1
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:08,120
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

2
00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 1: My guest today is CEO of Tate Towers, Winky Winky.

3
00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:17,759
Speaker 1: Good to have you here. A pleasure to be here. Okay,

4
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,960
Speaker 1: Now this is behind the scenes stuff and most people,

5
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,000
Speaker 1: so we gotta start at ground zero. What exactly is

6
00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:27,280
Speaker 1: Tate Towers. Well, if you really want to start at

7
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:30,840
Speaker 1: ground zero, uh, it actually goes before Tate Towers. It

8
00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:34,760
Speaker 1: would go to Michael Tate. And so Michael Tate his

9
00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:38,360
Speaker 1: Australian and probably seventy three years old ish by now,

10
00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:40,239
Speaker 1: and he'd be pissed at me to tell the world that.

11
00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:42,639
Speaker 1: But is he involved in the business with already know, sir.

12
00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 1: But he loves going there and he loves building ship

13
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:48,800
Speaker 1: for his bathroom or something like that. And his name

14
00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:50,760
Speaker 1: is still on the sign. And you know it was

15
00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:54,800
Speaker 1: part of my doing was to create this legacy for

16
00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:58,000
Speaker 1: this man who he goes back. So he started in Australia,

17
00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: he immigrated to England in the city D's and he

18
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:04,160
Speaker 1: was working at the speakeasies in London and fell upon

19
00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:08,960
Speaker 1: Yes and became you know, he answered the magical question

20
00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:11,479
Speaker 1: in the industry of can you drive the van which

21
00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:14,200
Speaker 1: was resounding yes, and he became the fifth member of

22
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:19,920
Speaker 1: the Let's just speak clear the van right, like is

23
00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:22,759
Speaker 1: gonna take us to the next game? Like a raised

24
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,200
Speaker 1: his an and said I'll do it. So he was

25
00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:28,679
Speaker 1: interested in lighting at the time. He was, you know,

26
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:32,080
Speaker 1: rummaging the streets of London with Richard Hartman, stealing park

27
00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:35,319
Speaker 1: hands off the street and building them in their apartment together.

28
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 1: And his passion was lighting. And so when he joined

29
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:41,480
Speaker 1: with Yes, he did all their lights. And it was

30
00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:44,400
Speaker 1: his idea to put the group in the round in eight,

31
00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 1: which changed the game. It totally changed the game, and

32
00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:50,160
Speaker 1: in what way to change the game several ways. So

33
00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:52,840
Speaker 1: number one, you're now selling every ticket in the arena.

34
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:55,000
Speaker 1: And when you think about what the arenas were like then,

35
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:57,320
Speaker 1: it ain't what they're like now, right. You weren't hanging

36
00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:00,520
Speaker 1: a million pounds from the ceiling. You're ground stacking. You

37
00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:02,560
Speaker 1: could barely get a lighting rig. And and you know,

38
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: those buildings weren't built for sports back then. Who knows

39
00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:09,000
Speaker 1: what the hell they were built for. So in addition

40
00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:13,359
Speaker 1: to selling the tickets, he had to solve the production requirements.

41
00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:15,200
Speaker 1: So what is different in playing in the round the

42
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 1: sounds quite different. Well, he just happened to have a

43
00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:20,880
Speaker 1: best friend named Roy Claire who was doing sound for Yes,

44
00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:23,799
Speaker 1: who happened to be the biggest sound company in the

45
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:27,519
Speaker 1: world at the time, and they figured it out, right,

46
00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:29,240
Speaker 1: how do you light a show in the round? It's

47
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:31,639
Speaker 1: completely different. You don't have a backdrop to light. You're

48
00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:36,240
Speaker 1: now kind of the rig becomes an iconic kind of

49
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:39,200
Speaker 1: structure that's almost like a sculpture. And if you go

50
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:41,079
Speaker 1: back and look at Yes in the round, it was

51
00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:44,480
Speaker 1: a big star that was beautiful to look at. And

52
00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:46,320
Speaker 1: then you got to teach your band to play in

53
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:49,079
Speaker 1: the round because they don't know how to do that.

54
00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:53,000
Speaker 1: And so Michael overcame all those obstacles and with great success,

55
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,600
Speaker 1: and because of his relationship with Claire Brothers at the time,

56
00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 1: he was getting ready to be boot it out of

57
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:03,520
Speaker 1: England and he came to Lititz, Pennsylvania, which is where

58
00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:06,440
Speaker 1: Claire Brothers started. They were both Roy and Jean were

59
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:12,160
Speaker 1: born in in Lititz, Pennsylvania, and we were in or

60
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:17,720
Speaker 1: maybe geographically challenge were it is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, five

61
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,239
Speaker 1: miles north of the city and lancas or sixty miles

62
00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:24,520
Speaker 1: outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dutch Country. Total like, we'll have

63
00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:28,639
Speaker 1: Amish buggies strapped to our building at any given moment,

64
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,480
Speaker 1: on any given day, which is a great contrast of

65
00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: rock and roll, right, Like, it's a great you know,

66
00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 1: you could be building Ozzy Osbourne at the time and

67
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:38,240
Speaker 1: you'll have an Amish buggy at your front door. It's

68
00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,400
Speaker 1: pretty pretty wild. And so he started a shop there

69
00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 1: and as soon as he came to America, Barry Manilow

70
00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:46,680
Speaker 1: wanted to play in the round, Diana Ross wanted to

71
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:48,880
Speaker 1: play in the round. Kenny Rogers played in the round.

72
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,920
Speaker 1: So he was that he specialized in the round only

73
00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:54,840
Speaker 1: because that's what he succeeded in and people wanted to

74
00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:57,520
Speaker 1: follow suit. He was a lighting guy, right and so

75
00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,480
Speaker 1: if you go back, I started in were and today

76
00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:04,800
Speaker 1: today maybe the day that is the thirty fifth anniversary,

77
00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the day was, but it was

78
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:08,920
Speaker 1: the first two weeks of April, so I have no idea,

79
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:10,920
Speaker 1: but it's thirty five years to the day that I

80
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:13,320
Speaker 1: walked in that door. And at the time we were

81
00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:15,920
Speaker 1: a lighting company. But we were a lighting company and

82
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:18,080
Speaker 1: no fucking idea what we were doing, Like let's let's

83
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:21,799
Speaker 1: slow down a little bit. So when he got into lighting,

84
00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:25,440
Speaker 1: were was there, like Claire was the big sound company,

85
00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:28,800
Speaker 1: and there was Shoko there. Well, there was Shoko which

86
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:32,680
Speaker 1: was just getting to They were just starting right like

87
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,279
Speaker 1: the very Lights that went out with Genesis at the time.

88
00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:37,839
Speaker 1: We're just happening right in. The way I tell the

89
00:04:37,839 --> 00:04:41,120
Speaker 1: story is Shoco was probably spending more on research and

90
00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:44,120
Speaker 1: development at that time than we were grossing. Right. We

91
00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:47,919
Speaker 1: knew there was going to be a problem, and it

92
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:50,880
Speaker 1: was the staging that was consistently bailing us out. Because

93
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:53,280
Speaker 1: to be a lighting company at that time, you would

94
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 1: go to the bank, you'd borrow a bunch of money,

95
00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:58,880
Speaker 1: you'd build your system, you'd hire the guys who were

96
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:02,240
Speaker 1: freelance guy, and you would hope to God that the

97
00:05:02,279 --> 00:05:05,080
Speaker 1: band would pay for the equipment before it became obsolete.

98
00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:08,479
Speaker 1: But it never did. Right, Well, that would that would

99
00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:12,000
Speaker 1: me that you're running it in the red. It was happening,

100
00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:15,520
Speaker 1: but the technology was innovating so fast and being driven

101
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,840
Speaker 1: mostly by very Light. But we had some great clients

102
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:22,240
Speaker 1: at the time. We had YouTube, we had Kenny Rogers,

103
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:26,120
Speaker 1: so we had something just because not everybody sophisticated. Go on,

104
00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:29,120
Speaker 1: tell them what a very light is. That was the

105
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:32,000
Speaker 1: first moving light with a dichroic filter that could change

106
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,080
Speaker 1: color at any moment. And I think it was Genesis.

107
00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:39,120
Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact tour. Yeah, they had four

108
00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:41,640
Speaker 1: hundred of them. He was the most mind blowing thing

109
00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,840
Speaker 1: you've ever seen. And from that moment on, it was

110
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:48,000
Speaker 1: a game change. Okay to the degree you know what

111
00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:53,239
Speaker 1: was going on before before? Yes, in the round, Um, well,

112
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:56,080
Speaker 1: there was there was a ton of companies doing this.

113
00:05:56,160 --> 00:05:58,159
Speaker 1: You know, there was t TF, there was Bob C.

114
00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,800
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of company is that we're doing it,

115
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,640
Speaker 1: but nobody was doing it on the level that Genesis

116
00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:07,480
Speaker 1: and Choko were doing it. Nobody was doing it on

117
00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:09,160
Speaker 1: the level that Claire brothers were doing it. And so

118
00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:11,599
Speaker 1: we had something to aspire to, right, We had something.

119
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:15,080
Speaker 1: We we fell into a niche that we could specialize in,

120
00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: and that was building stages. Nobody, you know, stages weren't

121
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:22,960
Speaker 1: stages then, they were drum risers. They were risers. And Okay,

122
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:25,880
Speaker 1: when you say stage, you mean the stage, the lights

123
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:29,320
Speaker 1: and everything. No, I mean the set. I mean the set.

124
00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,880
Speaker 1: It's it's the performance environment. For the artists, it's their

125
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:37,800
Speaker 1: living room. Lights are a commodity there rented. Video is

126
00:06:37,839 --> 00:06:40,640
Speaker 1: now a commodity, it's rented. Sound is now a commodity.

127
00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,040
Speaker 1: It's rented. But when you get to staging, that's very

128
00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:46,320
Speaker 1: customed to the artist and it has to go in

129
00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:49,400
Speaker 1: and out just as fast as everything else does. So

130
00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:52,400
Speaker 1: you have to kind of commoditize it in a very

131
00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:55,920
Speaker 1: custom way so that it works for everybody. And we

132
00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,840
Speaker 1: consistently spent time reinvesting in our company. Like so when

133
00:07:00,839 --> 00:07:03,200
Speaker 1: a show arrives in the morning, which most people have

134
00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:05,960
Speaker 1: no idea, right, so just take any show these days,

135
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,680
Speaker 1: that's twenty trucks of equipment. It gets to the gig

136
00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,320
Speaker 1: at seven o'clock in the morning, right on the day

137
00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:14,160
Speaker 1: of the show. You've got until sound check to put

138
00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:17,160
Speaker 1: it together. And ideally, for what we do, we put

139
00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:20,640
Speaker 1: it together with no fasteners and no tools because guess

140
00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:23,280
Speaker 1: what you lose at the gig, right, fasteners and tools.

141
00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:28,440
Speaker 1: So what holds it together? If there's intuitive connections which

142
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:31,560
Speaker 1: are very proprietary and very innovative and something that we

143
00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:34,960
Speaker 1: have collected in our arsenal for thirty forty years, what

144
00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:39,240
Speaker 1: is what would that be it would be a conical

145
00:07:39,360 --> 00:07:42,880
Speaker 1: connector of some type that is very intuitive and very

146
00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,520
Speaker 1: safe and might be spring loaded, might have a clip

147
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,680
Speaker 1: on it. You know, there's all kinds of ways that

148
00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,800
Speaker 1: you can make clever connections these days with innovation and

149
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:57,920
Speaker 1: technology and machining. Okay, let's go back to the narrative film. Okay,

150
00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:01,600
Speaker 1: so you're doing everybody in the round, and then what's

151
00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:04,320
Speaker 1: the next step. Next step is selling the lighting company

152
00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:08,240
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight seven to Nock Turn Herbie and Journey

153
00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,520
Speaker 1: for argument's sake, because they were also very forward thinking

154
00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:15,200
Speaker 1: in the fact that hey, we're a huge band, We're

155
00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:16,920
Speaker 1: going to do this a lot. I don't we in

156
00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:19,720
Speaker 1: our own production company, and they did it right, and

157
00:08:20,240 --> 00:08:22,520
Speaker 1: we were pretty attractive to them. At the time. We

158
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,520
Speaker 1: had a bunch of clients. Bruce Springsteen was just going

159
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,480
Speaker 1: out um with what the hell was the name of

160
00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,680
Speaker 1: the tour? No I was born in the USA. I

161
00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:35,880
Speaker 1: believe that was like his big commercial break, and that

162
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:40,680
Speaker 1: was the Stadium Giant Stadium tour. We had some crazy Okay,

163
00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:43,600
Speaker 1: you're talking about YouTube, you talk about the very lights

164
00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:48,720
Speaker 1: are basically in that break from eight to yourself to Herbie,

165
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:53,600
Speaker 1: what services is Tap providing lighting and staging and we're

166
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:56,400
Speaker 1: losing money on the lighting and we're we're breaking even

167
00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,120
Speaker 1: on the staging to pay for the lighting. So we're

168
00:08:58,160 --> 00:09:01,559
Speaker 1: thinking we're doing well or not? Okay, just to be clear,

169
00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: since you start within the round, how does it evolve

170
00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:12,360
Speaker 1: to staging in general? Uh? I don't understand that question.

171
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:14,760
Speaker 1: Be more specific. Okay, it sounds you know, Michael Tap,

172
00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 1: that's his first name, Michael. He started off doing Yes

173
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:20,680
Speaker 1: in the round, Kenny Rodgers in the Round, etcetera. So

174
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:23,199
Speaker 1: he's the in the round guy. But in the round

175
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:25,640
Speaker 1: was just another form of staging, let's say. I mean

176
00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:27,520
Speaker 1: there were there were plenty of other shows we were

177
00:09:27,520 --> 00:09:30,760
Speaker 1: doing at the time, but the boutique, you know that

178
00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:33,480
Speaker 1: the expertise came with playing in the round because we

179
00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:36,360
Speaker 1: had solved the problems right, and it's like it's like

180
00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:39,920
Speaker 1: doing a boxing match in a in an arena. Michael

181
00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:43,199
Speaker 1: aspired to getting a seating chart from a Frank Sinatra

182
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,480
Speaker 1: show when he first did Yes, Like, I'll just use

183
00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:51,319
Speaker 1: a boxing seating chart because that must work, right, Okay,

184
00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:53,600
Speaker 1: But the main motivation was to sell the back of

185
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:56,600
Speaker 1: the house, which you couldn't do absolutely the promoters and

186
00:09:56,640 --> 00:09:59,839
Speaker 1: the managers just loved him to death. Okay. So now

187
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,000
Speaker 1: to sell the lighting to Nocturn Journey and Herbie Herbert, Yes,

188
00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:06,920
Speaker 1: and what does that leave you with? The stage that

189
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:10,280
Speaker 1: leads you with enough money to go decide that you

190
00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:13,040
Speaker 1: want to build a real company. And so that was

191
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:17,800
Speaker 1: about we broke ground on the first facility I believe

192
00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:21,000
Speaker 1: in the world that was custom built to build staging

193
00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,439
Speaker 1: and scenery for the touring entertainment business. And we designed

194
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:26,920
Speaker 1: the building so that we had enough space to set

195
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:29,040
Speaker 1: something up, and we designed the building to be a

196
00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: real factory. So like the last place that that all

197
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:34,080
Speaker 1: the gear ended up was in the paint booth. The

198
00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:36,280
Speaker 1: paint booth was by the loading dock, and off it

199
00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:39,560
Speaker 1: went in the truck. And it was the beginning of

200
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:46,199
Speaker 1: kind of professionalizing and maturing a carnival industry, right okay.

201
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,360
Speaker 1: And when that happened, when you sold to Nocturn and

202
00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:52,920
Speaker 1: you built your building, how many people how many employees

203
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:57,760
Speaker 1: were there then? Oh? My, probably twenty okay, And right

204
00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:02,600
Speaker 1: now there are si okay. And that building, my might add,

205
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,600
Speaker 1: was a postage stamp compared to the five hundred thousand

206
00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:10,160
Speaker 1: square feet of production facilities that we now currently operate with.

207
00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:13,719
Speaker 1: Just to jump ahead, you built a rehearsal hall like

208
00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:17,040
Speaker 1: six or eight years ago. Oh no, two years ago?

209
00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:20,280
Speaker 1: Is it that recently? Yeah? Okay, how ten years to

210
00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:25,480
Speaker 1: get it together? Right? Right? Right? So another game changer. Okay,

211
00:11:25,559 --> 00:11:29,040
Speaker 1: tell my audience. It's a game changer because prior to

212
00:11:29,120 --> 00:11:31,800
Speaker 1: having a facility like that, these shows have been getting

213
00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,960
Speaker 1: complicated since the nineties, and when you take a show

214
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 1: to go rehearse it, and and rehearsing sometimes means we

215
00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 1: don't really need the artists. We need to rehearse this. Technically,

216
00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,040
Speaker 1: there's no place to do it, right. Where do you

217
00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:47,120
Speaker 1: do it? The a market arenas or books solid with

218
00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:52,280
Speaker 1: basketball hockey concerts, So you'd go to like Sheboygan nowhere

219
00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:56,920
Speaker 1: or Baton Rouge nowhere somewhere that's a sea market building.

220
00:11:57,280 --> 00:11:59,319
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, you have to compromise

221
00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:02,040
Speaker 1: the show that you're trying to flush out because the

222
00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:05,080
Speaker 1: building is not big enough, tall enough to support it.

223
00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:08,520
Speaker 1: Something that drove us crazy for a long time to

224
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:11,840
Speaker 1: be able to have the luxury of having basically, we

225
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:15,520
Speaker 1: have a staple center in Littitz, Pennsylvania that has no seats.

226
00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:18,280
Speaker 1: We can hang a million pounds from the it's just

227
00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:21,400
Speaker 1: the stage, Agari. It's not something like as big as

228
00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:23,880
Speaker 1: an arena. It is as big as an arena with

229
00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:28,200
Speaker 1: no seats. You take you take that hockey dasher and

230
00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:30,600
Speaker 1: get rid of the seats. It's a hundred feet tall.

231
00:12:30,960 --> 00:12:35,280
Speaker 1: You can hang. We we've we've rehearsed stadium shows inside

232
00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,720
Speaker 1: our rehearsal facility. It's that big. Okay. So in a year,

233
00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:45,280
Speaker 1: approximately how many shows do you do? Wow? No freaking clue.

234
00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:46,959
Speaker 1: I mean we probably have twenty five shows on the

235
00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,160
Speaker 1: road right now, just touring shows, just touring. Okay, so

236
00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:55,560
Speaker 1: those touring shows. If you have one rehearsal hall, it

237
00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:58,600
Speaker 1: sounds like you needed an additional rehearsing hall. Yeah, but

238
00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:00,800
Speaker 1: it took ten years to get this one, and it's

239
00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:03,760
Speaker 1: in Lidditz, Pennsylvania. Like the thought of doing something like

240
00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:07,640
Speaker 1: that out here in California it's crazy. It's it's unaffordable,

241
00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:10,439
Speaker 1: you know, it's almost unaffordable where we live. But it's

242
00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:13,280
Speaker 1: a luxury to us, and it supports an industry that

243
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:15,760
Speaker 1: we feel very strongly about. So if the thing can

244
00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:18,960
Speaker 1: pay for itself, we're quite ecstatic about it because to

245
00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:21,600
Speaker 1: be able to take the show that you're building next door,

246
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,240
Speaker 1: it's really it's it's helping everybody, Okay, And how many

247
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:29,760
Speaker 1: acts after you build it literally come rehearse. It's booked.

248
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:33,720
Speaker 1: It's booked all the time. Ariana Grande just left last week.

249
00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:38,320
Speaker 1: There's something incredibly top secret in there right now and

250
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:42,440
Speaker 1: it's going. Okay, So let's just assume I'm going to

251
00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:46,080
Speaker 1: rehearse in your room. What how much time do I need?

252
00:13:46,559 --> 00:13:49,680
Speaker 1: Depends on how big your show is, um, and it

253
00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:52,640
Speaker 1: depends on your artists, right. Some some artists rehearse for

254
00:13:52,679 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 1: a month. They want to get the choreography, they want

255
00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:59,000
Speaker 1: to get the programming. Some artists rehearse for three days.

256
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:01,360
Speaker 1: Some artists don't rehearse it all. You know, some well

257
00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:05,679
Speaker 1: and John his show within our rehearsal facility. But that

258
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:07,439
Speaker 1: man can go sit at the piano and bang it

259
00:14:07,480 --> 00:14:09,640
Speaker 1: out for a show with no problem. Right. The guy

260
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:14,040
Speaker 1: does not need to rehearse. His environment doesn't matter. Right.

261
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:16,640
Speaker 1: His environment is his seat at his piano with the

262
00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:20,640
Speaker 1: relationship to his musicians. He doesn't even know where he is. Okay,

263
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:23,080
Speaker 1: let's go back. I've seen the show. The show is great.

264
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:25,920
Speaker 1: But at the end he goes on like a little

265
00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:29,400
Speaker 1: you know, elevator rod. Okay, but there's a change that

266
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:33,240
Speaker 1: he looks. Okay, Well, of course there is, because he's

267
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:37,560
Speaker 1: got an insurance agent who's probably stressed out of his brain, like,

268
00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:40,600
Speaker 1: oh my god, what are we gonna do if he falls? Okay?

269
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:44,200
Speaker 1: So that was driven by insurance usually those things. I mean, hey,

270
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,200
Speaker 1: if if it would make you feel comfortable, we'd strap

271
00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:50,120
Speaker 1: you in. Like ideally you want to keep everybody safe.

272
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,640
Speaker 1: We have other redundancies of safety, but who knows what

273
00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:56,440
Speaker 1: could happen to somebody you know? Okay, but that was

274
00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,880
Speaker 1: driven not by the act, by insurance. Can't speak to

275
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:02,720
Speaker 1: the directly, Okay. Let me ask you a quiet question,

276
00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:08,040
Speaker 1: do you know? Yeah? Okay? Okay. I don't need to

277
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:10,400
Speaker 1: push that because you know Elton's hips. He's not moving

278
00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:14,640
Speaker 1: to fight, right, Okay. But let's go back. So you

279
00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:17,640
Speaker 1: sell to doctorne you're in the staging business, and you

280
00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:22,560
Speaker 1: professionalize it by our facilities. Yeah. And and then the

281
00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:25,400
Speaker 1: next thing that happens in this world is our friends

282
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:29,480
Speaker 1: at Q Prime in Metallica decide to fight with Napster,

283
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 1: which for us was the best thing that ever happened

284
00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,200
Speaker 1: in the world. Okay, you gotta explain it. Well, there

285
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:38,880
Speaker 1: we are. You know you could say, oh god, you

286
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 1: guys were genius, what a great strategy. Have nothing to

287
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 1: do with it, didn't even know what was happening at

288
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:46,840
Speaker 1: that point in time. The paradigm has shifted, as you

289
00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:49,400
Speaker 1: write about, as you talk about, artists don't make money

290
00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: selling records. They don't make money on their recordings. They

291
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:55,080
Speaker 1: make money in the arenas. And now, all of a sudden,

292
00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:59,720
Speaker 1: touring becomes a brand. Touring becomes your revenue stream and

293
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:02,960
Speaker 1: becomes the way you make your money. And so the

294
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:08,280
Speaker 1: show I think has changed dynamically immensely, right, Like it's

295
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:10,320
Speaker 1: it's not even the same as it used to be.

296
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:14,880
Speaker 1: It's now a spectacle. Right, There's a few artists who

297
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,640
Speaker 1: still have the musicality to go into an arena and

298
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:22,560
Speaker 1: use an oriental rug and a microphone stand. Very rare, right,

299
00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:26,280
Speaker 1: very rare. Even some of the legends who have gone

300
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:29,840
Speaker 1: through their careers without having big productions, all of a

301
00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:34,000
Speaker 1: sudden have a nicer living room. Okay, in terms of

302
00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:36,840
Speaker 1: ticket sales, I know this is not literally your area

303
00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:41,040
Speaker 1: of expertise. Do you think that production makes it so

304
00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:44,520
Speaker 1: people come or these if you assuming you can play,

305
00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:48,800
Speaker 1: you can sell the tickets without production. Uh, it's a

306
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:51,560
Speaker 1: tough question answer based on the fact that I don't

307
00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:53,520
Speaker 1: have the facts, but I can tell you what I

308
00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:56,720
Speaker 1: feel like. I mean, there's so much competition out there,

309
00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:59,400
Speaker 1: and I think that the buyers are incredibly educated and

310
00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:02,280
Speaker 1: they know who's putting on a spectacle and who's not.

311
00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 1: And so it's a choice, right. It's how much of

312
00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:07,359
Speaker 1: a groupie or a music fan are you where you

313
00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:09,959
Speaker 1: don't care about the production. But if you look at

314
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:13,160
Speaker 1: what social media has done to being at the event

315
00:17:13,680 --> 00:17:17,040
Speaker 1: and having a big splash at the event, game changer.

316
00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:19,280
Speaker 1: It's a total game changer. And every artist that we

317
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:23,480
Speaker 1: deal with knows what every other artist is doing out there. Okay,

318
00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:26,359
Speaker 1: just to be clear, you seem to say that a

319
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:30,920
Speaker 1: lot of musicians couldn't play without the staging anywhere. No, no, no,

320
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,120
Speaker 1: I didn't say that. I I don't think that they

321
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:38,400
Speaker 1: could sell as many tickets. They certainly can play musically,

322
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:40,640
Speaker 1: Come on, they could go play at a club. Well,

323
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:44,360
Speaker 1: some can and some can't. Okay, But okay, so now

324
00:17:44,359 --> 00:17:48,160
Speaker 1: you professionalize it when you say Cliff Bernstein que prim

325
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:51,679
Speaker 1: in Napster. You're just talking about the change in the

326
00:17:51,760 --> 00:17:55,600
Speaker 1: scene or something specific that they did. Well. They they

327
00:17:55,640 --> 00:18:00,320
Speaker 1: took Napster down, right. They they single handedly changed the

328
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:03,159
Speaker 1: the landscape of the industry. I believe it wouldn't have

329
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:05,720
Speaker 1: gone the way it is had that not happened. I

330
00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:08,399
Speaker 1: don't believe if the artists are still making money like

331
00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:11,439
Speaker 1: they used to make on those records. Maybe touring is

332
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 1: not as important as it as it is now, but

333
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:18,520
Speaker 1: it became the source of revenue. Right, So it's your brand.

334
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:20,520
Speaker 1: What do you want your brand to look like? It

335
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:22,399
Speaker 1: didn't used to be, right, what did it used to

336
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:24,560
Speaker 1: be look like? You'd go on tour, you'd lose money

337
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,439
Speaker 1: to promote a record. Now, I don't know why they

338
00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:30,680
Speaker 1: were losing money. So they didn't realize how much money

339
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,240
Speaker 1: was out there, and a lot of times they didn't

340
00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:36,520
Speaker 1: want to charge, worrying about fan alienation. But okay, I

341
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:41,480
Speaker 1: know from talking to the Metallica guys whatever that generally speaking,

342
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:44,600
Speaker 1: let me put it this way, does the act own

343
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:48,679
Speaker 1: the stage? No, sir, you own it all. Well. We

344
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,960
Speaker 1: used to sell it in the eighties and the nineties,

345
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,360
Speaker 1: and I traveled around the world to several depots. There

346
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 1: was one in upstaging in Chicago. There was one in

347
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:04,320
Speaker 1: Um explain it's a lighting in and trucking company that

348
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:08,359
Speaker 1: has a depot in Chicago. There was Mojo Barricades in Holland,

349
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:11,400
Speaker 1: which had a great storage facility. We had a storage

350
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,679
Speaker 1: facility and it wasn't good for the earth. It just

351
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:18,120
Speaker 1: wasn't like this. So that the scenario that existed back

352
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:20,399
Speaker 1: then is somebody would spend a lot of money for

353
00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,760
Speaker 1: a stage that they would own it. The lawyers and

354
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:25,280
Speaker 1: the accountants and the manager of the artist could never

355
00:19:25,359 --> 00:19:27,160
Speaker 1: agree what to do with it when they were finished

356
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,840
Speaker 1: with it, because they thought it was this giant asset

357
00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:32,280
Speaker 1: that was completely reusable. But the fact of the matter

358
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:35,560
Speaker 1: is it was completely depreciated. Nobody was going to bring

359
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:37,359
Speaker 1: that thing out, and it was stored in such a

360
00:19:37,359 --> 00:19:40,320
Speaker 1: way where very few humans could go find it and

361
00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:42,040
Speaker 1: know what the hell to do with it to begin with.

362
00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:45,359
Speaker 1: So it was hundreds of trucks. You think about some

363
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: of these shows that you two's, the Rolling Stones, the

364
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:50,199
Speaker 1: Teena there are shows were big and they toured often,

365
00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 1: so hundreds and hundreds of trucks throughout the world just

366
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 1: sitting there now there were people like us who were

367
00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:01,520
Speaker 1: collecting rent on storage. But aside from that, it was

368
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:10,480
Speaker 1: a terrible thing for the environment. Okay, just to be clear,

369
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 1: I come off the road fifty city tour. It literally

370
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:16,560
Speaker 1: sits in the truck for years. No, no, well that

371
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:18,879
Speaker 1: it could sit in the truck. In some places, they

372
00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:21,320
Speaker 1: would literally because trailers are cheap, they'd go stew it

373
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:25,000
Speaker 1: somewhere in California, Arizona. But we had, you know, climate

374
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:28,159
Speaker 1: controlled environments where we would put things they would never

375
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:31,439
Speaker 1: see the light of day ever. And so now it

376
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,240
Speaker 1: bothered me to the point where I tried to change

377
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 1: the business model, and I thought to myself, it's like

378
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:41,760
Speaker 1: renting a car. Right. There is a very specific armature

379
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:45,119
Speaker 1: of every stage set that's like an erector set, the decking,

380
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:49,000
Speaker 1: the stairs, that elevators, a lot of the mechanics. There's

381
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:52,120
Speaker 1: a guts to that show that you see every time

382
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:56,840
Speaker 1: you walk into arena that nobody's actually seeing, right, it

383
00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:00,719
Speaker 1: could be aft of the guts, but you dress that

384
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:04,920
Speaker 1: guts up with all the stylistic versions of how we

385
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: portray these shows, and now all of a sudden, you've

386
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:12,320
Speaker 1: got something that's actually sustainable and we're able to give

387
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:15,280
Speaker 1: more of a show to an artist than we could

388
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 1: before because we're getting some of it back, and we're

389
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:20,840
Speaker 1: getting the useful bits back. We're getting all the automation,

390
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,520
Speaker 1: all the computers, we're getting all the power transmissions, and

391
00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:28,440
Speaker 1: they're quite easily recyclable. And what is not recyclable at

392
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 1: this time scenery? Right, scenery or something that's so stylistic

393
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:37,159
Speaker 1: for that artist or that show that it would easily

394
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 1: be identified. Oh that was for so and so or

395
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 1: this was what do you do with that stuff? Chuck it? Okay?

396
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 1: So there's this big switch in the internet napster era

397
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 1: where you know, the tour is supposed to being advertisement

398
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 1: for the Record of Flips, and the record is the

399
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,679
Speaker 1: advertisement for the tour. In the twenty years that have

400
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:59,760
Speaker 1: gone by since the advent of Napster, what other changes

401
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: of taking place? So I I would attribute the next

402
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:07,879
Speaker 1: biggest change in our business and in our industry to

403
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stone Steel Wheels tour. I think it was.

404
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:16,760
Speaker 1: And Mark Fisher was a set designer for that show

405
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:18,679
Speaker 1: who since passed away, but he was one of the

406
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 1: pre eminent stage designers. To stop your for a second,

407
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,880
Speaker 1: I know from reading your materials. You have a scholarship.

408
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: Und Mark was a dear friend of mine. He passed

409
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: away from a cancer that he should have never passed

410
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 1: away from. He was English, didn't go to the doctor

411
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: as much as he should have. Um Mark was the

412
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: first guy in this world who could take the discipline

413
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 1: of architecture and move it over into set design. And

414
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:47,160
Speaker 1: Mark's history goes back with Roger Waters the inflatables from

415
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,719
Speaker 1: the Wall. Mark Mark built the very first wall by

416
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: himself and operated with his partner Jonathan at the time.

417
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: And our scholarship is to try to show architectural students

418
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:03,720
Speaker 1: in England that this opportunity exists, because our industry is

419
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 1: a secret and it's very hard for young talent, whether

420
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: their engineers, designers, architects, it's very hard to bust into

421
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 1: this industry. I've made it a challenge to myself to

422
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: go around and speak at schools through the scholarship whatever

423
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: it is, to explain those opportunities that exist. But it's

424
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: hard convincing people that that that does a real job, right,

425
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: It's a real job, not like going to an engineering firm. Right, Well,

426
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: what your desiders. But I don't want to lose the threat.

427
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: So what happens with Mark Fisher in the snow Wheel

428
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: sto So it's the first time that outdoor stadium show

429
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 1: was stylistically architecturally done. Prior to that, every show you

430
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,680
Speaker 1: would have seen outdoors had looked like two cereal boxes

431
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: with a shoebox in the middle, like a diorama. And

432
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: this the two towers on each side held the p

433
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: a and the tower in the middle was a roof,

434
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: which we thought would keep an artist dry in the rain,

435
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 1: which it never because the roof was so high and

436
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: it always raised sideways. And Mark was the first guy

437
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: to talk Mick Jagger to the fact that hey, you're

438
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 1: gonna do an outdoor show and you're gonna get wet,

439
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: and if you get wet, I can make you something

440
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 1: that looks like something. And it happened, and on steel wheels.

441
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: It was a big deal. That was a big deal.

442
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: That thing was like three hundred ft wide in the stadium,

443
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: which you'd never be able to do if you tried

444
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: to keep the artist dry, right, And so I think

445
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: that changed the game. It also led to these massive

446
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: globally produced tours which became much more logistically challenging. So

447
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: the The Steel Wheels Tour was the last tour that

448
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 1: Michael Ahearne did with the Rolling Stones and the next tour,

449
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: Jake Berry came into play. And Jake really the role

450
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: of those people are, so Jake would be the production

451
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: manager of the tour man, you know, the organizer of

452
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: moving this army of people and equipment around and Jake

453
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: funny enough, right, there's always six degrees of separation. Jake

454
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: was Rick Wakeman's keyboard road you with Yes, and so

455
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: he had known Michael Tad for quite some time and

456
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: he was out with you know, Motley Crue and Metallica.

457
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: He had a huge career leading up to this, so

458
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: he had enough information, but it had never been executed

459
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: the way that he executed on the next Rolling Stones tour,

460
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: which was the Voodoo Lounge and so on that particular tour,

461
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: we changed the way the show moved. What was called

462
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: universal production became a much bigger system. So when you

463
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: do a stadium. When you do a stadium show, you

464
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: will have two or three sets of steel, which is

465
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: your infrastructure to hang everything that kind of moves in

466
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,159
Speaker 1: and out and leap frogs as we call it. So

467
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: if one's being built in one city, one's being performed

468
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,640
Speaker 1: on in another city, and the other ones being torn down,

469
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: and you're playing a shell game of city to city.

470
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: But Jake kind of took the bull by the horns

471
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 1: to make universal production a much bigger scope. So the

472
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: things that we can take in and out the day

473
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 1: before a stadium show and the night after the show

474
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: has grown exponentially to the point where it's probably bigger

475
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: than what you're taking on any arena show. Right Taylor Swift,

476
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: the last Taylor Swift, where we had fifty two trucks

477
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: just of our equipment universally going in and out of

478
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: a stadium. It's unheard of. And Jake pioneered that to

479
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: change the game, to make it more efficient to have

480
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: these giant shows touring in a stadium, right, because it's

481
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:37,959
Speaker 1: all to the bottom line. Now, okay, so that's changed.

482
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: What else is happening in the modern era? Now? If

483
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: you go past that, it's automation, So flying artists, flying cameras,

484
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: uh what we we refer to it as axes of motion.

485
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: So if you go to a Circuit de Sela show

486
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas Strip, we're automating all of those shows

487
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: that's now spilled into rock and roll. Rock and roll

488
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 1: has always had automation in a show, but maybe like

489
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: three axes of motion. Now the Red Hot Chili Peppers

490
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: have a thousand axes of motion on the show. How

491
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 1: do you control that? That's all done with automation, and

492
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 1: so we we used to have little gray boxes with

493
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: switches on him and you'd pray to God the light

494
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: was green and you press the button and something would happen.

495
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: That's not safe anymore, and that's not the way you

496
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 1: can control a huge show in the marina. So the

497
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: software now has a ton of flexibility to control the movements.

498
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: It's all time coded, usually to the music with the

499
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: lights in the video, and it provides several safety layers

500
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: of redundancy. So like if I tell the computer to

501
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 1: do something and it knows that something is happening over

502
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: here that's not where it should be, it won't let

503
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: you do it. That ain't how it used to work.

504
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,439
Speaker 1: You'd press the button and if somebody's foot was in

505
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,200
Speaker 1: the way, you'd hear him scream. Right, that's not what

506
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: we want to be doing anymore. So automation now it's

507
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: another company, almost within our company. Right, we have a

508
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: software platform. It's called Navigator and it runs probably a

509
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:07,400
Speaker 1: hundred shows every night in the world. Okay, so if

510
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: you use this stuff, how do you sink it with

511
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: a performance? You program it. You program it, just like

512
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: automated lights are being program and in fact, we could

513
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: control the lights, we can control the video we go in.

514
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 1: We're usually underused in that environment, but we have to

515
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 1: be robust enough to anticipate anything. And if you look

516
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: at it in a seirarqu show or in a theater show,

517
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 1: it's it's very robust. So these these types of software

518
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: are now controlling the Metropolitan Opera House, right, Any old

519
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: opera house that had line sets in their in their stage,

520
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: old fashioned counter, they're all being replaced with automation. Now okay,

521
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: I mean with the sand bags and you pull it

522
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: up again. Okay, but let's assume you're a rock band

523
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: and you have all these things. So how do you

524
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: keep everything and think the band as a click track

525
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: or what depends on the band, But usually there is

526
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: a time code that things are being clicked too. I mean,

527
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: let's face it, bands always want a jam bands, right,

528
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: but not everybody's a band. And if if if somebody

529
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: like the Red Out Chili Peppers want a jam, you

530
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: can make it happen. You can put spots in the

531
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: set where you can do it. Some spots might be

532
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 1: highly programmed, some spots might not be. But then there's

533
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: other artists where every breath and every step is highly

534
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: choreographed and everything has to be in sync, so there's

535
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: click tracks happening all the time. Okay, let's go back

536
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: to you personally. You're from where Philadelphia, Philadelphia, and you

537
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: grow up. What does your father do for a living? Oh,

538
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: he was a professional alcoholic, professional alcoholics. That's kind of

539
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: rare for I could say that. Yeah, No, none of

540
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: this had anything to do with family upbringing. I lived

541
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. I went to college in Millersville University, which

542
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: just happened to be four miles away from Lidditz. My

543
00:29:57,880 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: best friend in college was a man by the name

544
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: of Barry Claire who I met day one and it

545
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: was Roy Claire's son, and we became best friends. And

546
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: at some point in college I needed a job and

547
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: I met Michael Tate, who was like the Willie Wonka

548
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: of entertainment, who my interview was basically, what can you

549
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: do I was like, I don't know. I was nineteen

550
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: years old. Can you operate a router? I'm like, no,

551
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: I'm Jewish, we don't use tools. What are you talking about?

552
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: He said, what's the square to forty nine? I said seven?

553
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: He said, can you start today? And it went pretty well.

554
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: And at the time you were employee number I mean,

555
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: how many people were working? Well, okay, eleven sometimes seen

556
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: I mean obviously talking to you, you have the gifted gap,

557
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: You're a very smart guy, whatever. But if someone sees you,

558
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 1: you're a guy in a T shirt, how did you

559
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: end up as CEO UM because we were I saw

560
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: the vision. I saw this man, and I had the

561
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: vision of what of what could happen with this? I

562
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: mean I was growing up as a kid. I was

563
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: a drummer. I used to go to shows at the

564
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: Spectrum in Philadelphia and sneak a camera in to shoot.

565
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: You know. I would take my my zoom lens and

566
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: I would hollow out an Italian role and wrap it

567
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: up in Suran rap, put letters and tomato on the top.

568
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: I go shoot David Bowie, I go shoot jet I

569
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: just love music and to see that opportunity like me,

570
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: like everybody else would go to all those shows and

571
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: have no idea what it took to make those shows. None,

572
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: you'd say, oh, the Spectrum did a great job tonight. Right,

573
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the Spectrum. So he was

574
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: a very inspiring man with a great sense of humor.

575
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: He's Australian, he's had a great sense of humor. And

576
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: we were living the dream. It was a hobby, right,

577
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: but it was a business. But I had to professionalize that.

578
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: I was going to split. I was going to go

579
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: to Universal Studios. I had some friends that were going

580
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: to build the theme park in Orlando. Michael had some

581
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: weird business partner. And I was done and I said

582
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: I'm out of here, and he said, no, you're not.

583
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: I'm firing that guy. You're sticking around and we took off. Right,

584
00:31:57,520 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: that was part of building the building. I said, if

585
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: you want me around, this has to You have to

586
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: be invested in this, just like I'm invested in this.

587
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: I had no idea I was going to be invested

588
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: in something for thirty five years. But fuck, it's been

589
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: a good ride. Right, Okay, So ultimately, even though Tate's

590
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: name was on the building, so to speak, you were

591
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: the man with a vision. Yeah, I mean Michael. Obviously

592
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: he had a vision before I showed up, But I

593
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: don't think he had a vision this far into the

594
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: future that I don't think that's how his brain worked.

595
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: And did you have to put any money in it? Personally? Sweat?

596
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money, Okay, no money. I mean

597
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: back then, we would be working eight nine hours a week.

598
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: Nobody ever told us that. You know, you had to

599
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: come to work, and nobody left at five o'clock. Right,

600
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: You left when you knew that was all you could

601
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: do for the day. But you knew when the show

602
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: had to leave, and that's all you cared about. And

603
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: it ain't like that anymore. We'll tell us how it's

604
00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: like today. It's millennials, you have personal experience. What does

605
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: that look like? No, I, in all fairness, right, we

606
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: have a great organization of people. Like. The thing that's

607
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: very difficult that I experienced younger in my career is

608
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: every show is a fire drill, and after ten buyer drills,

609
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: you don't want to go outside anymore. You're like, I

610
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: don't care if the buildings burning, right, Like, it's it's

611
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: not right for a human to just get up every

612
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: day for a new emergency. And we had to learn

613
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: that in our business, which is why our business is

614
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: so robust right now. Right there was a moment in

615
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: time where I turned around and and the business was

616
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: so robust because the industry was so dysfunctional. Everything was

617
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: an emergency, nothing was planned. Most of the time, we're

618
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: building a show after tickets go on sale. Right It's

619
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: it's crazy phenomenon, and it's not for no reason other

620
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: than we can make up our mind. So I looked

621
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: at that and said to ourselves, ship all of a sudden,

622
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: our business is actually more robust than the industry. It

623
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: can't support us. So we had to go find other

624
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: avenues of work, which we've done very successfully now but

625
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: it's taken a long time, but it was driven by

626
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: the dysfunction of rock and roll. And then tell us

627
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: what the other avenues are. So we have the automation

628
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: company as a very big avenue. You we can be

629
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: doing shows that we're controlling that we've built nothing. We

630
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: have a theme park business that's off the hook. We

631
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: have proprietary software that's in all the theme parks with

632
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: whosever name is on the title, that doesn't involve driving

633
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: a roller coaster, but it involves driving everything else that's

634
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 1: in a in a theme park that's not a ride,

635
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of that, Right, how do you

636
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: keep people amused? Why they're waiting in line? There's a

637
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 1: lot of stuff happening. Uh, Kinetic architecture has become a

638
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: huge thing. So if you stand at Times Square these

639
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: days and you look up at the billboards, you say

640
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: to yourself, why aren't these billboards moving? Wouldn't it be

641
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: so much cooler? And next thing you know, there's a

642
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: coke thing that's moving in and out. So we're building

643
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 1: scoreboards in arena that have kinetic architecture because all these

644
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: people get a buzz from rock and roll, right, Like,

645
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: if you go do a corporate event, they want to

646
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: have a rock star there. All of a sudden, a

647
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: corporate event is now a rock show. But there's speakers

648
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: and there's sales people, but at the end of the day,

649
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: it's a rock show. And so we've always been the

650
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: red headed step children of theater. But theater has always

651
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: stole our ship and put it on Broadway and put

652
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: in the West End. The same thing has happened in

653
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: architecture Now it's not really good enough to go build

654
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: a billion dollar building. You've got to build a billion

655
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: dollar building that has a gag in the lobby or

656
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: has something on the side of it to attract people,

657
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: to get the social media, to have people gathering, and

658
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: it's happening every day. Now, Okay, you got into it

659
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: for the music. Are you still as excited about the music? Absolutely? Yeah,

660
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 1: it's challenging, right, like it's um, it's a different type

661
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: of music the days. But you know, let's just talk

662
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: about the show we went to the other night, right,

663
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 1: the Michael Bublet Show. It's all about the music, right,

664
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 1: But there's an awful lot of work there to get

665
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: that performance environment to be about the music, right, you

666
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 1: still have to have an elegant delivery of that show.

667
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: And you know, Bruce Allen and Randy Berswick, they've been

668
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: doing this for a long time, right, that's the management company.

669
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:32,399
Speaker 1: They they see the value in it. Um, Randy, it's

670
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: funny that you know both my friends Tony Chatto and

671
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: Randy Burwi, because I've always assimilated those two organizations, which

672
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:41,760
Speaker 1: are on either side of the country, is very similar.

673
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: The way that they worked with their musicians and the

674
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: way that they worked with production. And that's que Prime

675
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: and Bruce Allen Town and Randy has been doing this.

676
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,479
Speaker 1: I did my first show with Randy Bryan Adams, Waking

677
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: Up the Neighborhood in or something, and we've had a

678
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: great relationship since and he gets it right. Like every

679
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: element that you saw in that show. We have toiled

680
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: over it with designers with costs because at the end

681
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: of the day, a guy like Randy and myself have

682
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: to make the decision between art and commerce, right what

683
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: cost what what kind of bang do you get for

684
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,720
Speaker 1: your buck? And what are we doing here? And it's

685
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: that's a pretty pretty product that we have out there. Okay,

686
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: let's talk about YouTube for a second, just to separate

687
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: things out. YouTube did their arena tour with the screen

688
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: in the middle they walk through, Okay, experience, how much

689
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: of that is you? Is? The screen? Screen is ours?

690
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 1: But I mean the video product is a commodity. It's rented,

691
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: it comes from somebody else. But everything that that's mounted

692
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: to the way it's deployed, the structure that holds it,

693
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: and the winches that low raise and lower it are

694
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 1: all ours. Okay, since you're talking about winches. Let's talk

695
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: about safety. You go to the gig and you see

696
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: all this stuff hanging. Are these buildings strong enough to

697
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,320
Speaker 1: hold all that stuff? Sure? There's a ton of advance

698
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: work that goes into these shows, you know, from the

699
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: production manager to the house rigger, to the engineers of

700
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: the building to the end third party engineers that we

701
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:19,439
Speaker 1: all hire. It is advanced months before you get there.

702
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: And buildings, you know, these production teams will travel. If

703
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: there's a building that they're not sure of, they'll go there.

704
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: They'll go to the building and do a site survey.

705
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: And it's very well thought out. And you've been doing

706
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: this for thirty five years. Have there ever been any accidents? Uh,

707
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: accidents happened? Yeah, there have been accents. There was an

708
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: accident that happened last week in Cotchella on Saturday. Right, Um,

709
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: but they're rare. But that guy wasn't wearing a safety harness, right, true,

710
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: But most people don't. I don't know. I can't speak

711
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 1: to that. I mean it's you know, years ago, safety

712
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: harnesses didn't exist. Right, people were walk in the beams

713
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: of a rafter. Um, it's called an accident. Yeah, But

714
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: if you look at the amount of shows that happens.

715
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: I would assimilate it to the airline industry. Right. You

716
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: look at the amount of shows that happened versus the

717
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: amount of plans to take off every single day, and

718
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:17,240
Speaker 1: the times you hear about an accident, it's an accident.

719
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: Just to be clear that we could I don't know

720
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: the details, but we could attribute that accident couchel to

721
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: human error. Does the equipment ever fail? Sure? Yeah, it's

722
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: like a car, right, does your car ever run out

723
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: of gas? Does your car run out of oil? Does

724
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 1: a bearing pop? Absolutely? But we spend a lot of

725
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: time trying to mitigate anything that we can expect. We've

726
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 1: probably had every single thing go wrong that you could

727
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: imagine in testing or in our life. So when we

728
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: go to build something, we kind of know what could fail. Okay,

729
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: So you talking about all these new businesses. They come

730
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: to you, or you pitch them, they come to us.

731
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: But there's a few pitches I mean, are are Our

732
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 1: shows are our best form of advertising. Right when when

733
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 1: you go into a building, you'll see our set cards,

734
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: You'll see our product. We are very well branded. People

735
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: know our equipment and the stage hands throughout the country

736
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: welcome our equipment. Right. We we spent a lot of

737
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: time trying to empower local stage hands who put our

738
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: shows together, to make them feel part of the show.

739
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: That was never done before. Right. So what I mean

740
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 1: by that is if you pull a cart off of

741
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: a truck in a building, that that cart is going

742
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: to tell you everything there is to know about what's

743
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: in that cart, where it goes on the show, what

744
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: it's called. So instead of starting, Hey, where do you

745
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: want me to put this, they now have the vernacular

746
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: to speak that the entire show speaks. They know where

747
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: everything is. They feel empowered, and they feel part of

748
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 1: the show, and that's made a huge difference and it's

749
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: great for our brands. So let's say you have an

750
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: arena show. How many stage hands are with the tour

751
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 1: and how many are picked up at the gig? You know,

752
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: that depends on how big the show is. That's that's

753
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: not an easy question answer, but I would say somewhere

754
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: there's usually somewhere between forty and hundred people traveling with

755
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: the show, and that might include all the touring personnel

756
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: as well as the band and the artists and that party.

757
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 1: And then on the average and arena show, might have

758
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: somewhere between sixty and a hundred stage hands for the

759
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 1: load in and the load out, So it's a busy day. Okay,

760
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: let's just assume for the sake of argument, I need

761
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: a stage and I don't go with Tate. Who are

762
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 1: the competitors? You could be a competitor tomorrow. Right. The

763
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,919
Speaker 1: barrier of entry to build one show is very low,

764
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 1: but the barrier of entry to support that show around

765
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: the world for add and twenty performances is out of

766
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: hand high. So there's other companies that exists that have

767
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 1: found niches in the business. And look, we don't want

768
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 1: to do every show, right, that's not what we're that's

769
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: not what we're here for. And some shows we might

770
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: not be able to make a difference some show those

771
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: might be small enough. Is where I can't make a difference.

772
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: On savings during the road, right, operational savings is where

773
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: we really shine. We may be very expensive at the beginning,

774
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: but at the end of that tour we will be

775
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: a lot cheaper than anybody else. That's how we mark.

776
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: Is there any company close in stature or size? I

777
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: don't think so. And is everything's for sale? But is

778
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: your vision at the end of the day to cash

779
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: out and sell it or do you decline offers or what. Um.

780
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: It's an interesting question because we what we go through

781
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: is investors to evolve the company. Right Like, it's gotten

782
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: to the point where it's quite large, and every time

783
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: you want to go do a merger and acquisition, buy

784
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 1: a new machine, you'll get a little sick of going

785
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: to the bank to borrow money. So we have taken

786
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: on some partners, but the core group of the manager

787
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: timan team is in it, and we're all in it.

788
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: And if you told me tomorrow that I can't do

789
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: this for a living, I don't know what the funk

790
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: I do? I really don't, Okay, speaking of you personally,

791
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: you know the facilities and lit it's how many other

792
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: facilities you have around the world. We have a place

793
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, we have a couple of places in London.

794
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: We have some offices in Asia. Um, but that's pretty

795
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: much it. The major fabrication is happening in Pennsylvania. Now

796
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: you used to live there and you recently relatively recently

797
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:34,399
Speaker 1: moved to l A. What does that look like for

798
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: you with the main enterprise there. It's it's saving my

799
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 1: life right, because I was never put on this earth

800
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 1: to be in charge of operations. It was survival and

801
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: at some point it becomes brutal that you know, I

802
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 1: would have never expected that the business got to be

803
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 1: as big as it is now, and that's not what

804
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: I was putting on this earth to do. So for

805
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,320
Speaker 1: me to live in l A, we work on ourselves phones,

806
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: that's how we work. We work communicating. I still speak

807
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: on telephone calls to all my clients, and I think

808
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: that's really important. And to live out here in l A,

809
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: there's enough. It's it's actually created more work, right. We're

810
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: in the center of it, all right, It's nuts. I

811
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 1: was renovating our house over the summer last summer and

812
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: I spent a bit of time at the Beverly wilsh

813
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: I had more. I did more work there, but I

814
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: did being at home. It's a crazy town, it really is.

815
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: And I'm very close to Sony Studios, which is still

816
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: the best room in Los Angeles to rehearse the show.

817
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: Right when the Forum changed going back to being the Forum,

818
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: there are in a lot of places to rehearse out

819
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: here anymore either, So being close to Sony is also

820
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: quite nice. How often do you go as often as

821
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: they want me? Which is what once a month, once

822
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,399
Speaker 1: every four months? There's no I was there two weeks ago,

823
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: there's there's no schedule, okay. And how often are you

824
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: on the road in general? Well, I've come upon a

825
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: time in my life where I'm very fortunate to be

826
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: able to work and work with the people that I

827
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: want to work with, and work with the people who

828
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: are setting you up to succeed. And I know that

829
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: sounds a bit odd, but there are some shows out

830
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: there that are very hard to navigate, and that's a

831
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: great proving ground for our younger employees, which I don't

832
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: have the mental capacity to deal with anymore. Okay, So

833
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: let's say, let's say let's start with a brand new act.

834
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: There are acts now that are go on arena tours

835
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,919
Speaker 1: for their first tour, Sam Smith, this first tour other

836
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: than some private shows? Was it an arena? So someone's

837
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: gonna be working with me with savvy enough to make

838
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 1: contact with you? Right then, how does the discussion begin? Well,

839
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: the discussion always begins with what's the germ of the

840
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 1: idea and who is providing it? And it's never the same, right,

841
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: So It could be the artist vision, it could be

842
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: the artist's interior designer. It could be the lighting designer.

843
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: It could be a real set designer that they they

844
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 1: went to see so and so, and how how do

845
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,479
Speaker 1: I get one of those? But it's never the same.

846
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: It's never the same. Does anybody ever come and say,

847
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 1: I want something spectacular, but I don't know what it is? Absolutely?

848
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: And then what happens? And then we'll point them towards

849
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: some people that we think might help them and will

850
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: interact with all of them, because at the end of

851
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: the day, no matter who the designer is, there is

852
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: nobody better than us that can interpret art and commerce. Right,

853
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:37,359
Speaker 1: we're the only people that are going to be able

854
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,439
Speaker 1: to say, hey, this thing right here, it's gonna cost

855
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: a million dollars if you want to do it this way,

856
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: you could do it for four grand, and maybe it's

857
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: not worth doing at all. Right, we have the ability

858
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,399
Speaker 1: to take things off the paper, create a project list

859
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 1: and items list, and basically handed to management as a

860
00:46:54,920 --> 00:47:00,399
Speaker 1: Chinese menu. Okay, so generally speaking, you're doing no designing, uh,

861
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: none that we will take credit for be paid for it.

862
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: So now, uh, I have an intermediary okay, I'm I.

863
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm the manager. Whenever I have a vision and I

864
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: give you the vision, what's the next step, we'll draw it,

865
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:19,359
Speaker 1: will create that item list and we'll you know, how

866
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: long are you going on tour? Are you going internationally?

867
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: Are you going in airplanes? Like, we've got to find

868
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: a bit out. How many shows can you amortize this over?

869
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: We've got to do a bit of the work that

870
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: a good manager would do, because sometimes those managers aren't

871
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: clever enough or don't have the experience to understand what

872
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: they're getting into. So for us, everybody's got to be successful.

873
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 1: If the tour ain't making money and we're we were

874
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: doing great on the tour, it's a it's a disaster, right.

875
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: The vibe has to be perfect for success, and so

876
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time trying to make sure

877
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: that everybody is successful at the end of a tour.

878
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of them that I could

879
00:47:56,120 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: speak to that weren't. Okay, So you give your proposals.

880
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: Do you charge for the proposal? Sir? Okay? So let's

881
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: go back and you're talking about the timeline. Everything is

882
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: an emergency. Okay. I just thought I want to go

883
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: on the road, and then I'm talking about what buildings

884
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play with. Ticket prices are generally speaking, they

885
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 1: have not contacted you yet, Ish, but we we know

886
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: what's going on in the market, right like we know

887
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: who's going on tour, and we know you know, once

888
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: a building hold happens, the world kind of knows about it.

889
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 1: So you we can start preparing for something that we

890
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: think we're gonna do before they actually even contact us. Okay,

891
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 1: So when they do contact you, generally speaking, how many

892
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: months out? Two? Really that's that quick, could be six,

893
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: that'd be a luxury. Usually if you're talking about it

894
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: six months out and you're drawing it, you're not actually

895
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: contracted in beginning fabrication. It's it's rare in the in

896
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: the touring scenario to get more than two months. Just

897
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: to go back, you did Youtubo's Claw. We've done every

898
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: YouTube show since they've been a band, back to the

899
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: first one I did was Joshua Tree and Michael and

900
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,839
Speaker 1: Willie Williams had done too before that, Boy and I

901
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: can't remember what was the other one October something okay,

902
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: so unforgettable fire but so um okay, So I come

903
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 1: to you, I tell you what I want. How long

904
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,839
Speaker 1: was it going to take you to make to draw

905
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: it up and say, you know, this is what's involved?

906
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: A couple of days back quickly? Absolutely? Is there one

907
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: person who does that or there's an army of people

908
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: that do that? So you drawed up in a couple

909
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: of days, Uh, then what's the next step? The next

910
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 1: step would be telling somebody how much it costs and

911
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 1: then expecting somebody to yell and screament that's too much.

912
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:53,880
Speaker 1: And now you've got to figure out how to reverse

913
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: engineer it. Because if I give you a picture or

914
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 1: something I want, there's ten ways to build something. We

915
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: have to find the way to build it that's best

916
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: for logistics but also best for art. And sometimes it

917
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: might just be a bad idea and you've got to

918
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: throw it out. Okay. Does anybody ever say, okay, I

919
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: like it, the cost is good. Where everybody's arguing about

920
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: the price, I don't think they're arguing. I don't think

921
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: it's it's not usually an argue. It's it's kind of

922
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 1: like a commitment, and it's and it's based upon budgets,

923
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 1: and somebody might make a budget and this is what

924
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,879
Speaker 1: we spent last year, Well, guess what it costs more

925
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: this year, or where does the budget come from? Like,

926
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: we're not privy to that, nor do I want to be,

927
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,240
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I'm much happier to figure

928
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 1: out how to get to a common ground. And that

929
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 1: involves loyalty and trust, which is a word that's not

930
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: usually spoken in our industry. But we've managed to collect

931
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: some of that trust and loyalty through some people that

932
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: are legendary, right like managers in this business. If you

933
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:01,359
Speaker 1: can get a couple of good ones, your credibility goes

934
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,799
Speaker 1: way up, right. The Roger Davies of the world, the

935
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: Barry Marshall's the World, the que Primes of Bruce Allen's.

936
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: There's a ton of those relationships that we've had and

937
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: those people are the best at what they're doing, right,

938
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: So if you're loyal and and supported by those people,

939
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: it's the best way to work. Okay, so you've created

940
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: the drawing, Now you're discussing budget. But how long is

941
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: that process? Usually too long? It's it's it's a it's

942
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: it's too long. It can go until we have to

943
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 1: say we're not going to make your date. That that

944
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: can go on for a little while. Okay, that's probably

945
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 1: the longest lag. It's like, oh ship okay, and then

946
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 1: once you decide, I know, every show is different, how

947
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: long does it take to build it? It's funny because

948
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: the building part is actually the easiest part, right, it's

949
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: the figuring it out that you have to figure out

950
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: how you're going to build it, to price it, Okay,

951
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 1: you can't just price it on a whim. You really

952
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:04,279
Speaker 1: need to engineer it, which is why you have to

953
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: be very careful that you're doing this with people that

954
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: are actually going to do it, because you're going to

955
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: go invest a bunch of time and money into it.

956
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 1: And the how long does it take? That's that's not

957
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 1: a fair question because how big is it? Right? Like,

958
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: some of these things are pretty sophisticated, but it's very

959
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 1: rare that you get more than eight or ten weeks. Okay,

960
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, if it takes a couple

961
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: of days to draw it, that's not what we're talking

962
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: about figuring out how to build it. No, No, it

963
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: probably takes two weeks of engineering to actually rip it out, right,

964
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: like to to narrow it down to every element, every

965
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: bit of engineering, and you know you can. You have

966
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: to go through a couple of iterations to get there.

967
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: And some tours are so big, like a massive Rolling

968
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: Stones YouTube Madonna Stadium show, they'll take a little longer

969
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,879
Speaker 1: to work out every single item. Okay, so once it's

970
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: worked out, it takes how long to build? Obviously, whatever

971
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: you got, it takes whatever you got to get the

972
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: opening night. Okay. When you have one of these one

973
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:10,359
Speaker 1: of a kind shows and you put it together, how

974
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: often does it work right the first time? Percent of

975
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: the time? Yeah? Okay, so you're building the stage, Okay,

976
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 1: what about sound reinforcement? How does that figured it? In

977
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: the lights, etcetera. It figures into the the overall design.

978
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 1: And you'd be surprised how many bands and designers will

979
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 1: present you with a design that absolutely doesn't have any

980
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 1: musicians on the stage. There's no sound in the drawing.

981
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: It's just a pretty picture of an object that they

982
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: call us set design. I think what we do really

983
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: well is we integrate all the other people. We were

984
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 1: kind of like a general contractor, but we're not hiring

985
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 1: the other people. We usually have what's called the master

986
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: drawing in our file, and we're able to help all

987
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: those other people succeed, and we're able to lend some

988
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 1: expertise to if there's integration between sound and video and

989
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:04,959
Speaker 1: lights like sometimes there's not, sometimes it's just hanging off

990
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: by itself. Sometimes it's incredibly integrated as well. As the

991
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 1: Steel Stageco in Belgium is one of the premier companies

992
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 1: that kind of works the way we do, but with

993
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: big pieces of steel to hang the p A and

994
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: the sound I'm sorry, in the lights and there's a

995
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: lot of integration that happens amongst there. There's a lot

996
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: of conversation amongst the vendors talking back and forth, but

997
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: we stand head and shoulders to be able to provide

998
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: master drawings and drop things into these drawings. That helps

999
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: everybody make a real decision. Okay, So I came with you.

1000
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: We we agreed on what it's gonna look like. Uh,

1001
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: you talked about these you know, the way you don't

1002
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: use fasteners, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So on one hand, you

1003
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: have a group who's constantly coming up with new ideas.

1004
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 1: Is that you have like an innovation team? Absolutely okay?

1005
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: And then so the people you you innovate to survive, right, you.

1006
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,399
Speaker 1: You're constantly faced with the challenge. It needs to be

1007
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: figured out almost on every show, whether you innovate something

1008
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 1: that you're going to use again for the next twenty

1009
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:13,839
Speaker 1: years where it's it works once, we don't know about that,

1010
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,440
Speaker 1: but we absolutely are innovating on every single show. Prototypes.

1011
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: Give me an example of I don't think my brain

1012
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 1: could do that right now, but um, stand by and

1013
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:31,760
Speaker 1: I'll see what comes to my mind. I'm not going there, right, okay?

1014
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 1: Then right, it's whatever, right okay? And then uh's part

1015
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: of the budget, of course, is how do you break

1016
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:41,680
Speaker 1: it down? And how many trucks it's gonna be, right,

1017
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: not my budget, but somebody else's budget for sure, And

1018
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: does it fit on airplanes? And does it fit and

1019
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,360
Speaker 1: sea containers? And how are you going to deal with

1020
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 1: all that? Right? And you go out an arena, I mean,

1021
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,240
Speaker 1: who takes the stuff by plane other than to Europe Asia?

1022
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 1: Madonna rolling stones you to Um, it's just a game

1023
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 1: of numbers, right, like how much does the air freight costs?

1024
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 1: And what kind of revenue are you gonna get to

1025
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 1: be able to get it there quicker? Because the boats

1026
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 1: a month to go oversee you so Some bands don't

1027
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: want to hang it up for a month. Why the

1028
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,120
Speaker 1: ship sales? Some bands want to go play and make

1029
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:19,440
Speaker 1: the money. It's it's really up to the artists in

1030
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: the schedule. You know what you're in the market though,

1031
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 1: like the US, it's not gonna go by plane, that's correct.

1032
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:29,240
Speaker 1: Truck truck truck. Okay. So you've been in this business

1033
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:34,399
Speaker 1: a long time. What shows you proud of stuff? Wow,

1034
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask that question quite a bit and um,

1035
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: usually I'd say if it's not the show that I'm

1036
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: currently working on, there's something wrong. But I think some

1037
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: of the standouts for me have been having the privilege

1038
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: to work with the Rolling Stones time and time and

1039
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: time again are you doing to? They are the epitome

1040
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 1: of rock and roll right like it's it's just amazing,

1041
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 1: and make is like the true CEO of an organization,

1042
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 1: and and the people they surround themselves with, there's there's

1043
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: nothing like The Tina Turner seven show was so memorable

1044
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:09,479
Speaker 1: to me. She was such a legend. Mark designed that show,

1045
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,719
Speaker 1: Jake was a production manager. It was amazing. Um. Some

1046
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: of the Live Nation Global tours where we're fortunate enough

1047
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: to work with Arthur and his gang on are on

1048
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: YouTube and Madonna have been just mind blowing right, like

1049
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: they take technology to the next level on a Madonna show,

1050
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:30,160
Speaker 1: and and and on a Youtubo show. I mean, I

1051
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: I feel that you two has single handedly been responsible

1052
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: for the evolution of video in stadiums and arenas. Like

1053
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: nobody's pushed the envelope. You two has pretty much been

1054
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 1: the prototype for what everybody's doing. That that follows as

1055
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:48,959
Speaker 1: it relates to video, Well, certainly you know the first

1056
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: Innocence an Experience tour that was mind blowing, like four

1057
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,320
Speaker 1: or five years. Yeah, but go back to like pop Mart,

1058
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:58,160
Speaker 1: I mean, whether you like the music or not, that

1059
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: show is insane. Actually, I go back to the one

1060
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: before that, Zoo TV Indoors with the trabants and everything.

1061
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: I saw it outdoors too, but Indoors just one of

1062
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 1: the three best shows. Heard That show at Hershey Park Stadium.

1063
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:14,400
Speaker 1: By the way, it's kind of convenient. At the time,

1064
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 1: we didn't have a rehearsal facility, but we had a

1065
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 1: football field in Hershey, which is where we rehearse that show.

1066
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 1: And again, like these artists that have this cycle of touring,

1067
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:28,480
Speaker 1: they do it like nobody else, right, Paul McCartney, it's incredible.

1068
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,439
Speaker 1: You work with Paul, Yeah, it's just incredible what he does.

1069
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: And Roy Bennett is his lighting designer and his set designer.

1070
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 1: And Roy's a legend as well who comes from Prince

1071
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:43,120
Speaker 1: and he is constantly pushing the envelope with lighting and video.

1072
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: And you get a guy like Paul McCartney who then

1073
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: goes and plays for three hours right right, Like, not

1074
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: only does his show look amazing, but you got that

1075
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:58,919
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Well, if that peak, I think we've come

1076
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:01,200
Speaker 1: to the end of the feeling, we know, unless there's

1077
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: something you need to add. No, I don't even I

1078
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 1: don't know how I got here, and I don't know

1079
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 1: where we're going. Like that's it's that's what it feels

1080
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:13,919
Speaker 1: like like you walk into these shows these days. It's

1081
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: mind blowing, right, Like you know, I read your column

1082
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: and it's funny because I can remember the olden days

1083
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 1: of getting your your stuff. And it's always funny when

1084
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: I read it because you have such stubborn opinions about

1085
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 1: a lot of things. I would never funk with you

1086
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 1: with any of them. I would never, But like the music, right,

1087
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:35,880
Speaker 1: it's it's got to come from the music. I don't

1088
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: care if you like the music or you don't like

1089
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 1: the music, but what we do has to be inspired

1090
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 1: by the music. And so it's very refreshing to me

1091
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 1: when I like when I went to Boobley the other night,

1092
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: or I just did Kelly Clarkson in Nashville. Was our

1093
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: second to last show and we had rebook come out

1094
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 1: and do a ten minute Facebook live with Kelly, which

1095
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:55,880
Speaker 1: was super meaningful to me because I had done Reba

1096
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: shows in the nineties when she had twenty trucks. But

1097
00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: to see real musician in these arenas now, it's so refreshing, right,

1098
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: Like you saw forty horn and string players right. Where

1099
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: do you get to see that anymore like I've ever

1100
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,360
Speaker 1: seen it other than as the symphony, And to see

1101
01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: it's so well presented in that in that environment, I

1102
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 1: just love it. I mean, Bruno Mars, you had musicians, right,

1103
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:22,080
Speaker 1: It's so refreshing that I get such a buzz out

1104
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: of that that when you see that mixed in with

1105
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:26,439
Speaker 1: our stuff. It's one thing when you're building a show

1106
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: and you're you're like, Wow, nobody's really playing here or

1107
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 1: there's too much care, But when you see that it's captivating,

1108
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,320
Speaker 1: and I think we embellish it. Well. On that note,

1109
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 1: you've gotten full insight it to take towers by weeky,

1110
01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 1: fair oarth and some levels just a tip of the iceberg.

1111
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes I saw hard days night during the

1112
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,600
Speaker 1: afternoon and litter, so I think I've told you that.

1113
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 1: But someday I have to go there just see what's

1114
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, I mean you should. I mean just

1115
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: to see. I mean this whole bit of how the

1116
01:00:58,080 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: the sets come together without fasteners. I'm fascinated by that,

1117
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,600
Speaker 1: and I certainly know all the managers and I heard

1118
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 1: Dan Brown talk about it, Tony, etcetera. But basically just

1119
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 1: telling you were too expensive though, right, I won't go

1120
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 1: into everything they say. I don't want to make sure

1121
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 1: we must be doing something right. We're constantly invited to

1122
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely and uh okay, until next time. Thanks so

1123
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: much for