#240 - David Haskell from Gateway Studios

0:00 Thank you for joining me today for Geysers of Gear episode number 240. This podcast is brought to you today by Ultimate Support Systems. This stand right here, this boom arm is from Ultimate Support and it's amazing. I do love it and I'm not just saying that because they sponsor us. Do you rely on iPads or other tablet devices for your podcast, performances, studio work, or presentations? The new UTH100, which I also own from Ultimate Support, uses a dual approach design to reliably support a wide variety of current gen tablets. The included mic stand clamp allows this sturdy support design to easily attach common tablet models to mic stands for on stage and in studio use. Thanks to the unique support arms that flex to cradle your tablet, this device can be used with large tablets like the iPad Pro range of tablets. The wide range of movement available to the arms allows them to be adjusted for a variety of scenarios, support your investment with a design you can trust.

1:12 Learn more about the UTH100 from Ultimate Support at www .ultimatesupport .com. This episode is also brought to you by Gearsource. Gearsource was founded in 2002 with a mission to help global events, businesses to move gear around the planet. Since that time, the company has transacted in more than 100 countries and has sold a quarter billion dollars in sound lighting, staging, and video gear. Now, Gearsource has completely evolved its platform for massive global growth, enabling 14 different localized currencies, payments held in escrow to protect buyers and sellers, AI -powered logistics behind a new global logistics brand gear moves, and so much more. Visit Gearsource .com today and expand your access to global markets for your gear and global gear for your markets.

2:25 Yeah. Well, hello and welcome back to episode number 240. They're moving along now, moving, moving, moving along. And we almost lost one. So this could have actually been 239, but last night, miraculously, in combination between my software company, tech team, and myself, and my own ingenuity and stubbornness, I guess it comes down to, I was able to save the Glenn Rogerman from AED podcast. It's been my life's mission for the last week or so. I'm recording this the same day I was able to launch it. So I launched it last night and it was funny because I woke up this morning and there were already like 100 downloads of it or something. So just on Spotify, so that's in addition to whatever I haven't looked at YouTube yet, or Apple Music, or any of those things. But yeah, I mean, it was incredible because it was corrupt. Like that file was as bad as I've ever run into on my podcast and I've lost a couple. But this one we refused to lose and we were able to save it. So it's good because it's actually a pretty good discussion between him and I that happened about a week ago. So

3:58 what else is going on? I must have been stuck in the dark ages because I didn't realize that there was another residency going into the sphere. And that I think starts in the next couple of days, maybe even today. But it's fish and they're doing I think just four nights, I believe. And you know, I'm probably a little bit ignorant to the whole fish thing. I never caught on. It never got me, I guess. And so I couldn't tell you the name of any of their songs. I just remember their guys name is Anastasia, I think the singer. But you know, I know that fish has that whole vibe, the whole sort of stoner vibe about them, sort of like Grateful Dead, but from the 2000s or whatever. And so I just envision this bunch of really wasted fish fans, you know, dancing around in colorful clothes and mesmerized by the world's biggest TV screen in front of them. I mean, what a perfect, you know, other than Pink Floyd, I probably don't know of many more perfect bands than Fish or Grateful Dead, as far as being like really super visual and really lending themselves well to having, you know, the biggest indoor, you know, display in the world, the world's biggest television. So I think that'll be really

5:29 cool. Also, I think Abby Rosenholmes designed it or is designing it. I think it'll be spectacular, not only from a technology standpoint, because of the sphere, etc. But I think also just from a design, and I'm sure some of the creative is going to also be mind blowing. So I won't be there, but I am looking forward to not only people who are listening to this who might be going to that show, I know a few crazed fish fans, one that comes to mind is Troy Dockery. I remember Troy used to travel all over the country to go see fish multiple times. He'd go for a week and see four fish shows in a week or whatever. I know a few of those people and again, I'm just not one of them. But I look forward to seeing video and pictures and stuff. And I also wanted to stick with this sort of AI discussion series that I've been doing over the past probably a couple of months. But this morning, during my walk, I walk about four miles every morning. And this morning, I tripped over a recent, I think, just yesterday, it came out, Tucker Carlson interview with Mike Rowe.

6:40 And I know a lot of people are going to cringe and roll your eyes because I just said Tucker Carlson, sorry, it's like a dirty word, I know. But I happen to like his interviewing style. And I don't care about his politics, of course, but I just think he's a smart guy and he does a pretty good interview. But Mike Rowe's a cool guy, the dirty jobs guy, Mike Rowe. But they talked about AI. And it made a lot of sense, like, Mike Rowe basically said he sees AI helping people to become much more well rounded. He thinks that that's the modern sort of blue collar worker is now wearing a bit of a white collar. And, you know, plumbers who study poetry, or marketing, or finance, and philosophers knowing how to change their own oil in their car or whatever. Really, AI, as we've discussed recently, supporting humans versus replacing us was pretty much the discussion.

7:42 But it's worth listening to. It's a pretty good discussion. It didn't get political. And they didn't even complain about the president or anything. So go ahead and listen if you're interested. One of the news stories I saw yesterday, I think, was Google cutting finance people and reinvesting that money into AI investments instead. So people might be going, ah, that's it. That's the evil that we were looking for. You know, they're getting rid of humans and replacing them with AI. That's not the story. The story is they're shifting investments and hiring more AI people as opposed to finance people. And so they're not getting rid of finance people and putting computers in their places. They're so it's a shift, not a net loss of jobs is what I would say. And probably I would guess that AI people are going to make more money than finance people. So probably it's a net gain if you look at wages or whatever you want to, whatever direction you want to go with that. This one's interesting and kind of scary. The CEO of an AI company called Anthropic says that by next year, AI models could be able to replicate and survive in the wild, meaning that not sentient, because sentient is the one that everybody's worried about, where basically AI

9:15 can think and feel and have emotions and make decisions based on that. This is more about just AI adapting to what's going on around it and not only surviving, but replicating itself, creating more AI. And so that one, his prediction that that's going to happen by next year has some people going, huh, you know, raising some eyebrows and stuff. That's a crazy and interesting one. And as far as cool apps, one of the ones that I've tripped over recently is, and I'm not going to use names because I'm not supporting, they're not supporting me and I'm not sponsoring, they're not sponsoring me, but it's a reading app that allows you to, and there's a bunch of them out there, but it allows you to basically read a summarized book in minutes. And so it's not like a book summary thing, club or something like that.

10:11 Basically, you can input a book into it and it'll read it in a few minutes and give you the important bits and take out all the fluff. And you know, that's a really interesting one to me. I forget which podcaster it's Shetty, J Shetty has this whole speed reading method that I have adopted somewhat. I haven't perfected it, but basically it allows him to read, I think, a book a day or something when he was in the, becoming a monk or whatever. He's reading a book a day. I can't do that. I mean, but I can definitely read faster. And basically it's reading the first and last line of a paragraph and skipping everything in between. And the stuff in between is just color. The facts all happen in the first line or the last line of a paragraph. So, you know, I already do a bit of that, but I think AI probably winds that up even a lot better than that and does a pretty good job of it. So moving on to today, episode number 240. So David Haskell has been on Giz of Gear twice and this will be his third time today. So the first time was back sort of in the old world, let's call it, which is pre -pandemic. And that was in May of 2019 on episode number 17. And then again in 2021, he came on in his new gig on episode number 138 where him and his sort of co -management team at Gateway came on. That was a really interesting one when they announced

11:43 sort of the whole Gateway thing and what they were doing there. And we talked about that. You can find both of those, of course, on Giz of Gear .com. You can just put in the episode number 17 or 138. That'll give you a lot of David Haskell's background. I don't like to go into that again when they've been on the podcast before, oh, so where were you born? Where did you go to school? What did you do first? Who was your first job? Who was your first tour? I love doing that with people who've never been on the podcast, but if you've been on it, we're not going to cover that again. So David has been in the industry more than 40 years. He was president at Morris Sound and Light for quite some time before Solotek acquired Morris. I think that was in 2021, I believe. And David is now the president of business development at Gateway Studios and Production Services or GSPS.

12:34 Gateway Studios and Production Services offer turnkey production service solutions for the live music touring, motion picture, television, and corporate event industries. Gateway Studios scheduled to open this year with more than 300 ,000 square feet. Gateway will be the largest and most technologically advanced facility of its kind in the U .S. David is also a lover of animals and supports the St. Thomas Humane Society. And I like David. I think he's a very cool dude and I'm looking forward to catching up with him. So here we go. Hello there, David. Hello, Marcel. What's going on, man? Hey, man. It's been hanging on a fabulous Thursday. How about yourself? It's been a wacky three years since last time I spoke to you on this podcast with your co -contributors. Three years? 2021, yeah. I think so. Wow. Okay. Time has gone a little fast when you're old. A little too quick for both of us right now, I think.

13:39 You know, that's the thing. I've got a big birthday this year and I ain't looking forward to it. I'm hiding from it. What are you hitting? 60. I got you by a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just, I don't think I ever thought I was going to turn 60. Not saying that I was going to die before 60, but I just thought I could keep kicking that can down the road, you know, but all of a sudden there's the can. What's the line? If I knew I was going to live this long and have taken better care of myself. No shit, right? That's our previous conversation. That's all of us though. That's literally all of us. Like I, you know, I kind of hate going to trade shows these days in one sense because I love seeing all my friends, but I'm seeing people that I'm looking at them going, God damn it, you need to get yourself in better shape, buddy. You know, because yeah, it's like we're at that age now where it really is starting to matter. You know, your health is your wealth is what the wise man once told me. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, Wiseman told me that. No. Yeah. John Wiseman told me that. He had a scare like last year. Some, I don't remember if it was prostate cancer, but he ended up getting like some crazy cutting edge robotic surgery and it knocked it right out of him. He's not good for him. He's cancer free, but yeah. Yeah.

15:05 I mean, Wiseman in his case, it's I think he's been well pickled. Yeah. I've been well pickled with him a couple of times probably through the years. Like we all have. He certainly tried to try to destroy himself, but didn't manage to succeed fortunately because I happen to like him. Yeah, that's the thing. I like all of these guys, all of you guys, all of us, like it's such a great community, but unfortunately people are dropping, you know, our good buddy Cosmo. Like I don't know anybody with more friends than Cosmo. Oh my God. Yeah. But the downside of that is he's always posting on Facebook, you know, obituaries basically. Yeah.

15:49 Well, he's, you know, he's, he's, he's cataloging a lot of things, you know, who knows for, for reasons, you know, down the future. Maybe, maybe one day if anybody, he would be the ultimate guy to write a book, you know, you didn't know he's right. Yeah. Well, I, okay. Yeah. No, he's been doing that for a few years now. So yeah, that'll be, that'll be fun when it comes out. He'll have some stories, but you know, in classic Cosmo, like I'd almost rather, you know, preach, write a book because he's going to rip on everybody. Absolutely. Whereas Cosmo only write the good things. He won't write any of the bad things. He's, he's just that kind of a gentle, gentle giant of a guy, you know. Yeah.

16:37 Cosmo's still involved with you guys, right? Oh, 100%. Yeah. He does business development with us. You know, when he's, when he's, when he's around, but he's been a, he's a working machine, man. He just got back from three months over there with Judas Priest and he's leaving next week to go start ACDC over there. So I think he's, and Nero Smith is fitting in there somewhere, you know, it's, that guy is the God of his, his luck and as far as timing and scheduling goes, like it's literally, and it's works for him. Thank goodness. It is bizarre, man. Like he's got three massive bands that are all in their seventies and a big rush to get out and tour before they're too old to do it. And they're somehow fitting together, you know, which is incredible. So good for him. Yeah. Yeah. Good on him for sure. Yeah. So I got so many things to talk to you about. Well, ask you about really more than talk to you about, because, you know, for one, you, you started a production company in the most nutty time that our industry has ever seen, except maybe the year before that, you know, but I mean, just complete batshit mayhem and you guys start a company. And I remember, I went and visited you guys pretty early on in, in your existence, in your temporary facilities. And you had like all brand new inventory. I've never seen a shop like that before, but like literally things were being

18:09 peeled out of plastic and put into road cases and, you know, unwrapped. I think the cable, the cable rubber is still off gassing in there. It was unreal. I'd never seen that much new equipment in any one place, except maybe a trade show, but, you know, I've never seen it like, and I didn't realize it until I was there walking around. I was going, everything's new. Like brand new, like a month ago new. And so yeah, it was an interesting time to do that. You know, it's a lot of people, this whole company, you know, Gateway, I refer to as the company, it came, it was kind of, you know, it sounds, not to sound cliche, but we were literally born out of pandemic, you know, the four of the partners that were there. Instead of sitting around going, oh my God, what are we going to do, you know, through the help of our owner? And we all said, well, let's do this. So during the pandemic, it was, it was a good time, A, to focus on what we were doing and B, it was at such a low time in the industry for both people as we all know, but also for manufacturers, Marcel. So being able to, you know, have the luxury and the affordability of you well through the owner, to be able to go to our partners, you know, the Robies, Tyler Trust, when everybody's just going, holy shit, what are we going to do? We're sitting here going, what do you have? We'll take it all, you know, which in some stances,

19:40 that, you know, it helps kicks people back up into manufacturing. To even say you had a small part in something like that is the most gratifying thing. You guys launching a business literally, you know, helped probably, I wouldn't say helped keep some manufacturers in business, but it certainly, you know, fed the well a little bit, you know, or a lot in some cases. I remember one story and I won't mention exact names or anything, but I got a call from one manufacturer slash distributor who said those MFers over at Gateway bastards. And I said, what, you don't like them? And he goes, no, I love those guys. And I said, well, what's wrong?

20:22 And he said, they just ordered 4 ,000 clamps from me, which means they bought 2 ,000 moving lights from somebody else. And yeah, oh, yeah, I got a feeling. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I know, I know who you bought them from. And I know the other guy is and it was just a funny, it was a funny story because he was he was so pissed off that he didn't get the lighting order, but happy for the clamp order, of course, right? And he did okay. Let's face it. It all trickle. It all trickles down, you know, it really does. And, you know, building it at that time. Also, you know, when you're building something from scratch, it's daunting as it's like, holy shit, you know, we don't even have any rack screws in here, you know, it's building something from a concrete floor, you know, but it also gives you the ability to take your different disciplines and marry them together with like departments, cables, distros, as you all know, you know, we've all been there either through acquisition or just time, you know, oh, I've got this distro. Well, shit, it doesn't work with this particular discipline or this doesn't mean and actually having the ability to go through and do those sort of things, you know, from the ground up is, you know, scares scares the shit out of you in one aspect, but it gives you it's really nice to have all of your disciplines looking proper. Yeah, but do moving lights still ship without plugs on them? Depends on the artist. Yeah, everything now is, you know, most of it's, you know, true one, can they

21:53 thank God we have those, but yeah, a lot of them is like it's an it's an option. No, but I was just wondering, like even just getting in thousands of moving lights and having to put plugs on all of them before you could rent them all like that's a project, you know, everything about it, like it's inventory control or just getting your, you know, the inventory set up to the bar coding and, you know, things like that, we were really, you know, fortunate to we were able to go RFID on almost everything because, you know, because everybody in the shop loves to scan gear in and out not, you know, so at least they've got these little crazy ones now that they can just kind of wave their hand over a bit and go, yeah, there's 53 pieces of DMX in that box or, you know, that type of stuff. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, efficiency. But the thing is, like, you guys were in a position to look either like complete assholes or geniuses and in the end, I think it worked out in your favor because you were spending a lot of someone else's money, obviously, and convincing him to spend to write those checks and oh my god, it worked out, you know, well, and in also you saved him a lot of money because if you would have waited six months to buy that stuff when everything was backordered and you couldn't have got those 2000 fixtures that we were just talking about and got another gear. Yeah.

23:17 Yeah, and that's just starting to catch up now, you know, as you well know, you know, but it's like, you know, hopefully everybody's getting back on their feet and, you know, lead times are getting less and less, which I'm seeing that, which is, you know, it's good for growth. Yeah, some things. I mean, as you probably know, MA consoles are a year out or whatever. Digico, some of the Digico stuff, some of the DNB stuff, some of the El Acoustic stuff. I mean, just a lot of the hottest gear outside of moving lights is still really long lead times. Yeah, I mean, things that you would think is like, oh, well, they've got that. Well, we're waiting on this specific chip for all this, you know, it's kind of like the car business was like, we've got all this stuff sitting here, but we don't have the flux capacitor. Yeah, you know, Dave, what has shifted now, because that was sort of the early problem. Most recently, most of the people I talked to anyways, it's more of a capacity problem now than demand and they ran but manufacturing fast enough to fill the demand. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I talked with the CEO of Digico recently and, you know, he told me, like, we don't have supply chain problems anymore. It's just we have capacity problems because our demand has gotten so big. And, you know, at what point do you look at your factory and go, we need to double the size, you know, because it's not going. Is it going to keep going? We

24:49 don't know. I mean, I've shifted my views on that too, to where I do think this is a sustainable growth pattern that we're in right now. Like I didn't for the longest time, I kept saying, you know, the wheels are going to come off this thing and we're going to kind of go back down and flatten out again. But I don't know, man, the appetite for live music, as you know, is just insane right now. It's huge, you know, and, you know, everyone want to go out and the buildings are having the same struggles like, holy shit, capacity, supply, demand. There's only so many places that, you know, they can route in and, you know, with pro sports being as they are, you know, the inventory on the venues are, you know, it's, I don't know that it's an issue, but it's definitely a concern. Well, I hear it is an issue.

25:37 Yeah, you know, I was talking to a promoter the other day and, you know, that's one of the power moves that's happening right now is where, you know, Live Nation obviously is making their power moves on venues, but smaller promoters are just getting squeezed to a point where, you know, it's either an Indian tribe that owns the local market or it's Live Nation or it's someone else, but the smaller independent promoters are really struggling to hang onto venues right now because... Yeah, no question. There's gold in them, their buildings, you know? Yeah. I was just talking with somebody within, maybe it was yesterday or something, one of the pot, oh yeah, it was, it was yesterday. And we were talking about basically with the move to stadiums now for all of the large shows, again, just to hit the demand or try to hit the demand. I don't think that's going away now either. Like it seems like there's 75 ,000 people that want to see, you know, Elton John or whoever. I mean, it doesn't even have to be the A list. It could be the A minus or B plus list right now too, or getting those stadium gigs. And how they package them too, you know? Exactly.

26:53 You know, like the Guns N' Roses, Depp Lepper, Steve Miller, blah, blah, blah, you know, add your three acts below. That's, you know, that's a promoter's dream and the support acts dream because they don't have to carry all the gear. No kidding. Yeah. But you know, we were talking about sort of how it's repurposing these stadiums to where, you know, stadiums might have NFL games or soccer games or whatever, you know, whatever, 25 times a year, 30 times a year. But concerts are so much more, they have the ability to really keep those stadiums busy a lot more. So now we're going to see not only more stadiums being built, but the stadiums being designed to sound better because let's face it, they sound like crap, you know. Nashville is a good, you know, is a good example of the new multi -billion dot whatever.

27:50 That's, you know, the move to have it more, you know, how sexy can it be to be indoor and outdoor? You know, because then that just, you know, as we all know, weather, yeah, weather's a thing, you know. Yeah. Well, and even the ability to have like half a roof so that you could hang a rig from it, you know, you could, you could, you know, I mean, that kind of stuff is going to start being thought up because I think now we're going to be over 50 % of these arenas are going to be booked with concerts as opposed to sporting events. So, hey, you know, they're going to go where the money is, obviously. But it's an interesting topic and, you know, you see Metallica like at this stage of their career. I had Dan Brown on the podcast last week and we were talking about it at this stage of their career.

28:34 They're doing two nights in stadiums. Yep. It's, it's wild, you know, wild. If you would have told me in 1974 or 78 or something that, that Metallica was going to be doing stadiums in 2024, I would have been like, what? Yeah, talk about the, if I was going to live this long and I take a better care of myself. Exactly. Yeah. Look at the shit. Look at the stones. You know, they're outdoing it. Unreal. I think it's awesome. The funny thing is everyone is getting to that age now. You know, it's like, I just saw that, what's his name from the Almond Brothers died today, I guess. What's his name? The guitar player, Betz. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. He died today. Dickie. 80 years old, you know, but you don't think that he's 80 years old, right?

29:26 And, you know, when, when Cosmo told me, I think last year or something, Cosmo goes, Marcel, you want to feel old? And I said, what? And he said, everyone is in Aerosmith is in their 70s. And I was like, what? You got to be kidding me. Yeah. It's true. It's true. You know, so. Just goes to show you the old guys have still got it, Marcel. Yeah. They have an apple pie form, you know. Yeah. So, I mean, opening, like we said, the timing being during this, not during the pandemic, I mean, you geared up during the pandemic, but post pandemic is really when you built this business. And, you know, like the old saying, you know, building the airplane in the air, you know, while you're flying it. That's really what you did. Because you had to hit the ground running. I mean, you guys were immediately doing lots and lots of work, right? Yeah, we, we were very fortunate.

30:24 And, you know, and, you know, the, like you say, not to sound too cliche, it takes a village, you know, and the people that we had involved, we were very fortunate at the time to be able to get some, recruit some really high class and very talented people, you know, all the way down, you know, to help us build this thing and, you know, having the, having the relationships with the manufacturers for so long helps, you know, to be able to get all that gear. But it's, you know, I can't say enough about, you know, on the production services side of things, that the team that we've assembled and they're continuing to assemble, you know, we've, we're adding new people to the team all the time. And it's just, it's, it's very good, positive, organic growth. And that's kind of how, you know, the, I use the term boutique plus, you know, and everybody's like, well, hell, you're not boutique, look at the amount of shit that you own. It's just like, well, the boutique thing for us is more of a mentality of how we deal, you know, we're selling one thing, we sell customer service. And, you know, and I'm, I'm all about, you know, the bigger guys that have hundreds of accounts and that's fantastic. But we kind of built this company with one thing in mind was customer service to where, you know, people don't feel like they're a number, they feel like there's a relationship. And as you, you know, the, you know, the additive of you build the machine, but be careful, you know, instead of the machine feeding you, it starts eating you at a certain tipping point, you know, and being able to manage that level of the growth, I think is the most exciting and difficult

31:56 thing at the same time, you know, because we're, we're not planning on being, you know, to the level of some of the big guys, you know, it's just not in the cards, we don't, we don't ever plan to expand into that level. Yeah. Oh, you're not going to open 42 locations in every country and no, sir, no, sir. No, it's true. You know, that's, you know, my favorite thing in this business is strategic alliances, you know, and, and I think the more of those, and I mean, that's a whole subject onto itself of how the, you know, the, what I call the, the independence, if we will, you know, going up against, you know, the large people, Claire and those people that have just built an incredible, you know, trying to have an incredible model with everything they've done, but it's just, you know, it's the, it's the 800 pound gorilla, you know, them and there's three or four of those and who knows who knows who's going to be acquired by who in the next six months, you know, that's true. Yeah.

32:54 Well, I mean, there's one, you know, four wall, obviously, something's going on there. You know, there's definitely more deals to be done. Like there's, there's blood in the water right now, I think, and there's a lot of sort of liquid capital. There's a lot of money that's sitting that people are sitting on right now, because the markets have been so screwy and interest rates are so high and all of those things. But as that starts to sort of level off again, and we get past this crazy election that's coming up, I think that I think you're just going to see just a nutty market where manufacturers get bought by other manufacturers and a lot more rental companies rolling up and stuff. So the big will get bigger. I think you're right about that one. Yeah, I like the, I like the small aspect, you know, the boutique size. There's, there's truly a, there's truly a space for players of our size and, and, you know, the hundreds of other companies that are our size in this country. And there's a place for the big guys too. You know, it's, I think it's a guy we all have enough to work. No one's killing each other in the crossfire here. You know, we all have enough to do. I completely agree with you.

34:05 And, you know, there's, there's so much growth out there too that, you know, yeah, you don't, I mean, you do have to be big in that it's so capital intensive right now. Like you couldn't do what you guys are doing without a really strong backer and, you know, banks or whoever is continuing to support that growth. I mean, the money these days is totally different than it used to be where you could just kind of start it in your garage and then move into a little shop and then move into a slightly bigger shop. You wouldn't be able to compete doing that stuff today. To quote one of my dear friends, Mr. Ed Wannabeau, entertainment's not cheap, son. He ain't wrong. Completely true. Yep.

34:53 But, you know, any, any specific sort of learnings along the way while you, you built this thing again, during this market that just kind of had a hockey stick curve all of a sudden, like you probably thought, I would guess that you thought coming out the gate, you were going to end methodically because we're just coming out of COVID and then bam, you know. Yeah, it, it, it hits and it hit hard, you know, the beauty of this business is, you know, you can, you can try and plan as much as you think that you can, but there's always these curve balls and, you know, how do we, you know, I think the most important thing for me, what I look for is, as I refer to strategic alliances, how can we help the bigger guys, you know, and looking into second, you know, secondary markets, things that are, that require the gear that we have that's not necessarily a concert tour. I mean, there's so much of the tertiary stuff that, you know, I'm, I'm putting a lot of my focus into that as well. Of course, we all have tours and tours put a lot of gear out for a long time, but there's, you know, other things out there, you know, like the, like the professional bull riders, for instance, they're, you know, a very, very strong and solid account for us, but, you know, those guys have got 50 week a year CBS television contracts.

36:13 They're, they're on the air and they're doing the show, you know, every single week. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's not just concerts that people have such an appetite for. It's live events of every kind, whether it's sporting events or, I mean, look at Formula One, like, you know, it was my, or it's my son's birthday tomorrow and he's a big racing guy and I went to the mall. I went to the mall to look for stuff for him and like every like youth fashion store, like Hollister and American Eagle and all of those types of stores, they all have Formula One either branding or Formula One driver branding or racing, like Ford logos and stuff.

36:56 Racing is nuts in this country now. Like it's just getting huge. No, no doubt about it. And you know, the, what's happened, you know, in racing, even in, in, in, in, to reference like PBR, for instance, the, even five years ago, the, the, the consumer has gotten so educated on what's good and what their expectation is of a show, even for, you know, said, okay, they get out, they, you know, they're bucking bulls, they're riding, but now they, you know, where's the 300 moving lights and where's the gigantic video screen that's showing me the countdown clock and the replay, the banner boards and I think that's just kind of gotten everywhere. The general public, the ticket buying people, God bless them, every one, you know, that keep us all employed have gotten so much more educated. That's probably the word that I like to use of their expectations are high, you know, if they, they want to see a show that's, you know, this two trusses of lights doesn't get it anymore. No, no, they're fortunately for us. I mean, like again, going back to F1, if you look at what they did in Vegas last year, you know, massive, it was massive and like every light, every speaker on a stick, every piece of gear in Vegas, every piece of truss, every LED panel was rented and I mean, it was just completely nuts. And I know so many people both in and outside our industry and inside the racing industry as well, who just

38:29 said, this is a shit show. They're gonna, they're gonna pull the plug on this thing. And I think they re -upped for even longer, you know, because it was such a success year, of course, massive success, you know, and did they make mistakes? Absolutely. Will next year be better? Absolutely. But, but that ain't going anywhere. I mean, one of the biggest spectacles there is in one of the craziest cities there is, it makes nothing but sense, you know, logistically, is it hard to close down, you know, Las Vegas Boulevard for a couple of weeks? Sure. We all joked about that. It's like, this thing, if you were Joe Blow off the streets of, hey, I got an event and I just want to shut the strip down for two weeks. How much does that cost? I don't think there's, there's not enough PE money on earth that can even bat them back. No kidding. I mean, but shit, they did it. Kudos to them. They did it and did it well. And I had people offer me, you know, tickets, invite to a suite or whatever. You couldn't have got me to Nevada, let alone to Las Vegas. I mean, you couldn't have got me to the Western U S at that moment. I wanted nothing to do with that, you know, plus for me racing, because I've been around it for as long as I have, and I watch it very closely and I'm watching for small nuances and stuff. You can't see that while you're sitting holding a drink in the stands or whatever. You have an inside track to it per se and congrats on your son's success too. Good God. He's, thank you. He's, he's done all right. That boy's, he's doing damn

40:01 good. You should be proud. I know you are proud of him. Well, maybe you could introduce him to your boss over there and they can connect somehow, because his father's run out of money to promote a racing driver. So he needs help at this point, for sure. But now he's, he's driving amazing and he's having fun doing it. He was just in England again this past weekend racing. So yeah, he's having fun. But so when, when, so I know that, that Gateway officially opens this year, right? The studios and the new buildings and all that stuff. Fingers crossed. Yeah.

40:42 We will be. We will be this year, for sure. When do you actually move the production buildings over like the production company? Great question. We, we're actually in process of doing that. The production company is going to house just a few miles away from there. We're not going to be on site. We're actually moving in. Yeah, we're moving into a new warehouse right now or we're transitioning into it into 115 ,000 square feet, I think, from where we were closer to because the, I mean, obviously keeping them separate is good, but holy shit, the cost of that real estate in Chesterfield, Missouri, where we're building that studio is crazy, you know, crazy amount. So yeah, we're, that's already in process and we're, we're moving out of the two, the two that we were in and into, into one, getting everybody under one roof.

41:33 We're just so excited when you have disciplines that are in different buildings, although it's, as you know, it's only 50 yards away, but still a pain in the ass, especially when it's raining. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I completely understand and agree. And yeah, but that move is, we're hoping for, for May, Steve Washington, as you, as you know, Steve's been championing, championing that whole, as he's done many times with many other companies. So I'm so blessed and fortunate to have him on our team. Steve's a cool guy. Take that please. Yeah. And he's done it. Yes, he is. Yeah. I mean, you guys have an incredible amount of experience and talent and stuff. Like again, you know, you look like geniuses at this point because you, you put together this, this large group of really great leadership and people back before there was any money being made, you know, and so that's, you know, that's, that's vision and foresight and, and all of those things, which could have gone badly and certainly hasn't. So far so good. Knocking on, knocking on wood. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's super cool. So those are moving in now.

42:45 And then when do you expect for the studios to open? I think that we're, right now, we're tracking, I hate to sound so nebulous, but this year for sure, we're hoping maybe the end of Q3, first of Q, of Q4 to what we're in. But the biggest thing is there's, there's so many parts. It's not just a black box. It's like the permitting, the security, the, the kitchen, the catering, the labor staff. Yeah. You don't want to get Beyonce in there and have a bad experience, you know, as your first client or something, right? No, we're going to totally, yeah, we're definitely going to run the traps and, you know, have people in there before, you know, we take on, where there's a lot, thank God, there's a lot of interest in people coming, you know, we're just having to be very, you know, very, very calculated on when we take holds and until, until we know, but the progress is, it's, you know, all the walls are up now, everything's up, the steel on the, you should come and see, it's, I get there every couple of weeks and I'm just astounded at the progress that's made, it's just, there's nothing left to the imagination now. You can physically walk through all the buildings, all the space and it's just like, holy shit, what have we done here? Cosmo had taken me over to the, before the ground was even broken at all. It was just like, oh, look, over there is where the building is. And I've been following, I follow Gateway on, on all

44:17 the different socials, so I've been seeing your pictures. There was an update, I think, yesterday, just looks incredible, you know, but photos do not do it, I mean, you say that, but it's the photos and the videos that you see online don't do it any, when you actually get there and sit in the middle of it and just go, whoa. Especially the big one, huh? Yes, studio 80s. It's got to be impressive. Well, all the studio support spaces and everything that we, you know, you design and as you well know, or so, when you, when you live in paper and CAD drawings and computer screens, you know, like, oh, well, that, that looks like that's going to be pretty good size. And then, you know, the studio support spaces, now that that's roofed in, you're just like, my God, you know, there's nothing small. It's like Texas, Texas based building in Missouri, I guess. What's interesting though, like we were just talking about venue shortages and stuff, but rehearsal shortage is a real thing. Like I was, I had Mickey Kervishly on the podcast recently, and he was talking about that, you know, the touring is growing so much, but right now it's becoming a real problem, not just for gear and people, but for rehearsal space is really becoming a problem as much as has been built recently.

45:35 Yeah. And it is getting ready to be built. You know, yeah. Others are, you know, others are coming online as well, which just tells that there's a demand, you know, is that Nashville one real the elevation or something? I think that went by the wayside, but I believe that there's the, the Littitz group, the Rock Littitz group is definitely planning on building a couple rooms in Nashville. As they would, yeah. Yeah. I remember the elevation ones, right, either right before or right after you guys announced, they came out with pretty bold plans, but I guess that fell apart. Yeah, that one. And then there was one here in Hendersonville that was going to go up, you know, film and TV thing. And I think that kind of fell by. Interesting. You know, the, you can only get, you know, in the Nashville market, there's very few places. The Annex is gone, is going away there at the arena. Municipal, you can only book a couple days, you know, and Scott's, you know, Scott's got his place over there at the steel mill still, but there's very limited spaces now that you can go in and do this. Well, good for you. We're, we're, we're, we're banking on it, brother. Trust me. Have you guys got extra space just in case you need to expand? Have you got expansion room?

46:45 Yes, we do. Yeah, we've, um, construction. Oh yeah. Yeah. Our owner is, you know, has, has, we'll just say has, has been buying some pretty good chunks of property in a very, very close proximity to us. Well, I mean, you guys have proven over the past few years that this is real, you know, that, that there's money to be made and that there's, you know, that Gateway is a real company and you guys are real people and, and this is going to be successful. So it takes a while, you know, when are you brave, when are you brave enough to book an act in for rehearsals? I would, by the end of this year, I think, I think Q4, you know, so if I called you and I had enough money, you'd book me in October 15th. Yes, we would take, we consider the hold, you know, it's, it's so fluid and I hate to say, you know, Nebulus about the day, but there's so many factors, you know, the, the lion's share of the big chunk of the building is done, but now, you know, the, the finished stuff, as you know, you know, it's like, it's like building your house. You get it framed in the sheet rocks and you're like, holy shit, we're going to be in 30 days and now the cabinets are 40 days late. There's just so many components, but yeah, we're hoping, you know, towards the end of this year, towards the end of this year and hopefully, you know, Q3, if things go well, you know, that's gotta be a bit nerve -wracking though, because like, I wouldn't want it, I wouldn't want it to say, hey, Beyonce, yeah, you can have the building October 15th and then you gotta

48:17 pull it away. No, we're just saying, you know, this year is, and, you know, hoping for the best, but, you know, the biggest thing is, as we discussed earlier, Marcel, is that you have to make sure it's right, you know, the catering alone. I mean, we've got a 7 ,500 square foot kitchen being built in here. That is wild. Just not alone, you know, those little components that people don't think about, it's like, okay, how do you ramp up to cook, you know, potentially 6, 700, 800 meals a day right out of the chute? And as we all know, catering is pretty damned important. It is, yeah. Huh. Extremely important. So did you guys hire somebody from the catering world to do that or just somebody from the restaurant business or? It's a little bit of both. I think they were very close to locking down, but it's good, you know, someone from the concert business for sure. That's the idea. But, you know, there's other things that you have to consider in these studios is, of course, you know, we're catering to the rock and roll acts, but the film and television side of things is all, you know, very similar to concert catering, but private events, you know, you can go from everything to, you know, a Chick -fil -A sandwich a la to, you know, Chateau Brion and, you know, whatever for a high -end corporate event, you know, like if a large company wanted to have their shareholder meeting in there. Yeah, I never thought of that. That'll be a big deal too. Yeah. So that's, you know, catering to the, you know, that's a big business.

49:48 Yeah. Somebody could hire the Foo Fighters for their 50th birthday party or something and do it there with your catering business. That's wild. That is going to be such a successful business. I got to get up there before it opens and get a look around before it's too busy and I won't be able to look around. Yeah, well, please come anytime and anybody who's listening out there and geezers and give me a buzz, you know, we're giving tours now, you know, you really have to see it. You have to walk it to kind of get the size of the scope. Yeah, I definitely want to get up there and see it because like I said, I saw when it was dirt and I want to see it now, but that's going to be exciting. I mean, it's just going to be another exciting component to the whole gateway business. And I had Jeff Cranfield, I recorded yesterday and, you know, their concert stuff thing is really interesting how they just added all these different components. Oh, well, we need extra, you know, somebody needs tour buses really. Oh, okay, well, let's have a tour bus company, you know, chairs and barricade and Jim, it's a great, it's a, it's another, it's another out of the box thinking conglomeration, you know, they've all, they've all done very well with that.

51:06 Yeah, we don't need a hundred million dollar lighting company. We want a hundred million dollar group of companies or whatever, right? So with each of them being profitable in their own right, but maybe not the biggest, this company or the biggest that company, but they're all very good and customer service focused and all that stuff. But strategic alliances. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I thought was really interesting when I had your whole group on the podcast a couple of years ago is that you've got like a management by a collaborative approach where, you know, it was like four guys or what is it still the same basic approach? The approach is exactly the same and the team's just gotten bigger, you know. But the way that, you know, Trey, our CEO and our owner and, you know, everybody involved with us have got a very, you know, it's hard to say, it's not a dictatorship by any stretch, it's a committee and we all, you know, everybody has their areas of expertise. And fortunately, the people that we have involved, you know, the Andy Gerber or Steve Washington's, you know, Cosmos, Kevin Hoyle, all these people that have come from different disciplines with a great deal of experience, we all lean very heavily. You know, Brian Karp, who's our COO, comes from the venue side of things, you know, the live nation for so many years. And

52:37 it's just a great melding pot to where we, you know, we all get together bi -weekly and have our executive leadership team meetings, if you will, and kind of hash everything out from every perspective, you know, and it's not cliche, but it's, you know, it's built the company and the buildings where it's built by production people or production people. Yeah. So when you go into those meetings, does everyone just basically, from each discipline, brings their, you know, two biggest problems or two biggest opportunities or whatever, and you kind of throw it all in the center of the table and everyone discusses it and you kind of do it like a board meeting. It is a board meeting. That's kind of the, you know, the executive teams, you know, that we have are kind of that we are the board. We're running the company, we're selling the company, we're, you know, building the company and discussing everything as a group, because it's just, it's just so much easier, you know, and it's fun to be in business with people that you like, you know, and so many companies as, you know, it doesn't happen that way all the time, you know. We've been able to keep this boutique both in size and in, in operas, you know, operations and management and execution to a group, a nice, a nice group of people and hopefully, knock on wood, that will be able to continue to support that for many, many years to come, but this, this style of management. Yeah.

54:09 Yeah, it's, it's very cool. I mean, it's, you know, I've always struggled with, I wouldn't say the, the democratic approach to running a company or whatever, but like when, I guess I've always just been such a, an entrepreneur that whenever anybody wants to slow me down, I get frustrated right away. So I don't know that, that I'd always, I guess if it's somebody else's company, because I sit on some boards and when it's, me too. Yeah. When it's someone else's company, it's much easier than when it's my own. Sure. If I, if I have my own company and a, and a group of people making decisions like that, it's, it's a bit more frustrating, but or somebody has to be the boss, you know, somebody has to be the boss, but well, and at the end of the day, that's the role I like, you know, it is.

54:58 Yeah. I like living and dying by my decisions, you know, and, and I take responsibility for them regardless of who screwed up down the line, you know. So one of the things that I think I just, you know, woke up from a year long sleep or something, but I just read this morning, because a live design sent out an article about fish doing this little residency in the sphere. Yeah. Short. They start, they start tonight, as a matter of fact. Tonight is, tonight's the first show. Yeah. So you guys have involvement in that? I think that's a great way. Yeah. Yeah, it is. We do, we, on the touring side, we provide the video and all of the lighting and the rigging for fish on their tours. Okay. And so they don't need any video I heard for this one. Well, which is really, and they've hired, you know, Abby's coming in to be the creative one. It's another great, I'm not in it every day, you know, much like our CEO, Trey, the video director for them. And Jesse is obviously the production manager and Gary Brown is on our team now is in operations. Video director. Oh my goodness. So I'd love to hear what that has been like. It's, well, and there's, there's a lot of creative people brought in because obviously the band wants it to be, you know, every bit of the spectacle it could be. I can't speak for the band by any stretch, but, you know, there's a, it's going

56:29 to be, it's going to be an amazing four events. I know that for a fact, because if you think about it, it's kind of re birthing something new. Fish is a band who predominantly the visual element is lights. Always has been Chris Corota and GIF absolute masters at that thing that they've developed as fish. So take the big lighting show out of the equation. Yeah. And also a band, fish, when I say we do the video, we have a, we have a broadcast trailer that Trey's cutting like 20 something cameras a night for fish just to stream. There's no video screens. Fish historically never has video screens. So take a, take a band that doesn't have video, take away the lights in a band that doesn't do a set list. Wow. You know, it's like, that's crazy. Thank God for, you know, the creative team they've assembled is, is, it's going to be amazing. I don't know that the camera count is, I mean, it's up into the 40s now. Wow.

57:27 Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm sure I can probably, you know, but I mean, Trey's very good. He's experienced. He knows the band. He knows the material, you know, it's, it's little things like that with fish that are so crazy because the, the catalog is thousands of songs and you never know what's going to come next. Just those guys look at each other and go and go. So you can imagine, you know, getting a lot of do and G minor, holy shit, you know, put it on. But in the sphere though, like, I mean, obviously, you know, it's the world's biggest TV or whatever you want to call it, right? Like it's just enormous. And so that, I'm more curious about that than I was for, I guess I was pretty curious for you too, because it was the first one. Sure.

58:15 And I've got mixed feelings on it. And I've talked way too much about it. So I won't go into it now, but I've got mixed feelings. You know, again, I'm a lighting guy. Right. You know, that's what I've always been as a lighting guy. And so a concert without much lighting, you know, which is sort of key lighting, and you can't really see the band, you got to look a couple minutes to see the band. Where are they? Yeah. I can't find them, you know, with this video orgasm thing that's going on in front of me. Nonstop. Yeah. But again, fish, fish being such a visual band, you know, fish, Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead. I think those are bands that kind of fit the vibe of that place, right? 100%. And I know it's going to be visually and orally, audibly stunning, because I know Gary has been, we'll just say working in a space where the, you know, all those channels were available to him, where he can really move things around. So I mean, Gary's a very, very good front of house engineers. I'm sure that'll be pretty exciting as well, what they end up doing, you know, with audio. How good you are until you walk into something like that. And that sound system being as crazy as it is, you know, everything's new. Like it's just like, wow. But it'll be awesome though.

59:35 You know, one thing about fish is fish doesn't put on a shitty show and they don't put on a shitty presentation. Those guys are very, very involved and adamant about perfection, you know, the management all the way down. So it'll, it's going to be, it's going to be something, you know, for these four nights. It'll be interesting to see how it all, you know, pans out in, I guess, the world, the world will know in about 12 hours. Yeah, thank God for YouTube, you know, I'm gonna, well, are there any streaming? Well, they're streaming too. Oh, are they? Yeah, I believe it's, I don't want to quote, but I think live fish, obviously that's their whole thing. You know, I know it's streaming. I mean, just that's pretty cool. Yeah. Cause then you don't have to rely on these shitty Yeah, live fish. Yeah, it's on. I'm just, I'm passing things as I'm looking and it's, yeah, it'll be on live fish. Oh, cool. Well, I'm gonna have to look that up. Yeah. I just want to see.

1:00:33 Experience it. Yeah. I want to see, I want to see what it looks like and hear what it sounds like and you know, it's, I'm curious, like I'm curious every event that goes into that place right now, because again, I have such mixed feelings and so yeah, I mean, the UFC fight that's booked to go in there, that, that one's got me really curious. What's that going to look like? You know, because I'm a big fan of mixed martial arts and what's that going to look like? You know, yep. It's it's gonna be really interesting to see it all, you know, all pan out. I'm sure it'll be amazing. So you're not rushing out there this weekend? I'm not actually, I've got other things to do and, you know, they, we have, there's plenty of people there, you know, so it's gonna, it's gonna be crazy.

1:01:25 Yeah. It'll be amazing. It's gonna be interesting to see the, you know, all those, you know, fish fans doing what fish fans do and, you know, you know, really? Yeah. Whoa. No, that's exactly, I said that, I said that in the intro that I did before you got on. I just said, I envision a bunch of, you know, stoners looking up at the biggest TV in the world and going, whoa, you know, but it'll be done well too. Yeah. Very, it'll be the biggest, it'll be the biggest trippy TV they've ever seen. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. That'll be interesting. So what about, I mean, you have enough going on professionally, obviously, but any, any special projects or anything fun outside the Gateway walls for you? Yeah.

1:02:12 As a matter of fact, we, we've started a nonprofit. We, and I don't even know if not many people are aware of this. It's Cosmo. Wilson have started, it's called behind the scenes .org. And what it is, is we're preserving, it's a website in an organization that's dedicated to preserving the history of production, the stories, everything of the guys. And we've got the website is up now, and we've got all of our 501 C together. So now we're looking at really getting it launched and, you know, all of the, anything that we generate from this and go, we'll all go to, you know, like a music cares type of thing, all to support road people. So, you know, calling out to anybody, manufacturers, anybody who wants to get on board with it, it's, you know, behind the, behind the curtain .org and check it out. What is it going to be as far as like, I love the concept obviously. I mean, because I do something similar with, with Geysers of Gear, where, you know, my, my whole goal is to try to capture great stories from, you know, a group of people who's not going to be here forever, you know, so that's exactly it. Yeah.

1:03:37 In some sense, it's just a vault for lots of really, really good stories and, and, you know, just learnings from, from the founders of the industry and stuff, like people who didn't have moving lights and had to create park hands out of pineapple cans or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love those stories. It's why I do this, for sure. Yeah. And it's, it's kind of a place to, you know, we're, you know, we're putting it together, you know, and it's, it's, because the industry, if you think about it's only, we're only like 57 years old, you know, when people, you know, Roy and those people figured out how to flip a motor upside down and, oh my God, you know, Michael Tate and the things he was doing. Yeah. But it's all about curating that, you know, it's the gear and, and, you know, we've got some of the, you know, some of the people, the PLSN people and some of Terry's group, you know, Kevin Mitchell's involved with us. And so it's, it's exciting. And it's just, you know, something to give back a little bit and preserve the history of all these guys that, you know, the old geezers like ourselves that are, you know, are not going to be around long much as we were talking about some of the artists and it's about preserving it. You know, we're not so much looking to be immune. Yeah. And hopefully this podcast will, you know, if anybody's out there listening, feel free to, to check out the page and, you know, we'll take all the help we can get, you know, because I think it has the ability to, to generate some good things and fund a lot of things for people that really need it. You know, I'm sure you know this, but there is a

1:05:07 behind the scenes charity in our industry. That's, yeah. And we're, we're, I think there would be a nice possibility of everybody kind of getting together on that. Yeah. This is more about some sense. Yeah. This is, this is more about telling the, you know, telling the, telling the story, you know, it's celebrating the history of the people and the technology operating behind the scenes and concert touring. We're more special, you know, this is more about concert touring. Yeah. It's kind of where our primary yeah. We're behind the scenes is more theater and television and it's more odd, I guess, but very much not specific to concert touring. But yeah, that's really cool.

1:05:47 Congrats on that. I like that. Thank you. Yeah. And if I can help spread the word or do anything, you know, just let me know. I've certainly got some content. So, well, and that's something that, you know, it's, and people are starting to, you know, donate some of this content into this vault, you know, because what are we going to do with it all, you know, but hopefully, you know, curating it into one place that we're, people will go to and, you know, education, it'll be educating people. That's, you know, that's something we need more of these days, as you well know, especially with people and trying to fill the void on what we don't have in people right now, you know, the lineage and the history is important. Yeah, I'm sorry. It'd be really cool to have, you know, the studios have a room somewhere or even in the restaurant area or something, you know, like hard rock with all the stuff. And I think there's a very strong possibility there might be a place that could house the the diorama, if you will, or that you can come out. Yeah, we've got plenty of space for stuff like that. Yeah.

1:06:54 No, that's really cool. Yeah, but we've been, you know, that everything's going good. We're, you know, between the, we're doing, you know, a lot of integration and installs and, you know, we've got Kenny on, we've got our little, our fabrication department is up and running now because I don't think we had that. And that's another interesting thing. Like almost every touring lighting company now has a fabrication department, which was never a thing before. Like everybody just went to Tate. And now that Tate's so big, I guess it makes a lot of sense. Well, and trust me, I was just at Tate a couple weeks ago with one of our other clients, the AJR that was out that they're doing. And ours is, we're not, we are not trying to be that type of fabrication or, you know, to compete with our friends, you know, the Gallagher's or the, the all access ours is more nichey things like building carts for lights or building that specialized angle piece to tour. You don't have to handball every light, you know, ways to do solutions that make it better. That's kind of what our fabrication is. And, you know, like, we just did the, you know, for the video, the, the parabbas open out there in Southern California, they have like 103 screens on that thing and customizing, you know, fitting that screens into that, there was a lot of customization done on angle brackets, things like that.

1:08:17 Those sort of niche things that we, that we do is it's a service, you know, it's, it's an extent, it's a service for the client that, you know, at the end of the day, makes the crew really happy. No, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it makes huge, huge amount of sense. So that's cool. And, and I mean, finally, I know you, you also get involved with the Humane Society, right? Yeah, supporter. Yeah, I'm a big dog supporter. Absolutely. Yeah. That's near and dear to my heart, you know, adopt, adopt, adopt, adopt, and, you know, please. Yeah. And adopt responsibly. Yeah. Sarah, Sarah, who's our producer sitting in the green room listening right now, she, she lives on Crete. And I guess there's a big feral dogs and feral cats problem on Crete. And so, you know, she's typical freaking woman, you know, heart bigger than the brain. And she's got like 47, 47 dogs and 47 dogs and 17 cats or something, you know, so she's, it's funny because every time and actually right now I can see her in the green room and she's got cats climbing on her and stuff. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a thing. I have friends down here who are like that too. Like I'm, I'm too irresponsible to have those kind of responsibilities, you know, my son's 19 now. He doesn't need me to keep him alive anymore. Thank

1:09:48 God. Because God knows I could have failed. But you're gonna, you're gonna need him later. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. Remember that. No, you're right about that. But yeah, so I've just never, I've never been a lots of pets kind of guy. Like my ex -wife always had a dog and, and I tolerated, but I'm allergic too. So I don't really, I don't, we, Molly and I always have, we have two children. We always have two dogs, you know. Yeah. Our current group is Chili Pop and Mumbo. Those are our two children. Chili Pop. That's funny. I like that one. Yeah. She's the, she's the female and the alpha and runs the house and he's a pit and boxer mix who's a little on the spectrum. So, you know, it's a happy, it's a happy family. It's a normal out here. Good times. Well, Dave, I really appreciate you taking some time today to do this and giving us an update on what's going on with the studios and stuff. I am going to try and get out there before it opens probably. Yeah.

1:10:50 Just to take a walk around and go, whoa. Yeah, I would love to, love to have you and, you know, anybody else out that's listening that's got interest, you know, please reach out to us, you know. Yes. The website's an easy way to get us at gsps .com. Pretty easy to figure that out. Yeah. Way studios and production services and perfect. You know, as we continue and I'd love to be back on as things progress a little bit more, but yeah, we will. Well, we're blessed, man. We're very blessed. I'll get you walking around with a cell phone one day or something and you can give us a tour on the podcast. Oh, 100. 100 % that'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Dave, thanks so much. Bring a big battery. Marcel, nice to chat with you, friend. And you as well. Good luck to you this year with getting everything done and opened and. Oh, we're going to make it. We're going to make it. We have no option. Yeah.

1:11:40 Yeah. All right, buddy. See you later. Thanks, Marcel. Okay.