WEBVTT - Jim McCarthy 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.360 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to this week's edition of the Bob 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.200 Left Sets Podcast. My guest this week is my friend 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:16.720 and CEO extraordinaire of gold Star Events, Jim McCarthy. Hi, Bob, 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.800 how's it going good. We're here in the middle of 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.560 the summer. I'm sure it's your busy season for those people. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.560 How many cities is gold Star in now? Seventy or 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.400 eighty in the United States? Really it's all over the place. Yeah, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.000 But for those people unaware of what gold Star is, 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.480 why don't you explain? Gold Star is designed to help 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.760 you answer the question what are you gonna do this weekend, tonight, 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.040 in a couple of weeks, when your sister comes into town, 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.240 whatever it is. And the way we do that is 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:45.800 by bringing together a thout literally thousands of organizers, promoters, 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.599 venues who have events to sell with people who want 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:50.960 to buy them. The biggest problem that people have when 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.880 it comes to live entertainment just knowing what's going on. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:55.840 One thing that I do it almost never fails, is 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.320 I asked somebody named three or four things that are 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.640 happening in your town this weekend, as people can come 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.960 up with zero to one. You know, they're really they're 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.080 just unaware of the stuff that's going on. And the 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.760 reality is that in every major American city there's just 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:09.959 great stuff going on. So gold Star puts them all together. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.080 We work directly with those venues and promoters to make 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.640 the event content for sale on gold Star. We make 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.039 the process to buy it and discover it really easy. 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.800 In most cases, there's a discount, as you know, and 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.280 the whole thing is that when you use gold Star, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.480 people go out twice as often as when they're not 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.920 using gold Stars and members. So that's our goal. Let's 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.400 look at it from the consumer rand, uh and correct 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.280 me if I'm wrong. For the consumer rand, it's basically 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.320 a site that you can go into where you can 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:42.640 find events in your area that generally speaking are sold 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.160 at a discount. It's it's that's not a bad general 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.480 statement about it. It's an app and a site also 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.160 of course an email. Um, but it's it's a little 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:52.680 bit of everything. I mean, you know, about ten percent 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.040 of our business is actually full price sales. So these 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.440 are that are events that aren't discounted, but they are 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.560 available on gold Star because again, and we have nine 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.760 million people who come to us for one reason and 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:04.960 one reason only, and that's to figure out what they're 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.720 gonna go do. So as a platform simply to reach 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.359 people who are looking for something to do. Cold Stars 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.720 pretty much number one. Okay, at this point in time, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.840 it's hard to know what's going on. So mean, you 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.640 even get the newspaper. You read the newspaper, but an 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.480 event that happened that you were unaware of. No one 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.680 has been able to create one site that's a go 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:30.200 to place for all events. Generally speaking. We're in Los 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.200 Angeles now, you will only list events that you have 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.520 tickets for, correct and of events. I don't know how 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.800 we can quantify this, but of events, let's say in 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.720 an average city like Los Angeles, how many of those 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.200 events do you think you have tickets for? I think 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.880 we're in Los Angeles right now. We're selling about six events. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.480 So it's certainly not exhaustive. There are events that we 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.400 don't have, but we have a lot, And I think 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.760 the question is less do we have every single thing, 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.560 and more can we find you something big or small, 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.120 well known or or not so well known that's going 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.360 to enable you to go have a great time. So 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.280 that's how we look at it. It's a lot of events, okay, 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.800 because I know people who use the site and they'll say, well, 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.840 it's Saturday night, I have no plans, or let me 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.320 see what's on gold Star. Would you think that's your 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.359 average customer. It's a combination of that sort of use 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.720 case where it's like, hey, what can I do? You know, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.079 give me give me something to do, and another one 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.359 where we do promote events and email is a big 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.120 tool for us. You sign up, you get emails that 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.920 are automatically tailored for for what you like a little 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.240 bit slower. Yeah, assuming I have to have it? Can 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.600 I see the events if I don't have an account, Yes, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.000 you can. You can see the events, but to purchase 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:44.960 anything you need an account. Yeah, I mean there's nothing 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:46.960 to having in a kiss free. But but my next 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.840 question is if I have an account, do I have 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.839 to receive the not at all. You can unsubscribe from 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:54.720 any and all emails and a lot of people, do 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.920 you know. Okay, So, assuming I have signed up to 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.640 the service, I'm getting email? Am I getting the email 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:04.520 that the person who lives down the street from me? 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.040 Is every email is actually individual? How do you do that? 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.480 It's a technology we call Matchmaker, which is a combination 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.960 of all the data from everything that everybody does. You know, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.719 if you click on something, I click on something, I 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.920 buy something, I forward an email. All of that creates 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.400 a complex set of mathematics that I don't even begin 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.640 to understand. But it implies what your tastes are as 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.880 opposed to mine, and it looks for things that are 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.360 more likely to match yours than mine. And actually, you know, 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.600 we've been doing this for We've been doing this for 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:42.520 almost fourteen years now. The the filtering that's sort of automated, um, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.240 but in the last year we've actually really taken it 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.039 forward with the next gen version of this technology, which 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.680 is really making a difference in terms of finding things 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.640 that really suit people. Uh And by the way, the 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.919 thing I like best about it's not just that people 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.200 are you know, clicking on it more and buying more. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.280 We're actually sharing them a wider range of things. Why 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.119 would it be wider because we're actually able to figure 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.279 out a little bit more what's special about your taste 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.000 than somebody else's. So that means because we have this 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.120 big pool of events to draw from, we're actually finding 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.400 you know, events and putting them in front of people 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.440 in a in a more diverse, you know way, because 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.040 the technology is just evolved to be smarter. Okay, So 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.920 if I'm signed up and I'm getting email, how often 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.840 will I get an email? Depends? Many people will get 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.480 an email about once a day, Some people get more 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.320 often because they like to open them, and other people, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:37.960 of course get maybe one or two a week. And 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.240 then of course you can opt for none whatsoever. Let's 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.320 assuming I'm opting in. How do you decide how many 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.800 emails I get? It depends a lot on how much 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.760 you like the email. So the more you open and 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.640 read them, the more likely you already get a second 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:52.719 one in a day, let's say, or two days in 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.120 a row. If you don't open them, don't look at 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.840 them as often, the amounts or tapers off. So it's 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.200 all all within the It's the ghost in the machine 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.200 that's figuring this out. There's no human thing. There's program 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.760 that's written and you have all that feedback whether it's 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.440 opened or not. Does it also, uh, does frequency depend 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.200 on whether I buy or not? Actually, no, it really doesn't. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.280 When it comes to email, which is just one part 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.000 of the business. It really isn't about purchases as much 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.120 as it is your your email behave. So if I 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.240 get any email, how many events will it tell me about? 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.360 Some emails are focused on a single event, with maybe 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.360 a dozen or so secondary events that are pulled out 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.640 of this matchmaker technology, and some one of the most 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.599 popular ones comes out on Tuesday. It's a great, big 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.119 compendium of the stuff that's in your in your city, 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:48.560 let's say. And so that could be okay, how do 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.600 you get ed gold star? How do you get the tickets? 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.240 We work and this is something that whenever I tell 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.839 this story it seems incredibly painful and and arduous, because 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.039 it really was painful and arduous. But we have thousands 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.800 of relationships with promoters and venues and we work directly 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.360 with them to actually take this inventory on consignment. So 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.200 it's not so you don't buy any of the inventority. 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.880 So let's assume to reuse raw numbers, you have a 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.360 hundred tickets and you sell fifty of them, you will 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.120 give the other fifty back to the promoter. Yeah, like 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:25.880 I said, it's like, think of it as a consignment, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.840 you know, we we uh. And then what's interesting is 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.880 it used to be as you're saying kind of a 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.320 process of like, hey, give us I'm doing air quotes, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.840 give us a hundred tickets, We sell as many as 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.360 we can and then sort of return the other fifty 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.800 if it's fifty. But you know, because we're actually digitally 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.960 connected with the key ticketing systems, now, it almost doesn't 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.600 even it's almost just a maximum. You know, they put 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.080 a hundred, we sell whatever. They never really left the 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.400 pool of state. So it's that's evolved. Let's just say 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:01.360 hypothetically you sell a hundred and the events still a 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.040 couple of days away, and let's assume the event is 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.880 not instantly sold out. Do you tend to be able 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.400 to get more tickets? Yeah. That that's one of the 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.080 things that we've really keyed on over the years is 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.480 when something is moving, we want to encourage the promoter 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.840 to put more tickets to be available where people are buying. Uh. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:21.680 In fact, that they can do it for themselves. Now, 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.080 so if you're if you're a gold star organizer in 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.240 our system, you can go in and actually add inventory 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.880 directly with no human intervention in the system. Okay, let's 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.679 say it's January one you need and let's focused on 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.120 one city you need x amount of inventory to run 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.400 your business at this point, to what degree is that 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.720 automated or they're people at your company who are literally 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.280 have relationships with the event producers and deciding how many 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.199 tickets and what events, etcetera. Those two things aren't necessarily 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.880 in conflict with each other. The relationships and the automation, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.120 they work hand in hand because what we don't want 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.599 people at gold Star doing is pushing paper around. We 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.120 want them giving good marketing input to our partners in 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.880 the venues. So although now we're about nine plus percent 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.880 automated in terms of the process, by fall, it's can 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.840 automated in terms of the process, the process process of 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.320 of inventor Yeah that's right, yeah, um. Even though our 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.480 goal is to make the manual to the way I 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.200 put it is, if if it's something a computer could 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:26.920 do just as well as a human, then a computer 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:28.839 should do it. Um. But there are a lot of 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.480 things that a human and only a human can really do, 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.560 which is to help people understand how to take best 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.360 advantage of the gold Star audience. And so the the 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.439 automation and the human touch don't conflict, but they change 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:43.960 right there. No longer do we have people doing as 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.679 much sort of manual information manipulation as as in say, 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.840 ten years ago. Let's focus on the consumer side first. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.679 So you have excellent X number of events. What do 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:57.880 you do is the what do you do as a 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.679 company to encourage me to buy a ticket other than 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.959 send me an email? Is there marketing in the emails 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.600 or any science in that they'll say, oh, this makes 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.520 it more attractive. Well, every email isn't, like I said, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.800 as individual, so that the email part of it is 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.880 um is designed to respond to what you do. But 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:19.920 in the same way. The app and the website do 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.080 this do the exact same thing, So your experience of 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.720 both the website and the app are also individualized based 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.160 on the same matchmaker technology. That's one thing. I think. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.520 The other thing is that, you know, one of the 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.680 things that I'm happiest about is that we are able 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.040 to bring to people's attention awesome events that they just 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.560 wouldn't know about. I mean, give us a couple of examples. Yeah, 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.360 I think of a couple of recent ones that you know, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.040 they're they're actually there was a whole serie. You may 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:50.880 have seen this at some point. Do you see any 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.000 of the for the record shows at the Rockwell Stages 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.560 in in in l A. No, I did not. It 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.800 was a really great series of shows and there's still 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.280 some shows that are going on there. And Shane Shield 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.559 as the producer, really creative, sort of young, you know producer. Uh. 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:07.640 These are shows that happened in a kind of a 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.640 bar restaurant environment. They were these immersive shows where the 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.040 performers were singing and performing all around you. And they 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.320 would take something like the movies of John Hughes and 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.080 they would do a little scene and in a song 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.800 from one of the John Hughes movies. And these are 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:24.600 shows that, again you never heard of them, but they 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.400 brought in really really high caliber performers and just did 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.600 an amazing fun show. Um wasn't I mean they were full, right, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.760 I mean we we helped really people. And so how 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.920 big were the venues? How many tickets were available at large? 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.720 I think probably there were two or three hundred. I'm 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.360 just thinking back to the venue. They brought two or 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.320 three hundred people who could be seated there, Okay, And 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.319 how many tickets of the two or three hundred did 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.320 gold Stars cell do you think? Um? I'm sure it varied, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:53.680 but I know there are nights when we sold fifty 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.360 or seventy five of those. Okay, So to be in 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.000 this particular case, this producer did not have a previous 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.959 history with gold Star correct at some point? Yeah, I mean, 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.400 so how would they hook up with gold Star. We're 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.360 pretty well known just out there in the industry, I 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.040 would say, as a place where you're going to find 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.760 a live entertainment audience. And so that's one thing, you know, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.240 where we put out every possible you know, feeler that 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.360 we can to to make it easy for people to 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.439 come in. But of course, what we do have people 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:27.199 doing our venue team is looking around and saying, okay, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:28.800 what's going on? You know, So we try to have 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:34.680 people who have a real interest or curiosity about just 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.960 what's happening in the places where they're serving um, and 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:40.640 they go look at that. That sounds good? I mean 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.040 that that's I think often where it starts as someone goes, oh, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:44.480 I want to go to that, you know, and as 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:45.839 soon as you have that impulse of what I want 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:47.640 to go to that, well, it's like, well then don't 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.959 you think maybe there's a few hundred other people who 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.080 want to go to that? And so they'll they'll reach 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.720 out and to the producer. They'll do some research and 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.200 find out who's behind a certain show or a certain 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.360 event and say, hey, you should, really, you know, put 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.360 this on gold Star are and you can reach our 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.000 vast you know, live entertainment audience. How many people are 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.239 on are signed up ACT and are active in Los Angeles? 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:15.000 About a million? Okay, so let's focus it once more 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.120 on the consumer side. You have this for the record event. 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:24.920 Can you name another event that you brought attention to him? Sure, Um, 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.640 there have been, Uh, let me think of a couple 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:29.280 of We do a lot of theater and I think 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.199 you know that too, that there have been some theater 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.280 events that, um, for some reason are eluding me at 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.600 the moment. But there's a there's a theater event in 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.520 Burbank right now at the Gary Marshall Theater. Really interesting 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.120 and I would just editorialize this is part of the 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.360 TV Academy. That's the theater. It's actually just Gary Marshall's 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.160 project that he started some years ago before he died. 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.440 Is a really small theater, beautifully done as you'd imagine, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.160 and he passed away a few years ago. But but 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.560 this is one of his projects. He wanted to create 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.520 a really attractive, you know, small theater space and has 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.160 done great work, just great work there over the years 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.640 in a really small setting that's just you know, nicely done, 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.560 great environment, etcetera. And there's a show there right now 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.320 or may have just recently closed called wood Boy dog 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.000 Fish and it is a really odd, very very well 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:28.560 staged poppetry and immersive experience with a lot of technology. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.240 And we send a lot of people to it. I mean, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.480 it's a it's certainly an event that you probably have 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.040 to be a theater person to really but but you 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.240 could also easily miss it. Even even as a big 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:38.880 theater fan, you can easily miss it. But we sent 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:40.800 a lot of people to it. And I'm just telling 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.440 you it's done at an extremely high level of quality. Uh. 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.200 And it's done, and it's done well. It's just that, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.440 you know, our audience is you know, coal for the 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.560 fire of their success. Let's go to the other extreme. 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.680 These are events the average person would miss. That's right. 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:56.880 How about a major event that I want to ticket. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:01.000 To give me an example, just use an example of 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.400 something at the Forum the Greek Hollywood Bowl for us, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.480 we have a lot of that content, but where we 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.280 don't see our role as being and and maybe the 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.160 overtime this could change, but we don't see our role 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:17.160 as being um a major player and where you go 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.600 to for sure find that right. So if you if 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.320 you want to be able to buy anything that's at 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.560 the Hollywood Bowl, we we think you're probably going to 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.480 be able to find that, right. I mean, Google is 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.400 if you know exactly what you want at a major, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.760 major venue, your your best tool is Google in most cases, 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.040 So we don't we don't. We're happy to provide that. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.240 And one of the reasons that we have inventory at 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.680 full price in many cases is because we know that 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:43.400 we're the place where a lot of people do their 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.640 ticket buying, so we wanted to be available for them. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.840 But we don't see it as um. We don't see 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:50.400 it as sort of our mission to make sure we 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.720 have every single thing in those in those big venues. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.480 But let's say you know the Hollywood Bowl which plays 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.200 over the summer. There are two different promoters there, one 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.560 Live Nation, one the Philharmonic of the Let's call it 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.040 a hundred shows over the summer. How many do you 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:09.160 think would be on gold Start? You said, and with 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.600 those fifty tend to be full price. I mean, in 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.760 those cases with a really big venue would tend to 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.160 be a combination at price points. So even with the 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.640 within the same you know, as you know that there's 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.960 never any trouble selling right up front, right way far 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.360 back at the Hollywood back, or oftentimes it's in the 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.240 middle where it gets a little mushy, and just the 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:33.040 bowl issue. It's everywhere, right, the low price is attractive 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.720 to people, the best seats are attractive to people, and 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:37.680 where it gets a little mushy in general in the 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.480 industry is that sort of middle point where it's not 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.680 always easy to find the exact match of price and 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.720 seat um. And so the bigger the venue, the higher that's, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:47.600 the more likely that is to be true. Right, the 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:52.160 more complex the pricing. Okay, let's switch completely to the 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.880 producers side. So when gold Star started, which was what 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:00.280 two thousand two, the image and you can tell whether 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.880 it's reality, was this is a place to sell discount tickets. 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.720 And let's use concert promoters as a classic example. They 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.280 did not not want their tickets discounted. They didn't want 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.159 the image and the value of the product to be 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:19.200 do devalued. Is that an accurate description? I think it is. Yes, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.720 I think I think that's an accurate description of the 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.800 thought process in general about pricing in two thousand and two. Okay, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.119 so how did you deal with that change that, you know, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.560 interact with that. I think that we were onto something 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.720 in the in the meta sense when we started the 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.840 company in two thousand and two, which is that pricing 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.240 would become more complex and more important in the live 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.199 entertainment business than it was in the pre really the 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:53.920 pre web era, go back to whenever prices were very 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.200 simple relative price structures. You know, we're very simple relative 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.760 to today obviously, and and pretty damn hard to change, right, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:02.920 I mean it was, you know, whether it's because of 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.280 the hard tickets or you printed posters that had prices 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.600 or whatever, it was, changing price was difficult. Well, now 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.040 of course it's easier all the time. You know, it's 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.560 just progressively easier. And what I think you see if 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.879 you just look at the history of what computer technology 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.600 has done with different industries, is it says, well, listen, 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.560 prices a lever. Price is a lever that can change demand, 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.359 can can change perception, can can change your business results 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:29.919 in a way that's profound. It's one of the biggest 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.159 levers in business. And so you can't really afford as 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.679 an industry or an individual, you know, player within the 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.320 industry to ignore price. You have to take full advantage 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.600 of it um and so I think we knew that 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.720 was one of the intuitions that we had about where 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.960 live entertainment was as an industry when we started the business, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.919 which is just like, there's so little ability to change 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.399 and move price that it's needed, you know. And and 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.800 the first one that was kind of obvious was, hey, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.160 sometimes shows and sell out. So maybe if we made 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.679 more people aware of them and used price as a 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.080 motivator to really get them off the you know, out 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.879 of that little rut and into actual ticket buying action, 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.960 it'll work. And so that's how it started. So walk 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.640 me through how long it took you to invade all 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.960 these traditional players and how you ultimately convinced them to 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.680 act differently and use your service. I mean it was 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.959 a gradual process. I mean, we we were a bootstrapped organization, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:33.080 so we really operated lean for for many years. I Mean, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.520 in some ways, I feel like our heritage as a 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:40.280 bootstrapped organization is still part of how we behave today. UM. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.080 But we were strictly in l A for a couple 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.160 of years and then added west coast cities and then 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.040 went back east in two thousand six and seven. So 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.160 it really took us a while to sort of move 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:56.840 out from from the base um our. Our initial success or, 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.360 our initial audience was in theater and performing arts, because 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.680 they're so many of those events, you know, and they 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.760 really perceived a need to build audience, which is correct, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:11.840 um for anybody, it's correct. But so it probably when 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.760 we started talking about more complex pricing and started to 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.400 crack into UM music in particular, it probably took six 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.719 or seven years to really start to say, listen, this 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:25.840 is an audience of some scale. You know, it's not 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.040 the biggest audience in the world. There's millions of people 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.959 focused on one thing, which is live entertainment, and we 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.280