs level is
Speaker 7: the Skydeck program where there's a hosted bar, full bar,
Speaker 7: grete wine selection, shade, seating, and just fewer people have
Speaker 7: access to that next level called the skydeck. So it
Speaker 7: makes for a much more comfortable experience outside of what
Speaker 7: we would call the larger VIP experience, and you have
Speaker 7: views on both the main stage and the second stage
Speaker 7: or the counter headliner stage.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how many Skydeck tickets are there?
Speaker 7: We sell a little over a thousand, and based on
Speaker 7: the programming that we do. Dave's responsible for the artist programming,
Speaker 7: based on the program we would do, you know, any
Speaker 7: one stage and the.
Speaker 3: Sky Deck would have.
Speaker 7: You know, half the viable audience could be anywhere at
Speaker 7: any one time, So we try to keep the audiences
Speaker 7: split up so that it always does feel roomy on
Speaker 7: each stage. So there's a great content happening on the
Speaker 7: main stage that attracts a X number of people, and
Speaker 7: the second stage would have another artist going at the
Speaker 7: same time, and that would attract a different population of Skydeck.
Speaker 1: Okay, how much does Skydeck ticket cost?
Speaker 7: I think we're at the two right, around two thousand
Speaker 7: dollars all in, Dave, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: You're looking at this particular at the price sheet, You're
Speaker 2: about right.
Speaker 7: And for that mattered, we didn't really touch on this.
Speaker 7: We're doing the all in pricing now, Bob, for whatever
Speaker 7: it's worth. So when we say these prices, we're talking
Speaker 7: about fees and so forth.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I paid two thousand and I'm in the
Speaker 1: sky Deck, do I get any wine or any food
Speaker 1: or just I have as part of that? Or am
Speaker 1: I just an exclusive location?
Speaker 3: You are in an exclusive location.
Speaker 7: You get a full hosted bar that includes a very
Speaker 7: well curated Napa Valley wine list of whites and reds,
Speaker 7: of all kinds of varietals, so cabs and pinots and
Speaker 7: Chardonnays and sat blancs, and that's all, you know, included
Speaker 7: with the ticket.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 7: And then we have you know, our our premium bar
Speaker 7: you know, well drinks you know from from Don Julia
Speaker 7: Tequila to Kettle One vodka uh, and a full suction
Speaker 7: of beers you know, from pacific O or you know,
Speaker 7: Cores or Loganitas. So this is all included in that ticket,
Speaker 7: unlike the VIP ticket which is no host if you will.
Speaker 1: And is there any food involved for two thousand.
Speaker 3: Not on the sky deck or the vip.
Speaker 1: Okay skydeck for two thousand. What's the next level above that?
Speaker 3: Justin take it away?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm sure the platum, the plant program. We referenced
Speaker 5: it earlier with the lounge. So that's a six thousand
Speaker 5: dollars ticket, and so that seems like a lot.
Speaker 4: And then people go to it and they did, all
Speaker 4: of a sudden they feel like.
Speaker 5: Hey, that's pretty that's a pretty good deal compared to
Speaker 5: when I paid it. The master's comptter, why I paid
Speaker 5: at the one race, So it is all relative, and
Speaker 5: so what do you get for six thousand bucks a ticket?
Speaker 4: So there's a lot, but I guess.
Speaker 5: To start with like where you where you arrive or
Speaker 5: where you park. You know, a lot of people get
Speaker 5: dropped with a car service with that ticket type.
Speaker 6: Or you park your car. Either way, you're doing.
Speaker 5: It backstage, and so you're literally arriving essentially like adjacent
Speaker 5: to the Hardest Village and you go on a golf car,
Speaker 5: you get your glass of champagne and welcome, and you
Speaker 5: get dropped off, you know, kind of you know, escorted
Speaker 5: through the back of the house and you get dropped
Speaker 5: up right in the back of the main stage at
Speaker 5: what we call the Platinum Mound. So in the Platinum
Speaker 5: Ound is what we referenced before. It's a it's a
Speaker 5: super large kind of air conditioned area that changes the
Speaker 5: look every year, and it also changes the food or
Speaker 5: the food changes every year as well. So it's it's
Speaker 5: food from the second that you walk into the second
Speaker 5: you leave, you know, comfort food and dessert on your
Speaker 5: way out and everywhere in between. And so there's it
Speaker 5: started out. I guess our partner there was mission was
Speaker 5: the Michelin three star restaurant Meadowood, which was in that
Speaker 5: but unfortunately burnt in the fires. Of twenty twenty twenty
Speaker 5: until we have twenty seventeen fires or as far as
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty and twenty seventeen. Yeah, Meadowood burned in
Speaker 5: the twenty seventeen fires. So we ended up changing our
Speaker 5: food program a little bit in terms of where the
Speaker 5: chefs came from. But we but we set a standard
Speaker 5: with them to say, hey, what do you expect when
Speaker 5: you go to Michelin three star wars or what would
Speaker 5: you eat? You know, what would you think of a
Speaker 5: concert there? And it really set the bar high for
Speaker 5: us and we couldn't go back from there. So we
Speaker 5: have basically had no choice but to invest all in
Speaker 5: on the food and beverage program. So it's if you
Speaker 5: name it, then we've probably served it at the Platinum Oupse.
Speaker 5: And that could be something as savory, is it's you know,
Speaker 5: the best like grilled chicken sandwich you've ever had because
Speaker 5: it's you know, made in the style that Thomas Keller
Speaker 5: does at ad Hoc in Yonville. Or it can be
Speaker 5: is you know, back to what you might expect in
Speaker 5: you know, a fancy place like it's Caviat and it's
Speaker 5: you know, there's a full oyster bar. And there's you know,
Speaker 5: every wine you can imagine. So we're serving like multiple, multiple,
Speaker 5: multiple hundred point wines, all served by master som Alier's
Speaker 5: and masters of wine. So we have like true, true
Speaker 5: wine experts that are there curating everything and then also
Speaker 5: providing the service. We end up doing those those so
Speaker 5: called specialty taste things. I was mentioning on the bourbon one.
Speaker 5: You you commented on this when we chatted, you know,
Speaker 5: a couple of months ago, but we would do that,
Speaker 5: like do you really know the difference between Papy van
Speaker 5: Weigel and some of the other premium bourbons out there?
Speaker 5: You know, let's sit down and find out, right, So
Speaker 5: people sign up for that experience, and next thing you know,
Speaker 5: they're drinking all of these multi hundred dollars bottles of
Speaker 5: bourbon and they're trying them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: We're not trying to get people drunk. We're just trying
Speaker 5: to actually walk them through a process and how they're
Speaker 5: each made. And we do the same thing with one.
Speaker 5: We'll have lines that these same people buying a six
Speaker 5: thousand dollars ticket, they actually can't get on the list
Speaker 5: to buy themselves, but they can come to Battle Rock
Speaker 5: and try it. So that's kind of been a fun thing.
Speaker 5: And again we're just going off of what feedback that
Speaker 5: customers are telling us in those surveys, and so we
Speaker 5: do really special experiences there. Other than that, it's beautiful
Speaker 5: lounge that's literally right next door to the main stage,
Speaker 5: and from that lounge, when you go out to see
Speaker 5: a show, you walk across the little bridge that gets
Speaker 5: onto the on stage viewing that elevated kind of poser
Speaker 5: deck viewing.
Speaker 4: Or you can go down to the chute and be like.
Speaker 5: Literally in the front row, so it's kind of a
Speaker 5: guaranteed front row seat when you have that ticket type.
Speaker 4: We also offer a similar viewing at the sound mix.
Speaker 5: Obviously, we all know that the sound is likely the
Speaker 5: best right at the sound mix, so we do a
Speaker 5: cocktail service and a bar for this guest at the
Speaker 5: sound mix itself, so they have multiple places to view from,
Speaker 5: they have a concierge to help them with their.
Speaker 6: Stay and their air travel and.
Speaker 5: And et cetera, et cetera. But in general, that's a
Speaker 5: rough overview of the Platinum program.
Speaker 2: One thing I would add is, you know, we we
Speaker 2: kind of really took for granted just how much our
Speaker 2: customers enjoy being whisked through on a golf cart the
Speaker 2: back of house. I mean, Bob, you're you're He've been
Speaker 2: in the music industry for so long and being back
Speaker 2: of house anywhere is just kind of the norm. But
Speaker 2: for someone that isn't from the music industry, the idea
Speaker 2: of passing through back of house and seeing artists tense
Speaker 2: and driving past this artist or that artist is really
Speaker 2: a big deal and it's just enjoyable, I think for
Speaker 2: the three of us to see the reactions on people's
Speaker 2: faces as they come through the artist compound, and then
Speaker 2: when they when they're dropped when they when they were
Speaker 2: dropped off, which is right behind this Platinum lounge that
Speaker 2: Justin was describing.
Speaker 1: It is at that.
Speaker 2: Place where they are greeted, they meet with the concierge,
Speaker 2: They're able to store their purses or whatever they want
Speaker 2: to store in their own personal locker, and then become
Speaker 2: aware of COO, perhaps of the artists they can set
Speaker 2: up a meet and greet for, and with what other
Speaker 2: kind of programs tasting tastings, et cetera they can sign
Speaker 2: up for all right then and there, it's kind of
Speaker 2: the central hub where throughout the day, if they need
Speaker 2: to get back to to to their locker, or if
Speaker 2: they need to ask questions of anyone to let's say,
Speaker 2: have a chauffeur take them home back to the hotel
Speaker 2: to get something or whatever. It's it's where they go
Speaker 2: to be just assisted at a very very kind of
Speaker 2: I want to put it high touch point level.
Speaker 1: And how many of these tickets do you sell a day?
Speaker 1: It's a complicated question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, because there's there's some there's some platinum suites
Speaker 5: as well, and we'll make Jason take you through what
Speaker 5: the suites mean for us.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, let me just stop for a second.
Speaker 1: Platinum and Platinum suites are the only other tickets available.
Speaker 1: There's nothing beyond those two.
Speaker 3: Right, there's one more.
Speaker 1: And what is that called.
Speaker 7: It's a Marriott Bombboy American Express suite ticket type that
Speaker 7: we actually created a branded ticket type for a sponsor.
Speaker 7: And we sell about four hundred and fifty of those
Speaker 7: a day, so about you know, thirteen fifty over the
Speaker 7: weekend of total people.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let's let's let's go back. I spend my
Speaker 1: six thousand. Am I ever going to have to open
Speaker 1: my wallet again?
Speaker 4: Now? Yeah?
Speaker 5: If you so we'll give you a special hat you
Speaker 5: know that's just bought, and we'll give you a lot
Speaker 5: or not.
Speaker 4: But if you want if you want some if you
Speaker 4: want some merch that's.
Speaker 5: Not part of what we're giving you for free, then
Speaker 5: that's probably the only thing there is to spend money on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, if you're in Ga, Bob, if you if you've
Speaker 7: left the platinum environments that Justin and Dave have been articulating,
Speaker 7: you're now just you'r a general admission guest, right, and
Speaker 7: if you want a beer at that GA bar.
Speaker 3: Over there, you got to pay for that beer, believe
Speaker 3: it or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, So tell me about the sweets, Jason, you're up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'll jump in on that one. So the suites
Speaker 7: program has has become a really meaningful and robust hospitality
Speaker 7: experience for a lot of different clientele.
Speaker 3: It's it's grown.
Speaker 7: Over the years to the extent of we now have
Speaker 7: thirty two individual suites each day on site. And we've
Speaker 7: created this again another double decker that we referred to earlier.
Speaker 7: This would be stage right of the main stage. So
Speaker 7: you have a double deck or structure, sixteen suites on
Speaker 7: the bottom, sixteen suites on the top. We have a
Speaker 7: whole Suites team, conciers team and suite hosts that helped
Speaker 7: manage this program. And the program essentially is a minimum
Speaker 7: package of forty tickets for one day suite and you
Speaker 7: can either be a VIP guest within that suite or
Speaker 7: a Platinum guest within a suite.
Speaker 3: And what that means is it doesn't really mean.
Speaker 7: A whole lot on the suite itself, other than platinum
Speaker 7: suites are prioritized closest to the stage, but when you
Speaker 7: leave the suite, you are either now a VIP guest
Speaker 7: to the festival or a Platinum guest to the festival.
Speaker 7: We only sell so many platinum suites, and that's kind
Speaker 7: of why Dave was saying that question is complicated because
Speaker 7: we do sell a handful of platinum suites that are
Speaker 7: part of the overall platinum body if you will, that
Speaker 7: have access to all the Platinum experiences that Dave and
Speaker 7: Justin been talking about.
Speaker 3: But I digress.
Speaker 7: That's kind of to tie that up with the sweets,
Speaker 7: you basically have an in sweet bar. You have a
Speaker 7: very curated sweet menu from local restaurants such as world
Speaker 7: Famous Mustards, a Note Tree. These are all Napa Restaurants.
Speaker 7: By the way, so many many restaurants are participating to
Speaker 7: help feed our sweets guests. The sweet host and our
Speaker 7: team work together months prior to the festival to curate
Speaker 7: the food menu. You can upgrade your bar to you know,
Speaker 7: some premium tequilas and bourbons and champagnes and wines. We
Speaker 7: have a whole reserve wine list that's part of the
Speaker 7: Suites program if you want to upgrade the wine that
Speaker 7: we are providing.
Speaker 3: Let's see here. The customer for the suites.
Speaker 7: Has kind of evolved into a mixture of both sponsors
Speaker 7: wanting that group hospitality experience in addition to their branded
Speaker 7: experience that they're providing for the festival guests out in
Speaker 7: Ga somewhere. And or we get a lot of winery
Speaker 7: partners who you know, are finding this to be one
Speaker 7: of the best experiences for like hosting their distributors, their
Speaker 7: sales teams.
Speaker 3: That are spread around the country.
Speaker 7: They bring them back to Napa Valley and throw this
Speaker 7: huge party forum at Bottle Rock and it's been a
Speaker 7: home run for our wine partners in that regard.
Speaker 1: And then you.
Speaker 7: Get you know, the fifty year old birthday party We've
Speaker 7: even had a wedding party in our suites. But believe
Speaker 7: it or not, these suites sell out prior to even
Speaker 7: the lineup going out, which is which is kudos to
Speaker 7: the team for creating that experience that people just basically
Speaker 7: always pick up their option to take that suite than
Speaker 7: the following year, well before the lineup. So it's been
Speaker 7: a home run of a program. I wish we had
Speaker 7: more where we joke around, should we build a triple
Speaker 7: decker so that we can accommodate more suite guests, But
Speaker 7: right now we're at the double decker level.
Speaker 1: So and tell me about the MX Experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a sponsored program.
Speaker 7: We've been working with AMX and Marriott bomb Bay excuse me,
Speaker 7: which is the you know, a member card for the
Speaker 7: Marriotte you know hotel program and they have been a partner,
Speaker 7: I think since twenty fifteen, where again this program has
Speaker 7: grown as well. It's in my opinion, it might be
Speaker 7: the best feat in the house. It's literally right off
Speaker 7: of stage rights downstage edge, and it's it's basically a
Speaker 7: double decker suite with lots of room for about four
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty people all in the same you know
Speaker 7: that are carrying the same wristband, and they're getting hosted bar. Uh,
Speaker 7: they're getting Michelin star food from a local chef, Ken Frank,
Speaker 7: the owner and operator of Lataku. They're getting this great view,
Speaker 7: they're getting a merch item, they're getting lockers, they're getting
Speaker 7: face painting and some fun little festival flare things that
Speaker 7: happen on this deck.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think for for.
Speaker 7: My money and some of the people that have that
Speaker 7: have bought this ticket year over year, they say, it's
Speaker 7: the best seat in the house, and.
Speaker 3: And uh, it's a it's a great experience overall.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you need like an American Express card to
Speaker 1: purchase ticket?
Speaker 7: You need a Marriott Bonvoy card that's American.
Speaker 3: That's an American Express Uh.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: And assuming you have that card, what is the fee
Speaker 1: for that?
Speaker 7: Dick that that ticket is actually on par with our
Speaker 7: skydeck ticket that we were talking about earlier, which is
Speaker 7: around two thousand dollars. Uh, So there's this baked in
Speaker 7: premium as part of the sponsorship benefits to having that ticket.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell us a little bit about the venue itself.
Speaker 4: It's really small.
Speaker 7: Since I'm on a roll yeah, it's uh, it's uh
Speaker 7: kind of when we first started this, I would have
Speaker 7: I would have let everybody know we're in downtown Napa Valley, Napa,
Speaker 7: the City of Napa. So Napa is one of five
Speaker 7: or six cities in the County of Napa, and and
Speaker 7: it's kind of the nerve center of the Napa Valley
Speaker 7: at this point in time. It used to not be
Speaker 7: way back when Justin, Dave and I were all elementary
Speaker 7: and high school kids here.
Speaker 3: We all grew up here. So it's in it's in
Speaker 3: downtown Napa.
Speaker 7: It's very close to a lot of the major restaurants
Speaker 7: and hotels. Super easy to get to when you're in
Speaker 7: downtown Napa, meaning you can walk from your hotel all
Speaker 7: you can walk from the restaurant that you just had
Speaker 7: lunch at and across the street and you're in the venue.
Speaker 7: It's at the Napa Valley Expo, which when it's not
Speaker 7: bought a rock, that's the Town and Country Fair, Kingtonias
Speaker 7: and crab feeds for fundraisers and things of that nature,
Speaker 7: which is which is kind of funny.
Speaker 3: It's got a long history here in the city of Napa.
Speaker 3: The Expo does.
Speaker 7: It's very like Justin was just saying, it's a very
Speaker 7: small footprint, which is part of the reason why we
Speaker 7: started building these double deckers to create more real estate
Speaker 7: for hospitality and VIP type programs. It's one of the
Speaker 7: reasons that we spend all year thinking about you know,
Speaker 7: entry or ingress and thinking about how guests flow from
Speaker 7: one area of.
Speaker 3: The venue to the other area of the venue.
Speaker 7: It's it's why we spend all year think about where
Speaker 7: we put sponsors and how food lines Q or bar
Speaker 7: lines Q. You know, these guys can jump in anytime now,
Speaker 7: but it's it's something that you know, we wish we
Speaker 7: had more real estate. But at the same time, the
Speaker 7: venue being in downtown NAPA and being more intimate than
Speaker 7: a sprawling, you know, one hundred and twenty thousand person
Speaker 7: festival where we're forty forty four thousand cap it makes
Speaker 7: it for a more I guess, approachable venue.
Speaker 3: So I'll stop and let Justin or Dave take a
Speaker 3: shot at that.
Speaker 1: Okay, do the expensive tickets sell out first or the
Speaker 1: GA tickets expensive?
Speaker 7: The expensive tickets sold out before the lineup even went out.
Speaker 7: This year, we sold them all before we even announced
Speaker 7: the lineup. The VIP plus tickets, every level we spoke about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let's talk about the economics if you sell out?
Speaker 1: What's the gross.
Speaker 5: Enough we were if we were I don't know, if
Speaker 5: we wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Well, you're gonna I'm gonna see it at poll Star anyway,
Speaker 1: the gross last year. I could probably look it up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, if people tell the truth and when they
Speaker 5: report it, yeah, I don't know. I guess we're we're
Speaker 5: just because we weren't expecting that question will dance around
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 4: But let's say it's it's it's.
Speaker 3: Good, and then where were you going to go with that?
Speaker 4: Let's say we said that number.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, and I'm just breaking a festival economics are
Speaker 1: different from traditional arena economics. In a festival, traditionally, you
Speaker 1: pay a flat fee for the talent, and if you
Speaker 1: sell out, it could be very profitable for the promoter,
Speaker 1: so there's a huge outlay of cash. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: question would be, we'll start from the beginning, what percentage
Speaker 1: of the revenue goes to talent?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, actually one day, I guess, and trust me,
Speaker 5: we're not really dancing around this. But what we can
Speaker 5: say is Uh, and we can go go into depth
Speaker 5: on this. Yeah, So if we sell every ticket, all
Speaker 5: these premium tickets, included every one of the seventy seven
Speaker 5: thousand that Dave was mentioning, we're still roughly twelve million
Speaker 5: dollar loss in terms of that, And it's like, how
Speaker 5: could that be possible? Well, it's like, that's the amount
Speaker 5: of money we put into this show. Is it costs
Speaker 5: so much to do what we're doing. So our model
Speaker 5: is based on yes, selling in and making sure the
Speaker 5: whole events sell that we have with these premium ticket prices,
Speaker 5: which gets us to a box office which for forty
Speaker 5: four thousand cap per day show, he is a higher
Speaker 5: box office than other festivals typically run. But given how
Speaker 5: much money we invest into all the experiences we just
Speaker 5: talked about, if it wasn't for where we go with
Speaker 5: food and beverage, and it wasn't for our sponsors, this
Speaker 5: thing would still be upside down. So so in terms
Speaker 5: of what percentage goes to artists, I go, Dave, do
Speaker 5: you want to talk about artists? But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 5: I feel like we've fit at the top of the market.
Speaker 5: But everyone, everyone, everyone feels like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a difficult market to be in because you know,
Speaker 2: you've got you're dealing with with agencies that are really
Speaker 2: using comps based on you know, arena plays and stadium plays,
Speaker 2: and they're ignoring the fact that we're forty four thousand
Speaker 2: cap versus eighty thousand or one twenty and you know,
Speaker 2: without getting the specific match, we're probably looking at somewhere
Speaker 2: around twenty percent of h if you look at the
Speaker 2: total top line revenue, twenty percent of that would be
Speaker 2: what it is we spend on.
Speaker 7: Artists and Dave, you can also fill in the gaps
Speaker 7: on that we're basically sandwich between Golden One and Sacramento,
Speaker 7: SAP in San Jose, and Chase in San Francisco, notwithstanding
Speaker 7: Outside Lands and Fox and all the Greek and all
Speaker 7: the things. So your competitive market, like if people don't
Speaker 7: know where NAPA is, we're kind of right in the
Speaker 7: middle of, you know, a really major music market.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we got a twelve million dollars shortfull tell
Speaker 1: me about sponsorship.
Speaker 3: Oh that's where I come in, Bob.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, there's a lot of different directions we
Speaker 7: could take this conversation, but to Justin's point, we are
Speaker 7: we are very dependent upon sponsorship revenue, and at.
Speaker 3: The same time, we're very.
Speaker 7: Cautious and careful and discipline about the type of sponsors
Speaker 7: that we would bring into the festival. Because of this
Speaker 7: whole brand promise, this whole brand identity that we talked about,
Speaker 7: we feel like it's very important that we curate sponsors
Speaker 7: as much as we curate the.
Speaker 3: Food lineup and the wine lineup.
Speaker 7: And that means sometimes we actually have to say no
Speaker 7: to very lucrative sponsorship deals because it's just not the
Speaker 7: right fit. And it's something you know, if you got
Speaker 7: to know us, we fight tooth and nail about I'm
Speaker 7: usually fighting for the sponsors, and Justin and Da were
Speaker 7: fighting against them, and uh and and we always end
Speaker 7: up in the middle somewhere in a good place. But
Speaker 7: you know, we we definitely need our sponsors. We love
Speaker 7: our sponsors. They actually add a ton of value to
Speaker 7: the overall festival experience. We let them do certain things
Speaker 7: that they may not get to do with other festivals.
Speaker 7: But as long as there's guardrails and and and consistency
Speaker 7: with what the overall experience for the festival is, you know,
Speaker 7: the sponsor integrations are are something that's critical to the
Speaker 7: experience overall.
Speaker 1: Okay, if we got the twelve million dollars shortfall, how
Speaker 1: much does sponsorship make up. Let's just stay close to that, close.
Speaker 3: To that, Yeah, we kind of make it kind of.
Speaker 1: Okay with sponsorship, you break even talking about the sponsors.
Speaker 1: How many are local sponsors as opposed to national or
Speaker 1: international sponsors.
Speaker 7: Well, local, being Napa Valley, we have probably you know,
Speaker 7: fifteen to twenty wineries that are all activating on site,
Speaker 7: pouring their wines, providing you know, tastings and great local
Speaker 7: Napa Valley experiences.
Speaker 3: You know many I'll digress for a second.
Speaker 7: Many of our wineries are in GA and they're in
Speaker 7: these twenty x twenty tents that you've seen at every festival,
Speaker 7: and they curate these beautiful lounges and these kind of
Speaker 7: tasting rooms at Bottle Rock. That makes GA guests feel
Speaker 7: like they're in a VIP experience that you wouldn't find
Speaker 7: at any other festival in the world. I could I
Speaker 7: could say that with confidence in terms of Bay Area sponsors.
Speaker 7: That's something that's also been important to us, you know,
Speaker 7: having Salesforce sponsor our Platinum lounge and our Platinum experience
Speaker 7: and having Cisco Systems provide why fan facing Wi Fi
Speaker 7: and and having you know, I'm a PayPal providing r
Speaker 7: f I D risk band payments all Bay Area companies
Speaker 7: has been has been something we've really tried to curate
Speaker 7: UH and it's also been something that helped with our
Speaker 7: suites program. I mentioned that earlier where these these regional
Speaker 7: you know, Bay Area companies are are not only sponsoring
Speaker 7: the festival, but they are also because they're so close
Speaker 7: to NAPA, they're in Silicon Valley, Sacramento, San Francisco, they're
Speaker 7: now bringing groups of people to part partake in the
Speaker 7: UH in the suites program as well. So that's a
Speaker 7: that's been that's been a hit for for us and
Speaker 7: and them. And then you know, we have all the
Speaker 7: beverage sponsors that you can imagine, from Mulsen Corp's brands
Speaker 7: to Diagio brands such as you know, Kettle one and
Speaker 7: and Don Julio, to Constellation brands such as Pacifico and
Speaker 7: and and Modello. Log need Is is a great local
Speaker 7: brewery that's national world They were acquired by Heineken, so
Speaker 7: you know, worldwide distribution now. So UH we're you know,
Speaker 7: we do a very good job. If I don't say
Speaker 7: so myself, I'm I'm the head of that department of
Speaker 7: bringing in sponsors and doing it the right way, if
Speaker 7: you will.
Speaker 1: Let's assume my tech company in Silicon Valley who has
Speaker 1: not made a deal with you previously, what is your
Speaker 1: pitch going to be to me? I have an unlimited budget.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter whether I want to spend it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, oh, go ahead, no, go ahead, day No.
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, like I was just
Speaker 2: thinking back to the pitch, like like Cooley Godward Right,
Speaker 2: which is a sponsor of one of our suites and
Speaker 2: actually has two suites every year at the festival, And
Speaker 2: really what they were looking for is they wanted to
Speaker 2: be able to engage with some of their best clients
Speaker 2: and prospective future clients. And so instead of let's say,
Speaker 2: going golfing with each client four times a year, which
Speaker 2: you know can be a long time and maybe not
Speaker 2: all that productive if you're a bad golfer, why not
Speaker 2: bring those particular you know fewpo CEOs to the festival,
Speaker 2: have them in your suite, interact with them for ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty minutes, but in the best way where you know
Speaker 2: they're able to see Dave Grohl sing at the same time.
Speaker 2: Hey maybe talk a little shop, maybe not. But what
Speaker 2: we found is that not only do the lawyers that
Speaker 2: work within that practice all fight to see who gets
Speaker 2: gets to go, but more importantly, they want to get
Speaker 2: in so that they can bring their own clientele to
Speaker 2: the event. So it's kind of it's win win for
Speaker 2: us because we love having them. They bring a great
Speaker 2: client talent, and so win for them because they're able
Speaker 2: to really entertain their important clients in a very unique way.
Speaker 1: Okay. Traditionally, in sponsorship in traditional venues, and there's been
Speaker 1: a long history, it's going up down. People want signage
Speaker 1: and access to what de we are those elements of
Speaker 1: sponsorship at Bottle Rock.
Speaker 3: Well, let's see here.
Speaker 7: Signage is something that we are very I guess we
Speaker 7: try to keep at a minimum. You know, there's lots
Speaker 7: of other sporting events or events that takes sponsorship that
Speaker 7: that let signage kind of go hey wire, if that's
Speaker 7: the right term. Bottle Rock we definitely, you know, work
Speaker 7: with our sponsors to make sure that they fit within
Speaker 7: the brand guidelines of the overall festival.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And it's not just a logo slap everywhere.
Speaker 7: In fact, that's kind of a trend that's going you
Speaker 7: know away, like the logo slaps. No sponsors really looking
Speaker 7: for that anymore. They're really looking for through integration, how
Speaker 7: they can add value to the overall festival experience.
Speaker 3: It's in the fan experience.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: We do things, we build things ourselves that that we
Speaker 7: allow sponsors to sponsor, such as like a silent disco,
Speaker 7: really fun activation. People are wearing headphones, uh and they're
Speaker 7: listening to a DJ, but nobody from the outside can
Speaker 7: hear what those those guests are listening to and they're
Speaker 7: all dancing and having a great time.
Speaker 3: So you know, that would be an example.
Speaker 7: We we do a club, an actual club, indoor club
Speaker 7: where we have DJs playing live sets, and you know,
Speaker 7: we'll put a sponsor integrated into the club and for
Speaker 7: drinks with that sponsor's you know, alcohol for example, and
Speaker 7: and it's kind of like the club takeover by a
Speaker 7: vodka company. We actually have a spa that we would
Speaker 7: allow a sponsor to you know, be the title sponsor
Speaker 7: of the spa, and usually that's ah, you know, some
Speaker 7: sort of makeup or uh spa related type sponsor that
Speaker 7: would take that opportunity down. But what they're not looking
Speaker 7: for is just to have their logos everywhere.
Speaker 3: They want to like be the.
Speaker 7: Name and title of an experience, and that's that's really
Speaker 7: what we've gotten good at selling. The second question is
Speaker 7: the access we You know, it depends on the fees.
Speaker 7: It depends on how many tickets they are looking for
Speaker 7: relative to the overall the overall sponsorship fee as well.
Speaker 7: Our VIP tickets sell out and every sponsor wants as
Speaker 7: many as they can get, and.
Speaker 3: We have to kind of play that tug war.
Speaker 1: Well, let me be more specific. Okay, Stevie Nicks is
Speaker 1: a headliner this year. If I'm a sponsor, can I
Speaker 1: meet Stevie Nicks?
Speaker 3: Unlikely? But there are some spots.
Speaker 7: There are some bands, and this is where Dave's world
Speaker 7: in mind collide. There are some bands artists that are
Speaker 7: willing to participate and do meet and greets, sometimes for
Speaker 7: an appearance fee, sometimes not. But you know, the higher
Speaker 7: up you go in the food chain of artists, as
Speaker 7: you probably know, it's harder to get there, get their attention.
Speaker 1: Well, what I.
Speaker 2: Would say is relative to access, one thing that we're
Speaker 2: really sticklers on and strict with is back of house access.
Speaker 2: So one thing that you'll notice when you come, Bob,
Speaker 2: is that the people that are back to the house
Speaker 2: for the most part of the people that should be
Speaker 2: back of house. And so whether you know you are
Speaker 2: a million dollar sponsor or a twenty thousand dollars sponsor,
Speaker 2: you're not going back to house. That that is for artists,
Speaker 2: that is for industry, and that is for staff.
Speaker 1: That the appropriate staff.
Speaker 2: As it relates to the meeting greets, really that is
Speaker 2: negotiated in the offer for the artists and they're basically
Speaker 2: four pieces that we negotiate relative to customer experiences with
Speaker 2: the artists as part of the offer process. And that
Speaker 2: that consists of the meet and greet. That consists of
Speaker 2: the v P performance. That that consists of the the
Speaker 2: GA jam Pad acoustic set, and then finally the culinary
Speaker 2: stage appearance. And so we start off with four with
Speaker 2: every artist, and sometimes we get all four and sometimes
Speaker 2: we get one, and sometimes we're in between. But that
Speaker 2: is part of the offer process. Okay, back to sponsorship.
Speaker 2: You say you turned people down. Why would someone be
Speaker 2: turned down?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, one example would be we had a
Speaker 7: sponsor a few years ago that was willing to spend
Speaker 7: a quarter of a million dollars with us, but they
Speaker 7: served there it was a drink sponsor. They were serving
Speaker 7: their their beverages in a plastic, single use container. We have,
Speaker 7: you know, kind of graduated or evolved our sustainability program
Speaker 7: to the extent that we have eliminated all single use
Speaker 7: plastic for example. So that would be diametrically opposed to
Speaker 7: what we were, what we would hold as a value
Speaker 7: into terms of our sustainability program, and we had to
Speaker 7: say sorry, no, thank you if you can't put that
Speaker 7: in an aluminum camp. At the same time, you have
Speaker 7: sponsors that you know, might be a consumer package goods
Speaker 7: company or a you know, a Hamburger chain or something
Speaker 7: like that, that would just be completely opposite of jokingly
Speaker 7: self deprecatingly like bougie Napa cuisine, right, we we would
Speaker 7: never have a Hamburger chain as a as a food
Speaker 7: vendor at Bottle Rock because we have a vision and
Speaker 7: discipline as to what this thing is and what it's
Speaker 7: not and and for for I think, for better we
Speaker 7: we would have to say no to something like that.
Speaker 3: Okay, on that.
Speaker 4: I guess, just on that note, just think of where
Speaker 4: we we.
Speaker 5: Have all these debates all the time, especially when it
Speaker 5: comes to turning away really big checks and just thinking
Speaker 5: of some of the biggest dollerments we've turned around. It's
Speaker 5: where you have a sponsor and they're used to a
Speaker 5: certain activation at another festival, like here's what we do
Speaker 5: at so and so, and we want to bring that
Speaker 5: activation to Battle Rock, and then we say that's not
Speaker 5: going to work, right because let's say it was we
Speaker 5: wanted to do a VIP takeover and we're going to
Speaker 5: make this the blah blah blah brand VIP experience, and
Speaker 5: then we say no, I said, well, what if we
Speaker 5: made it a huge check that you couldn't turn down
Speaker 5: For the long term brand and the image of what
Speaker 5: we're trying to do in the experience, we shouldn't take
Speaker 5: that seven figure check right now. We should actually stick
Speaker 5: to what the cost going back, like what does the
Speaker 5: customer really want here?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 5: So there's been a lot of battles and just mentioned
Speaker 5: that over time, and it's tough to turn down.
Speaker 4: Huge dollar amounts, but it's always.
Speaker 5: With the long term view to think of like, how
Speaker 5: is this thing going to be special ten years from now?
Speaker 4: How do we not screw it up.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, Justin the sponsor, beget other sponsors.
Speaker 3: This is something you always say, right like, if you have.
Speaker 7: Rolex as a sponsor and you're trying to get other
Speaker 7: brands like Rolex, you better you better stay true to
Speaker 7: that because if you if you go to a different
Speaker 7: lower level watch brand, Uh, Rolex might go away real
Speaker 7: quick because they see, oh, that's not who I want
Speaker 7: to be associated with.
Speaker 3: And that's you know, you say it better than I do.
Speaker 7: But that's that's definitely been another thought as to how
Speaker 7: we think about these sponsors.
Speaker 2: I remember when we win when we turned down a
Speaker 2: half million dollars because we wouldn't put a car in
Speaker 2: the middle of our VIP food court or adjacent to it.
Speaker 2: And after this a little bit of a debate because
Speaker 2: it was a great car brand, so one could argue
Speaker 2: that that brand was in line with the customer it
Speaker 2: was going to be in in the VIP area, but
Speaker 2: still it was a car in that area and we
Speaker 2: turned it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, sponsorship brings you to even what are the
Speaker 1: other revenue streams?
Speaker 3: Justin's our CFO.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, We're gonna all touch on food. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: it's like touch on the food. I mean, the food in.
Speaker 5: One world is big in Northern California and the Bay Area,
Speaker 5: so we we try to go all in on that,
Speaker 5: like we've all mentioned. So that's a that's an important
Speaker 5: part of the economics as well, which I know is
Speaker 5: the question you're asking.
Speaker 4: So we do have a very high per cap on.
Speaker 5: Our food and beverage spend as measured against you know,
Speaker 5: pretty much everybody we can pace ourselves against, and which
Speaker 5: includes you know, we try to look at events outside
Speaker 5: of the music business as well, golf tournaments and you know,
Speaker 5: the US Open Masters, you know, it's at a Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 4: You know, we're trying to understand.
Speaker 5: Per caps at all events and what people do to uh,
Speaker 5: you know, essentially give that high end customer what they're
Speaker 5: looking for. So it's a big food and beverage program.
Speaker 5: It's really complicated.
Speaker 4: We do.
Speaker 5: I believe it's like ninety five different wines by the
Speaker 5: glass throughout the festiv which just sounds stupid if you
Speaker 5: run a restaurant.
Speaker 6: Here, like you guys are crazy, what are they thinking?
Speaker 5: Because it's it's complicated to run it that way, But
Speaker 5: it goes back to like, hey, if you're a customer,
Speaker 5: what would you what would you want? You know, you'd
Speaker 5: want more variety, more choices everywhere you went. So our
Speaker 5: concessionaire at times that we've partnered with, we've partnered with
Speaker 5: a couple of them over the years, but they all
Speaker 5: think we're crazy and it's really inefficient.
Speaker 4: What do you guys think?
Speaker 5: And you know, offering that many different food options and
Speaker 5: why are you making this so complicated?
Speaker 4: But it's resulted in, like I.
Speaker 5: Said, what we hear are the highest you know, food
Speaker 5: and beverage per caps of anyone in the country. And
Speaker 5: so it still goes back to like we're trying to
Speaker 5: just give a customer what a customer wants, and a
Speaker 5: lot of times that's really good quality and a lot
Speaker 5: of variety.
Speaker 1: So other than food and bevery any other revenue.
Speaker 4: Streams merch merch.
Speaker 1: How about parking?
Speaker 5: Parking is a loss and all the day talk on
Speaker 5: merch if you have any merch questions on it, But
Speaker 5: parking is But we don't own any parking lots, right,
Speaker 5: So you're at a you know, stadium or arena and
Speaker 5: it's got a big paid parking lot and you can
Speaker 5: monetize that.
Speaker 4: And in our case, we don't have any party.
Speaker 5: So we're out privately renting lots to try to put
Speaker 5: on sale and then try to staff that, and had
Speaker 5: lighting in our bathrooms and you know, the highway signs
Speaker 5: and all the things that takes to run a parking operation.
Speaker 5: So parking is a is a loss a loss leader.
Speaker 5: It's something to provide to make sure customers can get close,
Speaker 5: but it's definitely not a money maker for us.
Speaker 1: Okay, Dave, you're going to talk about merch.
Speaker 2: Oh, all that I would say about merch is that
Speaker 2: we do very well, and we we do not the
Speaker 2: merch design, the merch look, the merch cut is is custom.
Speaker 2: Every single year, the product costs us a lot more
Speaker 2: than what we would like to spend, but every year
Speaker 2: we choose to go down the path of going for
Speaker 2: these these custom cuts. The kind of the opposite of
Speaker 2: what you would consider to be like a barrel cut shirt,
Speaker 2: more of a We always liken it to kind of
Speaker 2: if you go to Barbados and you look at the
Speaker 2: way in which the seams are are are sewed and
Speaker 2: the fit actually exists, and how long this shirt is
Speaker 2: relative to your waistline. We take all of that into
Speaker 2: consideration that was standing the you know, the quality of
Speaker 2: the product itself. And then we go through extensive designed
Speaker 2: duration and and go out and with surveys to figure
Speaker 2: out what what concepts and creative concepts are actually resonating
Speaker 2: each year before we even go into print. And and
Speaker 2: so we blow out a merch every year, and every
Speaker 2: year we increase it five ten percent terms of inventory numbers,
Speaker 2: and it just it just keeps going and go. So
Speaker 2: it is a it is a meaningful number for us.
Speaker 1: And is there any other income that we haven't covered?
Speaker 5: Lockers and hilarious, Yeah there is small stuff, yeah, super
Speaker 5: small stuff.
Speaker 3: Lockers and yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, let's go back to the beginning. You
Speaker 1: guys were not in this business. You grew up together.
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you guys did before you
Speaker 1: entered this business. So let's start off with you, Jason,
Speaker 1: what were you doing before you were involved in bottling?
Speaker 7: Well, let's see, I was involved early on. My first
Speaker 7: career was as Dave's lackey. He hired me out of
Speaker 7: college as his sales manager or dot com startup in
Speaker 7: the in the automotive internet advertising space, and you know,
Speaker 7: kind of did that for a few years. Dave and
Speaker 7: I went our separate ways, and I ended up kind
Speaker 7: of parlaying my experience in that space and created my
Speaker 7: own online ad sales rep firm within the automotive vertical,
Speaker 7: so selling ads to you know, Forard in GM in
Speaker 7: Detroit and LA and Honda in La or Toya and
Speaker 7: Honda in La. Long story short, had this firm for
Speaker 7: nine ten years and was lucky enough to have an exit.
Speaker 7: Sold sold the company to the publishers of Car and
Speaker 7: Driver and roadent Track magazine who didn't have much in
Speaker 7: the way of a rep firm in the in the
Speaker 7: digital advertising space, so they needed something like what me
Speaker 7: and my business partner created and fortunately was able to
Speaker 7: exit that and believe it or not, moved to that
Speaker 7: back to Napa from San Francisco, got married and was
Speaker 7: taking a little time off working on my handicap with.
Speaker 3: Golf not so well.
Speaker 7: And while I was back in Napa is when Bottle
Speaker 7: Rock one point zero happened. And we'll get into that
Speaker 7: in a second, But so I heard about bottle Rock
Speaker 7: one point Oh, I knew the guys that started it,
Speaker 7: and I threw my hat in the ring and said, hey,
Speaker 7: that sounds really interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm not working right now. Let me see if I
Speaker 3: can help you guys.
Speaker 7: So I'll leave a cliffhanger and we'll get back to
Speaker 7: that and let Dave and Justin answer the question.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you work with Dave. Dave, what were you
Speaker 1: doing before Bottle?
Speaker 2: I had a software development company with a little venture
Speaker 2: capital arm to it.
Speaker 1: We focused on.
Speaker 2: Startups, building kind of high end back end technology for them.
Speaker 2: Jason's Company, interestingly enough, was one of our first clients
Speaker 2: and our company, that company, which I sold thirteen years later,
Speaker 2: I think is still working for Jason's company. Building At
Speaker 2: the time, I think we were focused on configuration technology
Speaker 2: so they you know, if you ever go to research.
Speaker 1: A car online and to drop down make model trim.
Speaker 2: We would make that kind of disparate data that was
Speaker 2: out there into a configurator and allow people to easily
Speaker 2: build and research cars. We built that for Jason and
Speaker 2: his company, and we did that for many other companies.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and if we saw a company doing well,
Speaker 2: we would do some work for equity or maybe throw
Speaker 2: the twenty five too hundred grand at a good valuation
Speaker 2: and roll the Dice, and I was selling that company
Speaker 2: at the time that Bottle Rock one point zero was happening.
Speaker 2: My wife and I attended and will as Jason said,
Speaker 2: leave that cliffhanger there for another part of the conversation, Okay.
Speaker 4: Justin.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Ended up uh out of a business school. I ended
Speaker 5: up going to work for IBM. You know, it was
Speaker 5: at the time. It was an interesting time in the
Speaker 5: IBM world, and you know, kind of early was now
Speaker 5: called AI but there and the computer learning and what
Speaker 5: they called the Watson, the Watson Project. And so I
Speaker 5: left there and ended up in Orange County and then
Speaker 5: in Portland, Oregon. And then I left IBM and the
Speaker 5: sort of like a business job at IBM. I wasn't
Speaker 5: on the technical side. I was on the on the
Speaker 5: business consulting side of it, and uh and left for
Speaker 5: a startup in San Francisco. And so I moved to
Speaker 5: San Francisco and and did that world.
Speaker 6: For a while.
Speaker 5: It was a company called Breakaway Solutions actually based out
Speaker 5: of Boston, but we were in a technology development at
Speaker 5: the time in the dot com boom era. Stayed in
Speaker 5: San Francisco, got married, ended up moving back with idea
Speaker 5: I moved to Dallas and then New York City.
Speaker 4: And from New York I I.
Speaker 5: Traveled all around the world and had a big team
Speaker 5: in India and do a lot of work in Europe
Speaker 5: and such. And I focused a lot on the retail segment,
Speaker 5: which at the time was like, you know, deep into
Speaker 5: retail and kind of retail strategies and a lot about
Speaker 5: like what what what Why would I Why would a
Speaker 5: retail store in the same place that it was yesterday?
Speaker 5: But if you redesigned the look and feel of it,
Speaker 5: why did why did the sales go out?
Speaker 4: You know, it's like it's the same product at the
Speaker 4: same price in the same location, but you change the experience.
Speaker 4: So I didn't have any real formal experience into what
Speaker 4: translated into Bottle Rock later. But when I look.
Speaker 6: Back on it, it was like, hey, a lot of.
Speaker 5: That stuff that that I did for years out of
Speaker 5: New York really resonated with a future later.
Speaker 4: So right now, to get back to Napa.
Speaker 5: As you heard from the other two guys who all
Speaker 5: grew up in Napa, and the other two guys ended.
Speaker 6: Up back in Napa.
Speaker 5: I ended up having a chance to partner with a
Speaker 5: family who had started a luxury wine brand in Napa.
Speaker 5: I had amazing vineyard land, just.
Speaker 6: Got done building a winery, had put a.
Speaker 5: Lot of years of work into getting that thing rolling,
Speaker 5: and they were looking for a president to come, you know,
Speaker 5: partner with them on where the future would would go.
Speaker 5: And as random as it seemed, would me be in
Speaker 5: the kind of the New York and kind of global,
Speaker 5: you know business scene. To jump off that track and
Speaker 5: move to run a winery in Napa took a lot
Speaker 5: of people by surprise, but it was something I had
Speaker 5: a huge passion for. On the on the personal side,
Speaker 5: my family had a very small winery growing up, so
Speaker 5: I understood that business enough to want it to dive
Speaker 5: into it like a new entrepreneurial ventures, at least from
Speaker 5: my perspective.
Speaker 4: That's that's what it was a chance to do something really.
Speaker 5: Cool, be back home, be back in Napa, raise my
Speaker 5: kids back in Napa Valley. So that happened, and then
Speaker 5: three years later that wine brand went from where it
Speaker 5: was at the time, and I told you it was
Speaker 5: set up for success, but it ended up being a
Speaker 5: sold out wine brand and not have to say there
Speaker 5: was nothing to do there anymore.
Speaker 4: But I found it like a little low to stay.
Speaker 6: Wait a minute here, we.
Speaker 5: Either got to buy more than new Land, we got
Speaker 5: to release new wines. And then at that point, this
Speaker 5: little rock thing came along and Jason and Dave were
Speaker 5: sniffing around at it, and I kind of leave the
Speaker 5: same cliffhanger lated.
Speaker 4: And so in terms of how we transitioned from our
Speaker 4: old career to what we're doing now.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jason, tell us about a bottle rock one point
Speaker 1: zero and how you guys ultimately get involved.
Speaker 3: Well, let's see. Yeah, like I said, it kind of
Speaker 3: came out of the blue for everybody, even in the industry.
Speaker 7: If I recall, you know, these kind of guy upstarts
Speaker 7: and NAPAs started. It cobbled a team together use the
Speaker 7: Expo and Downtown Apple we've already referred to. And you
Speaker 7: know I got involved literally as an unpaid volunteer.
Speaker 3: I just said, let me help you guys. This sounds great.
Speaker 3: I just want a bigger seat at the table next year.
Speaker 7: And you know, these guys ended up getting in some
Speaker 7: serious financial trouble, weren't able to pay some of their
Speaker 7: some of their debts to artists and union and the
Speaker 7: city and so forth, and That's when I got a
Speaker 7: little bit more involved, thinking, Wow, this thing was such
Speaker 7: a front end consumer success.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: Like Dave said, he went justin when everyone left the festival,
Speaker 7: going wow, that was an amazing experience that first of
Speaker 7: It's kind of downtown Napa, and they had a great
Speaker 7: lineup and so forth and so on.
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking this is a home run.
Speaker 7: I just I need to help bridge these guys to
Speaker 7: get him to the next festival. And you know, it
Speaker 7: was probably the best worst investment I ever made, Let's
Speaker 7: put it that way. I gave him some money and
Speaker 7: got myself married with these guys, and there was no
Speaker 7: saving it from from their perspective. And and that's when
Speaker 7: Dave and Justin and I kind of jumped in and said.
Speaker 3: Hey, we're all entrepreneurs. We all live in Napa.
Speaker 7: We love the we love what Bottle Rocks stood for,
Speaker 7: the food, the wine, the weather, the culture of Napa Valley.
Speaker 7: We all kind of are in a place in our
Speaker 7: lives where we could take a take another shot at something.
Speaker 3: Even though we didn't know anything.
Speaker 7: About the music business or throwing a festival or a
Speaker 7: large event whatsoever. You know, we all kind of were
Speaker 7: confident and naive enough to do it. And and so yeah,
Speaker 7: next thing, you know, Dave, Justin and I are are
Speaker 7: the Uh we bought bought the assets. You know, they
Speaker 7: were about to go into bankruptcy. Dave, Justin and I
Speaker 7: navigated a whole pre bankruptcy scenario. UH got our got
Speaker 7: our MBAs on bankruptcy and how that whole process works,
Speaker 7: which we won't go into. But uh, you know learned
Speaker 7: a lot. The first year almost killed us. If I
Speaker 7: don't if I don't say so myself, and uh, and
Speaker 7: I'll leave it there, said Dave and Justin Chryman.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've spoken previously, and you made good on the
Speaker 1: debts of Bottle Rock one point zero and you lost
Speaker 1: a ton of money the first year you had it yourself.
Speaker 1: How much money are we talking about? How much money
Speaker 1: to pay the debts? And how much money did you
Speaker 1: guys lose?
Speaker 2: Well, there was there was roughly a ten million dollars
Speaker 2: loss that the company experienced the original company, and there
Speaker 2: was about eight million or so that was kind of
Speaker 2: really owed to creditors.
Speaker 1: And so we though.
Speaker 2: We bought the assets, and we did an asset purchase
Speaker 2: which would say to you legally, we don't have the
Speaker 2: obligation of responsibility to pay down any debt. It's hard
Speaker 2: to describe to a creditor if you bought let's say,
Speaker 2: the bottle Rock brand, and they're owed money by what
Speaker 2: they considered to be bottle Rock, it's hard to say
Speaker 2: to them, well, we didn't create the debt, We don't
Speaker 2: know you any money. We did say that a lot
Speaker 2: of the time, but it really went in one ear
Speaker 2: and out the other. Understandably, we were able to, through
Speaker 2: you know, cash infusion, conversion of debt to equity, et cetera,
Speaker 2: eliminate most of that debt and for the common creditors
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of them were basically taken care of
Speaker 2: for the most part, all the way. Then getting as
Speaker 2: we were doing that, we roughly closed the transaction in
Speaker 2: I believe January of twenty fourteen, we had a festival
Speaker 2: in May to put on, and so not knowing anything
Speaker 2: or less than anything about the music space and how
Speaker 2: to put on a festival, we had to do that
Speaker 2: as well, and whether that be booking the lineup, whether
Speaker 2: that be putting together the production teams to build the
Speaker 2: festival itself and put together the food and beverage programs
Speaker 2: and all the sponsorship stuff that we talked about. We
Speaker 2: had no experience in any of that and in very
Speaker 2: little time to learn, and no one really in the
Speaker 2: music space and other and otherwise wanting to really work
Speaker 2: with us at that point. So it was difficult, and
Speaker 2: we got through it, as Jason mentioned, and we ended up,
Speaker 2: as I think we told you, Bob, losing I think
Speaker 2: five and a half million dollars that first year.
Speaker 5: That was on top of all the money we spent
Speaker 5: with paying off all the debt. So yeah, I go,
Speaker 5: everything was fine, Like we took money that was supposed
Speaker 5: to be to pay for the festival and paid off
Speaker 5: the creditors and the deck with that same money, and
Speaker 5: then and then then we lost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, your three guys, did you three personally
Speaker 1: take the hit or were there other investors? It was
Speaker 1: a mix of both.
Speaker 2: We personally took big hits, but we did have some
Speaker 2: some outside investment as well.
Speaker 1: And what was your pitch to the outside investors. Well,
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 2: Looked at Bottle Rock from a customer facing perspective, you
Speaker 2: could see that there was demand, right, So one of
Speaker 2: the challenges and we were looking at this as a startup.
Speaker 2: One of the challenges, the biggest challenge when you have
Speaker 2: a startup is to figure out if, in fact your
Speaker 2: theory will generate sales, right, and we the one thing
Speaker 2: that we did have going for us was that we
Speaker 2: could see that people were willing to buy what it
Speaker 2: is that was being sold. Granted, what was being sold
Speaker 2: at Bottle Rock was not what Justin and Jason talked about.
Speaker 2: From an experience standpoint, it did not exist non existing.
Speaker 2: That said, you did see a lot of people coming
Speaker 2: to NAPA buying tickets to see a music festival at
Speaker 2: the fairgrounds, and that for us was a proof of concept,
Speaker 2: kind of product market fit if you're talking, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of Silicon Valley jargon.
Speaker 1: So, okay, you have this demand. How much money did
Speaker 1: you raise?
Speaker 2: Wow, I won't get into that, but it was in
Speaker 2: the millions, and I think you kind of understand this
Speaker 2: festival space. You don't just get in with a few bucks.
Speaker 2: Notwithstanding the fact that when we started to book bands
Speaker 2: are subjects where our assumption was, oh, yeah, it'll be
Speaker 2: ten percent thirty days out right on the artist guarantee. Wrong,
Speaker 2: it was one hundred percent down at confirmation because no
Speaker 2: one trusted us and rightly so, and so then you
Speaker 2: have a whole cash flow issue and timing of cash
Speaker 2: flow that it further exacerbated the problem, especially once you
Speaker 2: went on sale and had a bad on sale.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the concept with the first year that we tried
Speaker 9: this was I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4: The goal really changed.
Speaker 5: It like if you were an outside investor and we
Speaker 5: put a lot of our own money into it. It
Speaker 5: was that we had a plan and we knew we
Speaker 5: had to differentiate this experience, and if we differentiate this experience,
Speaker 5: people will pay for that.
Speaker 4: And we almost never got a chance to ask you
Speaker 4: because we took that same money, you know, investors in
Speaker 4: our own and used it to pay off all the
Speaker 4: debt instead of actually funding the experience.
Speaker 5: So you get into year two, we're like, well, then
Speaker 5: what do you tell investors you know? Or what do
Speaker 5: we tell our to our wives is probably a better
Speaker 5: that's probably a better example. What do we tell our
Speaker 5: wife is like, we just needed a chance to run
Speaker 5: our own play, and we didn't have a chance to
Speaker 5: do that the first year because we were scrambling. Again
Speaker 5: it was you know, arguments with every vendor and the
Speaker 5: union and everyone else about you know, money we didn't own,
Speaker 5: but we had to pay them, and that just sucked
Speaker 5: up way too much time to where, you know, our
Speaker 5: real goal was never we never got a chance to
Speaker 5: focus on that, so that there for the second year,
Speaker 5: and the reason it turned around so fast is we
Speaker 5: really need that chance in twenty fifteen to actually execute
Speaker 5: our regional you know plan, and we did, and I'd
Speaker 5: say it worked, and then it was kind of a
Speaker 5: happily every aftertect thing for the investors after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think the happily ever after really started
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen. Right, we did, We did well in fifteen,
Speaker 2: but in fifteen it was how would I put it,
Speaker 2: It was probably thirty forty percent of our plan as
Speaker 2: it related to the customer experience. In sixteen was when
Speaker 2: we really were able to lean in, trust our guts
Speaker 2: and deliver on what we thought people would really want.
Speaker 2: And we got that right, and we got it right
Speaker 2: in a very in a much bigger way than we
Speaker 2: had anticipated in our model back in twenty thirteen and fourteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you lost the money in fourteen, in fifteen,
Speaker 1: were you in the red or the black? Fifteen we
Speaker 1: made seven figures Okay, so let's go back to fourteen fourteenth,
Speaker 1: the first year that you guys were in control. What
Speaker 1: did you learn after fourteen?
Speaker 5: Well didn't we? I mean talking about the artist side
Speaker 5: first day. Gosh, yeah, that's a learning on its own
Speaker 5: that was brutal.
Speaker 2: You know, like the protocols that exist within the music space,
Speaker 2: in particular as it relates to artists and confirmations and advance,
Speaker 2: et cetera. You know, there's no amount of business background
Speaker 2: or business schooling that you can go through that's going
Speaker 2: to teach you how all that works. And we got
Speaker 2: our asses handed to us in twenty fourteen in that regard.
Speaker 2: You know, the assumption that, oh, if you have money
Speaker 2: to spend, you'll be able to get an artist because
Speaker 2: that's what they cost, was an assumption that we had right, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just throw money at it.
Speaker 1: Wrong. The notion of.
Speaker 2: History and how that plays into your ability or inability
Speaker 2: to work with an artist, The confirmation process and the
Speaker 2: word confirmation and confirmed, and the power that comes behind that,
Speaker 2: like things along those lines.
Speaker 1: We had no clue about.
Speaker 2: And the butting of heads that we had with agents
Speaker 2: was super tough, and we were on our heels of course,
Speaker 2: because we had no credibility in the space, we had
Speaker 2: no experience in the space, we had no history or
Speaker 2: relationships in the space, and we bought a shitty brand,
Speaker 2: and as far as the agents were concerned, if we
Speaker 2: bought it, we owned it. And so until they knew
Speaker 2: that we had taken care of the debt, they didn't
Speaker 2: want to work with us either. So we can go
Speaker 2: on and on about that piece. But the learnings, just
Speaker 2: as it relates to the artist component, were massive.
Speaker 1: Massive. Okay, that's twenty fourteen. Has it been a continuing
Speaker 1: learning experience or do you get to a certain point
Speaker 1: and say I got this.
Speaker 2: Never, It's always a continued learning experience. And we are.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: The more we can understand about pouring, the more that
Speaker 2: we can understand about production, the more that we can
Speaker 2: understand about macro influences in the music space, the better
Speaker 2: off we are. And you know, we're just beginning to
Speaker 2: learn as far as we're concerned how it all works.
Speaker 2: We're avoiding the pitfalls very quickly, much more quickly, i
Speaker 2: should say it, than we historically have. But it's still
Speaker 2: a lot of work, it's still a lot of commitment,
Speaker 2: it's still a lot of relationship building, and it's still
Speaker 2: a lot of just shut up and listen, and that's
Speaker 2: kind of one of our policies in house is to
Speaker 2: shut up and listen. And so we continue to build
Speaker 2: great relationships within the music industry and we're learning still.
Speaker 1: How did you make a deal with Live Nation? When
Speaker 1: did that happen? What does Live Nation deliver for you?
Speaker 10: Is the end of twenty sixteen, and we'd met some
Speaker 10: people from Live Nation, we met some people from the
Speaker 10: other you know, several other big players in the music
Speaker 10: business who I think I thought maybe ball Rock was
Speaker 10: a joke, knew it, lost time, money, then saw us
Speaker 10: struggle our first.
Speaker 6: Year, and then when we had a different level.
Speaker 5: Of success in twenty fifteen, again we didn't have a
Speaker 5: huge success, but at least it proved viable. And then
Speaker 5: with twenty sixteen in the spring, like they said, we
Speaker 5: made some you know, somewhat.
Speaker 6: Monumental changes that kind of.
Speaker 4: Proved this to the real thing to her to day.
Speaker 5: So we had a lot of indown interest in partnering
Speaker 5: with us, and some of it was not very interesting
Speaker 5: to us, frankly, and then when the Live Nation folks
Speaker 5: approached us, it definitely peaked our years.
Speaker 4: Up really at the time nothing to do with that.
Speaker 4: Live Nation was.
Speaker 6: Really big, and you know they have a lot of
Speaker 6: money or whatever.
Speaker 5: It was more around the area, and I think, well,
Speaker 5: it loves for us. They completely stuck this ever since
Speaker 5: that first conversation, which is that they know the music
Speaker 5: business really well.
Speaker 6: They know touring, and they know.
Speaker 4: Arenas, and they know pretty much every aspect you could mention.
Speaker 4: But their approach to festivals wasn't.
Speaker 6: About we know everything, We're.
Speaker 4: Here to go take it over.
Speaker 5: It was actually very much the opposite that they had said, Hey,
Speaker 5: we've tried some.
Speaker 6: Of our own things about what we found.
Speaker 5: With festivals is that we're looking for, you know, really
Speaker 5: good people who understand how to create a differentiated festival experience.
Speaker 4: And so when we.
Speaker 5: Find out, we want to keep those folks because that's
Speaker 5: really the core and we're not going to try to
Speaker 5: change it and take it over. We So, would you
Speaker 5: guys want to talk because our plan would be to
Speaker 5: have you essocially partner with you to make you more successful.
Speaker 5: It wouldn't be to come in and run bottle Rock.
Speaker 6: We want you.
Speaker 4: Guys to run Bottle Rock.
Speaker 5: And started the conversation again with others.
Speaker 6: That were that were poking around that we didn't have.
Speaker 4: An interest in.
Speaker 5: That was probably a thing that really brought us all
Speaker 5: to the table initially. David Jason comment more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think Justin you nailed it. And what's
Speaker 2: really so special about the relationship as you look back at,
Speaker 2: you know, the end of twenty sixteen, we were really
Speaker 2: working with Jordan Zachary a bit, feeling it out, seeing
Speaker 2: how it could work, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then we met with with Michael Rappino. And when you.
Speaker 2: Look back at that meeting, every commitment that he said
Speaker 2: or made as to how it would work and how
Speaker 2: he would let us do our thing and just be
Speaker 2: there as support when and if we needed them or him,
Speaker 2: they he delivered on Like how often are you able
Speaker 2: to say that about anything or any relationship, right, whether
Speaker 2: it's with your spouse, your best friends, your business relationships, whatever,
Speaker 2: like you never can And we can honestly say that
Speaker 2: every single thing that they said that they would do,
Speaker 2: they did more importantly, And I think Justin brought this
Speaker 2: up and asked been everything they said.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't do they didn't do.
Speaker 2: And that was just just it's been fantastic so it's
Speaker 2: been a great relationship.
Speaker 1: Okay, as far as a business transaction, they paid cash
Speaker 1: for a certain ownership percentage in the enterprise. Correct. Okay.
Speaker 1: In terms of booking talent, does Live Nation help you
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 2: Only if we need it, and that exists at all levels.
Speaker 2: So we do our thing, and you know, if we
Speaker 2: need to perhaps see if it's possible for us to
Speaker 2: jump on the tail end of a tour that Live
Speaker 2: Nation has, we can call up anyone in Live Nation
Speaker 2: touring and say, hey, any chance that we can be
Speaker 2: a part of this or you know who's really the
Speaker 2: decision maker, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We can you know, work, but do that with the
Speaker 1: agent as well.
Speaker 2: And the agents are they understand that we're part of
Speaker 2: Live Nation and we work together and everything's in full transparency.
Speaker 1: We have.
Speaker 2: You know, for the most part, we kind of just
Speaker 2: do our own thing, but we also share information, talk,
Speaker 2: learn and work with the other Live Nation festivals. C
Speaker 2: three's been great to uh, to to work with too,
Speaker 2: to bounce questions off of.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, Charlie and Charles have been around forever and
Speaker 2: and they're always available to us when we have questions.
Speaker 2: When you know, we started this new festival, the Latino
Speaker 2: festival called Launda. We were we were able to go
Speaker 2: to to Live Nation touring to help have them help
Speaker 2: us make introductions, to really help us understand the the
Speaker 2: kind of artists market as it relates to northern California
Speaker 2: and how things work. So when we need them, they're there.
Speaker 2: But unless we need them, they we just we do
Speaker 2: our own thing.
Speaker 1: Now, you guys all have experience in business. Is one
Speaker 1: of you the financial expert in terms of budgeting? How
Speaker 1: does that ultimately work?
Speaker 2: Yes, and so the way our partnership works, and it's
Speaker 2: a true partnership, So let me let me let me
Speaker 2: emphasize that. And number two is that if any one
Speaker 2: of us had not been a part of the creation
Speaker 2: of this this company, we wouldn't be here today. So
Speaker 2: like I, you know, I sincerely mean that if Jason
Speaker 2: wasn't here, we wouldn't do you know, Justin and I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 1: What what what we've all been able to do.
Speaker 2: For example, we run a partnership in the way we
Speaker 2: call it one two three. That means that that we're
Speaker 2: someone is in charge of a given area, a given
Speaker 2: part of the company. But it that each of us
Speaker 2: are also involved in that area. We just don't own
Speaker 2: it and we don't have let's say, the final call
Speaker 2: in that that in that area. So let's use you
Speaker 2: said finance. So in finance, Justin would be one. I
Speaker 2: might be two, just Jason would be three. In sponsorship,
Speaker 2: Jason would be one, Justin would be two. I would
Speaker 2: be three. An artist, I would be one, and they
Speaker 2: would be two and two. Because we fight over headliners
Speaker 2: stuff all the time, but it's a true partnership and
Speaker 2: we made big decisions together all the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're set for me, When do you start working
Speaker 1: on twenty twenty five? Already have so when did you start?
Speaker 2: We put our first offer in for twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: a week and a half ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you have it all penciled out? Let's
Speaker 1: just make the numbers even. We're talking one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: We have thirty million for talent, we have thirty million
Speaker 1: for food. We got sponsorship. Do you have actual numbers
Speaker 1: locked in into someone creating those numbers and looking over
Speaker 1: those numbers? Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: And who is that the three of us? But Justin
Speaker 2: runs point and we have kind of a director of
Speaker 2: finance that works in house, that is always running the models,
Speaker 2: and then on a weekly basis, we're looking at expenses
Speaker 2: and revenues and projections to make sure that we're on
Speaker 2: point and the plan.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's assume you're buying talent, you're buying a
Speaker 1: lot of acts, and you have budgeted let's just say
Speaker 1: thirty million, and then all of a sudden you say, no, really,
Speaker 1: if I could spend thirty five, it's really going to
Speaker 1: be great. We will everybody say, they say, well, the
Speaker 1: budget was thirty screw you, No, no it.
Speaker 2: It really comes back down to to opportunity cost in
Speaker 2: that given year, and if more money needs to be spent,
Speaker 2: we'll do it on the basis of opportunity costs. Because
Speaker 2: you look at what your next alternative is, and if
Speaker 2: that alternative is going to screw up what that forecasting
Speaker 2: model is for box office, you really don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: The question is really are you make What is your
Speaker 2: judgment relative to that opportunity cost being big? And so
Speaker 2: that's where we'll debate. That's where we'll go over the numbers.
Speaker 2: That's what we'll go over touring, that's what'll go over
Speaker 2: that's when we'll go over kind of not only boring numbers,
Speaker 2: but we'll go over album cycles, will go over a
Speaker 2: demos for that for that particular artist, and we'll really
Speaker 2: crunch the numbers to make before we'll actually, you know,
Speaker 2: decide not only to spend that that seven figures on
Speaker 2: a headliner, but to maybe spend a little bit more
Speaker 2: than we initially budgeted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's it's it's really the U.
Speaker 5: I guess something we haven't touched on a lot is
Speaker 5: the the business model or approach is it's always at
Speaker 5: least one or maybe two festivals out.
Speaker 4: So I guess what I mean by that.
Speaker 5: It's like like and we get this a lot, like, hey,
Speaker 5: let's let's say like, hey, all the VIP tickets sold out,
Speaker 5: there's seven VIP levels, they all sold out. And then
Speaker 5: so then what do you do? They're already sold out.
Speaker 5: So why would you spend a bunch of money on
Speaker 5: vi P and dreaming up all these new things for
Speaker 5: a VP. The ticket's already sold, money's in the pay
Speaker 5: it's for the next year, right, And so to your
Speaker 5: question on the artists, it's like you argue about tay
Speaker 5: does it do you pay an extra x nunt of
Speaker 5: moion dollars this year and talent. You know, we get
Speaker 5: in that debate like we could sell out the festival
Speaker 5: with this level of artists and this, but should we
Speaker 5: really pay more to get that next artist. A lot
Speaker 5: of the tipping point there and it always kind of
Speaker 5: leans towards the future is to say, I know, we
Speaker 5: could sell the tickets out this year, but if we
Speaker 5: don't get the right lineup book, we might have.
Speaker 4: Trouble still on it the next year.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so we're kind of leaning into that, and again.
Speaker 5: We're always kind of leveling up to say it's going
Speaker 5: to be worth it in the long run to spend
Speaker 5: more money.
Speaker 6: Now, even though it comes right off the bottom line
Speaker 6: for that one year.
Speaker 5: And if that's all you're doing is running one show
Speaker 5: for one year, that's what you do. You maximize profits.
Speaker 5: But we've never thought of it that way. We've always
Speaker 5: thought of it as a long horizon, like how is
Speaker 5: this thing going to be relevant, how's this thing going
Speaker 5: to be special ten years from now?
Speaker 4: And let's not screw it up, Bob.
Speaker 7: What they're not telling you, Bob, is that they look
Speaker 7: to me and go, what can we do in sponsorship
Speaker 7: to make the offset.
Speaker 4: That's right, the real answer.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then you know some of these things are
Speaker 1: more controllable than other like food and experience. Do you
Speaker 1: have hard numbers and you say this is what we
Speaker 1: can spend or how does that work?
Speaker 4: Yeah, those those numbers don't really change much. Meaning like
Speaker 4: there's I mean, there's an artist.
Speaker 5: The price that we just talked about, like, hey, you
Speaker 5: know so and so were gonna have to pay.
Speaker 6: Them to do a one off and you know.
Speaker 5: Fly day from Europe to make this show, and it's
Speaker 5: going to be a huge premium. We don't typically have that,
Speaker 5: Like I said, even if we change the Platinum experience
Speaker 5: and VIP and we invest heavy in the GA with
Speaker 5: all new turf and new shades, it's a pretty finite
Speaker 5: planning process. It's one of the things they've touched on
Speaker 5: to say, you know, we do a few shows right
Speaker 5: here in NAPA, we do other events, and now we're
Speaker 5: doing these two festivals.
Speaker 4: You know, other companies do twenty festivals, right.
Speaker 5: But the advantage to to what we're doing is really
Speaker 5: being able to get into.
Speaker 4: The details of every little every little thing. So we
Speaker 4: we'd like.
Speaker 5: To think that adds to a more special experience, but
Speaker 5: it also leads.
Speaker 6: To no surprises.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: We know exactly what everything's going.
Speaker 4: To cost, pretty much.
Speaker 6: Down to the penny.
Speaker 5: You don't know what food and beverage spend will be.
Speaker 5: But we've got enough years under our belt that you know,
Speaker 5: we don't end up forecasting some crazy record food and
Speaker 5: beverage seals every year and then get surprised by it.
Speaker 4: Right. We pretty much hit our numbers every year the
Speaker 4: last seven years.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to amplify what exactly is the culinary stage.
Speaker 2: The culinary stage is an added experience for all customers.
Speaker 2: It's nothing you have to pay for and it comes
Speaker 2: after you know, we we we've sold our tickets. The
Speaker 2: line the lineup does where we actually pair celebrity chefs
Speaker 2: with many of the very artists that we have in
Speaker 2: the lineup and uh celebrities and athletes in and on
Speaker 2: a stage where they are doing cooking demos, but in
Speaker 2: a very irreverent way. So I think you know, we
Speaker 2: would have Snoop Dog on the culinary stage to set
Speaker 2: the Guinness Book of World record for the largest gin
Speaker 2: and juice, right, we would have Jose and Race on
Speaker 2: the stage cooking. Let's say a favorite meal of an
Speaker 2: artist that would be on stage.
Speaker 1: And let's say we would get.
Speaker 2: The bassist or Metallica, the basis for Green Day and
Speaker 2: the basis for Dave Matthews Band, all on the same
Speaker 2: stage with Jose Andres. We would make them actual functioning
Speaker 2: bass guitars out of pizza paddles while Jose and Race
Speaker 2: makes pizza and some other kind of favorite meal of theirs.
Speaker 2: So really entertaining, really like avant garde fun programming, and
Speaker 2: we get the biggest artists that play our festival to
Speaker 2: actually beyond it, believe it or not. And then of
Speaker 2: course the big celebs, and it's a thing. We do
Speaker 2: five sets, five shows a day over the three days,
Speaker 2: so fifteen different shows at the culinary stage over three days.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I have a GA ticket, am I going
Speaker 1: to be buying any generic food? Or is all food specialized, localized,
Speaker 1: unique to this festival?
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, it's all basically locally grown and or curated,
Speaker 7: I should probably say. In other words, we don't have
Speaker 7: a general food program. Every single food item that's sold
Speaker 7: is brought to you by a specific restaurant that we
Speaker 7: hand touched and brought in and set up, helped set up.
Speaker 7: So there's you know, seventy different food vendors throughout the
Speaker 7: venue and they're all operating as independent, small pop up restaurants.
Speaker 7: At Bottle Rock Spread, you know, throughout we have a
Speaker 7: restaurant garden, we have food vendors on different stages and
Speaker 7: so forth. And so you are going to be eating
Speaker 7: food from Morimoto Iron chef Morimoto's Restaurant, or Mustards or.
Speaker 3: I mentioned a not tree earlier. So we don't you.
Speaker 7: Had actually a question about expenses. We don't spend any
Speaker 7: money on buying the food for this festival. The restaurants
Speaker 7: come in and take on that risk and we share
Speaker 7: a percentage repshare split with those restaurants after the fact.
Speaker 7: So the restaurants kind of do the heavy lifting. And
Speaker 7: Justin said it a while ago. We're giving our guests,
Speaker 7: the fans of the festival, this really wide variety of options,
Speaker 7: and you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's kind of what people come to Napa Valley
Speaker 3: for in a sense.
Speaker 7: Right, you come to Napa Valley for a long weekend,
Speaker 7: You're going to go to three or four wineries. You're
Speaker 7: going to go to uh maybe one or two day spas,
Speaker 7: you're going to go to, you know, three or four
Speaker 7: dinners out at different restaurants, And so people come to
Speaker 7: Napa uh with that in mind. They come to Bottle
Speaker 7: Rock with the same mentality where they really want to
Speaker 7: try a lot of different things, plan out their whole
Speaker 7: weekend of what restaurants, So I'm going to hit Friday,
Speaker 7: Saturday at Sunday, what wineries am I going to hit?
Speaker 7: What what specialty cocktails am I going to try? Et cetera,
Speaker 7: et cetera. And it's kind of thrown some of the
Speaker 7: the the tried and true, you know, festival people or
Speaker 7: industry people on on their head a little bit. You
Speaker 7: have too many menu items or you you know, you're
Speaker 7: trying to do too much on each on each menu
Speaker 7: or different bars. And we've actually found that that's totally
Speaker 7: uh not the case at Bottle Rock. And maybe that's
Speaker 7: the case for a different festival, but for Bottle Rock,
Speaker 7: every year we've seen we've been able to add a
Speaker 7: few more little things, and our food and beverage per
Speaker 7: ca apps continue to go up.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh, there was a comment earlier that you guys
Speaker 1: were involved in other events then Bottle Rock and your
Speaker 1: Latino Festival. What are those events?
Speaker 2: Well, we do middle buying for for organizations, companies, etc.
Speaker 2: That want to have private events. We do buying for
Speaker 2: a PGA event that takes place in Napa every single year.
Speaker 2: We do some hard ticket shows locally here in Napa
Speaker 2: and then co pro's you know, during the festival throughout
Speaker 2: the Bay area. So that's kind of what someone might
Speaker 2: have been referring to.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and we've done small festivals at wineries and Sinoma
Speaker 9: and and you know, well, as things pop up that
Speaker 9: that meat, you know, out alignment with what we're trying
Speaker 9: to do, call it brown wise, called quality wise, then
Speaker 9: we'll dive into it. But we'd rather do fewer things
Speaker 9: than do it really well versus just trying to add
Speaker 9: more and more things.
Speaker 1: To the point, Okay, to what degree is Bottle Rock
Speaker 1: localized to Napa? Where could it be replicable replicated elsewhere?
Speaker 1: You know, there are certain Lollapalooza acl those are city festivals.
Speaker 1: Coachella is a destination festival. East Coast festivals. You always
Speaker 1: have issues of weather, but I'm not aware of anybody
Speaker 1: doing a festival at this scale that is upscale both
Speaker 1: in food and experience have you guys thought about expanding
Speaker 1: to another area thought about it?
Speaker 9: We've been approached on it a ton of times. Yeah,
Speaker 9: and all three of us could answer this one. Maybe
Speaker 9: I'll chime in. But there's certain things that we do
Speaker 9: that are transferable. Like we said, if we just focused
Speaker 9: on on like a quality standard to everything that it
Speaker 9: goes from, Like is there dust in the air naut
Speaker 9: and do you pay double for trash service to make
Speaker 9: sure there's nothing on the ground. I mean you could
Speaker 9: do that anywhere. Well, you can't translate to everywhere. Is
Speaker 9: the local creation like if if in Napa, it's that
Speaker 9: relationship with all the wineries and the restaurants and all
Speaker 9: the people that have the ability to come and make
Speaker 9: this a special experience in this geography, you go do
Speaker 9: the same exact thing in the Hamptons.
Speaker 8: And we were doing it. A couple of things.
Speaker 9: One is, do we have all those contacts, we can
Speaker 9: go run a festival there. You can everybody can roll
Speaker 9: out of stage and book artists and there'd be a
Speaker 9: viable venue and do the operation side of it. But
Speaker 9: to make it differentiated in our opinion, needed to go
Speaker 9: really deep and really really detailed, because we're into every
Speaker 9: every square inch and make it making it special.
Speaker 8: And then the other thing is a lot of high
Speaker 8: end areas.
Speaker 9: Right if you said pay Sun Valley's nice, and so
Speaker 9: is Aspen and so as I can mentioned the Hampton's
Speaker 9: and all those there's there's not hotels for forty thousand
Speaker 9: people in those areas, right, It's it becomes an issue
Speaker 9: with how to get people too in and out of
Speaker 9: some of those events. So we've been we've approach with
Speaker 9: ideas all the time, but either there's a logistic issue
Speaker 9: to say we can do that, but do you know
Speaker 9: you're going to max at eighteen thousand people, and at
Speaker 9: eighteen thousand people you're going to lose a bunch of money,
Speaker 9: So we're not interested, you know.
Speaker 8: Or it's we don't think we personally.
Speaker 9: Have the contacts and the team in that geography to
Speaker 9: make it really detailed and really special.
Speaker 1: What about like Coachello where they went to two weekends.
Speaker 1: Is that something you guys are thinking about, Well, we.
Speaker 2: Just went to two weekends, but that's with by adding
Speaker 2: an additional festival the weekend night or so similar to
Speaker 2: lat Yeah sorry, Jason, yes, similar to kind of Coachella
Speaker 2: adding stagecoach Bottle Rock is added launda okay.
Speaker 1: But is there enough demand you only have forty four
Speaker 1: thousand tickets that you could do it another weekend, Well
Speaker 1: we have.
Speaker 11: Seventy seven thousand tickets. But it's it's it's questionable, and
Speaker 11: it it really is.
Speaker 2: A lot of work on the wineries themselves and the
Speaker 2: restaurants themselves. They are there, they have limited resources and
Speaker 2: limited staff, and they're bringing all of that for much
Speaker 2: of that staff to Bottle Rock for that weekend. And
Speaker 2: it's not just that weekend that they show up, as
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's it's all of the planning and
Speaker 2: all of the resource allocation. And so there is an
Speaker 2: opportunity cost for those businesses as well, because many of
Speaker 2: those businesses shut down during that that that time period
Speaker 2: and others try to stay stay stay up with both.
Speaker 2: So it's really a constraint for for the local businesses
Speaker 2: that we work with. And it's Jason has mentioned that
Speaker 2: is the majority of that consistent majority of the companies
Speaker 2: that we work with. We call it napotism, and we
Speaker 2: have a bias towards businesses and in NAPA and working
Speaker 2: with those businesses, and so our finger on the pulse
Speaker 2: is that you know, one weekends enough for them. With
Speaker 2: with Lunda, there will be a couple of crossover kind
Speaker 2: of restaurant partners, et cetera that will do both.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, we will have a.
Speaker 2: Whole different crew of restaurants all Latino at at Luanda,
Speaker 2: and the food and beverage, the beverage program will be
Speaker 2: very different than what we we we have at Otto Rock.
Speaker 1: Just to go into that a little bit, that's two
Speaker 1: days instead of three, and how a're ticket sales?
Speaker 2: Yes, two days instead of three and ticket sales went
Speaker 2: really well. We anticipate being at a sellout either by
Speaker 2: May or end of May. So we didn't know what
Speaker 2: it was going to go, and we should be sold
Speaker 2: out this year in our first year.
Speaker 1: We're all three guys knowing what you know now, if
Speaker 1: we went back to the beginning, would you do this?
Speaker 2: We say that all the time, and everyone that said
Speaker 2: we were crazy was right. So let's just put that
Speaker 2: out there and all of the reasons they said that
Speaker 2: we were crazy, they were right. That said, knowing what
Speaker 2: I know now, I would do it again. It's been
Speaker 2: a remarkable experience personally, professionally, we built a really fantastic team.
Speaker 2: It is a close knit team, with the exception of
Speaker 2: the first year when we didn't know what we needed
Speaker 2: to do and therefore we hired the wrong people. After
Speaker 2: that year, when we figured out what we needed, we
Speaker 2: hired the right people and they have all stuck with
Speaker 2: us and we've we've we've spent you know, almost eleven
Speaker 2: years now together, you know, same people working on this.
Speaker 2: We've been able to do this while being in NAPA,
Speaker 2: the three of us with our families, raise our families here.
Speaker 2: It's taken our friendship, the friendship that Jason and Justin
Speaker 2: and I have through a level that I don't know
Speaker 2: exists out there in many friendships. Maybe it does, but
Speaker 2: I'll put our friendship up up there with the best
Speaker 2: of them because we've we've we've seen each other at
Speaker 2: our worst moments so many times, and we've seen each
Speaker 2: other at our best moment so many times. And to
Speaker 2: go through that together and to have known each other
Speaker 2: that for such a long period and to be able
Speaker 2: to do that, it's it's something special.
Speaker 1: So I would do it all over again.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: How about the other two here?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I feel like in the hindsight given what Dave
Speaker 9: just mentioned, which I agree with all of it, it
Speaker 9: would be hard to say you wouldn't do it again, right,
Speaker 9: because it's been such a special part of our lives.
Speaker 8: It didn't start that way at all.
Speaker 9: It started as one of the most stressful things, including
Speaker 9: you know, wives asking what and the hell were you
Speaker 9: guys thinking?
Speaker 8: What is going on here?
Speaker 9: But it obviously turned out the way it did, so
Speaker 9: we could say, hey, this is all amazing, everybody should
Speaker 9: do this, But it's just the opposite.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 8: What Dave described is.
Speaker 9: Accurate because it's really really unique and it's special, and
Speaker 9: like I said, our the fact that our employees like
Speaker 9: no one ever leaves. Everyone's like with us to stay
Speaker 9: as soon as they become part of the team. That's
Speaker 9: pretty great. And then the next person comes along and
Speaker 9: this happens all the time. Oh hey, I was thinking
Speaker 9: about doing my own festival in this What do you
Speaker 9: guys think? And where I I don't know about that.
Speaker 9: I don't because we're quick to say, you know, there's
Speaker 9: reasons why we don't take this.
Speaker 8: And do it again all over the place.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 9: It takes a special combination of everything that you just
Speaker 9: heard and the festival business is really hard, right, It's
Speaker 9: really hard to get all of those pieces and parts
Speaker 9: to work in sync and have everything lined up. So
Speaker 9: it's it's not like, hey, this is a home run,
Speaker 9: everybody should do it. It's it's kind of the opposite
Speaker 9: of that, you know. It's like we've learned enough to
Speaker 9: know how to not, you know, lean over our skis
Speaker 9: in some irresponsible way, or even guide other people who
Speaker 9: are thinking about being in the festival business and kind
Speaker 9: of lead them astray because there's a lot of a
Speaker 9: lot of a lot of tombstones out there.
Speaker 1: Jason, okay, Jason.
Speaker 7: Yeah, these, I mean these I always the order of
Speaker 7: the way we talk Bob is, Dave goes first, Justin
Speaker 7: goes second, and I always go third, and I usually
Speaker 7: speak the least because they take all the good all
Speaker 7: the good fruit off the tree.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I couldn't disagree with I couldn't agree with
Speaker 3: them more. Although we do disagree.
Speaker 7: Plenty, I couldn't agree with them more. It's been an
Speaker 7: extraordinary life experience, you know, Dave said. Personally and professionally,
Speaker 7: there's there's you know, we've all been in other careers. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm fifty two and so I've been around the block
Speaker 7: a couple of times. There's nothing that I've ever experienced
Speaker 7: or know anybody that's not in the festival business that
Speaker 7: that that goes through the experiences that the highs, the lows,
Speaker 7: the gut punches, the exhilaration of putting on a festival.
Speaker 7: When you know when you hear the first founds come
Speaker 7: through the PA and the sites almost there, it's like,
Speaker 7: you know, this this chilling experience in a very positive
Speaker 7: way that you know you're you're not going to find
Speaker 7: at a desk job. And and this is a terrible analogy,
Speaker 7: but you know, when this team all comes together and
Speaker 7: we bring in and people, contractors that that work have
Speaker 7: worked for us for years, and we're all out there
Speaker 7: building the site, and the level of detail and pride
Speaker 7: that people put forth, it's it's kind of like what
Speaker 7: I would assume, you know, being in the military and
Speaker 7: you know some some sense of that, or a sports team.
Speaker 3: At the end of the festival, when it's over.
Speaker 7: Monday morning, you wake up and you're just so thankful
Speaker 7: it's it's all over, but also just so proud and
Speaker 7: excited that you guys pulled it off again, and you know,
Speaker 7: there's nothing else that I know of like that out there.
Speaker 3: So I always I'm the first guy. They always threatened
Speaker 3: that I'm out of here. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be the first to quit this thing.
Speaker 7: Jokingly, but but you know, it's like in my veins,
Speaker 7: it's in my blood.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't think that's really the truth. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess I would.
Speaker 7: I would do it over again myself, even though, like
Speaker 7: I said, it almost killed us the first couple of years.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sure there's an exhamtiety in presenting the actual
Speaker 1: festivals over the weekends that occur. But you also talked
Speaker 1: about investing this year for dividends next year, for expectations
Speaker 1: next year. To what degree are you have an ongoing
Speaker 1: anxiety that this thing could fall apart or if you
Speaker 1: don't pay attention twenty four to seven, something go wrong.
Speaker 1: Is that in your heads where you say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a smooth sailing ship. We've got it.
Speaker 2: Always it's always the anxiety is always in our in
Speaker 2: our on front very nice so to speak, I mean it, gosh,
Speaker 2: you know what, you know, what I'm thinking about right
Speaker 2: now is when we do our annual tabletop exercises for
Speaker 2: law enforcement and with law enforcement, and when you're sitting
Speaker 2: there with with FBI and Homeland Security and local police
Speaker 2: and fire and sheriffs, et cetera, and then you're going
Speaker 2: through scenarios of what you would do in this situation
Speaker 2: versus that situation. Jason just and night, every single year
Speaker 2: walk out of that meeting and go, what the fuck
Speaker 2: are we doing? And then you know, we breathe for
Speaker 2: about an hour or two and then we realized that, well,
Speaker 2: we're doing every single thing we possibly can to mitigate
Speaker 2: those risks.
Speaker 1: But man, it it it.
Speaker 2: It definitely it stays with us, and it stays with
Speaker 2: us year round because it's a big responsibility and it's
Speaker 2: within our community and you just want things to go well.
Speaker 2: And we're not even talking about the finances here right now.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the you know, the safety and the
Speaker 2: customer experience component first and foremost, and and then there's
Speaker 2: the anxiety of the of the finances. Right, So so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's a lot.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and it's a it's a fragile thing.
Speaker 9: Like I obviously all three of us agree with what
Speaker 9: Dave said in that terms of that guest experience and
Speaker 9: the and just the safety aspect is what could what
Speaker 9: could ruin it faster than anything else. So we've got
Speaker 9: a huge emphasis on that. But then on the way
Speaker 9: that anxiety carries over to everything. I mean, Jason knows
Speaker 9: this from what he was joking around about where I
Speaker 9: was fighting over sponsors, and I'll be the first to
Speaker 9: over exaggerate something to say, if we take that sponsor,
Speaker 9: it's the wrong brand and the wrong spot. That's the
Speaker 9: beginning of the end around here. Everything, everything's going to
Speaker 9: feed off that everyone's going to think that this is
Speaker 9: a different festival, and then the whole thing's going to dwindle,
Speaker 9: you know. Or we did actually just today we were
Speaker 9: talking about food and beverage pricing and there's this pressure,
Speaker 9: you know, from whether it's sponsors or concessionaire to raise prices.
Speaker 8: And then we went to the same thing.
Speaker 9: If we raise prices, that's what everyone else is doing,
Speaker 9: and everyone hates it. Well, as soon as we start,
Speaker 9: do you know, making this thing too expensive, that's the
Speaker 9: beginning of the end, you know. And so it's like
Speaker 9: this constant anxiety around not overpricing it, getting the security right,
Speaker 9: you know, making sure the experience is right again, investing
Speaker 9: in bands, even if the you know, in the culinary
Speaker 9: stage and things, even when the tickets are sold out.
Speaker 9: You know, it's really about you know, look into the
Speaker 9: future and making sure we don't screw things up, because
Speaker 9: festivals are pretty fragile, you know, once they start going
Speaker 9: the wrong direction, you know, people lose faith in a brand,
Speaker 9: and the brand is everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, to wrap it up, let's start with Jason. A
Speaker 1: peak experience from the actual festival. Since you guys have
Speaker 1: been doing it.
Speaker 7: Peak experience from the actual festival, well, I mean there's
Speaker 7: just so many I just touched on to me of
Speaker 7: one of the best experiences I have every year is
Speaker 7: like I said, you know, hundreds of people all coming
Speaker 7: together to kind of the production and the crew, if
Speaker 7: you will, coming together to build build what I hope
Speaker 7: you'll get to see this year, Bob, is in my opinion,
Speaker 7: one of the one of the most premium quality experiences.
Speaker 3: Of a festival that that that's out there.
Speaker 7: I try to say that as humbly as I can,
Speaker 7: but but I'm I'm pretty proud of what we do,
Speaker 7: you know, I mean, there's just so many the ability
Speaker 7: to you know, do this with Dave and justin every
Speaker 7: year we kind of have a group hug at the
Speaker 7: at the end on Sunday night, we have our first
Speaker 7: drink in maybe two three months because we all kind
Speaker 7: of abstained through the festival. Those will always be some
Speaker 7: of my favorite memories. Uh And and you.
Speaker 3: Know my family.
Speaker 7: I have a young now, a twelve year old and
Speaker 7: a ten year old, and you know, for them to
Speaker 7: now start to really get what's going on here and
Speaker 7: want to come and and be able to spend a
Speaker 7: little time in the sound mix with them is like
Speaker 7: for them that'll be an extraordinary experience that they'll never
Speaker 7: forget that. I'm glad I can be a part of
Speaker 7: so family and friends, I guess.
Speaker 9: Justin yeah, I mean there's there's there's a ton of
Speaker 9: things I can think of, And there's a lot on
Speaker 9: the artist side too, like what was special memory and
Speaker 9: all that. There's almost there's too many of those. So
Speaker 9: I was thinking, I'm not going to I'm not going
Speaker 9: to name a name an artist experience, but outside of that,
Speaker 9: something that resonates with me. And this doesn't necessarily happen
Speaker 9: only at the festival, but you know there's otherwise no
Speaker 9: one would know if they met me if I'm a
Speaker 9: part of this, you know you're a ball Rock founder
Speaker 9: or not, right, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 8: I'm just a guy.
Speaker 9: And then when people start talking to you about the
Speaker 9: festival and they say, you know, this is my favorite
Speaker 9: thing of the entire year, Like this is when my
Speaker 9: friends and I get together and it happens around town
Speaker 9: and NAPO, they don't.
Speaker 8: Know who you are.
Speaker 9: There's like, oh my god, I can't wait for Battle Rock.
Speaker 9: It's literally what I live for all year round, you know.
Speaker 9: And then I still don't introduce myself. I don't say anything.
Speaker 9: I just kind of just like inside your kind of smiling,
Speaker 9: like you know what that's worth it?
Speaker 8: Like all this kind of stress.
Speaker 9: That we go through all the year and all the
Speaker 9: on site build and how we're into every last detail
Speaker 9: and everyone's snipping at each other. It's like when you're
Speaker 9: making that many people you know, happy and creating memories
Speaker 9: for it. I know that sounds kind of corny, but
Speaker 9: it's it's the truth. It's uh, it makes it worth it.
Speaker 5: Dave.
Speaker 2: The two things I would say, one is what Jason said,
Speaker 2: which is the Justin and Jason and I at the
Speaker 2: end of the festival, after egress has been declared.
Speaker 1: You know, successful for.
Speaker 2: The third night, and we hug it out like that's
Speaker 2: a that's a moment I always look forward to, Like
Speaker 2: we just don't hear anyone around us, you know, it's
Speaker 2: just the three of us going, fuck, we did it,
Speaker 2: our team did it.
Speaker 1: That's really rewarding.
Speaker 2: I think one of the best experiences was just actually
Speaker 2: last year when the Peppers were playing and the let's
Speaker 2: say the shoot was locked down.
Speaker 1: They weren't letting anyone go through.
Speaker 2: And Jose Andrace, who loves the Peppers, is like asking
Speaker 2: me to help him get out, and I'm like, why
Speaker 2: do you want to go And He's just like, I
Speaker 2: got to get out, let me.
Speaker 1: Just help me. And I'm like all right, So, you know,
Speaker 1: I talked.
Speaker 2: To security and they let Jose leave like halfway through
Speaker 2: the set, and then Justin and I and Jason, Jason
Speaker 2: and Justin come back into our little compound area aig
Speaker 2: risk goes well, so we hug it out and Jose
Speaker 2: Andres is walking in with this massive pie and he
Speaker 2: had left, you know, a show that he really wanted
Speaker 2: to be at, just so he could make Justin and
Speaker 2: Jason and myself his favorite Paiea, because that's who he is,
Speaker 2: and it was just, it was just it was so meaningful.
Speaker 2: And notwithstanding the fact that I'm a pious snob, like
Speaker 2: I love and so I was so excited about that,
Speaker 2: but just like, what a good guy, and what a
Speaker 2: cool moment to be able to spend with Jason and
Speaker 2: Justin and jose just you know, having a good little
Speaker 2: bite and kind of celebrating the whole weekend. So that's
Speaker 2: probably one of the moments that I always remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, gentlemen, I think we've come to the end of
Speaker 1: the feeling we've known. I wanted to do this because
Speaker 1: you know, festivals are a dime a dozen. But when
Speaker 1: you guys talked when I heard you previously, I said, fuck,
Speaker 1: I want to go to that, which is almost never
Speaker 1: the case. You guys have certainly created something special. So
Speaker 1: once again, I want to thank you for taking time
Speaker 1: to speak with my audience. Until next time. This is
Speaker 1: Bob left Stets