#322 - Chance Stahlhut - Navigating the Future of Live Events

0:00 I think in any good organization, you know, your CEO is leading that vision and it says this is what's important to me and this is a culture and this is the direction I want to go. And in my position and anybody else in the C-Suite, our job is to kind of go execute that. And then there's things that we're working on. You know, they did this roll up in the concert stuff and it's been a little over a year, but we kind of rolled all this in and, you know, they started the board and, and took all these companies and brought them in and we started some acquisition. So a lot of the stuff that we're doing is all the back end stuff that I know anyway. Like that was the thing of like, you know, all right, well, you know, some of these things coming from other companies. So like, you know, we're going to go work on IT. We're going to go work on HR payroll, how we do contracting, insurance.

0:45 These are not things that like, you know, we don't need to waste the time in a meeting to sit there and be like, well, what, how, what do you want to do here? That's the role of it. And I think then, you know, we try to all strategically look at future opportunities.

1:27 Hey, welcome and thanks for joining me here again on Geez of Gear. So today first I want to talk about a couple deals that have just been done in our industry. And so first and foremost, the deal that has lingered for more than a year now. I actually remember at one point last year, you know, people saying that it's got to get done by June 1st. And if it doesn't, you know, then it's going into bankruptcy and all kinds of crazy things like that. And here we are a year later in August of 2025 and the four wall deal has just been announced.

2:09 And I'm not sure the real details of the deal. You know, it put some sketchy details in the press release, or I should say limited details in the press release, making it a point that they are keeping their management team in place, which is a good thing, I guess for the, you know, stability of the company to keep people happy, to keep people feeling motivated or whatever, the staff especially. So that's a good thing. And but they didn't mention much about, you know, sort of the structure of the deal. And I guess the devil's in the details, but looks like a debt deal, you know, I'm sure, you know, they're not buying it to hold it forever. So it looks to me like some sort of a turn around deal where they're coming in and they're going to improve EBITDA and improve the numbers and improve the books and then flip it for more money in another year or two. That would be my guess anyways, but I'm just speculating at this point.

3:08 So I don't have any inside information on that or anything. So congratulations to Four Wall and the team at 4 Wall and their customers and especially their vendors who now have, I think some stability and and feeling, you know better about, you know, making big deals with four wall and getting paid and stuff. So great news and I think it's great for the industry. You don't want that sort of unknown or instability in in an industry like ours, especially from one of the largest companies out there and in news just this morning. So by the time you hear this, it'll be old news, but Claire Brothers or Claire Global are continuing to make moves and they have purchased friends of ours Clearwing.

3:54 And so congratulations to Greg Brunclick and family who have made this deal with Claire. Congratulations to Claire for getting a great company with, with a great attitude, great gear, great history. I think from 1976, if I remember correctly, you can hear Greg Brunclick talking about that stuff on 2 episodes of Gears of Gear in the past. So again, congratulations to both teams on a an excellent deal, great company etcetera. And I think Claire Global is also a great company with obviously a pretty big war chest of, of acquisition funds in play. And so we're going to see I'm sure more deals from them in the future. So that's good news.

4:40 I wanted to jump into AAI just for a second here and talk a little bit about AI. As you know, I'm building a business around AI. We have got huge experience in it. Now I know more about AI than I think most people do in our industry. And I'm not bragging. It's something that I've been passionate about for the last couple of years. And now I'm head first into it, spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars building product in AI. And so I've learned a lot and I'm really looking forward to launching this product in a, in a little over a month, actually right at about a month. Now, September 2nd is sort of a soft launch, but it is a launch, it'll be a live launch on September 2nd. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to that, looking forward to showing everyone what we've built. And we've got some deals on right now for signing up early. We have signed on some clients into a product that doesn't exist yet, which is great, but I'm happy to kind of show you up our skirt if it's something that you'd be interested in. So get involved early.

5:44 We are showing some deep love to to the people getting in early. And so one of the things I've been hearing a lot more about is how close we're getting to this self improving AGI, artificial general intelligence or super intelligence even, which I think is still a few years out. But basically we're talking about AI that that develops or grows itself, that codes itself, you know, AI that is, is teaching itself how to grow. And so how can you protect yourself or your business against AI that's development developing itself now and getting smarter on its own and it doesn't really need us in the future. And so one thing, a few things and some of these I'm copying from things that I've heard recently, but some of it's just my own feelings.

6:36 But first of all, get real close to AI. Get friendly with AI instead of, you know, sort of pushing it away like it doesn't exist or like it won't be a problem or like it's not going to be a part of your life. Get close to it. Don't be afraid of it, but partner with it, become deeply involved with AI, understand it, accept it, touch it, feel it and play with it as much as you possibly can. And yes, I'm talking about AI here. And so yeah, just really, you know, don't be afraid of it, be friendly with it and and become very knowledgeable on AI. It's, you know, even if you hate it, you know how your parents always taught you when, when you were a kid, What is it? Get close to your friends, but get closer to your enemies or something along those lines.

7:25 Secondly, personal relationships. We know this in our industry. So personal networks, personal relationships, company relationships and networks, not just texting, not just sending AI written emails and stuff like that, which I happen to hate. I, I am disgusted by the number of AI emails even from, you know, people who either want a job with me or are communicating with me as employees and they want to raise or they want something and, and they're sending me these AI written emails. I despise them. I'd rather typos and, and, you know, bad grammar and everything else in an e-mail than to see something that's obviously written by AI.

8:09 But personal relationships, you know, I talked to people in the touring business about this all the time. You know, we've built careers on our relationships. We've built careers on our networks. Certainly I've built a podcast here on a network and on relationships. And so, you know, that is your value. Your value is in those personal relationships and those deep connections with people, human connection, not connection through or with AI, but human connection and being compassionate, having compassion for others, for other companies, for what people are going through or what businesses are going through. And you know, remember this, it's not going to be the smartest who survive or who out think AI because AI is going to be smart, smarter than all of us.

8:56 It's smarter than most of us already today, myself included. But very soon it's going to be, we're talking about this year, an IQ of over 250 with AI, which means that it's smarter than any human on Earth pretty much and and exponentially smarter than most humans, you know, at least 2X smarter than most humans. So, you know, it's not the smartest who survived, but it's the people with the deepest and best and most connections who will survive AI. And I truly believe that and question everything, you know, So that's one of the things that I've seen with people who are early stage getting into AI or using ChatGPT or writing letters with it or reading letters with it or reading news articles, you know, and it happens to me with people around me who will come to me and say, did you hear that Elon Musk is blah or Trump did this or Madonna did that or whoever it is, some famous person did whatever.

9:58 And I would say a good 5 or 6 times out of 10, it's bullshit. You know it, it's just made-up AI news. You know, you see football players being traded, you see drivers being demoted from F1 or hired on F1. You see all kinds of things so and so, suing so and so. And you know, a high percentage of this stuff, especially on social media, is bullshit. And so question everything, Cress question everyone. You know, when people come to you and say, did you hear or you know, I just read about this or I know this is true. You know, it's beyond what used to be false rumors and innuendo. Now it's actually written on purpose to be false. And it's usually clickbait.

10:44 It's usually a way for these bottom feeders on social media to be able to get more clicks and to get paid for it or become more famous for it or whatever. Instagram famous. So seek the truth and question everything. And then finally, ethics, trust, truth is more important than anything going forward. So magnify ethics AI understands, make AI understand what it means to be human and what it means to to be principled, what it means to be trusted and prioritize those principles. Prioritize ethical approaches or ethical just a way of doing business much more ethically. Prioritize that and and make it a part of your statement. Make it a part of your actions.

11:36 Make it a part of your day. So yeah, that's how you survive AI, in my opinion. So Two days podcast guest Chance Stalhutt is the Chief Operating Officer of Concert Stuff Group where he leads a growing family of specialized production and logistics companies serving the live entertainment industry. With a 25 plus year career that began in punk clubs and international tours, Chance was held has held senior leadership roles at Claire Global, VERPRG and Go West Creative.

12:16 His background spans touring, engineering, sales, operations, an executive strategy making him uniquely equipped to scale complex organizations while staying grounded in hands on roduction realities. Chance is known for his people first leadership style, belief in transparent communication and advocacy for long term career growth within the industry. At Concert Stuff Group, he's focused on strengthening team structures, improving profitability without sacrificing culture, and helping leaders think more strategically. So please, welcome Chance Stalhutt. Chance, how are you?

12:58 I'm really good. How are you doing, Marcel? You know, it's what day is it? Wednesday. Tuesday. Tuesday, August 5th, yeah. I don't even know what day it is. So that's how I am. It's been like a week and a half and we're only the second day in the week so far. So yeah, I'm, I'm in the process of building a new business on top of our other business. And it's just so much learning and so much technology and so much new stuff that I've never experienced. Most people have never experienced to be perfectly honest, because it's all AI. Yeah. I mean, we've looked at your demos and I think between just the decks, it's changed. That's how fast it's been changed for you guys so much. Like it's totally different now again. So I mean, it's, it's just crazy like every literally every day because our developers are in Vietnam.

13:45 And so we usually have a meeting at 9:00 or 10:00, my time here in the mountains at night. And then, you know, while I'm sleeping, they're basically completely changing everything. So I never book demos for the first thing in the morning because I have no idea what's going to blow up in my face when I do it. I don't even know what I'm going to see, so I'll usually do a couple tests in the morning if I have to do a demo and just get re acquainted with whatever it is we're offering. You know, I mean the core is the same offer, of course, but it just keeps getting better. Like we're just we're learning more, we're adding more. We're, you know, just building more into it every day. So it's it's pretty fun. It's exciting, but it's tiring.

14:27 Like you know, weekends are just six and seven days of the work week, so. Well, as you've built other businesses, you know, you kind of knew the lift your head into, but yeah, super looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's it's fun and I appreciate the support. So, you know, I got to admit you're a guy I didn't know a huge amount about. So I appreciate that you sent us some notes that we could kind of follow because sometimes I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember back when you did so and so in the 80s or whatever. But I didn't know what your background was prior to, to reading the the bio that you provided us and the notes that you provided us. So I appreciate you sending that in. We have a, our, a mutual friend of ours, John Wiseman was very, I, I mentioned talking to you when we were looking at the demos and, and John was like, oh, he's like, I love Marcel. And, and I had to go deep dive and realize John's been on here a bunch.

15:20 And so that kind of prompted the whole thing. Well, and one of the great things about having someone like John on is he just truly doesn't give a shit. So he is 100% transparent on everything. And we've had long talks about addiction and long talks about, you know, a A and all the things that he's been through and almost dying and, you know, and partying. We've had talks about that and, you know, just like talk about a guy with a crazy, wacky career, you know, of, of just total mayhem and like the last however many years, I mean, 30 of sobriety. But you know, the last 10 or 15 years of his career have been just totally different because he's so much calmer now and he's so much more focused and less angry, you know, because for a long time he definitely had some anger in him. So he didn't want to be a competitor to John, you know, 15 years ago.

16:14 Today it's still hard, but it's not as anger filled, you know? Yeah, no, he, he's very, he's a, he's a sweet guy. He's been super kind to me over all the years. And I mean, even in when I've seen him have bad days, I can't say enough good things about that guy. Yeah, yeah, I love John. He's one of my best friends, so it's nice that he talks kindly about me too. I like that. So tell me like, you know, you've probably heard the podcast before you like you know that I like to sort of start at the beginning. So what found chance into this wacky industry that you're a part of for so long now? This episode is brought to you today by ETC Rigging. For 50 years, ETC has made a name for itself in the world of entertainment technology.

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18:39 This is the foundation of excellence ETC has built over the past 50 years, and they plan to deliver more in the next 50. For the latest ETC products and installation news, visit etcconnect.com. You know, so I got started. I grew up in Alabama and I got started. I was interested. I went to a very large church at the time and happened to kind of notice, you know, the sound booth and the cameras and got involved in that area and was able to kind of, you know, go from there.

19:19 And I got really lucky. You know, I think it people that are successful in this industry have multiple people across different phases of your career take you under the wings. And the guy that ran that whole division also was a professor of journalism over to local university. So he used to take me over there and I got to edit on three quarter machines and I learned in that aspect. And we moved to Nashville and I got involved in playing with a band, and I got a job at a local music store, Mars Music, back when that was a shame. I knew what? Was that guy Begelman, Mark Begelman? I knew him well back in those days, yeah.

20:00 And the Nashville 1 was like very influential for them because obviously Nashville Music City heavy in the recording industry in the 90s. And so I got a job there to get a discount on equipment and, you know, ended up meeting a lot of bands to go mix and got in the Nashville thing. And just from day one, this is what I've always wanted to do. I remember moving to Nashville and walking up and down Music Row the summer before I turned 17, like going in and asking for applications at all the record labels, like had no idea how to get a job in the industry. I was like, well, I'll just go in there and apply and of course they'll hire me. And so that was, you know, you kind of learn and I've worked for a lot of companies in Nashville and got tied into a management company that didn't realize I was as young as I was and put me out on some van and trailer CCM tours and then some van and trailer like punk rock tours.

20:54 And somewhere. And that they realized I was still in high school and like summer between my junior and senior year. And, you know, I'm out tour managing, driving, mixing, doing merch, you know, for these bands. And I'm, you know, we'd hit the end of the weekend and they would have to pay me and they weren't getting paid. I was like, well, this is the greatest industry ever. Like, I should keep doing this, you know, because they were on labels. So, you know, they're trying to do it to sell albums. And it kind of kept going from there. And I threw a series of that. I got connected with an act that was tied into Claire and I started doing freelance work for Claire, actually Roy Claire. I remember I was sitting in a bar and he called me to like negotiate the tour rider that we were doing for our first tour and got tied into him and Ralph Mastroangelo down in Nashville and started doing lofts and kind of went from doing staging and roofing and lighting tours.

21:54 I was doing lighting tours for PGP for Creech and Paulison was like firmly an audio guy for Ralph and was there a couple years freelance and then was there as a full time guy for like 11 years. You went through some really incredible people in our industry, you know, between Wiseman and Creech and Claire, obviously what a what a way to come up through the industry. Yeah, I said. I think hindsight is I started to realize that later. So I'm super lucky. And certainly there's been moments of like, thank God, you know, when I was a snotty younger man that they, you know, put up or, you know, corrected me or still didn't kick me out in the process.

22:40 You know, there was a company I work for. There's this guy Bobby Brantley in Nashville. Our kids go or have went to school together now. And I mean, when I work for Bobby, I had a purple Mohawk and Bobby did staging and audio. And I remember walking into his office and being like, hey man, I don't do staging like I do audio. I'm not going to go sling decks. And he was very cool. He's like absolutely not a problem. And all of a sudden he's like, they stopped calling and I called up one day. I said, Hey, I haven't got any gigs from you guys. And he's like, well, you don't want to do staging. And when that's what we do here is we do both. Now, if you want to change that opinion, more than happy to have you back. It was very kind of like, all right, like I, I kind of came in at 18 telling you how to do it.

23:23 You know, you could have thought completely gone a different. Direction. Yeah, I got really lucky. Yeah. You know, so you kind of got into the industry sort of a little bit at the tail end of the original people, you know, like, but they were still pretty rough, right. Like it, it was still rough on a young kid coming into the industry. They weren't, they didn't care much about your feelings. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, chance. How are you feeling today? It was get your ass up and get over there now, you know, or you're going home. And I'm not buying you a plane ticket. It, it was a good, I, I think it was a good way to come in. It was, it straddled that the part where we were shifting from, you know, the industry was still all about selling records.

24:10 And I was around it when we made that transition. I was around the transition of, of, you know, his line array was starting. I mean I remember doing a showcase and meeting Jeff Cox who came in to mix the showcase and him literally tell me about like following V Dosk. In fact, actually my first European Tour was it with a band called No, it was with an opener and they headliners band called No Angels. It was in Germany and it was the Westfallon's first run with V Dosk and Christian came out to like help them the first couple shows because they were kind of in that transitional period and had no idea at the time that like Christian Hall was out there checking on this account, checking on his thing. So like I, I had a really nice entry point, the fact that I got the old, old part and I got the new part as we transition. And so I can kind of remember how it was. Yeah, that's, that's perfect.

25:10 You know, that's, that's like the perfect time. Like it's like, you know, I have a house in Canada and I have a house in the US and I'm old enough that I was in like 5th grade when they were converting to metric in Canada. So I knew the standard stuff and I learned the metric stuff and how to convert the two because you had to figure that out too. And so I've never had a challenge between metric and, and imperial anything, right? Like whether it's temperature or, or, you know, weights or whatever. Like I've, I've always been very good at it. And people are like, why is that so easy for you? And it's well, I learned them both in school, so. Yeah, 100% and now it's a Google.

25:51 It's a ChatGPT. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty easy to figure it out now. But yeah, so that's a cool time to have come in right at the front end of liner. And you got to ride that wave, I guess, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it's just the industry shift, the technology shift, digital platform shift, you know, all those different things where you kind of you're very fresh and OK, I know what Trip Calef and an XL4 sounded like on an S4 rig with Fleetwood Mac. And now how do you know now we're going this direction? And so your reference points and everything was really good. And then, you know, but to your point, like we've gotten better, like now we're, you know, COVID, while it wrecked a lot of things, that also helped us go, OK. You know, I remember if I was going to do a tour and I needed like one day off for a personal thing in the middle of three months, that was just no, you know, and now everybody's very accommodating to of course, like, let's figure out how to support you.

26:49 If there's a personal thing that you need to do a wedding or you know, I think there's a lot more flexibility in people wanting to work to try to help balance this all out. Well, it's also become a real career, you know, like back then, back then you were gypsies. You know, now it's a real career. Like you're making real money and and people have families and it's not the party that it was in the 80s and 90s so much. Well, and I say at the same time, like some of this, we haven't given up. Like if you think about, we were talking about this last night, if you think about the amount of stuff that is now required to be a touring technician, Yeah. Not only do you have to do all the stuff that we used to do, the travel, the the late nights, the early mornings, you know, load in a stadium in the rain, but I need you to be an IT networking specialist. If you're a crew chief, you need to be an HR manager. So, you know, it's just we keep putting more and more on them. HR mental health, yeah, you know, drug dependency expert, you know, like just all kinds of things like it's it's so much more important to have those multi skills and and stuff. But so when you in the early days, you were touring as a tech, as a, as a front of house engineer, monitor engineer or all of the above.

28:06 I so the first, the first account I do with Claire, I came in as a, as a customer and so I picked up some monitor gigs. I was very young. I, I picked up some tech things. Ralph at the time Nashville office did a lot of festivals. There was a guy Robert Kozlowski, who was Reba's monitor forever and cause was kind of off from her and was running all these festivals and I did a ton of them with 'cause which was just super, you know, you can be a really great touring guy if you can do a bunch of festivals. Like, you know, touring is easy after that. And so, you know, I did that and I really enjoyed the sweet spot of being a crew chief system engineer. Like that was my area of that because I like I enjoyed working with, you know, representing the company at the time, the technology. I enjoyed supporting the engineers. You know, it was, you know, it was fun too. And building good relationships.

28:59 I had a lot of good relationships with guys I worked with. You know, where they would trust me, I trust them. We try to build up a really good team and it was a great time to be there and we were constantly every day try to see how we could do it better. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that makes sense. And especially again, like probably when you're sort of on the cutting edge of the new technology and stuff, there's probably a lot of educating people who are coming in as as crew members or whatever as well. Like, hey, I've never seen a system like this, you know, how's it work? You know, that kind of thing. And, and so, yeah, I mean, I like, I like that. I like that you were sort of on the cutting edge of the tech.

29:40 And So what was harder the the transformation to line array from like the the point source systems to or or the transformation from analog to digital consoles? I mean, I think the you, you can look at it both ways. Like there were several tours, like, you know, one of the last prism tours I got to do was like Alan Jackson had a prism rig. Well, well into when, you know, the I fi was very predominant. You know, I was out of the company before cohesion became a thing. And then, you know, Claire also at one point put out a system called the Vision, which was kind of like Prism 2 point O. And so I had mixed in, you know, conventional into that. I mean the biggest challenge was is that overall just pressure that Prism and S fours created and then like the EVMT fours where you got that low mid pressure, you know, that really created movement in the room when it was done right. That was a hard thing.

30:42 And some of the early days, you know, the the clarity was there. But then there were a lot of systems that were great, like the J rig on D twelves that 8th day used to put out had some of the same soft compression that the S4 on its old CTS processors did. And, you know, you'd stand there and turn something up and be like, man, I'm a better engineer than I thought I was. Like, you know, line arrays, definitely. They either really helped you or they could, you know, in the early days could burn you because it was inconsistent. You know, this, like everybody had their settings and their way of amping it. And you know, the companies have done such a great job of standardizing that and getting it where the consistency is there. Yeah, on that, on that topic, like for Someone Like You who who really recognizes the difference, because I don't like, you know, I've always enjoyed good sound, but I've not been able to differentiate why I like this one better than this one necessarily.

31:36 You know, like I saw them, you know, in a different venue and I liked this and I didn't like it here. But like, you're probably able to easily walk into a venue and go, oh, that's a blah, you know, versus that's a. Sad. Sadly I'm that gear nerd. Yes, so. You can. You can hear the difference between a DNBGSL&A and AK-2. Sure. Jesus, See, I can't. I couldn't tell looking at them the difference because I'm a lighting guy for. The most well, but I think I think some of that is like I think both of those companies have done really well and like trying to be flat and that and there's things that I've like over, you know, you know, there's things like hey, this does this really well and I like the way that sounds. I'm a big believer, though, that any you know, and like guys like pooch have said this for years.

32:28 A good engineer is going to be the is going to be good on a lot of systems. And I think until you until you put your finger on a fader, you really can't judge somebody's mix because that's the only way to know like what was happening in the room that night, What was the band doing? You know, so like to your point, while knowing the technology is great, like I went to, you know, I've go to concerts. I was one a couple weeks ago and I try to just enjoy the show. Like, you know, if like I don't know what that front of house guys dealing with tonight. I don't know if the singer's off, the drummer's maybe had a fight before, you know? So let's just enjoy the show. Yeah, at least as an audio guy, you're, you're sitting there listening to the show and enjoying the show and you can hear the songs and stuff like lighting people. We're idiots.

33:12 We just sit there and look up at the rig all night and you know, oh, there's a fixture out. Oh, there's this, oh, there's that. And you practically don't even hear the music most of the time because you're too busy, you know, looking at things and paying attention to exactly what's going on. And usually, like I've worked for a manufacturer, so I'm looking for failure points in other people's product or I'm looking to make sure that none of my stuff is failing on a particular show. Like this is back in the day when I worked for Martin and everything failed. Or you know, I worked for high end and less stuff failed or whatever but but like at least as an audio guy you can probably enjoy the show.

33:52 Where As for lighting, we're just always looking up, we don't even know what. I'll be honest, I don't look and see like what's failed, but I, I, that's a great point. I've never caught that. But I mean, I was at like Coldplay and of course I'm immediately like telling sooner. I'm like, I'm amazed at how many JDC's you put. Like in my head, I'm looking at how many JDC's are now hanging on the mid rail around the stadium and thinking about the cabling that went to it and like how long that take to load in and what was the stage hand count like that's working for 360 companies later, You know, you start to like get into that piece. And for me it's the just I, I really enjoy the immersiveness of that. But you also start to go like, all right, that's 400 JDCS. It probably rents for this. Like, you know, what's the budget? What was the budget?

34:35 It's crazy. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm, I do some work with a confetti company who provides all the confetti for Coldplay, and the pallets of confetti that they're shipping out every couple of shows is just wild. It's wild how much confetti they use in a Coldplay show. Just unbelievable. It's crazy. It's a great show. It's they, they've done an amazing job. That team has made it incredibly super immersive. Yeah, it's quite an industry unto itself though. Coldplay, like it's just wild, you know? And now they're now they're a dating app, you know, so. I think there were 220 something shows in when I saw it. Like onto this current tour. Yeah, just insane.

35:18 Jesus, it is a machine. That thing is a machine like I, you know, or I hate to say it because it makes it sound like I think I'm smart and I'm not. But when Coldplay first came out, I thought these guys might have some longevity. You know, they sound a lot like you too, but I like them better. I've never been AU2 fan and but I really liked Coldplay when they first came out. I'm a little, you know, little over him at this point, but but they're a great band and they have a great sound and everything else, and they know how to write hits too, you know? And Chris Martin's a great front man. He's, I mean, he's, he's working that audience. He's working a whole stadium. Yeah, no, he's amazing. He knows how to get you going. And and I mean just again, the whole show design and stuff too, like it's it's you know, the things that they do out over and with the audience, like they were one of the first ones, you know, that got phones involved in the shows that I remember it was a shed tour like probably 20 something years ago.

36:15 And I remember them getting phones involved or probably 20 years ago. And and it was just like, wow, that's cool. You know, the whole like audience is yellow or whatever it was. I don't even remember, but but yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool stuff. So now you actually look at lights, so that's good. Yeah, I I kind of had a 2012 was my goal to get off the road and I was looking at 8th day and was, you know, I was talking to Claire and VR launched its torrent division at that time and and Ralph had been my boss at Claire Vincent hired. And I remember I was up meeting with Tom Arco and just one of the sweetest, nicest guys ever and was kind of struggling with the do I want to move away from Nashville and family. And literally Ralph called and said, I don't really know a lot about this company, but this is what they want to do, etcetera. They want us to build a team and, you know, and it's in Nashville.

37:11 And I was like, all right, so did it. And you know, very quickly when a company where, you know, when you get into a multi discipline company, you know, OK, hey, I can't buy this today because we bought this camera or we need to buy these lights for this. So you're balancing a lot of things. And so I but I you know, I really enjoyed all of it. And then when I started, I was started as a video guy and went lightning and went audio. So like being in that world of 360 wasn't that big a deal. And so from then on, from 2012 and 2012 to now, it's been all 360 companies and it's great. And I'm, you know, used to, we're going to talk about audio in this conversation. Then we're going to flip to lighting.

37:51 Now we'll talk about staging, you know, and you just kind of have to you learn it all not as well as I mean we have in the company now we have some amazing experts of things like I, it's enough to be able to understand where they're at, but I would never consider myself to be as smart as they are in some of these specific disciplines. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, some of the people you have on your team are just incredible people with all kinds of things. You know, it's like, is like Jason, like I remember the first meeting I sat in with Jason that was sort of an OPS meeting. And you know, I always knew Jason as a, as an audio guy. And all of a sudden he's like this systems guy who is like talking about their IT systems and, and you know, their, their ERP systems and stuff like that and their rental software.

38:38 And I'm like, man, you know, this guy really knows his stuff. And you know, you're like a former touring audio guy or whatever. Like this is interesting but just a really smart guy who gets it right. Well, in the fact we have a guy that is running kind of that running your audio video company and has been a company owner as well. He knows like, what really matters and what you know what's important. Yeah, yeah. And that's hard stuff to teach. You just have to kind of experience, you know, like what it's like to have payroll coming up next week and, you know, no revenue or whatever, right. Like it's, those are the things that you just have to live through to really know what it feels like. But you know, you were, you mentioned something and I don't want to really jump too far out of the timeline here or anything, but you mentioned something about, you know, just focusing on the different disciplines within a 360 company versus just being an audio company. And that's got to bring in all kinds of CapEx challenges from a standpoint of just, you know, strategically, like we've got X number of dollars to spend next year and how do you chop that up to make the most sense?

39:48 And you know, I'm sure that is a big part of your job today, as you know, now that you're running a 360 fairly large company. So how do you do that? Like is it based on ROI? Is it based on what's on the books for next year? Is it based on like just sticking your finger up in the air and going, you know, what's it feel like? Like how do you how do you make those kind of decisions? No, I mean, I think you so you have to you have to obviously keep people that are really focused on what they do. So for example, like even in a 360 company, we really want the guys that are passionate about audio to focus on audio. Like they need to show up every day and want to put out the best product there.

40:33 And you know, the guys that over here do staging to do that. We certainly want them to obviously collaborate. But what I you know, you don't need this guy to all of a sudden worry about like, you know, can I cross sell or what's going on over here? And then you, you know, you put a lot of metrics to it. I think you have to use use data. I really enjoy it, but I think you use that as a tool. And so a lot of people get in this in our industry, you know, if you're coming into this part of it, you know, the corporate thing of, hey, we're going to look at heavy returns or that you have to you have to use data to pull emotion out of it and then you use that to drive the story. And so you know, your point, like what's next year? So like we're looking at a lot of things around. Obviously there's a lot of bids around FIFA, you know, what are the opportunities?

41:20 But you know, a lesson I remember, you know, you try to take in all these little things from people you hear over the years more Troy Claire one time saying, you know, it's never about this gig if you're always selling for the next gig, you know, so hey, if we're going to do something, you know, is it this one? But where does that gear go after the fact? So like if we look at some FIFA stuff, we're going to look at it here and go, all right, well, if we had to buy something that really supports this, what is the life after that? And so we're trying to kind of stay within a lot of core inventory and have a lot of depth of it. You know, OK, I've got vanilla and chocolate and maybe, you know, I don't have strawberry and I don't have pistachio, but I've got a lot of vanilla and chocolate. And so we can.

42:00 Instead of having four of everything, you have 100 of one thing or two things or whatever, correct? Makes a lot and then we try to be you know secular like so next year for us in the audio video lighting company is is going to be a heavy video year like and we're telling our vendors that like we have to obviously buy for jobs that are leaving and we you know we've got a large stadium to where they'll go out but like we're going to do a big push and video and then the year after that we'll be a really large push and lighting so we can maximize our dollars and not just kind of keep plugging holes as we. Go. But I, I, I'm still curious and, and you may say, you know, that's just our secret sauce and I can't tell you that, but I'm, I'm still curious. Like, do you just take the head of all your departments, all your divisions and, you know, throw them in a ring and let them fight it out or, or is it 100% database like where it's like, you know, OK, this one is at 76% utilization and, you know, XROY, and therefore that's going to get the biggest part of the budget.

43:06 Or, you know, we went all in on getting, you know, The Beatles reunion next year and and we need to, you know, invest heavily in the gear we need for that. Like or is it just a combination of all kinds of those things and a gut feel? It's it's all that you AI mean. I'd love to see the cage match and just let them see fight out for CapEx. Dollars. Feel like team lighting would probably do that. I think if you, if you continually invest in what is your best ROI, of course, obviously you're going to have great ROI, but the but you're going to continue just to grow that segment of business. So you know, and you know, as well as I know, like if I buy this movie, like today, I'm going to have to replace it and you know, four to five years, if I'm buying 100 and they kind of add and then I sell that and buy another hundred, I'm just really doing the same revenue.

43:59 So I think that's where we've tried to go. We're going to make this big kind of circular push and go, this is a big push in the video and we'll and we'll step up that discipline and then we'll step up this discipline and you kind of keep raising them in the process. But you also, you know, it helps with the vendor conversation. So like, hey, guys, like, you know that my spend is this year and you hold money back because there's always some tour that's going to come up that you didn't know about. You want to go get something for it. But you know, it helps with the vendors were like, hey, like I'm going to do a bunch this year and they go, well, actually you should probably wait because there's a new grand in May 4 that comes out this year and you're going to want to replace all yours. OK, Well, that's good budgeting.

44:41 Yeah. You know, but it's interesting because you you said something about, you know, just investing in the in the biggest thing and you're only growing that thing. So, you know, that's always sort of a strategical argument in my own head. Like do you put the most marketing dollars into the thing that's your fastest growth or your biggest growth? Or do you put it into the smallest one that's not getting any attention but has the potential to grow? And, you know, I'm sure there's parents that are thinking the same thing about their two kids. You know, do I give the most money to the one who's the best soccer player or do I give the one to the the kid who's the the worst basketball player? Like, you know, where do I put the money or the effort, you know, the time to take them to practices or the best coaching or whatever it is.

45:29 And but it's always like the whole CapEx thing to me makes me never want to be in the rental business in our industry because it's, it's so challenging and it's so based on, on, you know, fashion like, you know, today every LD wants this light and then, you know, six months from now, it's this light. And now we're supposed to dump all of this inventory and get as many of these as we can at top dollar. And you know, the money on the rental side isn't going up near as fast as the price of the products. So it's a tough businessman. No, you got to, I mean, and that's where you look at and go like, you know, speak loud speakers are great investment like L Acoustics and obviously the bigger the speaker gets, sometimes it goes down.

46:18 But like L Acoustics is a brand. So do you know your point? Like you also look at the vendors and when you do it. So like that's a company that really protects its partners. They don't roll out replacements. They give you the long lifespan. You know, K1 has been in the market for you know how however long. So whenever they finally replace it, you'll have gotten all your investment out of it. They have great apps, you know, they have great second hand sale value. So like when you're picking products, you're trying to pick a balance of that and go, OK, I need to have some of this stuff, you know, and I need to obviously, you know, like I need to make sure I have plenty of grand anime threes because it's going to do that, you know. But like, you know, there are those items like fixtures of, you know, I'm going to try to pick a fixture and go, does this work for a few years?

47:01 And that piece, can I get that number back? Or, you know, CB5 tiles, CB5 tiles are still, you know, when you bought them, they're a great investment. So it's a balancing act. But I I agree with them and like you can be down that rabbit hole and you have to be willing to help with your customers. Explain that we need to be at a certain number because you need to be profitable to make this investment that we need to in this industry to continually make sure that we have the items that they need to support their artist or events or etcetera. And that and, and you are to bank for them in that process. Like I need to be able to be profitable, to invest, to make sure that I have the items for you so you can deliver the creativity that you need to for your artist. Well, and I mean for any company, you make enough wrong choices and, and you know, you're, you're in line at the private equity or, or you know, the, the private credit facilities out there or whatever and just burying your company in debt and problems and everything else. And, and, you know, we've all seen it happen, you know, like I remember a particular case at VAVER that was pretty painful and, and, you know, cost them greatly because they, they invested heavily in something that maybe didn't go as well as they expected it to.

48:23 But like you mentioned LED tiles and I'm not going to pick on anyone brand, but I keep seeing the rental rates dropping on those things, but the purchase price is going up and the gap just getting bigger and bigger and bigger between those two things. Like I remember when LED tiles were special and you had to have a particular brand and you had to have a particular model and stuff. But now it's become a little more, you know, ubiquitous or whatever. And also prices have gone down by like 70 or 80% on the rental market as well. So that's a tough business to look at and go, yeah, I mean, you have the the the volume on the rental side for double the inventory, but you're now, you know, getting declining ROI on, on your CapEx money. And so, yeah, scary business, man. It's a freaky business we're in.

49:18 Yeah, no, to your point, I mean, you've been in as on the manufacturer side, whatever the thing that everybody wants this year, there's probably some alternate version of it next year, you know, in cameras and stuff like that. It was all, you know, when you get the two point OS and the, you know, all this is, you know, the heavy camera markets, you know, you'll have DPS. I have to have this this year and then like a year later, although that one's complete, you know, shit, now we got to have this one. So LED. I remember years ago seeing a product, they came in, it was in January. They're showing us this product. It was gorgeous and had this really mechanics that were really interesting. And during the conversation he was letting us know that the replacement 2 point O less pixel pitch whatever was coming out in November. And I remember standing there, I'm like, so you buy it now, we probably receive it in March and you're shipping the next replacement oven in November.

50:12 So we basically have this many months to make up the. Return You got to get your money back in six months. Yeah, and he was super excited about that. They were releasing as like this is, you know, bad. Sounds bad, I would have fired him on the spot. I I mean, I just, I walked back to the office. I was like, you guys can keep talking about this like we're not, I'm not going to jump up and down about trying to buy something like this. Yeah, you know. And today's podcast is brought to you by Artistry in Motion. When it's time to make a moment unforgettable, Artistry in Motion delivers. Since 1994 they've been the go to source for top tier confetti and streamer special effects, turning ordinary events into explosive show stopping experiences. From concerts and TV productions to major sporting events and theme parks, they bring the wow factor with precision and creativity.

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51:48 I need a few things solved. So I've gotten involved in a lot of consulting over the years, but I helped a 360 company do a roll up and got very involved in looking at each of the companies they were buying and looking at the spreadsheets and looking at their CapEx and looking at their financials and stuff. And you know, two things shocked me back then. And part of this is going to sound like a sales pitch for a product I'm building, but two things shocked me. One was how much of their revenue was actually spent on, on sub rentals. And you know, there's the product pitch for, for what I'm now doing. And you know, in many cases it was like, you know, if you looked at, at the, the price of a show, if, if I was charging, you know, $250,000 for a show or whatever, let's call it 200,025%, somewhere between 20 and 30% depending on which company you were looking at, was going straight out in cross rentals. And I was like, wow, that's a lot. You know, 50 grand on a, on a $200,000 show is in cross rental outbound.

53:01 And then, you know, the other one was the percentage on the books for the percentage of of revenue at the end of the year that's spent on CapEx for the next year. And this particular roll up that I was involved in, you know, didn't really believe that number and was quite shocked by the second year of how much money they really undervalued CapEx needs. You know, they didn't put enough on, they didn't put a big enough line on their on their budgets for cash for those CapEx needs. And they started having people yelling at them saying, you know, where's the money? Like we need this stuff to be able to get these shows and we can't get it so. Yeah, there was, there was a gap where when I was I was with PRG and then I went into the creative space and was with an agency and then, you know, kind of back in the production world. And so there was about a year and a half gap where I was doing some consulting for equity groups that were looking at production companies because I didn't want to do that while I was in one of those companies.

54:05 That would be wrong. And that was one of my biggest conversations with them is, you know, the continual CapEx is something you'd have to factor in because a lot of these investment groups will do the initial and are very aware of it, you know, and there's obviously ones that are better than others. But they were surprised when the next year you came back and said, OK, remember that $80 million you gave us last year? Well, now we need that again. And they're like, we'll wait a minute. This is every year, like, yeah, every year we're going to purge inventory out, we're going to refresh it. And so I think that continual CapEx need is something that a lot of people don't plan for in this industry when looking and coming in from the outside that like that is part of it and that cycle is just speed up over the years.

54:50 Well, and you know, it can be compared to like the car rental business for example. The big difference that I see is manufacturers get heavily involved in that program in the car rental side of things. So they'll, you know, General Motors will have a deal with Hertz, for example, where they're selling the next amount of cars per year and they may take back a certain number every year when they're renewing their fleet or whatever. And it's just a commitment between the manufacturer and the car rental company in some sense. And the numbers, the gap isn't as big because like a a $20,000 car that Hertz is buying today, they can sell it after 8-9, twelve months of rental for 16,000 or 15,000. And they're getting a discount from the car company too. So they're buying a $20,000 car for 17 or whatever. So it's a tiny gap between that and the used price. And so in our industry, that gap is much bigger. You know, it's you're losing a lot more on your salvage cost to be I mean you want that second hand cost and you want to buy at a volume where your cost to buy gets as close as you can to that second hand cost.

56:09 And there are, there's some large rental companies that are out there, they're buying and volume that their purchase price is what they're reselling for after a hypothetically, let's say three to four years, you know where basically the rentals from in that time frame are running the business and creating the, you know, the EBITDA and, and they're recouping their investment. But you have to buy at such a volume. And to your point, we don't have that kind of second hand market the way that the car industry does. No, you know, it's a much more reliable sell through and and in the car industry it seems to work really well, whereas in in our business not so well. And you know the other like those guys that you're talking about who can buy and sell sort of at the same price.

56:54 They can buy the new stuff for what they're selling the old stuff for. So they're just really life cycling inventory and it's not costing them any money to do that. And their profits come from the rental. Like you said, it used to work like that, like you used to in the lighting business. You used to buy, example, a Cyberlite for roughly $5000 and you would use it and you know, bash, which ended up becoming the four wall model when when Canon started it and then became the main light model when Canon bought main light. You basically sell off your inventory within two years maximum. And in doing so you negotiate very large volume purchase deals with those manufacturers where you're buying at a price that really closes that gap between used and and replacement cost. And you could get away with it like it back in the day, you'd, you'd buy that Cyberlite, rent it for $300 a week and then you'd sell it used for five grand within two years. And now you're buying it for 12,000 for the moving light, you're paying 12,000, you're selling it used for 6000 and you're renting it for less than $200 a week, you know, or whatever, right?

58:13 Like all the numbers have gone funky in, in the whole equation. And you know, hence all the private equity needed for our industry now is, is the shows are bigger and the gaps are bigger and CapEx is bigger. So obviously the cash has to come from somewhere. No, and that and that's why, you know, in other companies or in this one, you're looking at those items that have the longest lifespan to hold it. You know, I mean, that's why I use it, you know, AI just like the company, but I use it like, you know, a company like an L acoustics that where that value is staying up, you know, as long as you can. So when you do go get your money back, you can recover it and it gives you the best ROI, you know, and it's tough like you're going to have items when you look at your whole book of business, you're going to have items that you're like, that item is doesn't hit the numbers.

59:04 But I also have to have it to get all this other stuff working and to have this job, you know, so it's a very blended average that you're constantly trying to, you know, weigh against. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. And, and I mean, L acoustic is obviously the very best example of that right now in lighting, you know, maybe Roby, but the gap again between new and used is still pretty large. And you know, I don't know, I always look at pressure from, you know, Asia, etcetera. Like, you know, you're starting to see decent line array products coming out of Asia that are not direct copies of L Acoustic. Like I'm not talking about the copies, which there are absolute copies, you know that some have been caught, others haven't yet.

59:48 But if you look at even just some of the the actual innovation happening in China in the audio business now I'm seeing products, it's starting to get better. Certainly on the lighting side, they maybe had a head start. So they got better several years ago and you're starting to see companies that are selling direct into the US market like Acme. That are very good products now they're not like you can't just go, oh, that's Chinese junk like you used to be able to because almost everything is Chinese now and most of it isn't junk. It's all good, you know, so certainly some is better than others. Like, you know, Elation might be the best of the Chinese brands and then maybe Chauvet and then maybe Acme or however that lines up. But but it's all good now.

1:00:33 And so in in the line array stuff in big audio. Is there starting to be any real competition from Asia yet or is it still a few years away? No, I mean I think you know, you're still investing in the in the the three large brands and then you know JBL is, is kind of coming in there. There is a place for those there. Look, there's a place for everything. There's a budget for everything, you know, and there's companies that work in all budgets and there's jobs in all budgets and, and you have to at any level, you have to make the right investment for where you're at. You know, you know, in our level and the level that fortunately level I've been in a lot of companies, you know, you're working with a couple manufacturers, you're staying around the DNB, you're staying around L Acoustics admire when you get in the speaker manufacturers because you know, rider acceptability, their support and then just, you know, things they do to protect the customer. You know, my I, you know it.

1:01:33 They really make sure to try to get those ROI's for the customer and and protect that investment the best they can. And so you know, you do it, but it's also to make sure like, does this work? Can it rent? I mean, at the end of the day, we're not running museums, so the gear's got to get out of the warehouse, you know, So you have to have something that people are calling for. So it doesn't really matter what you like, it has to be what you know what your customer is going to want to use. Yeah, well, it also, you know, you said you got to decide what's what's, you know, what you need or whatever, but you also have to decide who you want to be like who who do you want your customers to see you as? Like I, I can't tell you how many times people have called me and said, Hey, what do you think about this Sheds lighting stuff? You know, Sheds is a brand that sells on Facebook and on Amazon and stuff, right?

1:02:20 It's a direct from China DTC brand and you know, like I just say to them, what do you want, you know, the name on your door to be like, what do you want people to think of you as in the market? You know, the low cost leader or the guys who get it right every time and and do really high quality work. And you know, that's who you want to associate your brand with. Is is, you know, you want your brand married to an L acoustic or to, you know, Shenzhen Audio manufacturing Group or whatever it's called, right. And so, yeah, I think that plays a role certainly. Like do you want to be a, a top tier quality brand or do you want to be, you know, the low cost leader? Yeah.

1:03:06 And we and we've been very lucky that the brands that this company, other companies work with, you know DMB and and and Araton and and Roby and all these to be able to work on that because you want to be able to deliver that kind of quality to the customer. Yeah. So I think somewhere in your notes I read about a special relationship that you have with Jerry Harris, which The funny thing is I have a similar special relationship which started out pretty much the exact same way as you said yours did. So tell me about that. I so 2012 I went into VR and we started obviously tour sound and VR grew and did what it did and, and I think under events it was fantastic. And we certainly had, you know, the growth and things like that of how it's managed.

1:03:54 Obviously, as we all know it headed into bankruptcy. And so, you know, PRG and through obviously Equity Partners, they acquired it and you know, so a lot of the people that were still there post, you know, that that phase were not the people that were involved in a lot of that. And so, you know, we had built a really great company. I that's the one thing I think that anybody that looks at that time frame and goes that company, if you take out the finances, which are important, that company dominated and really was solid. Obviously until it, you know, whenever you go from private ownership into an equity group, you change how you know it needs to function. But it was, you know, that time of the people that are involved in that company was really special.

1:04:37 So of course we went into PRG huge chip on our shoulders, you know, and, and I haven't been at PRG for six years. The amount of people I've apologized to at PRG for probably that first six months, a year of, you know, of them buying us and what's feeling like was a merger, you know, and just what the reality it was. And so we're in a meeting and, you know, it's my first meeting with Jerry and, you know, driving this part of it. And, you know, Jerry makes a comment. I think we had a difference of opinion or something like that. And I got just, you know, the tongue lashing from them, all the expletives, you know, just, you know, the normal thing. And I'm like, all right, well, obviously I'm I'm done. Like this is, you know, this is it. And we ended up, you know, he pulled me aside later and we sat there and talked.

1:05:26 And the good thing, the thing about Jerry is he can literally in that moment be like, I disagree with you on this point. And it has no bearing on how he feels about you and anything else where a lot of people like, you know, UMF me and now I hate everything about you, you know, so he's king of like we yelled at each other and this and now let's go have dinner. And we end up having a really good relationship and, and went from there of like honest conversations of this. And he's been a really good mentor in there And I still got MF and other meetings from him, you know, after that. And it was like, Yep, you're right. But I, you know, it's kind of that same thing of like, you know, when in this situation very much had a chip on my shoulder. You know, I'm going to make my point not really giving him the due credit where he is.

1:06:16 And, you know, definitely got shut down on that first one. But honestly, it helped us to sit there and have a very, and I still literally have a card from him he sent me for Christmas stuff. I remember our first meeting like it was yesterday, you know, And so it's, it's a good joke point for him. And he's like, you know, look, he's like, I appreciate the fact that you're always going to be honest, you know, and I'm going to tell you how it is. And that's where we started from, you know, and I, I think maybe not the best way to start a relationship. But maybe it is. You know, I think Jerry likes the people most who can take that and, and handle it well and can go to dinner after and don't go pouting off in a corner somewhere. And, you know, because I always got a, a degree of respect from Jerry that I don't think all of his suppliers got because I took the blow and, you know, didn't kiss his ass at the end of of the the whippin.

1:07:11 Usually talked back a little bit and fed him whatever my side of the story was, whether he liked it or not. And you know, most of those meetings, even though they ended poorly, usually finished up with a dinner or a phone call or a something where it didn't impact the relationship at all. And I've always had a huge amount of respect for Jerry and for, you know, what he does and what he has done. And, you know, he, he's like, you know, that guy that that goes into war and comes out, you know, usually with a win. And I like it. You know, I do. I love his style all the time. Sometimes when it's directed at me, not so much, but, but he's a great guy.

1:07:54 Like I really, really like Jerry. And when you get him outside of work and outside of work people, you know, I've had dinners with him in Palm Beach where he used to go quite often. And I live in Palm Beach, and I've had dinners with him where we didn't even talk about business, you know, where it was just very friendly, very cordial, very nice and, you know, just a friend talking about life and whatever, right. So, So yeah, it's just funny that I've had those exact same meetings that you're talking about in a very similar relationship. Yeah, and it's, you know, and it's funny, like we've he's we've had the conversation after the fact. He's like, yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, it, it, it was in that moment where I don't think anybody wanted to hear anything else.

1:08:38 But to your point, he's we've had some amazing times of just talking about the normal stuff. And he's very good at, you know, bouncing anything off of, you know, and, and, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, he's seen he's seen it all, you know, and having a guy like that in the company to not take his opinion and ask him advice, you know, which is the role that he plays for them now of, you know, look, I'm here to help, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's all very interesting and and you know, like some of the legendary stories that I've heard of him, you know, going chest to chest with, with some of the bankers and stuff, you know, kept that company, you know, from becoming extinct.

1:09:21 I think at times, you know, because they ran into some financial challenges over the years that would have buried lesser people. And he just stood firm and and made things happen. Right. So good on I mean. He, I was fortunate, I, I was one of the people that kept a job during COVID. We obviously didn't, you know, massive reductions in staff and salaries if you stayed on all that. And we had a daily leadership call. And I mean, I watched him juggle battleships, you know, pay for that company out of his own pocket, fight every single day to make sure that that company didn't go on her and people had a paycheck. And I mean, and it was, you know, we had conversations outside that like, I, I knew how many weeks he was, you know, he's like, I have this many weeks left in my bank account if I don't get these deals solved to make sure that we're, you know, that we're here.

1:10:15 And so, I mean, that guy worked tirelessly, you know, and, and made it up to, you know, made it up to all of us. And so I I can't say enough good things about him. Yeah, Yeah. Well, and he's he's the penultimate entrepreneur, you know, live in it like, and I get that on a much smaller scale than than Jerry Harris, you know, same challenges, same moments where you're like, okay, this is a pivotal moment. You know, I could go this way or I could go this way and both of them possibly end in death. You know, which should I choose, the painful slow death or the really fast 1? You know, So, yeah, it's always fun. So now you are the Chief Operating Officer at Concert Stuff Group, which is one of my favorite, you know, corporate entity names in the industry probably at the moment. The fact that Jim and Michael and team made that the corporate entity name is one of my favorite things about. It.

1:11:12 I love it. I love it so much. What do you do? Concert stuff. Yeah. You know, literally that's that's it. We do that. We got stuff. What do you need? Yeah. I know I love it, I love it and I love the people behind it too. So like one of the questions I had is, are they still like active on a daily basis? So are you working with and for the founders or so they haven't like stepped aside and and just advise you when necessary or whatever? No, this, I mean, and look, this is a this is a new role and it's not a role that they had. And so a lot of, you know, I have so much respect for Jim and Michael of obviously wanting to try this and and bring this in, but no, I mean, Jim is super involved.

1:11:57 You know, we had breakfast yesterday morning. We have, you know, we have a weekly meetings, we talk every other day text, you know, hey, here's this, you know, and, and the things and he's done amazing and everything. And he's also very good about letting his team do stuff, you know, and he's really successful and over like right now, you know, G2 structures is a really amazing part of the business for us. And you get on a call at Jim where you're talking about that or talking other projects that he's doing outside of just obviously running the vision of the company. You know, he you just watch him get super excited. It's it's another, you know, kind of like a Jerry, it's another guy. It's just a great entrepreneur. And he's the same guy all the time. And he's very open about who he is and his values and his culture, like, and he's that person all the time, which I respect.

1:12:48 You know, if, if you're going to be an asshole, be an asshole all the time, you're going to be a good guy. Like, and he's, you know, he's a very, you know, family religious guy. Like, this is who I am. This is who I want. And I couldn't say enough nice things about him. Yeah. Yeah, I've always really liked them. Well, and he's, and he's smart as anything. I mean, the, you know, he's started all these businesses, he's found needs. He knows the bank process. He knows, you know, he, he knows CapEx, he knows every part of this. You know, he's, he's just, he's, you know, a wealth of information and a great leader. I think it's so funny that you know, you your first job application or whatever, you refuse to do staging and now you operate a staging company. 100% yeah.

1:13:32 And, and look, I and I clarify this, the guys over there are incredible. You know, when you look at the guys in Guardian and you look at the guys in G2S and G2 Mobile, I mean, they are the best of the best. Cliff and Greg Harold who run G2 S are incredible. And all those crew chiefs. I am literally just trying to, you know, what can I do and, and how can I listen and how can I help? And you know it. We're super blessed with some of the people we have in this company. So you know, what is what is your role like? Are you running the company or is Jim running the company And you just, you know, go like he says, take care of this stuff and you take care of this stuff. Or it's in the normal, it's in the normal, you know, Jim's doing the normal CEO thing. Hey, here's the vision, here's the direction we want to go. You know, here's the things he's passionate about, here's the M&A he wants to look at.

1:14:21 And we're, you know, we're executing that, you know, and I am, as I've, as I'm learning, trying to weigh in and say, Hey, what do you think about this or what do you think about this? And in fair and, and he gives a lot of autonomy. And there I've been very blessed that, you know, when we did this, it was, I want you to come in and learn. And you know, it's not like there's not a check in, you know, it's so, but you know, I think in any good organization, you know, your CEO is leading that vision and it says this is what's important to me and this is a culture and this is the direction I want to go. And in my position and anybody else in the C-Suite, our job is to kind of go execute that. And then there's things that we're working on.

1:15:02 You know, they did this roll up in the concert stuff and it's been a little over a year, but we kind of rolled all this in and, you know, they started the board and, and took all these companies and brought them in and we started some acquisition. So a lot of the stuff that we're doing is all the back end stuff that I know anyway, like that was the thing of like, you know, all right, well, you know, some of these things coming from other companies. So like, you know, we're going to go work on IT. We're going to go work on HR payroll, how we do contracting, insurance. These are not things that like, you know, we don't need to waste the time in a meeting to sit there and be like, well, what how, what do you want to do here? That's the role of it. And I think then, you know, we try to all strategically look at future opportunities.

1:15:44 And that there is private equity involved in this as well, right? Nope, it's still all completely. Private. Still private ownership. That is incredible. I love that. Yeah, I didn't know, like I, I had never heard of a private equity transaction in it. So, but then when you see companies rolling up and targeting acquisition and stuff like obviously very successful in that company to be able to get into that position without bringing in private Equity Partners. Yeah, We have a very good bank relationship with JP Morgan. You know, they're as everybody does. You have, you know, you have options to sit there and do stuff and they're fantastic and supportive of it. But no, this is still one of the, you know, privately owned companies. That is amazing.

1:16:27 That's awesome. Congratulations. Not that there's anything against private equity, but you know, it's nice when you can do it and and remain A privately held company where you still own all the stock or at least the majority of it. So what what are some of the challenges though, like when it comes to operating a private company like that versus extremely well funded war chest companies like Clair Global where you've spent a lot of time and PRG maybe not quite as well funded right now, but I'm sure they will be again and and even solo tech and others. But, you know, there's obviously certain challenges where, like, you know, maybe one company can go after a Taylor Swift tour and you can't, for example, because, you know, it's just too expensive and you could buy three other companies with the same amount of money. But like, does that present huge challenges as you're trying to grow your business or you just grow? No, I mean anyways, you know, you can go get a giant check from any of these things.

1:17:37 You then obviously, you know, like anything, like any giant, you know, check you have your interest payments are going to significantly go up. So you're balancing that of, you know, I could buy the gear for Taylor Swift or I can pay this payment. You know, I think it, I think right now it offers a lot of opportunity. There is to your point, there's a certain size and when you need to be in there, you know, it it helps to have a different kind of investor. Sometimes that's private equity, sometimes that's a strategic for family institution, you know, to kind of help you along with that. You know, the good thing is if you're a solid company, you can generally go get what you need from the bank in measured, you know, amounts. It's when you want to do it in a hit the gas pedal harder is when you, you know, really see the opportunities with private equity.

1:18:22 Yeah, you know, I think the advantages are is you know, there's advantage disadvantagement. The advantages are is our board is all the people that have been with Jim that have built these companies. So you have the owners of the company functioning as the board, very well educated, very well trusted. You know, you're, you're collectively moving in the same direction. All the best, which is a really nice place to be. Generally too, you know, yeah, versus, you know, some of the other intentions, but yeah, it, you know, it, it just feels like these days every sort of mid size company in our industry is just building to a level where they get the attention of either Claire or Solo tech or 4 Wall or, you know, one of these deeply funded companies.

1:19:11 And like, obviously in the last two days we've seen 2 deals. You know, 1 is that 4 Wall announced their big debt deal with, with Man Group in, in the UK. And then secondly, Claire Wing being purchased by by Claire, which was one of the worst kept secrets. I think over the past few weeks. I've I've heard it so many times. So it's like, Oh yeah, the press release is out today. Big deal. But you know, obviously, and this isn't me putting down Claire or 4 wall. I mean, both are great companies and, and especially like to me, Claire is, is such a massive brand and has such a massive opportunity to build a, an even bigger global brand, of course, but it just feels like everyone's auditioning to become part of these, these large, you know, fund held companies. I take for all that mix, I, I will say that there's a lot of companies and you can respect this because you've been you've seen this is there's a lot of companies where succession planning was not in there.

1:20:14 And so, you know, what happens when the founders ready to not be there? And I think that creates a lot of opportunity. And then at the same time there's, you know, you know, there's other situations that make sense. But I mean, I think in our industry, you know, that has been one of the big drivers that's probably post consolidation, you know, post COVID consolidation of a lot of these places because it's a lot of founders going like, you know, I'm out, you know, do I? I want to cash out? I don't want to ESOP. I don't have somebody that's a, you know, family member that wants to take it over, you know, and I'm but at the same time, then you look at, you know, companies and you know, who knows what anybody does? You look at companies like neg earth and you look at companies like upstage and you look at like these institutional companies that are, you know, obviously have support, but like, you know, are still being led by the people that led them, you know, and are solid companies, you know where they go.

1:21:14 You know, we all that, but I mean, I think you know, yeah, there's no it is it's I I was trying to think of like in LA based companies the other day that. Weren't tied into and is another one. Yeah, yeah. I mean with with Michael and you know, like where he goes and what he does, but I think you know. And there was a it's say and there was sound image. And but again, they're, they're all being bought up, you know, and you're right, though succession planning is, is a big topic that probably become. I think it drives a lot of, of course, you know, what do I want to do here? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you get to a certain size and you get to a certain age and you get to a certain, you have having gone through COVID, guys are just going, oh God, I don't want to ever have to do that again at my age, you know, or whatever.

1:22:01 So, you know, it starts to make a huge amount of sense. And again, I'm not I'm not shaming anyone for doing it. I think everyone should do it. If you don't have a good succession plan with the funding required to continue growing that business going forward, then, you know, selling becomes a very, very good option and everyone should look at it if you're in that position, of course. So what else did I want to ask you? There was a big one that was on this list here somewhere that I wanted to get into. So you know, like what the the trajectory of concert stuff group you've talked about, like you guys are continuing to look at acquisitions, you're looking still at growing each of the individual divisions of the company. So is is audio, lighting, video and staging all run completely separately?

1:22:54 Like are they separate entities within the group? Yeah, they're, they're separate in these they we, we roll up we have a common shared service group that's that supports them your normal backup backup house functions, but. Marketing, accounting, What else ITE. HR fine, ITE all that kind of stuff. And I think you know the area that we've but you have to have focus. And so the guys that run staging or focused on staging, the guys that run transportation because there's trucking and busing, they're they're focused on that. You know, the guys that run audio, video lighting. And that's where it works. You know, if you hodgepodge and kind of all of a sudden have, if you make it wherever I have to go, sell everything, you lose the focus and you lose the uniqueness of what it is. And these were all separate entities before the roll up, you know, to kind of help build a better support system over them, you know, so if they're all successful by themselves, you know, don't bring them together and make them unprofitable through consolidation.

1:23:54 So it sounds. Like a completely genuine sort of organic way of combining companies where it's like, OK, you know, everyone is spending X percent of your, your profits on these six or seven things. Let's just create this entity that does those six or seven things extremely well and really efficiently. Because like even things like marketing, you know, if you're buying one ad, it's $100. If you're buying 10 ads, it's $900. If you're buying 1000 ads that you know, the discount goes much heavier at that point and it becomes, you know, much more efficient. And that's, and that's exactly the situation. I mean that's it.

1:24:36 What it's done is it's given a platform and that's been the the things that have been M&A have been very strategic and they've been things that have culturally aligned overlapping customers, geographies very specifically, you know on products. You know, this thing is in this business and does this really well and isn't just another one of these. And you know, then it's created that back of house platform to sit there and you know, because it's, you know, if, if I'm going to weigh out, am I going to do more marketing and try to like contribute more to the employee, you know, plan or am I going to try to buy this CapEx? Like you're weighing all these things out as an entrepreneur. And so I think what it's allowed is it's allowed to go, OK, hey, I've got that back of house thing. We can help look at CapEx as a company, you know, in a better volume and how we approach that.

1:25:25 And then I can be focused on the stuff that I'm really good at and go take care of my customer. And, and your integration ends up being a little bit more smooth because, you know, you're not trying to be like, I'm just going to keep buying and, you know, buying lighting companies. And now I need to try to figure out how to smack all this inventory together, you know, and everybody's distros and lights and and trusses and, you know, soccer links are different. Yeah, You know, it's funny, I one of the, I was, I'm old enough to have been at the beginning stages of PRG, part of all of that. I didn't work for PRG, but I worked for their suppliers and was very close with some of the companies they were buying, including Bash and Vanco and Cinema Services and all the early companies that they bought. And watching it all and knowing all of the people running those companies and now part of the management team at PRGI got to see so many of the problems that happened. And it was things like, you know, at the time, Studio Color was, was the hot moving wash light and really the only good alternative to AVL 5 at the time. And so they were being used on a lot of television shows and they'd ship them in from multiple locations in for a big TV shoot somewhere.

1:26:41 And I worked for high end at the time and I'd get the call from the LD saying these lights are shit. What's wrong? Well, they're all different color temperatures, you know, because they came from 4 different locations with different lamp lights and you know, so you had one with 100 hours on it and one with 1000 hours on it and, and it looked yellow compared to the one with 100 hours, right. So, you know, problems like that, they just didn't know what they didn't know. Different casing, different cabling, different clamping, different, all the infrastructure was different. And so they really learned early on that infrastructure is very expensive and it's also can be very problematic when it comes to putting a show together. You know, if you have 4 different case types going out on tour, you know that that doesn't make a lot of sense. You know loading trucks is pretty inefficient, so. Now we, I mean, we literally spent, you know, a couple hours in a meeting today of us looking at our case infrastructure, because obviously right now we have two companies that can share that.

1:27:46 And so any decision we make moving forward, we want to make sure we're doing it under that idea of how can this be? You know, we don't want to be a situation where we're transferring gear all the time, but we won't be able to share it and make sure it matches when that happens. But you're right, like you and I'm, and I'm watching Claire do it, you know, they're, they had finally kind of gotten it. Everything aligned and, and got MD integrated and Shoko was integrated and all that. And then COVID happened. Now they're buying all these and you know, now it's that same thing of all right. Now we're spending money back on integration. You know it would get that packaging right? You mentioned sharing and it was another really funny, interesting, sad PRG story in the early days of PRG. But they went from everyone having your own inventory and using your own inventory to forcing everyone basically to use each other's inventory.

1:28:36 And so I would get like, for example, potentially A discounted rate if I had Vanco in Orlando and I was renting from Cinema Services in Las Vegas. But to ship it across the country made it more expensive than just renting it locally from my competitor. And they wouldn't let you rent it locally from your competitor. You had to rent it from somebody in the group. And so I just remember having, did you know Marty Nerudin? God rest his soul. So Marty I was was Marty's last manager and Marty was just such a great guy. Yeah, Marty was an amazing guy, but I used to sit for hours consoling Marty over these types of topics.

1:29:18 Like Marty's, like these people, they won't let me rent lights from Christie down the block, and I'm paying $200 to ship them across the country when I could rent them for 75, you know, and he was right. But you know, again, it's just problems that you've never had before that you got to find solutions, solutions for on the fly. You know, and you know, one of the other questions I had from you is I, and you know, again, you can tell me none of my business, but I'm curious when you guys are rolling companies into this group, are you retaining the former owners?

1:29:58 And are they being retained as part owners still or are they just being retained as managers or part of the group? Or how does that all work? You know, and as far as as everybody's kind of their deal is their deal, but the yeah, everybody that has been in this the look, the goal that is, is people that are that are excited and want to do it. So like, you know, Loud and clear came in recently. Bill Deavers is a close friend of Jim's, does a lot of production management stuff and Bill is gung ho and on and every day. I mean, I've literally have been like trying to plan the next, hey, we need to all sit down and look through like fixed assets in your shop.

1:30:41 And Bill's like, OK, well, this week I'm here and then I'm on this cruise ship doing this gig and then I'm doing this and like, you know, I'm like, all right, well, Bill, at some point, yeah, let me know. No, it's. And none of this is that this is very much of what is the platform to help people go focus on where they want to be AT. And and Bill is a fantastic example. There's a 340 Productions, which is a producing team that is here. They do tour production. Brian and Ryan Zito is now part of that group. Incredible people. This is literally how can we support you with the back of house and those guys have just been crushing it, you know, and they're you know, they're younger than I am and I'm youngish and they're you know, it's just to give them. Let's take some pressure off of you to for you to go focus on makes you exceptional.

1:31:30 Yeah, Yeah, that makes that makes a huge amount of sense because I, I've been around a lot of these roll ups and it's like a thing that happens to most founders, you know, who have been building this business for the last 20 to 50 years in some cases, right? And they suddenly don't know what to do with themselves because someone else has taken over their company and they are the genius who knows everything about their company, but now they're not being asked how to run it anymore. Or they're even worse, they disagree with how it's being run now. You're doing this. These are the people that are the reason you're wanting to do it, So why would you not?

1:32:11 Yeah, include them. Want these people involved? Yeah, makes a ton of sense. It makes a ton of sense. This company is, it doesn't matter if it was us or anybody, this company is attractive because of these people like, you know, getting and, and there's ones that, you know, in all honesty, like, you know, I've they've I've seen some of these things that have gotten thrown the way. And there was one of them were like it. The two founders are here and they at Max want a two year, you know, they want to stay two years, you know, but would like to be here less like immediately, like into the circular filing cabinet because like, you know, OK, so everything that worked for your company, that made you where you want to get to where you're looking to do this goes away.

1:32:55 It it doesn't matter how good your succession planning is. So I mean, it's really about this is, you know, this is a founder LED company with a whole bunch of entrepreneur founders. When you look at the guys that are running these divisions that I just am very happy and lucky to get to, you know, be able to be a part of that is working with other founders and entrepreneurs. And it's just a platform for entrepreneurs and founders to give them that launchpad to be, you know, successful. That's that's amazing. I love that approach. You know, again, I've like, I've been on the other side where I've heard calls from both people, like from the company that bought the the company and from the former owner, both saying the other side's an asshole or the other side has no clue what they're doing or the other side, you know, lied to me or the other side, whatever.

1:33:44 And it's, it's always sad to me when it comes to that point because it almost reminds me of someone who like has decided they can't raise their kids anymore. So they should really give them to, you know, their brother or their sister to raise their kids for them. And then, you know, both sides end up hating each other, whatever. Like the parents should still be in the kids lives and you know, you should support the new parents who you've given up your kid to raise or whatever. But I don't know, it's just it's a complicated situation. It always is. So the better you can treat those founders, I think the better off you are. Yeah, and it's, I mean, look, it's they, I don't take it lightly. I have through multiple companies have have been involved with people like this and have been very lucky to kind of learn what works and what doesn't. And you don't take lightly this person has built this business and has this value on it.

1:34:37 And you know, you see that deals and how sometimes people value it if you know, I've got this sweat equity in it. But even when they're realistic, you know, it's still you have to go in and be respectful and careful because, you know, I, you know, in all honesty, I'm playing with house money. Like that's been my comment. I always joke about that. Like, you know, it's easy to work for a company and not have to, you know, there's only been a few times in my life where I've had to like pull money from my account for payroll. You know, in the tour sound VR days, you know, we were kind of getting started. You know, for the most part, I've always been able to work off somebody else's. So I try to be really respectful of, you know, when I go and be like, well, we got to get rid of all this stuff. You know, it's all junk. Like, well, man, I that did a gig and I bought that and I paid for that.

1:35:22 Like, you know, you got to, you got to be careful about how you approach these conversations. Absolutely no. Absolutely. So I heard your daughter's getting married. My daughter's getting married. Yeah. Next June. In Cape. Yep. In Cape Cod. Nobody will give me a budget. Like, they just keep. I just keep asking. I keep, they keep laughing at it. So, you know, so we'll see. How this goes? Yikes. I'm like, I've had I've had customers that do the same thing to me, guys like I and sales people. I know where this is going. Yeah, well, I always love. I always love when you ask a customer, you know, what's your budget and they say, well, I don't really have one. OK, well then it's half a million and they go, well, that's way too much.

1:36:03 Then you do have a budget. Everybody has a budget. Yeah, exactly. Of course. You just don't want to be the first one to put the number out usually, right? Yeah. So that's going to be cool. Is that your? That's your first getting married then? That is my first getting married. She just turned 25. She's been with this guy for four years. Cool. He's a super nice guy. Super excited for them. That's helpful. And he's not in our industry. He's not in our industry. And he's not in private equity. He's not in private equity. And hopefully he's not a lawyer either. Not a lawyer. All right, good. Then you're safe. I think you know, everything else is OK. So what's what's your motto? I, you know, this, Sarah asked me this. And I was sitting there thinking about it, and it's kind of been all those things.

1:36:52 And I, you know, I wish I had something catchy like John McBride. You know, either you rock or you suck. That's pretty. That is a good. One pretty known 1. You know, I think honestly for mine, it's just for me, it's more of I'm trying to be much more authentic and kind every year that goes by. You know, I've, you can like me or not, this is kind of who I am. I try to be fair, but I think the biggest thing that I'm trying to, it's the thing I judge my parenting by since we were just talking about my daughter, you know, if I have somebody that comes up to me and talks about how kind and nice and respectful my kids are, then I've done a good job. Everything else is so I. Love that. And that's really where I just want to be like, I want to be people of, you know, am I kind? Do I take care of people?

1:37:35 Am I trying to be, you know, this is who I am in my fair. That's that's kind of where that's my motto right now in life is just to be that. Well, and the higher you get up the food chain in a business, the harder it is to be remembered or recognized as that person because you are hiring people, you're firing people, you're making decisions that aren't always the most popular decisions. You know, you're always the one who gets uninvited to the most things because, yeah, he's mean, you know, or he's this or that. And you know, I'm. I'm one of the kindest, most loyal, most giving people that there possibly ever was walking this earth. I give away my time every day way too much to the point where my fiance now says, you know, that I I'm crazy. Like, you know, you got to be careful. You're always out of time.

1:38:22 You're always too busy for everything, you know, and it's true. Like, you know, if you asked me right now, hey, can you spend the next two hours explaining me to me how to incorporate AI in, in my life? I would absolutely do it if you said, you know, tomorrow can we meet? I want to talk to you about something that I'm stuck with right now that I think you might be able to help on done. You know, I'd do it in a minute. And so, you know, but like I said, the higher you get up the food chain, it's easy when you're an account exec or something to, to be loved by everyone, especially if you've got an expense account, but you know, to be the CEO or the top, the president, the even CEO and, and be loved by everyone.

1:39:06 That's that's an accomplishment. That's big. No, and it's and, and, and trust me, I'm aware that like I, I in my role, it is not going to be I'm everybody's bad cop for conversations. You know, that's how it is. It is. And so I think that's why for me now, it's a much more conscious piece of this of I know that that's going to be a thing in life and it's just continue every year to become more and more a thing. So I have to work really hard to yes, that's, that's who I am. But I'm, you know, a good, I'm try to be a good person, try to be a kind person. Love that and with that, I think we shall say goodbye because I know you probably have other things to do and I certainly do as well.

1:39:46 Awesome. Please, if you happen to run into into the big cheese, let him know I said hello and he's been on the podcast as well and just somebody I really appreciate and and admire. So OK. Awesome. I absolutely will. Good, good luck to you guys. I love the company, I love the brand, I love the name and I love what you're doing and I love that it's still, you know, independently owned. It's a cool thing. Not that again, I'm not against private equity. I think it's necessary and in a lot of certain examples, but I love when people can stay independent as well. So. So yeah, cool. Thank you for doing this. I appreciate it very much. Enjoyed it.

1:40:27 All right, see you later.