WEBVTT - Fred Rosen 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.680 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.080 My guest today is the one and only Mr Ticketmaster 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:24.560 Fred Rosen. Fred, how did you first get involved with Ticketmaster? Serendipity, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.640 which is always something that people forget about. Um. I 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:34.680 was practicing law and in the mid seventies I had 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.920 represented somebody who was in the ticket business or trying 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.760 to get in the ticket business and got nowhere. And 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.360 there was an attorney. We were in a suite of 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.040 My firm was us. We had a small firm, and 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.400 we were in a suite of attorneys, and a lawyer 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.000 called me who was on the other end of the floor, 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.440 and he said, there's a guy who wants to go 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.720 into ticketing. Why don't you come talk him out of it? 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.280 And I went and met him. Oh, I met We 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.600 we met on the phone and he said, gee, you 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.679 know more about this than I do. Are you open 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.919 to coming to Chicago? And that gentleman's name was Bert Canner. 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.040 And as a result of that, I became special counsel 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.839 to Ticketmaster and six or seven or eight other companies 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.919 because he would make investments between three and five million 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:29.119 dollars in these various companies. And this was early night. 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.360 I couldn't tell you the month, whether it was February 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:36.759 or March. And then in the spring of eight two, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.720 company was running out of money A little bit slower, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.119 A little bit slower. So you were based in New 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.520 York and then you moved to Chicago. No, I never 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.720 moved to Chicago. I was I lived in New York 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.760 and I had clients all over the country and Bert 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.080 was a client in Chicago. Okay, where did Burke get 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.600 his money? Bert was a very successful attorney who represented 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:04.880 a lot of people, um wealthy people, and invented tax shelters, 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.079 and he was a pretty smart guy, was a tax attorney. 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:14.040 So he put together a group who invested probably in 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.160 at least ten companies more than I represented. And he 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.520 would put in seed money or venture capital money in 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.280 the late seventies and early eighties. And how many of 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:34.320 these companies other than Ticketmaster were in the entertainment sphere. None. Okay, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.840 So now it's the spring of eighty two, he's running 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.000 out of money. Pick up the narrative. He says he's 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.760 going to close it and he doesn't want to fund 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.079 it anymore. And I said to him, um, I don't 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:49.960 think you should do that. Let me see if I 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:56.280 can go raise the money UH and buy it UM 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.880 and put together a group to buy it UM. And 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.720 subsequently we talked to a bunch of venture capital people 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.600 and we were going to raise four million dollars and 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.520 we had commitments for three and we had met j 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:12.919 Pritzker who said, if you can raise the other three, 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.760 I'll put in the last million. And then at I 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:21.560 Double AM in Milwaukee and two, which was July, I 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:27.000 believe I was in Milwaukee, and he said to me, UM, 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.120 why don't you come down and spend the afternoon with me? 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.600 He lived in Winnetka, Okay. For those who were not savvy, 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.320 the I double a F Is that a union? I presume? No? No, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.960 The I double AM was the industry where you'd have UM. 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:45.000 It was a convention, sorry about that, where UM people 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:50.080 who did seating, food service, ticketing. It was basically the 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.280 industry around arenas and stadiums. Okay, just one step before 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.600 we go there, we'll continue. What was the status of 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.880 ticket Master when it was seemed to be running out 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.920 of money. UM it owns losing a couple of million 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:12.200 a year. It owned UM small pieces of different operating systems, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.719 and in March or April of that year, I signed 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.760 a letter of intent with the Chicago White Sox that 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.240 basically required three things Bob, One that we'd have a 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.799 data center up in Chicago by the fall of eighty two. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.800 Two as we tell him who the outlets would be, 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.559 and three as we get the company financed. So let's 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.920 go back to Milwaukee. You're trying to raise the three 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.640 to get the one from Pritsker. Continue, I have commitments 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.120 for the three, and Pritsker says, come see me. So 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.799 I go see him, and we spend four hours together 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.359 and he says to me, why don't I just do 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:01.520 this myself? And that's how it stored it. Okay, So 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.360 the other people who assembled the three, they were fine 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.320 to walk away because it was a long shot in 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.400 their minds. We paid him a fee, as I recall, 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.159 we paid them a walk away fee. No papers were signed. 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.760 These were all verbal commitments. Okay. So when does he 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.120 invest is for? And what ownership position do you get 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.680 when he invests for? Um, we've never discussed that publicly, 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.640 and I'm not gonna do that now what the ownership 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.719 position was, but um, he invested it, I believe in 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.960 September of eighty two. And you did get an ownership piece, Yes, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.279 I did. There were only two owners of the company, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.960 he and I. Okay, so now you're running again. Tell 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:50.560 me what happens. That'll take two hours. Um. We right 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.120 a business plan that's gonna be Chicago in New York, 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.479 and we opened in Chicago in the fall of that year. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.680 We have outlets. Said, of course, for those of you 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.680 who don't remember, there were outlets before the internet. Those 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.800 stores physical locations and a phone room. And the outlets 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.320 were in sports Mark, which was a sporting goods store, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:16.960 Rose Records, and Carson Perry Scott. And we had both 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:22.920 baseball teams, the White Sox and Cubs. And we had 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:28.520 a deal with the big concert promoter, which was jam Um. 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:34.360 And we were talking to everybody, okay, just before that, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:40.240 who were they using previously, Well, everybody was using ticket Tron. Okay. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.719 Ticket Tron was was the you know, main player at 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.080 the time. And our business plan was to open in 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.839 New York and there was six major clients in New York. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.680 There was Madison Square Garden, the Meadowlands, Nassau Coliseum, one 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.800 of the theater group's legitimate theater, and then both baseball teams, uh, 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:06.360 the Yankees and the Mets. And and to open you 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.080 would need four of the six if you had any 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.840 chance of making money. And interestingly enough, although we never 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:14.920 got them as a client, then we could have gotten 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:20.040 the Mets. We did have NASA Coliseum, Uh, but we 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.560 didn't weren't making much headway in the fall of a 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.960 D two and into the winter of a D two. 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:31.600 So um I would say at that time we had 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.880 a foothold in Chicago, difficult to get arrested in New York, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:41.400 and we just kept knocking on doors. Okay, just to 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.160 be clear for the other many people who were not 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.080 alive unlike you and me in that era, what was 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.760 your pitch to these companies? What differentiated Ticketmaster from ticket 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.320 toront or any other service you'll find the shocking. My 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.800 basic theory for going into this was ticket Mester had 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.679 an operating system that was basically an inventory control system. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.960 It was season tickets, group tickets, single tickets on one 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.600 integrated system ticketsry and had two boxes one boxers the 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.480 season tickets, one box was for single tickets, and as 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.800 hard as that is to believe Bob, the boxes didn't 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.840 talk to each other, so you end up having to 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.600 manually put stuff together for the teams. And what started 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.160 all this is when I was talking to this gentleman 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.240 at the Chicago White Sox. I said, how many tickets 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:33.880 did you sell last night? And he said, well, we 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.240 can give you an estimate, he said, because he said, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.319 because it doesn't always tie out, and you know, not 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.080 being computer literate and not being sophisticated in terms of 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.160 how things work, I assumed that people would say, Wow, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.480 I have this computer system that can now do this 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.720 integration of all everything under one roof, and that would 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.760 be meaningful. And I was only wrong. That was not 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.240 That was not exactly what happened. It was okay for 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:13.160 the baseball teams, but not necessarily for the arenas. So okay, 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.959 you're talking. We're still in eighty two, and you're telling 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.960 me what happens right now, we're losing money. And I 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.720 get a call in December um from I can't remember 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.440 exactly who called me, but they said Steve Wozniak. As 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.080 you may recall who was Steve Jobs partner when they 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:39.240 started Apple. This was this is pretty close to the conversation. Um, Steve, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.600 Steve Wozniak hates tike Atron because there were a lot 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.880 of counterfeits last year at a thing called the US Festival. 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.800 I'm not sure you even remember that. Believe me, I 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.720 remember it, do you? It was San Bernardino in that 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.839 Glenn Helen and Helen Reginald Park, right, okay, And so 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.520 there was gonna be three days at Glenn Helen Regional 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.800 Park and then the following weekend was gonna be like 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.839 Country and so it's sort of like the fore runner 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.400 coach for for Coachella, but it had nothing to do 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.960 with coach, not not even the slightest. So they called 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.240 me up in New York and they go, um, Wasniak 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.400 hates ticketron. They want you to do the ticketing. And 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.920 then I talking to a guy named John Ruby, who 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.400 you may remember work for Barry Faye, and Barry Faye 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.000 was getting the acts, uh, none of which I knew. Um, 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:36.720 and they said you gotta come to California and I went, uh, 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.600 that would be a no. Um. You know, I don't 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.520 know anybody in California. I don't even know what California 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.720 is all about. And um, they said, no, you gotta come. 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.400 So they kept calling and then Jerry Seltzer, who you 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.400 may remember from Bass, was somebody who we had started 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.199 talking to. And Jerry said, look, we could go to California. 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.160 We could we could open in l A. I can 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:06.760 send some people down from UM northern California. And there 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:08.920 was a phone room in New York called charge It, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:14.680 which we initially took out the California and then throughout UM. 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.520 But you know, they kept pushing me to come, and 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:25.559 so I flew out to California in January of and 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.520 knew nobody, and I'm meeting these different people and I'm 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.920 totally confused, and I'm showing up in three piece suits 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:35.920 and smoking, so you know, it's the New York thing, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.920 New York cigars, you know, cigars and the whole silliness 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.880 of that. And they say to me, look, will you 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.360 guarantee the drop count if we give you the tickets, And, 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.640 not knowing what the drop count was, I said sure 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.360 because I had no idea what that meant. But the 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.320 drop count was basically, if the tickets at the floor, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.679 you pay for them, okay. And then they kept pushing 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:03.240 on me to come, and I met Um Terry Bassett 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:08.000 and Bob Gettys and um you know some other people. 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.360 But I was gonna basically outsource the whole thing. I 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.839 personally was not going to come to California. Uh. We 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.240 were gonna bring people down from northern California and from 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.320 New York. And what I figured is this UM wasn 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.520 was gonna spend a million dollars advertising on this. It 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.520 was a free play. And they said, can you set 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.600 up fifty hard ticket outlets? So this is what happened. 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.800 In the months of January and February. We found a 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.840 space in Korea Town in a company that a company 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.360 named Rexon went out of business. It's amazing how I 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.280 remember all this stuff. And they had a data center 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.959 and we signed two leases, one for six months and 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.439 one for five years because we didn't know if it 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.720 would work. And I put up fifty grand for six months, 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:56.720 and I could have walked if it didn't work. And 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.839 I figured, if they spend a million dollars advertising, maybe 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:02.920 we can get a foothold. I wouldn't know one client 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.480 from another at all. In in uh in l A. 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:14.000 Now middle of February, I meet Terry Bassett and Getty's 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.920 and Dad that people run an avalon which you well know. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.240 And and this was even before I met Brian Murphy, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.800 and basically, um, I tell him what we're gonna do. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.440 And we we had a meeting at the Old Holiday 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.800 Inn on the four oh five. We had breakfast, and 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:35.960 I go back to New York and I've got everybody 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.559 coming to l A. And Terry Bassett, who should rest 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.839 in peace. I met him once. This is what I 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.719 mean about serendipity in life. And Terry calls me. I've 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.360 got lud dick Stein coming from Dallas. I've got Jerry 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.480 and his people coming from Northern California. I've got guys 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.400 coming from New York. We're gonna have it had to 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.079 go on sale April one. The guys at sport Mark 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.800 agreed to do this from Chicago to l A. And 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.640 then the guys from sport Mart introduced me to Music Plus, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.320 and Lou Fogelman at Music Plus said, okay, I'll become 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.360 hard at ticket outlets for you. And I set up 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.040 fifty hard ticket outlets, which, when you think about that, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:21.960 is semi insane. And Terry Bastard calls me up and says, listen, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.400 this will not work unless you come to California. Now 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.440 I'm a New York I I go, what are you 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.400 talking about? He said, you need to come to California. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.960 I go, Terry, I met you once I got all 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.600 these people coming. He said, Fred, if you don't come, 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:46.680 this will fail. I'm getting killed everywhere else. I'm losing 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:48.960 money in Chicago. I can't get arrested in New York. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.600 And I figured what the hell? And I rent the 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.880 house for six months and bring my family out to 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.440 California in late March of eighty three and walk into 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:03.640 the office April one and sit down with some of 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.600 the people who were there and promptly fire them and 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:12.520 say you'll be leaving. And um, that was the beginning. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.600 So how did it play out with US Festival? Well, 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.160 the U S Festival plays out as follows. There's a 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.360 lot of advertisement going on. You've got Avalon. I proceed 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:33.400 to sign contracts with Irvy Meadows, Avalon, Long Beach Arena, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:38.800 a couple of small venues, and then this is what happens. 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.560 That's totally strange. Oh, we also put Return of the 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.320 Jedi on sale um in advance and wind up selling 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.240 fifty tickets. That was a Jerry Seltzer idea, and I said, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.480 who's gonna buy movie tickets? I mean, I'm from New York. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.520 I never thought of any of that as real as real. 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.320 And we wind up and and Fox gets man at 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.360 us because we announced were selling movie tickets. You know, 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.000 they have their home market. And anyway, it was sort 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.640 of a camp. It was a mess on some level, 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:11.080 but interesting. And so the Forum, UM, the l A 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:16.640 Forum has a contract with Tigatron, which was an exclusive contract, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:23.280 and that's gonna come up UM in September one of 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.440 and I meet Lou Bamister, who was the president of 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:34.720 the Forum UM, and we start to negotiate, and candidly, Bob, 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.080 I thought we were a stalking horse. So when you 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.400 think you're not, you have no shot. And I've said 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.520 this before, when you think you have no shot to win, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.760 you kind of negotiate a certain way. And you know, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.640 my view was they had a long term relationship. UM. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.960 At that time, I did not have Claire Claire Rothman, 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.360 who was really a brilliant woman and the first really 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:03.560 strong woman who ran in arena in America, UM, who 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.760 was not too anxious to see us, And UM, I 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.600 never thought we had a shot and one of the 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:12.520 things I said to lou was, look, you need to 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:19.639 let me know by June whether or not, um we 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.560 can do this now. Part of what you want to 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.320 know is where did the economics come from. Early on, 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.480 I learned that people were not gonna switch just on 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.040 the basis you had a better system. But they all 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.439 wanted to charge your dollar, and I said, I'm not 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.359 doing that. All you do is complain that you don't 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.359 have new equipment. You complain the equipment doesn't work, You 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.600 complain you don't have the software you need. It has 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.480 to be that I can make a profit. And then 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.680 they go, well, if you do that, then I should 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.840 get this. And then finally it came to me where 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.360 I staid, look, I need this to make money. If 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.800 you want a quarter of fifty cents that gets added 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:05.439 to what I make. And that was the negotiation. And 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:11.640 then on June Louke called me and I take bad 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.640 news better standing up. So I had just come back 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.560 from a meeting and my assistant says Mr Bammis is 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:20.480 on the phone, and I pick up the phone and 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.680 I'm standing and lu says, we're close, but we're not there. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.760 And I went, you need to hold on because now 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.000 like my heart is coming. I mean, you can't see 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.080 this in terms of how you knew me when we 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.600 got bigger. This was the beginning. This was something where 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.359 you knew if this happened, this was going to change 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.120 the world. And I don't say that lightly. I meant 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.880 it seriously. Because the Forum was one of the two 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.679 or three what I call even though it was local building, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.440 had a national presence. So Lou says to me, look, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.080 we're close, but we're not there. I need a sweetener. 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:01.800 And and we were both going to a charity event 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.680 that night, and I was going back to New York 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.520 the next day, and I said, I tell you what, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.200 why don't you think about what you want and if 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.720 that makes sense, will make a deal. Because I'm out 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.560 of ideas. My my brain is gone. I don't have 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.840 anything I can tell you. And while I'm driving home 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.760 to change that for that night, it throwns on me, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.000 that's a pretty stupid way to handle that. You better 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.240 come up with this solution, because this solution could be 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.479 he'd like the whole company. So I um came up 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.480 with a solution and we I got to the charity 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.720 event and I take him up on the side and 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.919 we're having a cocktail and I say to him, what 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.000 do you think about this? And he says, well, that 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.200 sounds interesting. Let me think about it. Now. Picture this 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.240 the next morning. This will tell you more about Lou bound, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.280 this gentleman, than anything I could say. I get on 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.640 a plane in the morning, I fly to New York. 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.240 I have a car picked me up and take me 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.840 out to a home in West Hampton. I'm not in 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:08.240 the house. Ten minutes in the phone rings. It's Lou fred. 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.440 I just want you to know you got the deal. 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.800 Have a great July fourth weekend. I wanted to make 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.480 you feel good about this. That was Lou. Now. A 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.159 couple of days later after the holiday, wait wait wait 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.639 wait wait wait wait, you left out a couple of things. Hey, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.840 what was Ticketran's deal? Be what was the sweetener? Money? 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.480 Money in the money in the form of what it 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.280 was rebates. But then also I agreed to do a 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.200 lot of software programming to him for no money. I 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.560 would just do all the software programming. And then what 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:50.080 what what? What? What was Ticketron's usual deal? You want 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:54.640 to know the truth. Ticketron was so stupid. I looked 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.959 at some of their contracts. They would give a rebate 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.439 of a penny or two pennies after you reach a 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.160 certain him. They saw themselves as a utility, not as 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.640 a marketing company. All the checks came out of New York. 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:12.600 There was no regional banking um. They they they saw 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:17.560 themselves basically as a utility. And I saw us I 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.240 as a marketing company. Because if you go back to 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.600 some of the history, which you probably remember, ticket Tron 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.560 would get allocations. They didn't get the whole house now 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.040 for him. They had the whole house, but there so 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.119 you'd go to a baseball game and there'd be empty 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.480 sections and then a ticket Trons section. And I remember 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.880 walking into one baseball team with with the new owners, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.119 and the ticket manager said to me, oh, you're with 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.080 the ticket company. I'm working on ticket trans allocation. They 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.400 pissed me off, so I'm gonna give them bad seats. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.280 I didn't say a word, and I walked out of 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:53.800 the room with the two guys, and I go I 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:55.959 thought the object was to sell tickets to the fans, 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.280 not whether or not you pissed them off. Right, say said, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.320 don't worry about it. Were firing him, and they did. 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.720 The end of the year. But the point was that 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.040 ticket tron never saw themselves as a business. It was 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:14.719 owned by Control Data UM. The people who owned it 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:19.760 didn't understand the business they were in UM. And I 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:25.240 remember when I'd be in a meeting in Houston where 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.720 we owned like seven or eight percent of the company, 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.000 and it was a partnership of the Summit, the Astrodome Pace, 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.960 Angelo Dross who owned the Spurs, and Ticketmaster, five partners, 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.719 all of whom at that time hated each other and 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.760 required unanimous consent to do anything, which means, of course 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.000 nothing got done. So I'm sitting in the room and 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.199 they had a dent in the inventory, and within a 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.720 year they had six because they started giving ticket try 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.399 on allocations because they everybody was mad at Ticketmaster for 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:00.040 whatever the reason. I had nothing to do with that. 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.720 I didn't run it. And this was the thing that 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:06.520 was really interesting to me. I said to them, why 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.000 is there a dollar service charge on afforded dollar ticket? 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.679 And they said, because we have five dollar tickets And 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.399 I said, yeah, but a afforded dollar ticket could have 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.919 a two dollar service charge and a five dollar ticket 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.000 could have a dollar And they said, you can't do that, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.720 and that was my famous line was that like one 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.480 of the tablets, Moses dropped. And some of them found 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.359 it funny and some of them didn't. But the point was, 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.159 as I subsequently learned, the way the system was written, 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:37.560 you could only have one service charge on an event, 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:41.399 couldn't have multiple service charges. You couldn't have multiple service 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:46.120 charges in the marketplace. And in a world of self deprecation, 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:51.120 this was common sense to me. I didn't understand why 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.880 this thing happened. And then on top of everything else, 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:59.560 I'm looking at their numbers. They've lost the inventory in 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.399 those His prime was so they borrowed the money at 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.639 twenty two and they're cash flowing money and they're complaining, 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.600 and I'm sitting there thinking, you know, there's a business here. 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:14.280 Nobody wants to look at this as a business, but 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:19.040 there's a business. And the thing it needs follows is One, 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:22.760 you need multiple service charges to you need to have 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:26.119 multiple service charges on the same event. Three, it's not 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:28.960 a democracy. You have to make this where you have 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:31.920 total control of sitting in a room, and you've got 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.160 to be an All good negotiations are driven by if 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:44.600 you can't leave the table, don't sit at the table. Okay, 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:46.560 so you make the deal with the Forum. Pick up there. 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:51.800 Here's what happens the following week. I get a call 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:53.920 on Monday. This is the week after he's told me 0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:56.399 we're going to do the deal, and a guy calls 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:59.040 me from our office and says, we have a problem. 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:02.880 And I said, what's a problem. He said, Lou wants 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.840 to talk to you. That could mean anything. So I 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:09.960 call up Blue and Lu says, Tikatron is not giving 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:13.600 us the sixty day cancelation provision. They're gonna be out 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:15.680 of here in ten days. They're not gonna honor it. 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:19.280 Can you put me up in ten days? And being 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.040 the moron I am, and went, of course, without truly 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:28.120 understanding what that means. And um, he said, Look, and 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:30.000 I'll never forget what he said. He said, if I 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:32.719 had any doubt before, I have no doubt. Now, no 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:35.639 one's gonna muscle me and tell me what to do. 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:38.160 Take a tron did a real New York in your 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.840 face move. Nobody knows this, Bob, I've never told this 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:48.320 story publicly. That's really true. So now I called my 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:51.280 guys and go, okay, we need a phone line into 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:54.439 the Forum. So they called me back and say, okay, 0:25:54.440 --> 0:26:01.040 they're gonna put him in on Thursday. On on Tuesday 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:04.439 afternoon or Wednesday morning, I get a call going they 0:26:04.440 --> 0:26:07.879 said they can't put it in for two months now. 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.159 I'm sure you know I've occasionally raised my voice and 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:14.240 let's just say I blew a fit at peg Bell 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:18.800 and they agreed to put in one line on Friday. 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:22.320 And I had a guy who was really smart who 0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:24.760 built a black box and we ran the whole Forum 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:31.080 box office of one line, one telephone line. And I 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:33.240 said to Lou, look, I'm coming back this week, and 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:37.440 Luke said, no, you're not. You have you a vacation. 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:39.480 You need to come back Monday, which is like the 0:26:39.560 --> 0:26:42.320 tenth of the eleven And on the sevent the Journey 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:45.160 sale was going on sale. A Journey concert was going 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:51.479 on sale. And so I fly back on Monday. On Tuesday, 0:26:51.560 --> 0:26:56.480 I mean, we send them the contract. On on Wednesday, 0:26:56.680 --> 0:27:01.720 I mean the offices of the Forum, which is down stairs. Upstairs, 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:05.679 they're moving in equipment and training people and Lou and I, 0:27:06.359 --> 0:27:08.960 because we don't have time, I'm marking up the contract 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:13.760 I gave them. And that's the contract we signed and 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:16.639 then here's the best part. Because they were all chicken 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:19.040 scratches and we didn't know what they meant. Louis this, 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:21.960 lou is a total gentleman. So Louid called me up 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:25.200 and go what does this mean? I go, I don't know. 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:27.520 He says, what what do you think it means? I said, 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:30.400 it means whatever you wanted to meet. He said, well 0:27:30.400 --> 0:27:32.800 that might be fair, and I go, Loo, listen to me. 0:27:33.720 --> 0:27:36.520 Whatever you needed to mean. It means let's not waste 0:27:36.560 --> 0:27:39.120 time with contracts. Just tell me what you need, will 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:41.680 take care of it. And then, of course I never 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:44.320 lost the Forum as a client, obviously, because if you've 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:48.360 you've built those kinds of relationships. So the concert goes 0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:52.679 on sale on Monday, and then the whole country finds 0:27:52.680 --> 0:27:56.280 out that Tikatron pulled out, you know, in ten days, 0:27:56.520 --> 0:27:58.480 you know, and didn't give them on at the sixty 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:06.240 day notice, and obviously that became a marketing um benefit um. 0:28:06.440 --> 0:28:09.119 And then about two months later, there was a regional 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:13.800 convention on the West coast, like the I Double Lamb 0:28:13.800 --> 0:28:16.639 and which was national that I went to. This was local, 0:28:16.680 --> 0:28:19.720 This was the whole West coast, and I figured take 0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:22.919 a tron would get up and they would apologize for 0:28:22.960 --> 0:28:26.159 their behavior and say, the industry is important. We're not 0:28:26.280 --> 0:28:29.439 going anywhere. We made a mistake because they bet. We 0:28:29.480 --> 0:28:33.560 couldn't put them up, and they didn't say a word. 0:28:34.840 --> 0:28:37.879 And I said to my guys, we own this industry. 0:28:37.960 --> 0:28:39.680 Or when I say we own it, we will. We 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:42.920 will put them out of business. They're too stupid for words. 0:28:43.880 --> 0:28:46.920 And I said it will take time. But what they 0:28:46.920 --> 0:28:49.200 should have stood up with this group of people is 0:28:49.640 --> 0:28:53.560 we're sorry, we care about you. We did the wrong thing. 0:28:54.160 --> 0:28:56.880 We should have stepped up, and they didn't do that. 0:28:58.000 --> 0:29:01.160 And it went around the country. And then what it 0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:05.000 also did is it gave me name recognition for people 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:08.600 to talk to me. And that's the beginning. That was 0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:12.480 really the beginning. Okay, so from the very big the 0:29:12.560 --> 0:29:18.920 big differentiator from the consumer end was the Ticketmaster. You 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:23.040 could choose your seat. Was that a feature from day one? Yes? 0:29:23.600 --> 0:29:26.400 Best available seat. I mean one of the things we 0:29:26.440 --> 0:29:29.240 said is we have ticket centers, not remote outlets. And 0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:31.680 a remote outlet men a remote seat. Listen. We made 0:29:31.680 --> 0:29:34.080 all this stuff up as we went along, but the 0:29:34.120 --> 0:29:37.800 point was you had the whole inventory of what went 0:29:37.880 --> 0:29:42.400 on sale, whatever, the building gave you. So an exclusive 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.920 is not what everybody thinks. And exclusive is the buildings 0:29:45.960 --> 0:29:50.920 decide what they're gonna put on sale. Ticketmaster doesn't decide that. 0:29:51.000 --> 0:29:54.760 The buildings decide that. So in the forum, where it 0:29:54.840 --> 0:29:58.880 was twenty seats US Senate Terrorists, senate Terrorists was equivalent 0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:03.000 to season tickets because they didn't have suites. So you'd 0:30:03.000 --> 0:30:07.200 get anyway from ten to twelve thousand tickets on a concert, 0:30:07.320 --> 0:30:11.800 not twenty. And when people would talk about exclusives, and 0:30:11.800 --> 0:30:14.400 it was one of the things that I think, um 0:30:14.520 --> 0:30:17.640 as people learned, it was not what it meant. Exclusive 0:30:17.640 --> 0:30:19.960 in the world meant wow, you got every ticket, Well 0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:23.600 you don't. And the truth is that everything in an 0:30:23.640 --> 0:30:27.640 arena is exclusive, whether it's food service, whether it's parking, 0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:31.360 whether it's you're a concessionaire in the building. And the 0:30:31.400 --> 0:30:36.080 way I saw the business was it was no different 0:30:36.200 --> 0:30:39.880 than a food concession. The public paid for that. If 0:30:39.920 --> 0:30:43.800 you're going to create outlets and phones that make it 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:46.960 easy for the public not to go, you're entitled to 0:30:46.960 --> 0:30:51.080 get paid. And to me, that's why we called it 0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:55.480 a convenience charge. And what people never understood is the 0:30:55.520 --> 0:30:59.520 public was never our client, our client with the arenas 0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:03.840 and theaters and stadiums, and you serve the public because 0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:06.680 underneath it was this, because this is something you need 0:31:06.760 --> 0:31:09.160 to know in the sense of the way you you've 0:31:09.160 --> 0:31:14.720 written over the list forty years. Every arena manage is 0:31:14.720 --> 0:31:18.360 concerned about the team. Every arena manager is concerned about 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:21.600 family shows. You know what. Arena managers were never concerned 0:31:21.600 --> 0:31:25.280 about rock and roll orphans. People would come in and 0:31:25.320 --> 0:31:28.040 trash the buildings or they would come in and it 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:31.880 wasn't a business the way it was. And here's the part. 0:31:31.960 --> 0:31:36.160 When I got into business, sev of all tickets for 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:40.560 shows was sold at the box office. And my bet was, 0:31:41.040 --> 0:31:43.960 if I can create an outlet system that you can 0:31:44.000 --> 0:31:47.720 put in logo slicks with a with a phone number, 0:31:48.800 --> 0:31:51.440 that nobody would go to the box office. That in 0:31:51.480 --> 0:31:53.840 the end, because no box office is near where anybody 0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:55.480 else is, and who the hell wants to camp out. 0:31:56.360 --> 0:31:59.720 So the perspective was that was the bet I made. 0:31:59.800 --> 0:32:02.160 I could have been wrong. I mean, there was no 0:32:02.280 --> 0:32:05.719 guarantee I was right. Was that. Look, if you create 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:08.360 an outlets system where everybody has access to the same 0:32:08.400 --> 0:32:11.400 inventory when it goes on sale, including what's at the 0:32:11.440 --> 0:32:16.000 box office because take Atron in some instances would all 0:32:16.040 --> 0:32:19.520 their outlets weren't open, all their alice weren't open store hours, 0:32:19.640 --> 0:32:21.880 all their outlets weren't open on the day's shows, one 0:32:21.920 --> 0:32:24.400 on sale. I can take you through ten things take 0:32:24.400 --> 0:32:27.480 Atron didn't do, and I wasn't gonna do any of them. 0:32:27.520 --> 0:32:30.600 And at the beginning, when we were losing money, and 0:32:30.640 --> 0:32:35.000 people said, well, we'll give you an allocation, and I went, no, No, 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:37.680 it has to be best available seat, because if I 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:40.520 can't sell best available seat, I'm another version of them, 0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:44.320 and I'd rather go down with the ship than than 0:32:44.400 --> 0:32:48.120 build a business on the wrong level. They failed at this, 0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:51.000 and I can't tell you how many times I sat 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:55.000 it at at in a in a negotiation where people said, 0:32:55.000 --> 0:32:57.000 we'll give you an allocation and I go find it. Well, 0:32:57.080 --> 0:33:00.040 that's very nice, We're not taking it. We're just not 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:04.120 gonna take it. Okay. At this point in time, is 0:33:04.160 --> 0:33:07.320 Ticketmaster your full time job? Are you still practicing law 0:33:07.360 --> 0:33:09.680 in other areas with other clients? No? No, No. In 0:33:10.640 --> 0:33:13.760 two in September, when he funded, I left my practice 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:18.160 and became CEO of the company. That's what I did, right, Okay, 0:33:18.280 --> 0:33:22.320 So you get the Forum. That's the first turning point, 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:26.160 and that of course is mostly concerts. Whatever did you 0:33:26.200 --> 0:33:31.280 get the sports teams at the everything? Everything? Okay? So 0:33:31.360 --> 0:33:36.000 how did you ultimately gain market share? Well, you started 0:33:36.040 --> 0:33:39.320 talking to people. So we started talking to Universal, we 0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:43.360 started talking to the Hollywood Bawl, we started talking to 0:33:45.720 --> 0:33:47.160 I have to tell you, to be fair, a lot 0:33:47.160 --> 0:33:50.680 of those brain cells died. But we started talking to everybody. 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:54.840 And Jerry Seltza had a theory because I only wanted 0:33:54.880 --> 0:33:57.160 to deal with the big venues, and he said, no, 0:33:57.280 --> 0:34:00.240 you gotta deal with the clubs too. So we dealt 0:34:00.280 --> 0:34:03.280 with the small clubs, we dealt with the medium sized clubs, 0:34:03.400 --> 0:34:05.200 and we dealt with and Be and he was right. 0:34:05.760 --> 0:34:09.400 And then we dealt with the arenas, and uh, you know, 0:34:09.520 --> 0:34:13.760 Universal came, the Hollywood Bowl came, Irvine Meadows was already 0:34:13.760 --> 0:34:17.520 along for the ride. And then you have to understand something. 0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:20.680 I didn't know anything. I'm a lawyer, what do I 0:34:20.719 --> 0:34:25.200 know about running a business. So you wake up one 0:34:25.239 --> 0:34:28.440 morning and you took yourself into this, right, I mean 0:34:28.520 --> 0:34:31.160 you're there. And to be clear, because you asked the 0:34:31.239 --> 0:34:35.640 question about Jay Jay was j Prisker was both a 0:34:35.760 --> 0:34:38.520 mentor and like a second day to me, it's important 0:34:38.520 --> 0:34:42.080 that I say that. So when we when when he 0:34:42.120 --> 0:34:45.440 was gonna put up the money, I served up the 0:34:45.440 --> 0:34:49.080 employment contract that UM I was gonna do with these 0:34:49.239 --> 0:34:54.080 um UM venture capitalists. And then his lawyers get involved, 0:34:54.400 --> 0:34:58.400 and I called him up because they, you know, they 0:34:58.680 --> 0:35:00.840 looked it tough and I don't want to deal with that. 0:35:00.920 --> 0:35:02.480 And I called J up and I said, you know 0:35:02.520 --> 0:35:05.120 what I feel like. I'm sitting in a closet with 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:08.160 no windows. The fact that you think I could use 0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:11.560 an employment contract against you when I'm sitting here trying 0:35:11.600 --> 0:35:14.040 to figure out how to make money UM and make 0:35:14.120 --> 0:35:16.680 this company work. I can't wrap my head around. So 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:19.720 I'll make you the following deal. You know what it says. 0:35:19.840 --> 0:35:21.480 I know what it says. And we lived on a 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:25.640 handshake for twelve years. There was never a piece of paper. Wow, 0:35:26.120 --> 0:35:30.960 So so you know, so the dynamic was that we 0:35:30.960 --> 0:35:33.920 were we became very close. He wouldn't fire me, I 0:35:33.960 --> 0:35:37.400 wouldn't quit. We had some interesting moments, but the truth 0:35:37.560 --> 0:35:41.600 was it was a handshake. And if Jay was not 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:46.560 my partner and he owned more than I did. To 0:35:46.640 --> 0:35:52.480 be clear, UM the company would have failed because private 0:35:52.480 --> 0:35:54.880 equity guys worried too much. Jay only cared about one thing. 0:35:54.880 --> 0:35:57.800 As long as you were honest. He didn't care. And 0:35:58.719 --> 0:36:00.440 you know, people would call him up and go, you know, 0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:02.600 Frit's pissing me off, and go, well, you have to 0:36:02.640 --> 0:36:06.360 talk to Fred. That was the kind of owner he was, 0:36:06.480 --> 0:36:08.239 and that was the kind of partner he was. It's 0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:12.920 even better way to put it. And so in eight three, 0:36:13.920 --> 0:36:18.520 I'm I'm, you know, doing stuff you know, and I 0:36:18.560 --> 0:36:21.320 don't know anything. So I think, you know, I got 0:36:21.400 --> 0:36:25.120 an interesting idea. I'm gonna have a meeting every day 0:36:25.120 --> 0:36:27.080 at eight o'clock and everybody's gonna tell me what they 0:36:27.120 --> 0:36:30.080 did the day before. And people would come in at 0:36:30.120 --> 0:36:32.680 eight o'clock and I would tell everybody, look, even if 0:36:32.680 --> 0:36:35.680 you're installing machines, you're in marketing. Because they don't meet me, 0:36:35.719 --> 0:36:39.000 they meet you. You have to think about who what 0:36:39.160 --> 0:36:40.920 you are and then come back and tell me what 0:36:40.960 --> 0:36:47.400 they say. And during that year I learned everything that 0:36:47.600 --> 0:36:50.200 was to learn. Well, let's put it like this, the 0:36:50.239 --> 0:36:53.320 basis of the business, where the money was, how everything 0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:56.160 I did, every job, how everything worked, what I was 0:36:56.200 --> 0:37:00.560 asking people to do, what counted what didn't count. And 0:37:00.640 --> 0:37:03.600 you'll find the shocking because I never wrote anything. Everybody 0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:06.080 knows that was a big joke with me. Every morning 0:37:06.120 --> 0:37:09.000 I woke up, took out a yellow pad, wrote fifty 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:11.439 forty to fifty things I wanted to do, and ripped 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:14.400 up the sheet, and then in my mind during the 0:37:14.480 --> 0:37:16.320 day I crossed things off and the next day I 0:37:16.320 --> 0:37:19.680 would start again. I worked from the time I woke 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:23.040 up until I couldn't see anymore. But I'm useless after 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:25.799 eight thirty or nine o'clock at night. So it was 0:37:25.920 --> 0:37:28.000 like you had to have dinner, but I was. I 0:37:28.120 --> 0:37:30.360 knew every place way to get breakfast at five thirty 0:37:30.400 --> 0:37:34.640 in the morning. That's what I learned. And look, you 0:37:34.680 --> 0:37:37.520 pay a price for that. And you know, Bob, because 0:37:37.520 --> 0:37:39.880 in the early years, as we started to grow, we 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:41.719 took a lot of criticism, and a lot of it 0:37:41.800 --> 0:37:44.960 was directed at me. But it was okay for the 0:37:45.000 --> 0:37:50.399 following reason. Nobody cares about a computerized ticketing company. Why 0:37:50.400 --> 0:37:53.399 would you care? And I made a real decision at 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:56.160 the beginning that I would take the heat for everybody 0:37:56.160 --> 0:37:58.799 and make it personal because then if you put a 0:37:58.880 --> 0:38:02.799 face to it, right, what it does is people start 0:38:02.840 --> 0:38:06.560 to pay attention. And you know in the end there 0:38:06.560 --> 0:38:12.160 were acquisitions. UM. You know, UM. I'll answer the questions 0:38:12.200 --> 0:38:14.640 you want to ask. But the point was it was 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:18.200 all strategic and if I had not learned to do 0:38:18.360 --> 0:38:22.080 every job in the company, we would have failed because 0:38:22.320 --> 0:38:28.400 you can't scale, you can't grow, you can't evolve unless 0:38:28.440 --> 0:38:31.279 you understand when you're taking a start up. And I 0:38:31.360 --> 0:38:35.640 knew changing the rules, changing the economics was different. And 0:38:35.640 --> 0:38:37.640 the other thing that everybody wanted to do is this. 0:38:38.000 --> 0:38:40.200 These are two things I did in contracts that nobody 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:45.719 pays any attention to. One is, UM, I wouldn't sign 0:38:45.760 --> 0:38:49.000 a one year deal. I had no interest in signing 0:38:49.000 --> 0:38:52.759 a one year deal. Waste of time because then you're 0:38:52.760 --> 0:38:56.480 always under the gun. The second thing is on three 0:38:56.560 --> 0:38:58.759 and five year contracts, I mostly wanted five, and I 0:38:58.800 --> 0:39:02.880 took three. In some cases, raisors were built into the 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:06.960 contract see Tickettron in their contracts said raises are mutual. 0:39:07.080 --> 0:39:09.120 And in talking to a lot of the building managers, 0:39:09.160 --> 0:39:11.560 they would go about a month before we would have 0:39:11.600 --> 0:39:13.920 to have this discussion. I would pick a fight and 0:39:13.920 --> 0:39:16.000 then tell them they couldn't raise it, and they'd laugh. 0:39:16.160 --> 0:39:18.920 They thought it was funny, and I went, that's stupid. 0:39:19.760 --> 0:39:23.040 So when when I started to build in raises, they said, well, 0:39:23.080 --> 0:39:24.719 you can't have a raise every year. I said, what 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:29.919 if you're sharing it? Well, that's different. And so so 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:32.880 all the stuff that you used to rail about or 0:39:32.920 --> 0:39:36.520 that people would write about, it was all organized and 0:39:36.560 --> 0:39:39.600 so they have well Ticketmaster can do what they want. No, 0:39:39.760 --> 0:39:43.640 we can't. Everything was in a contract. The thing is 0:39:43.680 --> 0:39:46.000 what I took out of it was that we don't 0:39:46.040 --> 0:39:50.400 have to go back and negotiate every year. And because 0:39:50.400 --> 0:39:54.360 it was automatic, there was no discussion. It was just easy. 0:39:54.440 --> 0:39:58.520 You got it done and people were like wow. And 0:39:58.560 --> 0:40:00.960 then they go, well it's not my fault, it's his, 0:40:01.360 --> 0:40:02.959 and they call you over, well how do you feel 0:40:03.000 --> 0:40:05.920 about that? And you're going, okay, fine, next you know. 0:40:06.320 --> 0:40:08.839 I mean, at the height of all these controversies, they 0:40:08.880 --> 0:40:11.280 had me setting the price of every ticket in the country. 0:40:11.680 --> 0:40:14.680 Damn me setting the price of every service. Everything was 0:40:14.719 --> 0:40:19.200 in a contract, Everything was negotiated. Everything was there in 0:40:19.320 --> 0:40:22.200 black and white, and I went, why are we different 0:40:22.200 --> 0:40:24.600 than a food service? And then I realized one thing 0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:29.520 really early on. No arena is open three sixty five 0:40:29.600 --> 0:40:32.560 days a year. No stadium is open three sixty five 0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:35.000 days a year. Do you know the only vendor that 0:40:35.040 --> 0:40:38.200 operates three and sixty five days a year the ticket company. 0:40:39.640 --> 0:40:42.920 When you're home at Christmas watching a show or a 0:40:42.960 --> 0:40:46.120 sporting event, there's someone in the box office. That means 0:40:46.120 --> 0:40:51.160 someone's in the data center. So the whole dynamic of 0:40:51.200 --> 0:40:54.640 how you were looking at this business, and I will 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:58.719 tell you this, the systems didn't work. This was the 0:40:58.800 --> 0:41:03.520 Forum's definition of default. You need to be down for 0:41:03.640 --> 0:41:06.640 more than an hour, and then you needed to be 0:41:06.680 --> 0:41:09.720 down for more than an hour twice, and that counted 0:41:09.760 --> 0:41:12.440 one event of default. And yet to have four events 0:41:12.480 --> 0:41:16.000 of default in a quarter to be in default, so 0:41:16.080 --> 0:41:19.239 that was eight hours. So they go, well, you're only 0:41:19.280 --> 0:41:22.359 down for fifteen minutes. That doesn't count. By the end 0:41:22.360 --> 0:41:24.480 of the third year, if we went down twenty minutes 0:41:24.520 --> 0:41:28.000 in a year, people were nuts. And part of the reason, 0:41:28.040 --> 0:41:31.200 and I'll say this later, you know when you ask 0:41:32.760 --> 0:41:38.000 in the last you know, um Taylor Swift, mess Siki 0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:41.080 had five shows at the Brooklyn Arena and they blew 0:41:41.160 --> 0:41:44.800 up and you know that they lost that contract. Here's 0:41:44.840 --> 0:41:50.440 the reason why Ticketmaster continues to be dominant more than 0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:54.040 any other reason and why no one can scale, no 0:41:54.080 --> 0:41:56.880 one will give them the ability to make the mistakes 0:41:56.960 --> 0:42:01.799 we did. In the first three years, people compared us 0:42:02.040 --> 0:42:07.080 to ticket Tron and ticket Trunk was terrible, outages, couldn't 0:42:07.120 --> 0:42:15.560 find them, difficult, difficult, systems slow, not connected. During that period, 0:42:16.000 --> 0:42:18.960 we made a lot of mistakes, make no bones about it. 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:22.120 We blew up. I can't tell you how many times. 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:26.120 But here's the difference. When people left ticket Tron to 0:42:26.160 --> 0:42:29.239 go to ticket Master was walking off a curb. For 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:32.200 people to leave Ticketmaster today, you gotta jump out of 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:35.920 a third of what stirring window because no system can 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:38.560 scale and no one will give them the opportunity to 0:42:38.640 --> 0:42:43.319 make the mistakes Ticketmaster hat. In other words, we we 0:42:43.440 --> 0:42:47.480 had that freedom because the competition was awful. It was terrible. 0:42:48.000 --> 0:42:51.320 And then what happened is we got bigger and you 0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:54.120 kept evolving your system. And I'm talking about the sixteen 0:42:54.200 --> 0:42:56.319 years I was there, not I can't talk about what 0:42:56.560 --> 0:43:00.400 came afterwards. Every time we made major system up grades, 0:43:00.719 --> 0:43:02.880 we'd go to a C market or a B market 0:43:02.880 --> 0:43:08.239 and say, listen, we've got these new um improvements, but 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:11.440 we you know, we gotta debug it, and so we 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:14.400 debug it in some region, and we'd pay the buildings, 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:18.000 or we'd give them certain benefits that other buildings wouldn't have. Well, 0:43:18.040 --> 0:43:20.520 we had a chance to test it. So when people 0:43:20.640 --> 0:43:22.680 sit in the room and go, I don't understand why 0:43:22.719 --> 0:43:25.040 I take a master's dominant the dominant because it works 0:43:25.080 --> 0:43:28.600 better than anybody else. And nobody's got the freedom to 0:43:28.760 --> 0:43:33.319 scale because nobody, nobody's willing to take the mistakes that 0:43:33.400 --> 0:43:36.439 we made that we had between eighty two and eight 0:43:36.640 --> 0:43:41.200 five and eighties six. You follow what I'm saying, Let 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:44.520 me just ask you a question. The modern ney Uh 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:51.520 paradigm of giving of paying the arena or venue for 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:56.200 an exclusive contract, how did that come about? At the beginning, 0:43:56.200 --> 0:43:58.360 I wouldn't do it unless I could take an exclusive 0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:01.360 that That was the first contract I own. No, the 0:44:01.400 --> 0:44:07.080 reverse where the ticket company pays the venue. From the beginning, 0:44:07.520 --> 0:44:10.279 it came from me. It came because I watched the 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:13.200 food concession has pay the building. I watched the parking 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:17.880 concession has pay the building. I watched everybody paying the building. Well, 0:44:17.920 --> 0:44:21.320 just because I know, so if the food concession or 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:25.000 wants to the food concession, they pay X amount of 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:28.080 dollars right up front. Well, they do two things. They 0:44:28.160 --> 0:44:32.919 put in all the equipment right and and they either well, 0:44:33.280 --> 0:44:36.080 we didn't pay anybody up front for five or six years. 0:44:36.120 --> 0:44:38.800 That that's a misnomer. That may have been even longer 0:44:38.840 --> 0:44:44.440 than that. People got revenue streams from day one. But 0:44:44.440 --> 0:44:48.000 but but advances we didn't make. But the food companies 0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:52.320 started making advances. And you're a concessionaire in the building. 0:44:52.360 --> 0:44:54.440 So I didn't invent that. I just took it from 0:44:54.480 --> 0:44:58.640 another pot and said, okay, we can do that. Um. 0:44:58.680 --> 0:45:03.560 One of the things that we did it was, um, 0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:05.960 people always came to us for money because we were 0:45:06.000 --> 0:45:08.719 the bank. I mean fundamentally were the bank. We had 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:11.319 the ticket money. But but before I go there, let 0:45:11.320 --> 0:45:13.719 me let me add the follow it. Of all the 0:45:13.800 --> 0:45:17.440 criticisms you've heard of Ticketmaster and anybody more wired than 0:45:17.480 --> 0:45:21.480 you are, I don't know they hear anybody ever say 0:45:21.520 --> 0:45:24.080 they didn't get an order that was honest. Anybody say 0:45:24.120 --> 0:45:26.719 they didn't get all their money. See, nobody wants to talk. 0:45:26.880 --> 0:45:28.839 Nobody wants to talk about that. They had a real 0:45:28.880 --> 0:45:31.560 manifest I had one broke. One promoter in Europe said 0:45:31.560 --> 0:45:34.600 I'll never use your system. It's too accurate actually said that. 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:38.320 I mean, you know, we cleaned up an industry that 0:45:38.440 --> 0:45:42.000 nobody wants to pay attention to rose, that that didn't 0:45:42.000 --> 0:45:45.560 exist on manifests, orders, that that people didn't get paid on. 0:45:46.160 --> 0:45:48.920 We would never There are two things to know of 0:45:48.920 --> 0:45:52.839 how I looked at the business. One two things people 0:45:53.040 --> 0:45:56.760 have sense of humor about. One is money. The second 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:59.319 is systems. You can't be a day later a dollar 0:45:59.400 --> 0:46:02.600 short and you're some better work. Everything else is marketing. 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:07.080 Everything everything else is marketing. And so the impact of 0:46:07.120 --> 0:46:12.759 what what we did was we would give people money 0:46:12.920 --> 0:46:16.240 and you know, and pay them weekly. And then somewhere 0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:18.239 along the line, I can't I don't even remember the 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:23.720 building we did it with, somebody said I need money. 0:46:24.080 --> 0:46:26.880 What else was new? And by the way, the music business, 0:46:26.960 --> 0:46:28.799 you well know is what's mine is mine and what 0:46:28.920 --> 0:46:31.200 yours was we're going to negotiate for. And one of 0:46:31.200 --> 0:46:34.360 the early negotiations was, well, if you charge three dollars 0:46:34.360 --> 0:46:37.040 on my twenty dollar ticket, then I should charge twenty three. 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:39.440 And I go, well, in charge twenty three, and they go, 0:46:39.480 --> 0:46:42.440 what are you going to charge? I said three. I said. 0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:45.880 What you need to understand is this The system works 0:46:46.160 --> 0:46:49.200 you don't complain about getting paid, you don't complain about 0:46:49.200 --> 0:46:52.280 the audience, you don't complain. You're looking for the money. 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:54.719 You're not getting the money from New Jersey because I 0:46:54.760 --> 0:46:57.960 had regional banks in five or six places. And here's 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:00.560 what nobody pays attention to, which will get too later 0:47:00.560 --> 0:47:05.279 with Tikotron. From day one being a lawyer, there were 0:47:05.320 --> 0:47:07.919 two kinds of accounts I had. So if I took 0:47:07.920 --> 0:47:11.000 in a hundred and ten dollars that went into a 0:47:11.000 --> 0:47:14.120 client account, ten dollars went into my account and the 0:47:14.200 --> 0:47:17.160 hundred dollars stayed in the client account. And as we 0:47:17.239 --> 0:47:20.439 got bigger and became a borrowing company, the banks could 0:47:20.520 --> 0:47:24.160 not have access to our client accounts. But every company 0:47:24.320 --> 0:47:28.280 I bought, including ticket Tron, was in the client accounts. 0:47:28.480 --> 0:47:30.879 And on closing on Tikatron, they wrote us a check, 0:47:31.160 --> 0:47:34.200 not the other way around, because they were using everybody's 0:47:34.239 --> 0:47:37.920 money to operate. We didn't do that, and I didn't 0:47:37.920 --> 0:47:40.439 do that from day one, even when I was losing money. 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:44.400 So in the in the world of people not knowing 0:47:44.560 --> 0:47:49.080 and paying attention, that was real. We we ran our 0:47:49.200 --> 0:47:53.040 business clean. And the reason that over the years under 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:56.400 my watch, why the government never did anything. And I 0:47:56.440 --> 0:47:59.120 always respect the fact that government could do anything they want. 0:47:59.480 --> 0:48:02.520 Is no company. It was like going to the practologists. 0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:05.680 Everyone looked at us and they went through the company 0:48:05.719 --> 0:48:07.560 and they went through how we did our business. And 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:12.399 you know what, you're not a clean business, a totally clean, absolute, 0:48:13.040 --> 0:48:16.080 you know, honest business, where the money was, how the 0:48:16.120 --> 0:48:19.720 money was handled, who got paid. There isn't one promoter 0:48:20.000 --> 0:48:21.600 who can sit in the room and go, oh, I 0:48:21.600 --> 0:48:24.400 didn't get my money, or Fred took my We didn't 0:48:24.400 --> 0:48:26.719 do any of that. And nobody wants to pay any 0:48:26.719 --> 0:48:28.919 attention to that when they write it. And you think 0:48:28.960 --> 0:48:31.520 of all those little ticket companies that weren't broke, and 0:48:31.560 --> 0:48:35.239 the reason we bought Tickettron is they were in the 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:38.839 client accounts to the tune of north to fourteen million dollars. 0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:43.839 And the reason I bought them was if they went broke, 0:48:44.280 --> 0:48:47.200 every single governmental agency would talk about how you're gonna 0:48:47.239 --> 0:48:50.040 handle the money, and I didn't want that. It was 0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:52.759 cheaper to buy it and just you know, let them 0:48:52.800 --> 0:48:55.640 pay it and make everything right. And here's the thing 0:48:55.680 --> 0:48:58.799 that was interesting. We paid the little guys because right 0:48:58.800 --> 0:49:02.440 away because live hand to mouth. But the big arenas. 0:49:02.480 --> 0:49:04.800 The numbers were so screwed up. I didn't pay anybody 0:49:04.840 --> 0:49:08.360 in America for four weeks on the big arenas. And 0:49:08.400 --> 0:49:12.160 they called me up and said, Fred, are we good? 0:49:12.160 --> 0:49:14.000 Are you good for the money? I said, I give 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:16.200 you my word, we're good for the money. You cannot 0:49:16.200 --> 0:49:19.080 comprehend how screwed up these books are. And when we 0:49:19.120 --> 0:49:21.960 make the settlement, if you think there's any discrepancy, you 0:49:22.000 --> 0:49:24.920 know how to find me, pick up the phone and 0:49:24.960 --> 0:49:27.719 we'll solve anything. No one's gonna take one dollar from 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:31.200 you or one penny from you that doesn't belong. And 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.280 everybody waited four weeks until we could put the numbers together. 0:49:34.400 --> 0:49:37.400 Nobody screamed and yelled. Nobody went. I would get calls. 0:49:37.920 --> 0:49:40.239 Do I have your word? I you got my word? 0:49:41.120 --> 0:49:44.040 And you know none of that got written. But the 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:48.280 point is that's what having integrity and honesty and being 0:49:48.320 --> 0:49:59.520 open about with the industry. And you know, okay, just 0:49:59.640 --> 0:50:04.279 to be very clear, you took four weeks to pay. 0:50:05.280 --> 0:50:08.719 As years went by, it wasn't four weeks. No, you 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:12.840 got paid every week. Okay, next thing, because the public 0:50:12.920 --> 0:50:16.200 is always concerned about this, especially today when gigs are 0:50:16.640 --> 0:50:20.560 put on sale, a year in advance. You take the 0:50:20.640 --> 0:50:23.319 money and you pay the buildings once a week. You 0:50:23.360 --> 0:50:26.319 don't hold the money. Money goes to the money goes 0:50:26.400 --> 0:50:28.839 to the arenas once a week. And we had a rule. 0:50:29.239 --> 0:50:32.040 We had I had a rule. So when I didn't 0:50:32.040 --> 0:50:33.920 pay the buildings for four weeks, it was because I 0:50:33.920 --> 0:50:36.080 couldn't put the numbers together. And then they went back 0:50:36.120 --> 0:50:38.799 to being paid on a weekly basis. The point is this, 0:50:39.400 --> 0:50:42.279 even ticket trans clients knew how screwed up they were. 0:50:43.320 --> 0:50:45.759 It wasn't only us. They knew how screwed up they were. 0:50:46.080 --> 0:50:48.080 And the way we would do our business is this. 0:50:48.719 --> 0:50:51.799 You'd get paid for Monday through Sunday, you get a 0:50:51.840 --> 0:50:54.640 wire transfer on Wednesday at Thursday of the following week, 0:50:54.960 --> 0:50:57.200 and buildings like the Forum in the meadow Lands and 0:50:57.440 --> 0:51:00.960 United States, all those buildings got paid. And today you know, 0:51:01.120 --> 0:51:03.480 Live Nation puts stuff on sale a year in advance, 0:51:03.760 --> 0:51:07.799 they get paid. I mean it's you're not you're not 0:51:07.840 --> 0:51:10.319 holding on to that money. The day of holding on 0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:13.799 money for float is gone. But that was gone under 0:51:13.800 --> 0:51:17.760 my watch. Okay. And a little bit slower, why exactly 0:51:17.800 --> 0:51:23.560 did you buy ticket tron Because if they if they 0:51:23.640 --> 0:51:26.280 closed and filed bankruptcy. The public would have been stuck 0:51:26.280 --> 0:51:30.400 for eighteen million dollars, and that meant that would have 0:51:30.400 --> 0:51:33.399 been investigations that would have meant, how do you hold 0:51:33.400 --> 0:51:35.960 the money? How do you do this? And I chose 0:51:36.040 --> 0:51:39.399 to say, better we buy them and make everybody right, 0:51:39.920 --> 0:51:43.520 then spend time in forty states explaining to people what's 0:51:43.520 --> 0:51:47.440 going on. I did it to protect the industry. I 0:51:47.480 --> 0:51:50.080 really did it to protect the industry and protect myself, 0:51:51.840 --> 0:51:58.440 totally clear. Let's jump forward to Pearl Jam in nineties. 0:51:58.640 --> 0:52:01.520 I knew you were going to do that. Wait wait, wait, wait, 0:52:01.920 --> 0:52:06.160 give me your side of the story. There is no side. 0:52:06.200 --> 0:52:10.640 What happened was this? The Pearl Jam's story started with 0:52:10.680 --> 0:52:13.600 a guy whose name you know, but I'm not gonna 0:52:13.800 --> 0:52:20.600 do that. Who the Sting called me up and said, 0:52:20.840 --> 0:52:23.200 Sting is gonna do one show at the will Turn Theater. 0:52:23.280 --> 0:52:27.200 Do you remember that? Does that even doing? And okay, 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:31.200 so how are we going to do that? I said, Well, 0:52:31.239 --> 0:52:36.719 the fairest way to do it is to do phones only. Um, 0:52:36.760 --> 0:52:38.520 you know, I forget what he was going to charge 0:52:38.520 --> 0:52:40.919 a ticket? Will do three dollars and we'll do We'll 0:52:40.960 --> 0:52:42.840 make sure no one gets two tickets. It will be 0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:47.360 two tickets. I'll make sure that we cross reference credit cards, 0:52:47.360 --> 0:52:50.600 addresses and all the stuff that goes with that, and 0:52:51.040 --> 0:52:53.800 we'll do it that way. Because the demand was twenty 0:52:53.840 --> 0:52:56.680 of those, you know, the will turn was eighteen hundred seats. 0:52:56.719 --> 0:53:01.720 I can't even remember whatever, and so so we agreed 0:53:02.760 --> 0:53:06.320 and that's how it worked. And then the same person 0:53:06.400 --> 0:53:08.360 called me on Pearl Jam he was gonna do the 0:53:08.360 --> 0:53:12.319 show at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. I said, well, 0:53:12.360 --> 0:53:14.160 we can't do the show with the outlets. That's gonna 0:53:14.200 --> 0:53:16.200 be a war. I mean, you could sell ten of those. 0:53:17.840 --> 0:53:20.520 I said, are you open to doing the same thing 0:53:20.560 --> 0:53:25.879 we did? Was sting, and he said yes, And so 0:53:25.960 --> 0:53:28.160 it was like an eighteen dollar ticket and three dollars 0:53:28.160 --> 0:53:31.440 on the phone and the next thing I know, and 0:53:31.480 --> 0:53:33.960 I know you'll find the shocking as I was blindsided. 0:53:34.760 --> 0:53:37.439 No one talked to me, no one said a word 0:53:37.480 --> 0:53:41.400 to me, and then this whole ship storm started and 0:53:41.840 --> 0:53:48.239 I was caught unaware, and I was amazed that the 0:53:48.360 --> 0:53:50.680 band got involved. I mean, I didn't even know three 0:53:50.760 --> 0:53:54.080 quarters of the stuff that subsequently came out later for real, 0:53:55.200 --> 0:53:58.560 and I mean, it's none of it made any sense. 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:02.320 And I found out that the guy who was behind 0:54:02.400 --> 0:54:06.319 all that I was trying to get himself into the 0:54:06.320 --> 0:54:09.960 ticket business and he had a willing group of guys 0:54:10.840 --> 0:54:14.040 who look I think Pearl Jam's a really great band, 0:54:14.280 --> 0:54:17.239 and I think they walked into a controversy they didn't understand. 0:54:18.120 --> 0:54:21.920 And I would say for six months we got our 0:54:21.960 --> 0:54:24.799 head handed to us. They were uh. And it led 0:54:24.800 --> 0:54:28.600 to a Department of Justice investigation and twenty eight attorney generals. 0:54:29.040 --> 0:54:30.920 And the only thing I've ever said about that is 0:54:31.000 --> 0:54:34.160 I was glad the system work because everybody left we 0:54:34.200 --> 0:54:39.279 signed nothing. The more facts they found, um, the more 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:42.120 they understood that what they were told with two different things. 0:54:43.160 --> 0:54:50.520 And then um, um, Sherry Washerman and maybe it was 0:54:50.600 --> 0:54:53.600 pearl Off, I can't remember, asked us, asked me to 0:54:53.680 --> 0:54:57.600 have a meeting with um Kelly Curtis at the old 0:54:57.680 --> 0:54:59.640 Nico Hotel in Los Angeles, you know the one on 0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:03.160 less Jennaga. Of course that's a manager of Pearl Jam 0:55:03.239 --> 0:55:05.880 for those who don't know. Yeah, And and I meet Kelly, 0:55:07.760 --> 0:55:11.040 and Kelly was the Pearl Jam was was in in 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:14.920 of Washington, d C. The month before doing a benefit 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:19.319 concert for Gloria steinhum and she gets on stage and says, 0:55:19.440 --> 0:55:21.319 you know, I'm all full lower tickets. I called her 0:55:21.360 --> 0:55:24.520 because I've given her money. And I go, Gloria, before 0:55:24.560 --> 0:55:26.360 you walk into this, why don't you know the facts. 0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:29.560 And I said, you know what you're being told is 0:55:29.600 --> 0:55:32.399 not true. And I sat with Kelly and I said, look, 0:55:33.400 --> 0:55:35.799 I give myself a D minus vow. I handled it 0:55:35.880 --> 0:55:41.799 last year. This was a I was blindsided. I was defensive, 0:55:42.840 --> 0:55:46.319 and I didn't understand a lot. I couldn't understand where 0:55:46.320 --> 0:55:50.399 it came from. I mean, I was shocked. And I said, 0:55:50.400 --> 0:55:54.880 but look, it's time to move on. Do a benefit concert. 0:55:55.000 --> 0:55:56.440 What you want to do is going to be a 0:55:56.520 --> 0:56:00.520 nightmare and a disaster. I will give a hunt represented 0:56:00.560 --> 0:56:05.279 the service charge to any charity you want, but this 0:56:05.480 --> 0:56:11.480 ends now. And he said to me, we're gonna change 0:56:11.560 --> 0:56:15.960 the whole concert business. And I said to him, let 0:56:15.960 --> 0:56:19.960 me explain the reality. I'm a lot smarter this year 0:56:20.000 --> 0:56:22.759 than I was last year. You've got four kids who 0:56:22.800 --> 0:56:25.799 are millionaires. I got five thousand people who worked for 0:56:25.840 --> 0:56:32.360 me phone rooms, who are minorities, who welfare mothers, who 0:56:32.480 --> 0:56:35.879 you know, need the gig. And we do a lot 0:56:35.920 --> 0:56:38.040 of work in the inner cities and we take care 0:56:38.080 --> 0:56:40.399 of a lot of different people. You're not gonna win. 0:56:42.040 --> 0:56:44.399 I know what the game is now, You're not gonna win. 0:56:45.160 --> 0:56:48.600 Go your tour is going to be a disaster. Don't 0:56:48.600 --> 0:56:54.080 do it. He's no, We're gonna change the world. It 0:56:54.239 --> 0:56:58.000 blew up. I've read pieces that I helped blow it up. 0:56:58.280 --> 0:57:00.520 I had as much to blowing to. I had as 0:57:00.560 --> 0:57:03.359 much to do blowing it up as you did. We 0:57:03.480 --> 0:57:06.960 stayed away from it intentionally because it would fall back 0:57:07.000 --> 0:57:10.440 on us. And you know, in the end, they never 0:57:10.480 --> 0:57:12.879 should have done what they did. And here's the part 0:57:12.920 --> 0:57:16.840 that was crazy, because you will appreciate this. No other 0:57:16.880 --> 0:57:19.560 group joined them. And it wasn't because we had power. 0:57:20.320 --> 0:57:23.280 It was because people talk to us. So you know 0:57:23.360 --> 0:57:28.000 Ian McKellan and Fugazi. Fugazi had five dollar tickets. A 0:57:28.080 --> 0:57:32.040 year before the Pearl Jam thing. He placed some building 0:57:32.040 --> 0:57:34.280 in Chicago and they put a three dollar service charge 0:57:34.320 --> 0:57:38.360 on it, and he blew a fit. And I read 0:57:38.400 --> 0:57:40.760 it about it one of the trade magazines and I said, 0:57:40.920 --> 0:57:43.560 he's right. So I said to one of the guys 0:57:43.560 --> 0:57:46.440 that golden voice, can you connect me with him? I 0:57:46.520 --> 0:57:49.160 spoke to him and I said First of all, let 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:53.480 me apologize, because if you're doing five dollar tickets, you 0:57:53.520 --> 0:57:55.720 care about your craft and you care about your fans. 0:57:56.320 --> 0:57:58.800 So you tell me what's a fast service charge? He said, 0:57:58.800 --> 0:58:01.040 A dollar? I said, line, you got it on all 0:58:01.040 --> 0:58:04.040 your shows. I'll let everybody know. And what about the phones? 0:58:04.080 --> 0:58:05.720 He says, I don't care about that. You can judge 0:58:05.720 --> 0:58:08.840 two or three dollars because nobody buys my phone. Fine. 0:58:09.640 --> 0:58:12.560 Three months later he blows another fit because you know buildings, 0:58:13.080 --> 0:58:15.360 you know if it's five dollars in advance and seven 0:58:15.400 --> 0:58:17.280 dollars at the door. And he blames us for the 0:58:17.280 --> 0:58:19.360 two dollars. And I call him up and I go 0:58:20.680 --> 0:58:24.720 I he said, I know it wasn't you. It wasn't you. 0:58:24.720 --> 0:58:27.360 You've been a really straight up guy. It will not 0:58:27.520 --> 0:58:32.320 happen again. Fine, stunt Temple pilots, I made a deal 0:58:32.920 --> 0:58:35.520 um rage against the machine. I mean deals with everybody 0:58:35.520 --> 0:58:39.240 who talked to me. You know when they when they 0:58:39.320 --> 0:58:41.320 when they talk to us about stunt temble polish, is 0:58:41.360 --> 0:58:45.160 I got an I've got an elevator of of of prices. 0:58:45.640 --> 0:58:47.640 Can you move some of the stuff to the higher 0:58:47.640 --> 0:58:50.760 prices and reduced the lower prices of course, common sense 0:58:52.320 --> 0:58:54.200 did it for all these acts, which is why no 0:58:54.240 --> 0:58:57.520 one joined them, and they're sitting there by themselves. And 0:58:57.560 --> 0:59:00.760 there's one I want to get in. Tim Collins, as 0:59:00.800 --> 0:59:06.000 you know, testified at the hearings, manager VERYL. Smith, Manager 0:59:06.120 --> 0:59:09.640 Arrass Smith. And a year later he comes to see 0:59:09.680 --> 0:59:13.760 me and he apologizes because he won't admit it. He said, 0:59:13.760 --> 0:59:15.320 I was just trying to be cool. I know you 0:59:15.360 --> 0:59:19.640 won't hold it against me, and I go, life moves on. Look, 0:59:20.280 --> 0:59:24.920 no one showed up for this except them, and I 0:59:24.960 --> 0:59:27.360 think they would take an advantage of I think they 0:59:27.360 --> 0:59:31.080 didn't quite understand what they were walking into, and they 0:59:31.120 --> 0:59:35.240 self destructed on their own. It's nothing I'm particularly feel 0:59:35.280 --> 0:59:39.200 good about or bad about, um. But in the end 0:59:39.920 --> 0:59:44.080 everybody left, the government left, the Attorney General's left, and 0:59:44.160 --> 0:59:48.400 the class action lossuits a roll bullshit anyway. So the 0:59:48.480 --> 0:59:53.760 dynamic for all of that is that's the truth. Okay, okay, 0:59:53.800 --> 0:59:56.840 let's move on from there. How does Prince tur decide 0:59:56.880 --> 1:00:00.840 to get out? No, he didn't decide. I decided. We 1:00:00.840 --> 1:00:04.680 were sitting in a room it was and I said, Jay, 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:08.160 we're doing really great, and you know I love you. 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:10.800 But there are two choices you know, I want to 1:00:10.840 --> 1:00:14.960 put some money away and or go public. And Jay 1:00:14.960 --> 1:00:16.440 didn't want to go public. And he said, what do 1:00:16.440 --> 1:00:18.200 you think the company's worth? And I told him and 1:00:18.240 --> 1:00:21.280 he said, you'll never get that. And in the space 1:00:21.320 --> 1:00:23.360 of thirty days we had five bids for more than 1:00:23.400 --> 1:00:26.880 I said. And then it took a year, and then 1:00:27.160 --> 1:00:32.120 Paul Allen ultimately bought the company for the company forty 1:00:32.200 --> 1:00:35.680 million dollars. But it was really Jay would never have 1:00:35.760 --> 1:00:39.880 sold it, Bob, But you know, Jay, it was a 1:00:39.920 --> 1:00:45.280 billionaire before they were billionaires. And I had always worked 1:00:45.280 --> 1:00:49.280 since I was sixteen, and I wanted to put away 1:00:49.280 --> 1:00:51.680 a chunk of money, which I think is fair. I'm 1:00:51.800 --> 1:00:55.439 entitled to it. I did it. And and when when 1:00:55.480 --> 1:01:00.080 Paul bought the company, he said and and and j 1:01:00.200 --> 1:01:03.320 said to me, look, I don't want you to negotiate 1:01:03.360 --> 1:01:06.600 you a deal until I have our deal, which is 1:01:06.640 --> 1:01:10.640 basically the price of the company. So they agree on 1:01:10.680 --> 1:01:14.080 a price, and then Paul comes to me and I 1:01:14.120 --> 1:01:18.040 tell him what I want and he basically says, you're 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:21.720 out of your mind. And I go, fine, then I'll 1:01:21.720 --> 1:01:23.760 give you a one year deal and I'll leave. I 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:25.840 was happy to go. I mean I've been working since 1:01:25.880 --> 1:01:28.600 I was a kid. My dad died at fifty two. 1:01:28.640 --> 1:01:31.800 That always sits in the back of your mind. Um, 1:01:31.840 --> 1:01:35.960 I was sixty years old. And I said, I'll give 1:01:35.960 --> 1:01:40.040 you a one year transition, okay, um, whatever you want. 1:01:40.080 --> 1:01:43.040 You can fill in a number. I don't care. And 1:01:43.600 --> 1:01:46.160 he came back to me and said, no, I want 1:01:46.160 --> 1:01:48.720 to I want you to stay. And then he went 1:01:48.800 --> 1:01:52.200 to Jay and said, I understand you're the only person 1:01:52.320 --> 1:01:56.120 who has moral suasion on Fred. And Jay said that's true. 1:01:56.160 --> 1:01:59.040 I do. Went very close, and he said I need 1:01:59.040 --> 1:02:02.120 your help, and Jay said, Paul, let me explain this. 1:02:02.160 --> 1:02:05.040 I can't help you. Fred said he'd stay out of 1:02:05.080 --> 1:02:07.120 the deal for us, and I told him I'd stay 1:02:07.120 --> 1:02:10.000 out of the deal for him, So I can't help 1:02:10.000 --> 1:02:11.840 you with that. You're gonna have to figure it out. 1:02:12.280 --> 1:02:14.200 And Paul did call me a couple of days later 1:02:14.280 --> 1:02:16.640 and he and he goes like this, Okay, you can 1:02:16.680 --> 1:02:19.120 have your deal, and I said, and he was not 1:02:19.240 --> 1:02:21.320 happy about it, and I said, well, I gotta think 1:02:21.320 --> 1:02:22.760 about it now because I didn't think you were going 1:02:22.800 --> 1:02:24.840 to do it. But I'll call you back in a 1:02:24.880 --> 1:02:26.760 couple of days. And he said, well, I'm not giving 1:02:26.800 --> 1:02:28.760 you more. I said, I didn't ask for more. I 1:02:28.800 --> 1:02:31.760 actually thought I was getting out those are you know, 1:02:31.840 --> 1:02:36.120 those are stories that aren't written anywhere, Bob Okay. So 1:02:36.160 --> 1:02:40.600 what was it like working for Paul Allen? Paul was 1:02:40.640 --> 1:02:50.480 a strange guy. Um, I didn't understand client relationships. Um. 1:02:50.640 --> 1:02:54.800 For the most part, he did not engage. UM. You know, 1:02:54.840 --> 1:02:57.600 we had the controversies with Microsoft at the time. He 1:02:57.720 --> 1:03:02.080 left me alone to a great extent. Um. But when 1:03:02.080 --> 1:03:07.160 we were when we were going from information on the 1:03:07.200 --> 1:03:11.160 internet to doing transactions, my level of concerning with some 1:03:11.240 --> 1:03:14.080 kid in Peoria, We've got seven thousand tickets for you too, 1:03:14.920 --> 1:03:16.600 and I wanted to make sure we had all the 1:03:16.640 --> 1:03:20.880 firewalls appropriate. And I think he took it as a 1:03:21.000 --> 1:03:23.400 level of disobedience, like, you know, you need to do 1:03:23.440 --> 1:03:25.520 what I want. And I go, well, I can't do 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:28.479 what you want if I put clients in jeopardy. These 1:03:28.560 --> 1:03:31.040 these are people I have relationships with, These are people 1:03:31.680 --> 1:03:34.880 that I have obligations too. He didn't understand any of that. 1:03:35.320 --> 1:03:38.720 He just thought I was being difficult. And I acknowledge 1:03:38.720 --> 1:03:42.360 I'm difficult, but it wasn't difficult without a reason. And 1:03:42.400 --> 1:03:44.880 then I said finally, Okay, we'll do it in the Northwest. 1:03:45.920 --> 1:03:50.000 And the first guy who used the service was a 1:03:50.080 --> 1:03:53.040 guy from Tumwa to Washington. I still remember this. So 1:03:53.200 --> 1:03:55.760 somebody comes, somebody O and go. Somebody brought one ticket 1:03:55.800 --> 1:03:57.560 for a baseball game. I said, we'll call him up 1:03:57.560 --> 1:03:59.439 and ask him why they did it. And the guy said, 1:04:00.080 --> 1:04:01.800 I don't like talking to people and I don't like 1:04:01.840 --> 1:04:06.360 talking to you. I should have put that up on 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:09.720 the wall. I mean, because that was the beginning. And 1:04:09.760 --> 1:04:12.240 then we took it across the country. And you know, 1:04:12.480 --> 1:04:15.880 when we we were probably the first company to make 1:04:15.920 --> 1:04:20.800 money on the internet for real. Okay, how does uh 1:04:20.800 --> 1:04:27.640 it transfer to Barry Diller? When Barry came? Uh? Barry, 1:04:27.720 --> 1:04:31.400 it's very smart. Barry is a really smart financial engineer. 1:04:32.480 --> 1:04:36.280 And my contract had a year left. Well, let's talk 1:04:36.320 --> 1:04:38.720 about the sale first. How I went from Paul Allen 1:04:38.800 --> 1:04:42.520 to Barry Diller. He he did that deal and he 1:04:42.560 --> 1:04:46.800 didn't consult me truth just because you know the numbers 1:04:46.800 --> 1:04:52.040 did did Was it a good investment for Paul Allen? Um? 1:04:52.080 --> 1:04:55.160 It was close. I think Paul was frustrated on some 1:04:55.280 --> 1:04:59.400 levels on this UM and so when he sold it 1:04:59.440 --> 1:05:02.080 to Diller, you know, a lot of people try to 1:05:02.120 --> 1:05:06.640 get me to say you can stay, and I really, 1:05:07.400 --> 1:05:11.440 Barry's the guy wants total control and he's entitled to it. Um. 1:05:11.600 --> 1:05:15.840 And I never worked for anybody, so I knew at 1:05:15.880 --> 1:05:18.800 some point I was going to leave. And then once 1:05:19.080 --> 1:05:21.480 um he came to the rest of the company, I 1:05:22.000 --> 1:05:25.680 basically left. Um. You know, we had a what I 1:05:25.680 --> 1:05:33.480 would call a purely professional, at times strained relationship, but 1:05:33.600 --> 1:05:36.919 he never interfered with what I was doing. But look, 1:05:36.960 --> 1:05:39.560 it's his company, and when it was his company, it 1:05:39.640 --> 1:05:44.120 wasn't my company anymore. And UM, you know, where I 1:05:44.160 --> 1:05:47.200 had had ultimate freedom to do what I want, I 1:05:47.200 --> 1:05:49.840 didn't have that any you know, even though he said, 1:05:49.520 --> 1:05:52.160 you know, he said, we're being very careful about your contract. 1:05:52.400 --> 1:05:53.800 We want to make sure we don't because we know 1:05:53.840 --> 1:05:57.280 you have total control. But in the end, Barry's Barry 1:05:57.560 --> 1:06:00.840 is a brilliant financial engineer. Aaron looked, the guys made 1:06:00.840 --> 1:06:03.200 a billion dollars. You gotta give him credit. And he 1:06:03.200 --> 1:06:06.000 he knows how to buy these companies. And I'm not 1:06:06.000 --> 1:06:08.120 gonna say anything negative about him, even though you know, 1:06:08.240 --> 1:06:11.840 he's not somebody that he and I became friends. UM, 1:06:12.080 --> 1:06:17.160 and the I have great respect for him, and you 1:06:17.240 --> 1:06:19.920 gotta make your It was my journey, and I figured 1:06:20.520 --> 1:06:23.919 the journey ended. So just to be clear, how long 1:06:23.960 --> 1:06:29.400 did you work with Barry? Maybe a year, maybe less? Okay, 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:33.200 Now I realize you leave there in the nineties and 1:06:33.240 --> 1:06:37.280 there's been evolution since then. But you are certainly a 1:06:37.280 --> 1:06:43.760 student of the game. So we have fees, whatever we 1:06:43.840 --> 1:06:49.320 label them, forget it. When you were involved, how were 1:06:49.360 --> 1:06:54.200 the fees created in terms of the amount and how 1:06:54.200 --> 1:06:58.840 were they divvied up. That's a question with no answer 1:06:58.880 --> 1:07:02.160 because it was a case by a spasis. Okay, then 1:07:02.240 --> 1:07:06.480 let me ask you this. So you're getting fees. Some 1:07:06.600 --> 1:07:11.320 goes to the building, some goes to ticket master. How 1:07:11.360 --> 1:07:16.080 long was it before someone to the promoter on at 1:07:16.120 --> 1:07:22.160 the beginning, See here's how it worked. The promoters often 1:07:22.200 --> 1:07:24.240 took you into the building, no matter where you are 1:07:24.280 --> 1:07:27.240 in the country, So you'd make you deal with the building, 1:07:28.560 --> 1:07:30.600 and then they'd say, listen, we got to take care 1:07:30.640 --> 1:07:33.560 of the promoter, and we'd add that on. And then 1:07:33.600 --> 1:07:36.040 one of the things that changing the phones. This is 1:07:36.080 --> 1:07:39.320 really interesting. None of the acts wanted to pay the 1:07:39.680 --> 1:07:44.040 credit card charge, so that got added to the phone 1:07:44.080 --> 1:07:47.080 to start with, which everybody got confused about. Okay, just 1:07:47.160 --> 1:07:51.080 to be very interesting, you're doing incredible volume. What percentage 1:07:51.120 --> 1:07:55.560 you paying for the credit card MX was in the threes. 1:07:56.480 --> 1:08:01.280 The the into into bank rate was really less than two. 1:08:02.080 --> 1:08:05.240 You know, you could figure out the margins between point 1:08:05.280 --> 1:08:07.640 and a half and a point eight. But you also 1:08:07.680 --> 1:08:10.400 had to recognize that you also ate all the chargebacks. 1:08:11.440 --> 1:08:17.160 And there was one of your growth volume was fraud um, 1:08:17.160 --> 1:08:20.640 which you ate the buildings didn't need it. You ate 1:08:20.720 --> 1:08:26.320 it um for expensive tickets um, the ones that were 1:08:26.320 --> 1:08:28.400 over a thousand dollars. And there were some events that 1:08:28.439 --> 1:08:30.640 were I made people signed stuff before I send it 1:08:30.680 --> 1:08:33.080 to him. We had a form that we would fax 1:08:33.200 --> 1:08:34.800 to them and they would sign it because it made 1:08:34.840 --> 1:08:39.800 it harder to charge it back. Um. You know, that's 1:08:39.840 --> 1:08:41.960 just the course of doing business. You just build that 1:08:42.000 --> 1:08:52.240 into the dynamic. Okay, I interrupted you. You were talking 1:08:52.320 --> 1:08:55.519 about the accident. Want to eat the charge? Keep going? 1:08:55.600 --> 1:08:59.040 And then and then there was another thing I had separate. 1:08:59.360 --> 1:09:02.280 This changed after I left. The outlet was less than 1:09:02.320 --> 1:09:05.920 the phones because you've built all that into the phone charge. 1:09:06.479 --> 1:09:09.560 And then when I left, they decided to just yank 1:09:09.800 --> 1:09:11.720 make the service charge the same as the outlets and 1:09:11.760 --> 1:09:14.920 the phones, and so they started to take credit cards 1:09:14.960 --> 1:09:20.719 at the outlets. Um, it's just the course of doing business. 1:09:20.800 --> 1:09:23.240 And you know the outlets, the the acts would call 1:09:23.280 --> 1:09:25.479 you up with the manager would call you up and go, look, 1:09:26.240 --> 1:09:30.800 I know you've got this three percent charge for credit card. 1:09:31.280 --> 1:09:34.280 How do you feel about moving it to the public 1:09:35.439 --> 1:09:40.040 And I went, okay, you know, the level of innocence 1:09:40.040 --> 1:09:44.160 in all this is nonsense. So the promoters often took 1:09:44.200 --> 1:09:46.120 you in the building and you'd make the deal with 1:09:46.160 --> 1:09:49.240 the building. And sometimes the buildings let the promoter and 1:09:49.439 --> 1:09:51.720 on a fee, and sometimes they didn't. Most of the 1:09:51.800 --> 1:09:56.320 time they did. Um and I. And you know, you 1:09:56.400 --> 1:09:59.520 became the bank. You were the accounting system for everybody. 1:09:59.680 --> 1:10:01.840 And one of my favorite stories is I was talking 1:10:01.840 --> 1:10:06.439 to some building in the South and I'm talking to 1:10:06.479 --> 1:10:09.000 the guy and and it sounds like, you know, it 1:10:09.160 --> 1:10:12.160 sounds like a dog died. He said, ah, you know, 1:10:12.240 --> 1:10:15.080 this was when there were more municipal buildings than private buildings. 1:10:15.080 --> 1:10:16.880 And he goes, I gotta go tell the mayor I 1:10:16.920 --> 1:10:19.439 gave up the rent. I go, how much was I go? 1:10:19.520 --> 1:10:21.519 How much is the rent? He's just fifteen grand? I said, 1:10:21.560 --> 1:10:23.320 I'll give it to you. He said, how are you 1:10:23.360 --> 1:10:25.040 going to give it to me? He said, I said, 1:10:25.080 --> 1:10:27.000 I'm just there had three dollars to the service. George, 1:10:27.040 --> 1:10:29.280 I know what's going on. I'll give you your money. 1:10:29.280 --> 1:10:31.439 Whether it was fifteen or twenty grand I can't remember, 1:10:31.600 --> 1:10:34.320 and I'll keep the rest. He's a great idea. Then 1:10:34.360 --> 1:10:36.920 what would happen is the music writer would call him 1:10:37.000 --> 1:10:39.000 up after the show went on sound and go, how 1:10:39.000 --> 1:10:41.040 come the service chargers will hire it for this event? 1:10:41.560 --> 1:10:44.240 And the building manager go, gotta keep an eye on 1:10:44.280 --> 1:10:47.360 those people in Los Angeles. So you know it was 1:10:47.439 --> 1:10:51.000 Kabuki Theater, and Bob, you were around, you saw that. 1:10:51.040 --> 1:10:53.719 You know the criticism we got from new music writers. 1:10:53.760 --> 1:10:57.040 You know what the building managers said. But not one 1:10:57.120 --> 1:10:59.880 building did we lose. And no one connected the fact 1:11:00.040 --> 1:11:02.920 of saying, wait a minute, if they're doing all these 1:11:02.960 --> 1:11:06.240 things without all these people knowing, and they're complaining about it, 1:11:06.360 --> 1:11:09.200 why aren't they throwing them out or suing them? But 1:11:09.400 --> 1:11:11.920 everybody was part of the process, and I took the 1:11:11.960 --> 1:11:16.680 heat for everybody because look, the fact is, this is 1:11:16.680 --> 1:11:19.639 what I really believed, and it's my mantra from day one. 1:11:20.680 --> 1:11:22.719 No one pays more for a ticket than they want. 1:11:23.920 --> 1:11:26.120 And I want you to think about something that's different. 1:11:27.600 --> 1:11:30.000 I sometimes walk into arenas and I'd look up in 1:11:30.000 --> 1:11:33.519 the in the nosebleed sections less ten rows. Or you 1:11:33.680 --> 1:11:37.719 go into a stadium it's cold, people sitting there without shirts, 1:11:38.000 --> 1:11:41.360 it's raining. Why do people do that? Because it's emotion. 1:11:41.840 --> 1:11:46.360 You cannot regulate emotion. So think of this the Bolstead Act, 1:11:46.439 --> 1:11:48.479 which was for those of you who don't remember when 1:11:48.520 --> 1:11:51.679 prohibition that failed the war on drugs. In my mind, 1:11:51.720 --> 1:11:55.160 there's a failure gambling. You know now that you've got 1:11:55.240 --> 1:11:57.800 all these draft kings and everything else. That's side of 1:11:58.120 --> 1:12:00.000 leaves some of the balloon app But people will play 1:12:00.240 --> 1:12:04.160 numbers in the fifties because you can't stop people from 1:12:04.200 --> 1:12:09.320 doing emotional things. And he has the problem. Tickets are emotional. 1:12:09.840 --> 1:12:13.200 I need to be in the building. It has nothing 1:12:13.240 --> 1:12:16.720 to do with logic. And you can't regulate emotion. So 1:12:17.040 --> 1:12:19.960 here's what really happened and what destroyed the business market. 1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:25.200 I leave StubHub comes along the guys that wait, wait 1:12:25.920 --> 1:12:29.200 before you go to StubHub. When did the acts start 1:12:29.200 --> 1:12:35.599 getting pieces of the fees? Not while I was there? Okay, okay, stubbub. 1:12:37.400 --> 1:12:40.439 There was one that did that was the Rolling Stones. 1:12:40.640 --> 1:12:44.760 Michael Michael Cole and I made that deal, which is 1:12:44.840 --> 1:12:47.920 really funny because we make the deal was sitting at 1:12:47.960 --> 1:12:51.000 a restaurant. We don't have paper or a pen. I 1:12:51.040 --> 1:12:54.080 got a white napkin. We put a cross on the napkin, 1:12:54.400 --> 1:12:56.720 did service charges for the whole country, and settled a 1:12:56.800 --> 1:12:59.320 hundred million dollars on a napkin. None of that would 1:12:59.360 --> 1:13:02.479 happen today. There'd be four lawyers involved in every we 1:13:02.520 --> 1:13:07.519 shook hands. That was the relationship we had. So when 1:13:07.560 --> 1:13:11.519 I left, you know, we did all in ticketing in 1:13:11.680 --> 1:13:13.880 ninety four with a couple of acts and everything. We're 1:13:13.920 --> 1:13:16.280 hiding the service charges now All in Ticketing is the 1:13:16.320 --> 1:13:20.639 Flavord jure. It's hysterical to me because nothing changes. Let's 1:13:20.680 --> 1:13:23.759 be clearer though, for people that don't know the number 1:13:23.800 --> 1:13:26.920 one people who don't want all in Ticketing mean, it's 1:13:26.960 --> 1:13:32.160 not the ticketing company, it's the acts, correct, because they 1:13:32.200 --> 1:13:35.400 today everybody's got a piece of everybody, right, And the 1:13:35.400 --> 1:13:37.280 truth is that when you look at some of these 1:13:37.360 --> 1:13:41.519 crazy numbers, the acts ticketmasters, probably I would think this, 1:13:41.800 --> 1:13:45.800 and I'm not sure, but I would guess Ticketmaster getting 1:13:45.800 --> 1:13:49.759 a flat fee plus the credit card. Everything else above 1:13:49.800 --> 1:13:53.040 that flat fee is going somewhere else. And basically Ticketmasters 1:13:53.080 --> 1:13:56.759 a collection agency. That's what they are. So when the President, 1:13:56.960 --> 1:13:59.200 God bless them, says, you know, we're gonna look at 1:13:59.240 --> 1:14:02.679 ticketing and we're the airlines the hotels, well, every airline 1:14:02.680 --> 1:14:06.160 gets the ticketing fee. Every hotel gets a hundred percent 1:14:06.200 --> 1:14:08.960 of their ticketing fee. And by the way, when I 1:14:09.000 --> 1:14:13.200 did my um my appearance in front of Congress, John 1:14:13.280 --> 1:14:16.120 Conyor said, I went to Pine Knob and I paid 1:14:16.160 --> 1:14:20.040 a two dollars ticketing fee. And I don't know why 1:14:20.080 --> 1:14:22.320 I would pay a service charge if I go to 1:14:22.360 --> 1:14:24.800 the box office, So I send one of my people 1:14:24.840 --> 1:14:27.759 to find out what that's about. That was a facility fee, 1:14:28.280 --> 1:14:30.960 and the facility fee ticket mess that doesn't get but 1:14:31.000 --> 1:14:33.719 a facility fee was created to the act one share 1:14:33.760 --> 1:14:37.840 in that money, which you will know right. So the dynamic, 1:14:38.000 --> 1:14:42.240 the dynamic for all of this was some level of 1:14:42.320 --> 1:14:47.759 kabuki theater and some level of saying, listen, you need 1:14:47.800 --> 1:14:51.960 to understand because I remember when Bruce Springsteen paid five 1:14:52.000 --> 1:14:57.120 shows at the Sports Arena. The front rows, okay, the 1:14:57.200 --> 1:15:00.120 front rows eighteen dollars the least rows eighteen dollars, And 1:15:00.160 --> 1:15:03.000 they go, how come they're scalping? Going on? You go, hello, 1:15:03.840 --> 1:15:08.320 so so wait, we scrambled the rows out. There are 1:15:08.400 --> 1:15:12.400 things I never forget. We scrambled the rows. Did'd be 1:15:12.439 --> 1:15:15.840 these scalpers standing outside Music Plus and they you know, 1:15:15.960 --> 1:15:18.280 this young lady walks out and he says, where you're sitting? 1:15:18.320 --> 1:15:21.760 She's his second row, third night. He's just too how 1:15:21.760 --> 1:15:24.120 many tickets you haves for whatever? It was two or 1:15:24.160 --> 1:15:29.360 fifty dollars a ticket No. Five of ticket No. Seven, fifty, 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:32.439 last and final offer. She took the money, then got 1:15:32.439 --> 1:15:35.519 back online and probably complained about my service charge. The 1:15:35.600 --> 1:15:40.240 point the point is you can't regulate this, and what 1:15:40.479 --> 1:15:44.120 StubHub came along, you had scalping laws. So I'll give 1:15:44.120 --> 1:15:46.360 you a couple of anecdotes, because I know you're like anecdotes. 1:15:47.439 --> 1:15:50.280 When I left, the Grateful Dead always had their tickets, 1:15:50.320 --> 1:15:52.600 and they had their fan club and so on. But 1:15:52.800 --> 1:15:56.000 the acts generally couldn't take their tickets, and when I left, 1:15:56.000 --> 1:15:58.960 they got threatened, and so they gave every act ten 1:15:59.040 --> 1:16:02.400 percent of their tickets for their fan club. Now Mary 1:16:02.479 --> 1:16:04.719 Jane or Jim Jones in any part of this country. 1:16:04.800 --> 1:16:07.200 Now have four tickets in the first ten rows, and 1:16:07.240 --> 1:16:10.479 stuff up comes along, peer to peer. They sell two 1:16:10.520 --> 1:16:13.880 tickets and pay for and pay for for. Then they go, wait, 1:16:14.040 --> 1:16:16.479 I can sell forth tickets and pay the rent. Now, 1:16:16.680 --> 1:16:20.400 who is the government gonna sue Mary Jane Jim John. 1:16:20.439 --> 1:16:22.400 They're not gonna do any of that. So all the 1:16:22.439 --> 1:16:28.439 scalping laws get eviscerated. And what happens is everybody says, 1:16:28.520 --> 1:16:31.240 I don't understand why tickets cost so much, because the 1:16:31.280 --> 1:16:34.320 public decides what they want. And here is the thing 1:16:34.400 --> 1:16:38.799 that's really important. And I use this as an example. 1:16:39.760 --> 1:16:44.240 A week before the Taylor Swift of situation, the Phillies 1:16:44.600 --> 1:16:47.400 are a month the Phillies were in the playoffs, and 1:16:47.439 --> 1:16:50.439 the Philadelphia papers are talking about the fact of isn't 1:16:50.479 --> 1:16:54.639 it wonderful that that the secondary market now is it's 1:16:54.680 --> 1:16:56.759 such a hot game. It's a thousand dollars a ticket, 1:16:57.000 --> 1:17:01.280 batch of honor, badge of honor. Is the Taylor Swift. 1:17:01.479 --> 1:17:06.040 The world is coming to an end. And by the way, also, 1:17:06.160 --> 1:17:07.920 I'm not gonna get into what the government can do 1:17:07.960 --> 1:17:11.320 and can't do. But they're not interested in sports tickets 1:17:11.439 --> 1:17:14.639 they're not interested in any other tickets but concert tickets. 1:17:15.040 --> 1:17:17.280 And from the days that I was doing this stuff, 1:17:17.280 --> 1:17:19.880 the concert ticket market is not a market that fits 1:17:19.880 --> 1:17:23.800 in the antitrust loss because in the end, what percentage 1:17:23.840 --> 1:17:26.599 of the concert market is of all the tickets sold 1:17:26.600 --> 1:17:29.840 in America very small. When you add up all the 1:17:29.920 --> 1:17:33.240 league's and everything else, you go, we're only doing music tickets, 1:17:33.280 --> 1:17:38.000 and only doing music tickets before acts. Hello, Garth Brooks 1:17:38.280 --> 1:17:40.800 took the took the wind out of the sales by 1:17:40.840 --> 1:17:44.840 playing more dates, and he and he released it. She 1:17:44.960 --> 1:17:49.000 knew what she was doing. It was a no lose situation. 1:17:49.120 --> 1:17:51.640 Anybody with a brain would not have put all that 1:17:51.640 --> 1:17:54.880 stuff on sale at one time. And and her view 1:17:54.920 --> 1:17:57.559 of the world was, look, if it blows up, I'll 1:17:57.600 --> 1:18:00.280 take credit and you'll will throw you under the US. 1:18:00.479 --> 1:18:02.320 And if it doesn't blow up, it comes out great. 1:18:02.680 --> 1:18:05.120 So when when I did a sing in an interview, 1:18:05.160 --> 1:18:08.719 I go, I don't understand. Ticketmaster took in five hundred 1:18:08.720 --> 1:18:11.720 million dollars in one day. How many companies can take 1:18:11.760 --> 1:18:17.839 in five million? Amazon, brokerage firms, banks, most companies, airlines can't, 1:18:18.240 --> 1:18:21.519 hotels can't, I said, And she's gonna make more than 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:24.040 three hundred million dollars and everybody's walking around going it's 1:18:24.080 --> 1:18:27.839 a failure. The failure is they should have had circuit 1:18:27.880 --> 1:18:32.160 breakers that when you got that many calls or attempts, 1:18:32.160 --> 1:18:35.439 so that you just shut it off. The Martin Stock 1:18:35.479 --> 1:18:39.960 Market does it. Bank? You can't do a run on banks. 1:18:40.000 --> 1:18:44.400 But ticketing lives in this magical world where everybody thinks 1:18:44.439 --> 1:18:47.559 you're entitled to go to a concert. And by the way, 1:18:47.760 --> 1:18:49.800 which which is not a joke, this is not the 1:18:49.840 --> 1:18:54.240 first time this happened. When when the Spice Girls were 1:18:54.280 --> 1:18:57.120 at the height of their power, they did one show 1:18:57.120 --> 1:19:02.479 in Madison Square Garden. I old various government officials and said, 1:19:02.520 --> 1:19:05.519 please come down and watch the sale. Because of the 1:19:05.560 --> 1:19:08.120 twelve thousand tickets that we're gonna be made available, I 1:19:08.160 --> 1:19:10.200 think we had eight. So you got to try and 1:19:10.280 --> 1:19:12.559 not do a four minute sale because the world's gonna 1:19:12.560 --> 1:19:14.760 come to an end. So I go, can you come 1:19:14.800 --> 1:19:16.599 down and watch the sales so you can see what 1:19:16.640 --> 1:19:18.360 we do and make it a end. They go, when 1:19:18.479 --> 1:19:21.280 is this sale? They go Saturday? They go, I don't 1:19:21.280 --> 1:19:25.439 work on Saturday. So needless to say, on Tuesday, there's 1:19:25.439 --> 1:19:28.360 a big press conference, right of we're gonna find that 1:19:28.439 --> 1:19:31.439 way the tickets are because the kids are crying. Then 1:19:31.640 --> 1:19:35.960 there was a situation in eighty nine. I can't remember, well, 1:19:36.160 --> 1:19:38.679 the first Cubs night game is gonna go on sale, 1:19:39.560 --> 1:19:42.160 and we agree it will be phones only, two tickets 1:19:42.160 --> 1:19:44.719 of person. So I take my kids out for I scream, 1:19:44.800 --> 1:19:47.639 I live in California. I come back. Phone rings, guys 1:19:47.680 --> 1:19:49.920 on the phone high, this is somebody from Station one. 1:19:49.920 --> 1:19:51.880 I Q, how does it feel to take down the 1:19:51.880 --> 1:19:54.479 whole phone system in Chicago? I go, what are you 1:19:54.520 --> 1:19:58.559 talking about? Well, there's no one with thirty five million 1:19:58.600 --> 1:20:00.519 attempts in the first two minutes, and it blew up 1:20:00.560 --> 1:20:05.479 the phone system. You know, you gotta get smarter. You 1:20:05.600 --> 1:20:09.080 gotta get smarter about this stuff. But it feeds into 1:20:09.160 --> 1:20:12.479 the emotion instead of the logic, and we're in the 1:20:12.840 --> 1:20:16.240 we're in the emotion part, not the logic part. I mean, 1:20:16.280 --> 1:20:19.200 I just saw the government threatened Ticketmaster that if they 1:20:19.240 --> 1:20:22.960 screw up the Beyonce sale, hey go back and do 1:20:23.080 --> 1:20:26.439 mail order. You know, I mean, you you want to, 1:20:26.560 --> 1:20:29.960 It's crazy. Okay, let's go a little bit slower though. 1:20:30.479 --> 1:20:33.719 You're out, and then you get back in without box. 1:20:33.800 --> 1:20:37.600 Tell me that experience. Well, it was short mistake I 1:20:37.720 --> 1:20:39.840 made with that was I thought people would be more 1:20:39.880 --> 1:20:44.240 receptive doing white labels, and I was wrong. And ultimately, 1:20:44.360 --> 1:20:46.599 I mean I owned a piece which I sold back 1:20:46.680 --> 1:20:51.879 to a g um. It was an interesting dynamic. Uh, 1:20:51.920 --> 1:20:54.519 but I was wrong about that, and it's hard to 1:20:54.520 --> 1:21:02.560 go back home again. Um. The people, Well, what Ticketmaster 1:21:02.680 --> 1:21:05.240 was allowing people to do is they could put their 1:21:05.320 --> 1:21:07.680 name and they could do the things they needed. And 1:21:07.760 --> 1:21:11.120 I misread the situation. So that lasted about a year 1:21:11.800 --> 1:21:14.280 and then we all agreed that there was a smart 1:21:14.320 --> 1:21:17.360 thing to do and just stop it. And basically, since 1:21:17.400 --> 1:21:21.920 a g has carried such a big weight, um, it's 1:21:21.920 --> 1:21:24.280 really the deal never should have been done. It was 1:21:24.360 --> 1:21:28.880 my fault on a certain level. And and basically they're 1:21:28.880 --> 1:21:31.760 in control of their own ticketing now, which works for them, 1:21:31.840 --> 1:21:36.240 and they're doing fairly well. Okay, let's talk about Ticketmaster today. 1:21:36.320 --> 1:21:39.800 You haven't involved for the neccess of twenty years. What 1:21:40.040 --> 1:21:43.960 is different to your knowledge about the system today from 1:21:43.960 --> 1:21:47.840 when you ran it. Well, I think the system works, 1:21:47.880 --> 1:21:51.080 It's evolved pretty well. I think part of the problem 1:21:51.280 --> 1:21:56.920 is that the company on some levels become the phone company. 1:21:57.240 --> 1:21:59.680 I don't think they've done a good job explaining what 1:21:59.720 --> 1:22:03.080 they do and how they do it. And I think 1:22:03.560 --> 1:22:06.200 some of the combination. You know, you can read it 1:22:06.240 --> 1:22:08.200 any way you want. I think it's pretty efficient. I 1:22:08.200 --> 1:22:12.759 think most clients are pretty happy with it. Um it's thankless. 1:22:12.840 --> 1:22:19.080 Every arena manager knows that ticketing is thankless. So the 1:22:19.160 --> 1:22:21.920 thing I find most humorous today is there are five 1:22:22.000 --> 1:22:24.760 or six people involved in the solar system. You have 1:22:24.880 --> 1:22:29.120 the active managers, their agents. You have the arena, right, 1:22:29.600 --> 1:22:33.240 so that's four or five people, or the stadium and 1:22:33.280 --> 1:22:37.479 the promoter. And somehow, no matter what happens when all 1:22:37.560 --> 1:22:41.439 this stuff gets rid, it's only Ticketmaster's fault. Like you 1:22:41.479 --> 1:22:47.000 know this, this big overarching company controls everything, which is absurd, 1:22:47.680 --> 1:22:50.920 and and I think they've done a good job taking it. 1:22:51.000 --> 1:22:54.880 I think you know what's what's amazing to me is 1:22:54.920 --> 1:22:57.320 I've been gone twenty five years and people still come back. 1:22:57.360 --> 1:23:01.840 And you said, Mr Ticketmaster, it's spent faceless for years, 1:23:02.520 --> 1:23:04.840 and so people go back to the people who found it. 1:23:05.200 --> 1:23:07.439 And I would tell you this. A lot of people 1:23:07.520 --> 1:23:11.120 told me at the beginning that ticketing wasn't in business, 1:23:11.240 --> 1:23:13.800 and I thought they were crazy. I thought there was 1:23:13.920 --> 1:23:19.000 stone cold crazy. So the way that ticket masters run today, 1:23:19.120 --> 1:23:22.519 and to the degree you study it, do you believe 1:23:23.320 --> 1:23:28.840 that the fees, although they're negotiated, forget the fact that 1:23:28.880 --> 1:23:32.360 they're not included, do you find them more exorbitant than 1:23:32.400 --> 1:23:40.439 when you were involved? That's natural evolution. Everything close more. Okay, 1:23:40.560 --> 1:23:46.800 let's talk specifically about what went down. So we know 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:50.840 that Live Nation was it was allowed to merge with 1:23:50.960 --> 1:23:55.120 ticket Masters. That's in the rear view mirror. You're an attorney, 1:23:55.160 --> 1:24:02.040 so you understand these issues. The issue reformed. Okay, so 1:24:02.040 --> 1:24:08.760 so am I? Uh? But do you believe this is 1:24:08.840 --> 1:24:11.559 just us talking? You know, because it doesn't hold any weight. 1:24:12.200 --> 1:24:15.720 Do you believe the ticket Master is a monopoly? No, 1:24:16.720 --> 1:24:21.960 so just explain why. Look if Ticketmaster didn't exist and 1:24:22.040 --> 1:24:24.439 we called it Bob lefts, it's tickets they hey, you too? 1:24:24.479 --> 1:24:28.800 After a year, the solar system is you're set up 1:24:28.800 --> 1:24:32.240 to be the strong man. It's the way the word 1:24:32.240 --> 1:24:35.000 the world works. And what people can't get through their 1:24:35.000 --> 1:24:37.840 head is this. It doesn't make a difference how many 1:24:37.840 --> 1:24:40.200 ticket companies are. It makes a difference how many tickets 1:24:40.280 --> 1:24:42.799 you have and what the demand is. It's a supply 1:24:42.880 --> 1:24:47.360 and demand curve, and so if you had forty ticket companies, 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:49.680 none of these prices would be any different at the 1:24:49.720 --> 1:24:55.880 beginning because it's the demand. And ultimately, look, I'm not 1:24:55.920 --> 1:24:59.400 going to appine on whether because I don't know what 1:24:59.479 --> 1:25:01.880 Live Nation it's done for the last ten years, that 1:25:01.920 --> 1:25:05.439 would make them different when both companies, when when that 1:25:05.520 --> 1:25:09.280 merger was allowed, both companies stocks were in the crapper. 1:25:09.479 --> 1:25:12.400 They were both about a buck or two bucks. Nobody 1:25:12.520 --> 1:25:16.559 saw them as a goliath, and the world evolved, you know, 1:25:16.800 --> 1:25:19.960 so you gotta put on the glasses to see it 1:25:20.040 --> 1:25:23.679 the way it is today. But having said that, which 1:25:23.800 --> 1:25:28.800 is not a joke, I don't know exactly. I don't 1:25:28.800 --> 1:25:30.920 know whether you can call him. I mean they used 1:25:30.920 --> 1:25:34.559 to call Ticketmaster monopoly by itself without Live Nation. I mean, 1:25:34.600 --> 1:25:36.720 how many times did I hear that? I, Bob, as 1:25:36.720 --> 1:25:38.680 I recall it. Maybe in the nineties you might have 1:25:38.720 --> 1:25:42.320 said that too about us. So you know, the truth 1:25:42.479 --> 1:25:46.519 is that I don't know the answer to that question 1:25:46.560 --> 1:25:49.680 from a legal perspective, because part of the problem that 1:25:49.720 --> 1:25:52.880 you have is let's talk about let me talk about 1:25:52.880 --> 1:25:57.160 Ticketmaster and monopolies, because that I can talk about you 1:25:57.240 --> 1:26:01.880 have an exclusive. The problem is there's no guarantee from 1:26:01.920 --> 1:26:04.840 the venue how many tickets you get, No guarantee in 1:26:04.840 --> 1:26:07.839 the number of shows, no guarantee of the number of tickets, 1:26:08.200 --> 1:26:11.960 no guarantee about anything. But everybody was shocked about that. 1:26:12.920 --> 1:26:14.599 So they go, well, how do you know you're gonna 1:26:14.640 --> 1:26:17.559 get tickets? You go because they got death service. Okay, 1:26:17.760 --> 1:26:19.719 so they gotta pay. We think they're gonna have shows. 1:26:20.360 --> 1:26:23.320 But there isn't one contract that I wrote. And I 1:26:23.360 --> 1:26:27.120 can't tell you whether that's changed, but there wasn't one 1:26:27.200 --> 1:26:32.440 contract that I wrote that anywhere was there a guarantee 1:26:32.479 --> 1:26:37.519 of the number of shows, number of tickets, um, number 1:26:37.520 --> 1:26:40.920 of events. What you did is you took a statistical 1:26:40.960 --> 1:26:45.120 analysis of the building the last five years and kind 1:26:45.160 --> 1:26:47.880 of plugged it in and came up with a model. 1:26:49.160 --> 1:26:54.120 And I remember one of the great funny lines of life, 1:26:54.160 --> 1:26:57.000 which is sort of a digression, but it's sets the point. 1:26:57.240 --> 1:26:59.479 There was a big stadium show and the Attorney General 1:26:59.520 --> 1:27:03.439 of that subpoena in US and they said, we want 1:27:03.439 --> 1:27:05.280 a list of all the people who bought the tickets. 1:27:05.800 --> 1:27:09.040 So I go to that we I went to that meeting, 1:27:10.160 --> 1:27:11.920 and we had given them the number of the people 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:14.240 who bought tickets by phone, but not at the outlets. 1:27:15.160 --> 1:27:18.320 And the woman says, why don't we have the names 1:27:18.320 --> 1:27:20.200 of the people bought tickets and at the outlets? And 1:27:20.240 --> 1:27:25.360 I went, because we don't live in Russia. But but 1:27:25.360 --> 1:27:28.720 but here's my question, why are you calling me? Why 1:27:28.720 --> 1:27:31.360 don't you call the broker's And she went, we don't 1:27:31.400 --> 1:27:34.000 know how to find them. I said, you have an assistant, 1:27:34.120 --> 1:27:36.799 Go yeah, I said, bring me the Yellow Pages, forty 1:27:36.840 --> 1:27:41.160 pages of brokers. I go, Look, I'm tired of always 1:27:41.160 --> 1:27:44.759 been the whipping boy for this business. Here's my private 1:27:44.760 --> 1:27:47.720 phone number in the office. Here's the name of my assistant. 1:27:48.200 --> 1:27:51.160 You have any questions, you call us. I am not 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:54.800 responsible for where these tickets go. I try as much 1:27:54.880 --> 1:27:58.200 as I can. And we went through crossing out same address, 1:27:58.720 --> 1:28:01.880 credit card numbers that you multiple events. We did about 1:28:01.880 --> 1:28:04.920 ten things that we could do. But if, but if 1:28:04.960 --> 1:28:07.400 a broker has got forty different credit cards with forty 1:28:07.400 --> 1:28:09.439 different addresses, how the hell are we gonna know what 1:28:09.560 --> 1:28:14.720 that is? And to me, at the way, the way 1:28:14.760 --> 1:28:18.719 I see it is, nobody wants to know the truth 1:28:18.840 --> 1:28:21.799 because the narrative doesn't the truth doesn't fit the narrative 1:28:22.920 --> 1:28:27.920 well articulated, but just speculating. Because you have more background 1:28:27.920 --> 1:28:32.639 in this than almost anybody. Some people say, by virtue 1:28:32.680 --> 1:28:39.120 of their market share, ticket Masters inherently a monopoly. Now 1:28:39.479 --> 1:28:44.400 what I tell these people is there are antitrust laws. 1:28:44.479 --> 1:28:48.840 We presently have an FTC that is very aggressive. But 1:28:49.520 --> 1:28:53.519 if we determine that it is a monopoly, what is 1:28:53.600 --> 1:28:57.800 the sou They has to have a remedy, and the 1:28:57.880 --> 1:29:01.679 remedy is going to be worse. I haven't to agree 1:29:01.720 --> 1:29:07.400 with you. The reality is this, if they split it up, 1:29:09.000 --> 1:29:11.000 which I don't think they can't. I mean they have 1:29:11.080 --> 1:29:16.360 that they can do whatever they want. Whoever replaced this 1:29:16.439 --> 1:29:18.840 ticket mask is gonna have the same issue after two years. 1:29:20.040 --> 1:29:25.960 You know when when I'm very circumspect about my meeting 1:29:26.000 --> 1:29:28.519 with the government, and if you and I know you 1:29:28.600 --> 1:29:31.519 know this, You've never seen anything written by those meetings 1:29:32.479 --> 1:29:35.760 because I just say the system worked, but there are 1:29:35.840 --> 1:29:39.960 a few things I can share. And then and one 1:29:39.960 --> 1:29:42.479 of the questions is why can't they be multiple ticket 1:29:42.479 --> 1:29:45.960 companies in the building? And I said, how many operating 1:29:46.000 --> 1:29:48.679 systems do you have in your computer? And they said one? 1:29:49.320 --> 1:29:52.519 And I go, how many inventory control systems? Are there 1:29:52.520 --> 1:29:55.479 in a supermarket one and I go, why is this 1:29:55.560 --> 1:29:58.120 different than an inventory control system? That's all it is. 1:29:58.760 --> 1:30:03.040 And the thing you'll eLearn is this Ticketmaster is no 1:30:03.160 --> 1:30:06.360 different than Time Life, the eight number, except if you 1:30:06.400 --> 1:30:10.320 touch entertainment, you are entertainment. And the truth of the 1:30:10.360 --> 1:30:16.800 matter is if people didn't pay and there you well 1:30:16.920 --> 1:30:21.479 you was, you was know as much as anybody more. 1:30:21.560 --> 1:30:25.640 Events don't sell out. There's always tickets available. There are 1:30:25.680 --> 1:30:28.320 always tickets that show up twenty four or forty eight 1:30:28.320 --> 1:30:32.840 hours because nobody knows the configuration of the stage. It's 1:30:32.880 --> 1:30:35.799 just that, because all of this is controlled by emotion 1:30:35.880 --> 1:30:40.960 instead of logic. Right, A suite at the Super Bowl 1:30:41.040 --> 1:30:43.040 last year in l A went for two million dollars. 1:30:43.200 --> 1:30:48.840 I didn't hear anybody complaining, right, I don't understand. Garth 1:30:48.880 --> 1:30:53.840 Brooks played more shows Broadway. This is interesting because of 1:30:53.920 --> 1:30:56.439 friends of mine. I still go to Broadway shows. And 1:30:56.560 --> 1:30:59.120 you know, you know enough of the stories about me 1:30:59.200 --> 1:31:01.720 that I really went of concerts. And when I helped 1:31:01.760 --> 1:31:03.719 my wife get tickets, I told her I will help 1:31:03.720 --> 1:31:06.280 me get tickets. But I don't go. You know, It's 1:31:06.360 --> 1:31:09.519 like that's not my jones, it's not what I you know, 1:31:11.560 --> 1:31:16.080 But the reality is people sit in the last ten 1:31:16.200 --> 1:31:18.280 rows because of the need to be in the building 1:31:20.200 --> 1:31:23.960 service charges. There is a reflection of what people think 1:31:24.000 --> 1:31:27.800 a fair market is. No more, no less. You don't 1:31:27.800 --> 1:31:29.960 want to go, don't pay it. And here's the thing 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:33.720 that was shocking to me. About ten years ago, when 1:31:33.720 --> 1:31:37.280 the Rolling Stones were at the Hollywood Bowl, I got 1:31:37.280 --> 1:31:41.000 a call. I still get calls some people who still 1:31:41.040 --> 1:31:42.840 think I have something to do with the company, which 1:31:43.000 --> 1:31:48.519 I find frightening. Um they said, did you see what 1:31:48.560 --> 1:31:51.000 the Rolling Stone? This is the Wilshire Journal. Did you 1:31:51.040 --> 1:31:55.559 see what the Rolling what the Rolling Stones charged at 1:31:57.439 --> 1:32:01.360 the Hollywood Ball? I went, yeahs the ticket? Well didn't 1:32:01.400 --> 1:32:06.479 you think that was excessive? I said, well we went. 1:32:06.640 --> 1:32:08.439 I mean I bought two tickets. It was what it 1:32:08.520 --> 1:32:10.400 cost and my wife wanted to go, so we went. 1:32:10.520 --> 1:32:15.759 But here's my question. Assume that you're not a trust 1:32:15.760 --> 1:32:19.360 fund baby and assumed that working for the journal provides 1:32:19.360 --> 1:32:23.160 your income. When you go by a Lamborghini showroom, do 1:32:23.160 --> 1:32:24.519 you have the need to throw a brick through a 1:32:24.560 --> 1:32:29.960 window because you can't afford it? What's the difference? Where 1:32:30.160 --> 1:32:34.640 is it written that popular music requires everybody have a 1:32:34.720 --> 1:32:37.800 right to go see it. Now, I know that's heresy. 1:32:37.960 --> 1:32:41.200 Go to the clubs, go go to the small venues. 1:32:41.720 --> 1:32:47.320 Guess what. Why is an artist not a brand? Why 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:49.640 is an artist not worth the same thing as a 1:32:49.680 --> 1:32:51.879 floor seat at a Laker or a Nick or Chicago 1:32:51.920 --> 1:32:55.599 Bulls game. If they choose, that's what they're worth. That's 1:32:55.600 --> 1:33:00.000 what the cost is. But people lose their mind because 1:33:00.000 --> 1:33:03.679 it's it's it's music. No one loses their mind in sports. 1:33:04.880 --> 1:33:07.120 No one loses their mind in boxing. By the way, 1:33:07.160 --> 1:33:10.320 I heard a story the two front row seats for boxing, 1:33:11.360 --> 1:33:13.760 one for half a million dollars each for some fight. 1:33:15.000 --> 1:33:18.839 No one's forcing anybody to pay these prices, right, And 1:33:18.840 --> 1:33:20.720 and the great thing is you don't have to go. 1:33:21.160 --> 1:33:25.160 And and if if you don't go, and you're not selling, 1:33:25.280 --> 1:33:27.360 I mean, no one's gonna pay two dollars to hear 1:33:27.400 --> 1:33:29.519 you and I sing you go Bob and Fred the 1:33:29.560 --> 1:33:32.200 Great duet when you pay two dollars to see it, No, 1:33:32.439 --> 1:33:38.479 probably not so so the dynamic. Look. I don't want 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:40.599 to say it's all bullshit because that will only make 1:33:40.640 --> 1:33:44.320 everybody crazier. But the truth is, wake up in the morning. 1:33:45.240 --> 1:33:47.240 No one pays more for a ticket than they want. 1:33:47.880 --> 1:33:50.200 If an artist is like Garth Brooks, they're gonna do 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:53.120 everything they can to play as many shows as they 1:33:53.160 --> 1:33:55.960 can to take care of their people. How come that works? 1:33:57.040 --> 1:34:00.240 Pearl Jam did this whole thing with with certain into 1:34:00.280 --> 1:34:03.560 seats you know where your name is on it, and 1:34:03.840 --> 1:34:05.760 and people did that. You know what. My view of 1:34:05.800 --> 1:34:07.439 all this is, this is where I get in trouble. 1:34:08.280 --> 1:34:13.640 You know, you sell it, it's gone, Stop worrying about it, right, 1:34:14.040 --> 1:34:16.720 price it the way you want. And the answer is 1:34:16.760 --> 1:34:20.960 I remember we were doing golden circles and I pushed 1:34:21.000 --> 1:34:25.320 for that and someone said to me, well, how do 1:34:25.360 --> 1:34:29.519 you know when the golden circle ends? And I said, look, 1:34:30.400 --> 1:34:35.680 roe A is a hundred dollars, Rosie is fifty. So 1:34:35.720 --> 1:34:38.479 they said, well, where does the golden circle end? I said, 1:34:38.479 --> 1:34:42.320 when you right out of people buying. If it goes 1:34:42.360 --> 1:34:46.800 to Rosie, that's the golden circle. Here go. What if 1:34:46.800 --> 1:34:49.200 it stops at roe M I said, then you move 1:34:49.439 --> 1:34:53.000 Rosie up and moved them back until they meet, and 1:34:53.040 --> 1:34:54.880 they go, can you do that? And I went, it's 1:34:54.880 --> 1:35:01.559 a computer. I mean. The point is, if I did anything, 1:35:02.920 --> 1:35:06.720 I made this a business, and it was always a 1:35:06.760 --> 1:35:16.479 business because the scalpers knew it was a business. What's 1:35:16.520 --> 1:35:21.479 your view on scalpers? Some provide a service, some don't. 1:35:23.080 --> 1:35:26.880 They exist because there are always people with too much 1:35:26.920 --> 1:35:30.280 money who don't pay attention to when tickets go on sale, 1:35:30.280 --> 1:35:34.840 and we'll pay whatever the market will bear. UM. I 1:35:34.880 --> 1:35:38.439 think stuff Hub is fine. I think the secondary market 1:35:38.600 --> 1:35:40.920 is fine because in the end, no one's forced to 1:35:40.960 --> 1:35:45.200 pay that. Um. It's driven by emotion. It's clearly better 1:35:45.200 --> 1:35:47.839 than it used to be because I think the acts. 1:35:48.320 --> 1:35:50.800 Let's put it like this, there was some acts that 1:35:50.960 --> 1:35:53.400 I knew in the nineties where you could get pneumonia 1:35:53.479 --> 1:35:56.479 from the from the draft created by the tickets going 1:35:56.479 --> 1:36:01.879 out the side. Now you know, it's it's more of 1:36:01.640 --> 1:36:04.639 a business, and I don't judge the morality of it. 1:36:05.000 --> 1:36:08.040 I never made money from it. And Ticketmaster when I 1:36:08.120 --> 1:36:10.920 ran it was against scalping and we did what was 1:36:10.960 --> 1:36:14.280 necessary to protect it. But at the end of the day, 1:36:16.120 --> 1:36:21.280 you know, going a restaurant today, everything course more. What 1:36:21.439 --> 1:36:23.559 used to be X is now X plus Y. Go 1:36:23.600 --> 1:36:27.240 to a hotel over Chris, you know makes me crazy. 1:36:27.320 --> 1:36:30.600 People go out to dinner, it's a hundred dollars, but 1:36:30.720 --> 1:36:35.280 the ticket should only be seventy. Well, but here's the point. 1:36:35.640 --> 1:36:37.879 I used to have this argument. Why is Bruce Springsteen 1:36:37.960 --> 1:36:41.439 less than the four seats of the Lakers. He puts 1:36:41.479 --> 1:36:44.320 on a three hour show. He leaves himself out there 1:36:44.360 --> 1:36:47.439 for the fans. When he did Broadway at seven fifty 1:36:47.439 --> 1:36:52.519 dollars a ticket, you know, that was very limited, but 1:36:52.640 --> 1:36:55.439 he did it. I know the deal he had, but 1:36:55.520 --> 1:36:58.880 good for him. And you know, in the last show 1:36:59.280 --> 1:37:01.439 he talked about the fact that he charged more and 1:37:01.520 --> 1:37:04.320 everybody went nuts, but there was still half the tickets 1:37:04.320 --> 1:37:06.880 at popular prices. They just moved the seats to where 1:37:06.880 --> 1:37:11.880 they were. And here's the problem. You know this, you 1:37:12.000 --> 1:37:15.760 can't argue with a lack of logic because it's all 1:37:15.880 --> 1:37:21.479 driven by emotion. When emotion is involved, people kill people 1:37:21.640 --> 1:37:26.880 over love, people kill people over you know, over stupid things. 1:37:26.920 --> 1:37:31.639 Where emotion gets involved. This is just tickets. It's just tickets. 1:37:31.880 --> 1:37:34.200 I mean, you know, I know that that artist is 1:37:34.240 --> 1:37:36.880 a good my homies, Hey ticketmaster, Well, really that's the 1:37:36.880 --> 1:37:40.800 best song you can write for real. I'm sure I'll 1:37:40.800 --> 1:37:42.559 get a lot of ugly mail like that. Let me 1:37:42.640 --> 1:37:44.040 let me share this with you, because this is a 1:37:44.080 --> 1:37:47.320 great story. I was living in Beverly Hills in those days, 1:37:47.560 --> 1:37:51.360 and a woman writes me a four page single space letter. 1:37:52.320 --> 1:37:55.559 She lives in San Diego. She bought foot tickets to 1:37:55.600 --> 1:37:59.519 the Forum. She cannot understand why she paid sixteen dollars 1:37:59.560 --> 1:38:02.120 four dollars a ticket when all it did was come 1:38:02.120 --> 1:38:05.840 out of the machine. Now, one of the things I 1:38:05.920 --> 1:38:08.320 used to do was called the ten worth letters I 1:38:08.360 --> 1:38:11.840 get every month. And since she wrote me at home, 1:38:11.880 --> 1:38:13.559 I thought I could call her on Sunday. What the 1:38:13.560 --> 1:38:15.760 hell you know? Like, why not? Right? So I got 1:38:15.840 --> 1:38:18.680 Mrs Jones, I got your letter. You really should not 1:38:18.760 --> 1:38:22.160 be this upset. I really feel badly. What I would 1:38:22.160 --> 1:38:24.160 like you to do. What I'm gonna do tomorrow when 1:38:24.160 --> 1:38:25.880 I go in the office is I'm going to send 1:38:25.880 --> 1:38:31.400 you your sixteen dollars back. She says, that's really nice 1:38:31.400 --> 1:38:34.080 of you. That's four page single space. I didn't kill 1:38:34.120 --> 1:38:36.360 little Lindbergh, baby, I didn't blow up to Hindenburg, and 1:38:36.360 --> 1:38:38.960 I'm sure I didn't think the Titanic. But I said, 1:38:39.040 --> 1:38:41.800 I need you to do one thing for me. She says, 1:38:41.840 --> 1:38:45.400 what's that? I said, never use my service again. And 1:38:45.439 --> 1:38:48.880 if you drive to the Forum, there's no service charge, 1:38:50.000 --> 1:38:52.479 and she went, but that's not convenient and they'll take 1:38:52.520 --> 1:38:56.160 a lot of time. And I went, uh huh, and 1:38:56.200 --> 1:39:00.400 it was like the epiphany hitter, and she went, never mind, Sorry, 1:39:00.400 --> 1:39:03.200 I sorry, I wrote, sorry to forget it. Don't give 1:39:03.240 --> 1:39:06.800 me back my money. I'm really sorry. I never thought 1:39:06.840 --> 1:39:09.400 of it like that. Well, nobody thinks a bit like that. 1:39:10.040 --> 1:39:12.400 They go, it just comes out of the machine. Well, 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:15.720 who does the money, who does the audits, who does 1:39:15.760 --> 1:39:19.240 the season tickets, the single tickets, who provides the equipment, 1:39:19.360 --> 1:39:22.080 who does the software program? There's like a hundred things 1:39:22.160 --> 1:39:25.200 that the public NEBI sees. But you know what they 1:39:25.200 --> 1:39:27.400 do see They see the name on it. And and 1:39:27.439 --> 1:39:31.760 I know this for a fact. Um near the end 1:39:31.800 --> 1:39:34.320 of running Ticketmaster, I wound up having a meeting with 1:39:34.360 --> 1:39:38.120 the l A. Times, and I wound up with the publisher, 1:39:38.240 --> 1:39:41.920 the editor and the head of calendar. There's a guy 1:39:41.960 --> 1:39:43.800 named John Lindsay. I don't know if you ever came 1:39:43.840 --> 1:39:47.160 across him, and you know, okay, he was the head 1:39:47.200 --> 1:39:50.880 of Callen. So basically, I said, you guys have had 1:39:50.920 --> 1:39:52.760 a heart on from us from the beginning, and I 1:39:52.800 --> 1:39:55.160 don't get it. And I said, John, you won't even 1:39:55.200 --> 1:39:57.400 sit in a room with me and meet tell me 1:39:57.439 --> 1:40:00.880 why you hate my company. I just want to know. 1:40:01.320 --> 1:40:04.040 And you know, the publishers said, is he is he 1:40:04.160 --> 1:40:07.439 making this up in one of the vice Uh ed, 1:40:07.520 --> 1:40:10.439 it is, no read the stuff we wrote. It's true. 1:40:10.920 --> 1:40:14.400 And Lindsey looked at me and he said, you charge 1:40:14.400 --> 1:40:19.280 a service charge. I said, that's the reason for all 1:40:19.360 --> 1:40:23.040 the negative you charge for ads. Tell me how I 1:40:23.120 --> 1:40:26.040 make money if I don't charge a service charge? Where 1:40:26.120 --> 1:40:28.840 is my revenue? How do I do the things I 1:40:28.880 --> 1:40:32.960 do without that? And he sat there like a bear, 1:40:33.080 --> 1:40:36.160 you know, like wrapped in like a figure eight. That's 1:40:36.200 --> 1:40:38.719 why he handed the company because we charge a service charge, 1:40:39.360 --> 1:40:42.479 and no company that charges a service charge in America 1:40:43.240 --> 1:40:46.840 is ever gonna be perceived as a decent or. I 1:40:46.960 --> 1:40:49.880 use a friendly company. So if you if you buy 1:40:49.880 --> 1:40:52.600 a coach ticket, hopefully you land. If you're in the 1:40:52.680 --> 1:40:55.280 last row coach and not the first row, you land 1:40:55.280 --> 1:40:57.840 the same time as everybody. Nobody thinks about that. But 1:40:57.920 --> 1:40:59.760 if you go to a stadium in arena and you 1:41:00.000 --> 1:41:03.160 it in a bad seat, it's never the band, it's 1:41:03.200 --> 1:41:06.000 never the promoter, it's never the building. It's only the 1:41:06.000 --> 1:41:09.040 ticket company. Like you live in this vacuum where you're 1:41:09.080 --> 1:41:12.120 responsible for all this. Do you know how you deal 1:41:12.200 --> 1:41:14.360 with it? You shut it out, you turn off you're 1:41:14.360 --> 1:41:18.120 hearing it, You walk away and you go listen. You 1:41:18.240 --> 1:41:23.639 have the right not to go. And it's that simple. 1:41:24.800 --> 1:41:27.160 And the answer is the reason the prices have gotten 1:41:27.200 --> 1:41:30.160 where they are is because that's what they're worth. If 1:41:30.200 --> 1:41:34.360 you analyze that and analyze those tickets next to sports tickets, 1:41:34.360 --> 1:41:38.840 no different, it's no different. Let's just talk, as I say, 1:41:38.920 --> 1:41:41.040 you haven't been in the business for a while, but 1:41:41.160 --> 1:41:44.600 do you think there needs to be any changes of 1:41:44.800 --> 1:41:48.360 any type? You know, not only with a government, etcetera. 1:41:48.800 --> 1:41:51.639 If we I stop my fingers, you're running any running 1:41:51.640 --> 1:41:54.880 ticket master or another ticket company today, do you think 1:41:55.120 --> 1:41:59.120 they're doing something that you could improve upon? They could 1:41:59.160 --> 1:42:04.960 they could make it more transparent in terms of letting 1:42:05.000 --> 1:42:09.439 people know what they do. In other words, I don't 1:42:09.479 --> 1:42:12.920 think they do a good job. They do a lot 1:42:12.920 --> 1:42:17.639 of things well, but I don't think they that that 1:42:17.680 --> 1:42:21.400 they like the Bill of Rights. You don't set the 1:42:21.400 --> 1:42:25.040 ticket prices, you don't determine how many tickets go on sale. 1:42:26.120 --> 1:42:29.360 There's a whole host of things that need to get 1:42:29.400 --> 1:42:35.120 burned into people's consciousness that isn't there. And and the 1:42:35.160 --> 1:42:38.799 thing is that if one building manager told me about 1:42:38.920 --> 1:42:40.400 right before I left, he said, you know, if you 1:42:40.439 --> 1:42:42.840 didn't if you didn't exist, we have to invent you. 1:42:44.360 --> 1:42:47.839 Because what what ticket Tron did. Ticket Tron was terrible 1:42:49.200 --> 1:42:54.960 and didn't understand the role they played um and and 1:42:55.040 --> 1:43:02.120 by being charging a dollar, they fundamentally gave up um 1:43:02.200 --> 1:43:05.920 how do I put it, They gave up their right 1:43:06.000 --> 1:43:10.720 to have a role in the business. You operate in 1:43:10.720 --> 1:43:15.400 a solar system, so one of the things you know 1:43:15.760 --> 1:43:18.439 you for you would forget this. But you know, you 1:43:18.560 --> 1:43:21.280 have various promoters in the towns in a city who 1:43:21.320 --> 1:43:23.639 weach hated each other, and go, we're putting these three 1:43:23.680 --> 1:43:28.400 events on sale on Saturday. No you're not. That is 1:43:28.479 --> 1:43:32.680 not happening. You're the traffic cop. Okay. I think where 1:43:32.760 --> 1:43:34.640 Live Nation got in trouble is because they were a 1:43:34.640 --> 1:43:37.000 promoter and they want to protect the act. They didn't 1:43:37.000 --> 1:43:38.800 put their foot down and say we're not putting all 1:43:38.800 --> 1:43:41.040 the shows on sale. I think that's where they had 1:43:41.040 --> 1:43:44.800 a conflict. I would have stopped it. I said, there's 1:43:44.840 --> 1:43:48.360 not a goddamn way I'm gonna do that, and I 1:43:48.360 --> 1:43:50.519 would have put in circuit breakers. Where will you get 1:43:50.520 --> 1:43:53.840 that many attempts shut the system down? Shut it down. 1:43:54.360 --> 1:43:56.920 Say listen, we're not gonna sit here all day. We're 1:43:56.920 --> 1:44:00.160 gonna spoon feed this. What I would have done differently, 1:44:01.680 --> 1:44:05.840 not that anybody cares, is I would have said, Okay, 1:44:05.880 --> 1:44:08.720 for five days, we're gonna open this up to everybody. 1:44:10.200 --> 1:44:15.320 Send in your name, you can buy two tickets, and 1:44:15.360 --> 1:44:17.280 then you spin it out so you get rid of 1:44:17.280 --> 1:44:19.880 all the duplicates, the ones that aren't in the whatever, 1:44:20.080 --> 1:44:23.360 verified fan program, and all that other stuff, and then 1:44:23.400 --> 1:44:27.599 create a random program and then notified people. Two days later, 1:44:27.640 --> 1:44:29.519 you have two tickets, you have three tickets, you have 1:44:29.600 --> 1:44:32.640 four tickets. You do that. I would have done that. 1:44:34.040 --> 1:44:37.439 I mean, basically, it's okay to be the whipping boy 1:44:37.479 --> 1:44:39.439 for some stuff. It's not okay to be the whipping 1:44:39.439 --> 1:44:42.880 boy for other stuff. You know, where you basically sit 1:44:42.920 --> 1:44:46.280 in the room and say, listen, it has to be orderly. 1:44:46.479 --> 1:44:49.200 We cannot allow Yeah, I'll give you a perfect example. 1:44:49.280 --> 1:44:53.160 And I know you heard some of these stories. We 1:44:53.240 --> 1:44:56.240 got into it with a grateful debt. I always allowed 1:44:56.280 --> 1:45:02.240 them two um, because of the relationships with everybody would 1:45:02.280 --> 1:45:05.280 they would take a number of tickets for their fan club, 1:45:05.520 --> 1:45:11.120 whether it be arenas or stadiums or emphatheute of all places. 1:45:11.160 --> 1:45:14.800 All been in New York the Knickerbocker Arena. They took 1:45:15.760 --> 1:45:19.240 the ticket some idiotic amount. People line up and there 1:45:19.280 --> 1:45:21.120 was a riot because there was no tickets. So who 1:45:21.120 --> 1:45:26.320 gets blamed? Me? All right, So I tell everybody the 1:45:26.360 --> 1:45:30.400 grateful dead can no longer have any tickets, period. Shut 1:45:30.439 --> 1:45:35.160 it off. Now, those idiots Bud Nick and that group 1:45:35.200 --> 1:45:38.000 who wrote ticket Masses, which is a nice fictionalized account 1:45:38.040 --> 1:45:42.679 of that meeting. Um John Prisker who's Jay's soon sets 1:45:42.760 --> 1:45:44.920 up a meeting with me and some of their people, 1:45:46.040 --> 1:45:48.200 and we're in this meeting in San Francisco, and of 1:45:48.240 --> 1:45:50.040 course the initial meeting is we're gonna sue your for 1:45:50.080 --> 1:45:52.599 anti trust. Look at some point my eyes glaze over, 1:45:52.640 --> 1:45:55.240 because after you've been suited enough, it's like, okay, great, 1:45:55.720 --> 1:45:58.519 can we talk about something else? And I go, let 1:45:58.520 --> 1:46:02.960 me ask you a question. I have nothing but respect 1:46:03.160 --> 1:46:05.599 for who you guys are and who the band is. 1:46:06.160 --> 1:46:09.559 You put on a great show. Remember, we're also living 1:46:09.560 --> 1:46:11.479 at the time of guns and refunds, where you know 1:46:11.520 --> 1:46:14.280 whether they show up, whether they refined. I mean, you 1:46:14.640 --> 1:46:18.439 guys really care about the fans. But here's what I 1:46:18.479 --> 1:46:23.760 cannot do. I cannot let you trash my outlets for 1:46:23.880 --> 1:46:27.200 one day. For the other three sixty four can't do it. 1:46:27.960 --> 1:46:30.360 The people who are standing online mean as much as 1:46:30.360 --> 1:46:32.639 your people and your you know, in your fan club, 1:46:33.439 --> 1:46:38.320 and we've got to find an effective way that enables 1:46:38.360 --> 1:46:41.040 both to be satisfied, because if you trash my outlets, 1:46:41.080 --> 1:46:43.479 then I don't have a business the other three and 1:46:43.560 --> 1:46:46.479 no band can do that. That's not allowed. And the 1:46:46.520 --> 1:46:49.400 rest of the meeting after they went through death threats 1:46:49.400 --> 1:46:51.320 and I went, okay, great, you know, like I haven't 1:46:51.320 --> 1:46:55.439 seen them before. Let's figure it out. And we figured 1:46:55.439 --> 1:46:59.840 out numbers for amphitheaters, arenas and stadiums. And they said, 1:46:59.840 --> 1:47:01.439 if we don't sell them, can we give them back? 1:47:01.439 --> 1:47:03.960 And I said, of course you can, and you know what, 1:47:04.120 --> 1:47:06.719 we shook hands and we lived like that until Jerry 1:47:06.760 --> 1:47:11.200 Garcia died and no one complained. But I stood up 1:47:11.800 --> 1:47:15.160 for the people who stand online, and I stood up 1:47:15.200 --> 1:47:18.040 for having a business. And in the end it gets 1:47:18.040 --> 1:47:20.920 written that I'm an asshole because I said, you can't 1:47:20.920 --> 1:47:24.000 have the ticket in other words, nobody wants to understand 1:47:24.200 --> 1:47:27.280 what's underneath it. Nobody wants to understand the granularity of 1:47:27.280 --> 1:47:32.120 how you run these things. And I think what's important 1:47:32.160 --> 1:47:35.799 to understand is this. I knew what I was walking 1:47:35.840 --> 1:47:37.960 into over the first five It took me a while, 1:47:38.040 --> 1:47:40.880 but once I understood what it was, I never thought 1:47:40.880 --> 1:47:42.800 it was thankless. I thought it was really funny. And 1:47:42.800 --> 1:47:45.080 what was shocking to me is that the height of 1:47:45.080 --> 1:47:47.439 the Pearl Jam thing, which I must tell you probably 1:47:47.479 --> 1:47:49.960 took ten years of my life. Our sales went up, 1:47:50.720 --> 1:47:52.880 not down. It wasn't like Thailan at all. When people 1:47:52.920 --> 1:47:55.080 went away, most people didn't even understand what this is 1:47:55.120 --> 1:47:59.800 all about, because it was insane. And in the end, 1:48:01.080 --> 1:48:03.000 my view of that, and I don't mind saying, is 1:48:03.160 --> 1:48:05.400 I feel badly it happened. I wish I could have 1:48:05.439 --> 1:48:09.800 sat with other with people who weren't told lies, who 1:48:09.840 --> 1:48:14.759 represented the band, and and I think um um stump. 1:48:14.800 --> 1:48:18.200 Pilot's manager Steve wrote something on one of you, on 1:48:18.200 --> 1:48:21.640 one of your blocks, saying, I, I what's what's his 1:48:21.720 --> 1:48:28.160 last name? You know, Steve Simon, No, I don't remember. 1:48:28.240 --> 1:48:31.160 You caught me off guard, Okay, he said, Look, I 1:48:31.160 --> 1:48:33.360 I went and so forred and we solved everything in 1:48:33.400 --> 1:48:36.160 fifteen minutes. And he said, nobody else came to look 1:48:36.640 --> 1:48:40.559 if anybody talk to me. Common sense was eight percent 1:48:40.640 --> 1:48:44.759 of all this stuff. It's not rocket science, it's common sense. 1:48:45.640 --> 1:48:48.080 And then you gotta put in the emotion which leaves 1:48:48.120 --> 1:48:51.599 the planet, because then it's like the world is coming 1:48:51.640 --> 1:48:54.439 to an end and you can get congressional hearings. This 1:48:54.840 --> 1:48:58.080 is this is true Gary Condor who ran the pro 1:48:58.240 --> 1:49:04.519 Jam hearings. Steve Stewart, the Garry Condent ran the Projam hearings, 1:49:04.560 --> 1:49:08.000 and you may remember him from the Chandra Levy best right. 1:49:08.479 --> 1:49:10.600 So I went to see him a year after the 1:49:10.640 --> 1:49:14.720 hearings and about two months before the government left, and 1:49:14.800 --> 1:49:17.680 this is what he said to me, you're ready. This 1:49:17.760 --> 1:49:20.640 worked that great. I got a lot of good publicity. 1:49:21.040 --> 1:49:24.320 Everybody found no way minute, it gets better. Every everyone 1:49:24.360 --> 1:49:26.160 found that you're a good company. And I'm having a 1:49:26.160 --> 1:49:28.439 fundraising next week. Can you give me five hundred dollars? 1:49:30.240 --> 1:49:33.320 And I gave him five hundred dollars because I wanted 1:49:33.400 --> 1:49:36.080 my name to be there that I took the five dollars. 1:49:38.640 --> 1:49:44.240 If you live in the Maelstrom, you know there's partly 1:49:44.280 --> 1:49:49.320 a bunker mentality. And then there's also this absurdity that says, 1:49:50.200 --> 1:49:53.800 what is it that people don't get? You can't build 1:49:53.840 --> 1:49:56.479 an arena at seven miles long and ten ten rows 1:49:56.680 --> 1:49:59.880 can't do that. And when it comes to concert take 1:50:00.000 --> 1:50:04.000 it's for very few shows the world loses their mind. 1:50:04.200 --> 1:50:07.400 Nobody complains about clubs. Nobody complains about the two and 1:50:07.479 --> 1:50:11.080 three and five thousands, you know, cedars, Nobody complains about 1:50:11.120 --> 1:50:13.599 a lot of this arena acts that don't sell out. 1:50:14.160 --> 1:50:17.880 But you've got a few of these mega stars that 1:50:17.920 --> 1:50:25.640 are quite remarkable, that are amazingly talented, that lift the 1:50:25.760 --> 1:50:30.400 spirits of people, and and and I'm fascinated by that 1:50:30.600 --> 1:50:35.760 and appreciative of that um. And when it comes to 1:50:35.800 --> 1:50:39.760 ticket pricing, I don't get why there's a difference. The 1:50:39.840 --> 1:50:44.040 hippie hippies are over. I mean, you charge more for 1:50:44.120 --> 1:50:47.120 Christmas than you do the rest of the year. You know, 1:50:47.320 --> 1:50:52.840 I I I can't, I don't I say it The 1:50:52.880 --> 1:50:56.120 following in a reel, This is Fred rosen Line. The 1:50:56.240 --> 1:50:58.519 people who stolen music found out they couldn't steal the 1:50:58.560 --> 1:51:00.960 concert ticket, and since then life has not been the same. 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:05.400 Let's switch gears a little bit. So what's your life 1:51:05.400 --> 1:51:09.800 about now? Hey, I'm seventy nine. Man, I'm having a 1:51:09.840 --> 1:51:11.840 good time. You know, we travel. I just took my 1:51:11.880 --> 1:51:16.439 son to askpen for five days. Um, we'll travel in 1:51:16.439 --> 1:51:19.719 the summer. We're going to Caribbean in a couple of weeks. UM. 1:51:19.760 --> 1:51:23.519 I do some community stuff to help people. I got 1:51:23.560 --> 1:51:28.559 on a plane to chase deal. Um, not in ticketing. 1:51:29.120 --> 1:51:32.880 I don't think it will happen. Um, And I keep 1:51:32.920 --> 1:51:40.599 myself occupied. Look, we're blessed. We have amazing lives. When 1:51:40.600 --> 1:51:44.080 you see what goes on in the world, we worked 1:51:44.120 --> 1:51:49.559 really hard. I'm shocked. I'm shocked by a couple of things, 1:51:49.600 --> 1:51:52.559 Bob that you'll find interesting. I'm shocked at the model 1:51:52.600 --> 1:51:54.679 I created forty years ago. It is still the model. 1:51:54.760 --> 1:51:58.120 The numbers are different, but it's still the model. I'm 1:51:58.120 --> 1:52:00.880 shocked that people remember my name live in l a 1:52:01.320 --> 1:52:03.360 name who was on a comedy, who was on a 1:52:03.560 --> 1:52:06.120 sitcom ten years ago. If you can't remember any of 1:52:06.120 --> 1:52:11.599 that or fifteen years ago, no matter what happens, people 1:52:11.680 --> 1:52:15.720 still identify me with the company, even though I have 1:52:15.800 --> 1:52:21.000 nothing to do with it. Um. What's remarkable. I always 1:52:21.040 --> 1:52:24.000 described myself as this I'm an idiot savant about tickets. 1:52:25.360 --> 1:52:27.880 I can't explain this whole business came out of my head. 1:52:28.640 --> 1:52:33.120 I do not understand why. I have sometimes thought about it, 1:52:33.120 --> 1:52:36.679 and I'm I'm going to write something for my family, 1:52:37.120 --> 1:52:40.760 basically the beginning, not not a book. I won't write 1:52:40.760 --> 1:52:43.400 a book because there are too many stories where you 1:52:43.400 --> 1:52:45.400 would hurt people, and I don't want to hurt people. 1:52:45.479 --> 1:52:48.080 That's not what this is about. But I want to 1:52:48.120 --> 1:52:51.920 write something, a memoir from my family, about how all this. 1:52:52.360 --> 1:52:53.960 You know, I told you you you got bis and 1:52:54.000 --> 1:52:57.160 pieces of it because we only have two hours. But 1:52:57.160 --> 1:53:02.560 but how it all happened, all of its serendipity, serendipity 1:53:02.640 --> 1:53:05.040 that I was in the office that night where that 1:53:05.120 --> 1:53:06.840 lawyer would not have called me if I wasn't in 1:53:06.880 --> 1:53:11.080 the office, serendipity that Steve Wozniak didn't want to use 1:53:11.400 --> 1:53:15.080 ticket Tron and said, listen, you come out to l A. 1:53:15.160 --> 1:53:18.120 I'm gonna spend a million dollars to do this. Who 1:53:18.120 --> 1:53:22.240 would think that serendipity, that ticket Tron would be so 1:53:22.400 --> 1:53:24.720 stupid as to walk away from the forum and not 1:53:24.880 --> 1:53:29.080 honor an agreement. And then the thing that killed Tickettron 1:53:29.240 --> 1:53:33.120 more than anything else. This was the knife in the coffin. 1:53:34.360 --> 1:53:37.479 They were doing four shows at the coliseum. Do you 1:53:37.479 --> 1:53:42.400 remember that, Yeah, okay, So for whatever reason, they went 1:53:42.439 --> 1:53:45.000 to Tickettron, who had an exclusive contract at the building, 1:53:46.800 --> 1:53:49.160 and they said, we don't we don't think you can 1:53:49.160 --> 1:53:51.640 sell the four shows. You gotta give two shows to Ticketmaster. 1:53:53.280 --> 1:53:58.320 So I go down to the meeting and and they go, 1:53:58.360 --> 1:54:01.400 we're gonna flip a coin. Who does one, two and 1:54:01.479 --> 1:54:03.120 four and one and one and three? And I go, 1:54:03.400 --> 1:54:07.280 it's their building, give them whatever they want. So they 1:54:07.320 --> 1:54:09.080 do one in three, we do two and four. By 1:54:09.120 --> 1:54:11.920 two o'clock in the afternoon, all the tickets we have 1:54:12.120 --> 1:54:15.960 are gone and ticket Tron still has basically fifty of 1:54:15.960 --> 1:54:22.719 each show. So with turning people away, So the following week, 1:54:22.960 --> 1:54:25.519 I go, we can't do this. So I call the 1:54:25.560 --> 1:54:27.559 colliseum and said, go to ticket Tron and tell them 1:54:27.560 --> 1:54:31.800 the following tell them to give us an allocation. I 1:54:31.840 --> 1:54:34.360 will give them a hundred other than two dollars a ticket, 1:54:34.360 --> 1:54:37.480 I'll give him a hundred percent of the money above that, 1:54:38.200 --> 1:54:41.160 and at the outlet they gotta pay the outlet was 1:54:41.280 --> 1:54:43.320 sent or a dollar, and then they can have the 1:54:43.400 --> 1:54:45.720 rest I won't make any money, but we shouldn't turn 1:54:45.760 --> 1:54:50.360 anybody away. Well, guess what happens. Ticket tron couldn't sell it. 1:54:51.040 --> 1:54:53.240 I mean, in the world of being smart, it turned 1:54:53.240 --> 1:54:55.800 out even better than I thought. It went across the country. 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:59.440 The Ticketmaster has so little their tickets. And that was 1:54:59.480 --> 1:55:02.400 the end. It was the beginning of the end. And 1:55:02.440 --> 1:55:06.960 then when Ogden and a poland who's you know and 1:55:07.160 --> 1:55:09.800 what the company? They had a guy go around the 1:55:09.800 --> 1:55:14.360 country and he went like this, I'm much nicer than Fred. Well, 1:55:14.400 --> 1:55:16.680 apparently everybody was much nicer than me in the eighties 1:55:16.680 --> 1:55:19.120 and nineties. And they said, I'm much nicer than Fred. 1:55:19.520 --> 1:55:22.960 And we're gonna lower the service charge. And they said, okay, great, 1:55:23.440 --> 1:55:26.080 how much do we get. They go, well, if Fred's 1:55:26.120 --> 1:55:27.840 giving you a half a million, we'll have to give 1:55:27.880 --> 1:55:30.360 you a two hundred thousand, you know, or less. And 1:55:30.400 --> 1:55:33.840 they would go, a son, we have death service to 1:55:33.880 --> 1:55:37.840 pay Fred's fine. So if you'd like that, Um, that 1:55:37.880 --> 1:55:40.879 ain't gonna work. And when we sat with the government, 1:55:41.880 --> 1:55:45.080 we said to them, look, if you own a building 1:55:47.520 --> 1:55:51.920 to beat Ticketmaster, you have to pay more. So if 1:55:52.080 --> 1:55:55.360 TM is paying five dred, you gotta pay seven fifty. 1:55:55.720 --> 1:55:58.240 Now what happens to the price to the public, and 1:55:58.280 --> 1:56:01.320 the room looked around. When it goes up and go right, 1:56:01.880 --> 1:56:05.760 competition forces prices up, not down, because no one's taken less. 1:56:06.400 --> 1:56:09.400 And that was like this amazing epiphany which you can't 1:56:09.400 --> 1:56:12.920 find in any other business. But when food services take over, 1:56:13.280 --> 1:56:15.280 the food goes up, the hot dogs go up, the 1:56:15.320 --> 1:56:17.640 beer goes up. You know, you can't walk away from 1:56:17.680 --> 1:56:21.800 all that. And I can't tell you that when I 1:56:21.880 --> 1:56:24.520 created this model that was in my head, but the 1:56:24.640 --> 1:56:27.920 Bible it was clearly a byproduct of the model because 1:56:27.960 --> 1:56:31.280 I made it early on that I would take the 1:56:31.280 --> 1:56:35.200 heat for the buildings, and every building manager who would 1:56:35.240 --> 1:56:37.080 throw me under a bus would call me up the 1:56:37.120 --> 1:56:40.400 next thing go you don't mind, do you No, that's fine, 1:56:40.720 --> 1:56:44.480 not a problem, and they go, thank you, thank you. 1:56:44.520 --> 1:56:47.520 Because to me, if I could make those guys heroes, 1:56:48.720 --> 1:56:52.160 I had a business. And that's why in sixteen years 1:56:52.160 --> 1:56:54.160 that I ran the company, I never lost the client. 1:56:55.600 --> 1:56:59.120 And and I think it was it was a you know, look, 1:56:59.480 --> 1:57:03.880 you know enough to know that guys like me create issues. 1:57:03.960 --> 1:57:06.200 I had great friends and I had great enemies. It's 1:57:06.280 --> 1:57:08.600 kind of the way it works. And there were people 1:57:08.600 --> 1:57:10.400 who thought I was too tough, and then people thought 1:57:10.400 --> 1:57:12.560 I was too mean, and then were other people thought 1:57:12.560 --> 1:57:15.200 I was a pretty good guy, and and set them 1:57:15.280 --> 1:57:17.320 up and I made a lot of people a lot 1:57:17.360 --> 1:57:20.840 of money. I cleaned up the ticket distribution business. I 1:57:20.960 --> 1:57:23.600 made it so that people could trust audits. I made 1:57:23.600 --> 1:57:26.480 it so that acts got their money. I made it 1:57:26.560 --> 1:57:31.240 so that that at the end of the day, you 1:57:31.320 --> 1:57:33.200 got a ticket, it was a legitimate ticket. It wasn't 1:57:33.200 --> 1:57:35.960 a counterfeit ticket. It was a real ticket, whether it 1:57:36.080 --> 1:57:38.240 was you know now it's on your phone whatever. But 1:57:38.320 --> 1:57:41.720 the point is, we made a real business out of 1:57:41.760 --> 1:57:44.920 this when there was none and no one thought it was. 1:57:46.200 --> 1:57:49.480 And I'm proud of that. I'm proud that. I'm serious 1:57:49.480 --> 1:57:53.440 that I'm proud that anybody remembers my name. And you know, 1:57:54.520 --> 1:57:59.320 it's an interesting legacy, um because nobody wants to learn. 1:57:59.640 --> 1:58:02.360 Nobody is happy with the truth. So when you're not 1:58:02.440 --> 1:58:05.560 happy with the truth, you keep finding things that kind 1:58:05.560 --> 1:58:08.760 of shade the truth. But there's nothing, there's none of that. 1:58:09.360 --> 1:58:13.120 I mean, someone wrote some s whole article about Bert 1:58:13.200 --> 1:58:15.640 can Are being involved and some of the people Bert 1:58:15.680 --> 1:58:20.040 was involved with, and Bert was going from I mean nobody. 1:58:20.160 --> 1:58:22.840 You you know the article I'm talking about, it's not 1:58:23.240 --> 1:58:26.680 they made They made that crap up. We cleaned up 1:58:26.720 --> 1:58:32.120 the business. Okay, do you miss the action? I missed 1:58:32.120 --> 1:58:36.280 the peak. Let's put it like this. You know I 1:58:36.440 --> 1:58:39.320 was dormant for a long time and I missed the 1:58:39.320 --> 1:58:42.480 peat when I saw that I missed the people. At 1:58:42.560 --> 1:58:46.400 some point, Um, you get tired of the same fight, 1:58:46.680 --> 1:58:48.560 if you know what I mean. And I think when 1:58:48.560 --> 1:58:51.440 I left I had enough. All Right, this is kind 1:58:51.480 --> 1:58:53.520 of fascinating to me because I go to sleep I 1:58:53.560 --> 1:58:55.960 almost any sleepover. This is kind of it's kind of 1:58:55.960 --> 1:58:58.240 funny for me. And you get it's like a reset 1:58:58.240 --> 1:59:01.000 that everybody remembers you did this right, you know where 1:59:01.640 --> 1:59:03.480 you know? People now want to make a documentary. I 1:59:03.520 --> 1:59:05.320 don't know if I'm gonna let him do it. But 1:59:06.200 --> 1:59:13.560 the point is, Um, there's an energy that I had 1:59:13.600 --> 1:59:16.360 in this business that I never had in any other business. 1:59:17.000 --> 1:59:21.640 And the people I some night when we're not recording, 1:59:21.720 --> 1:59:24.280 I'll get you salters and eye and I'll tell you 1:59:24.400 --> 1:59:27.240 stories that even you would laugh at because I knew 1:59:27.280 --> 1:59:30.400 all these guys and and the real you know, everything 1:59:30.440 --> 1:59:34.200 I told you on this is true. But you know, 1:59:34.520 --> 1:59:37.920 before the Internet, i'd get a hundred hundred and fifty 1:59:37.920 --> 1:59:41.160 calls a day. I took care of everybody. I made 1:59:41.200 --> 1:59:44.280 sure that everybody was taken care of. And when people 1:59:44.320 --> 1:59:49.800 would say, you know what, why are they so strong relationships? 1:59:50.800 --> 1:59:54.440 You build relationships and sometimes you'd fall on your sword 1:59:54.560 --> 1:59:58.440 or sometimes you help somebody out, I would tell you this, 1:59:58.440 --> 2:00:01.480 this is this is no joke. Paul to Let and 2:00:01.560 --> 2:00:03.680 his partner, the guy who died I forget his name, 2:00:04.480 --> 2:00:07.040 two young kids, and they were always what I always remember, 2:00:07.040 --> 2:00:09.520 those little ads in the l A times for social distortion. 2:00:09.880 --> 2:00:11.480 That was what I remember, because they would do all 2:00:11.480 --> 2:00:14.960 those other times and we would pay them after the acts. 2:00:15.000 --> 2:00:19.360 And then the only two kids, they came to me, 2:00:20.440 --> 2:00:22.360 this is way before. I mean, these kids have done 2:00:22.720 --> 2:00:26.200 you know, post done brilliantly. And they came and sat 2:00:26.240 --> 2:00:29.680 in my office and said, it's really hard for us 2:00:30.080 --> 2:00:35.320 because we live hand to mouth, and we were wondering 2:00:35.400 --> 2:00:39.400 if we could get a line with you. And I 2:00:39.440 --> 2:00:43.640 liked them. They worked hard, they did their shows. We'd 2:00:43.680 --> 2:00:45.480 always pay them, you know, so they could do it. 2:00:45.520 --> 2:00:47.120 And I said, how much of the line do you need? 2:00:47.880 --> 2:00:49.960 I think there was fifty or a hundred grand. Then 2:00:49.960 --> 2:00:52.080 I gave him a line. Only people I ever did 2:00:52.080 --> 2:00:55.360 that too, and it was me. I mean I did 2:00:55.880 --> 2:00:58.880 so many things for people that nobody begins to know, 2:01:00.440 --> 2:01:05.200 because if people knew that, you know, part of the 2:01:05.280 --> 2:01:08.440 reputation I had kept people away and made you in 2:01:08.480 --> 2:01:11.080 a place where you couldn't be every place. And I 2:01:11.120 --> 2:01:14.080 would tell my people, look, I'm the toughest person you're 2:01:14.080 --> 2:01:16.120 gonna live within a day. So if you sit in 2:01:16.200 --> 2:01:18.960 the room and somebody's giving you a hard time to say, 2:01:18.960 --> 2:01:20.640 you're gonna get me on the phone, nobody's gonn want 2:01:20.640 --> 2:01:25.720 to talk to and look, I'm telling you the truth. 2:01:26.160 --> 2:01:28.200 This is how how else can you build a company 2:01:28.240 --> 2:01:30.800 I started with When I left there with five thousand, 2:01:31.800 --> 2:01:35.840 I had people everywhere. And the thing is this, you 2:01:35.960 --> 2:01:40.200 had a reputation that your word was your bond. You 2:01:40.320 --> 2:01:43.800 ran a clean company, You didn't screw around. And by 2:01:43.800 --> 2:01:45.760 the way, you know this, I didn't hang out. You know, 2:01:45.840 --> 2:01:48.360 I was never backstage, you know I was That was 2:01:48.440 --> 2:01:51.080 not who I was. I mean, I fell asleep when 2:01:51.080 --> 2:01:52.680 the tenth of the joke was how many times I 2:01:52.680 --> 2:01:57.000 fell asleep when I did go to events, But That's 2:01:57.040 --> 2:02:01.480 how I conducted myself. Where where I found this out 2:02:01.560 --> 2:02:06.160 later about the government. One of my lawyers was who 2:02:06.240 --> 2:02:10.560 was a great lawyer, was in Washington, And you know, 2:02:10.640 --> 2:02:13.840 I started with nothing. You know, when we were losing 2:02:13.840 --> 2:02:15.960 two million dollars, I didn't go screaming to the government 2:02:15.960 --> 2:02:18.520 the ticket transcot monopolies. Everybody told me I was wrong. 2:02:18.560 --> 2:02:21.520 I was gonna lose. And this is what they said. 2:02:23.080 --> 2:02:27.360 We didn't think he was that smart. Oh, that's what 2:02:27.400 --> 2:02:29.320 they said. We didn't think he was that smart. You see, 2:02:29.520 --> 2:02:32.120 because if you're a wise ass and you saw those 2:02:32.160 --> 2:02:34.360 idiot comments I make, if I don't sell every ticket 2:02:34.360 --> 2:02:36.640 in America, I can't sleep. I mean, I would just 2:02:36.680 --> 2:02:41.840 say stupid, outrageous stuff. But I cared about what I did. 2:02:42.480 --> 2:02:44.720 I really did care about what I did, and I 2:02:44.800 --> 2:02:46.960 cared about taking care of the people who worked for 2:02:47.040 --> 2:02:50.720 me and taking care of um my clients. And I'm 2:02:50.720 --> 2:02:53.680 gonna tell you two stories that that I think are 2:02:53.720 --> 2:02:58.120 really important that nobody will ever talk about Ticketmaster. I 2:02:58.200 --> 2:03:01.400 promoted a guy in three from thirty two to thirty 2:03:01.440 --> 2:03:04.960 five thousand dollars make him head of operations, not that 2:03:05.000 --> 2:03:06.840 I knew what an operation was. At that time, I 2:03:06.880 --> 2:03:08.840 was trying to figure it out, and he came in 2:03:08.920 --> 2:03:12.520 my office and he said, I don't think I can 2:03:12.560 --> 2:03:14.680 take the job because you're gonna find out I'm gay 2:03:14.920 --> 2:03:16.720 and I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a 2:03:16.800 --> 2:03:19.000 year and I'll never get it here, although I do 2:03:19.040 --> 2:03:22.520 think you're gonna build a big company. And I looked 2:03:22.520 --> 2:03:24.400 at him and said, what has any of that got 2:03:24.400 --> 2:03:27.840 to do with your ability? He said, well, nothing. I said, 2:03:27.840 --> 2:03:29.320 to get the funk out of my office. I don't 2:03:29.320 --> 2:03:31.200 need to hear I don't need to hear this. You'll 2:03:31.240 --> 2:03:36.640 be judged on who you are anyway. Fast forward. Because 2:03:36.760 --> 2:03:39.040 I didn't care about that, and I built a really 2:03:39.120 --> 2:03:42.360 diverse company. And Larry will tell you that we had 2:03:42.400 --> 2:03:44.520 everybody in the company. About a third of my senior 2:03:44.560 --> 2:03:49.839 workforce was gay. And in ninety two, when Calendar actually 2:03:49.840 --> 2:03:52.440 meant something m c A. It was a big story 2:03:52.440 --> 2:03:57.680 in Calendar about domestic partner insurance. And because I felt 2:03:57.720 --> 2:04:00.880 that human capital was the most important capital that you 2:04:00.920 --> 2:04:04.440 can have, and that I would tell people look in 2:04:04.440 --> 2:04:06.480 the mirror, because everything you get from life is looking 2:04:06.480 --> 2:04:09.760 in the mirror. Good, better, and different. I read this story, 2:04:09.920 --> 2:04:11.760 I call my the people. I know what m c A, 2:04:11.840 --> 2:04:15.480 and I go, would you share that information with my people? 2:04:15.640 --> 2:04:18.080 And they went yes. And I called this gentleman in 2:04:18.160 --> 2:04:22.680 my office two and said, this is a really great idea. 2:04:23.240 --> 2:04:26.840 We should do this for all people on two conditions. 2:04:27.320 --> 2:04:29.560 He said, what are they? I said one, I've spent 2:04:29.640 --> 2:04:33.839 as much time as I'm going to spend on this. 2:04:33.840 --> 2:04:36.920 This is now in your bailiwick. All I want to 2:04:36.960 --> 2:04:38.720 know is what it costs, and I'll do it, and 2:04:38.760 --> 2:04:40.280 the cost will not I just want to know what 2:04:40.320 --> 2:04:41.760 it's gonna cost me, and I'll do it. And we 2:04:41.800 --> 2:04:47.200 put it in ninety two because you can you follow 2:04:47.240 --> 2:04:49.520 what I'm saying. Yes, but let me ask you why 2:04:49.560 --> 2:04:54.560 to switch it to one thing? What about anti Semitism today? Awful? 2:04:55.200 --> 2:04:57.680 But I was the only Jewish guy in my company 2:04:57.720 --> 2:05:01.920 for ten years for real. Um, Well, you talked about 2:05:01.920 --> 2:05:05.000 the government and you said they didn't take you seriously. 2:05:05.080 --> 2:05:09.600 Do you think that was partially because you're Jewish? Well 2:05:09.640 --> 2:05:14.120 think about this. You're in New York, you're ethnic, you're 2:05:14.120 --> 2:05:15.920 a lawyer, and you're living in l A. And that's 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:18.360 four out of three strikes. And you went around America 2:05:18.400 --> 2:05:20.640 and took care of it, you know, and built a business. 2:05:21.600 --> 2:05:24.720 I think anti Semitism today is I would say this, 2:05:25.480 --> 2:05:28.960 the pilot light of hate is always on. I think 2:05:28.960 --> 2:05:32.800 Trump turned it up to a full flame. I look 2:05:32.840 --> 2:05:36.440 at people like Kanye and this other twenty four year 2:05:36.480 --> 2:05:42.280 old moron. You know there's a place for them to talk. Um, 2:05:42.320 --> 2:05:47.080 It's always there under the surface. I have not encountered 2:05:47.080 --> 2:05:50.880 a lot of it in my life, fortunately, not directly. Anyway, 2:05:51.400 --> 2:05:54.120 I think it's awful because I think part of what 2:05:54.200 --> 2:05:56.879 America is about. I think some of it's driven by religion. 2:05:57.720 --> 2:06:01.280 America has evolved because it's free him of and firm religion. 2:06:02.240 --> 2:06:05.200 And I think Bob, to be fair, Jews are easy 2:06:05.240 --> 2:06:07.200 to blame when you when you run out of everything else, 2:06:07.200 --> 2:06:09.160 who do you blame? You blame the Jews. It becomes this, 2:06:09.360 --> 2:06:14.080 you know, interesting dynamic. Um. I think the president and 2:06:14.120 --> 2:06:18.200 I think, um, the various organizations are doing what they can. 2:06:19.320 --> 2:06:21.720 I don't know if it's peaked, but I think it's close. 2:06:23.840 --> 2:06:26.680 I think in the end, when I look at anti 2:06:26.760 --> 2:06:31.520 Asian stuff, I can't comprehend it. I can't comprehend what 2:06:31.560 --> 2:06:35.640 the cops are doing. On some level, I think, I 2:06:35.680 --> 2:06:39.320 think what COVID did is by locking everybody up for 2:06:39.400 --> 2:06:42.920 two years. It's like rats in a maze, and so 2:06:43.120 --> 2:06:49.240 there's this dynamic of this frustration that gets filled out. UM. 2:06:49.280 --> 2:06:52.960 My hope is it goes back to where it was. 2:06:53.960 --> 2:06:56.440 I think people are a lot more proactive about dealing 2:06:56.480 --> 2:07:01.080 with it. I hate the fact it's on campuses. UM. 2:07:01.120 --> 2:07:03.560 I hate the fact that young people think that that's 2:07:03.600 --> 2:07:06.800 the way to behave They have always been lunatics in 2:07:06.800 --> 2:07:09.880 this country of the far right, UM, and the far 2:07:09.960 --> 2:07:12.080 left is no fan either. I mean, it's like when 2:07:12.120 --> 2:07:14.000 I watch some of the anti Israel stuff from some 2:07:14.040 --> 2:07:16.080 of these people, and I go, so, let me ask 2:07:16.120 --> 2:07:19.000 you a question. How would you feel if the people 2:07:19.040 --> 2:07:21.640 in Mexico We're gonna start lobbying bonds. It's not like 2:07:21.840 --> 2:07:24.640 Hamas hasn't had a million ways to make peace, but 2:07:24.720 --> 2:07:27.600 their whole goal is, Okay, we have to eradicate Israel, 2:07:27.600 --> 2:07:30.800 which is not gonna happen. My view of how to 2:07:31.200 --> 2:07:32.760 I have actually a view of how to make peace 2:07:32.760 --> 2:07:36.120 in the Middle East, which is by it, but underneath 2:07:36.160 --> 2:07:42.800 it is it bothers me that it exists. I'm troubled 2:07:42.800 --> 2:07:46.920 by it. UM. I've been to Auschwitz My wife and 2:07:47.000 --> 2:07:49.360 I have been at Auschwitz. We've been at various places. 2:07:49.880 --> 2:07:54.360 That place. You can't even describe it as evil because 2:07:54.360 --> 2:07:58.160 it's a level beyond the evil and dastardly and mean. 2:07:58.560 --> 2:08:00.240 And I always think the thing that's most interes thing 2:08:00.280 --> 2:08:03.000 about that is they knew how crazy they were, which 2:08:03.000 --> 2:08:04.680 is why they all left to go to whether they 2:08:04.720 --> 2:08:07.400 all try to escape, because they knew that what they 2:08:07.400 --> 2:08:11.839 were doing was wrong, and a Western civilization doing that shocking, 2:08:12.800 --> 2:08:19.520 but and and appalling, um and you know, frightening. So 2:08:19.760 --> 2:08:26.200 I hope the more we focus on anti Semitism, um, 2:08:26.280 --> 2:08:28.520 that it lessens and goes back to where it was. 2:08:28.680 --> 2:08:36.240 I cannot see it getting much beyond where it is now. Um. 2:08:36.320 --> 2:08:39.400 And you know, I have levels of nervousness by who 2:08:39.400 --> 2:08:43.800 gets elected. I mean, the ultimate line was ghosts are 2:08:43.800 --> 2:08:47.600 throwing Omar off the committee because she made anti Israel statements. 2:08:47.640 --> 2:08:51.880 This moron actually went to a pro Nazi rally. I mean, 2:08:52.120 --> 2:08:54.760 you know, you can't, you can't wrap your head around 2:08:54.760 --> 2:09:00.160 stuff like this. And my view has always been to 2:09:00.200 --> 2:09:05.720 be tolerant and let people be who they are. And 2:09:05.840 --> 2:09:09.520 I look at religion in the following way. If it 2:09:09.560 --> 2:09:12.280 gives you comfort, I'm all for it, don't inflict it 2:09:12.360 --> 2:09:16.280 on me. And if it's if it's violent or nationalistic 2:09:16.640 --> 2:09:22.520 or creates hatred of another race or nationality, I can't 2:09:22.520 --> 2:09:24.320 deal with that. In the same way I told you 2:09:24.360 --> 2:09:27.440 the third about a gay guy. We had this young 2:09:27.480 --> 2:09:30.640 African American come into my office in three and he goes, 2:09:31.120 --> 2:09:34.240 do you know Peter Schwartz? And I he was a 2:09:34.280 --> 2:09:37.000 guy fixed machines, And I go, why would I know 2:09:37.040 --> 2:09:40.800 Peter Schwartz? And he said, well, he's Jewish. I got 2:09:40.800 --> 2:09:43.320 there's five thousand Jews in l A. Do you know 2:09:43.400 --> 2:09:46.040 every black person? He goes, well, no, but I thought 2:09:46.040 --> 2:09:48.440 all the Jews knew each other, And go, okay, you 2:09:48.520 --> 2:09:52.080 need to have a seat at the table. But that's 2:09:52.400 --> 2:09:57.000 life experiences. Man. It's like, you know, like wow, um, 2:09:57.040 --> 2:10:02.920 and what my hope is this? You'll find this funny. 2:10:03.520 --> 2:10:07.960 All work, to me is spiritual and holy, not holy 2:10:08.000 --> 2:10:10.920 in the religious sense. But if you do something and 2:10:11.000 --> 2:10:13.480 you work at it and you want to be the 2:10:13.560 --> 2:10:17.680 best at it, that's great. Some of us are fortunate 2:10:17.800 --> 2:10:21.760 and have evolved. Some of us are fortunate where we've 2:10:21.800 --> 2:10:26.640 had careers and been successful economically. But if you're a 2:10:26.640 --> 2:10:29.840 bus driver. That's that's honest work. Be the best bus 2:10:29.880 --> 2:10:33.200 driver if you're I mean, I'm not judgmental about stuff 2:10:33.240 --> 2:10:37.280 like that, because to me, what counts as human capital. 2:10:37.800 --> 2:10:39.480 And one of the things I'm proud of st the 2:10:39.560 --> 2:10:43.920 ticketmaster is and Larry will tell you this. I took 2:10:43.960 --> 2:10:46.960 fifty people who started with me between thirty and fifty grand. 2:10:47.440 --> 2:10:49.600 They didn't go to the best colleges. I didn't have 2:10:49.600 --> 2:10:52.160 an NBA in the company for ten years. I made 2:10:52.240 --> 2:10:56.839 him all millionaires. That to me, because they all became 2:10:57.240 --> 2:11:00.640 more than they thought they would be. And these the stories, 2:11:00.920 --> 2:11:03.240 you know, you got me in this place that I'm 2:11:03.240 --> 2:11:05.200 not gonna be in a newspaper article that I'm not 2:11:05.240 --> 2:11:07.680 going to talk about because I'm too busy being Darth Vader. 2:11:07.760 --> 2:11:13.120 And I think people pay. The loyalty I got was 2:11:13.200 --> 2:11:17.280 because of the loyalty I gave and I protected my people. 2:11:17.960 --> 2:11:19.760 And there was a story I won't tell you the 2:11:19.800 --> 2:11:22.240 building where a guy walked into my office and he 2:11:22.280 --> 2:11:25.440 was almost crying, and I said, why are you crying? 2:11:25.480 --> 2:11:27.600 He said, because so and so beat me up. And 2:11:27.640 --> 2:11:30.040 he said, you sold him a bill of goods. And 2:11:30.080 --> 2:11:32.080 I called the guy who ran the building, and I 2:11:32.120 --> 2:11:33.800 went to see him the next day and I threw 2:11:33.800 --> 2:11:36.120 the contract on the table. I said, rip it up. 2:11:37.800 --> 2:11:40.600 You can't beat up my people. You can beat me up, 2:11:40.680 --> 2:11:42.640 you can't beat them up. And if you think I 2:11:42.680 --> 2:11:44.760 sold you a bill of goods, I'll stay till you 2:11:44.800 --> 2:11:47.840 find another ticket company. But you cannot behave like that 2:11:47.920 --> 2:11:51.600 because I won't tolerate it. And you know, he said, no, 2:11:51.640 --> 2:11:54.600 I'm trying to get you another client. But the point was. 2:11:55.600 --> 2:12:00.320 The point was people saw I stood up for them, 2:12:00.360 --> 2:12:04.880 and when you stand up for people, they will do 2:12:04.960 --> 2:12:08.200 amazing things for you if you give them loyalty. You know. 2:12:08.240 --> 2:12:09.880 It's like I spoke to a group of people and 2:12:09.880 --> 2:12:13.080 I said, your generation talks about quiet quitting. My generation 2:12:13.160 --> 2:12:16.680 talked about quiet firing. You gotta do your job. You 2:12:16.760 --> 2:12:20.320 need to show that you have ambition, otherwise ten years 2:12:20.320 --> 2:12:23.560 from now you'll be in the same place. I'm not 2:12:23.720 --> 2:12:27.360 known Fred. I think we're gonna leave it there for today. 2:12:27.480 --> 2:12:30.640 We could certainly go on and I would enjoy it, 2:12:30.960 --> 2:12:34.120 but I'm gonna give the audience a break. I want 2:12:34.120 --> 2:12:36.520 to thank you so much for being so honest and 2:12:36.560 --> 2:12:39.920 forthright and explaining all this to some people who don't 2:12:39.920 --> 2:12:43.480 want to hear it, but there you go. Well, let 2:12:43.520 --> 2:12:46.400 me say thank you for giving me the opportunity to 2:12:46.440 --> 2:12:51.680 do it um and let me answer the questions openly. 2:12:51.960 --> 2:12:54.040 And you know, after all these years, it's nice to 2:12:54.040 --> 2:12:56.960 put a face to the person, and you know, we 2:12:57.120 --> 2:13:01.840 both evolved and the truth is, you know, the truth is. 2:13:02.320 --> 2:13:06.360 Guess what, Let everybody live a long time, Let everybody 2:13:06.360 --> 2:13:09.440 be happy. I know that sounds kind of weird. And 2:13:09.480 --> 2:13:11.640 the answers, man, it's only a ticket. Can we just 2:13:11.680 --> 2:13:15.000 get on with life? I mean, really, it's a ticket. 2:13:15.640 --> 2:13:20.800 And it's like, it's so insane when you watch this stuff, 2:13:21.600 --> 2:13:24.560 and oh, I gotta I gotta share one anecdote with you, 2:13:24.640 --> 2:13:27.520 one more anecdote, which you love. So there was this 2:13:27.600 --> 2:13:30.480 class action lawsuit because we didn't get back service Georges. 2:13:32.280 --> 2:13:34.400 And there were two lawyers. I'm not gonna tell you 2:13:34.440 --> 2:13:37.080 where because you would know, you would know the situation. 2:13:37.400 --> 2:13:39.920 But we gave back the money. There's ten people in 2:13:39.960 --> 2:13:42.680 the room and I'm paying for everybody, you know, the building, 2:13:43.040 --> 2:13:46.320 the promoter, everybody's got lawyers. And these two guys go 2:13:46.400 --> 2:13:49.720 on for about fifteen minutes about how I basically ruined 2:13:49.760 --> 2:13:52.960 the world by not giving back service charges. So when 2:13:53.000 --> 2:13:56.520 they finished, I took a toy ambulance out of my 2:13:56.600 --> 2:13:59.840 pocket and I've rolled it down the conference table and 2:14:00.000 --> 2:14:01.920 they said, what's this and I said something for you 2:14:01.960 --> 2:14:05.000 to run behind. You guys are so full of crap 2:14:05.120 --> 2:14:08.200 it's unbelievable. They started screaming, and I said, tell you 2:14:08.240 --> 2:14:11.280 what I'm gonna do. Tell you what I'm gonna do. 2:14:12.320 --> 2:14:14.480 I'm gonna give a hundred thousand dollars to the school 2:14:14.480 --> 2:14:19.880 system grand the year for four years. You have exactly 2:14:20.080 --> 2:14:23.200 five minutes to take the deal, otherwise I'm gonna leave, 2:14:23.320 --> 2:14:26.080 in which case, all these lawyers you can go sue 2:14:26.080 --> 2:14:27.880 me and I'll just pay the money in legal fees. 2:14:28.160 --> 2:14:31.560 But here's the deal. Because I think you're such monumental asses. 2:14:33.080 --> 2:14:35.320 You can make the press conference that I gave the 2:14:35.400 --> 2:14:37.600 hundred grand, but you know what your fear is zero. 2:14:38.400 --> 2:14:40.400 You've got five minutes to accept it because I'm going 2:14:40.400 --> 2:14:43.400 back to l A. And they took the deal, Bob 2:14:43.560 --> 2:14:48.680 being thank you, Fred. Until next time, it's Bob left 2:14:48.680 --> 2:14:49.000 Sex