#231 - Mickey Curbishley

0:02 Hello there and thank you for joining me today on Geezers of Gear Episode #231 Geeezers of Gear Episode 231. Today's guest is Mickey Kurbishly. And so this is the first time ever we're trying this go live thing. So we're promoting our sponsors live and also recording it for the podcast at the same time. Sarah convinced me I needed to do this and so here I am. I'm doing it and so welcome. And so this episode is sponsored by AVL Media Group, your premier North American distribution partner as the exclusive US distributors for Midas Pro consoles, lab group and amplifiers, lake processors, Tanoi installation speakers, Clark technique, is it technique or technic? I've heard it both ways.

0:54 Clark Technic Signal Processing Turbo Sound, Loud speakers and Aston Microphones. They are committed to developing long term business relationships with their partners at every level by providing outstanding pre and post sale service and support. AVL Media Group Your premier North American distribution partner. Visit their website www.avlmediagroup.com and this podcast is also brought to you today by the ESA. Safety must always be an event professionals ride or die partner. The Event Safety Alliance.

1:35 ESA works tirelessly to advance the culture of safety across the event industry on behalf of audiences, artists, and those who do the hard work on their behalf. The Event Safety Alliance focuses on the knowledge, behaviors, and guidance that provides the ability to plan and respond consistently, empowering event professionals of all stripes to identify and mitigate risks. ESA education, training, standards and guidance and the thought leadership is helping to shape safety at live events for this generation and the next. Become a partner of the Event Safety Alliance and join thousands of event professionals from around the globe, creating a safer, more prosperous future for our industry. Advance your knowledge by becoming a member today at eventsafetyalliance.org Hello again. This whole live thing is weird.

3:05 It's a little stressful. I've never done it before. Well, I've done live before, but I've never done this one before and so it just feels a little bit weird. And so hello, welcome. Thank you for checking this out live on Facebook. Where did I do this? Facebook. LinkedIn. YouTube. I think that's it. And knowing you guys, probably nobody is watching, or everyone's watching because you're waiting for me to fall on myself. By the way, I did want to make an honorable mention to the gentleman who recorded that wonderful track that is our intro and outro, Greg Gotovitz. The song is God, oh sweet thing was a big hit back in, don't know, probably the early 80s, I would guess.

3:53 And it's Greg's birthday today, so happy birthday, Greg. And we also are getting Greg back on the podcast. We had him on very, very early on in the early days of Geysers of gear and we're going to have him on again soon. Sarah's working with him on figuring out those dates right now. So just a couple things to talk to you about before I stop the live recording and then go into or I should say the live broadcast and then I go into recording mode where we will continue to record today's guest who's Mickey Kurbishly and I'll tell you more about him in a minute. But first, the Pro Light show that's going on right now in Frankfurt, Germany.

4:34 If you're there and watching this, why you should be drinking beer or doing something fun right now as opposed to watching this live. But if you are there, I'm jealous. It's a great show. I've been to it many, many times. It's a huge show. It's not as big as it used to because I don't think it's combined with Messa anymore, but I've been seeing videos and pictures and it looks massive. The big booths are really big this year. Roby's really big. Some of them are are massive. Other ones, they're surprisingly small. From what I've seen, Martin looks Pretty Little and and that's surprising considering what they've got going on. Speaking of Martin, you know they did just launch a product that I happen to love which is called Mac One, you know little mini wash light that I think they're probably selling bazillions of right now. And but obviously they're big news for this show and you've probably seen this 1000 times already is Martin has officially launched the new Viper LED which is not called Viper LED, it's called Viper XIP.

5:37 And I'm going to have to have somebody on from Martin at some point to explain why they've gone to IP 54 instead of IP65 with, which is what the rest of the world has decided you need for a weatherproof light. Martin, it's, you know, some magical trickery that they've got this thing that they're calling IP rated, but it's IP 54, and I'd love to have somebody on. So if anybody from Martin hears this, don't be angry with me. I'm just questioning why, as a buyer of that product, should I believe that it's OK to put it on on an outdoor installation, which is basically what your literature says, that the Aura and any of the other XIP products, if there are any. But again, I hear this Viper is beautiful. I've seen the video, it looks amazing, it's got some great features, it looks bright and it looks like a worthy replacement to a light that's still super popular. Like I just saw.

6:36 I forget which big tour I saw, I just put up some images the other day. That was hundreds of Vipers on the show, but we sell them all the time on Gearsource too. Vipers are still a really, really hot light. So Congrats to Martin on first of all the Mac one, which I think is a massive winner and now also the the Viper, the Viper XIP, which should also do extremely well. So congratulations. Good on you Martin. In some other big news. So on product news, again I've seen a lot of the elation stuff popping out. I don't know what the names of any of it are unfortunately, sadly. I'm sorry guys. Even though they're a sponsor, they haven't given me any advance notice on this stuff. So Sarah, you need to talk to these people about advance notice on some of their new products so we can talk it up a little bit.

7:22 But I have seen their follow spot fixture, which is a really interesting move for a company that doesn't really make a follow spot system to come out with a really bright, really awesome and probably priced extremely well, purpose made follow spot fixture, so awesome move. I think it's a smart move. I think it'll be great. I saw and again I forget what it's called. I'm sorry, but I think it's called pulse. It's a rectangular strobe fixture like they've had in the past and others have had as well. But it's got pan and tilt and a lot of really cool features. Just looks like an amazing product. I'm sure they'll do incredibly well with it, and I know there's other stuff too. But again, I didn't really get advance notice so I'm just going on posts that I'm seeing on social media and stuff. So good job by Elation Roby.

8:16 I'm sure they have a lot of new products. I've seen a couple of them posted on social media again, but I don't have much information on those. But they also announced in a press release that they have acquired Australian control company LSC and I'm still figuring that one out, that artistic license. I'm also figuring out, I mean the the Ava light steel made sense to me that one. I understand, you know, when you're competing against some massive global distributors who who are selling both console and light or some manufacturers as well, companies like Elation with the Obsidian line, you know, it seems to make some sense also.

9:00 I think it's sort of like peanut butter and chocolate, like Roby has amazing manufacturing. Avo has really cool product but probably needs some improved manufacturing capabilities and and also size, you know, just resources. So to me that deal looks like peanut butter chocolate. It looks like it could be a huge winner. I don't know about this LSC deal. I didn't know about the the artistic license deal. They're obviously going in a direction. I'm just not sure what that is yet. It looks to me like maybe installations like Roby's pushing hard to get into more massive installations and if so, great, you know, that's a beautiful world. And then you know, for me, the biggest news that I've heard out of this show and and I did know about it a little bit before the show, but actually a few days before the show.

9:49 But a really nice company that was built by Glenn O'Donoghue and and his partners and and staff and everything else Ambersphere in the UKA company that I've been fond of for a number of years. They were the Clay Paki distributor for a long time. They're now the Airton distributor. They are the MA Lighting distributor and a lot of other lines as well. Glenn is a great guy. Glenn's a smart guy, been around the industry in the UK for a long time and I couldn't be happier for him in announcing that he has been acquired by some other very close friends of mine and also a sponsor of our podcast ACT Entertainment. So ACT from North America. If you've been sleeping and you haven't heard the news yet, ACT From North America has acquired Ambersphere in the UK and that's important for a lot of reasons. You know #1, there's a lot of similarities. There's a lot of, you know, stuff that makes sense in that deal.

10:45 The fact that now they're collectively probably five times bigger than the next largest MA lighting or airton dealer or distributors, I think. And I haven't talked to Ben about this and Sarah is reaching out to Ben to get him on the podcast next week so we can discuss it. But to me it looks like a move into Europe, not just the UK And so we'll see, we'll see what the world domination plans from ACT are on on making that move. I think it's a fantastic move. I was really excited when I heard about it and it's a winner and two great companies with a lot of similarities and good on you. So congratulations to ACT and congratulations to Amber Sphere and especially Glenn who is now retiring and he's announced that on LinkedIn.

11:33 So you know, we know from KISS that nobody ever UN retires and so good on you Glenn. Congratulations and good luck with whatever it is you choose to do next. Hopefully it's not just gardening and cooking. Hopefully you do something exciting that's related to our industry as well. And so other news, Geezer's new website is launching tomorrow and it's nothing spectacular, it's just a very basic website. But if you've gone to geezersofgear.com in the past month or so, since we moved our hosting over to Spotify, we haven't had a website. So, you know, not a lot of complaints because I don't think a lot of people used our website. But it's a great place for guests to find us, for potential sponsors to find us, or for people who don't like using any of the podcast platforms. You can just go directly to our site, You can pick the one that you want to listen to, click on it and boom, it starts playing. It's very simple.

12:26 So that will be launched tomorrow. Again, it's geezes ofgear.com of course, and big thanks to Sarah and her spouse who actually helped us get that site up so it didn't cost us a huge amount of money. They were very helpful and got that launched in a fairly short period of time. So we now have a website popping up tomorrow. What else? Another thing that our lovely and talented producer is working on is a monthly newsletter. And so I'm not sure what that's going to be called yet. I'm not sure what exactly it's going to look like. It's totally a project and product of Sarah. And so that's that's going to be fun. It's another way to promote our guests, another way to bring on guests, another way to promote our sponsors. And you know that's that and telling stories is what this is all about.

13:15 And so I look forward to that. That's exciting, and just a lot of more exciting things are happening and time to jump on board. If you're not already a sponsor and you're interested, reach out to producer@geezersofgear.com. If you're interested in being a guest on the show, reach out to producer@geezersofgear.com. She'll get you scheduled and that's about it for that. So today's guest, as I said, Mickey kerbishly. We're very happy to have Mickey back on the podcast. Last time we had him on was in September of 2019 before shit hit the fan before the world went crazy. And you know you can listen to that episode, which was I believe episode 45.

13:57 And you can hear his incredible story, his incredible background, how he got into the industry by selling T-shirts on tour with ACDC and his first, he did his first lighting tour with Elton John. By the way, I haven't mentioned yet, but growing up with a legendary father who was was tour manager and manager and all kinds of things, producer and but working with artists like The Who and Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, so many just an incredible family really. That name, the curvishly name is, is synonymous with the concert business. But five years later we're going to hear everything Mickey's been up to. He's now the president of solo tech with some incredible stories to tell from from that journey as well.

14:44 And one of the things that's really important both to Mickey and to solo tech and to myself as well with my sort of circular economy company at Gearsource is sustainability as it impacts and as our industry impacts sustainability. So we're going to talk about that a bit. And yeah, so Mickey has an incredible work ethic, great guy, excellent stories. So I am now going to end our live broadcast and move on to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I appreciate you and I hope you love the podcast, Mickey. Hello. Hello.

15:25 How are you? Very good. Thanks for asking. You look, thanks for having me back. You look well, look very. Well, you know, you take the boy out of London and you dump him in California with all this sunshine and fresh air and yeah, it seems to serve me well. You know, I don't know if you listen to any of these, like longevity health guys, you know, like functional medicine and all of that kind of stuff that helps you age a little more gracefully. It looks like you do, but there's a lot to that. You know, there's a lot to getting sunlight in the morning. You know, like people have spent so much time staying, Oh my God, I can't get sun, I'm going to get cancer.

16:08 But it's incredibly important to get at least 1520 minutes of sunlight every day, especially in the morning when it's not as dangerous. And and also to ground yourself, you know, like I don't. Have you ever heard of a guy called Breca? Gary Breca? He's one of. Those I haven't heard of him. Do you know who Dana? Do you know who Dana White is from the UFC? Yes, yes. So, so Dana just recently went through a whole transformation where he lost like I don't know, 5060 lbs. He went from being a fat, you know, drunk bad eating heart attack victim waiting to happen to like having a six pack.

16:50 Like he's so fit now and this Gary Breca is the guy who got him there. But one of the things Gary Breca talks about is grounding yourself. And so people use these grounding mattresses now where they actually literally ground your body, but Breca just talks about you just take your shoes off and go outside and stand on the grass. Stand on the ground. Absolutely. And we that that. You know, The funny thing? A lot of people that know me from from back in England, from Birmingham and London would be shocked to hear that I wake up every morning at 5:00 AM before it gets light. I do an hour of yoga. I walk my dog for an hour. We climb up to the wisdom tree by the Hollywood sign and it's exercise and fresh air and vitamin D like you say. If you haven't got that, you don't get that. If you don't get it from sunlight, you have to get it from your food, which is much, much harder. Takes so much more to get to get it from some that's improved in some way, so.

17:43 Good point. I mean it's it's it's so important and it's it's why guys at our age and beyond are able to sustain a career in in such a crazy industry. You know when people who work for law firms and stuff are retiring at at 55 or 60 and you know guys are working into their 70s in in this industry quite easily. Speaking of which, is your dad still working? He is. I saw him recently. He's around about 80 years old and he looks fantastic. He's still. This is. Incredible. They're doing, they're still doing the the farewell tour that they started in 1984.

18:25 So it's a you know you still get tickets still get tickets if you're quick for the but yeah he's doing great so he's looked past himself for a long time he he I quit drinking probably 10 years ago which was which made a big difference as well You know it's not just that the LA lifestyle you don't just move to LA and everything was out yet there's a lot of work involved I I quit drinking nearly ten years ago and that made a big difference. Good for you. Good for you. Yeah. You know, it's funny because I remember last time you were on the podcast, I think it was you who told the story. I can't remember if it was you or Wiseman who told the story of of scuba diving in Australia. That was probably me but Wiseman was there was he was the instigator and there's a lot more stories I I mean I when I when I saw the little note that I got about the court about this having this call and there was a bit on it. Do you want to did you any stories that you want to share. I mean, obviously, you know, me and Wiseman have a long and colourful history, shall we say, and and some of the some of the stories that just even now you just sit and think about them and you can just cry laugh in some of the we got ourselves in, we got ourselves in such such Pickles so regularly. Well, that that particular story has been told a lot of times to a point where I've probably completely screwed it up. But I as I recall, you were going over on a job interview to work for Vera Light and.

19:44 Well, what happened was no, what happened. I was on tour with Eric Clapton and we were in Australia and Wiseman showed up randomly at the Siebel Townhouse and just said and and was you know we stayed up drinking all night and as we were going to bed he was like come on we should go scuba diving in the morning because we're in we're we're right by the Barrier Reef or wherever we were. So we all get we all carry on drinking all night. We don't go to bed. We go down to the beach and we rent a load of Snoop scuba gear and and it takes us forever to get the gear on because we're so drunk and in a ridiculous state. And we we we climb into the water. We climb into the water and it's just churn. We don't see anything. It's just mud and.

20:26 Dirt. And it's horrendous. We can't see our hand in front of our face until Wiseman throws up and then you've got nothing. But you've got 10,000. Fish just appear from nowhere. Oh my God. And then and then do what they do and then disappear again. Like 10 seconds later. Just eat everything and disappear. It was the most. And then at the end of it we we we were like, this is just too much. And we we stand up and we realized we're in like 3 feet of water. We haven't left the we haven't left the break with we haven't left the break. And there's all kids watching us the Anyway, oh. My God. Horrified. I think the kids are horrified. I'm sure these two drunken idiots pop up. You know, one's covered in puke and Oh my God, yeah.

21:10 That's there was. There was more than a few of us. There was because Tom Kenny was there. There was so many people. There was like a dozen of us in there in scuba. Really. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The whole crew went, yeah. One of those ingenious ingenious moments where yeah John. John is John is is an interesting guy. You know, there's there's only, I mean, I guess there's loads of people you probably know a lot more than I do, but there's not that many people who can survive what that guy put himself through, you know, with with the as heavy as his habits were and and come out the other end and he's such a great guy now and he's so healthy and fit and well. And I had dinner with him a couple weeks ago. He was down here actually for a Trump event. He went to a party at Mar Lago and and we went out to dinner. So that's so job.

21:59 Yeah, yeah, he's a legend. And I was. It was. I was so lucky to have worked with him when I did in those in the 80s and 90s. Yeah, he was a lot of fun. So your dad's, your dad's 80 and he's still, he's still doing what he did and just The Who or or other bands as well? No, he's got other bands that he manages and you know the company. He's got a company Trinifold that manages a bunch of different bands that published. He manages golfers as well. He's got this, He's got a new thing where he's managing a load of golf, you know, up and coming golf stars. They invest in them. They they they they back their careers and then you know, hopefully they they do it in almost like a timeshare thing. I'll probably butcher what it actually is, but I believe you can buy shares in golfers and you you invest in it, 'cause they need money to get them, you know they can't if they're unless they once it, if they, you know the winnings. It takes a long time for the winnings to come, I guess. Yeah, I I should.

22:55 Talk to them because. Racing is very similar and I know some drivers who have done it in racing and my son's a race car driver and you know doesn't have the funding to compete with most of these people. And the problem in racing, it really does come down to funding. At the end of the day it's it's, you know, the rich will rise to the top and the the. Poor will get from wealthy families. Most of those drivers, you're right, they're from wealthy families, even the even the beginning doing the go Kart stuff. You know if you try, if you start at that go Kart level, it's not cheap is it? You're not. It's not. That's not you'll. Spend $1,000,000 before you get to cars. You know it it just in go karts. I mean it we did it. You know he started at six years old and and went into cars a few years ago and and yeah it's been a very expensive, expensive child. He's been an expensive child.

23:44 Yeah. Now he's having fun. He's coaching and stuff right now because he couldn't afford to to do this year because his dad pulled back and we've got some really great sponsors, including in our industry as well. But you know, I do know a few drivers who have done exactly what you just said. They've basically sold futures and that has worked out really well with a few of them. One of them I think is in the process of being sued now because he made it and then sort of cancelled on his investor and so the investors chasing him now that's not very. Cool. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. Get there. Yeah. That's a bad feeling. Yeah.

24:24 So last time we talked was 2019 and so we're not going to go through all the the career stuff. You of course have had an incredible career up until now and you continue to have an incredible career. One thing I will remind people who are listening is that from what I recall, you actually got your start at selling T-shirts on on an ACDC tour. Yep, I got. I started off actually selling T-shirts outside Brixton Academy for Desmond Decker. A friend of mine had made some T-shirts and we went and stood on the on the pavement outside and that night there was a robbery and they they tear gassed the the the, the venue and broke into the box office and stole all the money and it was on the news.

25:09 By the time I got home, my dad was sitting there and it was on the news and I just said to him half heartedly, hey, I was there, I was at the that show selling T-shirts and I was probably 15 or 16 and I was, I was coming up to 16 I believe. And I knew that my schooling was going to be over at 16. I wasn't academic and I knew I was going to be leaving school at 16. And he said, listen, if you want to sell T-shirts, Brockham. The guy that runs Brockham, Peter Lubin, is a friend of mine and he got me a job selling T-shirts at the NEC for ACDC and the first. The first night. Yeah, the first night there. I I didn't, I had no idea I was going to go on tour.

25:53 I just got the train to Birmingham with nothing, you know, a packed lunch. I had an apple and a sandwich and I'd never saw, you know, as I sold T-shirts at the Neci said goodbye to everybody and I went home and I traveled through the night. I slept at the station overnight. I walked, walked, you know, back to my, my parents house. And when I got home, my mum was like, what are you doing here? They've been calling all morning. You're supposed to be on tour. You're supposed to have, you're like, I'm like they had a hotel for me and everything at the AECI. Just that's how naive I was. I had no idea that they even had a hotel and they just assumed that that that, you know, I knew all this then. So I went back, yeah.

26:34 So I went back the next day and and toured with ACDC for probably 6 months with Jake Berry as the production manager. That was my introduction to that, to that, and I just fell in love with that 16 year old kid and was blown away by. Well, you were pretty much, you were pretty much destined anyways because of your father, right? Like you weren't going to go be a, you know, a lawyer or a well, maybe a lawyer, but no, you probably weren't going to be a, you know, a normal job kind of guy. I. I I think I was probably destined for greater things and I ended up with like, you know, rigging for for Howard Jones. I was probably my dad probably thought that, you know, I don't know what you thought about that as a as a career choice, but it turned out OK in the end.

27:17 I stuck with it for a very long time. And like anything, if you if you stick with it and you and it, you know it was hard working. Well, I tell you it's the opposite to these days because the technology was so minimal. There was, it was literally a park and with a piece of gel in front that you moved and you tightened it up and then you climbed onto the next one that was as technical as it got. It was really about who could stay up the how long can you stay up? Can you load trucks in the pouring rain? You know, and then you know now, of course, it's a different, different skill set. It's. So different. I mean it's it's unbelievable. The entire business is so different now. You know, like I was just hearing somebody told me this morning, I got to go look at my text and see who it was. Someone I've heard has just taken on a bunch of private equity money and which company was it a rental? Oh, really?

28:12 OK. In, in Europe, Yeah, Yeah. The big, the big dry hire company. Great. Company, yeah. Yeah. I mean I I I think it's getting to a point now and and we can talk about this because you you obviously are part of one of the the big private equity held companies I think. It's well, I I would add we need to, we need to because that's really interesting. We're not private equity. We are. It's privately owned by Stephen Bronfman. He owns the majority of it who's a, who's a a wealthy individual from Canada from the sequence family who is a passionate music like. And then there's other investors that are more they're not. It's not, but it's not.

28:58 It's not private equity, but just so that it does make a difference, by the way on the subject, yeah. And it does make a difference on the subject, but but there's a lot of that about. But yeah. Very different in in the operation of the company and stuff too. Bronfman also didn't, and I don't know if he still does, but at one point he owned Universal Music or something too, didn't he? He did. They sold that recently. He was. The great thing about Stephen was that a lot of people don't know, is he? I I don't. I don't think he'd mind me sharing it. But his was the the money behind a lot of those early 360 deals in that that Live Nation did they they in the Michael Cole I believe it was it was those guys that that really funded that change in the industry.

29:40 Yeah. So which has been a a fairly epic change, a pretty big change really, right. But where I was going with the and again I misspoke on the private equity thing, but let's call it funded by deep pockets, you know, whether that's a private individual or a private equity group or a public entity or whatever it is. But I think the industry now has gotten to a point where even if you're a large rental company or whatever, it's you're going to hit a wall where you just don't have, you know, the capital or resources to compete on some of these shows. Like they're getting and have gotten so ridiculously huge that I don't know, like as a rental company, how could you, like, a bid comes across your desk for, you know, a a Beyoncé stadium tour or, you know, Taylor Swift or whatever, any of the big ones that are out. And I mean, the equipment list has to be just ginormous, you know?

30:40 They're, they are. They're 20. Thirty $40 million investments for that sort of thing. And and and you know I mean it's such a it's such a big subject that you can talk about for for a long time but it but yes you need you need deep pockets you need they the the thing about our our industry is all of our clients want you to be if they want it to be a cottage industry but they also want you to be able to stump up $10 million at very short notice when they finally make their mind up as to what it is they really, really want on their on their show. You know, and that that comes down to the, you know, the question we were talking prior to to going live on it about sustainability and about, you know the here. Yeah.

31:25 And I want to get into that. But so that the, yeah, the enormity of these shows, is that driven by artist ego or lighting company ego or production manager ego or a combination of all of those. What is it? I think I used to think it was ego, but I don't know that it is. I don't really think. I don't really see that. I see it as as just, you know, the public expect a certain level. I think some of it is to do with the actual the artists and the and the shows that people are now used to seeing.

32:05 You know when we were younger we would go see, we spoke about The Who earlier and about that. I I remember some of my earliest experiences of going to the Rainbow in in in London and the show was a a black box at the end of a in a theatre. So you there was no nothing was lit. No there was no there was no safety lighting for instance. So you didn't see anything. You just had to focus on the band. There was no LED. There was no, there was just a black drape behind it and there would be the the, the artist and there would be lit and that was the show that was your focus was on that. Over the years it's become so much more that even the audience are part of the show now. So often the audience is still part of the show, so you're lighting every element of it.

32:51 I think that really took hold when we started filming shows and you know Alan Branton and people like that came along and they were like you know something yet you need to see what's going on out here. The public want to see what's going on. So that's when it really started to expand lighting wise to like to bringing in the audience into it but and the scenic stuff, the stuff that tape do now is is you know it's so complex and so and and and so so you know and and it is a bit of an arms race. It's like, you know, we know that these artists go to see each other's shows. They go so someone you know, you know Taylor Swift, even if it's not her, somebody will go and see somebody like the Beyoncé thing or Beyoncé will see her show or whatever, and and then their designers will be watching each other's shows and they'll, they'll have to keep. You've got to keep.

33:38 It's got to be fresh. It's got to be different. It's got to be because it's the same audience, the same person that goes to see each. Other Yeah, of course you got to step it up. You got to keep stepping up the game because otherwise it gets boring. And you know, obviously ticket prices are getting higher, but is it the ticket prices that are driving up the size of the show or is it the size of the show that's driving up the ticket price? Again, it's always a a chicken and egg sort of argument, I guess, But I was just curious, like if if Beyoncé goes and sees Taylor Swift and she's got 1000 lights, I want 1500 lights, or she's got a, you know, 20M screen, I want a 30m screen or whatever, Right, there's. I think, I think there there's an element of that, but I think a lot of it is also they go and they look at it and if they're impressed with it, they're like, OK, I want to talk to the people that did that. Can you connect me to the team that are responsible for that that show and then they go in and they look, they decide on elements that they like about elements that they go on and their own thing and you that's when you you know. So that that I think is is probably where it comes from. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

34:47 And I mean, again, it's it. They're just becoming so huge that it's just like, where's all this coming from? And you know, the other thing that's so interesting, and I've said it so many times on my podcast, but everything's a stadium show now, You know, like you're starting to see comedians doing stadiums and and country acts doing stadiums. Not that there's anything against country acts, but I mean, it's not just The Rolling Stones doing stadiums anymore or U2, it's it's so many bands doing stadiums. And I love the creativity of the design and and production people in building these rigs out, 'cause obviously you don't have a ceiling to fly lights from or whatever.

35:28 You know you there's no rigging, so everything's from the ground pretty much, and it's a whole different thing. I I, I've recently become a Kenny Chesney fan, you know, which is another thing that would surprise my cockney friends back. But. I went to see Kenny, I went to see Kenny Chesney a few years ago in a stadium somewhere in Florida. I've never seen anything like it in my life. If you've not been to a Kenny Chesney show, if you've never been to a Kenny Chesney Stadium show, it's the biggest party that I've ever attended. It's so much fun and so much energy and and you can see why they want to be in a stadium because they're. It's just that the whole place is just on fire. It's just the biggest party.

36:15 Anyone who hasn't been to a Kenny Chesney Show, I would advise it and it's. Not it. Totally took me by surprise. I never would have, I never would have guessed that that'd be the big party, you know, Is it, Is it the audience or the artist, though, that's creating the the? Audience and the artist yeah they are they all they're all so familiar with everything they know. You know it's like a it's a it's a bit I I never was never really around for the tailgate parties you know the Grateful Dead and stuff like that. I I was touring with The Who at the time and I remember pulling up at stadiums and the Grateful Dead fans would still be there the following week so they would all still be in the car park. We would do they would do alternate weekends, so we would arrive on a Friday for a Saturday show and they're like their show was Saturday and the car park was still had 8-9 hundred people in it like but it's similar to that I believe the Kenny JB guys. Speaking of Speaking of Deadhead fans, when I remember when they opened The Mirage in Las Vegas, I had provided some lighting there.

37:15 So I was invited to the grand opening of The Mirage Hotel and I was staying there, I think from maybe two days before the opening. And the same weekend Grateful Dead was playing at the racetrack, the Speedway in Las Vegas, I think. Or maybe it was a football stadium, I don't remember. But they were playing at something big. And so in this brand new hotel that was just opening that weekend, there were these Grateful Dead fans sleeping in sleeping bags in the hallways and showering in the casino bathrooms. Like washing themselves down and brushing their teeth and blow drying their hair or whatever in the casino bathrooms.

37:55 It was just hilarious. It was so funny. They're they're an interesting buzz. And they. I think they're getting. Are they? It didn't. Oh, no, they're not. I thought they were going into the sphere, but they're not, are they? I don't think them. I know Fish is going in there, aren't they? I don't think dead and. Does Grateful Dead still tour as Grateful Dead? I don't even know. No, it's dead and Co, but it's still, they still go and do shows and they're still very popular. I know that. I know Chris Adamson was working with him up until a while ago and it was they were doing really, really well. They. But you say fish is going into the sphere. They're like for. And that's what I heard. I think. I think it'll be a short residency. I don't think it's as long as the the U2 thing was 40 shows, I believe, But they'll still be, you know, I would imagine they'll do a few shows. That thing.

38:40 It was. It was another thing not, not many things blow me away, you know, because we've been doing it for so long. But going there with no real expectation. I didn't. You know, I hadn't paid attention. We were involved in the building of it. We built the outside of the sphere. We didn't do anything on the inside. And Willie and and his team had been working there. So I went, I had some lunch with Willie and then I stayed and watched the show. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I've never I, I and even to this day, I still there's a bunch of effects that they did that I have no idea how they did it. And this is what I do for a living and have done since I was 16. As we just said, if you get a chance, unfortunately you two has finished. That's another thing.

39:20 We're lucky. Recently it's been, it's been really not boring, but there's not really been that much innovation in what we do. We've been talking about stadium shows. Yes, they're getting bigger, but they're bigger and more of the same thing in a way. But what they did there in the sphere, and I was as cynical as any of the rest of us. Believe me, it's just the idea. What are they doing? Billions. You know, whatever. And you know who knows what You what, what, where it will go. But what I saw with you two blew me away. Stunning. Yeah, I had a long talk with with our mutual friend John about that. And I don't know, I'm still cynical about it. Like I just think.

40:02 Like when I I don't. I won't forget the very first video I saw of you two in the sphere, and it took me a good 30 seconds to find Bono on this video. I couldn't find him. Like, where is he? I couldn't find him anywhere. And I'm looking everywhere because it's just such a it's a visual, just orgasm, you know? It's just this visual. There's so much shit going on that it it to me just takes all the focus away from the artist and. It's a different it's a different form of NDAA. Would would if you two showed up there would they? Without that would they sell 40 nights at the Sphere in Vegas? Of course I.

40:45 Don't think so, but. But putting it together was genius and and and you know the work that those guys did just that I appreciate so much what it takes what it took to do it. You know that's what I appreciate is it is that and and that they are taking a risk and that when we talk about the ABBA show that we're we're involved in in in London. Like I said we weren't involved in any way with what happened in the sphere and what Willie and and treatment of those guys did. But I can respect it and look at it and be like I was blown away. Not going to lie. Yeah, that. That ABBA. Thing is cool too, that that could. Probably end up in the. Sphere for a little while. You know, a month or something? It it could do. But you know that one.

41:25 You know if if you know it's another show that I would say, you know, it's not often that that I would say, you know people ask me all the time hey, what what are you doing? What's cool? Because we're involved in pretty much every show that's out there. We're involved in some way or one of our frenzy. And I would say that it's unfortunate if you missed you too because I don't think anyone will ever do that again. I don't think we'll have anyone will ever spend that kind of money on the content. You know, it will end up in a library that you can use. I would imagine a library of content that when you go in there you can use. So maybe that's a that's something that we'll never experience again and we won't see again. And it might end up being a big it might be a big iMac. You know, they they spent a couple billion dollars building that place and it had to be that big of a sort of extravaganza kind of thing like you 2 for however many nights.

42:13 And it just had to be that crazy. Yeah, because I think, you know, I, again, me being cynical, I think a lot of people were like, there's no way they're ever going to make money on this place. They're going to lose their asses and all that stuff. I've kind of turned around my thinking on that because they created such a spectacle out of this show and now you've got like the UFC going in there. That's another one that really surprises me. Like, what's that going to look like? That's going to be, really. That's one that we are we are heavily involved in. We are we are putting that together with with Silent House and it's another one. Yeah obviously there's challenges lighting from from that high up and all that and I I'm not involved in that part part of it but you know that that's you know I think the point is like you know you took for $2 billion you could have built the win you could have gone and built another casino and had that kind of thing.

43:06 So but what they did was they they've they've gone out on a limb they've gone and done something that you know it it's it's. You know, there's nothing else like it ends. Up being If it just ends up being a giant IMAX cinema at the end of the day, then it's the world's most. Expensive IMAX cinema. So what, You know, somebody's getting a lot of attention, even the things that they do with that round. Like I'm sure locals in Las Vegas probably get sick of it. But like when you saw the F1 race and the the the happy faced guy with the little eyeballs that would watch the cars go by and the eyes would follow the cars and stuff. Like even silly things like that, I think, I think are really cool, you know? I think there's a there's an element of all of us, especially us that have been in this industry for our entire lives where we do, we are cynical and we and we are we're sort of programmed to shoot things down before you know, we just do. It's like it's just our nature and we always will generally to ourselves not we don't do it in a in a format like this in a public environment or anything like that. But even the even the Formula One, you know when they were putting that together, I went to the Formula One. I've got a friend of mine who came from London who's a big fan.

44:16 You know he overpaid for his for his room and all this kind of thing got totally you know, but he had a fantastic time and I was really cynical about the whole thing. But then when you read afterwards the drivers who it's pretty important what they think, they thought it was the best race of the of the entire season. You know now there's so many things that were were wrong with it in many, many ways. But one element, which is the drivers were like this is the best race we've had all season because of the way the course was and this and that, so you know it. Yeah, well, because of the challenges, yeah, you know, I think the hardcore racing fans, especially Brits, hated it. You know, because it it Brits don't like. And I'm speaking for one right now, but Brits don't tend to like from a motorsport standpoint when you get off of the real hardcore fundamentals of motorsport. And it's more a show like they hated the Netflix series, they hated the Miami race, you know, they hated the whole Vegas thing because.

45:16 It's the opening ceremony, the dark, all that. Yeah, exactly. All that thing. I get it. And I I don't think they'll do that again. I don't know that they will. Because they've learned, aren't they? They, you know, you've learned from your mistakes. They lost so much money to do. They that had to just cost them gazillions of dollars like, you know it. It was such a shit show financially, but. You know, and we weren't involved in that in any way either. So we know when I comment on it sometimes, sometimes, you know, you find yourself commenting on things because you've made money from it or you've done, you know, you've got I. So I would look at it and go, Oh my God, it was fantastic. Let's do the open ceremony again. It was amazing, but. But to me, you know, I didn't watch it. I had no interest in it. Why would I?

45:57 It got nothing, Zero in my friends other than my friends, other than my friends were putting it together. You know, I went to see them during rehearsal and stuff and stand there because it's their thing. It's what we do. But there's no difference to me watching that or watching Katy Perry or watching you know it, you know? Yeah, it's just another big spectacle, you know, so. Yeah, back to the UFC thing, and I I don't even know if you can tell me, but I would assume that it's going to be like more like a standard, you know fight where it's in the round and I'm curious what it assuming it's in the round, was seating around it, what's the content going to be like? It's not going to be I.

46:39 Think it's not that I can't tell you it's that I don't no because I'm not it's one something that Lee Lee Morrow and and is working on from outside with with John Flynn they've been in the in the building and and dealing with the silent house team that are that are playing together and I you know I don't I don't even know if we've finished bidding on it I don't even know if we've actually. Awarded it. You know, again I'm just curious with a sporting event, you know you're not going to, it's not going to be as crazy as, as the U2 content was because it would probably be too distracting I would think. But who knows, like I never in a billion years would have seen you two doing what they did either. So you know, it was just so out there and so different than anything, like you said, anything we've ever seen, we've never seen anything like that.

47:26 So it's very, very different. So, so I I've been listening to this this book called Living The Beatles Legend. Have you seen this book or heard of it or anything? I don't know. Were you a Beatles fan? Did you grow up a Beatles? Fan I I was not, but I ended up when I was tour managing Eric Clapton. George Harrison was in the band. So when I was 25 years old, just before Wiseman in fact the tour that Wiseman showed up on in Australia was we were we were touring with George Harrison is he was the guitar player and and I didn't really know The Beatles. I'd never really had that much of an experience of them. But I certainly spent time with him and then got into it, to be honest with you.

48:13 And now my, you know, now I'm sort of, I sort of respect them but. Yeah, I do too. I'm, I'm very similar. Like I I think I was just a little bit too young. You know when The Beatles really broke was you know, 666768 whatever. And I would I was born in 64, so I was just a bit too young for for that. But I've always been intrigued. You know, I've read like John Lennon's book and some other stuff, but this book, Living The Beatles legend, is based on a diary that was written by a guy named Mel Evans who was their roadie right from The Cavern all the way up till their very last performance to their very last recording.

48:55 And it was him and Aspinall Neil Aspinall who worked for The Beatles like right from day one. And so his he died and his son always kept this diary and said one day we're going to write a book and it's so interesting. I was just curious if if you were a fan or anything because it. Really. I haven't read that. But I've read, I've read quite a few biographies. I love, I I love true. You know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'll read a bit of fiction, but I prefer historical things. So I love biographies. And yeah, me too. Especially people like music. Ones music, biographies are always fun, you know, or industry. Biographies. So you know, I know one of the things that's really meaningful and and something you're passionate about is something we've already mentioned for a second, there is sustainability in our industry.

49:45 And you know, in your mind, like, is that something being driven by need or being driven by guilt? Or like it is it got, is it something related to the size of the shows? Like if we don't do something, we're not going to have enough power in stadiums to run this much shit, you know? Or I think well I think there's a there's an element of if we if we sort of peel peel it back and and go back to where you know we all understand that the planet is in crisis that we that we can't continue the way we've been going in you know such a short period of time. The amount of damage that we've done to to to the fragile balance of nature is, is it's just we have to do something about it now. You know there's a lot of people that you know we'll we'll we'll put that focus on individuals and OK you could you have to recycle.

50:41 You get an electric car you change your light bulbs you do those kind of things you know. So you know there's a lot of a lot of focus on that is like OK what can you do as an individual which is you know fine we all we all have our part to play and we all have our thing. But we also also know that really I I think the statistic is that 75% of the damage that is being done is done by 100 companies globally. So you know we can we Oh yeah we can make out we can make a difference in a tiny thing. But I think that you know statistically there's up there's probably 100 companies that are that are that are doing 75% of the the damage stop that statistic from because I want to look that one up from my from from something that I've read but I I am and I by the way I am no expert on this I would have rather be in a conversation about it than sitting here saying what you know because I well. I'm not going to Fact Check you, I promise you. That no no I'd rather be but but to me what what I do know is that you know is what we do for as an as entertainers is you know is it is it leaves a huge footprint So I just did a talk last week in in London at the international live music conference and part the opening day of the conference is about a greener future and it's Claire O'Neill has been doing this for many many years puts a puts a a series of panels together you know and they and we talk about what we can do what what you know and it's and and the great

52:14 thing is you know it's full of young people it's it's you know most of the old people don't even go in there. Most of the the older promoters and the people that you know, it's full of young people. It's the future. It's the people that realize that if we don't do something they don't have a future in entertainment. There's no yeah we can't keep doing what we're doing. So and I and I did this talk and I'm I'm much more comfortable talking to you than I am standing on a stage in a room and that you know that and I think most people here will understand that as well because that's why we chose how I think I feel really uncomfortable standing in front of a group of people and talking but it was something I feel I had to do and I and I told a story to start with about the Jonas Brothers 5-6 years ago. We got a design through for the Jonas Brothers and let's say there was 600 moving lights on it and when we did the power consumption it was going to be 4300 amp supplies for for the show and most buildings we can get a couple and then we'd have to have a couple of generators and you know they were doing 70 shows should we say and and when we did the, the the calculations it's like and it was just at the time when LED lights were really starting to take people were starting to take them seriously LED lighting you know we could we could start to be able to shape the beam started to be more reliable you know So what we did was we did this calculation we were like OK if we if we buy an LED lighting rig what's the power of consumption and it went down to one supply.

53:41 So we were saving three. We were saving three 300 amp supplies every single day only exactly. So we went back to the design team and made this proposition and they were like well if you'll buy those lights, let's do it. It just is a no brainer and we we might have to make a commitment from get a commitment from the design team. They'll be like look this tour is only going for a year. We're going to go spend $1,000,000 on this stuff or whatever it was you know will you use it for a couple of years. And they and they were true to their word the next show they designed it went on and and it and it really made a shift in us. So we started pushing towards LED products. But what it did for me it woke me up to to the to the fact that that you can make a difference you know where you know if you if you present it the right way.

54:31 People have a conscience, people. People understand that the the the the impact that we make and it was just one small thing and and it really got to set us on a path of that we haven't stopped on. Now most of our product is LED. Yeah, one of the things about LED that that I never really thought of and I had an LED company for commercial LED replacing, you know, large warehouses and buildings and stuff, replacing incandescent or fluorescent or whatever with LED or you know, metal halide or whatever. And but one of the things I didn't think about and Huddleston told me, actually I think we were on this podcast probably.

55:11 And Huddleston said one of the biggest differences that LED makes is that from load in and set up, when you turn the lights on until the show starts, that's the biggest difference right there, like. They're on lights. Are on all day. LED's are off all day. That's. A huge He's absolutely right. What what happens with an incandescent light is we turn it on in the morning. And the reason we do this is simple. When you're in your house, the only time your light bulb will blow is when you turn it on. OK. So when you're in a show situation, the last thing you want to do is just before the show, turn all your lights on because you're in.

55:51 That's when they're going to go. So what we developed over the years was like, let's just turn them all on in the morning and don't touch them. And then the shutter is closed in front of them. And when it's Showtime, the shutter lifts and does it's thing and it DS the total opposite. You hit a button and it goes on. Yeah, yeah. That is in itself massive power. Savings. You know what that's like doing? It's like brushing your teeth in the morning and leaving the tap on all day long until you brush your teeth in the evening. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. That's what you're doing, that's what we're doing with those lights. But if you think of it, if you think of it, Mickey, like, So what time lights are generally done in the morning? By what? Like noon, at least.

56:33 Right, 1111 or 12? Yeah. OK. So let's call it 11. So they're on from 11:00 until 10:00 at night or 11:00 at night. The show, Yeah, the show is 8 until midnight or whatever. So you're going from 4 hours to like 13 hours. So the the lights are on for absolutely no use for, you know, more than double the length of the Showtime. It's just completely crazy. You can save 2/3 of the electricity you're drawing. And and and we don't you know until and that that's the point I'm making until we we we're like we're looking for things we're all right now going OK what can we do to reduce our impact something as simple as that is is makes such a such a big difference you know and the other thing that that we're working on at the moment one of the one of the things that that we're working on and I had a meeting with Yvonne Donnelly in in London who is the sort of the head of of of PRG over there and a really dear friend of mine and I I want to congratulate her recently she made one of the women of of industry in Polestar and you know what what I will say is that most of the most of the people that are driving this change are women most of that because as always you know they're the ones that are sensitive and the ones that are sensitive to what is going on here and also they they they're if I.

57:59 You know the people that like Carol Scott are Tate is is making a massive impact on on on our industry and what we do Claire that I just spoke about Claire O'Neill Amy Amy Morrison MO Morrison's wife she's got a project which has been going in the US now. So that that's been really been driven by the by the women of of our industry a lot of this a lot of this a lot of this stuff. But the the thing that that we're doing at the moment and I spoke to Yvonne about this is we want to create a greener bid document. So when you get a quote from from higher companies, what we want to do is introduce on the on the the Backpage of it is is either a lighting plot that shows you the power consumption of of the units that you've chosen.

58:49 Because what you, you know what you can look at is if if you know, I, I, you know hypothetically if you looked at a rig you've got an LED screen which is LED OK that that would generally be classed as a green product. You've got some you know you maybe some some some incandescent big bright powerful lights which will be red. And then there's a bunch of stuff that sits in the middle that's amber. But if the LED screen was purchased at the very last minute because nobody could make their mind up exactly what they wanted and we had to air freight it from China then it goes red. You know and and the point that I want to make and the point that I think that where we all have a part to play is that we're pushing our timelines closer and closer. We're getting shorter and shorter. We're so good at doing and making sure that no matter what we can deliver and the show will always go on. The difference between what we do and most people do is we know way in advance when the first show is of a tour. So if I'm looking at if I'm now in whatever we are now in March. I'm looking at shows that the tour might start in August now, and let's say for arguing to take it starts at 8:00 on August the 1st in Fresno, the artist that I'm working with. I know we and we start going to a negotiation period if we buy a new product, given enough time I can put those products on a sea container and and ship them for for literally 0 carbon impact almost and a very low cost.

1:00:17 Now you you made a point earlier about how everything's going up in price. Well how the difference between sea freight and air freight of a product is not only massive regard you know financially but as a as a as an impact to carbon impact it's massive as well. So of course the price is going to go up. We we will, we will, we will, we will shoulder that burden that we will be like OK we'll pay the extra million. There's there's a couple of examples right now that we're living through and everyone's doing the same, Huddleston's doing the same, Yvonne's doing the same. We're all living the same drama which is last minute. We need this from there. So and we're we're air freighting it in and I've got one, you know one at the moment the the charge is $1,000,000, it's 274 sevens full of product that is air freighting in it's $1,000,000. Now I might, I might split that cost with the, with the vent, with the manufacturer, we might do that. But at the end of the day that's going to the ticket price that is going to hit the ticket price at some in some way or another as as it would if it was a bottle of water that is going up by by that.

1:01:28 So you know what I what I would say is you know, I know, I know like I say it's lovely talking to you and it was really nice doing my talk in front of a lot of people. But we need a conversation amongst the the, the decision makers and the people. You know, people with like myself, like John Huddleston, like John Wiseman, like Yvonne, all these people that are sitting really at the top of this thing. We need to sit down and we need to and we need to be get serious about this because we are we're we're we're we're doing so much unnecessary damage by by you know the timelines that we're we're allowing ourselves to you know being presented with and and and it's pushing the price up it's not you know there's a 30% import duty obviously on Chinese product that that that you know all the promoters are asking us why is everything so much more expensive why is it 30% more expensive. Well, some of it, yes, is is duties and stuff like that. But some of it, it's just a sheer factor it it we're having to.

1:02:26 Mickey, I'll give you an example. You know, there's there's a few touring companies out there who I won't mention their names but will use my company, Gearsource as a, you know, the last minute magician, right. And so it wasn't this year, I think it was last year. I got a call on December 28th I believe for a show and they needed 100 fixtures that were not available anywhere and they needed them delivered to Nashville to rehearsals. And these 100 fixtures, you know, again we're super tough to get. We could get them, they were going to come out of Singapore and they said OK, well no problem, you know, we'll we'll take them.

1:03:14 You know the lights I think used it was probably 500 grand or something. And so no problem, we'll take them. And we said OK, let's put this all together. And then they said and we said, you know, is there a, a drop dead date that you need them in Nashville? Yeah, January 11th and this is December 28th, you know, right before New Year's. They're coming from Singapore. You know, not only are they going to have to go air, but they're going to have to go air in a very special way, like 100 moving lights in dual cases. They're not just going to pop on any airplane, right? This is going to be tough. So Long story short, we managed to pull it off, but freight was $650,000 for $500,000 of lights.

1:03:58 I mean, it was just insane. It's Why did you wait? Until the. 28th You know why? That's it in a nutshell, yeah. And and and sometimes that's coming in cardboard boxes as well, like you say, because you don't have. It's literally piles and piles of cardboard boxes that really do have to be you know. So I I think that we have a duty. There's so much and there's so much that we are doing. I think we the one of the big points is that we've come so far, but we've got to keep going. We've got to keep working. We've got to work together. You know we have really come a long way you know that it's even down. I remember having a conversation years ago with with the promoters in Hyde Park. At the time, it was Toby Leighton Pope at at at Live Nation. And I I'd, I was like, you know, we've got to do something about the plastic cups. You know, there's there's a, you know, we did a calculation there.

1:04:44 We're like there's 1.5 million plastic cups every night or whatever it was in the number. But it was staggering. And he's like, Yep, let's do it. Let's go talk to the beer people. And they went off and spoke to the beer people and the beer was like, mate, we can't pour every drink when someone asks for it. So you can't come up with your cup and we then pour you a drink that that said we need to have hundreds of beers already poured behind us. So when you woke up and won six we give you a tray of 6 and you walk away with them. So you can't do a 1 cup thing because the beer companies were just like we how how does that work for us in our in our dynamic. They I I'm way away from that now but they seem to have made a lot of progress. They've certainly made a lot of progress with the water bottles. People are really used to showing up and and filling up something and refilling it and stuff like that. Did great work at Coachella I believe on that and and also in Hyde Park.

1:05:37 So, so we've really come a long way but we've we've got to you know we've got to be a little bit more you know we've we've we've got to drive this a little bit. The industry has to take ownership some of it. Is just simply common sense to Mickey. Like it's not this, you know, certainly there's some politics in in involved in all of this where people say you know, regardless of which side you're on, you know whether climate change is ridiculous and it's not true and there is no such thing or climate change is going to end us all and it's the most important thing today. Neither of those really matters in in this conversation because it's common sense. It not only does it save the company money and ultimately save, you know, the end ticket purchaser money, the fan money, but it's just common sense. These are easy solutions to to problems that are either this big, you know, and and the end of the earth or they're this big and maybe the earth will continue operating. But still, where you gonna put all this plastic? And you know our producer who who is British Sarah lives on an island, Crete.

1:06:43 And she's telling me all the time about the fact that there's nowhere to put garbage. So people just put it everywhere. And you know you'll go to these beautiful beaches and they'll just be lined with plastic and trash and junk and whatever because what are you going to do with it? You know it's a a pretty tiny island, right? So you know something has to be done obviously. And you know, the other thing is, and and this may sound self-serving, but I find a lot of companies will buy lights that they could easily rent or they'll buy new lights that they could easily buy used ones. And it doesn't make a lot of sense because I think right now the world probably has, you know, 3 million lights and only needs 2 million or whatever that number is, right?

1:07:31 And so there's a lot of stuff sitting out there, stale, stagnant, not doing anything right now because either a designer has to have that one extra gobo or the one new feature or whatever it is. And I know that I'm talking against what most lighting companies would want me to say right now, but it's true. You know, at the end of the day, we just have to be a little more sensible when it comes to using what's there as opposed to just specifying the latest thing that you got to have. I think you're absolutely right. I think that the the point that that Yvonne and me were talking about and I and I'd like to bring Huddleston in and a few other people on this is like is is developing something like you say at the end of a of a document that shows you the the carbon footprint of the thing of what of what it is you that you're that you've the decisions we've made because all of our choices have consequences in everything we do but specifically during this design process and the bidding process and that and as we're getting you know and and you know I think everybody wants to everybody's trying to reduce the amount of trucks they've got because of the financial costs and stuff like that they still want to show and it you know so.

1:08:38 Well, I'll tell you where. Where it should happen is if any of you are using common bidding systems, then whoever creates that system should just build in a very simple AI model that looks at the quote and finds those things and gives you 10 suggestions at the end of it that says if you use this instead of this, you're going to save X tons of of whatever and you're going to save $50,000 on freight. If you use this instead of this, this is going to happen. You know, we notice you only like it. Basically it tightens up and makes your your quote more efficient from a standpoint of common sense. People, people, people might like, like anything people might. They can drive holes through that. They would be like, you know, but really what it comes down to is that we have to have an agreement on what those parameters are, what those, what those levers are. And it can't be me sitting here saying because I'll have a slightly different set of criteria than someone like John Adamson will have.

1:09:36 You know, like for instance, you know, like I say last minute airfreight from China in carbon boxes to where it's the thing that kills me a lot of the time. He might have something different. He's a he's a he's a different thing as well. He's he's lucky because he's A1 location company as well. He's got one location and he's got a trucking company. You know, I'm in multiple locations. I spend so much time and energy and money moving stuff between locations that, you know, I've been in. Nashville and patient. And they're moving that and so, so you know, so I might have a different, yeah, I might have a different set of criteria and levers that you can pull that'll make it. But between us, if we, if we sit down, you know, I might might try and take an opportunity for the Lidditz, the gathering that happens every year at Rocklidditz to really get with some of some of these, you know sit, sit with some of the players and be like try and build something between now and then that we can build into this.

1:10:26 You know, so that that's you know that things like that. I mean, you said, like I said before, I can talk for hours about it. And I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody that cares. Passionately about it. What we what we do, what we do, and I want it to go on forever. I want the the young people that are that are that are taking over my role to have the same kind of experience that I've had and I'm scared that that you know well. Mickey, that's where it starts though. It starts with passionate people in in powerful positions. Try say that, say that five times really fast passionate people in powerful positions. But you know, to me that's where it starts. Like somebody says, hey, this is important and I think it's something we should talk about. And I got involved in a lot of those types of conversations throughout the whole COVID thing, you know it it somebody had to start the conversation, somebody had to use their voice to get the information out there and talk about it.

1:11:18 And then from there you start developing some solutions and and I think this is one of those things like and it's just developing some common sense patterns. The challenge is in our industry, you know, if I say I got to have 1000 ABC lights and you know, or my show just won't look as good as whatever and you're saying no, look, I'll give you 1000 of these other lights instead because they're here, We don't have to air freight them in. It's going to save the environment and blah, blah, blah. You know, there's a competitor out there somewhere who's going to go, yeah. Hey, Bob, I'll get you those thousand lights, You know, do it with me. I'll get you those thousand lights and. I yeah, we we can't.

1:11:58 We, you know, we, we can't even agree not to, to drive all the prices into the ground. So agreeing something like this is going to, people are going to say it's almost impossible. It's really different. But I tell you what, there's got to be a way. I guarantee you that there's some kind of way where we can at least improve it, because that's what we're looking for, is to just do it better, smarter, smarter and more efficient, and then we save money. Here's an example of what you just said. So right after, I don't know if you saw, but a couple weeks ago the Union was able to defeat 4 Wall and they're unionizing in Las Vegas in. Vegas. And so I got a call and I won't tell you who it was, but it was a a competitor to Four Wall who said great they'll finally push.

1:12:44 They'll finally have to push the prices up. You know And is that really what it takes though, that you get stabbed in the heart with some additional cost or whatever to to make you make a a positive change like that? Because you know I've literally as big as all of you companies have become. I've felt bad for rental companies for, for 10 years now because the the math of it all like, you know, I'm old enough to remember that you used to buy a a an Intelli beam for $2500. You'd rent it for 175 or $200 a week for 10 years, you know and then you'd sell it for 2000 bucks, You know, I mean it was just the math was really good.

1:13:28 Now you buy a light for $10,000, you it, it's only a hot light for a couple years, and then you got to buy the next version and you're renting that $10,000 light for 200 bucks a week, you know, So I mean, the math has just gone all the wrong direction on this stuff, which is why you have to have so much private equity involved now. And and you need to, you need to have a very good, you need to be able to move the gear. You need to be able to move it on. You need to have a really good distribution point to get it. Once it's stayed, it's still in warranty and you need to get it. You know, you get it. But the trick would be obviously like if I like, if you go back to the plot that we were talking about, you know, you would have the a Truss.

1:14:10 A piece of Truss in my experience is going to last a very long time. And when it's finished, it's melted down and it's made into another piece of Truss, you know, at the end of the day. So, you know, so that's as green as it gets. And then right the other end of it is the the moving light that is only good for a year. It's incandescent or even the LED lights now that are, you know, that you know, it's not. Maybe they're maybe they need to be more modular, maybe maybe they need to be fixable on the road more than you know. They don't need to be sent back to be fixed when certain things happen to them. Maybe they they need to be modular and when there's an upgrade, you can slip the upgrade in there like you can on most other things. Not that you have to change the whole light. Why would you?

1:14:51 If something has just added a color wheel or added a a row a gobo wheel or maybe a slightly a lens altation, why would you put a a brand new? Why would you get a brand new light? Why wouldn't you? You know so well because that's how the questions and answers. That's how the current economy works, you know. And sound is even worse than lighting at this point. Like sound used to be where you bought a speaker system that lasted 20 years. You know, now like even just just look at L acoustic or D&B, They're coming out with a new model, you know, once a year at least, you know. And that new model suddenly becomes, you know, if you're a top touring act, you've got to have this new model system, right? And that might be $2,000,000.

1:15:34 You know, that somebody has to go spend and it's just crazy. It's it's crazy. To it's it's still I think there's still audio is still you know you're the point you were making earlier about the business is the business still a it's a great business to be in. It's a it's still a great business to be in. You know you buy something for a dollar you for $100 you try and rent it for a couple of dollars a week and at the end of it you know you you you try and sell it or or yeah or whatever. So, yeah. And then there's everything else that goes with it. It it's exciting. It's it's we're at the edge of, you know, the entertainment is fantastic. We forget to go see shows. That's the one thing that I would love to to keep to to remind myself more often is that I can be involved in a tour and not even see one of the shows because there's so many going on.

1:16:20 Not saying that the person who's who's actually handling it doesn't go to so many of the shows, like the actual business development, you know, person that's within our company. But me personally, I forget to go and you and then you go and you're like Oh my God, this is like now I went to see Harry Styles a couple of times. You know he's not he's not somebody that I would be drawn to because of my history in in music. And you know we've we've I come from a heavy metal background as you as priest all those years but you know and and Harry Styles, I went to see him in in in LA, you know it's a 45 minute drive from my house and I was like hey, isn't it? I went to see it. It was absolutely fantastic to just exceed the beat the energy we have to remind ourselves sometimes why we do this and we are lucky it's true. So privileged.

1:17:04 By the way, Speaking of Judas Priest, you know, a band that has been on their deathbed for 25 years or whatever. Their new album is unbelievable. I don't know if you've. Heard Oh my God, listen to that. I've been a Judas Priest. Fan since the very beginning. Their new album I'll tell you what Halford There's a song on there called Oh my God, What the heck is it called? I've just lost it. I'll I'll Remember in a. Minute I'm going to, it's the first thing I'm going to do. Trust me, whether the first thing I'm doing when I get in my car is I'm just. There is a song on there. I'm going to tell you what the song is called because it's. It's. His voice, he's singing better than he has in 25 years.

1:17:45 I'm telling you right now, he is unbelievable on this album, The Serpent. And the king. The Serpent and the. King, it's called I Want to Hang On. Here we go. I'm sure YouTube's going to take this down for me putting this up, but hang on you. Got to hear his voice. You got to hear his voice. Look at this. Hang on, hang on. When his voice comes in, this phone sounds pretty good on here. Exactly the time. Sounds like the Sentinel, yeah? 74 years old. This voice was unreal on this. Album. We could do a podcast called Mickey Kirvishly and Judas Priest because I I did probably 5 tours with Judas Priest from about 85 onwards.

1:18:38 And when they were the biggest rock band in the world, you know, we were doing 2-3 nights at Madrid Square Garden, We were, we were doing every ABC market. And that was the time that it was really was like being a pirate, being a roadie was like because what would happen was we would be, we would be. Every time we went to a city, they were, they had been waiting for months for Judas Priest to show up all the kids, you know, and I was a kid. I was 1718 years old. So, you know, if I did it now and there'd be no connection over there. But we were all the same age. So we would go to a town and we were all in our teens and everybody was waiting to see us and they were the they were just the greatest rock band on the. They were amazing. So I got to tell you a funny story. So I was probably 17, maybe 18, long hair, probably wearing leather pants or something and a Jean jacket. And I went to see Judas Priest with a couple of my friends in Calgary.

1:19:35 And so this would have been 8384 probably. You were maybe on that tour? I would have been there. I would have been there. So. Yeah, you know I was naive as hell. I was a huge Judas Priest fan. But I was naive as hell. And I don't remember how, but we got invited backstage. I I was friends with. I don't know if you knew Bear from Brimstone Productions. He was he was the local promoter in Calgary for a number of years. But anyways, I I don't remember how, but I I got invited backstage and. And so we go into the first room in the after show thing, right? And there was no drinks or no anything. You were just standing around with a crowd of useless people with these, you know, sticky passes on. And then me and a couple of my friends and a few other people got invited into the next room.

1:20:24 And now I'm looking around going, it's all dudes in here, like all the girls are gone now what's going on? And I had no idea at the time, Believe it or not, I swear to God, I did not know that Halford was gay. I was being selected. I was one of the guys at the time. Again, you know, long hair, really tight leather pants, you know, the whole thing. I'm being selected to to be introduced to Rob Alford. And so finally I'm getting, I'm now part of like four people who's being selected to go in and meet Mr. Halford. And I went, I got to go and I left with my friends. I was out of there. That was it. I was done. Yeah, I remember.

1:21:06 I remember the first time, the first time I ever went into their dressing room after a show and to do something I can't remember. Then they were all sitting there with their Leathers around their waist. They'd just come off and they they'd taken their Leathers off. They couldn't didn't have the energy to get them past their waist because they were so tight or their leather outfits. And they were sitting back and they were totally exhausted and they were listening to Diana Ross. Ain't no Mountain High enough. It was on by that and it was like they were and they were just like the the opposite to what you would eat you would expect. So then they're literally just having a cup of tea, a cup of tea and a biscuit, listening to Diana Ross and like it was, you know, other than Rob, it was a a lot of it was a was the shower.

1:21:48 It was a you know, it was my dad. It was my dad that came up with the idea of the costumes. He was he really why don't you? They were looking for something And he he'd Mad Max had just come out and he was like, he was like you know why don't we, why don't you dress like they they they got the steals from Mad Max and that's where they took a lot of the ideas from and stuff like that to go but. You know, Mickey, it's funny when you look backwards, it's kind of like dough, you know? Because, you know, it's almost like they were taking the piss because he was dressed like that whole cruising thing, you know, with the chaps and the. And the hat. And he had the whip. He'd come out with the whip. And every day. None of us knew that. There we go. Nobody knew it was gay, right? I mean, I got so funny.

1:22:30 I want to tell you a very quick. I'll tell you a great, a great Judas Priest story. Please. So what? What my job used to be at one point during the show is I would lift the staircase up. It was it was a, a, a, a. We would cover the floor in dry ice and I would lift this staircase up because we didn't have any hydraulics. I would lift it up by hand and I would clip it off. And at the back of the stage we would have two flight cases and we'd have a Harley-Davidson on the flight case, on the flight case with two ramps. And we would put Rob on the on the on the Harley-Davidson on these two flight cases. And we would shove him and he would go down the two ramps and come under the staircase onto the stage through the dry ice during hell bent for leather.

1:23:11 And the band will be like hell bent, hell bent for leather. And he would glide across through the dry ice and the smoke would be low and he would just stop in the front anyway. It didn't always happen that way. So one night I lifted that, I lifted the staircase, but I didn't lift it high enough. And as he went under, it hit him on the head and the bike. The bike went flying out into the orchestra pit and he, unconscious, disappeared into the dry ice. Oh my. God, it was me and MC Double and and Pete Rowe and a few people were on the side of the stage like we'd seen like. And of course it's my fault. I haven't lifted the thing.

1:23:51 Oh no. And the band are playing hell, but forever so. And the bike goes flying past them with nobody on it into the orchestra pit. And we literally had to wait for the dry ice to subside before we could see him. We didn't know where he was even. And then the first thing we saw was these, these big silver boots appeared. Like first we'd see that as the dry ice window. We see the tips of these big silver boots. So we knew where to find, where to look for. And then they would just go and they just went and dragged him off in through the ice, like their unconscious head all cut open. But there was always a story like that. Every night there was a Judas Priest. You know Mickey, I think I read his book and I think that story is in his book because as you started telling it, I'm like, I heard this before and I'm positive it's in his book. And his book, by the way, was shocking. His it's it's shocking because it's a great book from a music standpoint and just knowing the whole story and stuff. But he gets really graphic on the gay stuff. You know like to to understand you know that they were stopping the tour bus at truck stops so that he could go in and get some action in a truck stop.

1:24:59 You know stuff like that and very graphic. You know he didn't he didn't hold anything back which you know God bless him he's he's he's he's telling the truth now. But it it got you know I'm not. I'm not. I would still like to read. I would still read that book. I would I. Oh, it was great. I'm glad I read. Part of my life that was that was my youth. That was that was his. And I would, I would come back from those tours and me and Jim Lawford and a few of the other guys, we would go, we would do Antiques Roadshow for like 2 months just to stop shaking. Yeah, after being on the road with Judas Priest for six months, we would go and sit in a car park and we would light some vases and some bowls of, you know.

1:25:41 And just the energy behind their music, right? Yeah, just to get just a break, yeah. Well, I don't know if you follow, I don't know if you follow Cosmo on social media, but he's putting every day. He's putting really great pictures up of the current show that's out there in. I think they were in Birmingham last night or something, but that would have been. Huge, yeah. It it looks amazing. The show looks and I'll tell you what again, like, God bless Rob Halford. That guy sounds better right now. Like I I remember I saw them maybe 15 years ago. I I saw him again recently, but I saw him about 15 years ago and I said, yeah, they're done. Halford, you know, he was walking with a cane and he just was sort of faking it, right? And right now, I mean, he is sounding like he's 25 years old. It's unbelievable how good he sounds. It's crazy.

1:26:33 I keep promising that I'll see them and I don't want to, I don't want to get, you know, get to the end of them, get to the end of their career, I mean, not see them again because yeah, you know, that was such a big part. They're pulling it off. I'll tell you what, yeah, Amazing. And Tipton. Tipton I guess, came out and played. I don't know if the whole night or half the night or something in Birmingham Cosmo was saying so. He was an amazing man and just one of the most wonderful. You know when you when you as a kid when you start working with a band like that you you it, you know you then go on to work. I worked with Elton John over periods over the same sort of period and and Eric Clapton obviously and stuff like that and what it did for me was working with them. It made me.

1:27:16 I just assumed that everybody I worked with was like that, Like they would just sit with you whenever they would sit at your table in the in catering and all that. And I think it just changed the way I was with with artists and with things because I think sometimes we put them on a pedestal and we don't, you know, we don't like to approach them in the, you know, you know, you know, sure, if you're working with Michael Jackson or someone like that, you're not going to go sit with him. But but just about everybody else, you know it. You know, during my career I was so lucky that, you know, everyone I worked with was weird. The crew and everybody had relationships with. We were. We were in it together. It makes such a difference, you know, like when you've got a a Madonna or a Prince was a weird one. Like I remember I did something one time with Prince where it was a club and it was like 2 days before the opening night of the club.

1:28:05 It was in Miami and it was right after he changed his name to the symbol. And so I went to lunch one day with him, the lighting guy and the, I think his manager or his tour manager or something. And right before we went for lunch, I asked the the tour manager, I said, hey, what? Just before we go to lunch, what do I call him? And he says you don't. And I said, well, what if we're having a conversation and I want to say hey Prince, you know, blah blah, blah. And he says, no, don't do that. And I'm like, well, so how do you address him? No, don't, don't. I'm like, well, this is just. Fucking weird, you know? Like this is stupid, you know? The first time I met him, you know, the first time I met him, first time I met him, he's, he held his hand out like this and I told me to kiss his hand like that.

1:28:52 He literally held it out like that. And I and I just went and walked off and I just got, you know, like and I was with great feeling games. And when I looked over like a few minutes later, he was still standing there. He was talking to somebody. He still had his hand out like that. I was going to kiss you better kiss my hand. Yeah, that was like that. Was like the only time I had nearly met Prince. Yeah. Oh my God. So you know, one other question I wanted to ask you around this whole sustainability and shipping and all that stuff. I know I can't keep you all day, so I'll let you go here soon. But I wanted to talk to you about this one. Do you get involved in in geopolitics at all, Like in just understanding, you know, from a standpoint of moving a tour outside of North America, moving around the world, Like, you know, all this stuff with the Hootie Rebels and and Suez Canal and stuff.

1:29:36 It has, it has caused so many freight problems, obviously, especially in the region. But even just, you know, ships coming over from China, you know, it's caused problems there as well. And I talked to Wiseman about this as well, 'cause I think some people think you can just switch from shipping on the sea to shipping by air. But I don't remember the numbers. But you can fit like I forget how many containers in a 747 and like 100 and something times that many containers on a ship. Yeah, if you think about it, it's a what we're dealing with is 40 foot containers generally and you can get a lot of stuff in AC container and it's going to cost you 15 grand, you know whereas you know it could cost you 250,000 to air freight or three or four or 500,000. Depending on, yeah, there's.

1:30:22 There's less cost. It certainly has an impact. Yes. There's there's so much certainly has an impact. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, have you had to worry about that with any of your tours that are out in different parts of the world or anything Like is that, does that show up on your desk at all or no? It it's been in conversations but it's generally what's happening now is the you know one of the things that we are facing I guess is that the the revenue that's been generated from from shows is so vast. It's so you know if you look we all read Polestar and we all we all look at the you know the the the the the you know just the if you're just looking at ticket revenue for a lot of acts you know you know multiple $1,000,000 every night.

1:31:05 So I don't know I'm not a promoter and I don't know for sure but I would imagine that's got that's impacting the fact that that the the festivals are struggling to find headline acts because the headline act you used to get paid a couple of $1,000,000 to the festival and you'd be like this is fantastic it's easy and all that but really they're generating so much money from their own shows now that couple of $1,000,000 is is their is their merchandise cake on a on a normal night so so So what we're finding is that yes I think it would have affected us a lot more because what would happen was if you're going to Israel for instance everything you know that that's going on there you would you would that obviously you'd there's there's a much bigger conversation around that But if you were just using it as an example of of sending stuff you would put it on a boat the artist would take a week off and you would go do shows in that region.

1:31:53 Now they make so much money they can just fly everything in to do a show and fly everything back out again and So what we're finding is there's an issue with there's no downtime anymore which is a big thing So there's a lot of conversations recently at the ILMC about about the the well-being of crew and about the you know their when I was a roadie what would happen. Is you. Yeah. It was like you would go away. It was like you would join the circus. You would go away for a couple of months, you would come home for a month and then you'd go away again and you'd make enough money to come home and not have to work for the time you were home. That was the game. That was all it was about. Now I've no crew that I've not had a day off for two years because they can fly the stuff directly.

1:32:34 They can, they can jam everything in. So I I I would hope that for people's well-being maybe it will. Maybe these these global effect effect the events that are going on, just slowing things down, maybe will slow down the actual touring cycle and allow people to have some some breathing time and some home. Time. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that would be, that would be amazing, wouldn't it? So, you know, anything, anything else, anything that we've missed, anything, you know, big you see happening this year. Any crazy predictions? Just looking at my board, I wrote a bunch of stuff down there, but I think covered it all. No, like I say I know we just went through the International Women's Day and I would tip my hat to to the way you know I went to the the TPI awards in the UK recently and you know you know as an example of the impact that the that the women are making in our industry.

1:33:33 I think half of the awards went to females in the TPI awards and in you know to to you know monitor engineers, audio engineers. I don't you know, I don't know them by name because I haven't toured for so long. But to me that was something that really stood out to me was you know my wife Joe. Joe Little was a we met while she was a production. She was one of those early female production managers production startup of the production system and you know there wasn't that many females in the industry at that point. But now it really that that's something that I at. Every level, too, like lighting. Text attention to yeah. Lighting, text, sound, texts. Rigor The rigor of the the rigour of the year was a was a girl you know and that's not being funny because it's like it's like you know why not but also it was it was to me it was just like a revelation and I you know I really I've I've been lucky enough to work with so many great females.

1:34:28 Joe McKay Yvonne from that that's now you know very prominent at PRG you know and and you know I'm surround myself with there's a lot of of of females here at solar tech that I work with. Yeah have done a great job. So yeah that was one thing I wanted to make sure that I acknowledge. Yeah, well, I mean, and there's some really great female designers sooner and others who. Was like sooner was, yeah, you can carry on, but sooner. She just changed everything, didn't she? She was so such a. She's such a beautiful woman, such a beautiful person. And she did so much for for for that. But yeah, but the. Thing is, Mickey, I think we're now getting to the point, and I actually talked about this last week. I had Miriam from from LDI on the podcast last week and she's I think we're getting or we've gotten to the point now where sooner is a great LD, not a great female LD, she's a great LD. You know whoever that was is a great rigger not a great female rigger.

1:35:27 Like you don't really have to differentiate or or discuss their their gender as much because they're just great, you know, and and and that's a good thing. That means that that you know that line has been crossed and it it doesn't really matter anymore, you know? It's gone now yeah that that was that's I think that's the point that we that we you know need to as I said that that's you know we've got to continue to to make sure that you know that we that we support each other and everything and and the two I think that the one thing as well that that does concern me is the well-being of crew on the road. I think that we during COVID, we had a lot of when we COVID cleared and we had all these conversations about you know how we were going to be different and this and that. I would question whether we've improved or got worse. It's gotten.

1:36:12 Worse. Better. Yeah. I mean. I don't think that, yeah, and I think that's a problem. Yeah, I agree. But that's a tough one to fix because it's it's a compounded problem with the fact that we have less crew available now. So we're already short on people. Every tour, every company, every shop is short on people. A lot of the people coming in are new, which means that the people who are are more veteran have to carry a bit more weight. They've got to train the new people plus do their own job. I just think that there's there's a lot of reasons that that's probably not going to get better anytime soon unless people just do less and smaller shows and that ain't going to happen. So, you know, there's too much of A financial engine behind this whole thing right now to where we got to just find a way to keep up, right? Yeah, I think that that you just made me think about something about me.

1:37:02 My how did I get started? I was a 16 year old guy cutting gel at Tasco in the back room and and I went to do a load in for for Elton John at Bray Studios with Steve Arch and all these legendary people and they just said let's just keep him have another guy, you know, in those days, you know, having another guy on the road, it wasn't that big a deal. You know the buses had 12 bunks and and it was they were going to pay me $100 a day if that including per diem and everything. So nowadays you know you put an extra person on the road it changes everything. It's so every it's just so you're not getting that entry level you know. You know I I just a quick story about Madonna years ago. I had a call from from the production manager from Madonna years ago and and he said look we're in real trouble with with our follow up operators everywhere we go we can't get consistency.

1:37:56 It's a mess. Can you send me four of your warehouse people to tour just to do the follow spots And we did and we sent them four people from the warehouse and they all ended up being Rd. guys. You know one of them ended up Harry ended up being being one of the best crew chiefs we ever had you know and he and he just he was coming up and sweeping the floor in the warehouse and he went out and he ended up too managing you know multiple shows himself. So that those opportunities we need to maybe that somewhere we where we should focus getting those opportunities. Together. Yeah. And sometimes it's just education. It's just, you know, like Sooner was the one who told me this on on the podcast, she said. You know that the problem is so many people still see us as an industry of gypsies and there's no money in it. And you're going to go on the road and live this crazy gypsy lifestyle and you're not going to make any money. And it's not a career and it's just a way to have fun and meet girls.

1:38:51 But that's not really true anymore. Maybe that was true at one point, you know, when you started, but today you know a person can make $100,000 a year, you know, in their first couple of years touring and and see the world and have a really great gig and learn some really cool stuff and meet some amazing people and it can become a very good career. Maybe if we made it easier for them to get a mortgage and things like that, that might help, because sometimes that's part of it as well. People are like, I can't even get a a mortgage because I haven't got the thing. Maybe that's something that we could. Work on? I don't know. Well, anyway. I'm. Talking about it, paying attention to people's mental health, having resources available, having one of the sponsors of today's podcast was the essay, The Entertainment Safety Alliance.

1:39:42 You know, having organizations like that who are looking at not just the safety of the gear and the safety of the setup and rigging and all of those things, but also mental health. Looking at at, you know, how people are being treated or how people feel or whatever. It's important, you know, it's important to pay attention to these things, so. Yeah, yeah. Keep the conversation going. Mickey, I appreciate you and congratulations on all your incredible success and I'm glad California has been so good to you. You look amazing and I hope to see you in real person one of these days as opposed to constantly on Zoom and frigging podcasts and stuff, but.

1:40:23 Let me know when you're passing through. I'm around. I'm in LA just to show you. Yeah, I was just out there recently and had no time at all. I had to go for a board meeting and I was in and out in a couple of days but. I'll show you the new rehearsals, mates. We have a we have a two. We have two rehearsal spaces here in the middle of Hollywood that that I'll show you. Oh really? How big are they? Big news. They're about one's 8000 square feet and one is 5000 square feet. How? How? Tall. You know it's big. 30 foot, OK. So you could be. They're they're couple rehearsal spaces. Yeah. Oh yeah. We've got Peso Peso Pluma coming in next week. Justin Timberlake's here at the moment rehearsing or doing.

1:41:06 He's actually doing a shoot in there, film shoot, but then you've got peso Plumo here for a few weeks. I think Jlo is going to come in when she does her. Interesting Steve Dixon. That's a big thing right now, huh? Like everyone, everyone's telling me that, like, I had Creech on a few weeks ago. And he said one of the biggest challenges right now is finding space to rehearse because every venue is full constantly. Yeah, yeah. So. Cool. Cool. All right my friend. Really. I've really loved it. I've really lovely talking to you as always. And thank you for having me on. Perfect. Thank you.

1:41:53 Yeah.