Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #29 - Exploring the World One Festival at a Time with Rad Season Founder Oli Russell-Cowan

Transcript

#29 - Exploring the World One Festival at a Time with Rad Season Founder Oli Russell-Cowan · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's this one in Spain called Cascamoros, where everyone is basically, I think there's about 60,000 people covered in olive oil, like black um oil and olive oil, and they're chasing this guy who's the Cascamoras, they're chasing him through the streets, and this guy's on for about six hours.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's so mad, like there's no like there's like a couple of like food like shacks, and there's like bars open, but they're just running through the street.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: In this episode, I talk with Ollie Russell Cowan, the founder of Rad Sea, which is an event and accommodation planning company for festivals and events that lie a bit out of the mainstream.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_04: Ollie has a strong passion for action sports and traveling, and found a calling to help you make these types of events that you might not care about a bit more accessible, so that you might be able to find and experience the people and culture of new places in a way that you wouldn't have known existed.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: We talk about how he became so passionate about these types of festivals, the journey he's taken to start Rad's decent, about some of his favorite events that he's been to, and about his change in perspective because of family and the pandemic, as someone who grew up a bit more of a free spirit.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: Ollie has some awesome experiences and stories that I bet you'll have fun hearing about.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Enjoy.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for doing this with me, Ollie.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no worries.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: I empathize pretty greatly with your love of you know, some of these action sports and traveling and surfing, uh, mountain biking.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_04: It seems like you have a lot of these fun adventurous hobbies.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think they're wonderful ways of uh going out and like they take you to a lot of wonderful places, any of them in in particular, whether it's surfing or just traveling in general.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_04: But they also introduce you to a variety of wonderful new people, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_04: There's tons of benefits to these kind of sports.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_04: And while I do want to get into this journey you're on with Rad Season and things like how you've combined your uh career with with passion, I'd love to start off with asking you to tell me a bit about how you became so passionate about uh these kind of action sports or trekking or or adventuring in general.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_04: Was there a particular sport or story that kind of brought you in?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I get well, going back, so I I grew up in in London, in England, and from an early age, I guess it was always always sort of playing sports, doing mainly sort of team sports at school, um, football, uh like yeah, soccer if you if you want to call it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and rugby and athletics and things like that.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess it was sort of coming to yeah, when I was like around like 1213 and kind of started getting into skateboarding, and that was something that you know, like heading, going in from home and going into the into the centre of London and all the spots there and and the scene, and it it sort of I guess combined with uh like punk rock at the time with like Californian and US rock and stuff was coming over, and this is sort of shot my age now, but what were the bands that you were thinking of then?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the bands the the uh well the the bands that I still love kind of like now as well, but um so uh a lot of like Pennywise, no effects, um, bad religion, uh Mad Caddies, and this is sort of around like middle of the 90s to like yeah, like end of the 90s, noughties when that was kind of yeah, it was it was quite a big scene when like like Vans Warp Tour would come um every year, and they'd be playing in a Reading festival.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so sort of going to those things, skating a lot uh during during the week, going into the city on the weekends and uh yeah, it's sort of those like that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely then I looked at the other board sports things like you know, then I started getting into snowboarding.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was fortunate enough to go away and be able to sort of to you know like like try it a couple of times.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's not there's not much snow in England.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so you know, so sort of getting into other parts of Europe and you know going into France and um I had family in Spain, so I'd go down there and go snowboarding.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then when I was I guess when I finished school, uh I looked at what like what what what am I gonna do?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like what am I gonna am I gonna study and am I gonna like what's the plan?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I basically found I I looked at all the universities in in the UK and I was almost sort of looking at going, okay, well, what's the closest one to the beach?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um absolutely.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And are there any that are sort of like on on the coast in England or in the rest of the UK?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I found um Swansea University was basically you could see you could see the beach from the University Horse residence out of the out of the classroom and stuff.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then from what I heard there, they had some pretty decent surf in Wales, in the Gower Peninsula, but pretty close to there.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So coming from from skating and from snowboarding a little bit, it was always something, you know, I tried I tried bodyboarding, you know, like a few times, but only in the Mediterranean in Spain.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not it's not really the same as you know, like doing it in in the Pacific or the or the Atlantic.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, so I started there in the main route, I was studying business and Spanish, and I thought, okay, well, how can I tie in um learning something that would enable me to travel, to to go to these places, to go surfing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I just kind of uh I that that sort of started off the whole adventure, so to speak.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_04: From absolutely no, I think it's always a it's a fun uh question with people who kind of love these things because if you ask them about work or or school or whatever it is, there's usually like a side answer to whatever the question is, is like, well, there was a mountain, and well, there was a beach close by.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_04: Like it had it, you weren't going in the middle of nowhere where there's nothing you could do.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there's there's always like a passion that kind of drives that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's pretty fun.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so then what you went to school in Spain, it looked like, and that was near some good surf.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so I went to um I did four years of university.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: I had a uh I had three years in Wales uh in Swansea.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then because I was studying Spanish and business, I had to do a year, say had to, you know, it was part, it's it was part of the course, and I was like, okay, well, I had three choices.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: I could go, um, I could go to Madrid, I could go to I think Cordoba in Spain, or I could go to Granada.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And Granada have got um, they've got a mountain range called Cher Nevada, which is the highest ski resort in Spain, and it's right in the south of Spain, so um it's so it's pretty unusual.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of you can see the sea, uh, you can see Morocco from one side of the mountain, and you can see the sea from the other side, and and yeah, it's like 2,800 meters right at the peak.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was studying there, I was I was 20, and I managed to organize because we could pick what kind of classes we wanted.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of just chose all the classes that I could fit in on a Monday and a Tuesday, which meant that I had five days for uh just to go snowboarding.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I jump on the bus from the city and head up to the mountains, and um yeah, it was it was rad.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, be being able to do that and and study at the same time was was pretty cool.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all the Spanish friends that I met there, they were like, Oh, you know, do you wanna like we're gonna go out tonight?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to come with us?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they go out so late compared to what I was used to in England.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: They're going out at like midnight and they start to go out, and then you know, they're coming back at four or five.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried it once, and I I just I basically fell asleep on the chairlift.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, like, you know what?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm just gonna have no sleep and like you know, just kind of go like rage and go through the whole night and then go, then go on to the mountains.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty difficult.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, uh, I I did that, so I I was lucky enough to um to have a year in Spain there, and then um yeah, then when I finished, I came back to Wales, and then I studied over in Australia and and did a like a sports diploma after that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_04: Did you while you were in Spain during this time, did you was this like when you started to conceive of maybe ways of combining what you were learning in class with these other passions?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_04: Were you starting any sort of you know businesses or side hobbies that might have mixed the two?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't no.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: So then when I was still studying, I was still I was still a bit clueless to actually, you know, what I wanted to do afterwards.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like I knew I I knew I loved traveling and sort of going to new places, and I then thought, okay, like wasn't really sure exactly which direction I was gonna go.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I finished, when I graduated, um I then I came back to the UK and I was sitting down with my mum.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: She she showed me this thing in the newspaper.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, oh look, there's um there's this surf studies course in Australia, and it's an actually it's an official it's an official degree, you know.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: You like there's there's people like that, they they had it for the first year, and um I looked at it, I was just like, oh man, that would be that'd be pretty cool to do.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it was on the Gold Coast, yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was like about 20 minutes walk from like the campus was like 15 minutes walk from from Snapper Rocks Um and the Superbank.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like one of the best waves in the world, like this right-hand point break, which just goes on forever.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I was like, I just looked at it, I was like, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna apply for that, and yeah, hopefully I hopefully I can get in and do it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um I got in.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was lucky enough to, yeah, I fluke it and like somehow I got accepted.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then next minute I know, like a couple of months later, I'm flying off to Australia to to Brisbane and then down to the Gold Coast Um to do a degree or diploma in uh it was called Sports Management Surfing Studies.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: What does that mean?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, it doesn't exist anymore.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if there was like too many jobs in the surf industry afterwards, but um yeah, so basically um it was the idea was that it was it was gonna be like an insight into the surfing industry.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we're doing everything from like um surfing events, marketing, yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um we got to shape a board, um, we got some qualifications out of it, so um, I became a surf instructor.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I finished that, uh I was like, okay, well, I've done this course.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: What am I gonna do now?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Started started uh applying for you know like different uh different jobs and ended up getting um I just sent an email to Quicksilver Surf School over in the Canary Islands in Fuera Ventura, and yeah, he got back to me, he's like, Well, when can you start like as an instructor, just get over here?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's like oh yeah, sweet.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: So after like not really, you know, like I did like a little bit of coaching in Australia just to get the qualification, um yeah, flying back to Europe to the other side of the world um to become an instructor and and did a season over there, and that was yeah, it was it was pretty fun, it was a good time.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: Dude, that's wild.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_04: But when I mean it it sounds like at some point you got more into the business side of things.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: Was that after this surf coach?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so after that, I then thought I I did a season and I had like a bit of a a bit of a freak out.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I I gotta get a real job, uh, I've got to kind of come back, and you know, like I've I like I was I was just looking at it going, you know, I've done I've done these degrees, like what am I gonna do?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So then I ended up working in London for a while.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um for uh yeah, I got in in sales and I was sort of selling um on events, and it was something I wasn't really passionate about, I didn't really like it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was almost like cold calling in this big like room with about a thousand other people.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was weird.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I sort of did that for about five or six months, and then I was lucky enough to get in um with an internship with a company called Factory Media, and this was um the job was to sell DVDs to action sports DVDs to shops, um, if you can imagine that now.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it was like cold calling shops just before Christmas, um like mountain biking stores, and sort of saying, hey, we've got this mountain biking DVD that's just come out.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time it was a slightly, you know, this was like some of these releases were like some of the best movies in the industry, and they're like, Yeah, we'll take 50.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was getting a I was getting a pound per uh per DVD.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sweet.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: I just made a just made 50 50 pounds, you know, like on this, like 70 bucks just from one phone call.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Just okay, I was like, oh let's let's call up someone someone else.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And this it was like a couple of months this went on, and I was like, yeah, it was just it was an internship, so I I did that for a while.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh the company I was working for owned uh a whole bunch of action sports publications and websites, so it was sort of at the time when print was still doing quite well for surfing magazines, skateboarding.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I sort of like worked my way up.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I did classified sales for um classified ad sales with a couple of titles, and then moved on to becoming one of the ad managers for for the skateboarding magazines, um, which was at a trip.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was like like the magazine that I used to sort of read religiously as a kid, and now I'm like you know working on it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was awesome.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: Were there any sort of any moments from that promotion or that that job time period where you kind of sat back and was like, wow, I used to read this.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean we did some.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the coolest memories I have from there was like going to trade shows in San Diego, and we do like I go with my boss and with with the editor of the skateboard magazine at the time, and we'd kind of go to different stores, like different brands and like shoe brands and action sports companies from kind of all the way like down from San Diego and up to LA.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was wild, and just sort of seeing like the difference, like you go into one of these like warehouses, and they've got like you know, there's a full skate park in there, and like there's a like a basketball court, and you know, and there's just like rows and rows and rows of shoes, like you know, as far as the I can see and stuff.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like just completely different to the scene in Europe.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's there's there's a bit of an industry over um in France and in Hossegore and southwest France.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that was sort of like the first time I saw it, especially for for skate and like and for surf.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that was that was pretty interesting, and just being able to go and go for a surf.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were staying in Saint Clemente and you know, like going for a surf there in the morning and having like a business meeting, and then like you know, seeing seeing our guys like skate with like some of the pros there and stuff was was pretty cool.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's that well, that was what I was pretty curious about.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: That then it sounds like you're going to a lot of places and meeting probably not just professionals, but a lot of the people like that are actually buying equipment or or gear, shoes or whatever from these places.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: Was it fun meeting maybe like the kids or or something that were kind of like reading the articles or or magazines that you were putting out?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: It we it was cool.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, when we go to like shows and stuff, and um especially when yeah, when like people heard about it or you know, they were kids like well, like when I was, you know, you're kind of growing up with these magazines, and yeah, that was that was that was definitely a fun part of it.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you sort of you see how stoked they get when they're reading it, and you know, if you're if you're giving out like a few free mags or DVDs or whatever it may be, and yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: What were what were things that you like when you were making these advertisements, like what are what were ways that you were what were the best ways you were like implementing um the things you were trying to sell, uh, I guess in like a positive way.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_04: Does that make sense?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I I guess for us, I mean, we'd do with the brands, we do like a lot of competitions.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that we'd actually, you know, like it it's promotion for for for the brands, but um, and and and the companies that were advertising with the magazines.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then it was, you know, we we try and help out on events and things like that as well.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um a lot of that was kind of was done on grassroots level in the UK, but also like around Europe.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_04: So what uh what would you say are like the the most impactful things that these kids or or the pros maybe, but the people that are going to these events that you're selling, like get out of the actual event?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um so for them, I guess it's sort of if they're if they're going there and they're and they're meeting, like essentially meeting some of their heroes, um, it's at a time where like there's you're taking the mag and they've they've always got like posters in them and stuff, and they're like putting posters up on their walls of uh of these like you know surfers and skaters and snowboarders and and mountain bikers and stuff, and it's that you know, then going there and seeing them and kind of all these guys are pretty down to earth, so it's you know, they they'd be like open to chatting to to kids and and and stuff, which is cool.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like you know, inspiring them to then you know go outside and um try these sports if they haven't tried it already, you know, or like you know, sort of bringing along like brothers and sisters and and mates as well.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's cool.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: Especially in a time period where um these sports were no longer really like fringe, they were very much entering mainstream.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's pretty wild, I think, for people that kind of not necessarily just meet their heroes, but kind of realize that like what they're doing is real and it's not just in the magazines.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's pretty cool.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_04: So then I guess from there, how long did you spend continuing in like the sales and marketing before you decided to make your own kind of go at it with rad season?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it was quite a long time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: So before then, um so I was I was in Australia for a year when I was studying, I came back to the UK, uh, and then I was in the UK for about working with Action Sports Company for more almost three years, and then like it was super fun, but at the time, like what I was doing, the the the pay wasn't great, and I was living in London and commuting to go surfing, so it was about four hours to decent surf or like semi-decent surf um over in Cornwall and Devon, which is on the west coast of England.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we're also going up north to north of England, which is sort of there's another like sort of five, six hours.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was kind of well like when it in winter when it was good, you know, I would be like going with a friend or like a couple of buddies, and we'd we'd be going like you know, every other weekend or every like third weekend, and it's just it's a long way just to go and leave work on a Friday night, go down there for two days and then come back.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so at that time I was like, okay, I need a job that's gonna pay me a bit more money to then leave.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um the plan then was to go, okay, well, we're gonna try and move to Australia.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna try and emigrate over there.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: So then I switched and kind of went back into sales, went into corporate sales working for um a market research company who sort of specialized in technology and and IT.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a massive difference in sort of going from like, you know, wearing like board shorts and a t shirt to putting on a suit again and a and a tie and it being quite corporate and formal.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, that would uh take a little bit of a while to get my head around, but Like the people there were really nice.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I was there for about a year or two.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then we got our it took two years to get a visa, um, uh a residency visa for Australia.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: So then I went over with my my wife now, girlfriend at the time.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And we thought, okay, we just want to be somewhere with a better climate, a good lifestyle, and for me somewhere where I can surf and things.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so then we decided to move over there.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then yeah, I was sort of working sales jobs for a couple of years in Australia until then I thought, okay, like enough's enough now.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I want to try and do my own thing.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um we went traveling.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: So on our honeymoon, um we were traveling, we basically started off in New York, and we had three months to we were going to New York and then down to Panama City.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we had one flight, New York, Panama, and then returning back to Australia was from LA.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we had three months to get from Panama City all the way through.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the plan was to just um surf, check out some cool cultural stuff in the cities and like places like Mexico and Guatemala and stuff like that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was sort of looking at these like all these like online blogs and and lonely planet and a few of the guidebooks, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Trying to find out what was going on.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um, along with the sports, like one of my big passions is sort of festivals and events, and I was trying to find, you know, what are like the weirdest, kind of biggest, quirkiest like national festivals they have in all these places, and all I could really find is basically one-liners in the guidebooks or on blogs saying, you know, there's Day of the Dead in Mexico City, or you know, there's like a fire festival here, and you don't really have too much information on it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was not much as well about like action sports events and kind of rad stuff happening.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: So what we thought when I got back to Australia, I was like, okay, I'm gonna try and put all this information together and then see what we do with it.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: So uh and see if there's an interest, you know, if it's just the information you're collecting while you were transferring.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we were just collecting like collecting information.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: We thought, okay, we started off um literally with like a one-page uh, and then we just do blog articles.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And because we were based in Australia and Sydney, I was like, okay, well, what are the what are the cool surfing events in Australia?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what are the main sort of like world surf tour events here?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: But then I was like looking at the other side of the world and go, oh, you know what, there's a really cool like snowboarding music event in Whistler in Canada.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then there's this epic, you know, crazy music festival over in Eastern Europe and so on and so on.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it kind of snowballed out of control where we were like looking at all these events, and then all of a sudden we've got like over a thousand events on our database that we thought, okay, like like um, yeah, it kind of it just basically grew.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we're sort of like looking at an area, we're looking at a category or a sport.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um what was the what was like the the requirement in your mind for it to meet a level of you know radness or whatever to get put into this directory?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was kind of if I guess it was uh maybe a bit personal or a bit selfish on on my part, but if I saw a video of it or if I heard the like if I saw any footage and it got me excited, and I was like, this is this is mental, this is rad.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've got I've got to go to it and feel that I have to go there.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, that was probably the that that was almost like the like the decider.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um so there's a lot of events where I'm like, like, you know, we we didn't really do mainstream sports events, so we didn't we didn't cover, we we don't cover things like tennis or golf or um Formula One, things like that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um not that they're not great, but it's just sort of like we we've got to kind of we can't cover everything.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_04: So what do you think the differences between these kind of niche like smaller events?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because there is, I think there is a bit of a different energy um between like I mean from my experience going to a uh like the end of winter festival at Whistler versus going to like an NFL game, they're very different experiences, there's still large groups of people.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's um may maybe maybe the vibe's different.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we were looking at going, okay, well, we are we can do smaller events, and then you know, I've been to like Oktoberfest a couple of times, and it's it's just one of the best parties in the world, and it's massive, and it gets like you know, 10 million people go every year.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, we've got to include that, and then I was like looking at other like all these other events that are just so fun that um you know there's this big food fight um in Spain called Tomatino where they throw tomatoes at each other and there's like you know 35,000 people attending that.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it was all these kind of events that we thought, okay, they're like they're pretty well known, they're quite mainstream, but they're crazy.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're fun for you know toddlers all the way up to you know 70, 80 year olds, then that's kind of for me that that's that's a pretty cool thing.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_04: They're even like a little more unique.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: They're events where you're not really gonna get the same experience potentially anywhere else in the world.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it's sort of like these one-off unique events, the like now, obviously, what we're going through with the pandemic and COVID, like they're not happening this year, but some of these events in Europe have been happening for like for hundreds and hundreds of years.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they will come back.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the majority of them, because they don't rely on say sponsorship or heavy kind of commercial investment, like the ones in Spain, sort of like I live in Portugal, and it's sort of, you know, we're a couple of hours to the border in Spain, and there's just some mad stuff there that there's just like every couple of weeks there's something crazy happening.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's a really good, that's a really good point.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's like Oktoberfest doesn't need huge like Germans are gonna go party next year or whenever it's safe.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're gonna go, they're gonna go and drink, people are gonna travel from around the world to get there.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: As long as it's safe for them to open, obviously.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, it's it's been going for quite a long time, and it's not something that will will just stop.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of sort of similar to like, you know, like the Olympics to K if that can't, if it it can run this year, yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully it can next year.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: If it can't, it will come back.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's not like oh it's it's gone.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a matter of time of when it when these things do return.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of the smaller events or some of the some things that are sort of rely relying on sponsors, you know, there's a question mark there where they have to change, they have to adapt their model, maybe they become online or virtual, maybe they do both.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, it's it's interesting to see what's happening.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_04: It's fascinating because it almost seems like these events that you were talking about are more supported by the people, like they're like large groups of people wanting to do it as opposed to these larger events that are more supported by sponsorships that could be leaving, or more like them offering an event.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like you get right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_04: Does that make sense?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like to give you an example, so last year, and I'm so glad we went, um, we had an opportunity, we we basically left Australia and we wanted to move the business back to Europe.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I chose to go to um to Portugal and Lisbon, but between sort of April last year and October, we had this window where we were going to try and travel to all over Europe and go to different events.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so we ended up doing 25 festivals in that time.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was traveling with with my wife and our two-year-old son, and it was unbelievable.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it was sort of like you look to the festival, and some of them are music festivals, some of them are cultural festivals.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, some of the music festivals, and some of these things which are like, you know, it's it's big budget stuff, they're paying quite a lot for acts to play, and it just seemed really quite quite regimented and controlled.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of them are really cool.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then on the other side, there's this like ones where we're going to where like there's this one in Spain called Cascamoras, where everyone is basically, I think there's about 60,000 people covered in olive oil, like black um oil and olive oil, and they're chasing this guy who's the Cascamoras, they're chasing him through the streets, and this guy's for about six hours.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's so mad.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's no like there's like a couple of like food like shacks, and there's like cars open, yeah, but they're just running through the streets, and there's like all these like sort of black handprints on like white cars and stuff, and on the walls, and um that's and it's just like okay, that you need like maybe a couple of security guards, and you've got to like put some tarp up and some plastic to protect a few things, but apart from that, you don't really need a lot of a lot of things, you know.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: So another one was like in in Serbia, and it was a uh a trumpet festival, and um it's basically like the biggest trumpet festival in the world um in the Balkans, and basically all of these like trumpet bands come from all all over Serbia and all over the Balkans, and they play, and it's like when people are busking, and you know, say if you're in the in the subway or something in New York, and there's some there's some guy ripping and they're busking, and like you know, and there's a few people crowded around you like, oh man, this this guy's really good.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like that on steroids.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: It goes on for like four days and four nights, and there's thousands of these guys playing trumpets, and it's just it was wild.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: So things like that, it's just like they they go to this village in the middle of nowhere uh called Guccia in the mid in the middle of Serbia in the country, and you don't actually you don't need a lot um to to put these things on to experience it um and and to experience it, and it's so different.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another one we started off with was um Songkharan in Thailand, and it's basically Thailand New Year where they celebrate water, and it it kind of turns into this giant water fight for uh for a couple of days where like everyone is going around with like these super soakers, and people are like driving along on their like like out of their tuk-tuks or on their motorbikes, and they're just like throwing buckets of water on people.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: It is just wild outrageous.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so like those things for me is sort of like something that it's really difficult to replicate it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's the people and it's the it's it's almost the the authenticity of the of the place, um, and the fact that it has been running for so long with a lot of these things that that's what makes it cool.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_04: So let's be clear here though.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: You love this shit.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely love it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And like this year, I had planned, I was gonna go to I wasn't gonna do one a week.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna try and do like it was it was getting a bit tarring, so I was gonna okay, well, we can't do that.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're gonna do it again maybe in a couple of years, but um, we were gonna do one a month, and I was just looking at the craziest ones that I hadn't been to close by that we could drive to.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, there's some just nuts ones in Spain.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like normally around drink or food or yeah.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's crazy.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: So you've been to a lot of these.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's like it's I think there are um, I think it sounds like you take this level of uh loving these festivals kind of up a notch.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_04: There are a lot of people that want to be like travel bloggers or like just kind of write about their adventures.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds like you really want to live this lifestyle.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_04: And it sounds like for pretty awesome reasons.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, finding cultural events that are like difficult to replicate because it I think that's a big reason why people travel, is they want to go see uh parts of other cultures, they want to see new things, they're kind of mind and mind expanding.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: Setting up a platform.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: I guess that's why I think this is so fascinating with Rad Season is you're taking this passion to search for these really cool events and make it a little more accessible for the people who don't necessarily know about them to go to go see them because these are like I would have never known about that Serbian trumpet festival.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds like something that's probably been going on for a long time there and is probably pretty important, even if it's just like an Oktoberfest kind of festival.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it's it's really cool.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_04: What do you think is what is the coolest thing that people could get out of going to a festival like that if had they not known about it before rad season?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, a lot of the times you can you can get lucky, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you can you can stumble across these things like I went to um to Barbados in the Car in the Caribbean years ago for like a 10-day holiday.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we were just driving around, like we rented a car and turned on the radio, and they're like, hey, like there's this music festival, there was this music festival ad on the radio, and I was like, oh my god, that's happening in two days.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh like we got we've got to go to this, you know.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like and then I find out it was like proper big deal in Barbados.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of like you know, like Rihanna used to play that, like used to sing there every year and stuff, and like Lauren Hill, and there's like this this massive reggae festival.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so you can luck out and you can find, and then we went to it and it was epic, you know.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, you're like you're you're drinking rum and just ha having an awesome time and sing on these bands, and you can get lucky.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I just sort of thought that my sort of my my vision for Rad Season is like if you're gonna go somewhere and if you're gonna discover a country, why not experience the one of the best things that you can do there if you want to go and hang out with a lot of people, or you want to go to an event or festival and do something unique?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was and that still is my whole my whole goal with it.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like I built it because I wanted to like I wanted to find out more about you know, if I'm gonna go to Switzerland or if I'm gonna go to like somewhere in Germany, when should I when should I be going there?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like just before the pandemic happened in the middle of February, it's carnival season, and everyone's probably familiar with Rio Carnival.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like, okay, this is like the biggest carnival in the world, and you know, the summer, and you know, like that's what carnival people think of Rio, maybe they think of the Caribbean, but they don't necessarily think of places like Germany.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we were like, okay, like my wife's German, why don't we sort of tie in a family trip?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: We'll go and see her family that she's from.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we were checking out Jusseldor from Cologne, and I was like looking into Cologne Carnival, I was like, man, there's like four, three or four million people that got to this thing, and they party for like a week.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Great, and they're all in fancy dress.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's like shit, I gotta see this, I have to have to check it out.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we went there, and it was I think we're yeah, we're there like 25th of February to 28th, and they basically every bar and every restaurant uh had turns into a party, so they take all the chairs out, unless they're benches and table and and like wooden tables, and the whole city is in fancy dress, so it's kind of like you know, like it's like whole it's like Halloween is going on for a week and every single person is dressed up.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, they're like you walk in any bar, any restaurant, everyone's dancing around in the evening, and then during the day there's sort of go there's a big parade, and you know, this like sort of like the more traditional carnival thing, so you can go there and you can go there with your family and your kids.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then in the evening, then you know, it kind of like migrates to all these mini parties happening everywhere.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that kind of then again opened my eyes and think, wow, there's a lot of places that have big carnivals like this, and there's a lot of places that have Oktoberfests.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's like a big massive one in China, there's a the second biggest one in the world is in Brazil.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so I kind of got a little bit addicted to like finding out more about where these things are and then trying to trying to go to them.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_04: And I like the way you put that is you know, the you started that off with saying you can get lucky.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um you can, but I think one of the issues with people traveling is that they get stuck in whatever their plans are, and even if you were to get lucky to hear about something like that, it takes a level of spontaneity to be willing to like drop whatever you were doing, unless you just were planning to have 10 open vacation days and go go adventure and see it, right?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_04: So, what you're doing is also making it more accessible in terms of you can plan for these kind of events, and I think that's pretty cool.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so yeah, then we we we ended up then sort of thinking, you know, if people are gonna go there, what do they need?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they they need to get um you've got to have a place to stay in the unless you can camp there if you want to do that.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: But then we kind of integrated with uh with uh you know, people can book Airbnbs on the site, they they can book hotels.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and like we've got a cool partner that kind of puts that all together.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a map on every like event page which shows where the venue is and then all the accommodation in the area, um, and then you can filter by budget and stuff.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: So that's yeah, was the main sort of thing is like how can we make it easy for people when they one, they if they find out about it, and then how can they book, and then how can they, you know, if there's additional stuff they want to do, we were looking at experiences.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone's keen on mountain biking and they're gonna go to a festival, maybe there's like a cool mountain biking trail, or if they're gonna go surfing, where can they go surfing near the event?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_04: I guess something that's really interesting to me is right with this whole pandemic, one of the biggest things that's been shut down are these massive cultural events.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: I'd be interested in either how you feel like you've responded to this, because it sounds like that was a massive part of your life, or how you feel like society is kind of responding to this lack of these unifying events.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so for me, when it when it happened, like we like we came back from carnival and we kind of heard that one or two people in Cologne have had caught the virus, we didn't really think too much of it.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then like now looking back, you know, there's like pretty serious because they were like surrounded by millions of people.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we got back and we're like, well, what's happening?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I went over, I went over to Spain, and I just got like I've got family over there in in the south of Spain, so I was I was seeing um yeah, seeing my dad over there, and then when like I left just before they closed the border.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I was taking a night bus.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: I got on the night bus just before they closed.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: I picked my son up from kindergarten, they shut kindergarten.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's like everything almost like overnight was just like in Europe was just shutting down.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's Italy was a couple of weeks before that.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, then then they shut the UK, and it was almost like like where we live in in Lisbon, this like epic surf.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: They closed all the beaches, you couldn't go down the beach, couldn't go surfing, couldn't do anything.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: You could go, luckily, we like you know, we were allowed to get you could get some fresh air, you could go for a walk around the block, things like that.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you started to realize that okay, this is gonna affect this is gonna affect my business, our health is okay, but then like we went into like just before we went into some complete lockdown, we went into this small suburb near us on a Saturday, I think, and everything was closed, so all the restaurants, and it was it was like a tourist kind of small tourist resort just outside the city, and we were like and then I was like almost the realization that this is massive.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: Everything majority of industries, like it's not just events and travel and you know entertainment, it's it's it's it's bars, it's restaurants, it's it's majority of sort of service industries that are relying on people to be together.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's that that stopped.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I sort of like I don't know, I had like two weeks where I was like, okay, what am I gonna do?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was a bit of a freak out.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, like oh our traffic overnight went from people going, okay, how am I gonna go traveling?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: What events am I gonna go to, from people then Googling how am I gonna get toilet paper?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Can I go to the supermarket?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Can I buy a hand sanitizer?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: So the shift like overnight from like middle of March, like 15th, 16th of March, just it just dropped off a cliff.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um we lost like I think about 70% of our traffic.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um About 90% of our revenue.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we were like, okay, well, what are we going to do now as a business?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: And how'd you pivot?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then I sort of thought, okay, well, we're we're going to we're going to change everything.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we looked at trying to keep our audience engaged and trying to still do content.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, we looked at doing so we we bought out the podcasts.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: We shifted into looking at online and virtual events and sort of promoting those and sort of showing that okay, people are at home, what can they do at home?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what kind of like cool little music festivals are happening online.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so we're we're we're promoting a lot of that stuff.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just almost sort of taking almost taking a step back and going, look, we're we're thankful, our family's okay.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um like uh our parents are alright, you know, like I've got family in the UK, I've got family in Spain, um, and in Germany.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're all okay, we're lucky.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's sort of you know, taking a step back of like appreciating what we do have instead of kind of taking it on ourselves and being super selfish and going, you know, like, oh, like how could this happen to me?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna wear a mask, I'm just gonna go about my business.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, okay, well, like these like the rules are in place for reason.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, seeing sort of the devastation that happened in other countries, and you know, there's some that had quite a lot of cases in Portugal too.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, so we were just sort of looking at that and going, okay, what uh what can we do sort of once this is all over, and then how can we plan for what's going to happen when when things open up again?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, and I think that's a wonderful perspective to have.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's definitely been an interesting one to see.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, a large majority of people that I have talked to have kind of come to this conclusion, however long it took during this pandemic, of uh kind of gratefulness of just like I don't I I don't think we stopped nearly enough to recognize those kind of smaller things.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: And that's been pretty wonderful to see.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: In, you know, it's kind of a silver lining that people are maybe finding a new perspective with gratefulness of uh just kind of everyday things in their lives.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: But at the same time, you know, it kind of forces you to reflect a little bit on other aspects of your life that that have gone.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_04: Like it is great to be grateful for the things that you have in your life, but it doesn't mean that uh, you know, those other things aren't gone, right?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't mean that those it's not a bummer, right, that these festivals aren't going on or that you can't meet up with your friends at the bar or pub or whatever.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_04: What ways do you think you have reflected most uh or or maybe changed because of this shutdown?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: Not necessarily in the workspace, but maybe in the more personal space?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you hit the nail on the head where you said, you know, people have become more reflective.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I've sort of looked at this and gone, okay, well, everyone was so wrapped up in what they were doing in their own little worlds before this happened.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then when that world almost sort of gets squashed, it gets changed overnight, you sort of have to take a step back and think, okay, well, you know, being grateful for what I do have, or you know, if someone I I think I've been way more connected with people that are close to me and sort of being being more open as well.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas before I was like, okay, I haven't really got the time to sort of you know have a have a chat with like have a WhatsApp call or something with with an old friend or something like that and with family.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you sort of you you sort of hyper focus on on what is important.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I tried to get out in nature quite a bit.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I couldn't go surfing, so like I got really into mountain biking and sort of discover this whole new world of like where I live, and it's unbelievable.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that was sort of you know, like you sometimes you need a bit of a shake up to kind of realize what you have.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: Isn't that isn't that fascinating how with an event that made us so much more globally aware, like it made our network so much larger in the sense that we were thinking so much larger.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_04: It also made our personal network so much stronger because maybe because of this reason, like we started to reflect on the people that were important.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_04: So we reach out and make like a stronger, smaller connect work network as well.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, like stuff like when everyone was in lockdown, we're kind of you know doing regular like Zoom chats with with friends and things like that.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's sort of you know, like living abroad, like we never did that in Australia as much as we would like.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was telling myself, you know, I'll really call so and so, or it'd be it'd be great to see them.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we we never really did that.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we we do it occasionally, or maybe maybe on a birthday or something like that, but just almost sort of checking in on everybody and like everyone's battling this in different ways.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so yeah, you know, like how can how can we help out and then trying to sort of also learn from it when things do go when when they do like go back to that it's not gonna go back to what it was before, but you know you know, when when things do open up and not not forgetting the lessons, you know, and not kind of no, and I actually would I mean I think it's an interesting perspective or kind of commentary that you have right now, because I I would say that from what what you've been saying, this idea of you know traveling and in and festivals, even maybe the action sports, uh whatever they are, mountain biking or surfing, sounds like has revolved a lot around making connections with people.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: Even in your like advertising days, it was you know helping your agency or your company connect with this younger crowd or the professional crowd.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_04: And then the festivals themselves, like you said, are very cultural, you know, niche events that have been going on for a long time and and and bring out this aspect of a culture that you wouldn't necessarily see before.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_04: Like a lot of these things are very much based on creating connections or seeing the connections that can be formed, uh, whether it's in different societies or cultures or your own.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um now through the pandemic, it's a lot less about going out and adventuring and finding connections outward, but more maybe uh fostering the ones that are back home.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, why do you think it is so important to create these strong relationships, whether it's in your own home or with people of different cultures?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: I I I think like when so when our son was born, he sort of like though like building those relationships, it kind of we looked at like family ties and and and things like that, and that kind of got for me it definitely got more important.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was sort of like a bit of a free spirit.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: I like I was like, okay, like we'll just want to move, move all over the place and you know, like like live here for a few years, live there, try and try and soak in as much as I can.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then we thought, okay, well, we'll like you know, when we settle down, um, where do we want to be?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Where do we want to stay?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which is why we moved from Australia and came back to Europe to be sort of closer to family, and then almost sort of create a base.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was kind of almost like as I got older, as I kind of got into my 30s, um, probably yeah, not even early 30s, like mid-30s, where I thought, okay, like, you know, where do we want to be?
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, here we are.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's interesting how you take that question.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's important maybe to make those connections, but then right, the importance then starts to rely on actually, and I've been thinking about this in my own life as well, is you know, geographically speaking, how close are you to these people that are starting to age, maybe like your parents, your um whoever, and you know, you know, how much time do you actually get to spend with them?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's a factor or an equation, you know, a variable in the equation of life, which is your connections are reliant on the time that you spend, maybe not just talking, but actually like being around those people.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so you know, it's it's I think it's hard to go from that more free spirit life to being a more a little more locked down in one area, but it's cool to see like the reason why are these you know relationships and these family.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of to wrap up this conversation though, I mean we've talked about a lot of pretty cool things.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_04: I've really enjoyed hearing, you know, your the progression of your career and your story.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds like it's been a lot about pursuing your passions and tying your career into it and then you know bringing this platform with Red Season to help make your passions and your you know enjoyment of uh of different cultures and festivals more accessible to other people.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: What would you say is one thing that people or listeners could take away from this conversation?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say to definitely if if you are passionate about something, yeah, just just go out and and do it.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a a lot of people sort of push back, or you know, if things come up and you know it might not be the right time, possibly you're thinking, or you know, that there's all these like barriers in the way, but if it's something that you truly want to do, yeah, just just just go for it because otherwise, you know, you you'll kind of look back and think, oh, like, oh, I wish I did that then.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it was like us when we did we did the trip last year, it's like, okay, well, we wouldn't have been able to do that this year.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time, we're like, oh, you know, can we make this work?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you just just just go and do it, you know.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I actually have one follow-up question to that because I think you've been really successful at this in your life, which is how do you push back on that risk?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the the the risk of sort of going out and of trying something new, leaving, leaving the comfort of where you are and going after a passion.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I think if you like I'm I'm a strong believer in you know everything, everything evolves, everything changes.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if if you kind of if you don't take a risk, uh for me, I'm just super curious.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd like and I'm wondering how this what if, and you know, I I get a big FOMO, so this is probably why I like all these, like all these festivals.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, okay, well, I'm I'm gonna take the risk.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: When I was younger, I had a pretty bad stutter.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I wouldn't hate speaking, public speaking.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'd I'd do anything to avoid it.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, it was a it was a massive fear.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then I thought, okay, well, as I started a company, there were certain things that was like, okay, that was scary, you don't really know what you're doing, you try and get advice.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there's all these things, like, as you develop, it's like it's it's a constant, um, like your whole life, the only thing that is guaranteed is the things that are gonna change.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's sort of being aware of that, thinking, okay, well, not trying to be afraid of it and just go for it.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: And if you make a mistake, it doesn't matter.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: You think it matters way more at the time, and then you sort of you bottle it in and you and you don't you go, oh well, what happens, you know, say if I did the podcast and I stutter, and you know, I do my my first couple episodes and I'm nervous, and I'm like, you know, oh like people can laugh at me, or like even if they do it, it doesn't matter.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you just got you just gotta just charge and whatever.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's good being out of your comfort zone because then that's when you're learning.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's the same, like if you think about it in Hawaii, right?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're gonna go out and you you you're not used to surfing massive waves, it's sort of you can progress and you can do it bit by bit, and you can get bigger and bigger, um, surf, and then you you get more comfortable in those conditions.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_04: No, I I love the way you put that, is that change is the only constant in life.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's a good one.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's a bit cheapy, but it's true.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a bit, I mean, if you think about it though, it's pretty reassuring, right?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's like the only you know, things you you have two paths, you have the riskier path and the safe path, but at the end of the day, you actually don't know the outcome of either of them.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like if you look at this year, no one predicted that this is gonna happen.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody had a clue, right?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it just gets more and more bizarre.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um especially in some parts of the world.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's sort of like, yeah, it's um it's interesting.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no one no one really knows um when things will, yeah, when things will get back, but you you know that there's gonna be some kind of change.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, man.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's perfect.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you very much.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: No worries.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Flynn.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_04: I want to thank Ollie for that conversation.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_04: He has me wondering what wild cultural events and festivals I might find through rad season in the coming years when they are able to start up again after the pandemic.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: Most of all, I'm inspired by a sense of adventure.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_04: Pursuing a bit more of a nonlinear path and doing it on different continents and in different countries around the world is intimidating.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_04: But Ollie's tone doesn't really falter when talking about taking these risks.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like he says at the end, the only real constant is change.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_04: Everything that you think is solid and constant in life has the real opportunity to change.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_04: Just take this pandemic, for example.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_04: The fear that is associated with taking what appears to be the riskier path will become more normal when you continue to go that route.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_04: And what that makes me wonder most about is what is possible for my own life.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_04: What kind of experiences I can have, what kind of relationships I can form, what kind of work I can do, if I continue to choose the route that I absolutely want to pursue because I believe it is the right one, regardless of the fear.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe it makes you wonder the same thing about a risk you've been wanting to take too.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for listening.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_04: If you like this episode of Seeking Authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_04: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean really breathe.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_04: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_04: No more of these shallow, bullshit breaths.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_04: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_04: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_04: So be authentic with them.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_04: Peace.