#229 - Marian Sandberg

0:01 Thank you for joining me here today on Gears of Gear Episode #229. Today's podcast is brought to you by our newest geezers of gear sponsor Row. Visual Row makes LED work for you proud and passionate about what they do. They are solution driven to deliver their clients and users the best possible LED products having earned a solid track record delivering state-of-the-art products and services. Row Visual is recognized as the industry standard offering optimum freedom to create great visuals, share their passion to deliver a great performance. Visit theirwebsite@rowvisual.com and today's podcast is also brought to you by Stratum Pro at Stratum Productions. They go beyond being just your everyday supplier. They are your lifelong collaborator, team visionary and architect of immersive experiences. Their mission is to captivate audiences, communicate powerful messages, and forge genuine connections among human beings. They would love to learn more about you and your events by partnering with you and your team. You can connect with them on social media or by visiting their website at Stratum Pro dot com. Well, hello and again, thanks

1:54 for joining me today on episode 229. And so I don't have much to report today. Again, I'm seeing a lot of tours that are starting up already. It feels like it's early, feels like it's really early. Actually I'm used to seeing tours going out in April or May, the summer tours and these have been going in like February and and March. So yeah, just feels like things are are moving right along. Things are earlier talking to some of my friends at manufacturers, we're hearing a lot of and Haas and you know bit of fear.

2:36 I don't know if they're sensing a bit of a slowdown in the industry, but certainly I guess maybe orders aren't coming as easily as they have for the last couple of years. Not that it's been easy for anybody, but certainly you know it feels like there's a a bit of a change happening right now on the gear side of things and I know I'm feeling it in my own company as well. Things are just unusual as they have been now for, for four years almost. So the other thing is trade show season really starts with ISE and and then next on the docket is Pro Light in Germany which starts next week, I think the 19th. And you know I'm still curious how that's gonna turn out.

3:17 Everyone keeps saying that it's being displaced by ISE. I know that over the years that show has been really important. The German show, the Pro Light, huge show and it was. It used to be the big start of of the sort of pro trade show season and now that seems to have become ISE. So we'll see. I look forward to hearing reports back from people. Certainly if you go to the show I'd love to hear from you. Shoot me an e-mail or a message and just let me know. Otherwise I'll be learning from social media. I used to go to the show quite often, but not really a big need for me to be there now, so I don't bother today's guest. You know, again I I love bringing non geezers onto the geezers of gear.

4:03 Today's guest is another woman and we've had a lot of ladies on recently, so that's great. I love it. Maybe we should have a Gazettes for Gazettes of Gear logo or something, but even then she wouldn't fit because she's still too young. So Marion Sandberg is a a great lady. I've known her a long time. She started doing PR for for I think Group 1 Jack Kelly back in the 90s in 96 and since then the industry hasn't been able to shake her. She won't leave so to read her bio here. Marion has diverse work experience spanning several industries and is currently the Vice President and Market Leader for LDIDSC and X Live at Quest X. Prior to this, Marian worked at Informa from November 2016 to December 2019 as the Content Director for the Live Experience Group where she was responsible for digital editorial content strategy, video production and conference content. Is that all?

5:09 And Marian also shaped brand marketing strategy and monitored site metrics to optimize practices. Before Informa, Marion was the editor at Live Design Magazine from February 20, 2004 to November 2016. So really if I put that all together, Marion's basically been with the same company from 2004 until today, just in different roles and with different ownership. And again, you know, Super Lady really excited about bringing her on. And also we're going to talk about the Iron Man that she just completed last year, which I would assume was a pretty massive achievement and a lot of training and a lot of work. So let's get this party started.

5:52 How are you? Hello, Monsieur Marcel. How are you? You know what? I'm OK. I'm not too bad. What day is it though? It's Wednesday. It's Wednesdayish, yeah. So if you're seeing this, it is legit Wednesday, a sunny day in New York. I have a half a week left by the way. I do want to initiate a complaint, an official complaint to LDI right here on the air, on the. Podcast on The Record. Yesterday I received advertisement from Virgin Hotels saying save 25% on Virgin resorts, especially the Virgin Hotel in Las Vegas. And so I was like, OK fine, I'll book it.

6:35 I could book up until the I think it was the middle of November and you couldn't put book past that. It just blocked out all the dates into December. Is that you? So I. Have that kind of power. Let me call Mr. Branson and get on that. Get right on that for you. No, that's a. 25% discount because I'm just a small little entrepreneur business and you know the savings. If I had a nickel, if I had a nickel for every time someone said I'm just a small little, I can't, yeah, that is definitely not from us. Yeah, I know. Sorry to say. I was just kidding. I just thought of it right now. But I literally did. As soon as I got that e-mail from them, I was like, oh, I'm gonna. OK.

7:18 And yeah, it didn't go so good. But then in the same e-mail they tell you, and this is one of my billion pet peeves. In the same e-mail they tell you that their resort fee is $44 a day. Like, you know, I don't agree with Biden on very many things. In fact, probably this is the only one the the resort fee thing like that. He's always when he remembers that he complaints about you know the I agree with him on that. Like this resort fee is bullshit. Yeah, that's your nightly fee. That's your nightly fee, right. So when it's I, I just booked a hotel in fact to go to it, a trade show believe it or not but it is not one that I produce and the the fee was so low that I sent the link to everyone on my team like book, book, book it's it's rock bottom prices and then the total comes out and you're like well that's actually it's adding you know 50%, it was 50% the the the room was so little that the resort fee was 50% on top of that.

8:22 That is ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, the whole, I just heard a noise. Was that you? Was that on your end? I heard like a ringing. I thought it was, oh, it it was Sarah trying to come in. Here she is. Sarah is now. We need Coursera out. He's your producer. Sarah is now in the green room and we're already recording Sarah, so you just keep quiet and be nice there. She's. Waiting Hello, Miss Sarah. Hello, Miss Sarah. She's waving at you now as well. Wonderful. Sarah was doing a great job. I think you, you obviously have done this for, you're a pro, you've done it for a long time and it's an excellent, excellent product. And Sarah has just just brought the level, yeah, the level up she's. Been amazing.

9:07 She's been very, very helpful. You know, she we have found some cool tools and tricks and stuff that I didn't use before because I wouldn't say I was complacent, but I was a single operator of a podcast that did the recording, the guest booking, the, the sponsors, absolutely every aspect of it. And I got lazy on some of those things. And so we had the same tired old sponsors, you know, Eric and Ben forever. The way to talk about your sponsors is being tired and all I. Love them both and they know it so much. So we've been good to them and they've been good to us but now now we have a whole bunch of great new sponsors and and lots of guests were booked into I think the end of April now.

9:51 So yeah, it's it's just really going crazy. And she was able to get you on, which you know is a remarkable, I think that. Was something I am. I am really overbooked and I am only known for being a woman who's good at her job. So that's. True. Well, we're not even going to talk about that because diversity don't matter to me. So, you know, I just think everybody's great regardless of your gender and all of those types of. Things Well, I think that's that's an important distinction all jokes aside, because I do I I do see the need for advocacy but I think as a lot of probably women in this industry will attest is we just want to be. I'm just AVP for LDI, right?

10:38 I I don't, I'm not the woman VP for of course I am. But. And we have work to do with pay, equality, etcetera. But I think that sometimes it feels strange to separate ourselves even though we know the advocacy has to happen. So I'm kind of of two minds about it, which is a challenge. You know, again, I think probably people think I'm loudmouth, sexist, this and that and all of those things, but I have more women than men in my company and I don't count them. Like, it doesn't matter to me. You know what I mean? They're really great people. They do really great work. And I couldn't care less what sex they are, who they sleep with, who they pray to. I don't care. None of that matters. You're good or you're not good, right?

11:19 And they happen to be really good people. Not good women. Good people. You know, so. And I think. And one of them, one of them who we both know and I won't mention her name, but you know, I can't really decide which gender she is some days, you know, like she she sometimes carries the worst part of both genders, so. Or the best or the best. And I think, I think yes. Oh, I think if everybody thought that way, then the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, not everybody does. So we still do have a need for advocacy and things like, you know? Yeah. I mean I, I, I talk to people all the time who are still you know sort of like Archie Bunker. You know they're really stuck in the, in a time warp in the past somewhere.

12:04 And you know women don't belong in business or women shouldn't be voting or women shouldn't be allowed on golf courses. And I'm, I just look at them like what? Like are you freaking out of your mind? What are you crazy? Like did you fall asleep for 40 years or something? And. Yeah. You'd like to think we've come a little bit farther than that, but sometimes we have. But, so here's, here's the complicated part of that is that I also don't believe that you should walk back to the back of the line and grab a woman because she's a woman and pull her up to the front of the line and put her in front of all the very capable men that were in line in front of her. And so that's where it gets complicated. And I happen to have a very personal story about that because my son is struggling in Motorsports right now because he doesn't get the same opportunities that diversity backed people do. And whether that's, you know, through through race or or gender, you know, they just get big advantages and he doesn't get the same advantages and and he's like, dad, what's going on here?

13:11 And I'm like, I don't know, go ask. That you know what someone's going to say. And it might be me. I don't feel so sorry for the the white guys. Sorry. It's not really equal yet. I mean, that's that's what I that's what I would say is that it's if we were there, then yes, but I do agree, you know, like, I'll hold the door open for you if you hold the door open for me, right. I don't think that you should hold the door open for me. I'll hold the door open for you also, but I think I think you don't. Think I should hold the door open for you? Seriously. Yeah, no, that would be fine. Oh, like as a gentlemanly thing. Yeah, I. Think as a human courtesy thing and the point is I would do it for you also, but no I don't think. That's a that's a slippery slope because I I still believe in chivalry and all of that kind of stuff in that you don't hit women, you don't get in fights with women. You don't you?

14:00 Don't. But where's the line then? Where's the line then, 'cause you're basically saying I should open a door for a woman just as much as I do for a man? No. And I also don't think you should hit a man either. Well, yeah. I'm not advocating violence. I'm not advocating. Violence, I don't think I should hit you either. I mean, so I think, I just think there's we still, unfortunately there's still a long way to go for you know, for women and people of color that that. I think diversity and inclusion efforts are trying to help that along. And I don't know the answer as to what other ways to try to help that along besides it's. Imperfect science? It's definitely imperfect. You know, and yeah, it's not important with someone getting ahead of your son in line in, you know, whatever that opportunity is is like an effort, a, you know, sometimes botched effort to help things come more equal. So.

14:53 Yeah, I mean it's it's, I think in some cases it it's really wise and it's smart to you know, use these diversity efforts and things. And and I'm certainly not against it, but in some cases, you know, literally somebody's been working their whole life to achieve something and now someone who's achieved less is being promoted ahead of them. And it's not based on their skill level, It's not based on the effort that they've put in. It's not based on their, you know, years and years of of waking up really early in the morning to do these things or whatever. They're just being bumped out of line because they're. And, you know, so that is that. Reverse racism or reverse sexism or whatever you want to call it. It's just called racism or sexism. But yeah, I I thought I although I will say I don't. I have not encountered a situation where someone was, you know, wholly unskilled or undeserving of an opportunity. Yeah, anyway.

15:48 No, I agree with, I agree with that. Like, I mean, I think that I just, you know, I know this isn't the first topic we should have started on, but I'll give you my my final. View. On it, My final view on it is basically if there are two people standing there applying for a job, and I'm interviewing those two people and all things considered equal, 1 is a better candidate. That's the one that should be chosen, chosen that it shouldn't be done for any other reason other than you're the best candidate given my criteria for this role. You shouldn't be weighted based on your religion, your whatever, all of those other things that are involved in DEI or whatever. And that's, that's my view, you know? So I respect, I don't necessarily agree, but I respect it.

16:42 Yeah. Good. Well, we'll have that. We'll have a talk at LDI. Over over a drink one day we'll have a talk at LDI and and drag it out and. You can't hit women. Yeah, and. And you can't hit me if I say something you don't like while we're. Having a drink, I know when you get. A little bit. When you get a little bit of alcohol in you, you probably get a little feisty. I throw, I throw. No, I definitely don't. I go to sleep. Good. Good. So you know, I was reading the notes before we got started on this and and nowhere did it say talk to her about DEI by the way. So that just don't even know Sarah was. I definitely didn't send that note either, so that's good. You started in this business with the boys at Group One, I think, right? Long, long ago, Yeah.

17:30 And I'm sure that's probably where you met your ex-husband as well, because he was a big Clay Packy guy. Did he? He worked for Group One at one point. I think he was like the the product specialist or something. Yeah, yeah. So when I started Group One in Farmingdale, Jack Kelly hired me. I literally answered an ad, like in a newspaper that was printed and I had to mail my resume and they mailed me a letter back and said, here's a test. Basically they asked me to write a press release about, you know, actually I'll never forget it was XTA electronics signal processors being used on the Olympics opening ceremony for their sound system. Knew nothing about it, right.

18:15 So I kind of like BS my way through that I wrote a press release and and I mailed my press release back and got an interview. So. It was crazy. I owned stamps and envelopes and I printed something out, you know? Yeah. And when I that was 1996, I guess. And. And in Farmingdale NY yeah, Jack Kelly hired me and so there was Vinnie Finnegan who rest in peace passed away last. He was there when I started there. Norman Wright who's still there. Not not too many people are still there. But yeah Patrick was a Patrick Dearson we're talking about in case anyone's unfamiliar, who's a there is only 1D Patrick. Yeah he worked there at the time. I think when I started, he was, you know, touring like as a product manager with some of the Clay Paki stuff for maybe Reba McEntire or one of the Feld shows. I remember literally writing press releases about it, and he was this guy who worked there that I had to call from the road because he was never in the office. But yeah, and I fondly remember you know I really cut my teeth working there because we I did PR and marketing for all the lines that they've distributed at the time. So it was Clay Paki Optic Kinetics, Sound Deluxe microphones, KRK monitor.

19:40 As you know we represented about 11 brands from overseas that we were the exclusive New York excuse me North American distributor for. So that really kind of I was thrown into the fire having you know little idea what I was talking about really was not trained for this. Well, I'm plus. Those guys were characters, you know, like Vinnie and and Norm and and Jack. I mean all of them. They were characters. You know, Vinnie especially. Like I I loved Vinnie. Vinnie I had a blast with back in the day, as you say, and they were characters. Vinnie was. He always wanted to do specials on fog fluid, so we did gem gem foggers and hazers also. And he would, first of all, you have to remember this is 1996 and literally not everybody at the company had a computer, right?

20:30 So we he didn't walk in and have a computer. So my first day of work, Jack Kelly said to me, So what do you think you need to do this job? And I was like, I need to, you know, type words on something like, and I don't want to use that IBM Selectric 3 typewriter over there. So he said, OK, go to the, I don't even know what to shop. But there were no Best Buys, right? So he said go out and buy a computer. He gave me his credit card because that you could literally just use somebody else's credit card. Jesus. Fraud. I used this credit card. I went and bought a desktop computer and like spend that was I spent my first day doing that was setting up my my computer and and then Vinnie got wind of the fact Vinnie Finnegan I think we said his whole name.

21:14 He was one of the VPS on the light in the lighting division. He got wind of the fact that I, you know there were some graphics that you could do on this And then so he would give me this, these specials for fog fluid which were fantastic. And it was always around Halloween, right. And it was like eco orange and eco green. I mean these things you know smelled not great. No offense but they didn't not great. And we he would be doing these half off like moving fog fluid and I would set like I could set up the computer to like fax where you could set you know your computer to fax everybody And I spent like a day entering everybody's fax numbers so I could do these auto faxes for. And Vinny, just once he got wind of the fact that I could do this, he would have like a monthly special for me to do for hearing I'm supposed to be writing these like you know, allegedly high level press releases about Golden Scan Three is all being out on Reba McEntire and and Vinny would find me all these amazing sales to you know, put spider webs on the background like make it with more spider webs because it's for Halloween.

22:18 So. But they were characters like really fun to work with, really very generous of, you know, time and knowledge and contacts. And so when I was this, you know, young person coming up, they would just, you know, oh, we're going to have lunch with so and so you got to come with us. You got to know so and so. You got to know so and so, so it was. Well, you probably took, you probably took the sting off of, you know, them showing up at the lunch and and now at least we have someone nice to talk to you know, or whatever. You know, it's funny that that Golden Scan 3 tour that you're talking about the The Reba tour, that was Peter Morris, right? I believe it was. And so when I was with Martin at the time and we had recently released the Robo Scan 5/18 which was like the first small light that had rotating Gobos at the time. And and Peter used like a hundred of those down the the sides of the stage and and I remember it having a whole bunch of clay Paki stuff on it as well. Yeah.

23:23 And I'm sure I didn't write anything about the. Yeah, in. In my latter life as an editor, I would have been very fair and balanced, but then I was writing just about quite. Patchy. We got really good press on that because I remember Peter said to whoever did the article, he said. They said I see that you used these Martin Robo scans for the first time ever on a tour. And he said, yeah, they're my favorite little pocket rocket. And yeah. Which lasted about a minute because I don't think he ever used them again because they were such a pain in the ass and they were always broken and the gobos were like this big. And yeah, they were. I definitely remember trying to capitalize on that. But you know, we had really quality Italian fixtures with excellent optics and you know, you did. Yeah.

24:07 As long as I can remember, that's been Klay Paki. You know, like if I remember being in demos with like Disney when I first started working with Trackman and we had this robo scan, you know, and we'd go to this demo and it'd be like a shootout or something where you've got all these designers who are there going, OK, now I want you to do this. And I had Peter Moore there with me and I'd be like, OK, Peter do that, you know? And he'd have to program the thing that they were asking him to do. And the one that we struggled with, where Clay Paki just completely annihilated us, was, OK, go from here to here in seven seconds and then back again.

24:48 And then go back. Yeah. And so we would go like this, we would go and we'd eventually get there and then we'd come back going the other direction, right. You could not do a diagonal straight line with a Robo scan if your life depended on it. It just didn't work. So Peter's like really busy trying to program like from here to here to here to here to here to here, like in 100, in 100 steps. And then just to change the timing a bit to smooth it out a little bit so you couldn't see it going like this. I'm sorry for the people who are listening, but I'm drawing lines all over the screen with my fingers. But, but yeah, so I always had like at when I was with Martin, I always basically had sort of commercial envy for high end and quality envy for Klipaki. But now you went from Martin to high end, did you not? Briefly.

25:44 Yeah, for a hot minute. For a hot minute, yeah, yeah, I was there for their biggest year ever. I think they did just over 90 million in sales and right at the top of that I said OK, I'm leaving now to go do a little tiny start up with Gerard Cohen again and yeah, the rest. Is is that that when you started Gearsource that was right after? Yeah, I started Gearsource right after. No, I did the thing with Gerard when I went and brought Comar back in and we just really started to explode Comar. And then Gerard got a little bit anxious and decided to roll Comar into this Stanton Group thing that he had at the time.

26:28 And so suddenly, literally, we got rid of our building. We had to move into this bigger building with Stanton and all these DJ companies. And it was a disaster. It was just a. Stand magnetics. Stanton magnetics, Yeah, but it was called by then it was called Stanton Group because they bought KRK. They bought Serwin Vega. KRK was one of the was the monitor company that I did PR for. After one, Yeah. Keith Keith. Clowder. Clowder. Yeah, interesting fellow. Very, very smart guy. But you know your typical eclectic genius, right? Yeah. But yeah, so that was a disaster. So I left fairly quickly. I think 2001. I left and sat around thinking for a while and then in 2002 launched Gearsource, which I still slave for today. Remarkable.

27:17 How does that sort of evolve like would would start with the spark of an idea, Did you do like a lot of market research around? That interviewing. Me now, actually. I did, though. No, it's it's an interesting story because what I really decided was similar to what a lot of people decide after you've done it a few times is I didn't want to keep jumping from moving light company to moving light company. Like I'd I'd already run my course with with moving lights. I didn't want to do it anymore. And So what was I going to do next and what I really thought about. So here's the whole story, but I'll try and keep it brief is do you know who Seth Godin is? Yeah.

28:02 Yeah. So Seth was in in the late 90s and early 2000s, sort of the Internet guru and especially. Search. Not search marketing, permission based marketing guru. He created this whole thing called permission based marketing, where you were building lists, e-mail lists based on people wanting to be on that. List, not just. Spamming them. And they were opting in, right? And so he started a company called yo-yo Dine. He sold it to Yahoo for lots and lots of money. Went on with Yahoo to become the Head of Permission Based Marketing at Yahoo for a while and since then he's been an author and Blogger and all kinds of other. Things Yeah, his blog is really fascinating. So one of the first books he wrote was a really cheesy name, like getting rich on the Internet or something stupid like that. And so I thought, well, this guy's really smart, I'm gonna buy the book.

28:53 So I bought the CDs. It was actually a box set of six CDs, and I sat out by my pool on the golf course after I left Gerard. And I'd listen to these. I think I listened to the whole set three or four times. And on one of the CDs was a story about a rhinoceros. And there's some kind of a bird in Africa that would the rhino or hippo. Sorry, not rhino. The hippo would sit in the water with his mouth open. The bird would fly in land on his teeth and would eat all the shit out of the the hippo's teeth, and the hippo would just sit there with his mouth open, happily getting his teeth cleaned, and the bird would take off with a full stomach.

29:39 And so the moral of the story was figure out a way to be that bird, basically to. So you wanted to be that shit eating bird? I wanted to be the shit eating bird, living off, living off the shit in their teeth. I've never had anyone word it quite like that. You are the shit eating bird. What do you mean? Please put that on your LinkedIn profile. I'm gonna put that on my LinkedIn profile. I'm proud of it. Yeah, I'm proud of it. So, so the the concept was basically find a way that you can earn small amounts of money from lots of much larger companies doing something that they really need done, like eating the shit off their teeth. And so I thought for a while, and one of the one of the things that had really become a pattern at the companies I was at was as technology was moving quicker, inventory problems were starting to mount, where basically last year's model was getting pushed back onto the shelf and the new ones were going in front of it. And then it kept going like this. And so you might have three versions of the same light on your shelf and sometimes you couldn't just go, you know, change a gobo or a chip or something. Sometimes it was different hardware altogether and you now had a version one, version two and version 3. And you know in our industry, unlike iPhones I guess where you can still get money for an iPhone 12 or 13, it was tough. You know, it was tough once you had a version three out, nobody wanted version 2.

31:07 And so I decided I was going to build a business focused on version two and version one and basically B, stock and discontinued inventory. And it was really based on manufacturers and distributors though, the companies that I knew because that's where I spent most of my career working. And very shortly after I started Gearsource based on that premise, I got a call from Huddleston at upstaging saying, hey, Marcel, that Gearsource thing you're doing looks like you're doing really well. And at the time, I wasn't yet, but you know, can you do the same thing for a rental company? And I said, I don't know, I guess so like you've got old inventory you need to get rid of. So it wasn't really initially meant to be like sort of the Sanford and Son of the lighting industry.

31:51 It was, it was more about helping people with inventory problems and actually our originally our original tagline was you know Gearsource your inventory partner and and it sort of grew into this global marketplace thing. But yeah, so that's that's the story of the foundation of it. It was all based on a need and and a spark from Seth Godin. And you're pushing 2324 years now Is 2001 you started? 2002 So yeah, 22 years now. Who knew? Who knew? I mean, listen, I I just celebrated 20 at you know, with the various LDI and live design, lighting, dimensions, brands. So, you know, I I feel like forever I was the new person because, you know, we retain people and for a really long time I was the new person for like a decade. It's funny because I still thought of you that way. You know, 'cause like, I remember dealing with Pat. You know, I remember back dealing with Pat and Jackie and and you know, they were our trade show people. And so I really hadn't been with manufacturers and I just thought of this this morning.

33:00 I never really dealt with you because by the time you were in that role, I was out of that role. And so, yeah, no, it's interesting. Yeah, but Crock, they were pretty close, Harley, because I started in 2004. Yeah, as editor of Lighting Dimensions, which is in fact over my shoulder. You're looking at my first issue in 2004 that I was the editor of that I started in February 2004. So and we were still printing magazine and we still called Lighting Dimensions and we still had our sister publication Entertainment Design, which was formerly Theatre Crafts. And yeah, all that fun stuff like putting out a print magazine every month and redlining copy, and it was great fun.

33:46 It was great fun. It's still done, like Live doesn't do. Do you still do a magazine? No, we don't do prints at all. We start doing prints a few years ago, yeah. Yeah, I remember you went fully digital for a while and then I don't even think you do a magazine anymore, do you? It's more. Like a no, we we're all online. Yeah, yeah, we did. We did an app which you know, I think, dare I say, we were a little bit of ahead of our time. But we did an app when it was like put in an app and have sound bites and we could have like, you know, really interactive. It was super interactive, which made it really expensive to produce and and really a heavy lift and it could break all the time. And it was for iPad, it wasn't mobile. People would say like this is really cool, but can't you put it on my phone?

34:38 And it's like, well, it wasn't adaptive yet, right? It wasn't. It didn't adapt to the different screen sizes. So we went through several iterations and then, you know, we had a pretty big advertiser say like, well, I won't advertise it until you do an Android version. So there was a period of time where we were doing, we were still printing a monthly magazine and we were doing 4 digital versions, which is 4 layouts, right? So you have to lay it out for the screen. So there's a iPad version. There was an iPhone version for whatever the most popular iPhone was at the time, even though they were varied sizes. And then there was an Android the, the tablet, Android tablet version. And then there was an Android phone version. So we were doing 4.

35:25 I mean, we weren't editing all the words, but you have to edit all the all the image sizes and stuff because it wasn't adaptive. So, yeah, that was we did that for about a year and it was kind. Of like pain in. The ass. It was killing us. Yeah, it was killing us. Oh my. God. Yeah, so having a website where we can just have like, you know, mega pictures and we can produce news every day and stories every day, that's. What I was gonna say, it changes daily, right? Like you're constantly blogging and stories and. Whatever on there. Every day we can do and we can do exposes that are longer longer looks at shows but we can break them into you know, bits of you know, today we're covering the lighting in two parts and tomorrow we're gonna cover the the screens production and and you know makes it a little bit more I think digestible for the way that these kids get their content these days, which is in a little bit.

36:17 Yeah, I can't tell you the last time I saw like a 20 year old lighting person, you know, reading this month's copy of PLSN or whatever. I don't know. Do they do print still or is it just lighting dimensions? Who doesn't print? Now lighting dimension doesn't exist, but that was that became my design. Yeah, LSA and PLSN. Still sorry. Yeah, I can't keep track of all your names and your. Own owner. You know it's only been 20 years. LSA started when I joined blame Dimension. So they kind of left that that nest and and went and started a competing publication. So, yeah, around, yeah. Interesting, interesting.

36:58 And I. There's there's room for all of us. Yeah, lately anyways. I mean, lately, it's just so crazy. Everything's so nuts right now. Like the I I keep talking about how live events are are just exploding and and just seem to keep growing. And it's all based on this social media stuff you know that the kids are doing nowadays. But you know, every one of these artists now has millions and millions of social media followers and they all have an appetite for live, to see the band live or the artist live. Yeah, well. Isn't marketing interesting how much it's changed certainly since you and I have both you know been in this industry. I mean manufacturers are so much more savvy frankly than they were And and part of that I think came out as recently as the pandemic on on staying on radar and companies started doing more of their own web casts and and just staying in. You know the one medium that we all had was the Internet during. I sound like I'm about 80 right now these kids and their Internet, but but of course that was the way to stay connected during during COVID.

38:04 But I think if you weren't putting out a show you weren't selling gear. You know you you could do more creative things with content online And I think some manufacturers that that are frankly you know clients of LDI became really good at marketing themselves which is. You know, and it's it's why I I have such admiration for for you and for Ellen and for just the show's evolution and stuff. Because, you know, I've written off LDI so many times. Just because how fast everything is shifting. And by the way, before I forget to say it, the very first time I ever saw the Internet was at some point in the 90s. I don't remember exactly what year it was at LDI.

38:47 And so somebody invited me to a demonstration in a hotel suite and it was what was that guy's name, One of the high end, the real smart guys from high end. Anyways, it'll come to me, But so I went up to this suite to see what was going on and they said it's this thing, it's called the Internet. And I'm like, what's that? And they're showing me how it all works and how you can connect multiple computers together and all of this stuff. And I was like, wow, OK, you got beer. You got beer in here. Can I have a beer? And I left. I was bored but. Crash in the pan. It's a trend this. Yeah, that'll be gone in a week. But you know, it really has changed things.

39:29 You're right. And I mean today it's so hard to keep track of like on this podcast, one of the things that we discovered. So we just started doing YouTube recently just like October I think of last year. And we're very new and we're very, we're not spending any Money Marketing or anything. So we have a really small following, although we've been getting a lot of traffic recently like 10s of thousands of people and stuff like that. But, but you know, one of the things we learned recently was these these things called shorts. And so I was like, well, how do you create these shorts? They're like clips, you know, they're under one minute on on YouTube or you know, it depends on the platform.

40:11 But so we started doing it just organically and going in and saying, OK, from here to here, this is a pretty cool little piece of video and it would take me on a 2 hour podcast to cut out like 4 shorts would take me an hour, maybe more, right? So then we discovered this thing called AI and a specific tool for making clips and now we can do like a dozen clips in a minute basically like you just basically. And it's using a lot of information, like it's looking for really strong hooks that will grab a lot of attention and it's looking for interesting things and it's piercing those interesting things together. And is it perfect?

40:55 No. But is it really good and and definitely better than what we were doing before. And it's instant. Like and efficient. Yeah. And efficient. Super. Efficient. Yeah, really, really great. So, you know, I mean, the change is like just the fact that you can put a podcast like this up on YouTube and it cost you nothing. And. People can go look at it, listen to it, whatever. And we just moved our hosting from, I was on something called Libsyn for five or six years and I was paying $100 a month to host the podcast on this Libsyn thing. And then somebody says, why aren't you on Spotify? And I said, well, we are, you know, Libsyn feeds it to Spotify and he goes, no, no, no, why don't you host on Spotify? And I said why would I do that?

41:37 Because it's free. And you know, Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding. So I mean it took me couple of hours. I moved all of our hosting to Spotify and now it's completely free and it does the same thing. It's an RSS feed out to every other platform. So wherever you want to listen to the podcast, it's there. And so yeah, I love technology. I, I, you know, there's a Joe Rogan with Ray Kurzweil on it that just launched like yesterday or something. I was listening to it this morning on my walk, and you know, there's some scary things. Certainly there's some potentially scary things with AI, but I think in general AI is just going to make us all better at our jobs. Yeah. Have you played around with ChatGPT at all? It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah.

42:19 And I think, I think it it does, you know, you risk, I don't think anyone should rely on it by the way, because you risk sort of the well you risk your voice, right. First of all, and I I don't usually have trouble with words or sharing so it's not a challenge for me, but I, you know, it's good for. I think if someone is like worried about writing an e-mail, I'm not sure what to say. I mean, it's like it's the fact checking though I think the piece is like you have to be really careful about fact checking because it doesn't always get it right. Well, it doesn't tell you when it's wrong. It doesn't tell you. I don't know. It just makes it up. And that's Ray. Cruzwell. Was talking about this.

43:00 That this is what's fascinating. So I thought, So when I started playing, I wanted to share this experience because I thought it was hilarious. I started playing with ChatGPT, you know, when it first came out, like, let's see. And the best way to check if it's factually correct is to ask about something you know really well and you don't even have to look it up. Right. So I like everybody else in in the free world, you know, joined Facebook in 2007. I didn't like everybody joined Facebook in 2007. If you look back, it says you joined Facebook in 2007. I'm going to. Have to check now. I have like a you know a relatively probably light to moderate social presence at you know personally and I have a pretty well you know detailed enough LinkedIn and and but also having written so much for the for lighting dimensions and live design over the years I probably have hundreds of bylines So I think like my Internet imprints or you know footprint is. So I thought I would do AI thought I would do a a dramatic reading of my ChatGPT bio.

44:02 You ready for this? Who is Marion Sandberg ChatGPT says. As of my last update in January 2022, there isn't significant public information available about a person named Marion Sandberg who would be of notable recognition. It's possible that she could be a private individual, or she may have gained prominence after my last upload. If she has become notable in the time since then, I wouldn't have any information on her so. My God. Awesome ego boost. That is hilarious. I'm going to have to try that one, by the way, Now you. Could Google faster. So I'm thinking I'm using it as a tool to see like let's see how accurate this is and I'm going. Well, thanks Chachi Chachi, BTD SO. Here's what I've learned.

44:50 Here's what I've learned, and I've learned most of this really recently. It's all about the prompt. And so for example, when you say you lose your voice, you don't have to because you can say using my voice and and writing this exactly as I would have perhaps in an article in 1997 you. Have to be very specific. You got to be very and you got to treat it like your brand new assistant. Basically talk to it like you've got this brand new assistant and I'm sorry and your rules. Am I allowed to call it an assistant or is it a significant Co worker or? Something. I just don't want to break any rules here.

45:31 Don't. Assume it's a woman. Just don't assume it's a. Woman Oh my goodness. Anyways. I. Used to know the difference, but I don't know anymore, so I don't know what to call people. Hey, you you know, yeah. That's totally acceptable. But no, you're right. It's it's the specificity of it is super important because you have to give it like an anchor to you know. But that I just thought that was a funny example because I didn't do that recently. I did that way back like oh I'll just see how it's at fact checking and it was like yeah no we don't we don't have a clue who you are like don't you could have googled like lighting lighting dimensions or live design and and found me easier but I'm sure right with context it's much better and that's it's.

46:15 It's all about those prompts. It's all about. And it's not just, you know, it's that initial setup like who I want you to be, basically what is your role? And and so you're gonna act like me, you're gonna use my voice and you're going to use my voice from articles that I've written over the past 20 years, especially from 1990. Whatever. To. And from this website from this source you can get source. This is really important also. And then exactly what you want the results to look like. And you know what am I expecting from this? Like what do I want you to? What do I want this to end up looking like? Or being and I find that the more specific I get and I'm using whatever it is, chat four I think it is or 4.5, whatever The one is that we're on right now.

47:01 And I find the more specific I am and the more information I give it and the more I direct it to tell it what I want it to do. And so one of my friends taught me this. He he's like me very small business owner with without a big marketing team or whatever. And he just said Marcel ChatGPT can be your very best employee. You just need to learn how to talk to it properly. You know and. And it is it. And it learns, right? It learns. Yeah, So, yeah. Like, that goes into a little bit of the scary part, but. Yeah, I'm digging it, you know. Unfortunately, I still use it for dumb things, you know, like my girlfriend the other day was asking me, you know, what do you do with that? Like what do you need that for? And are you familiar with Dolly?

47:45 So Dolly is is an image generator for. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's owned by by the same group. And so I go in Dolly and I say, I go look, it'll do whatever you want it to do. And she goes, like, what? And I said, OK, show me, draw me a picture of a cow riding a bicycle. And so I get a picture of a cow riding bicycle and she goes, well, anything can do that. And I said, OK, I want a cow riding a bicycle with a Bunny rabbit on his head and a frying pan in his left hand. And so I get that back right? And she's like, what? And I go now put the cow's bra on the outside of the cow's self clothing, whatever.

48:30 And so now it's got the bra on the outside, right. And and I just kept expanding on it and the the resulting image is absolutely hilarious. And you know I told it what how I wanted it drawn. I wanted a cartoon type of an image and yadda yadda yadda. So you get out what you put in basically, and and if you just say write me a blog article on, you know, cooking, it'll write you a really shitty AI blog article on. Cooking and generic. Looks like it came out of a blog or out of AI engine. Yeah. And and generic enough that if you read it, you realize it's saying nothing. Like it's really saying nothing. Yeah. So yeah, the specificity is, is really important and it can, you know, you can inject tone into it, right?

49:15 As you say, you can say, right, you know this, the tone should be stern or soft or loving or hateful or, you know, whatever. It's very effective at following, but it's your point following instruction, right. It needs human intervention now, for now. You know, I would guess with your role at at, you know, your current ownership or whatever. They're a large company, a large group. They've got lots and lots of trade shows and things they've got. I would guess that you've got a lot of marketing resources there. So you don't like where you need to sharpen your skills on this stuff is either you're a, you know, you're in a marketing role in a company where they you're the person that they're looking to for that, or you're really like you're me, you're an entrepreneur in a small company and you'd need to learn it on your own. Basically you need to figure out how are these tools going to make me a better company, or make me a better CEO or make you know whatever it is right?

50:11 Yeah, I think anybody can use you know efficiency like no, nobody's necessarily an efficiency expert and they they can help anybody. I I think the, you know, we especially because we have a lot of content that our company puts out not just for LDI on the live design editorial side but plenty of other publications and regular newsletters and and digital sites as well, digital content providers. And the the concern you know of course the worry is, is to make sure there are standards around you know not using ChatGPT to write and that's I think where the fact checking bit comes in. It's like I first of all I don't know any journalists in my company or outside who would use ChatGPT to write an article because that's lifeblood, right. Well, but you know, if that's.

51:00 Your writing books, they're already writing books. You know artists are creating paintings, or not paintings, but drawings. You. Know what do you call them, right? Yeah, I mean, what do you call them? You know vision. And then, are you an artist or are you are you an artist or are you an AI prompter? Like that's your kind of role? It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, because I mean, I could now be an artist because I can't draw a stick, man. But I can certainly prompt AI now. So it's interesting to see where it goes. And and again it's gonna require that we behave and you know we don't just use it for bad things. Like I'm surprised there's not AI porn yet, which I'm sure there is because that's usually those are usually the people who fund new technology.

51:44 You know, like we got to, we got from, you know, 1080P to 4K really quickly. Why? Because of porn. You know, why did we get bigger Internet servers or whatever? Because of porn. Like, why do we get faster speed? Because of porn. It's it. It funds and drives most of the technology that that, you know we all thrive on which is crazy but yeah so but you know it's it's a part of our lives and you know Ray Kurzweil said it really well on this on this. Joe Rogan if you're at at the least bit curious of where it's all going or whatever, it's a pretty good podcast to listen to. But Kurzweil, Kurzweil said, you know when you're at the front end of a of a revolutionary technology it's usually one of the first reactions is fear, right.

52:33 Like Oh my God, this could really, you know we're going to be answering to robots soon. Oh, my God. Right. But, you know, here, give me your iPhone back. You know, that iPhone that you've grown really fond of and that now your whole day is wrapped around that iPhone. Give it back to me. You know, Because guess what 10 years ago that was. If I would've told you what your iphone's gonna do, you would've said no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't have that, you know? Yeah, and nobody wants to go backwards once you've gone, once you've made progress, you don't wanna go backwards. Nobody has. So it's gonna be interesting. Yeah. And I I mean it's it's true for every generation like you said, I mean not having, I remember you know in the 90s, I guess it was like the latter half of the 90s. And I can't remember if it was actually, you know, having some proximity to working with Clay Paki that the Italians didn't have.

53:24 They were getting rid of landlines. And this to us was like, and they were like, well, I'm carrying this around. Why would I also have that? And it's like, what? Don't tell me. I have to tell my mother. She's got a, like, at the core, Right. And it was like, it made no sense. It was like, yeah, but because you just do, because you just do have a phone, right? And now it's like, now it's like I pay for a landline because it's cheaper for my cable and Internet service, even though I don't have a phone plugged into any Jack in my house, but I have a phone number that I don't use because to, you know, to get the optimum, yeah. The package that they offer, Yeah, I had the same thing in Canada and I didn't even have phone connectors in my house. Like I couldn't even connect the phone if I wanted to. I had none of the plugs. Once, probably once a year, maybe twice a year.

54:07 Our phone rings on the TV. It's probably Comcast trying to sell you a an upgrade or something, right? Yeah, it's optimum. And it just, it's like that's literally how often I guess some probably, you know some telemarketer gets it because and my life has that phone number and it's just we're watching, my husband and I are watching a movie or something and it says like incoming call on our television. And we're like, what is that? What do? We do whoa. Yeah, Oh yeah. We have a phone. We have a phone number. We don't have a phone. That's hilarious. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. I I love and hate technology, you know? And I love all the good parts and hate most of the bad ones. And I probably hate some of the good ones too, because, you know, it's like my girlfriend and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago, but TikTok, I don't have it.

54:53 You know, I've never had it. I never downloaded the app. So if they ban it, it's not going to impact me. But what does that mean? If they ban it? Like, usually there's a hidden meaning behind that. It's not just TikTok that they're after. So you got to be really careful when the government is introducing new legislation on what is the real meaning of this, because usually the one that's written on the label at the front isn't, isn't exactly what they're trying to do, right? So, but, you know, I was like, the last thing I need is another app to suck the hours out of my day so I can sit and watch funny cat videos or whatever, because, you know, it's dopamine. It's it's so easy to just sit there for an hour and go, oh, that's funny. Oh, this one's funny too. Oh, this one's funny too.

55:35 And next thing you know, you've blown off like 10 things you were supposed to do, right? Right. And the attention spans we used to have, and I mean that not just general relationally for me too, Right. You notice that it's like I really want to digest things in like 30 second bits. Like what? Where did that come from? I used to be able to sit down and read a nice book. Right now it's like everything is fast. My God, Marcel, we sound so old. We sound so. Old. Well, you know what? Compared to most of these people that you know are involved in technology and stuff these days, we are old, unfortunately. But I like being old, to be perfectly honest. Like I I don't know that I'd want to be 20 today to, to be honest with you. I like that. You know, I was around when all of these big changes happened. I was around before there was Internet. I was around, you know, for so many of these advancements. Moving lights, you know, I saw moving lights happen, you know, and and can tell everyone the story of what it looked like, right.

56:28 Yeah. And so I like that like I like you know that really the industry started not long before I started in the industry and and that's kind of fun. And how much it's changed, you know, very quickly but. Yeah. So I want to talk to you a bit about LD. I I want to talk a lot about you too, but I want to talk a bit about LDI because you know I've grown up going to the show, not grown up, but I I've gone to the show since the very beginning. Actually last year I think was the 2nd show ever that I. Never that you missed. I I I know you said that. Yeah, so, which I was really bummed about because it sounded like it was the best show you guys ever had. And everyone was like, Oh my God, this is such an amazing show.

57:11 Everyone's here, you know? Yeah, except me. Loser. And but anyways, you know it's obviously evolved. It's it's changed a lot and it got a little confusing over the past 20 years because honestly, and I'm not just being silly, but honestly I couldn't remember what the company was called half the time because it was like it it was owned by this group and then it was sort of owned by this group, but it was part of this group over here and then it was owned by this group and it. So do me a favor and give me a timeline on on where the show how it became what it is today. Oh boy. OK, For the record, I haven't been with the show since the inception, although I know I can give you that 20 years. But I have been going to the show since 1996. So I have a.

57:59 So Pat McKay obviously started the show. We're at, I think 35 years this year. And people like Ellen Lampert Grayo, who is our creative director for the conference, was there when the show started. Yeah, Pat, after a good number of years, she was the owner and producer of the show, sold it to I believe Intertech Publishing was the first sale and she this is all before my time. So Pat, if you're listening or Ellen will correct me on this if I'm speaking out of turn. Pat, I I can't remember if she consulted for a little bit or she just kind of exited because she did start publishing. She started doing a whole, you know, host of wonderful other things.

58:47 And so, yeah, it's been through a number of, you know, corporate owners as it were when I joined. We were Primedia Business Publishing. We had a entire division that was considered more like a consumer, but enthusiasts like you know powder magazine for skiers, hiking like very sports enthusiasts section and we separated from that division. We actually sold that division and became Penton.

59:29 Now we bought Penton, but it was kind of like their name. What had more pedigree because it was like 100 year old publishing company. So we bought Penton. We took on the name of Penton after being Prime Media and then subsequently so then two more sales after we were Penton, we were bought by Informa, Humongous, Global Show and Publishing Company and then from Informa. So Informa actually bought Penton, but then Informa Informa subsequently a few years later sold off some of its properties. So Informa still exists. Our current owner is called Quest X. Quest X just bought some of the some of the properties including LDI.

1:00:11 So yes, our our owner right now since 2019 is Quest X, hence my. Confusion. Yeah, total well confusion, yeah. And like, yeah, so I'm on like 123, probably 4th, 5th, 4th or 5th owner. But I think the nice thing about it is this, if you're with a good company that produces you, you know, understands things like audience and data acquisition and getting to the right people and knows how to produce events and do publishing, it's sort of doesn't really matter. You know, actually I like working with Quest X more 'cause it's smaller than our former, our our former owners.

1:00:52 You could really get lost in a large company like that and and so yeah, it's just a matter of as long as you know the brands and I think and we I have worked for folks who have said, oh you have to say it's this company and we'd be like, yeah, but nobody knows. Who's. Telling me like we want to be the strength of the brands, right? People understand the strength of the brands more than necessarily who who owns you at any given time. Well, and to be quite honest, if it were an independent trade show, slash magazine, slash media company, whatever owned and operated by Pat today, it it would have ceased to exist. You know, like she couldn't have carried it through the turmoil. I don't care how much money you've got it. It's not just money.

1:01:37 It's resources. It's it's marketing. It's all of that back office stuff that being part of a conglomerate or a group, I should say, instead of conglomerate. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's nice to be able to go, you know, we need to do this. Oh, my God, how are we? Oh, we've got a division over here that can help us with that, you know? It's no joke. And you know, I, I mean, one thing's I'm, I'm not proud of for me because this certainly wasn't my call or my decision. But we, you know, you and I talked a lot during COVID and and you were a very big supporter of LDI for anybody else. In fact, you had me on when we were kind of having the show back and I will always be forever grateful for that. But we didn't lay anyone off, right. Our group is intact through COVID and we produce events. So I mean that is a remarkable, remarkable feat that I thought was really you know, our management seeing the forest for the trees and being like you know this, this is our long game.

1:02:41 This isn't like you know, maybe LDI will survive, maybe it won't. It was looking at it saying this is a 30 plus year business that's been around and it has really loyal customers and is going to build and have new customers and there's a need for it too. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. You know, you proved that the year that we came back and was it smaller, But were people bloody happy to like hug each other with silly masks on and stuff? Absolutely. You know, everyone was so happy to see other humans. So no, it's and I mean, to be perfectly honest, again, another pat on the back for you and and the team and Ellen and everyone else is that. So certainly COVID was obviously a massive challenge and you know, I applaud you all for getting through that.

1:03:25 But even beyond that, you know, prior to COVID, I remember the one year and I could probably even guess what year it was. I'm guessing it was around 2010, but when Martin wasn't even going to do the show. And then they decided to do it and they had like a couple lights sitting on road cases. They didn't even have carpet. And like all the booths were smaller. And it was just like everyone called each other and went, hey, screw these people, we're going to do a small booth this year and we don't need all these big expenses. And at that point, I basically thought, wow, you know, this might be over because they've found other ways like obviously with the advent of the Internet and how it grew and provided all kinds of opportunity to to show product and then these Rd. shows that everyone does and smaller regional shows and stuff you don't like.

1:04:17 It used to be where the only shot as a manufacturer that we had to show our product was, you know, Yeah, well, no, it was Plaza. It was Remini. It was Pro Light and Stage. It was Pro Light and sound. Sorry, LBI. Yeah, it was. It was that whole circuit of shows and there was a start of that circuit and all of the engineering was done so that we could have new products at the start of the trade show season. And so then it went from that to we're releasing products every month of the year. There is no cycle anymore. And we can show people on the Internet or we'll fly them to our office or we'll go out and do little Regional Rd. shows.

1:05:00 And so honestly, I I was ready to put a fork in LDI at that point. I was like, Oh my God, you know, this is bad. And I heard the trucks, right? Everybody started touring trucks and Martin had one. I think Wybron had one. And yeah, and that that definitely gave us pause, too, 'cause it was like, what? You're spending a lot of money on that truck, right? And obviously you can go to any city. So for us was kind of like, man, if everybody does this, we are. We're not in a. Good place. By the way, you weren't the only ones. So like I'm when I was in Canada, I was more in the music business than the lighting business, music retail. And so Canada's version of Nam is Meak.

1:05:41 And I don't know if it still exists today, but it did at the time, Music Industry Association Canada. And so I've seen it happen there and at Nam, where large manufacturers at some point flipped the bird to the organization and said we're going to do our own demo. And I remember it was Roland, It was either Roland or Yamaha, I can't remember. So if I misquoted, I'm sorry, but this was probably in the late 80s, maybe 1990. They said screw you to to MIAC. And MIAC was held at the Convention Center, downtown Vancouver, and they rented a huge boat, cruise ship, yacht, whatever the hell it was.

1:06:21 And they docked it right there next to the Convention Center. And they had their own trade show for either Roland or Yamaha. I think it was Roland. And you know, obviously that caused a massive, you know, rift between them and the MIAC show. And I've seen similar things with Nam, where, you know, companies would rent ballrooms at at neighboring hotels and stuff and have their own little convention in those ballrooms. And it's, it's nasty and I've seen people do it to LDI too, you know, even recently. And it's nasty like, I mean, if you're going to support the industry and support the show, don't just go there and poach their customers. Like that's not fair. Yeah. And I mean that's honestly, it is a challenge because we we don't profess to be you know the Church of LDI like you got to come, you got to come.

1:07:10 But certainly if you're going to come to town and go off site somewhere you're you're definitely on our coattails because we're you know spending all this money on mark marketing and building the show and bringing people to town and then you're going to take them off our show floors it. It can be very frustrating and we, I, we've had customers who say, well your show is too expensive, but what's like, well what part of the expense is bringing you the right people and putting them in front of you or someone we've had say, you know, but we're really small, we can't afford to do it and we're obviously happy to work with someone on creating some what about. Sanctioning. What about sanctioning off site events? You know, and this is a crazy out there idea that I've never given much thought to, but what about actually sanctioning and saying, you know, you can do your own show at a ballroom.

1:07:54 We'll promote it in all of the LDI literature and LDI promotional machine and everything else. We'll promote it just as though you're an exhibitor. You're going to pay us a fee and you can do your own logistics. You can go do it in the hotel. You won't have to pay drayage and all of the union fees and all of that stuff and you know, so I don't know like that might be an idea down the road because you're gonna run out of exhibit space maybe at some point. I don't know. I doubt it 'cause they keep building more but. From your lips. From your lips. Well, I mean, if these booths keep getting bigger like they have been recently, Jesus, thank God we're back to the big trade show booths. But. It is an enormous.

1:08:35 Expense it is. Oh, it's enormous and we we totally know that. But I mean the expense of doing a show like LDI is not necessarily renting a booth from from me or Kelly and my sales team, right. The expenses, everything else, it's stray edge and it's you you know from having assets and bringing your people out right and building it and labor and all that fun stuff that goes into it, which is you know it's a production so it's it's quite production so. Is booth space itself going up in in cost though like or is it remaining relatively stable or like I don't? Know, I mean we increase for you know, standard of living increases kind of inflation but not, you know, it's not, it's not ridiculous but it is.

1:09:19 But we can't control you know labor costs or or catering costs which by the way you know, we incur the same costs as our own customers because we build stuff, right. We build our own stuff. We build our own activations in our own stages and we build lounges and and we have to rent couches and so we we, you know, we spend that money too. So we see it. So we we can of course empathize. And and just so you know, because not everybody who's listening is part of a large company or whatever, just so you understand what we're talking about. So I know that some of your larger exhibitors are spending in advance of $500,000 to do a single trade show and probably some even closer to $1,000,000.

1:10:05 That is a lot of money for three days of hosting guests at their booth. And if you ask them on Sunday night, they usually go, wow, that was amazing. Yeah, it's so worth it. But you ask them for the four months leading up to it, and they'll be like, I don't know why we do this damn show every year. You know, because it's a massive expense. And it's really, it's very hard if not impossible to earn back whatever you have paid to do that booth at that show. Like you're not gonna write enough orders to pay for your booth at that show. At the show, right? But you have to assume the ROI is there or people wouldn't do it, right? It's a 12 month like I always with all the companies that I was in command of including mine today trade shows, you split them equally over 12 months.

1:10:52 Basically you don't do it in the month that you have the trade show because honestly the revenue is going to come back to you over 12 months, not in that one month, right. So but you know it is an enormous expense and and I'm sure it's a big concern and I'm sure you have meetings with every one of these companies every year. You know, Marion, is there anything we could do to to lower the costs here a little bit for us? And you know, the only thing you could do is is dampen your ego a little bit and don't build such enormous booths, you know, don't make them so high. Don't bring so many. Lights, whatever it is. And gosh, what what you say about a few years ago or at this point, you know, many years ago, you know the ebb and flow of absolutely, you know, people getting together and saying we don't want to do this anymore And then but there's always a tipping point whereas someone goes, no one's doing that big booth anymore.

1:11:43 So now we're going to do, we're going to be the one we're not going to call anybody. I mean it always happens. It it just takes for you to look at the floor plan, right, and see who's got, who's got the biggest, you know, footprint and to know who's going to do it and who's not. But yeah, of course people talk to each other. When it happened, I remember because it went from Martin and High End and Vera Lite being the biggest booths to all of a sudden it was Chauvet and Elation were the biggest booths and and you know this. So it kind of went like this and you know guess who grew their companies really, really quickly were Chauvet Inhalation and you know Martin went through a minute and High End obviously went through many minutes. And so there is something to being the big dog at at the LDI show, you know? There, I like what you're saying. What you're saying is having a big presence at LDI equals success.

1:12:34 I like I that. That's what I'm hearing you say it's. Not exactly what I'm saying, but it's very, very similar, very similar, very similar to what I'm saying. No, appreciate I I do believe that. You know, I think that if I look back at the history of my history in this industry, LDI shows for us were the high point of the year. And you know, I, I hate to say it, but the last big show that I was responsible for myself, you know, and I did some with Komar and I did some with with Gearsource as well. But the last big booth, big show was Martin at Miami Beach. And you know, that year and again this was 1996 I think or seven. That year, our budget was 500,550. 1000. Dollars.

1:13:27 That was a lot of money. You know, like and also Martin's. I assume you were at Martin in the years of the the massive Martin parties, right? That would happen. This was it. This was it. Yeah, this was the one on the beach with KC and the Sunshine Band and stuff. That was the same year and you know I had to get creative because we had a half million dollar budget and 750,000 in in wishes and we had to get a little bit creative and we made it happen and was everything perfect? No. And but it's still one of the most memorable booths and parties I think at LDI so. I'm pretty sure that you're right.

1:14:07 Probably was representing Clay Pack and I was very jealous because my boss didn't want me to go to your party. Oh, you weren't there because we had all the high end guys. They had a cigar party on top of some building or something and they all left there and came over to our party after and we had most of the other manufacturers there. I mean we had 6000 people at that party on the beach with KC and the Sunshine band. It was crazy. Funny story which I've told before, but we had a bar tab, so I had an event planner that basically put most of the stuff together and we had a bar tab going all night so people had drink tickets that we gave out. We bought, I don't know, 20,000 drink tickets or something. But I also had a tab going inside, not on the beach but inside the bar, which was called Penrods. And so it was like 1:00 in the morning or something. And the the event planner came up to me and she goes, Marcel, they're getting a little nervous inside and they'd like you to pay your tab.

1:15:02 And I said, OK, give me two seconds. And I look around and I see Peter Johansson, the former CEO founder. Of of. Martin and I see him standing, having a conversation with someone, and I was talking. When she came up to me, I was talking with. I don't remember who it was. Broderick. John Broderick, Metallica's LD at the time. And so I go over to Peter and I go, Peter, I need a credit card and he goes, what for? And I go, I need to buy a drink for John Broderick over there. Oh, Metallica's guy. And I said, yeah. And he goes, OK, OK And he pulls out his American Express card and gives it to me. So I go and pay the tab and it's like, I don't know, 40 grand or something, right. And so I go and I give him the receipt to sign it.

1:15:46 And he's talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he looks down at the receipt and he goes to sign it. He goes, holy shit, Marcel, what was he drinking? I scammed him into the bar tab. But no, I mean, I I can't tell you how many memories I have at that show. Funny, great, wonderful memories. You know much better when I was younger, 'cause I can't stay up quite as late as I used to, but. Like once, Yeah, I. Mean, you know, we went hard for a lot of years, that's for sure. And and just so many incredible memories, so many friends, so many wonderful things. But yeah, I mean, you know, the big show thing, everyone's going to complain or the big booth thing, everyone's going to complain and say I spent so much money. But then at the end of the show, like I said, I, I call and talk to these people and I'd like, how did it go? And they say, Oh my God, it was one of the best shows we've ever had.

1:16:38 You know, this was really well received. This was well received. This was really well received and but again, if you ask them, if you ask them in June or July, they're like, oh God, we're not gonna do it next year, you know, or whatever, right? But it's such an important show and it it I think will continue to be. But like how are you guys combating some of those things like or or augmenting or whatever you want to call it, but the things where companies are looking at alternative ways to get together with their customers or alternative ways to show their products, new products. Yeah. I mean part of it is, you know, just appreciating that it's going to happen, right, and saying how can we can we support you in in that effort Because people really just do appreciate if you say, oh, you know, make sure you send us a press release and a photo about that because we'll publicize it. You know, we'll help you get the word out about it. And I think that level of support and kind of customer service is important because we want these folks to come back, right.

1:17:37 We recognize that they spend a lot of money whether it's with us or a Convention Center or or or the labor that they're paying for that expense that we're talking about. We we still recognize that that first and foremost there are customers and I I think that you know exceptional service is just always kind of #1 and we have, we still have a bonkers rebook rate on site for next year. So I think this year and and so and obviously that was really quiet during COVID and obviously quiet during COVID but in the late years you know 2/21/22 were a little bit softer rebook than we usually have on site. But this year I mean we were over 60% resign of who was there for 24. So that obviously gives us a really good kick you know into the next year.

1:18:27 And then and then you know Q1 we just you know people started looking at our floor plan and they they're looking at it filling up pretty quickly and and that really does you know that kind of snowballs into people starting to think about it. And also, you know, when you look at things you're talking about like these really big booths and how much investment goes into it, people have to think about that well in advance, right? The thing that they're doing a lot of these folks at LDI is a production unto itself, right? They're going to have a very intricately programmed show and maybe they're going to, you know, play some music or have a performer and this is going to last at, you know, could be 10 minutes long. And where they're going to hire to do that if they're not using one of their own folks to to program it.

1:19:07 So they're already thinking about this. I mean, we have conversations in our sales office with folks coming in. They're already talking about either what they're going to tweak on their design from this year or what they're going to change, you know, entirely Like I want to get that face because we're going to do the dancers this year or we're going to do the band next year or so. It it really in in some ways it takes. I don't want to take away from our team and saying that there's a lot of effort that goes in, but in some ways it's it has a life of itself, right? There is loyalty there, which is you know if you had a good show that people you know come into the sales office and they book it and and then the rest of the year, you know we're we're really just putting forward you know trying to create new initiatives, new activations, new areas of content, right for our programs, our conference programs and training. You know the hands on training is never going to get old. So it's like someone needs to learn a console. They're going to come learn a.

1:20:04 Console, yeah, I was, I was going to say you guys are doing such a great job with with some of these new things like new you know whatever you call it, new initiatives or whatever the the busking thing I saw, you know really interesting and and I think that's going really well, right. Yeah, and really fun too. So we did. We we started the busking a couple years ago and it was kind of in a ballroom. It was quieter. It was like a an experience where everybody had their training and then there was a competition at the end, but it wasn't as front and center as we made it this year. So this year it was in the back at the Circle bar on this huge stage and these folks signed up to do you know a day, I think it was 2 days actually of a full on training like learning.

1:20:55 And we had people who came in who never touched a console before. I don't know we would choose to do that. But you were kind of like this looks groovy. I'm going to come and do this and then and we put them in teams, right. So we had a manufacturer sponsoring the you you want someone to learn this console, give us some consoles and they spent this day train these couple days training and then had a competition. So during our party, during our industry party at the Circle Bar in the back of the hall was the the competition. We kind of like did the competition. So, yes, so and then we had like an overhead camera where you could see who was calling the show, who was running the board and these teams of four and then. Who voted?

1:21:39 You could vote on the app. So people watching voted. Yeah, So people watching voted. Yeah, very, very two point O. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, it was really lively. Do you know what I mean? And say it wasn't like a demo or an award ceremony, which let's face it, we're going to do those forever in a day because we want to give awards to products and recognize our exhibitors. But this was a super and it was like standing room only. I mean that whole back area where we set up seating was was completely packed. And yeah, then there's people are going to sit around the bar and chat and but they're kind of like I was going. To say it doesn't hurt that there's a bar there. There's a bar there. Well, we had tons, tons of seating with people just sitting, you know, theater style, like watching this competition. So who won?

1:22:23 You're going. To ask. That I don't remember. I'll have to look it up. It's all good. It's all good. I was just curious. I may not even know them, but. No, they have Great. No, they you wouldn't. You wouldn't know them. These are not, these are not designers and programmers who came in to do this. These are people who came to learn how to do this and then kind of competition at the end of. Two days of cleaning this isn't proper designers who already have gigs in the industry and stuff. This is for beginners. They were being taught by designers and programmers. Yeah, yeah, it was great. It was. And listen, the shows were good, The shows were great and the shows were great. For something where where are you getting these people from? A mix. They can register for it.

1:23:04 If you went on to our website you would register for it and then you you participated and they were all different levels like some somewhere had like you know programming light background and some I tell you never touched a console so it was. So what you're saying is I got. A chance? I got a chance. You know, you don't think after 20 years of doing this that I've looked at that and been like, why don't I just take that class? That seems like that would be really fun. Why don't I do that? I have all this access to training and I could, I could maybe learn. A thing. Plus, God knows what programmers are being paid these days, so not a bad career move. Good day, Ray. Good day, Ray. You get your T&E, you get your beer money, you get your catering.

1:23:45 Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. You're you're not wrong there. Yeah, so I I asked a mutual friend to give me a question to ask you and and you're not gonna like this one, but I was told to ask you if you ever learned to cook. Oh, well, that's interesting. That's really interesting. You ask me that because, yeah, I was kind of known among friends and family and apparently secret acquaintances who that would be, but that I did not cook. And people would say, like, well, you have a child, how do you not cook? And let's be fair, like everybody cooks a little bit, but iMac? And cheese.

1:24:27 I could make a Mac and cheese, however, I didn't enjoy. I didn't enjoy it. And I will say though, in probably the last 10 or so years, I have really taken like, I really love to cook now. So I, I cook all kinds of things. Yeah. And I love making that, you know, like everybody loves Italian food. So that's like an easy, low hanging fruit. I feel like to cook. But I like making, you know, Indian and Greek and you know, all kinds of really experimenting and ramen. In fact, I made ramen yesterday, Thai, coconut Curry, ramen if you must know. So yeah. Nice. Yes. What I would not ask that quite. Yeah, that's I mean.

1:25:10 Well, I wasn't gonna either, but I was. I just decided to wing it and throw it out there anyway. Must be someone who knows me very well. So I was looking, I was looking for, you know, stats and stuff on social media for you and I see that it was, you haven't uploaded a new YouTube video in a while. That makes sense because I don't do a lot of content anymore. So 11 years though? Like, it's I I feel like YouTube was barely even invented 11 years ago, but you stopped. I was ahead of the curve YouTube channel and then I stopped. I was ahead of the curve and then I just stopped probably cuz I was doing it more for work, you know.

1:25:53 So it was probably on our in our content channel more. So are you a big YouTube or are you a big social media? Like I know you talked about it a little bit where you said, you know on the personal side you kind of keep it on the down low a little bit, but more from a business persona standpoint or whatever. But do you post a lot or not really? I'm probably medium, yeah. You know, I like I share a lot of stuff that you know we're we're marketing for the shows etcetera. I don't. I I feel like I probably should, but I don't probably put enough of my own personal brands out there like, which would for, you know, probably for professional or personal growth. But yeah, I find it.

1:26:37 I find as I've gotten older, there's a lot of noise in social media, which is not great for my anxiety. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm. With you, I mean. So it's holiday. Comments. But I do, you know, I'm telling you I do. And they make me sad or angry or whatever sometimes, right? Yeah, sometimes you go on there and I'm, I'll just click on something that I think is interesting because I want to read it. And then when you read comments and how people argue about, you know, people who don't even know each other, it's really vexing to me. So it's like I like the sort of democratization of content and how people can really put stuff out there. But you know it goes with goes along with so misinformation a lot of misinformation a lot of people just arguing about stuff that is kind of like doesn't feel like necessarily healthy for him.

1:27:31 So I'm I'm of, I'm always kind of on the fence about balancing that. And I do have to habitually walk away from it, you know, Not. Not for, not for periods of time, but like if I'm reading something, I have to go. I'm with you like I'm I'm at a point where you know, we're going to have a really nasty election cycle again here this year. And I'm probably going to shut down social media when we get around. I don't know, June, July, something like that. I did it last time I did it in the 2020 election because it got to where, like, people I really like and really respect were pissing me off. And we're really saying some angry, vicious things. And I won't post angry, vicious things on on social media. I just don't do it.

1:28:17 I won't do it. And so I'm not going to get in arguments. I'm not going to do any of those things. But it does bother me and it it it's, you know, I become really wimpy when it comes to people saying mean things sometimes. Like, I'm talking like really personal, really mean, nasty things. So I'm gonna shut it down at some point here and I'll still have to go into the business accounts and make sure you know that there's activity there and stuff. But I think from a personal standpoint, I'll I'll back off again. Yeah I I think it's interesting. I I I can't tell if sort of the next generation is being really healthy about it or or worse because you see things like TikTok and there are new platforms coming out all the time. But my daughter for example is you know she's not a social media person and she you know when she was like in late grammar school and middle school and early high school you know social media was like mondo Mondo and you had to have a presence and a profile and and they were all you know chatting on instant message and and and it's it's really since she's become an adult it's like not her thing you know which and and her her friends and her coworkers and all that also. So I find it fascinating how it it's, you know she in some ways matured quicker than I did in that realm, which is like. I I can't even imagine what it's like to be a teenage girl today on Instagram, you know?

1:29:41 I mean, she's. 31 but yes. No, no, I'm saying. Teenage girls though today. Like, yeah, going through, you know, I see some of them, like, I feel sorry for them. Like I feel sorry for the things they feel like they have to say or do, you know, to attract a crowd or to get friends or whatever. It's. Sad and bullying. I mean, there's so much bullying that goes on and you talk about having your feelings hurt by your, you know, a grown man and you see a comment that I agree, right? Like some things just seem so hurtful. Like why would you say that? Imagine if you're sort of in more formative maturing years of your life and you see these you know these things that people can be hostile and. Brutal. So tell me about this picture behind us.

1:30:23 Yeah. So that picture, I do believe is just from September where I was walking into the water during a I think it was classified as a hurricane, or at least a tropical storm for 1/2 Ironman triathlon. So I'm looking very surprised, frightened, anxious. I look kind of happy, but that's not really what I was feeling right then. So yeah, like I did a a Thankfully the the swim was a bit shortened, so maybe that's why I was smiling right there. But yeah, I'm about to about to dive into the Bay behind Jones Beach Theatre.

1:31:04 Great music venue by the way. Not great sound, but a a great fun music venue near where, you know, I have lived and grew up my whole life, been living here in London my whole life. And so the Bay behind that theatre is where we swam and then psych biked and then ran in pretty much torrential, torrential, freezing cold rain in September. So that was fun. So what have you run marathons or done marathons or, you know, triathlons or whatever before? Or was this just a bucket list? Kind of I want to do it. Yeah, I I probably didn't get serious about doing really. I was never a runner like I was like a team sports kid.

1:31:45 You know like I played softball and volleyball and and and did team sports like as a even it's college. I played intramural softball in college, but well, I, you know, as I got older I figured yeah, like I should probably figure out how to exercise, you know, in a meaningful way. So I started running a little bit, but you know, really kind of always didn't enjoy running and took up triathlon specifically probably in not until my mid to late 30s, so latter half of my 30s. And I did this very small race in Montauk, I believe it was like called Sprint to the lighthouse and a really short race, like short swim, short bike and then like a 5K run at the end.

1:32:29 And every time I did one I was like, that was really interesting and fun. I think I could do, you know, never intention of building on that. But I always thought like, oh, I could do a longer one every time I did one. And then I was dating my husband at the time. I don't think we've been married yet. We signed up for the Half Iron Man in New Orleans. And was he finished? You know, probably about 10 minutes before I did. And I crossed the finish line. And the first thing I said to him was, I feel like I could do a full Ironman. And he was like, me, too. Let's sign up for one. Oh my God, that's amazing. So we kind of had this. We kind of had this crazy. Yeah. So I've done 3 full Ironman triathlon and like, I think that was my fifth half. So the half is like 70.3, full is 140 .6 miles. So yeah, so, so probably 10 years. I'm about 10.

1:33:21 Years 40 miles all together, all combined swim, biking and. Yeah, 2.4 swim, 112 mile bike and a full 26.4 marathon, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to bang my face on my microphone like I couldn't do it, you know? I love the idea of running. I just get a run. Yeah. You could, you know. I mean, it is the thing that's cool about it is like a we're in the same event that there are pros, right? It's one of the few sports in the world where you're just that there's guys and gals ahead of me somewhere who were finishing their in the the the pros and they're participating essentially. Now my brother would joke and say like, aren't you trying to race? And I'm like, well, I wouldn't exactly call it a race. Right, Because I'm just participating. Yeah, trying to finish.

1:34:12 So. So it's really fun and inspiring. And you know, I every time I do one, I cry uncontrollably as I'm crossing the finish line, which, you know, really makes for glue. This is why this is my picture, you know, on social instead of me, you know, crossing the finish line crying. Yeah, 'cause it's, it's really overwhelming. Like, you know, kind of I didn't feeling, you know, there's a certain amount of cry there and you're just really tired, really tired too. So any of any of you you crazy people who do this, like, just blow me away because I I don't have the gene that makes me wanna push myself to those kinds of limits. Like I exercise every day. I do pretty well compared to most of the people I know, but there's no goddamn way I'm running, you know, whatever you just said.

1:34:57 And And biking 112 miles and swimming 2.4 Hell no, I'm not doing any of that stuff. But but I'm really impressed by the people who do. So Congrats. Did you already book the next one? Thanks. Yep. I'm going to repeat this one is at Jones Beach. It's the first time it's been at Jones Beach, so it was inaugural. So it's kind of nice to have one in your backyard where you know you don't have to pack everything and go stay in a hotel in another city. So you know that it was like one of the first times. I literally just had everything packed in my car the night before and drove there in the morning and raced and was able to come home and it was on my birthday. So that was kind of a fun way to celebrate. Funny way to. Celebrate.

1:35:38 Yeah, he actually didn't do this one with me. But yes, he has done. We've kind of had a schedule where we've only done one or two races together, but it actually works out better if you're not racing together because you have one person who's can stay a little calmer and you know more sane and be helpful one support the. Other one, yeah, Yeah. And your husband's not in the business, right? In our. Business he is not. He's not a. Wise choice, A wise decision, Yes, you did that once and. Did that one. And you've gotten over it. And it didn't work out, so that's OK too. Yeah, well, you're both excellent people for it. So, or because of it, or through it or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, listen.

1:36:20 What doesn't kill us right, makes us. Yeah, no, exactly. Well, I appreciate you taking all this time to do this. Like we should have done this so many times before. I know we did one for LDI just to really promote the show and talk about the show. You know, I I think you're a remarkable person. And and I didn't say remarkable woman, God forbid. But you're also one of those, too. That's. OK, I happen to be a woman. That's OK. Yeah, well, good. I'm glad you admit it. So many refuse to. Now you're a birther or whatever they call them these days. But yeah, I mean, anytime you have something that you want to talk about or promote or whatever, just reach out to to me or to Sarah and and we'll make sure to to get it going.

1:37:01 And I'll be back at the show recording some some podcast this year. Apparently that idea has taken off and all kinds of people do it now. But, but I'll be back there doing it this year. I think I did like 8 podcasts last time I did it. I I recorded like 8 of them and which is a bit because then I want to push them all up right away. And I don't know if you've noticed, but the internet's not so good there. So yeah. I may or may not have noticed that yet. Yeah, it's brutal. I think I waited till I got back to the hotel because I just gave up finally. But, but yeah, I look forward to. It Yeah. We'll be so pleased to have you back. Can't wait? To see you again. Yeah, no, Likewise. All right, my friend. Well, thanks again for taking some time to do this. And I'll send you all the links and stuff and tag the hell out of you and out of Ldi and blah blah blah. Wonderful.

1:37:52 Thank you so much for your time and for having me on. Cool. All right, Marion. Thanks.