Latest / The Scene Projects / Lou D'Angeli on Limelight Events, Marketing Evolution, and the Power of Live Experiences

Transcript

Lou D'Angeli on Limelight Events, Marketing Evolution, and the Power of Live Experiences · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome into another exciting episode of Real Biz.
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  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is partner at Limelight Events, Lou DiAngele.
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  Lou, welcome to the show, brother.
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  How's it going, man?
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  Man, it's it's going well today.
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  Busy day.
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  Obviously, we're planning a big tour and plenty of live events coming up.
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  So I'm staying plenty busy, but I love getting a chance to talk to guys like you that have
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  been in this business for a long time.
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  Before we get too far in everything you're doing now, obviously, a new company and things
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  that you'll be doing, wanna give you the floor and just have you give us a little bit of the
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  backstory, and we'll get into the rest.
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  Sure.
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  First off, I wanna say what what you're doing with artists and the whole outreach is pretty
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  amazing.
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  I think it's incredibly important that independent artists get that support.
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  So kudos to you before we even start.
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  Awesome, man.
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  Appreciate that.
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  Sure.
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  So my background quickly is I've been I've been in the entertainment business my whole life, my
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  whole professional career, I guess, should say, but also dating back to college.
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  College was all about concert promoting and anything to do for the everybody on campus
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  event wise, which always ended up in music.
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  So it was pretty awesome.
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  Right outside of college, I I landed with a company called Extreme Championship Wrestling.
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  That was based on the fact that I was a huge wrestling fan.
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  And in 1994, while I was still in college, I started kind of freelancing for them, just
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  kinda showing up and doing, like, photography work and writing for the, the program, called
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  the ECW Action Wire.
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  So that was my first kind of foray as, I guess, a professional or amateur trying to be a
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  professional in the entertainment business.
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  But I ended up working for ECW from 1995 to 2001.
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  I was a promoter, and eventually, I was a on air talent, which was quite the story.
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  And happy to answer any questions on that eventually or tell any stories you like, but it
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  was unexpected to say the least and ended up really defining and helping my career get
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  launched.
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  Because as being a promoter in wrestling, it's very hard to promote.
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  It's super grassroots marketing, and there's not a lot of ad budgets.
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  So when ECW eventually went out of business and went over to WWE, I started working for a
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  company called, Comcast Spectacore.
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  So Comcast is the, owner of the Philadelphia Flyer Sixers, the then Wells Fargo Center in
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  Philadelphia.
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  And my job there was to promote the concerts, help the flyers a little bit, but primarily,
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  like, on the family show.
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  So promoting Disney on Ice, Sesame Street live at the time, and and some various concerts, Tom
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  Petty being the highlight.
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  Tom Petty sold out, so it was awesome.
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  I did nothing for the show except for put it on sale because it was Tom Petty.
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  But it was still a real amazing experience doing that.
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  As part of that company, I got to open the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, Colorado
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  as well.
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  Super career highlight.
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  That was over twenty years ago, and the building's still going strong.
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  Eventually, that led me to WWE.
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  So World Wrestling Entertainment, I was the director of marketing and primarily focused on
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  fan access, which is their event they do for fan interaction.
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  And we built that up from, you know, a 140,000 square foot event, which is huge to to what
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  they're at right now, which is which is enormous.
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  But what was interesting about that, that was really the first foray into WWE being able to
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  have that fan engagement, but also sell sponsors into that.
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  So there was a, you know, that kind of piece for anybody that wanted to target the WWE fan,
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  which was Slim Jim and the Army National Guard at the time.
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  So fan access gave them a place to activate.
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  So really proud of that.
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  It went really far, still goes really well, and really happy and and good revenue ultimately.
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  WWE, was great, but then I got was recruited by du Soleil.
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  And I've spent eleven years in Las Vegas with Cirque as the vice president of marketing, so I
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  was overseeing everything in terms of the partnerships, revenue, marketing, ticketing,
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  you name it, for all the shows in Las Vegas as well as the ones at the time we had in Los
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  Angeles, New York, and Florida.
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  Great gigs.
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  So much fun.
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  Did things I I never imagined.
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  But that came to an end.
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  And when that came to an end, I started doing a lot of consulting and freelancing for couple
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  wrestling, pro wrestling companies again, some upstarts, and that brings me to where we're at
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  today with with Limelight.
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  So that was a little long winded, but I hope that gets it into a nutshell.
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  Well, yeah, but you've done so much.
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  You've been a part of some really great organizations.
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  I mean, obviously, WWE.
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  I mean, even if you're not a wrestling fan, they permeate the, you know, public diaspora.
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  Right?
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  Like, they are part of our culture these days regardless of how you feel about the on air or
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  on the mat product.
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  Right?
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  So Right.
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  Really incredible to have been a part of that and that history of moving up, you know,
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  through that, working, you know, with promotion, but also working with the buildings
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  and and having a foot in all the different aspects of it even being, like you said, on our
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  talent for ECW.
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  Yeah.
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  That was that was quite the thing.
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  It was.
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  You know, something you said was I I was really fortunate.
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  I think the career path I took really exposed me to a lot of a lot of different, ways to
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  promote, a lot of different dynamics, and, you know, I started at the grassroots level.
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  You start handing out flyers, and I used to be outside the ECW Arena in Philadelphia with hot
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  dogs and Diet Pepsis to hand out to people so they would come in and watch the show.
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  That was how we filled the audience.
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  What different than selling tickets to Tom Petty?
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  I always mention the Petty story, man, because it's Tom Petty.
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  And I remember, there's a picture of me and him on my Instagram.
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  It's crazy because I was 27 years old, blown away by the fact I was even asked to do it.
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  And then, you know, working with their their management and the concert promoter.
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  But really, like, it sold out instantaneously.
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  It was pretty much like here, put the event on sale, which we did, and then sold out at a
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  second night, sold out.
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  But all I did was place advertising.
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  I think Tom Petty had something to do with selling tickets.
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  Yeah.
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  Well and that's it speaks to the different kind of marketing that you have to do.
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  Right?
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  From zero, literally just have the, you know, one of the biggest rock stars of all time or
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  having a a promotion that you're literally having to, like, feed people to get them to
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  hopefully buy a ticket to get them in the door.
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  And, I mean, I've done more of the latter of that, you know, the guerrilla marketing and
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  really almost begging people to come and check out what you're doing and not so much on the
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  other side, which I'm sure the soleil of the same deal.
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  People wanna see that show.
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  Right?
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  You're not having to do a ton of, you know, marketing in that.
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  Though the marketing looks different.
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  Not that you don't have to market it, but the marketing looks different.
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  People wanna see the show, but maybe they don't know when and where it is.
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  And and the marketing in that essence is more of like, well, we have three shows a day and
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  it's running, you know, or and and you're running in multiple locations.
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  I mean, they have multiple locations just in Vegas alone, don't they?
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  Like, promotions going at the same time?
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, it was way different working for CERT versus WWE or anything else.
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  And the main difference being with with WWE, their destination events, right, their one
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  offs.
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  They're one WrestleMania a year, one SummerSlam a year, one Royal Rumble a year, one Survivor
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  Series a year.
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  With Cirque, I mean, we could have, you know, seven shows running every night, two shows a
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  night, 14 shows in total.
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  So you're, like, 80, whatever that is, plus a week.
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  There's a lot.
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  And the differentiation between the two in the same market, I mean, at any time, it was set
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  seven shows in Las Vegas at one time, including Blue Man Group.
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  So you really had to differentiate, and you really had to break through a lot of clutter.
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  And what we had found, just I think it's interesting for people to know, is that the
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  identities of the shows were almost lost within the Cirque du Soleil name.
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  And and the example I give to everybody is that it's you know, somebody would go to, you know,
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  the Bellagio and say, oh, I I saw the Cirque show there.
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  You know?
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  And that's all they would say.
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  They wouldn't say the name of it.
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  Or I saw the Cirque show at MGM Grand.
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  They don't know the name of it.
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  So I think marketing under a brand like that, also, you need to create the identities.
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  You know?
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  So the brand, like you said, it's not a it's not trouble selling tickets.
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  It's just the volume of tickets you have to sell and the selling points and the consumer
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  promise per se or the brand promise per se that you have to fulfill on each show.
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  So everything's a little different.
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  And that's why you have, like, what I call show experts.
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  Right?
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  You have people assigned to do the day to day marketing and and all that kind of stuff.
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  So it was a it was a big challenge, ultimately.
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  Yeah.
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  And I I assume at the top of that, a lot of what you're doing isn't necessarily like show
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  and you're obviously, you're not making the flyers and doing that, but you're overseeing
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  these teams and teams for each different show and having to organize and to really put a lot
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  of things in motion at one time.
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  It's a huge job.
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  It was.
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  However, I had a great team.
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  I mean, those guys from 2,010 to 2,000, I don't know, 21 or whenever, there are some really
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  good people there.
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  And it was like I always you know, everyone says hire people smarter than you.
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  I mean, I did that.
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  I didn't do it intentionally, but they really are the best people.
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  And, you know, that that division was responsible for $500,000,000 of revenue a year
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  as majority EBITDA contributor for the company.
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  So we had a lot of fun and certainly a lot of pressure, but those guys did a great job, and I
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  was just there to kinda push it through.
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  So
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  Yeah.
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  Just and I'm thinking about it because each show has, you know, up to hundreds of
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  performers.
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  Right?
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  Or, you know, up in yeah.
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  And so and you're running that, and they're grinding and performing those many shows is,
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  like, that's just a lot to manage.
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  I could barely manage a a trio band some days.
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  Feels like personalities and everything from that.
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  And now you're not even including the marketing teams and the promotion teams and everything
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  else on top of that.
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  So, yeah, massive job.
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  Had to be, extremely stressful, but very rewarding to, you know, be a major contributor
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  to the parent company, but also to look at the product on stage and to go, you know what?
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  We had some hand in that as well.
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  Yeah.
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  For sure.
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  I mean, look.
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  It was definitely challenging.
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  There were stressful times.
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  I mean, the the company went through a private equity acquisition that I was very involved in,
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  which actually is one of the best experiences I had in my life because going through that
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  process, that due diligence process that not a lot of people get to do was was very rewarding.
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  But you're a 100% right.
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  I mean, at the end of the day, you're 70 to 100 artists on a show.
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  That's just artists.
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  Then you have tech production, ops, you know, artist management, company management.
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  The marketing group at the resident show division, which was the name of our division,
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  was 47 total people.
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  But, again, it's it was responsible for a lot.
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  While it was stressful, it was also really fun.
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  I mean, we got to do it's not many people who can say they worked on with the Beatles or or
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  Michael Jackson or Disney and MGM.
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  And then from those relationships started, like, partnerships with, like, oh, you know,
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  the killers and Foster the People and South by Southwest and Comic Con, etcetera, etcetera,
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  etcetera.
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  We brought brought a lot of that in the circ that really hadn't been done before as far as
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  trying to, you know, partner and cross promote audiences.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think for a lot of, you know, laymans or people that visit Vegas maybe once in a decade
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  that yeah.
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  Like you said, oh, yeah.
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  I saw the Cirque show thinking that there's only just one.
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  And it's like, well, we have seven different arenas that we're in every single night.
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  Like, which one did you see?
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  It was look.
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  The and that's that's a 100% true.
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  And when they get to the show and, you know, the theaters are all custom designed for the
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  show, I mean, the identity really comes out then when you're there.
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  Admittedly, it's hard to get through advertising with seven different looks and
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  feels for seven different shows.
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  However, there really are different offerings.
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  Right?
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  They're all a little different.
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  And we start running campaigns actually that would, you know, promote everything in one ad.
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  It wasn't as cluttered as it may seem, but it was like a one word association with each show
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  or two words or something along those lines that at least gave people an idea that one
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  storytelling, very clear, one's high acrobatics, very clear, like, things like that.
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  Yeah.
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  And, obviously, that has led you into now the consulting and I mean, you've worked at all the
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  different things.
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  You kind of expended what you could accomplish in the corporate side of it.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think that's what happens.
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  I've had enough, you know, business, you know, conversations with high level business, you
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  know, executives to realize there's only so far you can go before you're kinda just like, I've
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  done it all.
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  Right?
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  Like, I've done and I've managed the teams and I've done all of that.
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  And then you kinda take a step back into, well, now I just wanna work with people and kinda
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  teach them how to do the things that I know how to do.
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  Right.
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  And that's a that's a great point because that's exactly kinda what happened to me and
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  the other guys I'm working with.
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  With me specifically, was it June?
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  I was doing a a gig with a a company that has since declared bankruptcy.
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  And within that whole process for, like, the six months from June to December, it was pretty
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  much like, what am I gonna what do I wanna do here?
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  You know?
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  And that's a it's a nice place to be in, but you definitely take a minute.
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  I mean, it suffers you you suffer optically, financially, all those types of things, but I
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  also think it's really important to take that time to have a reset.
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  And for me, my reset was, do I wanna stay in the entertainment industry?
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  Do I wanna stay in the sports industry?
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  Do I wanna do something completely different?
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  And through that time, I I figured out I wanted to stay in the industry, however, on some
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  different terms.
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  You know?
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  And that was working with two of my my good friends, but also doing what you said.
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  You know?
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  It's kinda like going out there and get all kinds of different things going and, keeps you
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  fresh.
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  You know what I mean?
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  If you're if you're working with a band on one thing, a pro wrestling company on the other,
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  and a major production company in Los Angeles, your day is very different, and I actually
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  thrive on that.
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  Well and it's really hard to take your marketing skills and the excitement that you've
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  lived in working the entertainment industry and then to go, like, work for craft.
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  You know?
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  It's true.
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  And you know what's funny?
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  It's like and I don't want this come off the wrong way by any means, but I believe between
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  June and December, there were about, I think, like, seven opportunities that had come my way
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  through recruiters and everything like that.
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  And I have to be honest, like, I went through the process because I believe it's important to
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  have those conversations, but nothing was exciting me.
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  I mean, it's like, these were really good jobs too, but it just didn't feel right.
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  And I remember for the first time ever in my career, I was recruited, were close to a job
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  offer, and I sent him an email and had a conversation with him that it just wasn't for
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  me.
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  I've never done that.
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  So I knew I was being deliberate in kind of what I was looking for, but also risky.
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  You know?
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  You don't get job opportunities, pass them up, and you get one tomorrow.
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  You know what I mean?
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  But I thought it
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  was very that executive level, I mean, you're probably talking about 6 figure contracts.
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  Right?
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  And and to turn down that amount of guaranteed money with all the benefits and the security of
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  that to go off and to say, you know what?
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  I think I'm gonna try being an entrepreneur is a massive risk, and it comes with a lot of
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  stress.
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  As someone who's never, made that kind of money guaranteed in my life, it was an easy decision
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  for me to, like, look at my life at the factory going, okay.
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  A thousand bucks a week.
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  Like, I feel like I can find a thousand bucks a week doing Right.
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  Right.
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  Other things.
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  But to go to significantly more than that, you know, and and when you've built a lifestyle
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  around that I'm very fortunate.
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  I live in rural America.
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  Right?
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  Our mortgage is $100 a month.
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  Oh, sure.
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  And that's a pretty small pretty small nut to have to get.
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  I mean, we've kind of been living off of my wife's, you know, teacher, Wade.
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  Yeah.
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  But you that's what's also has allowed me to step back.
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  And and, you know, you talked about what we're building here because most people would never
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  be in this position to dedicate as much time to individuals that, one, don't have any money.
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  Right?
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  Like, I can't go out and we're not providing services to people that have exorbitant incomes
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  to be able to invest in what we're providing for them on the production side, but realizing
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  that it's more necessary and more needed now than it has ever been.
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  You know?
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  MTV shuttered its doors for good, not that they were doing much in the music space anymore
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  anyway, but where is the music discovery at anymore?
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  And it's really up to a lot of smaller creators with big ideas.
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  And what was MTV other than a startup in the eighties and to build it up to what they did?
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  Actually, he did a really great interview, the founder of MTV.
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  I heard him with Rick Rubin.
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  I absolutely love TechCrab.
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  It's one of my one
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  of my favorite podcasts, man.
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  And I know that you being someone in the entertainment industry.
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  I mean, it's Rick Rubin, first of all.
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  Right?
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  But then he just asked such great questions and is able to pull out, and he's so he's just so
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  interested.
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  Right?
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  Generally interested.
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  And that would really inspire me to do what I was doing.
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  Because when he started out, there was nobody watching.
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  I was, like, one of the first 2,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.
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  Like, this is one of the best producers ever, and I don't think that the YouTube channel's
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  very big now.
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  And it's like, man, I'm getting to sit in on these conversations with one of the smartest
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  men on the planet.
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  You know, I read his book.
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  Obviously, that inspired me as well, the creative act.
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  And just to really, like, you got you have to go do this.
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  You have to go do it now.
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  You're not getting any younger for one.
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  It's not like I'm old.
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  I'll be 40 in May.
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  So I'm not necessarily, like, in the back half of my life.
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  But in but in a position to really do something, still having the energy to give and
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  not being kind of boxed into one thing.
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  I'd only picked up welding maybe five years before that either.
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  So it's not like I've been doing just this one thing.
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  And I'm so passionate about not just the, like, entertainment business, but the creators of the
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  entertainment.
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  Right?
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  Whether it's people playing in cover bands or writing their own music, obviously, I love
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  originality more than anything, but I had to work where I was passionate because I was
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  slowly dying being away from it.
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  And I feel like for you that you had that wherewithal when you're kinda looking for that
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  new path to go, if I'm gonna go to one of these other like, it's just not gonna be soul
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  satisfying.
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  It it wasn't.
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  And I think well, you just said a lot that made me think about a lot of different things.
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  I don't have to come back to those, I think.
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  But I yeah.
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  Look.
• 19:51
  Passion's everything, and I've been I was really lucky to work for companies, Comcast and
• 19:56
  CERT and WWE that I I was really passionate about, and they, like, fueled the passion.
• 20:02
  I was never not passionate.
• 20:03
  Sure.
• 20:03
  There's times you get frustrated.
• 20:05
  You mentioned, like, stressed on over some things, and you're dealing with so many
• 20:09
  different personalities.
• 20:10
  But to me, all those kinda gigs lead you up to here where it's like, alright.
• 20:15
  I've worked for this person and this person, this company, this industry.
• 20:20
  So you're kinda, like, well rounded in a lot of different things.
• 20:23
  And, you know, with the jobs that specifically, like, I was talking about last year, I think a
• 20:27
  lot of them were isolated onto one thing.
• 20:29
  Obviously, the company, but then also marketing.
• 20:33
  And I actually start getting a lot of, I don't know what the right word, a lot of fulfillment
• 20:39
  from working on the production side of wrestling and not being on camera and not doing
• 20:46
  the talent thing, but all more so understanding how, you know, the shows are put together, how
• 20:52
  the TV is put together, how the the talent is developed, and and everything like that.
• 20:58
  When you start seeing more and more of that, that's actually what what got me going to be
• 21:03
  more on a production operation side than than just marketing.
• 21:06
  So I totally hear you.
• 21:09
  I would also say that we grew up in a generation where it was not as hard to market
• 21:13
  music as it is now, in my opinion, because we had outlets.
• 21:17
  Right?
• 21:17
  People still bought physical things or tapes.
• 21:21
  I was gonna say tapes and cassettes.
• 21:22
  Tapes, vinyl, like, everything like that, and it's so different now.
• 21:26
  There's not as many touch points.
• 21:28
  I mean, what's it like Spotify and social for your bands?
• 21:30
  And I think what you're creating and in general what people create, I mean, there's not a lot
• 21:35
  of channels that are solely focused on one thing that are accessible, like, or
• 21:40
  promotionally for people.
• 21:41
  So it's tough to build up.
• 21:43
  And that's why I think grassroots marketing kinda makes a comeback in the year 2026 because
• 21:48
  it's hand to hand.
• 21:49
  You know?
• 21:50
  I think, yeah, the world is craving human connection again.
• 21:53
  We've kind of ridden this digital, and it's not going away by any means.
• 21:57
  But people are craving to be marketed to by a person and not by a bot on Facebook or your
• 22:05
  social media channels.
• 22:06
  They're just like, will somebody talk to me, please?
• 22:08
  You know?
• 22:09
  That's the thing.
• 22:09
  I mean, look.
• 22:10
  People love that when they get a response from a person or a brand.
• 22:15
  You know?
• 22:15
  And it's like, you feel heard, but, also, it's a different way to to to touch that brand or
• 22:21
  touch that that content per se.
• 22:23
  It's like, I I you know, I have a bunch of side house hustles I do and one sports cards.
• 22:28
  And a lot of people, you know, initially, like, why do you collect these cards, this and that?
• 22:33
  And a lot of it, look, is resell.
• 22:36
  But, also, it's a different way to to interact with the brand.
• 22:39
  Even favorite hockey player, for instance, you collect all those cards.
• 22:42
  It's you're interacting differently.
• 22:43
  You're getting more of something.
• 22:45
  And I think that's where the the human need gets fulfilled too.
• 22:49
  Yeah.
• 22:49
  We're gonna have to create some, some unique, touch points like that for our artists, I
• 22:56
  think.
• 22:56
  I I started doing an artist directory where it was just now I haven't included everyone that
• 23:01
  we've had.
• 23:02
  I've interviewed over 500 artists in two years.
• 23:04
  Right?
• 23:04
  Like, we we've had a lot of people on the show.
• 23:07
  Always reaching out to more.
• 23:09
  I mean, it's every single day that I'm reaching out to some band on Instagram.
• 23:13
  You know, the algorithm feeds them right to me now.
• 23:15
  Right?
• 23:15
  I'm gonna train my partner like more than anything.
• 23:18
  That have less than 5,000 followers.
• 23:20
  Right?
• 23:21
  Yeah.
• 23:21
  And I'll reach out to every single one and just say, hey.
• 23:24
  I'd love to have you on my award winning podcast.
• 23:25
  And some respond and some don't.
• 23:27
  And to me, it's kinda it doesn't matter.
• 23:29
  There's so many out there.
• 23:30
  I'm never gonna run out of content.
• 23:32
  Most of my content for 2026 is already scheduled and and on the books.
• 23:37
  Right?
• 23:37
  Like, it's already done.
• 23:38
  We're gonna be moving into 2027 by, you know, the March.
• 23:42
  And now it's about what other distribution points can we tap.
• 23:45
  Right?
• 23:46
  I'm trying to create so much and then create a higher quality of it now that the Netflix and
• 23:51
  the Hulu and that we make enough noise for them to finally go, hey.
• 23:54
  I think there's something here.
• 23:56
  Right?
• 23:56
  Like, there's all these artists and not all of them you don't need to just work with the top
• 24:03
  echelon of artists to get people to pay attention.
• 24:06
  I think people want to.
• 24:07
  It's the reason that shows like The Voice or American Idol are so popular.
• 24:11
  People wanna follow that journey.
• 24:13
  And, unfortunately, you you kinda cut them off with these shows the way that they're run.
• 24:18
  You narrow it down, narrow it down.
• 24:19
  And then most of people that win, you never hear from again either.
• 24:22
  That's why.
• 24:23
  They get them.
• 24:24
  They create a record.
• 24:25
  The record's not worth what the labels wanna make, and then they're shelved as well.
• 24:29
  So they kind of use and abuse all of these artists.
• 24:32
  They get them into contracts, and I think that's a side of it that a lot of people don't
• 24:35
  see is that to get on the show, you're now kinda owned by those labels regardless.
• 24:40
  And you don't have autonomy now to run your own career.
• 24:44
  So we're trying to come at it from a different angle and to say, hey.
• 24:47
  You keep your rights.
• 24:48
  We don't need to sign you.
• 24:49
  We're not after your money, but we do wanna see you succeed and to grow and to build a
• 24:54
  community, which is really what I'm focused on.
• 24:57
  It's just like, I just wanna be surrounded by really awesome creative people.
• 25:01
  Please come on to the show or, you know, find us on the tours and come share your art with
• 25:06
  the world.
• 25:08
  Look.
• 25:08
  I agree completely, and that's why I was saying, like, the form and, everything that you
• 25:13
  the platform you've created is so important.
• 25:15
  You know, it's like everybody nowadays, and I really feel strongly about this, and it can be
• 25:21
  a band, a wrestler, an actor, like, whatever.
• 25:25
  They have so many places to promote.
• 25:28
  You know, they have so many ways to get their message out.
• 25:30
  Whereas, like, the in eighties, nineties, there definitely wasn't that, but it was a it was
• 25:34
  more of a concentrated thing.
• 25:36
  Like, mentioned that TV or, like, Spin Magazine and all these types of things, metal edge, hip
• 25:41
  parade, or circus.
• 25:42
  I'm talking about all the things I I read growing up, but that was all that was all out
• 25:46
  there.
• 25:48
  And getting in that was the challenge.
• 25:50
  Right?
• 25:50
  Now it's like you have social channels.
• 25:52
  You have everything you can cross promote with.
• 25:54
  I mean, you should be nonstop marketing.
• 25:56
  And we preach that not preach it, but it's highly suggested to wrestling talent a lot
• 26:01
  because they have their own personalities.
• 26:03
  Create their own, you know, followings based on those personalities.
• 26:07
  Hopefully, they get on TV to amplify the personalities.
• 26:09
  But if they don't get on TV, it doesn't mean they can't stop marketing themselves to make
• 26:14
  money and and and go into different places.
• 26:16
  So to me, it's like, there's no excuse for no self promotion anymore, and I I I think people
• 26:20
  need to do more more with it.
• 26:23
  So moving into now, a little self promotion for yourself.
• 26:28
  Right?
• 26:28
  I I think I'm more sure.
• 26:30
  About Limelight and tell us more about Limelight and what you and your partners are
• 26:36
  working on and what the future is going to look like for your company and, you know, maybe some
• 26:41
  of the target, you know, not necessarily audience, but the target clients that you're
• 26:45
  trying to work with.
• 26:46
  Sure.
• 26:46
  Look.
• 26:47
  We're we're brand new.
• 26:49
  What's today?
• 26:50
  The the February 3.
• 26:51
  So it was announced a month ago that we were doing this, announced by us that we were doing
• 26:58
  this.
• 26:59
  But, I mean, in the in the background, really, October, November, December last year is when
• 27:03
  we were really putting this together with a very targeted hit list of of people either that
• 27:08
  we knew or we thought we could help.
• 27:10
  And what I mean by help is, you know, the three of us have gone through a lot of event
• 27:15
  experiences from, like, the biggest, you know, event I ever did was WrestleMania.
• 27:19
  And those guys, you know, did the brand for that or the operations for that and the
• 27:23
  production for that.
• 27:23
  And what we were seeing is that we had just got done with a live event company that really did
• 27:29
  not put together their financials well, their touring or, yeah, their touring well, their
• 27:34
  live events well.
• 27:35
  Really, really just overpaid in a lot of, like, situations that they wouldn't have had to if
• 27:41
  they had brought people in that knew what they were doing on live events, to be frank.
• 27:46
  And that's where our ease, you know or not ease.
• 27:49
  That's where we're hoping to bring ease to, you know, brands like that.
• 27:53
  A lot of people think they can put a live event on, you know, put tickets on sale, this and
• 27:56
  that, but there's so many little intricacies that people don't get.
• 28:01
  And that's no fault of theirs.
• 28:02
  I the the guys I work with, we've been doing it for twenty five, thirty years.
• 28:06
  You know, we've seen a lot of different things.
• 28:08
  So the first thing was saw an opportunity help with the event side, specifically, like
• 28:13
  ticketing and the ops production side.
• 28:16
  So we started down that path.
• 28:17
  At the same time, we started with, like, the brand side.
• 28:20
  Now a lot of agencies do brand, obviously, and and brand marketing, social, all that kind of
• 28:25
  stuff.
• 28:26
  Our unique piece of trying to bring it in was the live event side and pushing everything
• 28:30
  together.
• 28:31
  The first set of clients we start talking to, October, November, December, obvious I can't
• 28:35
  mention names, but I can certainly and the only reason, that's respect for them, and, also,
• 28:39
  we're not finalized with with them yet.
• 28:41
  There's still these discussions, but it covers the gamut.
• 28:44
  It's sports.
• 28:44
  It's movies.
• 28:46
  It's some individuals as well that are looking for personal brand stuff and and management.
• 28:52
  We're not quite in the personal management space yet or agents or anything like that, but
• 28:56
  it's something that, you know, we're looking at.
• 28:59
  So our focus sports entertainment people, as you said, like, I I forget the example you gave
• 29:03
  earlier, but it has to be exciting.
• 29:06
  You know, it's it's one thing we actually turned someone down because it wasn't it wasn't
• 29:12
  what we wanted to do, and I was just very honest with him.
• 29:15
  You know?
• 29:15
  It's like, you can give us money, but we're kinda not.
• 29:18
  Like, we're, like, whatever.
• 29:19
  And I didn't wanna do that to somebody and neither did the guys I work with.
• 29:22
  So we're also being a little bit selective.
• 29:25
  And you would think of us as new agency.
• 29:26
  You take everything or anything you can get.
• 29:28
  And I think our philosophy was more like, we've done a lot of really cool things, and we have
• 29:33
  to have a partnership and a client that we can truly help, but also we believe in and we're
• 29:39
  passionate about, which so far everyone we're talking to aside from that one have have been
• 29:43
  great.
• 29:45
  Fantastic.
• 29:45
  Well,
• 29:46
  Lou future in the future sorry.
• 29:48
  You asked about how it looks how it's looking forward.
• 29:50
  You know, I I only see the need for events growing because it's a touch point.
• 29:54
  Right?
• 29:55
  So, literally, what we were just talking about where, you know, in your situation, the artist
• 29:59
  going out on tour or the wrestler is going to x y z show or this person making an appearance is
• 30:05
  directly, you know, involving fans and fan interaction, which is huge.
• 30:10
  Yeah.
• 30:11
  Experiential marketing.
• 30:13
  People want experiences.
• 30:14
  It's kind of the only thing left of this human life that feels human is to go out and to do
• 30:19
  it.
• 30:20
  And, obviously, we can use this digital space to get people excited about it and show them,
• 30:24
  you know, more than anything.
• 30:26
  I've had some really cool conversations with people that are in the immersive technology and
• 30:31
  doing that, but you still have to have the live event happen to be able to give people that at
• 30:36
  home immersive experience as well.
• 30:38
  So it's not going anywhere.
• 30:39
  It's only becoming more valuable because you don't know what you're getting online.
• 30:43
  Everything you almost have to assume anything that you see online, whether it's a video or an
• 30:48
  image that it's AI first, and then, you know, kinda suss out the real.
• 30:53
  So the only thing to know that something's real is to buy the ticket and to go.
• 30:56
  So Yeah.
• 30:57
  I I think people like yourself and companies like Limelight are only going to become more
• 31:01
  essential to what we're doing, moving forward, especially for people like me that want to live
• 31:08
  in that live space and to work with as many human beings and fans as possible.
• 31:13
  Yeah.
• 31:13
  You know, I hope so.
• 31:15
  I I hope it goes in that direction.
• 31:16
  I know in my life, the number of live events I've gone to is I don't even know.
• 31:21
  It's a lot.
• 31:22
  Yeah.
• 31:23
  Tens of thousands possibly.
• 31:24
  I mean, you you pretty much lived at live events.
• 31:27
  Yeah.
• 31:27
  No.
• 31:28
  I did.
• 31:28
  And I did.
• 31:29
  But also the ones that I selectively wanted to go to are out of hand.
• 31:33
  I remember somebody on Facebook or something.
• 31:36
  Like, there was one week.
• 31:37
  It was like a hockey game, a a concert, like, a lot.
• 31:40
  Like, four events, five events in in a week.
• 31:43
  And my buddy was like, you go to more events in a week than I have in, like, two years.
• 31:47
  Right?
• 31:47
  So it's like you have that varying degree of personal where I love the live experience.
• 31:51
  I love seeing bands live.
• 31:53
  I love hockey live.
• 31:55
  And then a lot of people just don't wanna do that.
• 31:58
  But, hopefully, they start coming over because there's only, you know, there's only so far you
• 32:02
  get on TV.
• 32:03
  And, look, you got it really far.
• 32:05
  But if you're sitting at a hockey and you're sitting at a concerts, it's totally different.
• 32:08
  It's too much you can't really describe until you're until you're doing it.
• 32:12
  So, hopefully, more people wanna do it.
• 32:14
  Yeah.
• 32:14
  Hockey, you're speaking my language.
• 32:16
  My family is originally from the Chicago area.
• 32:18
  So grew up a big black box fan, got to celebrate, you know, three cups in, you know,
• 32:22
  six, seven years and go to good games.
• 32:25
  And we have smaller AHL or USHL team that I love going to.
• 32:31
  We got tickets with the kids through, like, a captain's kids captain's thing where they got
• 32:36
  to be the kids that said, let's play hockey.
• 32:38
  And Oh, that's awesome.
• 32:39
  We were right on the glass, man, and it was so cool to do that last year.
• 32:42
  And, you know, I I think events are different for guys like us when you get the backstage
• 32:46
  passes and you have access that most people don't.
• 32:49
  Right?
• 32:49
  It it can be a pain to find parking and to do all those things.
• 32:52
  But I'll tell you, especially if you have young kids or, you know, teenagers that it's worth
• 32:57
  it.
• 32:57
  Though those experiences are something that you I mean, I was three or four maybe.
• 33:02
  The first time my parents took me to a Grateful Dead concert, and we didn't even, like, go in.
• 33:06
  It was at an amphitheater outside of Chicago called the World's Music Theater.
• 33:10
  And, you know but I remember
• 33:12
  Polaris.
• 33:12
  Is that what you said?
• 33:13
  What's that?
• 33:14
  Which amphitheater?
• 33:15
  It's in Tinley Park.
• 33:16
  It's not it used to be called the World's Music Theater.
• 33:19
  Yeah.
• 33:20
  It's changed names in corporate names, but the building is still there.
• 33:23
  They still have concerts all the time.
• 33:25
  But, you know, I remember being in the parking lot and seeing Jerry's face on the jumbotron.
• 33:29
  I was four.
• 33:30
  Right?
• 33:31
  So, like, those memories stick, and they become part of your life.
• 33:35
  And, you know, for me, the Grateful Dead especially gave me a family outside of my
• 33:39
  family.
• 33:40
  Anytime I would cover their music in a space that I had people now that loved me.
• 33:45
  Right?
• 33:45
  Like, you had that were like, oh, you're you're my brother because of this music regardless of
• 33:50
  what maybe your political views or whatever.
• 33:52
  Like, anything else, be damned.
• 33:55
  You like this band and you play their music.
• 33:57
  Man, you just brought me back to a time and place.
• 33:59
  So getting back to real experiences and what you know, maybe that's like the deadhead in me
• 34:04
  coming out where they lived it for forty freaking years on the road, right, of just
• 34:09
  being in the experience and living it and having this community.
• 34:14
  And I guess in some ways, that's what I'm trying to, you know, bring back.
• 34:17
  And and especially with, you know, Bob, we are passing just last month that we feel like we've
• 34:21
  lost another piece of that.
• 34:23
  And, you know, I I think there's an opportunity for us now, a generation of Gen xers, and I
• 34:29
  guess I would be a millennial.
• 34:30
  '86, I was born.
• 34:31
  I don't feel like old millennial.
• 34:32
  We moved we moved into
• 34:34
  the freaking middle of the woods when I was, like, 10, 11 years old.
• 34:38
  So I, like, went back in time.
• 34:39
  My neighbors, when we lived outside of Chicago, had Windows 95, right, and the Internet, and
• 34:44
  they were, like, on dial up.
• 34:46
  And then dial up in Prodigy, my friend.
• 34:48
  Yeah.
• 34:49
  Well and then I moved
• 34:50
  out to South Dakota, Lou, and I didn't have Internet until I don't think my dad got
• 34:54
  Internet at the house until after I graduated high school again.
• 34:56
  Yeah.
• 34:57
  Right?
• 34:57
  So it's like, in some ways, I went back in time there for a ten year span, but very grateful
• 35:03
  for that.
• 35:04
  Very grateful for the life that I've lived and the experiences and just being just being
• 35:09
  alive, right, and not spending my whole life on a screen.
• 35:13
  I know that sounds crazy for someone who's building a platform that's on the Internet and
• 35:17
  is on screens.
• 35:18
  You've had the experience.
• 35:19
  You've had the live event experiences.
• 35:21
  I mean, the Grateful Dead is stuff of legend.
• 35:24
  I know they play at The Spear now, and they do all those things, but you saw them.
• 35:28
  I saw them when they were the great I saw them at Nassau Coliseum.
• 35:32
  I think it was '91, my freshman year in college.
• 35:36
  And I was not a huge dead guy because I was more of a metal guy.
• 35:40
  However, what I found fascinating from my friends in high school that a lot of them were
• 35:43
  deadheads too was exactly what you said was the community.
• 35:47
  And that was really cool to me.
• 35:49
  And I like the dead, and I respect the dead.
• 35:54
  But as I've seen that kind of evolve, it's like there's nothing quite like it anymore.
• 35:59
  And and the reason I say I like them and I respect them is because they were able to do
• 36:03
  something that I mean, they're still relevant today.
• 36:05
  They're still you know, as of a month ago, unfortunately, there were still touch points
• 36:09
  for the dead with their with John Mayer and and everything that was happening.
• 36:13
  And I thought that was unbelievable.
• 36:15
  You know?
• 36:16
  It was and I know they also kinda like a lot of people were, that's not the dead or that's not
• 36:20
  this or that's not that.
• 36:21
  But I also like, that's fine and all, but it's also paying tribute to that music with the
• 36:27
  original guys, some of the original guys that wrote.
• 36:30
  To also touch on what you said about experiences, my kids, like, they were so
• 36:35
  spoiled that I'm sad I I did it all because now it's like it's unbelievable because they're
• 36:42
  older.
• 36:42
  So now it's like, oh, can I get this?
• 36:44
  Can I get that?
• 36:45
  And it's
• 36:46
  Like
• 36:47
  usually a no now, but Yeah.
• 36:49
  That doesn't happen like that anymore, guys.
• 36:51
  Sorry.
• 36:52
  Look.
• 36:53
  It's if they wanna go to, like, pro wrestling, they're they're in, and they do.
• 36:57
  One thing I wanted to say just on a personal level, you said Chicago.
• 37:01
  I'm a big sports collector, and me and two of my buddies went to the Dart's first game in
• 37:06
  Pittsburgh ever, his first game.
• 37:09
  So I had the ticket, which is, again, a physical piece of something authenticated so
• 37:14
  it's real.
• 37:15
  I know that probably you can't see that that well, but that's the touch point.
• 37:18
  Like, I went to the game, took a zillion pictures of Bedard and Crosby's first face off
• 37:23
  together and and the whole thing.
• 37:25
  And my buddy works for the Penguins.
• 37:27
  So, fortunately, I was able to get the physical piece, which is kind of what we've been talking
• 37:31
  about a little bit.
• 37:32
  Yeah.
• 37:33
  Exactly.
• 37:33
  So I actually had the opposite where, Kane and Taze were still on the ice, two years ago
• 37:40
  together, and I went to see them up in Minnesota.
• 37:43
  That's a kind of our closest metro.
• 37:44
  And the black hawks were playing the wild.
• 37:47
  The bulls were playing the timber wolves.
• 37:49
  Oh,
• 37:50
  wow.
• 37:50
  And there was a Vikings game on a Saturday.
• 37:52
  So we went Friday to hockey, Saturday to football.
• 37:55
  I think that might have been the colts comeback.
• 37:57
  Minnesota had a 33 comeback.
• 37:59
  So a historic game club level seats, which kinda spoiled the shit out of me too.
• 38:04
  But then, yeah, basketball.
• 38:05
  So you talk about experience like, man, my wife, this is, like, was exhausted by the end
• 38:10
  of all of it.
• 38:10
  Right?
• 38:10
  And I'm like, man, what's next?
• 38:12
  Like, is there a show we can go to after this?
• 38:14
  And I just I don't know.
• 38:16
  There's something about the energy of the live events when you swim in it and you just love
• 38:21
  it.
• 38:22
  There's really no there's there's nothing at home or on a TV screen that's ever going to
• 38:27
  compare to that.
• 38:28
  So, yeah, Lou, I think we've both been spoiled a little bit, but now we get to work in the
• 38:33
  space where we're creating it.
• 38:34
  And I hope that we get a chance, as we continue to grow our platform to work together and to go
• 38:40
  build more of those experiences for generations of parents and kids that get to do that.
• 38:45
  And that's really what I wanna spend this, you know, next forty years of my life doing is,
• 38:50
  like, if I have to either if I'm gonna have to work till I'm 80 because that's gonna be the
• 38:54
  retirement age by the time I go it's just climbing and climbing and climbing anyway.
• 38:58
  So if I was even gonna have to, like, work in a factory for another forty years or just, like,
• 39:02
  go find a way to do something else, then I'm gonna go do something else.
• 39:08
  Sure.
• 39:09
  Yeah.
• 39:09
  I mean, look.
• 39:10
  What you there's something you said, and I was gonna so whenever I go away or whenever I have
• 39:16
  to go for work, visit my daughter in college, it's gonna sound horrible.
• 39:21
  But the first thing I do is look.
• 39:23
  Is there a my daughter goes to CSU.
• 39:26
  Is there an avalanche game?
• 39:27
  Oh, there's one the night before, so I'll come in early.
• 39:30
  Yeah.
• 39:30
  There's one right after, you know, parents' weekend.
• 39:33
  I'll I'll stay a day later.
• 39:34
  It's the first thing I do.
• 39:36
  It's like if it's a hockey town during winter, what's the game?
• 39:39
  Baseball?
• 39:40
  What's the game?
• 39:41
  Concerts?
• 39:42
  Where is it?
• 39:42
  I've been really lucky.
• 39:44
  I mean, people make fun of me for it, but it's like, oh, you're scheduling your trip around a
• 39:49
  Nine Inch Nails concert in Denver.
• 39:50
  Yeah.
• 39:53
  Exactly.
• 39:54
  Yeah.
• 39:54
  What how do you plan your trips?
• 39:56
  I know.
• 39:57
  It's like, I don't know any other.
• 39:58
  As far as working together, look, I think it's really important to, cohabitate and, like, work
• 40:04
  together and not have those, you know, the that that division between everybody that's trying
• 40:11
  to do something.
• 40:12
  And and what I mean by that is as soon as, like, we announce something, again, very young
• 40:17
  agency, I start getting texts literally from, like, oh, now you're my competition, or now
• 40:23
  you're that, or now you're that.
• 40:24
  And it's I never viewed it like that.
• 40:25
  I I view it as, like, if you have a client that needs something that you can't do, we can do
• 40:30
  it, and vice versa.
• 40:32
  I mean, there's people that are gonna come to us.
• 40:33
  We won't we won't be able to handle, but we have the relationships to at least put
• 40:37
  something together.
• 40:38
  Especially in music and live events.
• 40:41
  To me, it's all about collaboration.
• 40:43
  And and that's what I think that you're gonna see a lot more of is major you know, maybe not
• 40:49
  the major upper echelon of promotions, but I would like to see a lot of smaller promotions
• 40:54
  getting together and doing some really exciting things.
• 40:57
  Bringing music together with sports and with, you know, that with everything.
• 41:02
  Right?
• 41:02
  To me, I just wanna be in that event space.
• 41:06
  I I wanna keep having these wonderful experiences, and I wanna work with other people
• 41:10
  that wanna do the same things.
• 41:12
  Right?
• 41:12
  And if that separates us from, people that just wanna live a very quiet life and, the I'm I'm
• 41:18
  okay with that.
• 41:19
  Yeah.
• 41:20
  No.
• 41:20
  Totally.
• 41:21
  And I think pushing those things together is is important.
• 41:24
  It's why, you know, one of the examples I mentioned earlier, I mentioned the band, the
• 41:27
  killers.
• 41:28
  And, you know, they opened the the T Mobile Arena here, which is eight years old now.
• 41:33
  And our whole pitch was we wanna be part of opening night.
• 41:36
  And The Killers were like, sure.
• 41:38
  It's a staple in Vegas like we are.
• 41:39
  So it just it all comes together.
• 41:41
  And then the cross marketing between all the audiences, the cool synergy, Brandon Flowers,
• 41:47
  huge Cirque fans, so he was really excited.
• 41:50
  Like, those moments are priceless.
• 41:52
  It's really hard to get them together because you have so many layers to work through.
• 41:56
  Even if an artist is a fan, you still have to go through all these things, but the end result
• 42:00
  is, you know, we have a video of the killers in Cirque du Soleil that'll live forever.
• 42:04
  You know?
• 42:04
  We have a a video of a a performance that Cirque did on stage the band Foster the People.
• 42:10
  Mark Foster, huge Cirque fan, loves the Beatles.
• 42:14
  Him and I have known each other a really long time, but it took us four years of conversation
• 42:18
  of just kinda like, hey.
• 42:20
  We should do this.
• 42:21
  Hey.
• 42:21
  We should do this to to one where, like, we should actually do this.
• 42:24
  And here's the time.
• 42:25
  Here's the place, and it takes forever.
• 42:27
  And there's a lot of coordination between show teams and band, and there's not a lot of time.
• 42:32
  But when it comes off, man, it's there's nothing like it.
• 42:35
  I remember sitting crowd that night.
• 42:37
  I was just blown away because it was an idea four years ago of just you guys talking.
• 42:41
  I think that's been, for me, like, I shot my first, I guess, would call it pilot of the
• 42:46
  songwriter showcase program in December '24.
• 42:49
  And I always had the vision of, like, this could be on the road and moving and doing these
• 42:53
  things.
• 42:54
  And, honestly, I didn't think about filming it until I was on my way to Minnesota.
• 42:59
  And I was, like, on the road, and I'm like, oh my god.
• 43:01
  Like, we gotta film this thing.
• 43:02
  Like, what are we doing?
• 43:03
  Why are we living anything not on tape at this point in this world?
• 43:07
  It's all content, and that's where it's just evolving where it's like, okay.
• 43:11
  My life is the show.
• 43:12
  Right?
• 43:12
  That that's the movie or whatever, the docuseries, the reality show, whatever it is.
• 43:17
  Just like, let's just put the cameras on.
• 43:19
  Let's go do some cool shit, and then we'll figure out what it is after the fact.
• 43:23
  And and then other people are gonna kinda come as you're building and then growing that
• 43:27
  momentum that maybe understand more of what it is from the outside than you can when you're
• 43:32
  inside of the bubble.
• 43:33
  Right?
• 43:33
  Me, I'm just focused on I love artists.
• 43:36
  Wanna connect with artists.
• 43:37
  I wanna educate them, and I wanna bring what I know to them.
• 43:40
  I wanna bring all these other smart people in the room.
• 43:43
  I wanna get them together so they're collaborating with one another.
• 43:46
  And then whatever kind of happens through that and what we move into, you know, me, I think
• 43:52
  this goes to theaters.
• 43:53
  I think we're not far off from this being a much larger show than me struggling to find a
• 43:57
  venue where we're at right now.
• 43:59
  And, obviously, when this comes out, the tour's gonna be over already.
• 44:02
  Right?
• 44:03
  Like and that's the thing is that I'm constantly living in the future and from where
• 44:07
  people consume our content, like, it's already happened.
• 44:10
  So those of you that are watching in the future, I hope that you are at the show.
• 44:16
  I hope you got a chance to connect with us.
• 44:18
  Lou, go ahead and plug Limelight.
• 44:20
  Let people know where they can find you if they have an event and they need some help with, you
• 44:24
  know, the marketing of that, and I'll let you get out of here today.
• 44:27
  Sure.
• 44:28
  Limelightevents.net.
• 44:30
  Oldschoolwebsite.net.
• 44:34
  That's that's the best platform for right now.
• 44:36
  And I don't know if it's it's going to be April right now, so hopefully, things are a little
• 44:41
  more developed.
• 44:42
  But that's that's the spot.
• 44:43
  My social at, Instagram is Lou underscore D'Angele that, you can also reach us on.
• 44:49
  But that's that's the that's the plan.
• 44:52
  Awesome, Lou.
• 44:53
  Man, it's been a pleasure, chatting with you today, being friends with you now and watching
• 44:58
  your company grow and watching both of our companies grow together, hopefully, here, very
• 45:03
  soon and seeing what we can do to impact this world around us and to bring some really
• 45:08
  awesome entertainment to the people.
• 45:10
  Lou, thanks for being part of the scene.
• 45:13
  Thank you for having me.
• 45:14
  I'm happy to be part of the scene.
• 45:15
  I look forward to, more things together.