#257 - Joe Cole

0:01 Just recorded this episode #257 with Joe Cole from R-90 Lighting in Seattle. Had a lot of fun. It was actually really interesting because before the podcast started recording, we actually had a discussion, a political discussion. And I will say we're on sort of opposite sides of the politics. And it was such a great discussion, friendly. We agreed on some things, we disagreed on some things, but didn't fight about it. And so it was really fun. You know, I always avoid pot politics on the podcast, but we had it before the podcast and just some other really smart stuff came out of this conversation. And one of the things was a quote from Joe, which I really love.

0:45 And I'm going to have to read this. I'm sorry, but he said the best way to sucker me into a project I don't want to do is to tell me it can't be done. And with that, I will just invite you to listen to the rest of this podcast episode #257 with Joe Cole. Thanks. Hello and thanks for joining us today on Geese of Gear episode #257. Today's podcast is brought to you by Roe. Visual Roe is the leading LED creative display manufacturer in the industry. With adaptive LED platforms for every installation, they're committed to going the extra mile for any creative vision. Carefully selected high end components, the latest technology, in depth knowledge and stores of passion go into every product that bears the Roe name. Being familiar with the challenges of their market, ROW offers only the most intuitive solutions for the creatives, designers and technicians who rely on their LED products to deliver flawless performances every time. This quality standard is the reason Row has quickly become the industry standard, making its way onto stages and big screens worldwide.

2:04 Visit Row Visual and today's podcast is also brought to you by AVL Media Group. AVL Media Group are the exclusive US distributors for Midas Lab Group in Lake Tanoi, Clark Technique, Turbosound, Aston, Spotlight, 0 Ohm, Wharfedale Pro and now BZB Gear. They are your go to company for the touring and integration markets. AVL Media Group is committed to developing a long term, mutually beneficial business relationship with its dealers through professional products at competitive prices backed by excellent sales service and Technical Support.

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3:36 It's another week. It's another podcast. God, I love doing this. You know, if only this paid well, I would probably consider spending a heck of a lot more time doing it. I'd love to record podcasts every single day. I love the people in this industry. I love the conversations, I really love the stories and you know, I'd love to do it more often. Unfortunately, I don't have the sponsors that like Joe Rogan or you know, Tucker Carlson or any of these people do to be able to afford to do that. So work I shall do. And this is just a part time endeavour still. So it's been a busy week and it's going to continue to be a busy week. I actually, I'm recording this on a Wednesday.

4:20 I believe it's July 31st, last day of the month. And so, yeah, it's busy because it's the last day of the month. Everybody's crunching to get products shipped. They want the numbers, so we have to help them get their numbers. And so that's always a lot of fun. I am traveling on Monday and Tuesday next week I have to go to LA for a board meeting and some kind of looking forward to just getting out for a couple days and then getting back again. I'm not going to spend a bunch of time in LA this time of visiting clients or anything. I just don't have time, too crazy busy at the moment. You know, our business just seems to go against the trend when the industry is crazy busy, we're not. When the industry slowing down a little bit and everybody's complaining, we're going nuts.

5:07 So right now we are going nuts and I'm not complaining, you know, knock on my wooden head. We're pretty happy and excited about where we're at right now. So and grateful and Speaking of gratitude, we're getting a bunch of it right now from a couple of companies, but also from the industry as a whole. So quite often we will get people trying to sell stolen equipment on gear source. Unfortunately it happens. It happens with every marketplace. The difference between the big marketplaces such as Facebook and eBay and others and us is that we're really watching for that equipment. I mean, they might use some AI or something to kind of watch for it, but we're looking for real patterns and trends and just using our own knowledge and common sense and going maybe there's something wrong here.

5:59 And so, you know, recently we were contacted by the Police Department in a particular city. I'm not going to get into any details on this, but we were contacted by the, by actually before we were contacted by the Police Department, we were contacted by someone outside saying, hey, you know, have you seen this listing? And we looked at the listing and went, yeah, something suspicious here. Let's take a look deeper into it. We got in contact with the Police Department who were very much on the sniff on this deal and we worked closely with them to make sure that they recovered the product. It was over $1,000,000 in lighting equipment and you know, it was successfully recovered without loss.

6:40 So basically before they sold it anywhere else, they were able to get it back from the people who took the equipment. So somebody has been reacquainted with $1,000,000 in gear. Course there was number reward or anything. So all we get is the Pats on the back and we're perfectly happy with that. And just a fair warning, if you're going to try and sell stolen gear on on Gear Source, we are looking for you. We are paying close attention and we will work with the people who you've stolen the gear from and we'll work with the police. So it's not a threat or anything. I'm no one to threaten anyone, but we are definitely abiding by laws and following laws and making sure that we don't become sort of a fencing platform form for stolen equipment.

7:23 And if you've ever tried to sell anything, I tried selling AF150 truck on Facebook marketplace and I couldn't believe the number of scammers that came out of the woodwork trying to part me from my money and in my vehicle in some cases too. So, but mostly it was money. Mostly it was like, you know those very simple scams that oversimplified or basically send me your bank information so I can send you the money or send you a deposit or send me a small deposit. So I can send you a bigger deposit. All of those different things that are generally pretty easy to catch. But then there's some that are tougher to catch. And you know, honestly, like there's a place I guess for Facebook Marketplace, there's a place for OfferUp, there's a place for eBay selling $100,000 lighting packages and sound systems is not the place for those, those platforms. You are probably going to suffer some pain unless you're selling it to friends and locals and stuff. And then what do you need the platform for? I mean, just to tell your friends, hey, I'm selling my DNB sound system.

8:26 You know, I know this sounds like an ad for Gear Source. But really what we do is we, we put out marketing and feelers and stuff to a much larger global market. And we have a very secure platform and very secure payment process. And we guarantee it by the way. So there is a fraud guarantee if if for some reason we are defrauded on a transaction that does not go to the seller, that goes to us. And so we're very careful on these transactions. We pay a lot of attention to make sure there is no fraud and, and we'll always be watching for stolen equipment. So there you have it. So today's guest is Joe Cole. Many of you know him as the founder of R-90 Lighting. R-90 is first and foremost dedicated to design. Their history is rooted in corporate event lighting and special event lighting design they have had. They have over 20 years experience collectively in the event lighting sector.

9:22 R-90 also offers a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art lighting, rigging and video wall equipment for rent. There was a lighting designer, scenic designer, 3D drafting and pre vis programmer, content creator and master electrician. Joe was last on our podcast back in 2020, I think mid 2020 with and I can never say his name, but Newell Juneja and I remember Neil is a, is an attorney and I believe he primarily or as a, as an expertise or a, a whatever you want to call it, he focuses on companies that are in the weed business.

10:05 And so I found that to be really interesting and we talked a bit about that. I think the episode was #111 if you want to check it out, but I had Joe and Neil on. One of the big things that we talked about was drive through raves. They had partnered to put together these ideas for some drive through raves. And if you remember all of those drive through shows, I was not a huge fan of them, but they did serve a purpose in helping people just stay sane, helping guys like like Joe just find A use for some of his gear and get out and do some things instead of just sitting there watching Netflix all day. So good on you. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about that today as well. You know, of course, we'll talk about how Joe got into the industry and just sort of, you know, his background and where he's at today and where he's going in the future. So a lot of cool things that we're going to talk about today. So I'm looking forward to it.

11:01 So please join me and welcome Joe Cole, ladies and gentlemen, it's Joe Cole. Hello. Nothing like, you know, right before we get on a on a podcast, we go into a nice little discussion about politics and get both of us wound up coffee. While doing it. And then he runs out of coffee because he was guzzling it. I need more coffee to put up with this conversation. No, we had a we had a very grounded conversation for the most part, and I think it was enjoyable for at least one of us. So anyways, staying away from politics. How you been, man? It's been OK. It's, you know, here we are. It's 2022. We survived the pandemic.

11:43 Yeah, 20. 2420. 20 yeah. What's that mean? That like 1995 was 20 years ago, 19/18/2000 was 20 years ago isn't. That insane. It's all insane. When I started five years. AGO 2020 doesn't exist. Really. I I, I guess, I don't know, sometimes it feels like that. But yeah, here we are in 2024 and yeah, we survived a pandemic. Yay. I was, I was talking with Sarah about, I was talking with Sarah about this earlier because the last time you were on the podcast was with Neil and it was in June of 2020. Oh yeah. And you guys were just going off on this drive in, what was it, raves or something?

12:29 Drive in Rave, Yeah. Drive in rave. Yeah, we. Were trying to find a way to survive and you know I don't think we've talked since then and I know we well Geely Cly you're gonna get back into politics here. But I'll tell you like as a Washington state resident, I have as a Washington state resident and as a liberal. I've never been more angry at a liberal governor than I have been at at our governor here. And he, I spent most of 2020 and 2021 fighting stuff here. And it, it was a, it was an uphill battle. And I, I turned from like a, a lighting company guy into, I don't know, policy writer. Like at one point I actually had on my desk the rewrite for the reopening of the state for a phase two that I had drafted. Wow.

13:19 Because I finally got to the point where I couldn't get anything done. I was talking to like the Washington State Arts Council and so basically the the governor's office said, OK, you guys are the so they took the people who are supposed to be giving out grants for underprivileged tuba player instructions and finding a new statue for the town square and and all this kind of stuff. And they said you guys are in charge of the arts and entertainment for COVID. What? And yeah, that I mean, that government, government logic, right? So it kind of made sense because they were the arts and entertainment branch of the Washington state government. But none of these people have ever produced an event. Yeah, very few. Like, there's maybe one person involved who's ever, maybe even been to a concert. I don't know.

14:03 Right. Yeah. They all do arts funding for other stuff. Suddenly they're in charge and they were just making these, like, nonsensical rules. So I got involved. I tried talking to them. I would. I did 100 Zoom calls and everyone was like, yeah, that's a good idea. I don't know why we don't do that. So I got a hot tip. And this is how politics really works. Yeah. I talked to a wedding person because weddings were allowed to open up to a small capacity in 2021. OK. And they they were like, OK, well, yeah, you can have a wedding party. And here's, here's some like, rules to follow. So I talked to the wedding people and I said, how the hell did you do that? Because in the meantime, even though we'd done the drive in rave thing and we we'd, we'd almost converted a major concert series to a drive in format, the governor's office shut us down and they shut down all live music, like flat out band live music. Like I didn't know that. 43 And we're all like trying to do the the the jitterbug or something.

15:03 Yeah, the flash dance thing. Yeah. Yeah, and it, it was all because there was some like, you know, there was some douche bags going out in the woods and having like private raves that became like super spreader events. And, you know, I, I, I kind of get that part. Whatever. There were ways to do it safe. And we had proven that we could do it safe. So we go to the wedding industry. And I was like, how did you do that? And they said we hired a lobbyist. Really. So I hired a lobbyist and it turns out it doesn't cost a briefcase full of cash. It was like 125 bucks an hour. I got a guy who got me directly linked with the governor's office and I got to talk to like the, you know, third in charge or, or whatever COVID czar. I, I forgot what their titles were.

15:44 Yeah, that got me in a position where I was able to go, look, what we're doing doesn't make sense for our industry. Let me help. And they were like, oh, yeah, you want to do it, sure, do it. So at one point, I had rewritten the phase two opening guides for Washington state. They were active for one week. And then suddenly it was like, Oh yeah, we're going to phase three. Really. Yeah, it was. It was ridiculous. But yeah, but maybe you helped convince them to go to, to move, to do something. Right. It was me necessarily. I think there was a lot of pressure from the outside world and from everyone else that that helped push that along. But but you know what? You. Know what I like about that story, though, Joe, Like, you know, I'm not a fan of politics, of course, and, and we're not totally aligned on politics, but I love when someone takes action, when someone, when it matters enough to someone that instead of sitting on a chair and bitching about it all day, you actually did something about it.

16:42 And that's amazing. That's really, really cool. I didn't know you did that. I don't think I didn't know that happened. Yeah. It was us and my God, who is it from, who was taking national action? Strickland. Yeah. Strickland. Yeah. Michael. Strickland, I was always really impressed with what he did and yet like he was phenomenally key in getting the PPP in and getting the EIDL stuff going and like. Yeah, I know Michael was a game changer, but Michael, one of his famous lines and you're saying the same thing right now when you said hire a lobbyist. One of Michael's sayings that he said over and over again, and people are rolling their eyes right now because they probably heard it 1000 times, but he said that the big, the difference between like the airline industry and the whatever larger industries, hospitality industry, the difference between them and the entertainment live events industry is that they were showing up in battleships, you know, lobbyists and, and owning politicians and stuff and we were showing up in 100 canoes.

17:53 Yes. And. With like, little row boats and dinghies. Like, please. Isn't it awesome? Yeah, you see it every time. We have no voice. Every time the airlines, an airline fails or a bank goes under, like the government's lining up to just hand out money. Yeah, and bail them out. And the entertainment industry doesn't get that. I mean, yeah, 911 happened and shit went South. No one was sitting there with a check ready to write West Side. Like, hey, W Sun, just stay in business. Here's some cash. Hell, your business is completely fucked. Sorry about that. Yeah, carry on. Yeah, no, you're right. And and obviously, you know, the the huge spotlight on all of that was Kovid, you know, was the fact that I don't know of any industry that was hurt harder than than ours.

18:40 Absolutely not. Yeah, that's still the. Same thing where people are like COVID. What industry are you in? Oh, I'm in the air team industry. Yeah, well, specifically live events because even the entertainment industry, like they could still find a way to make movies. They could still have basketball games without fans in the seats and get the television revenue from it. Restaurants could still do take out or delivery. We couldn't do shit like a drive in. How much money are you gonna make? If you're successful with a drive in Rave, you know you might make enough money to pay your guys. We we loaded ourselves, right? Yeah, like every one of the random events. We we tried drive in raves.

19:22 We at one point did a drive in comedy show. We tried to drive in rock show. Like none of it. And everyone who came was stoked. Everyone was like Oh my God this is amazing. I haven't been to a live showing forever and I don't give a shit if I have to sit in my car. It's the best thing I've done in like all. Year. Yeah. And yeah, but logistically there's just no way to make money on it unless you can rent out stadiums or something, or they donate the stadium to you and you can do it in a stadium, a drive in stadium show or something. Who were? Donating. I mean, there was a group who did a drive in movie and they took a big video wall and set up in a parking lot. But yeah, I don't think they were. Actually making they were.

20:02 I haven't talked to anybody basically like. Enough money to pay people to do stuff and at least people were out doing stuff and you could pay them to do it and. And that was it. But there's no. You know, you know who seemed to do OK was, what's that EDM guy's name who's always in his underwear in his apartment in New York? What the hell is his name? Oh my God. Mark Ribbelay. Mark Ribbelay. And he he did a whole drive in EDM thing and he says that he did OK. He says that he did did well with it. And I don't know how again, like the, the logistics, the math just doesn't work. You know, how many cars can I fit? 100? OK, how many people can fit in a car?

20:44 Four. OK, so that's 400 people, you know, and, and where do they go? To the bathroom? Fuck, I never thought of that. You know, that was the funniest thing about all of the the regulations and when we first, when we first did that drive in Rave, we based our regulation off of drive in church because immediately religion got their way and suddenly it was like, oh, of course we have to have church. Well, here's some regulations for it. Bathrooms were never touched or talked about. And when I asked what about the bathrooms with the government officials, they just really, let's change the subject really, really quick because no one, no one wanted to talk about that. But there were porta potties all the way around. And every and no one ever came up with guidance for bathrooms, even when we were going through reopening. And they're like, OK, we only have 25 people in the room. No one ever said, what about all the people using the bathroom and the little tiny closed door.

21:39 Yeah, person after person. And like, yeah, just we didn't want to talk about it. We conveniently all forgot about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean. In fact, there was some interesting. Of course, yeah. I mean, a lot of them, a lot of interesting things that you could talk about for days and they still are. I mean, a lot of the guys on on both wings of the parties, you know, are still throwing snowballs at each other. And that'll never end, I don't think. But so you know, we, we, I want to go back a little bit here because you have one of the most interesting and acceptable and logical reasons that you chose first of all to start a business in this industry and 2nd where that business was going to be based. So what?

22:26 What was that all about? There was logic to it. Yeah, I think it's the best answer ever. You don't remember the answer? I don't. Remember the answer? What was the answer? It was a girl, of course. Yeah. Yeah, it was terrible. Terrible. No, it was fine. It was great. You know, I was in Arkansas, and I left Arkansas because there wasn't much there. There's more there now, but yeah, there wasn't much there. Yeah. So I moved to Seattle for a girl. Yeah, partly. And started a company for a girl too there. Career, well, I would say like that starting the company was later because no one else was really doing, no one was really doing it right.

23:13 I mean, we, we had a Christie shop and they were doing it right, but they were only doing so much and there wasn't there was a gap. And when we started, we started doing the events that Christie didn't really care about because Christie was here for Microsoft. And so they were like, you know, if it's under at the time like 10,000 or $20,000, like we don't really want to do you want to do it. Leaves a lot of business. Do you want? To do right here and go do it, Yeah, you should handle that, You know, so I was doing a lot of like. Hand me down, little. Stuff like little pop up fashion shows and smaller club stuff and you know, renting gear from Christie left and right. So thank you, Huntley for your incredible deal on Gears and thanks to my sales Rep and yeah, here we are so oh. That's, that's, that's cool.

24:03 So what? When was this? This was like early 2000s or something, right? Yeah, 2013 is when we officially started, but I've been, I've been kind of freelance and doing independent shows for about four to five years before that. OK. Yeah. And you started in how? Like how? What? What turned you on to lighting to begin with? I, man, I started in junior high with a communications class taught by Miss Susan Nichols, whose husband was the scenic designer for the Arkansas Rap. And I somehow I got into doing the tech side of things and I enjoyed it.

24:53 And it it I was actually, I was in the scenic for a while as well. Yeah. And it was something about like, I basically started in theater, right? And as many of us do. And it was this idea of transporting people to a different place and being able to adjust the mood and take people on a journey, but also having no talent whatsoever for singing or acting or right, that mess that, you know, and it causes that. And, and then I got into like in like early college, I think I got into like clubs and music, the music scene. And, and, you know, I had a, a coked out sound guy at a nightclub going like, no, dude hit the buttons like this, bro. And I was like, oh, wow, this is OK. Because, you know, before that you've got your theater professor.

25:44 He was like, OK, let's use no color amber and no color blue. And now it's funny. Yeah, you're like OK, but but it's no, no, OK. Yeah, yeah. Keep it boring, son. Keep it boring. Let's design this Neil Simon play. What would you do? Fucking light the set. OK, OK, can you expand on that? No, I just lit the fucking set like. That's funny. That's funny. Theater guys are cringing right now listening to this. Absolutely. And Bob Mario is like. Yeah, oops. I'm sorry, Bob. Yeah, some of it's bullshit. Bob has some really cool designs. And I'll tell you like what really what really changed my mind on it was I think maybe the problem was I'd grown up doing professional theater at the Arkansas Rep where I was a follow spot with like top of the line production for the time.

26:37 And I saw what was possible. And then when I went to college, it was like literally hand drying a plot for a Neil Simon play with a little like stencil with, with the field template thing. And it was literally like, well, do you have a sideline at top 45? OK, do you have an R1 at 45 out? OK, great, let's do no color. And it was so boring. Then when when I when I took like everything from college, I was like, why do these big professional shows look so good? Like why? Why does the other stuff look better? So I was working as a just a stagehand on the side for a local touring house which had the Broadway tours come in. At one point. I became the ME for this house, this little house called the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. Some of you may have toured through there. So as the ME, you know, the big, big Broadway tour comes in and I'm like, wow, OK, big cool.

27:29 Like cool kids, right? OK, Sir, I've got a full complement of 10° source floors in my first first house position. I've got some 5° in the outside house position. I've got nineteens on the apron. What can I get you, Sir? And they're like, son, I need 10 lights. What? Well, I just give me 10 fucking lights, kid. Do you have any R33? And that was it. The entirety of all those Broadway shows. There is very little front light and it's just a little bit to pop the faces. Everything you see is all spoken mirrors. RIP. A lot of romance out for you though, like. Didn't it? It didn't blow the romance out.

28:10 It just blew it. It blew the whole thing that I was learning in college and and all the higher education about lightning design out the window because the front light is so like you read the textbooks and it's all about these front light looks and all choosing the right gel color. And here comes Broadway, which looks 1000 times better every single time. And it's all about color and pattern and everything is from the top and from the back, and what the front lights are don't really matter. Wow. So that was that. Was my lesson. I never heard it said like that. It. It, it doesn't matter like your front, as long as you can see the faces when you need to see the faces. And that's not to say that there's been some amazing stuff done with design.

28:52 There's been some people who really work with the the actors and use gobos to a point where your actors are trained to actually walk into and out of the light and get those moments. And it can be beautiful. But for 90% of what you look at in theater settings, front lights don't matter. Yeah, as long as you got something to bump the faces and. Bump the faces, light the set. I'm good to go. You light the set and you can put gobos all over the set all you want. You can do top light, you can do these amazing looks and that's that's how you get the really big looks and Rock'n'roll still look at like you've got. Yes, front light can exist and it can do things, but I would say that that's my last spend. If I have a budget, I'm going to like every, OK, look at look at ASL 260.

29:37 Let's do a crappy show in a parking lot. You've got a fixed budget and ASL 260, so you're going to try to put as much as you can behind them. So you can do beams and gobos and patterns and everything and downstage you're going to put two tail panels because they're just gonna wash the whole stage. Yeah, bright it up and everyone who's and yeah, you want blinders which are forward facing, you want you want some beams, you want some hybrids, like whatever you have you. But it's all. All the use and AWS. You want the use and AWS, Yeah, yeah, I get it. I mean, that's changed a lot over the time, over the years, you know, like, I think moving lights have changed based on video too, you know, obviously.

30:23 Like we're being so much BL and all the additive color mix stuff which which is creating a higher CRI for everything, which is great. Yeah, but I think beams replaced wash lights at some point because of the video screens and that that sort of front wash light with the KL panels started to happen where you were just washing the whole stage and then the beams were doing all the work and the video wall was cutting through it all. But when, when did you get access to moving lights? Like I'm guessing these low budget theater shows and stuff, you weren't getting moving lights yet. I I so I I was sitting in the back of the Walton Arts Center with the big Broadway tours and every time they came through with a big old cyber light turbo or, or a jeez, what were those things?

31:09 The color Wah, the high end system, the studio spots, studio colors. Yeah, like those things. And I, I was sitting in the back like, Hey, you gonna take that apart? Hey, can I can I can I watch and, you know, kind of creepy, right. I'm stalking the moving light tech. Yeah, but my first I got to program a show on a on a hog two out the wall, a dance show and we have like 4 movers in the in the rig that we had rented from Missouri. OK. So weren't any in Arkansas? Interesting. That was that was kind of the first time I, I think maybe the first time I really got to play. There's a club in Seattle called the Triple Door and it is a it's a beautiful venue. It's a very small venue.

31:58 So it's like, I don't know, maybe 2-3 hundred cap, but it's built in an old, I think it was a prohibition era Speakeasy theater. And it's got the beautiful like the, the, the, the shell and like all the seats are these like very mafia club looking seats and a nice little rake. And it's got a, a beautiful proscenium with all the plaster work and like gold. And it's owned by a Thai restaurant who took over the building and they redid the, they redid all of it. And it's, it's just phenomenal. And they, they put money in it and they had a, there's a guy named Paul there who really keeps the gear up and keeps everything working. And well into the 2000s, he had high end system color studio colors studio spot, two 50s.

32:48 And God, what did what was their, their, their moving static, their static RGB color pro. Sorry, static C&Y color walk the color spot or something? Color Pro. The color pros, yeah, and they had those in a star drop and a Hog 500 and. Oh wow. Or no, 1000, a HOG 1000 and that was the first like working there was the first time I really got access to everything was a mover. Everything if it wasn't a mover, at least had CMY Wow. And so being able to program that and play with that rig. Oh, that had to be a lot of fun for you. It was. A ton of fun. Yeah, and you have to change color on everything.

33:29 Oh, you can. And yeah, I tell you, if you don't clean start that hog 1000 I could crash that bad boy every single show cuz that was funny. I could run with the live programmer on it. That's funny. Yeah, the Jans Hog and all that stuff. Yeah, I remember those consoles, man. We sold loads of those on the used market until, I don't know now. Like there's probably still some listed on gear source but I don't remember seeing one. But just in a while. Facebook post with the MA1 for sale. Really. Yeah, we get those every once in a while. Yeah, I mean, but the problem is, you know it, those are nostalgia for people I think they buy them from, because you're not going to buy it to use necessarily.

34:10 You're going to buy it just to keep it in your shop or put it in your office or something for a museum piece. So it's like the shipping is more than the console sometimes. You know, it's like VL three thousands. Like for the longest time VL three thousands were selling used for new prices for a long, long time and now it's like they're $200.00. You know the case is worth more than the lights that are in it. Oh, yeah. Well, remember when when the 2K suddenly went to being defunct and then there were videos of people chucking them off the dock or like, yeah, trebucheting them or like, yeah, Christian Jackson, like rounding them up and. Shooting ammunition. Yeah, that was hilarious. That lighting shootout thing that he did.

34:50 I loved it. I mean, what a what a great concept. He needs to do it again. The shootout too. Get Dearson to bring some heavy, heavy artillery into to do it. You know, Dearson. Didn't they have like some thermite and some C5 and some of that? They had some pretty wild stuff, you know, and to do it as a live stream was just. Crazy range in Vegas where you can shoot a tank. Well, yeah, you can shoot tanks, but you can also like Dierson does it every year for LDI where Joe, if you want to go, I can connect you to it. But every year for LDI, he brings people up in helicopters and with guns that, you know, are on the the thing in the helicopter, I think it's called a turret. You're sitting there with, I think they're 50 Cal or something.

35:36 You're just shooting at the desert from the helicopter with these massive guns. Wow. It's. Not throw some VLS out there. That'd be cool. That'd be a great idea. Like, you know, but four more years, five more years. How long is a Viper really going to? Last, who wants to go down there and put the lights out though, when helicopters are flying with machine guns in? I don't know, I. Think there's got to be some form of gun safety? Yeah, we're talking about Las Vegas and we're talking about the desert and, you know, people who are paying thousands of dollars to be in this helicopter to shoot guns. So, yeah, it's funny, you know, like, you knew that something was changing in Vegas when all the taxi advertisements switched from strip clubs to go shoot automatic rifles. You know, it was like, whoa, what happened? You know, there's no more strip club ads. And now they're now they're all talking about shooting guns and doing weird shit.

36:35 Yeah, I guess. Maybe. Cleaning it up, other states opened up their strip club laws and like suddenly other states were allowed to have strip clubs as well and. So maybe that's it, I don't know. I mean what? Or maybe strip clubs in? Vegas to see a bunch of naked ladies who aren't going to have sex with you either, like. Not in Vegas. In Vegas they are like in Vegas. That's something that shifted. But like. Right rumor. That's something though, that shit. Elsewhere they will too, but like yeah I I personally don't understand strip clubs because I can't think of a single place I could go and spend a lot of money to have nobody want to have sex with me. More leave frustrated. Yeah, spend a whole bunch of money to leave frustrated. Right, Yeah, I could go to a bar, spend a bunch of money and maybe go home with somebody, you know? Like, yeah.

37:22 What? I get it. I get it. You know what though, There's I, I haven't been in years. I got to be perfectly honest, but when I went a lot, usually at LDI. It's just a. Fun thing for a bunch of dudes on expense accounts to do. On expense accounts. I worked for moving light manufacturers in the day. I've gone on my own expense account a few times too, but on expense accounts. Go smoke cigars, drink expensive whiskey and and talk to girls who in the real world would never even say hello to you, you know, And so it's just, it's a goofy pastime. Like I didn't go there with any desires or expectations. I wasn't looking to get laid or anything. I was just having fun with the boys and talking some shit and then going home to bed in in my hotel. But but it's just funny how it's all shifted to ads for guns and stuff now on the on all the taxis. It's It's so weird.

38:21 Eventually they're going to have to come up with something new that you can only do in Vegas. Yeah. So from that early career, like at some point you just saw an opportunity of these shows that Christie wasn't doing or didn't want to do and you went, hey, you know, I could go start a company and do that. Is that how that works? It was partially that and then kind of the the evolution of the LED. Yeah. That was another big kind of change point. And you know, there were a lot of smaller AV companies, so I was freelancing for. And, you know, we, we knew what LEDs could do. The color blast existed, but Christie only had thirty of them in town.

39:02 And at that, yeah, I think they had partnered with like Midnight hour or something out of out of Canada. So like they didn't really even own their own LED, but they had a deal going. So they, they had some color blasts in town and yeah, for a while, like if, yeah, if your show happened to fall on some point when like there wasn't a Microsoft show, it sucked up all the inventory of all 30 fixtures. You could grab some and yeah, maybe do your show, but then, you know, the budget wasn't there. And I, I, I found some cheap CK knockoffs on Alibaba and I bought a pallet of them. Really yeah. And I. Because the customer didn't know any different. Well, the, I think customer knew a little different, but not too much different. That was kind of the, the, so the ones I ended up buying, I wish I would have done more research because we all learned about pulse width modulation and how that looks on video. Yeah, and the first stuff like no one was paying attention to that really.

39:59 So the, the, the first fifty of those I have for a long time. We discovered they didn't work too well on camera unless they were a full blast. So they got delegated to do in more like rock'n'roll and and theater and and stuff like that. So. Where it didn't matter as much. Where, yeah, it didn't matter your pulse with your, they didn't make weird bars on camera when you dimmed them down. So we, we, we, we used the heck out of them. And then we I think that at that point like some of the manufacturers started getting wind of this and state they started shifting and you start seeing advertisements for like very good light pulse with modulation, OK. Yeah. And it, it changed and, you know, that's one of those weird, like, you know, everyone talks about China in, in different ways.

40:49 And it's, it's one of those, well, everything's made in China almost. There are some comments. CK is made in China. Color Kinetics was made in China. Absolutely. And things like the LED par, who really invented the LED par? I would argue that China invented the LED PAR like I think. It was. Komar I think it was. Komar, I think it was Komar. Komar. Komar came out with the first LED par. It was just called the Parlite LED and they sold 10s. Of. Thousands of those things, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was a little black par. They sold 10s of thousands of these things, like just gazillions of them just falling off trucks. You know, they were just they sold them all day long because it was really the first light that came out after the color blast.

41:39 That was really common sense logical and and could be used on shows and stuff. And it really wasn't bright enough to to replace like 1000 Watt par or even a 600 Watt par. Yeah, but it it like people use them for trust owners all day long. It was a great trust owner. And you know, smaller shows you could use them as pars. You couldn't use them on like an arena show as pars. They just weren't bright enough eye. Candy stuff and and what? Yeah, eye candy, but they were great. I mean, they still exist. There's there's I get them, we get them on gear source all the time, you know, and people have upgraded the LE DS in them and made them brighter. And, you know, it's just a light that won't go away because it was built by Italians in Italy, you know, and built like a, a freaking tank.

42:25 You know, they they were built to survive anything. So, yeah. But you know. Is, is, I mean, the difference between that and the CK colour blast at the end of the day, the light output. I mean, that's The funny thing about about pars these days is, you know, there's no more parabolic reflectors. Yeah, it's now just a wash light and then you have a zooming par that makes a circle that goes in, out. Yeah. So is that a for now or is that a par? Well, so there's some other companies, there are some companies who did some with with the parabolic reflector and you know, the LED firing backwards.

43:07 So it was an LED package firing backwards into the reflector and it just never really caught on that big. You know, it wasn't the most efficient way to get light out the front end of the fixture. And, and it also made it harder to cool them too, because you have, you know, the biggest challenge with LE DS, as you know very well is keeping them cool enough, because if you don't cool them, you run into all kinds of problems very early on in, in that fixtures life. And so the, the, the contact temperature for an LED is very low. Like I don't know what it is these days, but I remember at one point it was something like 70 or 80 Celsius. It wasn't very high at all that you needed to keep that temperature below that.

43:52 And and so you know, some of the biggest problems because I had an LED company very early on and also Gear Source. So one of the where Christie got a lot of their color blast was from me at Gear Source. We had this crazy opportunity where we were contacted by Circuit City. And so Circuit City, this is a blast from the past because they closed a long time ago, but Circuit City had come up with this design to redo all of their stores. One of the things architectural lighting designers put in like, I don't know, 500 color blasts in every store or some crazy amount of color blasts in every store and they never installed them. They sat for like 6 months, a new CEO came in, they were having all kinds of financial problems and stuff and somebody pulled the plug on the on the project. And so this was like almost a year after Color Kinetics had sold them.

44:48 And I, I can't remember the original number, I think it was 8000 color blasts. And then there was some other stuff too. And so I get a call from a company that has been hired to get rid of these color blasts because CK wouldn't take them back, of course. And so I get a call from this, this liquidation company who knows nothing about what they've got. All they know is they've got these color kinetics color blasts. They went online, how do we sell these things? And they found gear source. And so I'm like, yeah, we can help you sell those. I mean, we understand where they need to go and who they need to go to and that kind of thing. Well, Long story short, at the time color blasts were selling for around 1000 bucks each at dealer cost. These were sold at 399 each.

45:36 And so of course you can imagine like we were selling 50 to 100 a day every single day, sometimes more, you know, sometimes we get a 500 piece order and stuff like that. And they were shipping straight out of color kinetics warehouse and or out of, I'm sorry, out of Circuit City's warehouse. And I mean, it it for us for probably four or six months, it became a big source of our revenue. Like we were doing almost $1,000,000 a month just in color blasts some months, you know? And so, yeah, we sold tons of them to CK or to Christie, tons of them to Upstaging, tons of them to Bandit, to PRG, all the big rental companies.

46:22 We sold so many color blasts it was crazy. So yeah, it was fun. So that was so a couple of things that sort of drove sort of that foundation of LED in our industry. And I don't know if you know these stories, but one was that Color Kinetic sued everybody for pulse width modulation control over RGB. Absolutely, and it boggles my mind that they still have the patent on RGB color mixing. Well, so here's the thing, they don't have the patent on RGB color mixing. They have the patent on pulse width modulation control of LED color mixing. So doing and everybody just found other ways around it. And So what happened was, you know, and, and so the head engineer of of Komar at the time, Fausto or Asadi is a good friend of mine.

47:09 Fausto used to always say to me, it's incredible that this American company got this patent on pulse width modulation control. When I read about this in textbooks in like the 7th grade, you know, this is something that's been around since the like, it's not a new thing, you guys and your crazy patents in the United States, this is nuts. But what that did them having such tight patents on this, it scared all the European companies away. So it's stopped innovation in a sense. It slowed innovation in that the US is the biggest market so less companies were inspired to design fixtures. But it stopped product from coming into the United States as well because everyone was so scared cuz literally CK had lawyers that would just walk around handing out cease and desist letters at LDI and get those fixtures off your booth right now. Or we'll, we'll come down here and wrap, you know, tape around your booth and close your booth tomorrow. And it was terrible.

48:12 It was terrible. What happened? So then when CK sold to Phillips, Phillips went with that program for a little while and then they went, you know what, there's probably a way to make more money, let's just go out and license to everyone. And so they got really loose and liberal with their licensing policies. And even Chinese factories were getting licenses to be able to copy or use their patents and sell products directly into the US market. And that's when it just became a free for all. So year, I would guess that was probably 2007, 2006 maybe when it just got crazy opened up.

48:53 Sounds about right. Yeah. Everything opened up. That slowed the start of things like they almost tried to sort of betamax the LED fixture, like where we own the rights. Nobody else is going to come up with anything. But then the industry always finds a way. You know, we're a pretty smart industry and they found a way and since that time we've seen incredible innovation. It's just amazing. Like if you would have told me in 2000 that we'd have LED sourced fixtures that were brighter than xenon fixtures or whatever, I'd be like, no way, you're kidding. But it's just incredible the amount, I don't think.

49:34 We've got, we're not quite there right like we, we've got pretty pictures that are as bright as Xenon, but we haven't quite surpassed the Xenon. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. It it's an interesting. Well, now the laser stuff, you know, the laser phosphor stuff, like it, that robot eye bolt, that thing's incredibly bright. Yep. The bolt and the what? The radius the. All of that stuff, Yeah. The Elation 1, exactly. That thing's bright as hell the, you know, And then some of the like Ayrton has that little tiny thing that's in the magic dot. It's called the Kailami. I think it's called. I always call it salami, but I know. That's sort of sports car, right? Yeah, yeah, either a sports car or a track. They've gone on to a lot of the the real iconic European race tracks and stuff.

50:23 But yeah, that little Kailami thing, it's like this big and it's got the 100 Watt laser in it and it's cool as hell. And I think Eric told me either they have one coming or one came out or something from Elation as well, a tiny little 100 Watt laser. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff. Like, you know, I'm older than you, you guys are. You guys are spoiled with the shit that you've got now. Like, you know, I grew up selling pals and and robo scans and stuff. You know when when you know now today none of those fixtures would stand up to 100 Watt LED fixture. It's incredible. Well, I count myself lucky that my high school had a radio stat dimming system with manual interlocking submasters. And.

51:12 Patch Bay and absolutely no instruction whatsoever. And I really showed up in high school and said, oh, I'm in the tech theater. Yeah, I like lighting. And they were like, great kid, there you go. So I had a free, free reign, a full fly system with absolutely zero training. And I didn't kill myself. I didn't kill anybody, but I had a great time learning some things. You know, The thing is, that's how most people learned in our industry is, is trial by fire, you know, and it's one of the cool things about our industry. It's crazy. Like when you tell people, you know, that we're putting up these massive rigs and half the crew don't know what they're doing. They're learning right now. You know, it's like, really.

51:54 Yeah, which which is an interesting thing, right? So in our industry, and I've had, I've had this issue with crew, right? So we've got, we've got kids who come in and they're like, oh, I want to be, I want to do this. And almost immediately they're like, why am I not making $55 an hour? That guy's making, you know. Yeah, they're making a $1200 day rate. And it's like, well, you just started. You don't know what you're doing yet. Yeah, well, I did a show yesterday. Yeah, yeah. So now you're one day experienced you. Should I think you're right, a little bit plagued by that. And you look at like the construction industry where they have a very defined intern program and a very, you know, our industry has what Full Sail where they teach you to be a better designer.

52:43 But no one, no one's really sitting you down and going this is how you make labels or this is how you convert an Excel sheet into a mail merge, or. Well, folks, folks are trying to like the ESA for example, is a great organization and but you know, to get it mandated is the tough part. Like that's where that's where it's really difficult is to start mandating that stuff. Paying a bunch of kids to train and we're paying them top dollar to figure it out. Well, and Joe, it's probably worse now that since COVID, right, because we had a lot of the. Ultra retired or quit and moved on and now we've got all all new up and coming young ones. I mean, I've seen some pretty weird stuff. Yeah.

53:24 Recently we had a call with a certain labor company in a sub arena and the riggers hung the motors and then they stopped and we were like what about the truck? What about wrapping the truck like, oh, we don't do that. So the riggers said that they don't wrap the Truss or run motor cable. So we went to the electricians and said, hey, we need you to run this motor cable. Oh, we don't touch that. That's rigging. God, you said, we have. To give him a call, Stewart, who eventually comes over, is like, OK, we're going to figure, OK, you guys all right, riggers, you have to do. And it was just like, how many years have a decades have we been doing rigging? That is crazy.

54:05 Suddenly there's like a labor stop because our the crew doesn't know who does what anymore. It's nuts. Yeah, that's crazy. No. And it's such a valuable point. And I talk about this on almost every podcast episode these days. Is, is there's just such a lack of training in our industry and especially like formal training, you know, like you have to have at least this certificate to be able to do this. There's none of that. And again. Certifications coming out of Vegas, they're, you know, those are handy, those are nice. But yeah, I'd like to see something more like a an official apprenticeship program. So you can't be a qualified me unless you've done so many hours with somebody, right? And I mean, that's something that works really well in the construction industry. So yeah, you follow, you follow like Greasy Palmer around for a year and then you're allowed to go out and make real money. Yeah, no, that makes sense.

54:57 And, and I completely agree with you. And, and so there's, I think there's two different topics there, though, right? Like there's training and then there's certification, basically. Sure. And so I think at the end of the day, when everybody's running really fast, like what you're basically doing is you're saying slow down. We need to put this program in place. And right now everybody's deaf to it, you know, until the building's on fire, nobody wants to figure out where the fire hoses are, right? Like, I mean, that's probably a terrible analogy, but you know, until it's a problem, it's not a problem. That's how our industry tends to look at most of these things. And I mean, it's a problem now, but we're all too busy trying to staff shows. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the thing.

55:38 Like you need, number one, I need enough bodies #2 I need good bodies. So, you know, somewhere in there there's, there's an answer. But one of the things that I've seen that I think is at least promising is so many of at least the larger companies, or especially the larger companies that I'm aware of. And maybe you get involved in something, I don't know. But the larger companies are doing their own training programs and and they're they're recruiting and then they're training their staff and you got to go through this program to get on to our shows. And so that I think is promising and think it's been done from necessity. Like I think the companies like the upstagings and PRGS and bandits of the world, they need to do those things. You know, they need to Christie solo tech, any of these four wall the companies that are hiring, you know, tons and tons of people, not just one or two people or whatever they need to to make the pool bigger and and.

56:40 And deeper. Bigger and deeper. Even as a mid sized company, we've done some of that. So we've done the winter went slow, we've done like an IT class for networking, for shows. Yeah we've got some of our more experienced Mees come in and just sit down and go okay this is a node yeah how do I get the system to talk Arknet? How do I get to talk SACN? How do we do MA net? What what are the pitfalls like OK, yeah your IP address is matched. That's a problem like just the basic stuff and. Yeah, Well, should maybe. I don't know. I don't know how unions operate and stuff, but should the unions or labor companies get involved in incentivizing companies to provide that type of training?

57:24 Yeah, I think that'd be great. Yeah. I think that would be a huge step in the right direction. But I don't see, I don't see IOTSE. I do, I see IOTSE doing training. They do quite a bit of rigging training. They do quite a bit of like basic stage hand training, which is kind of like, OK, this is a road case like this is how you push it down a ramp. And yeah, there's there's no mid level there. And, and part of it is because IA, at least in our region, IA is doing the kind of the box pushing stuff. But there there's no, other than a couple of major theatre houses, There's no one who's on the IA who's being an ME, There's no one who's doing a load balance. There's no one who's actually patching the show. Yeah, they're, they're either at the arena and some guy comes in on the tour and says plug the red 1 into the red one, the blue 1 into the blue and don't fuck it up. Or yeah, they're actually working at a theatre house like the 5th Ave. or the Paramount where they're they're doing their own work and doing their own patch and stuff. But there's those jobs are taken, there's only, there's only so many of those jobs available that are a higher level like that kind of ME L2, whatever you want to call it. So that IA doesn't invest a lot of money at least in our region in training those those roles because they don't need to. It's a bit disappointing though, because like as you know, most, if not all of the manufacturers in our industry are willing to get involved and and promote their own training programs, many or most of which are free.

58:52 And so I think like if you were to go to an elation and say, Hey, I need you to do an advanced moving light. Well, it's probably not that advanced beginners moving light training on how to do this, how to hang it, how to get it out of the road case, how to whatever. I mean, you could probably do that yourself. You don't need. Elation for that, yeah, I mean, all that's kind of already covered, right? It's the skills that are missing are How do I effectively troubleshoot ADMX line? Yeah. Right. How how do I figure out that a power that that a true one is bad? Or like, how do I troubleshoot power? Where where do I start and where do I finish and how do I determine?

59:32 Because we get stuff back all the time and our repair guy jokes that like about 30% of the gear that comes back to shop to the shop marches in FG. Yeah, it's actually fine. There's nothing wrong with it. It's something else that's been wrong. Well, you know, I know Kadena is getting involved in a lot of training all over the country. Well, and even the world. I think he travels outside the US to do training. You do, you know Richard Kadina? Yeah. Yeah. You know, brilliant guy and he gets involved I think with the unions. I think he does union training. And the cool thing about him is, is, you know, it's from electricity all the way through to moving light, whatever. Like he can, he can go as in depth as you need to go well.

1:00:15 He wrote. He's an amazing trainer. Yeah, he wrote books on it, but he's an incredible trainer and, and a very smart guy and, you know, an accomplished author and all of those things. But there's only one of him, you know, So we need more guys like him who, who have sort of carved, carved out this niche. But again, I think #1 you need customers who demand it, you know, because that demand obviously creates, you know, incentive and supply. Like the show to load in on time and work correct I I think that's where the. This is the problem, right? Yeah, this is the problem. If you take a, you get maxed out and you take these kids who like haven't had much experience and you suddenly throw them on a show and oh, magic, you're the lead. And they, they don't know what the like. It takes time to get to that point where, yeah, you may have worked like four or five shows and things have gone great. Yeah, but you haven't had that problem. And then suddenly you have that problem and you're just like, what do I do?

1:01:14 What do I do? And it's, it's, I think that's why look at the construction industry has that year long apprenticeship program or two year long like so you're an electrician, you're, you're clocking next many hours, you're working for a full year, a full 2 years at at that lower rate. But again, the difference is. Master electrician who? Really? An actual certified electrician knows what they're doing. Yeah. You're likely to have come across all of the potential problems you might have come across and you're going to learn the trick that you're going to learn the actual trade. We got some of these kids in who like they really want to be an me and really what they want to do is be a, they really want to be a programmer. But people who can actually load shows in and you set them down, you give them a capture file, you give them a plot, and they're like, what do I do?

1:01:59 Yeah. But why I keep saying this whole thing about incentive is like, again comparing it to the construction industry where you have building codes and you have inspectors and you have every step of the way an inspector comes in and goes, Yep, you drilled that hole deep enough or or, you know, you ran that wire enough or whatever it is. And whereas in our industry we don't have any of that stuff. You know, inspectors all the time, but they're, they're the city electrical inspector who has never read the NEC code on temporary electrical power. And they walk in and go, yeah, you have to put cable ramps on all of those fixtures that are against the wall. So they might be looking for ADA compliance or things like that, but.

1:02:42 We, we. And every time we, the city of Seattle gets a new electrical inspector, it's a battle because they, yeah, literally never read the NEC code for temporary power. Yeah. And they come onto a job site and they make their demands, which are over the top absurd. And then it. Takes a few. Weeks at the point, they're kind of OK. We're such a free for all industry though, like the we're home boys and again, everyone home boys, everyone wants regulation and wants some rules mandated and stuff like that. But then everyone doesn't when it comes right down to it, it's like leave me alone. I know what I'm doing here. And so like if someone was to come in and say, you know, you need a hang point for every X feet of Truss, you need this for every six moving lights, you need a this for every 100 feet of cable, you know, like all of these regulations. And then an inspector is actually checking those things off.

1:03:35 You know, I think that is a totally different thing. And we're not going to get from here to there in one step. But I think again ESA, I'm very supportive of the stuff that that they're doing over there. Well, the. ETCP certifications have come out and a lot of venues are starting to take on those and take them very seriously, which is great. Yeah, yeah. I think some of that training has happened in the rigging side of things because that's something that really effects people lives. But a lot of this stuff is happening through volunteers. You know, the, the, they're the ESA are volunteers. They're all volunteering their time. I think they may have hired one employee now, like a office manager type, but they're all volunteers. All of the main people are volunteers. You know, some of these things are pretty heavy lifts. Like sometimes you got to lobby the government to to regulate this or whatever.

1:04:26 You got to go to insurance companies and say, will you give them a lower insurance rate if they can prove that they've done all of these safety things. And so now there's an incentive. Again, everybody does things based on incentive, right? And so, yeah, I mean, something has to give because, you know, people have died in our industry is a problem. You know, we have a staffing problem in our industry right now. And, and so that training thing is going to become a bigger and bigger issue. And everyone I talk to every single week on this podcast says it's an issue. But again, I, I, I just think it needs to start with some, some rules and some incentives. And until we get there, we're going to stay right where we're at right now, or until lots and lots of people get hurt or die or something. And then it becomes a forced issue. And then the government's gonna make the decisions. And now get wait until you see some of those rules. You know, it's like what you want me to do what? Like I've been doing shows for 50 years. I could never do that.

1:05:26 You know, that kind of stuff's coming. But so you know, the other thing is like at the same time that you've got all of these problems over here and people wanting like I'm sure you have all kinds of wage problems and stuff where guys who used to be a $300.00 a day rate are now asking for 600 or more. Absolutely. And that's something else that's. So inflation is obviously a huge problem, yeah, across the industry. And coming out of the pandemic there was like, you know what, 2021 inflation jumped 8%, which was massive. And yeah, we, we went through some of that. But I think we're just only now seeing that inflation set in where we're, we're looking at massive increases just this year alone in our insurances doubled, Yeah, our building rent, our triple Nets have doubled or not.

1:06:23 I think our triple Nets are up like over 100%. Jesus Christ. And we were, we were locked in at a pretty low rate. But the the triple Nets gone through the roof. And part of that is just building maintenance has gone up. So the garage door breaks. I don't know why I'm paying for a garage door to get fixed on a building I don't own, but that's how commercial real estate works. So here we are. Yeah, truck costs have gone up, rentals costs have gone up. Everything across the board has gone up. Even just like grocery store food has gone up, the cost of living has gone up, the cost of the cup of coffee has gone through the roof. Yeah, every single one of our clients goes. You know what? Let's do the same budget we did in 2019. I know, isn't that crazy?

1:07:05 So our our industry is kind of in that weird rut where we've been so used to appeasing our clients. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can make that happen. So even now, we've gotten to a point where we're going, OK, we, we need to make more money somehow. Like we cannot do the same show that we did in 2019 for the same amount of money. So your budget was $30,000 back then. We cannot do that same show for $30,000. And the answer is, well, cut some gear. Yeah. So, yeah, we're not really making any more money. You still have these shows that you still have these clients who call out. The gears in my shop instead of on the rig, you know right? It's not like, right? Yeah. And then you still have these clients who call in and they're like mystified that they can't get front lights and a couple up lights for their little tiny gig for over under $1000. Yeah.

1:07:54 And it's just it's, I think we're going to see some huge shifting in the industry. And I think a lot of the big guys are in a lot of trouble, and I don't think they're admitting it because I think a lot of them are really overextended on their credit. And I think we're seeing that. And we're seeing that in weird places, like certain companies coming in to do installs and just not charging for labor because they're trying to increase the bottom line to make this look better. So when the venture capitalist comes to buy them out, or the next venture capitalist comes to rebuy them, they look better on paper. That's starting to bite some of these companies in the ass though, because the private equity companies are pretty smart at looking through your financials and doing.

1:08:36 Buying each other out from each other you've got. And they do these things by. Private equity firms who are getting bought by companies were owned by private equity firms. And they do these quality of earnings reports that sometimes take weeks or months, where they're really just looking at every nickel that is spent and verifying all of that information, like how are you making your money? How are you paying for it? What are you paying? What is the actual profit margin, not just the one that's stated or whatever, But you're right. I mean, it's almost like a three headed monster that you're talking about. Like poorly trained but overpriced labor is number one. It's. #2 It's not even I'll go.

1:09:18 I'll let you fast number. Two, being the customer doesn't want to pay any more than they did when costs were half as much. And #3 there are competitors, some of them very large, who will still do it for that money because they need to buff up their their top line sales number, even at the expense of losing money in some cases. Absolutely. It's especially here in Seattle where the rent cost and the cost of living is risen so high. Paying 25 to $30.00 an hour for a shop labor is. I mean, that's barely, it's, it's almost poverty. People are like, oh, you're crazy, $15 hour in minimum wage, but you can't fucking live on $15.00 an hour in this city or in the suburbs of this city or anywhere near this city.

1:10:04 And the, that's not a US industry problem. That's a, that's an overall industry problem. But for us, it's pushed our bottom line higher and higher. So we went through two years post pandemic of massive growth and the past year has literally been stagnant of we we don't have enough money to grow because we're we're just we're break even, we're break even. And every time we're like, Nope, Nope, we're still break even at it. Yeah, we've just seen a company here fold. It. Really. Yeah. We, we lost a well, I, I don't know. They, they say they're not dead, but we all are pretty sure they're dead. Yeah. A long, long time company up here. I won't make names.

1:10:46 Yeah, no, but they we just recently we. Went to go pick up a sub rental from them and they found a note on the door that said closed due to burlary and upon further investigation it turns out that they haven't paid their rent in quite a while. When it wasn't a burglary, it was the sheriff and they're. Burglarizing the landlord. Yeah, the landlord's changed locks on the door, so you know they're there. There might be an auction sometime, although they've announced they're reopening in September, so yeah. Well, let's, let's hope they do. Let's hope they do. You know they do. I mean, I'm seeing the same thing like we saw obviously the same thing you saw in 2020. A lot of companies didn't survive and then everyone went batshit crazy for a couple years and then, you know, the 4th head of that three headed monster is debt. You know, so many companies took on so much debt, especially in 2020.

1:11:41 And you know, it was easy to get the government was was Co signing for you basically through the SBA. So you were able to take these EIDL loans and and other loans and there was so much money flying around I. Really regret not taking a bigger EIDL loan and parking $1,000,000 of that into a high interest savings account. No kidding. You're interested behind. I would have been 2% a month. It's crazy, isn't it? It is crazy. It's crazy. You could have done that. That's totally true. I never even thought of it that way, but it's true. It's. Nuts. I think you sell gear, you sell used gear. How's your sales doing first quarter? Actually right now quite good first quarter, I believe first quarter was bad, but we had different reasons.

1:12:29 We had different reasons. So Gear Source went through our own pain that's totally different than everybody else's. I will tell you, I will tell you our company though, we don't follow the industry trends because remember that it's a supply and demand business that I'm in. And so when COVID, we had huge supply, no demand, very little demand, the demand that we did have. So we still did probably 35% of our normal revenue during COVID, during 2020, I should say. And that was because you had opportunists who had cash and then we had companies, especially in Asia who were just dying and, and, you know, needed to just pay their home rent and stuff like that.

1:13:12 So they were selling gear on the cheap. And, you know, we were creating these deals. We sold a, a sound company from Chile to a, a sound company in Canada and they just had some warehousing available and it was unbelievable inventory. And they said, Yep, we'll take it all. And we sold just all the audio consoles and some amp racks and stuff. And it paid for everything that they, you know, they've got a large, I think it's DNB or L acoustics, I can't remember. So they ended up with all this stuff as their profit on the deal basically. And so, you know, we're, we're always like when the industry goes batshit crazy like it did in 2021, mid 21 to 22, there's no gear available.

1:13:55 So now supply is really bad, but demand is extremely high. And so we're running around trying to find sellers who are willing to get rid of stuff. And then we'll get to where we've got loads of supply. And now the demand's gone because everyone got slow again. I remember the calls. Yeah. I had Brad calling me like every other week. Hey, man. Yeah. You got a, you got a. Points right. Yeah, Did you? Sell some mega points. I was like, no, no I won't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you should have. You could have got friggin high prices. You know what, Watching some of the used prices too was just crazy because like MA twos in 2020, we're selling for MA2 full size. We're selling between 12 and $15,000 by, call it, 23. Early 23 MA twos were selling for $35,000. Yeah.

1:14:47 Go figure. Just crazy. Three times as much over yet and so many people are just not happy with where the three is at development wise and I. Don't or they couldn't get. Them cuz I mean, I was around from the switch from 1:00 to 2:00 yeah and it took a lot of time to make that switch and it took a lot of time and they need real world situations like you can't debug the software sitting in the shop like you have to have that console out in the show. Well, yeah, they got hit by some really bad timing because they launched it right. But. It is a terrible time to try to proof a console or proof Oh yeah, why you're in real world situations, Because there aren't any real world situations. But the other thing is they ran into supply problems, you know, because the same problems, the factories are closed due to COVID or whatever, like so you know.

1:15:31 Everyone's had that. Like even right now in MA three you could. Block down some of their component sales. So for instance, companies in China who are selling like a capacitor, right, like you have, there are some some companies in this industry who still make their own product in their own countries of origin. They're not making everything. And nobody's gonna like open a capacitor factory when you could just buy them. Yeah, but there are certain companies that had a lot of problems with specifically capacitors because their mains capacitor supplier wasn't allowed to sell X amount outside of the country. Yeah, they were taking care of their own. Supply was limited, so they went to third party capacitor suppliers and those have all been popping. And there's a there's a certain product line that we've had a lot of issues with, specifically a capacitor on the Control Board of this one product or this one product line. And it's been a nightmare for them. It's been a nightmare for us.

1:16:28 And it's yeah, it's trouble. And that that has continued to progress down the chain. That's these little remnants leftover from COVID where, you know, it's a few things that were purchased during the COVID times have got they're plagued with issues because of little things like that. It's not the products bad. It's just, it's, it's you. You have a a beautifully designed $20,000 fixture that's Immaculate and the passer goes bad. The thing's a fucking piece of it's a brick. Yeah, it's useless, completely useless. Now I've been through that like a, you know, again, I've had a long moving like career prior to my used gear career and I remember I can't remember if it was Martin or high end.

1:17:08 One of them switched their stepper motors in their in their moving mirror fixtures and they switched to a Chinese supplier and there was something happening, I think when they were heated up inside a fixture, the lubrication was, was basically leaking outside of the motor or whatever and they were seizing up. These motors were seizing up and I mean, it was a frigging nightmare and it took a while to fix it too, so you were just sending out boxes of motors. To be screws in the back of the motor. You pull the spool out, you take some gaff tape inside out around your finger, you wrap it around the coil, you put it back together and there's a 5050 shot. It works again. That's something you know, I don't. I just sell them a new motor. Yeah, but so I mean and the other thing about like you were talking about the inflation costs, some of it is a false inflation cost. Like some of it is just is just people saying, hey, I can get away with charging more, so I'm going to charge more, right. But.

1:18:01 Here in our industry, God, try that and you're fucked yeah, I mean, we we we all do to a certain a certain point, right. We're all going, oh, but I would argue that we're maybe when we're gouging the bigger companies, I think we're actually getting our fair market value. Yeah, I think for the. First time in a long time and. No, I agree with you. There's been there's been a significant downturn in one off rock shows. Touring is has been down. You've seen all those like arena tours canceled because really they should have been only a theater tour or or a large theater tour in the first place. Or Black Keys? And who was the other big one?

1:18:42 Beyoncé. Did Beyoncé drop a No, that's not. Right, No Jlo Jlo J. Lo right, so like, you know. That was the same time for a shitty ticket. On stadiums, yeah. Some of these people shouldn't have been doing a stadium tour in the first place. I agree. I've been saying that for two years. It goes down on the chain. So we saw a significant downturn in Q1Q2 of one off rock shows of just people who'd cancelled their tours. Yeah. And right now we're seeing festivals that are not selling well. Like. Festivals are in trouble again. There was that whole festival bubble thing back in 2017. And yeah, this is different. This is not, I don't know if it's a bubble or if it's just the people don't want to go to a festival anymore.

1:19:26 You know, it's hard to say. I was talking to a very good friend of mine who's an account exec for a very large concert touring company, and he said to me that the last six months were the toughest 6 months he can ever remember in his career. Yeah, and the next 18 months, he's got the biggest pipeline he's ever had in his career. So he said it's a fucking weird market right now. Like I can't figure it out. Like are. We good, Are we bad? Are we good? Are we bad? You know what's going on right now. It's got to pick up and it's so it's. I I would say almost genre driven like I've seen EDM shows flop which didn't happen for a long time but but if anyone is doing well right now it is like the Insomniac and the EDM concerts and shows that are done.

1:20:12 Very well, but that's the only. Thing everything else is we're watching alt rock bands they can't even sell out in their own hometown. Really. And one offs and festivals. Like none of there's not a single festival we're doing that's not EDM driven that has sold out this year. But so The thing is when you talk to anyone from Live Nation, they say you're full of shit, like the capacity is massive for more ticket sales, not less, more ticket sales, you know, and the way they say it, the way they explain it, you. Want to name too many names? But ask Ask a certain division of Live Nation that focuses on country music. Yeah, ask.

1:20:55 Them how they're doing and the answer is not that great. Yeah, Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting time right now. You know, I've been trying to figure it out. I used to, I used to hang my hat on the fact that I knew what was going on in the industry and I could predict really well and I could predict my own revenue really well and all of that stuff. Now I haven't got. A fucking clue I. Haven't got a clue what's going to happen next year. I don't know. I I half of mind, I mean, you know, you want to buy a company and sell it to someone in Canada. Yeah, I might be open to that next week or like shit, a month from now. It might. Or. Expanding open a Portland office. I can't. Can't make up my mind and the industry can't make up its mind and we're all stuck.

1:21:37 No. And you know, I've been saying some of this stuff for a long time and I think some people just roll their eyes and don't listen And, and I think sometimes I've been right, sometimes I've been really wrong. But the like my biggest one that I constantly pick on is Mötley Crüe doing a stadium tour. You know, that was shocking to me. You know, first of all the bands long retired. Secondly, they were hardly selling out sheds and and arenas like not even selling them out in their final tour before they retired. And you know, the singer Can't Sing, the guitar player can hardly stand up, which they've since replaced him. And you know, who's paying 450 bucks for a ticket in a stadium to see an old washed up 80s band right now? Like, I mean we, I don't get it.

1:22:23 We have a solution for that, it's called a casino. Yeah, you're right. That's where the facts belong. Yeah, that's where Tesla and The Cult and all of those kinds of bands are playing in casinos and it's great. Like when I feel like going and seeing Loverboy, I know I can go to the casino and go see Loverboy. It's fun, you know, but and some of the packages are cool too. You know, it's like sticks and Journey and and REO Speedwagon. They've been making a killing like little tiny bites at a time, you know? I've heard some of those rehash festivals have done pretty well. Oh really? That's. Something that I've heard has sold like the and not not that far back like like the 90's rock type of stuff. Like the green?

1:23:05 Days and the Blink 182's and all those bands and I've heard that some of those, what kind of festival things have sold? All yeah, festivals are another one that I, I can't quite figure out. By the way, a little bit of trivia that I learned, I don't know, a few months ago or something. Guess how many festivals there are annually in the Netherlands. Netherlands is, I think it's 15,000,000 people in the Netherlands it's not a lot of people. I. Don't know, I've never looked it up. So Netherlands, you know, they have a winter I guess. So it's you're talking about a summer festival season that could go maybe from what, April to September or something?

1:23:46 Yeah, I mean, ours is pretty much locked from. Tiny little country, tiny little country, you know, 15,000,000 people or whatever. Maybe 17,000,000. How many festivals? Just give me a number. 24. 14114 hundred festivals in the Netherlands each year right now, you can look it up. But are they, are they, I mean, when you say festival, what do you mean? Because we, we have locally, we've got some big festivals and then we've got some medium festivals and we've got like the all of them block parties. And then we've got like Ballard's Whalen days where it's like a guy who's like a lumberjack that chops wood sculptures.

1:24:29 And so there's a guy called Sax Squatch, and he wears a Sasquatch suit and plays the saxophone and it's a. Somehow I'm not surprised. Yeah, right. But that's that's the big entertainment, right. So when you say festival like, you know what? What does that entail? I don't honestly know the answer to that. I believe it's music festival so if that even narrows it down. Even that, like saxophone, it could be playing at a music festival. But he's not on the same stage that Sophie Tucker's plan. He's not on the same stage as Odessa. Yeah, I can't answer that. I just know that the number of festivals annually in the Netherlands is 1400 and it blew my mind and it might even be higher than that now with this batshit crazy last couple of years we've had.

1:25:14 So that's where. Footage wise, I mean. I don't know what the Netherlands pans out to in terms of I'm thinking about. Just Washington state, right? Probably Washington state size. It might be a little bigger than Washington state. I would guess that if we did all of the little town festivals and town carnivals with music acts on them, I would guess that Washington state is, I would say easily 10,000. There's probably 10,000 festivals here. No way there can't. Be little teeny weeny little silly things and whatnot. Look it up and let's we'll talk about it later. Anyways, I thought that was an incredible number and but the other thing about Netherlands is. What are they? Not a lot of bands tour through the Netherlands, so it's a much more festival place and and so it's again, it's a little bit of an inflated number because of that, but they're they're party people.

1:26:07 They love going to music festivals in the Netherlands, like most of Europe, but. Netherlands. Especially they love, they love a good festival in the Netherlands. Yeah, the disposable income is another funny one. You know, it's like Mexicans are in Mexico. Are are they hardly earn any money. They're practically starving to death, yet you know, The Rolling Stones come and and they'll buy 125,000 tickets. You know, it's just incredible to me. Or Beyoncé or whoever is there, you know, like if Taylor Swift went there, I guarantee she could play 150,000 tickets, you know, and it's just incredible to me. But that's cool. Like the, the good news for all of us is that no matter how bad the economy gets, somebody will usually find money to buy a concert ticket or to go to a nightclub or something.

1:26:54 And that keeps you working, sort of. That's the hope. I don't know. I the the cost of every of producing everything, like I said, it just keeps going up and yeah, none of the budgets are rising. So when you when when your annual revenue is $5 million, it sounds great until your annual expenditures become $6 million. Yeah, that's not good math. Yeah, at which? Point, it doesn't balance out and then your business collapses and there you are so. Yeah. Well, and unfortunately, again, like you mentioned the D word debt and again, we didn't go too far into that, but I know a lot of companies who took more money than they should have taken in in 2020.

1:27:37 And you know, they looked really smart. They had gear when nobody else had gear and you know, they had more people than other people did or whatever. But now they're not looking so smart. And and you know, when those payments started coming due, they didn't look so smart. And I know I even people who said, oh, it's a 15 year mortgage, you know, it's easy. I got no problem. It's only 10 grand a month. I can pay that, you know, but it's like a, you know, it's like paper cuts. They add up after a while. You know, that's 10,000 a month when you're also your rent went up and your employee costs went up and your healthcare costs went up and everything else went up. Yeah, it's harsh. Yeah. I mean, I've certainly, we've certainly got some debt.

1:28:20 Yeah, I mentioned the Eid alone, that's a very manageable debt. We've got a couple of other loans out, but I, I think our bigger problem cash flow wise has been installations where we'll work with these arenas and we'll do an installation. So there's a certain arena we put some stuff into. We had a little bit of problems with the gear. Not our problem. It was a manufacturer error. It's now six months later and I'm still sitting on 50 grand that I'm basically loaning a major sports organization because the installation is not done because the manufacturer has been slow at fixing the problem that they created. And so we can't get paid until. So I'm sitting on that's terrible, 50 grand out and then, you know, here's another, another organization would really like us to come in and do a lot of repairs. We need to buy about 10 grand worth of parts to do that. If I buy that 10 grand worth of parts now. Our 60 grand, it's going.

1:29:17 To be 90 days before I see that back and then I'm going to be out the labor as well because I'm going to pay my guys in two weeks that that's when they're going to get paid. We're going to bill. It's going to be, you know, a $20,000 bill. It's going to be 90 days before I see that money. And so I'm just like, I'm become the bank, I'm loaning out the money and I'm like, on paper, if I do the math, we're OK. But in the short term I'm kind of like, shit, we can't take that job on because I can't sink $20,000 into their bullshit. I get 90 days to get paid. I get it. And that's something that our industry has also been really bad at is like, oh, yeah, we'll just, yeah, OK. And every time you sign one of these deals with like you're a preferred vendor for some major, major company, that always comes with the strings of, oh, we pay 90 days and that's considered early.

1:30:06 So we gave ourselves a 3% discount. Even Disney. The fuck? I remember Disney and Royal Caribbean when I was selling direct to these companies in South Florida or whatever it was. Like, what do you mean 180 days? Like you're freaking Disney right? Pay me. Yeah, pay me self for concert ticket or for park admission tickets. And pay me name names. But do you know what happens when I don't pay my cell phone bill at T-Mobile on time? Of course I have to pay. That at the end of the month that they shut my cell phone bill off. Yeah, yeah. And then when? Those roles are reversed. Yeah, isn't that incredible? It's a different story. Isn't it amazing, fun and such a sexy thing to be a business guy? It's company ownership, great.

1:30:52 You know, Oh my God, I yeah, I get a lot of people who are like, oh, you're so lucky. Yeah, you own the company and Hawaii. No, like I haven't slept in a fucking week. Like I I'm I'm nervous about this. I'm nervous about that. And then you asked me to drove a truck into a semi. Shit. You're exactly right, I posted something this week and I I'm trying to find it right now because I can't remember exactly how I said it was. It live the American dream, they said. Be your own boss, they said. Set your own hours, they said. Own your own business, they said. Something like that. It was something like that, but it was basically God, I got to find it, I'll find it and I'll send it to you or something. But it was something like, you know, owning a business is like, you know, jumping out of an airplane and trying to build a parachute on the way down.

1:31:38 You know that kind of. Thing, yeah, it's, it's trying to build a build a airplane on the way down. Yeah, Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah, so, but it's true. I mean, it's it's so exactly. True and Lego animated movie. And you happen to be a master builder? No problem. Yeah, yeah. Or if you're, or if you're Zuckerberg and the very first time you ever try and do a business, it becomes worth a trillion dollars, you know, out of high school or whatever, out of college. But it doesn't usually go, It's not usually quite that sexy. No, usually it really sucks for a long time and then hopefully you can sell it and have enough money to retire on. But sometimes that doesn't even work out right. I mean. That was that was the weird thing is I was getting to that point in 2019 where I was like, man, couple more years like this, we're smooth sailing, things are looking pretty good. And then suddenly it all crashed and now, yeah, it almost feels like having to rebuild.

1:32:34 I won't even get into my story because mine is much sadder than that. But it's, you know, the last five or six years have have tried to kill me and I survived and now I'm coming out the other end. But I've still got to, you know, I've still got to pay back the last five or six years, you know, and it started with a, it started with a lawsuit against Google, one of the largest companies in the world, who decided you're going to sue us, We're going to pummel you into the dirt. And they tried, they tried to end my business. They tried to destroy me completely. And I finally had to just tap out and say, OK, I give up. You know, I'll sign a release and let you guys off, even though you stole my trademark. And then, you know, going through divorce at the same time and, and then, you know, in 2022, I had a a very, very massive software failure that almost put me out of business. I mean, it literally almost put me out of business. Cost me a couple $1,000,000 and, and just brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal.

1:33:33 So yeah, the last five or six years I've had a very successful life. Up until the last five or six years I've been brutal, really rough. So yeah, I can go toe to toe with anybody's sad stories right now, you know? Five years ago, I bet you were like, you know, I may retire in about 5 to six years. Yeah, yeah. Well, I just turned 60 and I always saw myself not retired but not really working, you know, by the time I got to 60 and, you know, now I'm, I'm rebuilding and hoping for 65, you know? So fortunately I love what I do and I probably will never stop working anyways. But to get to that point where you go, I've got loads of cash in the bank and I don't really have to do anything today. Let's go for a walk, you know, or whatever, right? Like that's where you want to get to. That's that's all I'm looking for. Not once you.

1:34:22 Get to I yeah, man, I would love to work for myself. Yeah, I don't want to own the company anymore, but I'd love to work for myself. And that's, that's something where I like, you know, I think honestly, I've been in a little bit of depression or funk the last six months. And it was, yeah, I found myself going, God, I fucking hate my job. Yeah, I. Get it? I. Hate this shit. And yeah, it kind of took me. I had to go out and do something. I had to like step out into the field and build something cool. Yeah, that reminded you that. It's actually pretty. And then I was like, Oh yeah, I like what we do and who the hell? Well, I'll tell you this right now, and it's going to sound cheesy as hell, but I'm a really good guy to bounce shit off of. Ideas, problems, thoughts, you know, whatever. I'm really good at that.

1:35:11 And I'm I'm opening the door anytime you need to, you need to just vent on somebody and say here's what's going on right now. Like, what do you think? You know, I'm great at solving the world's problems. I'm just not very good at solving my own, you know, is really what it comes down to. I'm a great, I'm a great outside consultant, a terrible inside consultant. So, but yeah, anytime, I mean, if, if you think that I could help you through one of those problems or something, reach out. And if I can't help you, I'll say I can't help you. But most of the time I'll have an idea and I won't. I won't even charge you anything, Joe. OK, here's a. Conundrum. That amazing. I'll give you a live one. We'll put you on the spot. All right. All right, here's the conundrum company in town that's I'm not going to say competition because they've been kind of a smaller company goes appears to be going under their top sales guy is potentially up for grabs.

1:36:09 This top sales guy comes with a couple of certifications that no one in your company possesses that gives you an opening into a market you haven't really tapped too much. You're also at a point where your break even things haven't been going that smoothly. So do you jump on this opportunity to bring this person on board, make them an offer and use as an excuse to try to grow? Would you step back, let it ride and ride it out until you're in a better position? Just see what happens. So it's a great question.

1:36:50 Let me ask you a couple questions. So first of all, is your concern a ethical concern or a financial concern? Absolutely. Not a so it's it's a fight, it's entirely fine. Ethical concerns aside, 100% go for it. Like I'm I'm a go forward at any cost kind of guy. Like you have to if if you sit still, you die. That's that's how my brain thinks now. Make the gamble and see if it pays off. Make the gamble and, and make it pay off, not see if it pays off set, set it up so that it's gonna pay off. And you know, if you I, I can do it on the air here or we could do it later off the air. But I could give you some ideas on how to structure a deal where you can't lose too.

1:37:31 And, and I'm happy to share that kind of stuff with you so. I've got, I've got plenty of that. Yeah. The question is, it's, it's a bigger esoteric one. It's knowing what we've talked about today and knowing the the risks involved and not knowing what the industry is doing right now and not having that like gift of sight that we all thought we had for the longest time. Yeah, take the gamble. Yeah. So again, 100% I would not even 95% or anything, 100% I would, I would put some limits on it. So I would say I'm going to give this three months or six months or whatever I think is a reasonable point of of time down the road. So let's say I say it's six months, and let's say the guy's costing me 5 grand a month.

1:38:13 Nice round numbers. So you know it's going to cost me $30,000. It's a $30,000 bet. How am I going to get 30 grand back in six months? And if you think of it that way, it's pretty friggin easy to get 30 grand out of a person who's got contacts and has a clue, unless you've misread the person. If you can't increase your sales by enough to cover 30 grand, then maybe it's not worth doing it. But if if you look at it and you go, hey, if I provide this guy with the tools he needs with, you know, a phone and a desk and whatever the things are that he needs to be able to do his job.

1:38:53 And I support the hell out of him and I coach him a little bit and, and, you know, take him out for some dinners and stuff. Is this guy capable of pulling in 150 grand in profit in the next six months? Do it, you know, absolutely do it. But the first six months is what I'd look at as I've got to at least break even on this. I don't want this to impact to to worsen my bottom line. I I want it to at least be even on my bottom line. And then and again you can structure a deal so that. The only ethical part for me is do I bring someone on? I guess if you tell them up front with this is a trial and if we can't make it work after six months, we're going to have to like think otherwise. So again, I don't know if you want to do this on or off the air, but like I would structure it slightly differently. I might front load it a little bit and say, hey, I've got an opportunity for you where if you can get to this in the first six months, here's what we'll do.

1:39:51 So I dangle a carrot. So instead of instead of putting up a barrier and saying, hey, you know, if you can't do this, so you're putting pressure on him instead of incentive and and motivation on him. So if I if I put motivation there and say reach this and you'll make a lot of money or you'll have a really good position. Instead of saying if you don't reach, if you don't reach this, you're going to be fired, right? So it's a different type of pressure. It's a very positive pressure that I'm trying to improve my family life or whatever versus this guy's a Dick. He's going to fire me if I don't hit these numbers off, you know? So it's all in the packaging on that one. Like it's all in the presentation. It's all in the packaging and it's all in the details. But you know, I agree with you for being nervous, but I would do it like 100% do it.

1:40:41 That's. Definitely food for thought. Yeah, well, again, if you want to talk about it off the air, call me anytime, you know, because I'm happy to have those conversations and I'm really creative when it comes to that stuff. You know, I've, I've definitely structured some wacky deals in companies for other companies, you know, and stuff like that. So it's definitely in my wheelhouse, that kind of stuff. But I wanted to read a quote that you gave us in in the notes which I loved. And you maybe love hate. You probably have a love hate relationship with this quote. But you said the best way to sucker me into a project I don't want to do is to tell me it can't be done. Yeah, it's true.

1:41:22 I love that. I love that. Like that's such a cool. And I don't think you wrote it as a quote. I think it's just who you are, right? It's just part of your character. That's kind of been my love for the industry is you tell me that we have to load this whole thing in and have it up and going by 1:00 and I'm going to find a way. Yeah, I like. That. Cuz I'm the same way. Yeah, I'm the same way. Tell me I can't do it. Trying to create the impossible. And back when I was doing more design work, I'd come up with stuff that was mind boggling. How does that even work? And I love seeing that stuff. I love, I love seeing the the stuff that's coming out of like what EDC is doing down at like I think that was down Florida where they suddenly had a 80 foot span of clear span Truss.

1:42:06 Holy shit. I. Know, I know. But my buddy Eric designed that and I was just like, I had to call him up and be like, are you fucking nuts? Like how? And they used like basic construction crane trusting to EDM. Doing some really cool stuff. But here's a funny thing that Mark, you know who Mark Brickman is, right? He was Pink Floyd's lighting designer forever, but brilliant designer. Like as good as they come. And Mark said to me, you know, you know what I don't get about EDM? And I said, what? And he said, listen, if I'm standing there in the crowd stoned out of my fucking brains on Molly, the last thing I want is a bunch of white strobe lights flashing in my face all the time.

1:42:48 I'm like, yeah, you got a good point. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe that's why they get crazy. I don't know, I. Yeah. EDM is a very interesting market, and I said this years ago. The EDM has been very, very good for our industry because a kind of guy with two laptops and a mixer just isn't that fucking exciting. Like, give me Mick Jagger doing a guitar solo and doing backflips. Yeah, there are DJs who do that. The Jagger doesn't need all the production drugs. Jumps up on the DJ table and like jumps around and like he's active and does stuff. But 90% of the DJs out there, they just sit there and they kind of do this. And so you really. Need. 50 strobe lights to make it exciting you really need that many movers to make it that much more exciting because. That's the show, kind of.

1:43:35 Boring. Yeah, but that's the show. Yeah, it makes the show. And that drove the rest of the industry. So now you have all these other acts that not like. Trying to compete. My God Sufjan Stevens right? They're like a crossover Christian folk music ish act. The last time I saw them on tour they had like, well, big lighting package and like wacky WAVY inflatable arm guys and spectacle and it like I think that is all thanks to EDMI Think because EDM drove production values up, everyone else had to fall in line and everyone else had to jump on and go well shit, we better get a floor package.

1:44:15 Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you're right. Thanks DJs. Yeah, well, Joe, I have to do other things. So do you. And it's been enjoyable. We, we managed to somehow skate around politics and I like that and, and I even still like you, even though you know you, you vote differently than me. Go figure. Isn't that crazy that we could still be friends? Full disclosure for all of the people out there watching this, Marcel and I had a rather long conversation about politics before we started this podcast. And we both walked out of it still having mutual respect for each other and having some, you know, obviously we disagree on some stuff, but there we are. And I would encourage the rest of you out there and in podcast land or video land or wherever this is, Oh my God, do the same like.

1:45:05 Yeah, well, but don't do it online. Don't do it on social media, because it's a lynching regardless of which side you're on. It's a lynching if you go in and try to debate with somebody within a social media string of messages, it's a lynching and it's no fun. For half the people in that string of messages are Russian bots. It's stupid. They're they're there to make us hate each other and to divide us. And I love sitting, having a beer or a cup of coffee with somebody and talking about things that I don't know anything about or that I don't agree with and hearing their opinion. And maybe I'll come a little closer to where you're at. I probably won't completely change my mind, but you know, I'll probably agree on some things and you might even agree on some things I say.

1:45:47 But I'm glad you brought that up. Virtual handshake Earlier, we agreed. We found a common ground that we agreed upon on one topic. Yeah, yeah. No. And I think we probably agree on more than than either of us knows right now. Like I think both of us puffed our chest a little bit and said I'm standing over here, I'm standing over here, you know. And but I think we agree on more than more than we don't. So. But anyways, thanks Joe. I appreciate it very much and you know, hope things get a hell of a lot better for you and definitely go forward and do that deal. It sounds like an incredible opportunity to change the face of your business in a sense. And sometimes adding one person can do that and this might be the person.

1:46:30 So I mean if you believe in the person, I would do it 100%. We'll find out. Yeah, Stay tuned. All right, my friend. See you later. Bye, Marcel.