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Transcript

Dayna Frank · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstets podcast. My
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: guest today is Dana Frank, President and CEO of First Avenue,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: also president of the board of NIVA, the National Independent
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Venue Association. So Dan and tell me about this new
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: legislation about ticketing, the Fans First Act.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Bob, I'm excited to be here.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: We have introduced at the end of twenty twenty three
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: the Fans First Act, led by Senators Cornyn and Kloeshar
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: with Senators Luhn, Welsh.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Wicker and Blackburn.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: It's a real, no nonsense, no brainer ticketing legislation that
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: you know, attempts to get tickets into the hands of
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: real fans at fair prices and to cut down on
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: some of the predatory and deceptive practices and has some
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: transparent measures that everyone seems to like, like all in
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: pricing and reinforces the Bots Act, and is one step
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: of the puzzle that will go a long way towards
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: really protecting our fans and making sure that people who
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: want to go to the concerts actually get the tickets.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You say, one piece of the puzzle. What might the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: other pieces be?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's a number of different legislative solutions, you know,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: in terms of ticketing, and you know, everyone after Taylor
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Swift last year, seems to think they're an expert in ticketing,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: and so a lot of folks had their own, you know, solutions,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: you know. So this is what we think is a
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: bipartisan kind of no brainer, first.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Piece of the puzzle.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So tell me about some of the elements in the act, right.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: So first, we have all in pricing with itemization, which
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: is important I think in our industry and with the
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: artist groups, so that fans know, yes, what is the
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: total price they're going to pay for the ticket, but
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: also what are the fees and you know, what's the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: face value and what's the artist charging for the tickets.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: And then we also have some protections against predatory and
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: deceptive practices like I deceptive websites and folks that are
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: creating Facebook groups, you know, kind of presuming that they're
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: the official ticket sellers or the artists when they're not.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: We have some reinforcements to the Bots Act.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: We have.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: An opt in solution so when people buy on the
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: secondary market that they can opt in to receive communications
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: from the artists and from the ticket sellers directly. So
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: in terms of canceled shows or moved times. You know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: it's a huge problem where we're hosting a show, we
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: don't know sometimes forty to fifty percent of the ticket
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: buyers who are actually coming to the show, so we
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: have no way of communicating any kind of changes in
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: the shows with them. And so we also have a
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: study that would go more in depth into some of
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the other issues within ticketing, like you know, how many
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: how many tickets that are resold on the secondary market,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: how many of those are by brokers, and how many
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: of those are by folks that just can't get a
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: babysitter and can't go to the show.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's try to drill a little deeper. So in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: terms of deceptive advertising, let's say your tickets are on
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: ticket Master. Just to make it simple, when you Google frequently,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that's not the first hit you get something from a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: broker or something. So how would this legislation address that
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: if at all?
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Yep, Yeah, So it has a ban on using IP
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: either venue or artist or promoter IP in organic search
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: and advertising and promotion. So you know, if sometimes you'll
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Google and you'll see the venue or the official website.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it comes down even on like the second page
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: of Google and so the first six, seven and eight
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: hits are all resellers. And so this would say in
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: organic searches, promotions marketing, things like those Facebook groups that
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: folks create and say, oh, get your official tickets here, Well,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: that wouldn't be allowed anymore. And there's pretty stiff penalties
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: when it comes to enforcing the act so that it
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: actually is 'enforceable.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Let's talk very practically. So now I'm searching for tickets,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: will I see the authorized reseller first? Or is it
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: just that the other ones it will be clearer that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: their secondary market? What will I actually see if I'm
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a relatively unsophisticated buyer.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: So you will still see the Google ad words the
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: purchased words first, and so that might be a secondary seller. However,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: if you know, I don't want to presume that everybody
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: has their SEO optimization down, but the first or second
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: should be the official seller below that adds the purchase ads.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, tell us a little bit more about secondaries not
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: being able to use primary ip.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so things like like I said, those Facebook groups,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: or things like using the venue name to advertise or
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: the artist's name to advertise you know, we have to
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: allow for them to actually advertise what it is they're selling, right,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: they have to be able to use that name. But
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: in terms of like advertising and promotions, that would.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Not be allowable.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Can you give me an example.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, if they're sending out an email blast
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: in the header, it's like buy all of your first
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: avenue tickets here, right, So what would be allowable is
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: like a ligne listing and a description of the actual product,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: but not the use of that IP in overall marketing
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: and promotions.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, Now you talked about enforcement, about the previous Botch
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Act enforcement there and what would be different today.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Right, So you know what when we first started thinking
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: about legislative solutions for ticketing issues, what we heard really
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: clearly is there has to be pretty stiff monetary penalties
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: because anyone from state ags to official you know, government officials,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: without financial penalties, there's very little motivation or resources to
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: go after a perpetrator. So we have in the bill,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: it's believed, don't quote me on this, I believe it's
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: one thousand dollars a day up to ten thousand dollars
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: per ticket for the violation. And so that's a pretty stiff.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: So if you're looking at the a violation of an
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: overall website with thousands of tickets, that number gets to
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: be pretty pretty strict pretty quickly.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, It's one thing to have the law on the books,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: it's another thing to have it enforced. You know, in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: terms of crime, usually ticketing is far from the top.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So what would ensure that law enforcement would actually act
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: on this?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: That is a great question.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I think it's going to be the loud voice of
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: our industry having this law and having the financial penalties
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: and having you know, also in the law there's a
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: website that anyone can go to report the violations and
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: really making.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Sure that it is enforced.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: But that's certainly been an issue with every piece of
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: ticketing legislation that's passed.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what is the status of the bill down.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Yep, So we introduced at the end of December. Excited
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: to get it introduced. Timing wise, it was like right
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: before the recess. So we're actively securing co sponsors. We
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: have a number of whom in the hopper and are
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: you know, really excited by the momentum and hopefully we'll
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: be able to introduce the new co sponsor soon. And
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: there's also a piece of legislation in the House called
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: the Ticket Act that has the similar provisions of the
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Fans First Act. And also, I forgot to mention spec
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: tickets everybody, I think in the industry. You know, if
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: you don't know what a spec ticket is, it's when
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: they astronomical amounts on the secondary markets twenty thousand dollars,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars, maybe even one hundred dollars.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: But it's when.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Somebody has posted a ticket for sale that doesn't actually
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: exist yet, right they're posted before the actual on sale
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: or in seats that don't exist, et cetera. So this
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: would actually make the practice of spec tickets illegal. It
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: would allow for a concierge service, which would allow for
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: a consumer, if they can't get online at you know,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Tuesday at ten am, to be able to come out
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: quote unquote hire a broker such to go and secure
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: the tickets for them. But the listings would have to
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: be separately from tickets, the pricing would have to delineate
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: between the sur and the ticket fee. And so excited,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: very excited to ban this much hated practice.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You know you're very familiar with
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the legislative process. Many people are not. Let's go back
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to the beginning and with Klobatar, who's your state senator, Minnesota?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: How did this legislation come to be?
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  Speaker 3: So we started seeing after reopening, I would end of
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, really beginning of twenty twenty two, amongst
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: the NEVA folks that are drop rates just weren't really recovering.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Wait with just a little bit slower because there's a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: lot of things going on. Tell us about NIVA.
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  Speaker 3: Sure So, NIVA as the National Independent Venue Association, we
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: came together late March early April after the COVID shutdowns
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: had completely you know, ended our business and our ability
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: to generate any revenue whatsoever, and we banded together both
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: for knowledge sharing and community and trauma bonding as people
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: would say, but also to pass legislation that would allow
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: us the resources to ensure that we're able to reopen
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: when it was safe to do so. We have, I believe,
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  Speaker 3: about twelve hundred members in every state, every congressional district,
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  Speaker 3: ranging from you know, fifty capacity coffee shops all the
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: way up to amphitheaters and independent venues that generate the
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  Speaker 3: majority of the revenue by selling tickets.
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  Speaker 2: That's the qualifications.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, how did you end up being the president of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the board.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: That is a great question.
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  Speaker 3: I maybe because no one else wanted to do it.
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  Speaker 3: I was the one that was really passionate about a
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: federal bill and kind of led the charge on the
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: advocacy effort. And because advocacy really was the first, second,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: and third priority, you know, realizing that there would be
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: no venues in which to have an association if we
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: didn't get this bill passed. The four other folks that
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: were on the board elected me president.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You're sitting at home, lockdown, there
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: are no shows. Tell me about the genesis of Neva
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and your role in it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: So it was actually Reverend Moose and Marauder that called
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: folks together on a town hall I think the first.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: The first one was actually a conference call. I don't
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: even know if anyone knew what Zoom was yet, and
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: it was I believe, a end of February, first week
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: of March, to just hear from from folks in Europe
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: what they were seeing and really kind of give a
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: warning signal. And so I started joining those early calls
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: and then when it went to zoom, seeing the other
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: faces on there and realizing that, you know, these are
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: all people with families, with lives, with houses, with obligations,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: and we were all going to be out of work
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and in severe debt with absolutely no way to repay
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: any of our obligations unless we did something about it.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Now to what deg we Was there an organization prior
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to this amongst the independents?
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, there was no organization.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, people they would talk about with
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: very you know, with guards up.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I kind of made it a habit whenever I traveled,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I would always reach out to the independent promoter, the
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: club owner in town, just to get a tour and
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: just to try to learn from them and see what
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: they're doing. And I feel like I was always greeted
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: with a little bit of like, are you coming into
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: my city?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: What do you want to talk to me for?
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  Speaker 3: And so there was certainly a lot of we knew
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: about each other, but I don't think there was a
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: lot of you know, knowledge sharing or real kind of
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: deep community amongst them.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: And that changed real fast.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now everybody's on a zoom. How do you
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: organize and how do you set an agenda.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Very messily. Those early meetings were they were pretty frantic,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: pretty desperate, and the way it came together it really
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: self organized. And I think when you're in a situation
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: that is, you know a little bit like war, a
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: little bit like there's no alternative. It really people really
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: wanted to help and there wasn't a whole lot of
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: you know, arguments or dissension dissensions. It really was like, Okay,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: we need to do this.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Who's going to do it? Great, you're going to do it.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And also, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, again kudos to Rever Moose who was our early
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: executive director and how real from World Cafe.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Why don't you tell people who he is?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: He has a marketing firm out of New York called Marauder,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: and he was he brought Independent Venue Week across from
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the UK, and so he was the just again the
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: perfect person to really gather everybody because he didn't have
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: a venue so wasn't seen, you know, as a competitor,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: but also was already in communication with all the independent
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: venues in town due to independent Venueek.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now everybody's talking, how do you set the agenda?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: So really it's centered around we need to get this
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: bill passed. Okay, what do we need to do to
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: get a bill passed?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Well, well, a little bit slower. So I mean, I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: remember being on the email thread and basically it's about
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: getting money to the venues and the people who worked there.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: But how did you decide you were going to have legislation,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: How did you decide what was going to be in
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the legislation, How did you decide who's going to be
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the first mover.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: So we weren't even thinking legislation at the beginning. We
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: were just thinking, Okay, there's going to be another Care's bill.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: We want to get in that Cares bill because we
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: had read the first Cares bill and saw, oh wait,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: there's a separate provision for restaurants.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So that's how we knew it was possible.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: We're like, if they're doing something for restaurants, they can
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: do something for venues because we don't have takeout. You know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: they went down thirty forty percent, we were down to
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: zero percent. So we're like, we need something in that bill. Okay,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: how do you get something in a bill? You got
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: to hire a lobbyist. So I called around to the folks.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I knew who might be well, wha, wha, wha, whoa
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit slower. How did you become the point person?
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I think I was. I that's a really good question.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe just because I was super passionate and you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: making a lot of the calls and had a vision
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: and was determined to really get this thing done, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: so just I think de facto fell into that role
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of quarterback.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, So basically everybody did they say, Dana, you go,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: or all all of a sudden, everybody's doing different stuff
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and they said, well, Dana's doing stuff, let's fall behind her.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I think at that time, no one really knew what
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: So when somebody came, you know, with a plan and
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: with Okay, this is what we're going to do, it
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: really you know again, like I said, everybody was really
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: willing to contribute and willing to contribute where they were
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: needed and with what was necessary at the time. From
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: the initial IVW meetings, there were five of us that
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: were elected to the board, and so each of us
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: had I think, different interests, and like I said, my
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: interest was in advocacy and in getting some federal support
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: for the venues, and so I became the Advocacy Chair,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: and we took from the initial emails of people that
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: signed up for NIVA, through again the great leadership of
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Audrey Fick Schaeffer and Gary Witt, I just sent a
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: mass email to anyone who said they were interested in lobbying,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: and so we formed the Advocacy Committee, and then we
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: broke it down into states because part of the idea
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: behind going for federal support was, you know, at First Avenue,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: we know what we mean in Minnesota, and we know
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: the relationships we have locally. You know, we have had
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: nothing federally, but we knew locally help beloved and how
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: people would be really, really interested and anxious to help us.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And so we just said, you know, there's First Avenues
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: in every city that had these kinds of relationships. So
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: we broke it down into a priest and captain system
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: and said, Okay, you know, we'll have a few of
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: us that are kind of overseeing the national strategy, but everybody.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: On the ground.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: The really main commitment was to get your local congress
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: person and your senator invested in our cause and.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Wanting to help us.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So how did you end up hiring a lobbyist?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: We got very early financial support from ce tickets. We
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: had nothing, right, We had a lot of people and
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of people with time and willingness to work,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: but we had no resources whatsoever. So we got some
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: early financial support. There were about six of us that
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: gathered as the you know, kind of de facto selection
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: or search committee.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: We each kind of reached out to people that we knew.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, at the beginning, I can't really
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: kind of overstate how how frantic and how hard everyone
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: worked and what just kind of a.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Desperate time it was.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: But it was like, okay, we need a federal lobbyist.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I called to the you know, kind of bigger promoters
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: that I thought might be doing something in DC. No
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: one had a federal lobbyist. So I was like, wait,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know anyone in DC. I'm from Minnesota.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: What am I going to do?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, wait, then, I'm thirty club And so
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I happened to have been sitting next to Audrey Fixschaeffer
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: at a dinner a few nights a few months before
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and just sent her a Facebook message saying, Hey, you're
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: a DC do you know a lobbyist? So, you know,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: she joined up and and we really just you know again,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: everybody reached into their networks, came up with the names
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: that we could find, and I think are the lobbyist
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: that we found Ach and Gump the best, Casey Higgins
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: and it began the best lobbyist in the entire world.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: We found them because somebody on a group chain I
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: was in said that Paul Ryan's office was giving PPP advice.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So I was like, well, I can't call Paul Paul
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Ryan's office. I'm from Minneapolis, but I know somebody from Milwaukee.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: So Gary Witt, you know, called up Paul Ryan's office
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: and was referred to Casey Higgins. Uh, and that's how
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: we we got to Casey.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Tell us about Casey and his firm.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Mm. Her firm is.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: No, No, So they're a huge, you know top I
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: don't know that much about law firms, but a top
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: firm and really became invested in our cause.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And I think how.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Pastora law firm lobbying firm, Well.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: The the lobbyists are are lawyers, so it's a law
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: firm that also has us.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So all the lobbyists are lawyers.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I might be overstating that, but I believe most of
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the major lobbying firms are law firms.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, and so this law firm they're representing NIVA. How
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: many other clients do they have?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Oh a hundreds? But thank god the conflict check checked out.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: So that was very fortunate for us.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And so then what kind of an agreement do you
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: make with the lobbying firm?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So we had a monthly retainer and they
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: got to work immediately, I think from our first call,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: you know, really guiding the strategy and setting out how
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: we were going to tell our stories. I I'll never forget.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: You know, they did a lobbying one oh one for
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: NIVA members, like how to talk to your member of Congress,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you know, because most folks had never been involved in
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: anything like this. You know, we're used to hosting fundraisers
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: maybe you know, talking to our city council people, but
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: you know, in terms of federal lobbying, it was all new.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: So, okay, how do you talk to a congress person,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you know, like a real person.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: It would it's pretty surprising.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: And sharing our stories and I was going to say fortunately,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: but really it's unfortunately. You know, we had kind of
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: the most authentic SOB story of all sab stories. You know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic, people were cashing out there for one case,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: they were.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Remortgaging their houses.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: They were doing everything imaginable and anything they could to
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: just try to hang on one more month, two more months.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: So you know, those were the stories that we told.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: And on top of that the impact that we have
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: in our communities, and we were, you know, really fortunate
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: that we had built. You know, almost every independent venue
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: has built really strong, deep rooted community relationships. So you know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I was on a call with a congress person from
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: rural or yeah, the valley in California, and so it
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: wasn't just the historic theater on the call. It was
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: also the director of the Chamber of Commerce, and the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: local hotel and the restaurant next door, and they were
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: all advocating for saveer stages and for helping the theater
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: because without the theater they wouldn't have any business either.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, you go to the lobbying firm, we hear all
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the time that the lobbying firm writes the legislation. Is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: that what happened?
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: I think the staffers wrote the the staffers wrote the legislation, but.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: The lobbying firm of the staffers for the elected officials.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: The Senate officials. Yeah, yeah, the Senate staffers.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you have lobbying one on one from the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: lobby firm you hire, and do they tell everybody in
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: NEEDA to talk to their people? Do they say what
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the agenda is?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: So we organized into a precinct captain system. So the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: folks that initially had said they were interested in lobbying
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: the we all joined on. I think we were talking
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: three times a week. We were in constant communication, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: so there was one kind of leader for every state
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: or district. So we had like you know, Northern California
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: and Southern California, and those folks were responsible for coordinating
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: amongst all of the NEVA venues in their district. So
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it'd be pretty hard to have a thousand
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: people on a call trying to stay organized and stay productive.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: So you know, we again, we had more of a
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: structured system. So we would talk to you know, Gen
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Lyons in New York and then she would coordinate with
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: all the New York venues to go in and talk
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: to Senator Schumer or Senator Deliveran.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: That's how we organized.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, very practically. You have these precinct captains. You
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: then want to hit every member of Congress and you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: want to tell them what story. You just want to say,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: give me money or do you go over there with
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: an agenda? We needed x y Q.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: YEP.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I believe we hit ninety five percent of members of Congress.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I think we even had a representative from Guam. So
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: we you know, our motto is no stone left unturned,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: because it's you know, easy to sit here in twenty
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: twenty four and look back and say, oh, of course
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: we were going to get.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: The bill we had.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: There was no assurances whatsoever that we were going to
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: get anything, and so we left literally no stone unturned.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: If there was anyone to talk to, we would talk
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: to them. I think one one of our members actually
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: found out the running route of her senator and put
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: up yard signs along the running route to get his attention.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, we went in and the kind of
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: a gender or strategy we followed was, you know, tell
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: your personal story, tell your economic impact. Gary Witt from
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Pop Theater Group in Milwaukee had, you know, came initially
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: with a staff that he had read in a Chicago
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: paper really recently before the pandemic shutdown said one dollar
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: of every at one dollar spent on a ticket in
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: a small venue equaled twelve dollars of economic impact. So
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: we used that stat it was it was done, you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: an official study by the Chicago Loop, so it was documented.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: We didn't we didn't make it up, but we used
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: that number to measure our economic impact and went in
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: with not only just our personal stories of like, this
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: is how long I've been in business, this is you
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: know how much I've mortgaged on my house, this is
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: how many employees I have, but also you know, this
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: was my economic impact. This is what I've generated in
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: revenue and jobs for my community.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you go when you hit all these congress people,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: are you just telling a story or do you say
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: we want X?
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: We always had an ask that was rule rule number
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: one is you know, you go and you tell your story,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: but there's always an end with will you sign our letter?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Will you co sponsor our legislation? Will you if you've
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: already co sponsored, will you call to people and help
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: convince them to co sponsor? You know, always leaving with
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: a tangible way that somebody can help us.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: How does it turn from a want hiring the lobbying
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: firm to an actual piece of legislation. When you're saying
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: will you sign our legislation, we're just legislation come from.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was actually the senators we sent out you
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: know again along with like there's there's so many industry partners,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and thank you again to everyone.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Everyone.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I feel like listening to this probably helped in some way.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: So we just again, we first sent a letter just saying, hey,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: in Congress, we need help.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: We're totally shut down.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: The only thing that's going to get us through is
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: you to you know, doing a dear colleague letter. So
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: we had I think forty nine senators send a letter
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: to leadership saying, hey, leadership, you should take these guys seriously.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: And then there was a bill that was introduced by
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Senators Bennett and Young called the Restart Act that would
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: help businesses disproportionately disadvantaged. So you know, our you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: our thought process was that PPP helped all businesses equally. Well,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: we were the most disadvantaged. We had no revenue, We
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: needed more help than other businesses, and so Restart actually
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: had a formula that it would help give you grants
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: based on how much your revenue is down.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So we love that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: So we're like, okay, this is we're going to advocate
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: for this bill. So we had all the NIVA members
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: sent emails out to their email lists, you know, saying hey,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: you can email your senators this way, and along with
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: some industry partners that also sent emails out to their
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: email list, we ended up getting two point two million
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: emails into Congress.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It was just an.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Unreal level of support from our customers and concert goers.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: And so when those emails started flooding into the offices,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, we started getting a lot of attention,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: and Senators Corny and clobush Are actually said okay, I
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: think it's time for your own bill, and so we
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: didn't again this it was our dream of all dreams,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: but it was generated by them.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, how does it work with the Senate visa VI
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the House?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Great question. So it has to pass both houses.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember my what was the Schoolhouse rock?
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: How a bill becomes a law. So the bill has
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: to pass both houses. So we introduced in the Senate first,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: and then we had a House companion that was the
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: same bill, and so when they both passed, then it
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: goes to the President's office.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, sometimes the bills are different and there has to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: be some kind of reconciliation. That was not a factor here.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: So we actually didn't We didn't pass as a standalone bill.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: We passed as part of the package. So the package
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: passed the Senate and then I believe it passed the House,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: but the inclusion was similar. And I'm having to really
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: stretch into my memory. So yeah, it was end of
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: December that it ended up. The package ended up going.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Through December of twenty twenty.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Right, did you get what you wanted?
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: App? I mean we're still in business right as The
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: ultimate test and how successful this legislation was is that,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you know, we had very few NIVA members closed for
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: financial purposes and folks are still around to reopen and
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: to fight another day.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to drill down, what did first Avenue get
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: from PPP and what did you get from Save our Stages?
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I don't remember the exact numbers. I think amongst our
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: six venues we got around ten million I believe from
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: the Save our Stages grants.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you a different way. You have venues,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: they have operating costs, you have employees. What did PPP cover.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, PPP covered maybe a month, maybe maybe two months
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: of our operating expenses, Like it was very insubstantial.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Then when you got save our State ages, what personage
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: did it cover that or did it just allow you
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to keep the doors open so to speak.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was able to cover our expenses.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: You know, going back, we were closed eighteen months and
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: it allowed us to reopen and rehire. You know, rehiring
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and reopening is you know, ungodly amounts of expenses. We
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: didn't have any employees, right, you have to go through
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: all of the onboarding process, all the rehiring process, all
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the cleaning processes, the new filters, some other like you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: improvements to the room due to COVID et cetera. And
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: so it allowed us to do that and to then
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: also when we first came back, there were you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: there were some losses you know, in the first few
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: months of opening that allowed us to cover that.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, So between PPP and Save our Stages, the people
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: lose money, break even or make money.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Well, the way the formula worked is you were only
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: allowed to spend your spend the money on operating expenses.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: There's no way to quote unquote make money.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: You know, you have.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: To show the SBA the receipts of what you spent
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: your money on. So I mean, unless there's no you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: ethical or realistic way to just kind of pocket money.
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: In fact, fifty percent of people are still closing out there,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: save our stages grants.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: So how hard was it to actually get the money
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in your account?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Fucking impossible.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I mean it was, you know, we pad that bill
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: passed and end of December twenty twenty. Some people might
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: remember this, there was you know, Trump wasn't going to
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: sign the bill. There was maybe three days of just
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: absolute you know, heart stopping, continued panic, and then then
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: he ended up signing it and it became law. So
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: we were thinking, okay, SBA, will you know, get the
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: website up maybe mid February at the latest. Well, March
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: came along and they still you know, didn't have a website.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: We had to go, you know, reach out to our champions,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: reach out to the White House Economic Council to really
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: get them to open up the scrint and help them understand,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: like there was a time when people didn't think the
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: bill was real, right, They didn't because they didn't have
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: the money in their account. They just thought, oh, it's
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: all you know, it's all a mirage. There's never going
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: to be any money coming. And in the meantime, the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Restaurant Revitalization Act passed, they were able to get their
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: money out the door. I think it was a much
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: simpler equation. So they got their money out the door.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: I think maybe even earlier than we did. So mid April,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: the website went up.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: The website crashed.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: There was a sentiment amongst the industry, including the performing
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: arts folks and the museums, that there wasn't going to
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: be enough money in the bill. So we went back
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: to Congress and got more money added. And so then
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: when it finally opened the end of April, the approval process,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: because the restrictions were so stringent, you know, you had
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: to prove that you sold tickets, you had to prove
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: that you had a PA, you had to prove your
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: revenues for the past few years. You know. I think
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: at first Avenue, I don't think we got our the
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: money deposited in our account until maybe September twenty twenty one.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Wow. So is there anybody who ultimately got left out.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And there are other people where the steps were so
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: onerous they just gave up or couldn't figure it out.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: You know a lot of folks we heard actually applied,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: or some folks that should say, applied for the Restaurant
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Revitalization Act. There you had to have I think thirty
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: three percent food. So some folks opted to just to
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: just go for the Restaurant Act. And so, you know,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: I think in terms of folks getting left out, I
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: think it was moral industries like the gyms. I think
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: maybe they felt left out or I'm trying to remember
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: who else was advocating at the time. But in terms
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: of NIVA members, I believe almost all NIVA members were
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: able to secure grants.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's jump forward. You talked about the drop
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: rates going down. Explain for those who are not sophisticated
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: what drop rates are, right.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: So, a drop count is how we measure what percentage
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: of ticket buyers actually show up, scan their tickets and
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: enter the venue. So it's really important, especially to clubs
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: and theaters who make their money on the ancillar raising
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: people in the venue, buying beer and spending money in
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: the venue. So if you sell a ticket to somebody
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: that doesn't show up, that's effectively lost revenue for us.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: So before COVID, you know, we had a no show
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: rate of maybe five percent, four or five percent. Well,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: post COVID, we started seeing no show rates. You know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: initially during Omicron it was sometimes off to a fifty percent.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: But you know, once the industry and society kind of
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: got back to normal life, we were still seeing no
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: show rates of fifteen to twenty percent, which is a crisis. Again,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: if you're relying on those beer sales to pay you rent,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: then what.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Did you do when you notice these bad numbers?
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so first, you know, we just went I think
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I think I went to Casey and just said, hey,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: we're seeing this.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: This is a huge problem for us. What do you
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: is there? You know, what can we do legislatively about it?
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Because we started, you know, discussing amongst ourselves and realizing
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: that these tickets are sitting on the secondary market, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: so you know, if you sell a ticket to a broker,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: well sometimes they're more invested in selling if they buy
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: twenty tickets, they're more invested in selling five tickets for
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: you know, five hundred dollars versus twenty tickets for two
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: hundred dollars and so that's you know, it again works
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: out all fine and well for the brokers, but for
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: the venues, that's a huge problem. And so we started
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of linking that and linking also, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: googling our venues and seeing that sometimes our box office
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: web pages and our ticket our official ticket sellers were
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: way down, and our customers were, you know, buying tickets
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: from folks that they thought were us that weren't really us.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: And so that combined led us to go and talk
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: to Casey and aking Gump and at Pegano and say.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, what can we do about this?
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Because you know, you don't not everything can be a crisis,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: but this, this has the potential to be another oncoming crisis.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, once again, you have the Senate in the House.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Is this an independent bill or is this part of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: another bill?
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Right now, it's an independent bill. We're working hard to
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: get co sponsors in the Senate. There is a House
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: bill that is a different bill that's called the Ticket Act,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: that has some of the similar provisions like all in
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: pricing and banning spect tickets and predatory deceptive practices. You know,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: we think the Fans First Act has much stricter penalties
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: and the language within each of those categories goes further
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: to protect our fans. So, you know, we're waiting to
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: see what the packages might be March April, you know,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: to see about inclusion and to see what we can
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: do to get it past both houses.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, what is CO sponsoring AD?
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: What is it at right now?
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: No?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: What does it do for the bill?
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: It shows that we have momentum that we have you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: people and politicians I should say that believe in this
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: and that we'll vote for it, and that are invested
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: in it, and just goes to show general support.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know this is Washington, d C. We read
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: every day in the paper. People say one thing publicly
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and another thing privately. How hard is it to get
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: someone to go on the record say hey, yeah, I'll
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: How hard is it?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It's not easy.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: It's definitely not easy. I think that you know, as
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: independent venues and our partners and the fix the TIXT
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: coalitionion which includes you know, the performing arts and the
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: bigger venues and independent ticket sellers and you know folks
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: throughout the industry, I think we have an important voice,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: and we have an important story, and I do think
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: that we have the right bill.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: You know, we.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Started with the goal of you know, trying to cap
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: resale at you know, ten percent above face or you know,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: trying to do some more protective measures and realizing the
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: political and feasibility of it. I think we have the
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: bill right now that is passable, that is a no brainer.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it's an important first piece of the puzzle.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I don't believe comprehensive ticketing legislation has ever even gotten
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: this far yet. So to show that we can pass
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: a comprehensive ticketing bill, that this is important and that
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: does go you know, take that important first step in
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: protecting our customers. I think we have the right story,
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: we have the right bill, and we're going to get
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: to work and make it happen.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, is the lobbyist the person who's always into the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: nitty gritty with the elected officials or do you or
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: other individuals from the organization actually get into the trenches too.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: So the lobbyists are definitely you know, again, they're most
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: knowledgeable in terms of like bill language and how to
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: phrase what we want in the legal terms that make
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: a bill effective. Certainly, myself and Stephen Parker, the executive
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: director of NIVA, and the other advocacy committee leadership can
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: talk in the nitty gritty. I think, however, our voice
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: is probably most effective as business owners and effective constituents.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: So do you personally talk to Amy Klobitchaw.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Whenever? I am so lucky?
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think she's the best.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Why is she the best? And when you do, how
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: often would you talk to him? What would be the agenda? Like, hey,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: good seeing Amy, Let's talk about the weather, or you
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: get down into what you're looking for.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I think she's the best because she absolutely
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: fights for what she believes in and she doesn't give
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: up until she gets it done.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: And you know, there's a reason why I think she is.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: The most effective legislator, right And she just really cares.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: And you know, throughout the same of our stages process
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: and throughout COVID, like she really cared about our industry,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: She cared about my employees, she cared about making sure
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: we were reopen, and she, you know, again, like us,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: left no stone unturned and did every thing possible to
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: make sure that that bill is passed.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Let me recap in the last twelve months. How many
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: times have you spoken have been one on one with
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobitchar.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, less than a handful. No, We're not like having
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: dinner or drinks.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Leavis spearheading this bill. Not everybody has the same agenda.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: What did the brokers in the secondary market have to say?
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: So, you know, I do think it's important that before
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: we even started this effort, we put together the Fix
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: the TIXX Coalition, which has thirty members you know, from
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: throughout the industry, from the Recording Academy and the artist
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: groups that have you know, as important, if not a
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: more important voice in this than we do, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: to the TONDO and to the performing our groups, independent
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: ticket sellers, like I said, and so I think it's
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: important to have that coalition again, knowing that the brokers
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: and the secondaries, they just their resources seem to be endless,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: and they've been at this a lot longer than we have.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: You know, NIVA has been you know, lobbying for what's
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: January twenty fourth for four years or so. I mean,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: the secondaries have been having these really having these conversations
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: and have these relationships going back decades or more so.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: We definitely are playing catch up, especially on this topic.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, do the secondaries have their own lobbyists and relationship
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: with elected officials?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, absolutely, very strong ones.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: So when you're having this bill, are they literally part
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of the mix or are they just going behind the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: scenes to the people who are supporting them saying, hey,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: we don't want this.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not entirely sure. I know that they're
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: running a public campaign. I forgot what their alliance is called.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: But you know, again, we think that we have the
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: right bill. We have a very compromise kind of no
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: brainer solution that would bring transparency and some you know,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: clarity to our customers. And like I said, what we
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: started out with like on a fire and brimstone of
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: you know, of the secondary market. We compromise in order
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: to get something passed. We thought that was really important.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: You know, we're not interested in like what they call
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: a messaging bill, right, which is a bill that's introduced
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: that has no chance of passing, but you know, you
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: just you want to get it on the record. You know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: we're not interested in that. We're all all of us
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: that even we have other jobs. We're running businesses, we're
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: promoting shows like if we take our time and effort
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: to introduce a bill, we want to make sure that
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: it's passable.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, people think ticketing is easy, but it's very complicated.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I've had my own interaction with the government and even
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: people who were there dedicated to this, I'm stunned with
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: they don't understand it. So Congress people, do they understand ticketing.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to me how many, especially staffers that we
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: talked to, that have their own experience their ticket buyers.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Right there are customers, you know, they're going to shows, and.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: So they have a really good.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: Knowledge of it from the customer side, which sometimes you know,
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: promoters and venues.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we don't even have.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: That perspective of it as far as like the intricacies
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: of the market. Some some do, and most of you know,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: everyone we've talked to especially is very smart and as
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: soon as we explain it, they get it immediately.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, you went undercover to the broker conference. Tell us
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a little bit about that.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was able to use a friends a
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: friend's name and credit card and walk around the floor
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: of the conference and was just totally in shock at
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: the tools that they have in order to access our tickets,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: like on precedented, unimaginable ways to get their hands on
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: our tickets. As much as we try to, you know,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: put ticket limits and put zip code restrictions and put
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: all non transferability anything we try to do, there's a workaround.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: And I was even more surprised walking around and that
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: they're just advertising it in plain sight, right Like, you know,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: for instance, ghost browsers, so you can open up more
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: than fifty different tabs that all have different IP addresses.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: They have you know, there's digital credit cards that don't
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: have any kind of ZIP code requirements. So you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: they were literally talking to us saying.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can, you can.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: We can get you a thousand different credit card numbers
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: and you don't even need don't worry any zip code you.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Want, don't even worry about it.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Their inventory management solutions are way more sophisticated than what
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: we have, right, Like, they can manage all your inventory effectively,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: you know, hide the inventory and post it based on
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: how many people are buying in the pricing algorithms, based
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: on what the pricing is across all the different secondary markets.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: They have tools that allow that instantly access all of
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: the pre sale pass codes in one place, and that
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: can ping are the ticketing companies to actually get pretty
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: accurate ticket audits. I mean, so we're walking around and
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: we're you know, saying, hey, we're interested in getting more involved.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: We're just kind of starting out, and I said, oh,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: let me show you how this works. The company the
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: sales are actually pulled up one of my own shows
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: at the Palace and said, okay, here it is. This
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: show is on this date, and there's eight hundred and
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: sixty seven tickets available. I'm going, you've got to be
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: kidding me. So I pull up my own ticket and
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, they were probably within ten percent,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: And then on the right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Side, it's okay, here's all the different their pre Selle passwords,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: here's when they go on sale. You've been set up
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: to buy automatically with your you know, ghost browsers, with
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: your virtual credit cards.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: It's just it's just insane.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: So it became instantly illuminating, you know, why we were
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: having these drop count issues, and why fans were so
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: frustrated when they were unable to access tickets, and why
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: they're paying so much more, you know, in for their
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: tickets that are actually going to those of us responsible
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: for making shows happen.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Is this a winnable war by the ticket company.
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: By the ticketing companies, the dato It's an ongoing battle
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: between the secondary market brokers and the ticketing companies whatever
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: it might be Ticketmaster access see.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: You know, is this going to go on forever? Or
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: is there any way that they can have enough technology
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to put a dent this?
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, certainly after walking that floor, it became clear
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: that we need a legislative solution because any tech that
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: we can come up with, you know, they can instantly combat.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Because they don't have the stress or the.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Financial strain of actually having to put on shows. They
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: can put one hundred percent of their resources into just
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: getting our tickets right. So you know, again the you know,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: in Minneapolis, we have we're doing eleven hundred, twelve hundred
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: shows a year, We're servicing customers, we have a busy,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: stressful business to then you know, try to also go
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: above and beyond, and you know, we do the very
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: best we can while still actually having you know, having
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: a business at twitch to protect. I do think it's winnable.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: I think that this is the story that we need
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: to tell, and I think the customers, you know, realizing
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: when they come to the door that they paid eighty
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: dollars for a ticket that's available at the door for
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: twenty five right. That happens almost every show, or realizing
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: that they didn't when the show was canceled they didn't
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: get a refund because they bought it from a broker
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: that has no legal obligation to refund them.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: I think there's very kind of There are problems that
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: are becoming more and more apparent that are customer facing
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: and not just industry facing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: So you're focusing on legislation to solve this problem. Do
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: you believe technology can solve the problem?
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I am not smart enough about the technological aspects.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: I certainly hope, so all of you smart tech people
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: listening to the podcast please also another important part of
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: the puzzle.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, you go to this convention. I'm just interested, Hey,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: how many people are there? B You're an attractive young woman.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Do they say what she doing here? Or are there
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: are a lot of women there?
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: I was definitely one of the only one of the
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: only women in the room.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I thought I was gonna get called out immediately, because
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: certainly it was a lot of bros.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of bros. So there were maybe.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Eight hundred or so, and it seems to be mostly
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: about the trade floor and about you know, they had
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: like maybe one or two panels a day right at
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: nivacn which I'll give a small plug for everybody to
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: come to the NIVA conference in New Orleans in early June.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: But you know, it's about learning, it's about bettering your business.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: We have, you know, dozens and dozens of panels throughout
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: the entire day that they had, you know, maybe two
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: panels a day, and seemed to be mostly about networking
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: and discovering the new technological resources available. But you know,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: I tried to wear a hat and keep my head
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: down and just try to learn and glean as much
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: information as I could.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear, let's say you have a show.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: To make the numbers easy, we'll call it one thousand
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: tickets and we'll say the ticket was twenty dollars and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: use your example, and people spend eighty dollars on the
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: secondary market. Do you find that, no matter how well
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the show is doing, it's one thing that the show's
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: going clean. If it's selling out Okay, tickets are hard
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: to get, but let's just assume the show is doing
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of capacity. Are people still being confused
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and paying more on the secondary market?
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: I mean last I checked, every single one of our
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: shows was listed on secondary market. So even the ones
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: at the smaller capacity rooms, you know that maybe were
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: under half sold. So and without a doubt because of
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: the way that the advertisements are working that most people
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: from what I've I believe I read a stat that
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: forty percent of people buy their tickets by just clicking
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: the first link in Google right. And so as a
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: independent venue like we don't have the resources to outdid
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: the secondaries. You know, if you they you know, buying
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: up the keywords like events and tickets and and so
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: you know, when you go to those secondaries sometimes the
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: tickets are lower that that's you know, their talking point.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: But you know, on average, there was a government study
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: I think it's a it was about twenty seven percent
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: over face value on average. And so from our perspective,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: that takes money out of the pockets of our customers.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: And what we're trying to do at the club level
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: as an independence, we're trying to build a long term
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: sustainable community and ecosystem of live music obsessed concert goers
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: that don't just want to go to one show a year, right,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: they want to go to concerts as a lifestyle, and
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: they want to take risks on going to see new
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: bands and view going to concert the way they would,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: you know, go into the movies or go into a restaurant.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: And so if you spend you know, twenty seven fifty
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: percent more, that takes the money out of your pocket
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: that you can spend discovering these new bands and really
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: making concerts a lifestyle.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Now, I believe you said previously that the brokers are
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: so sophisticated they can even replicate your website.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for a while, I'm not sure if it's still up,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: but for a while there was a website called First
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Avenue Boxofice dot com. Well that wasn't us. The branding,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: the I want to say, the logo. That's another thing
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: that the fans first act. You know, you couldn't you
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: can't use logos, you can't use photos of the venue,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: you can't do anything to try to represent yourself as
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: an official seller. So you know you can you could
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: go to First Avenue, Boxofice, dot com and have no
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: idea that you're not actually buying from first avenue.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's just go a little bit more into ticketing.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: When you look deeply, frequently everybody has dirty hands. You
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: have the customer who's complaining, and then you say, when
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: you want to do something what we used to call
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: paperless or tie it to their phone whatever. They're pissed
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: off because they can't buy multiple tickets and scalp them themselves.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: So what about locking tickets down to individuals? Is that
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: something that you can do want to do or is
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: that ship sailed?
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: I mean in terms of a knowing who's in the room,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: that would be incredibly helpful. You know, sometimes you have
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: emergency situations, you have bands that are giving us, you know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: stocker lists that they don't want let in. It would
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: be incredible to have the information for everybody in the
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: room in terms of trying to get people in the
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: door quickly. That probably you know, there's a there's a
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: balance there. But I do also think customers want to
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: just have you know, four tickets on their phone and
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: scan them all together and have an ease of purchase
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: and an ease of concert going as well.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is, do you view customer
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: secondary market scalping is an issue you want to address.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: You know, we're mostly concerned with industrial level scalpers. You know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: if somebody bought a ticket, they intended to go to
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: the show, they couldn't find a babysitter, and they want
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: to make an extra ten bucks off that ticket. I
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: don't know if anyone. I certainly don't have an issue
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: with that. You know, we're at NIVA really concerned though
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: about you know, again the industrial level scalpers that are
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: using these really sophisticated tools to build customers kind of.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: On mass you have seven venues. How many different ticketing
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: companies do you use?
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: We use one venu.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: We have a great partner and access at our six venues.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: We do promote shows in outside rooms and so you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: we'll use the ticketing system that those rooms use.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Let's say you own first avenue. So traditional only a
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: ticketing company would pay the venue for an exclusive and
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: that's where a lot of the fee comes from. So
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: if you're with access, how do you negotiate the fee.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: That was negotiated under very.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: Want? I think we negotiate our contract in twenty twenty,
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: so very kind of stressful terms. But again, I think
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: everybody looks for different things in their partners, right, Like
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: some folks that are maybe more consumed, more concerned.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: With with brokers will go for.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Some solutions that allow for like a waitlist or you know,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: that don't allow people to resell. Some people want the
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: the reach and the kind of broad marketplace the ticketmaster has.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Some people want to go with whoever the dominant seller
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: in their market is to try to again get in
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: front of more eyes. We really and liked the team
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: at Access. Love Steph Streeter, I love Brian and felt
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: like they were the best. They're the best partner for
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: our business.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, but a lot of the shows you do, the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: club shows are the ones that get the most attention.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: For fees. It's one thing if you have one hundred
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: dollars ticket in the fee is fifteen dollars. It's another
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: thing if you have a twenty dollars ticket and the
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: fees are fifteen dollars.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's first avenue we have fifteen dollars
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: fees on twenty dollars tickets.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: I will go. I will go and check that right after.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you have specific but I you know,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: in terms of markets all over the US, this happens
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis, right, And so.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Again, like the fees is negotiated between the promoter of
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: the venue and their ticketing provider. And so I'm not
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: privy to how people necessarily set their fees, but certainly,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: you know, it's key factor. I would say, when people
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: pick up a ticketing partner.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say first avenue, you own the building.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Let's say for a sake of discussion, the ticket is
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: twenty dollars. Every shows a little bit different. What would
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: be the average fee on that.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Ticket, probably four dollars?
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so very low. Okay. So club business, if you
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: go back before your time, frequently was supported by the
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: record companies. The record companies would buy tickets, they would
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: put small bands on the road. That's pretty much evaporated.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: So therefore a lot of clubs went out of business.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: So what is the status of small venues today economically?
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's hard, it's difficult. You know, the bands are amazing.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like there is a kind of proliferation of
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: club level bands and do to streaming, folks have kind
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: of easier discovery tools potentially in finding bands. But the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: economics of a club is just I mean, I don't
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: think it's ever been harder, or even at First Avenue,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: I want to say, our costs are up thirty percent
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: from pre pandemic. You know, everything's gone up due to inflation.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: Insurance is insane. You know, just all of the costs
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: keep going up, and you don't want to pass it
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: on to your customers one hundred percent because you want
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: them to again, like enjoy going to a show and
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: feel like they can afford to go to you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: we like to hopefully get people out to shows once
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: or twice a month, right, and so you.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Want them to have a good experience.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: You don't want them to feel like somebody described a
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: club they went into that they that have felt like
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: a money tornado, Like when you walked in the door,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: they just you know, they were picking you up and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: spinning around trying to get every dollar out of your pocket.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: You know, we don't want to We don't want to
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: do that. But the the strains on running and probably
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: you know any small business these days are pretty intense.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: So what's the overall margin?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, we try to hit six percent profit margin.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: That's our goal.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's really low. What about merch? Do you take
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: a percentage of merch?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: We vary based on the rooms. You know, merch is
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: negotiated as a deal point between the bookers and the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: agents when they're working out the deal.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, because there is blowback, especially from smaller acts saying, hey,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: we're there, we're struggling. Why don't we get one hundred
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: percent of the merch? What would you say to them?
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: Hear that, and I you know, the counter argument to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: that is, you know, there's areas in the venue that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: are reserved. There are expenses that go along with processing merch.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it's a deal point, and we'd like
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: to view it as you know, we're an ecosystem. We're
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: in this together to make it profitable for the band,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: to make sure that the venues can still stand business,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: to make sure the customers still have a great experience,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: and so you know, it all goes into the economics
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: of a deal and making a show work for all parties.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: There have been all these stories in the media about
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: younger generations consuming less alcohol. To what degree has that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: affected your business To what we do you see it?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: We see it hugely. I think I was on a panel.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: I was on a music biz panel and kind of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: throughout that point when I thought was kind of like
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: a throw away point and actually get it ended up
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: getting picked up by by Billboard and had some TikTok memes.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: So we're seeing it especially in our younger audience. You know,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: the older audience, they're still drinking to show to two beers,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: two drinks per person, but the younger audience, you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: the bars are just anemic these days, and so there's
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: a few diferent theories floating around. One is just edibles,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: and it's much cheaper and easier to you know, pop
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: an edible than it is to spend ten bucks on a.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Beer ten bucks on a drink.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: The other theory is that, you know, this generation, they
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: spent their formative kind of drinking education years in COVID,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: and so they might not even they don't necessarily.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Know what they drink. They don't know what they like
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: to drink. They don't know the.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: Structure the systems of going up to a bar and ordering,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: and that might be a little bit overwhelming, and so
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: they just choose to not engage at all. Obviously, there's
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: a mental health or a wellness which is beyond important, and.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Not drinking seems to.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I would say that it's great for your mental health
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: and wellness, but not everyone seems to agree these days.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: So there's a number of different factors that I think
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: going into effect of seeing our numbers at maybe half
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: some some shows half two a third of what they
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: would have been pre pandemic, you.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Just own that or do you think of some other
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: way to make up the revenue?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: You have to make up the revenue.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you don't make up the revenue, you're
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: not going to be in business, right, So, you know,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of folks are I think after after the
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Billboard article came out, I got every single NA option
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: under the sun reaching out, So certainly, you know, increasing
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: the NA.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Options non alcoholic sorry, yes.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: Not alcoholics, so non alcoholic beers, non alcoholic cocktails, root beer,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: et cetera. So also we're you know, advertising more like
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: drink specials to make it easy to order at the bar,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: like okay, here's the here's the drink of the night.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: You don't need to think about what you're ordering, you
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: don't need to stress out about it. Here, here's two
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: options that you choose from. And so trying a very
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: you know, a varied degree.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: How did you end up owning and running First Avenue.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: So my father was part of was best friends with
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: the founder named Alan finger Hut. They were they would
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: actually went to elementary school together, so they were best
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: friends in nineteen seventy when Alan inherited a bunch of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: money and thought it would be a great idea to
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: open a rock club. And so my dad came from
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: a very you know, working class. His parents owned a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: little corner grocery store. He went to the University of Minnesota,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: I got his accounting degree, and so he you know,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: wor worked on the books and it was kind of
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: a business confidant to Alan. So First Time Who opened
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy and then was run locally for a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: couple of years and then run by a company out
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: of Kansas City with renamed Uncle Sam's untill it then
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: became First Avenue and the owner's share the operations came
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: in house, and so my dad was kind of loosely
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: associated with Alan in the club until two thousand and
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: four when they had a falling out and they actually
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: were part of an ownership group that purchased the property
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: in two thousand and so, as part of the legal
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: settlement for their falling out, my dad ended up with
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: the property. Alan ended up with the operations. I think
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: less than a year after that, I want to say,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: the operations went into bankruptcy, and so my dad, as
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: the landlord, was able to purchase the assets at a
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: bankruptcy in two thousand and four. I was working in
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles working in TV and film production when he
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: had a stroke in two thousand and nine, and so
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: I hadn't been home in a while, and I flew
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: home and stepped in the club and just fell in
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: love with the main room and what First Avenue was
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: and what it means to the people in Minneapolis and
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: the impact it has and everything that it's about, and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: started kind of working under him.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Then. Okay, so when you were growing up, was your
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: father just the accountant for the club or was it like, hey,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: you can get into the club whenever you want, and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: you went all the time and took your friends.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, I said that, long story. I did not
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: grow up, as you know, the daughter of a rock
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: club owner. Certainly not how my kids are growing up
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: right where it's a cold, snowy day, let's take a
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: soccer ball and kick it around the main room. But
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: I grew up being obsessed with going to concerts, and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: actually having my dad involved in the club actually was
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: a negative for me, because you know, I would sneak
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: out of the house and take the bus downtown and
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: show up at the club to go to concerts and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: kind of like put my hair over my face and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: try to hope no one recognize me so that they
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: wouldn't call my dad to come and.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Pick me up.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, you go to college in New York. People have
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: no idea how sophisticated Minnesota is, although I will say,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: as cold as it is in the winter, that's how
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: fucking hot it is in the summer. But what do
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: people not understand about Minnesota.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: First of all, it is thirty five degrees today in January,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: and it feels like a fucking miracle. So it's not
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: always cold in the winter people. What don't people understand?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is heaven on Earth. I think there's
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: no better place in the world than Minnesota in like
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: June July. So what the winter gives us? Yes, yes,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: it is cold. It is usually exceptionally cold, but it
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: gives us a heartiness and an optimism and a real
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: sense of gratitude because then the summer comes and it's
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: like everyone's in a good mood. You're enjoying every minute
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: it is. You know, it gives you a sense of seasons.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: It gives you a sense of inevitability. You know. I'm
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: raising my kids here and I am so grateful for
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: their ability to grow up in Minnesota because in a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: world where you have everything at the tip of your
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: fingertips and everything is kind of designed around comfort, I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: think it's incredibly important to experience cold weather and to experience,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: you know, elements and nature that they can't always control.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: To what degree do those two things affect music business,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: both cold in the winter and wanting to be outside
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: in the summer.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting we you know, looked at our capacity sold.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: You know, shows in January and Minnesota do exceptionally well,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: there's not there's not a lot of them, but the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: shows that we do have actually end up being you know,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: ten or fifteen percent sold above where our shows the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: rest of the year are. Like I said, I think
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: having the inevitability of winter and having the experience of
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: such extreme cold gives people a sense of joy and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: a sense of community. And I'm going to mispronounce it,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: but Heiger like like the joyousness of being together, especially
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: in the winter, makes people more willing to go out,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: more willing to take risks on new bands, more willing
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: to be a part of the live music community. You know,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: we hear all the time that you know, the Twin
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: Cities punches above its weight in terms of ticket sales
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: and in terms of interest and events. And I think
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of it has to do with the fact that,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: you know, we're all here in negative ten degree weather.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: We all survived it together, and we want to be
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: a part of something really cool and beautiful.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: So you end up leaving New York going to Los Angeles.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: The weather was great? The weather was fucking phenomenal, you know.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: I I went to NYU and I graduated right around
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: September eleventh, and there weren't in jobs.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: And my friend most of my friends had gone to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: film school and.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: They were moving to LA So I moved to LA
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: and had, you know, met some really wonderful friends.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: I met. My wife had a.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: Really beautiful experience, but personally, I'm just being thrilled to
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: be back in Minnesota.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, your wife is in the film business, which is
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: really concentrated in LA. How do you manage this?
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: She you know, I commuted for almost a decade. I
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: would take the Red Eye out on Sunday and then
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: come back on the seven fifty Thursday night flight. And
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: so now we're in Minnesota. She's actually commuting. Her job
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: works out of New York, so she's going to New
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: York every other week. And maybe it's a secret to
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: a happy marriage. You know, we've been together maybe sixteen
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: years and are probably happier than ever before.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: How'd you meet her?
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: We were set up old school?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Really was it instant romance?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: It took a few dates.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: I was just out of a relationship and she was
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: newly sober, so we had a few months to figure
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: all that out.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: And what is it like being an out powerful business
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: woman today is to what degree is their homophobia that
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: you encounter?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: I'm really lucky.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: I mean I think going from you know, n Yu
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: to the film industry to Minneapolis, have not encountered so
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: much homophobia and and feel like, you know, again, maybe
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: stepping into a family business and stepping into a thriving
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: business and having such a great team. I feel very
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: fortunate to have not experienced really that much negative negative
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: impacts due to gender sexuality.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: What about sexism, It's certainly there.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: It's certainly there. I remember, you know, a fair amount.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: I'm I like to, you know, make relationships and reach out,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: and certainly there have been a few missing, mistaken outreaches.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: But you know, at least nothing outright that I that
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: I can recall, which I again feel like I have
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: to just express how grateful I am because I know
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: that's not a lot of people's experiences.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so your father has this stroke. Are you coming
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: back to Minneapolis to run the club reluctantly? Or are
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: you saying this is what I want to do, or
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: you say, well i'll manage it for a month. What
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: what goes for your head?
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: I was just stepping in to make sure, you know,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: nothing got messed up while he was sick. And really
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: my thought process was, okay, there's you know, two big companies.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: I wonder who I'm going to.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: Sell this to because I was pretty happy in my
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: career and I just met my wife and pretty settled,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: and so I was like, okay, I wonder you know
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: which liven sure e g. I wonder this will this
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: will be fun. Who's who's going to be the highest better?
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: And again, like I said, I just stepped to the
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: main room and kind of the impact of what First
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: Avenue is, what it means, the legacy that it carries,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: just was really intense. And so you know, when I
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: met these folks, and I think one of the quotes was,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: you know, I said, okay, well, if you're interested, why
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: do you come to Minneapolis, see the room, see what's
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: going on. And they said, well, I don't just see it.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: A club's a club. My guys say it's good. And
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: that was the moment I said, Okay, I'm just going
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: to have to do it. This can't happen.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: And you have a sibling too, right, yep?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: I have an older sister. She's not involved. She's in
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: Hood River.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Organ okay, and to what degree she involved? Financially?
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: I own one hundred percent.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. So this is a sophisticated business. People think, oh, yeah,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: you sell tickets, you open the door, you make money.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: So your father is out of the picture for a while.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: You're there how do you come up to speed and
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: what mistakes do you make?
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, every mistake, every mistake under the book. I was
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: lucky that my dad ended up recovering within a few months,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: and so I really got, you know, to learn under
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: him and to watch him manage. But in terms of
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: I also I am not a talent buyer, and that
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: I think is the hardest job in the world, and
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: really the quarterback of the music club world. So I
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: again was so lucky to step in the most incredible
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: team at First Avenue, Nate and Sonya and Ashley just.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: Really really incredible, incredible folks.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: So how long does a concert buyer last at First Avenue?
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: How long?
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: Like how long are they in the venue?
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: How long before they move on?
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: Hopefully never the concert buyers? I mean, the thing about
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: Minnesota is people we call it a boomerang state because
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: people who grew up here, even if they leave, like
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: like me, they tend to come back. And once people
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: move here, they tend to not leave.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: Because it's it's.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: So amazing, as I've talked about before, and so we
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: have our customers, you know, from the time that they
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: first discover live music. I'm fourteen fifteen, We do you
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: know the rock and roll Playhouse for kids? You know music,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: So we try to get them at age two, right, we'll.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the rock and roll of playhouse.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: Oh it's really amazing, you know, working with the Brooken
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: Bulf folks. But so it's Saturday or Sunday mornings a theme,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: so Taylor Swift for kids or you know my son.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: I have a nine year old son.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: He's obsessed with Green Day, Like it's all all he
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: listens to, all he ever wants to play. It's just
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: his the beal and end all of his musical experience
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: right now. So we did the you know rock and
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: roll Playhouse plays Green Day and it was all punk
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: music and kids showing up in mohawks. It was the
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: most fun. And really kids just get to come and
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: run around. I think our theory is, well, they can't
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: do any they can't do much worse damage than drunk
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: people can do, so this won't be that big of
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: a deal. And you know, like I said, we see
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: concert going and we see the live music experience as
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: being a lifestyle.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Not just something you do, not just you know, not
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: just something.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: To avoid your everyday life, but really like as kind
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: of the heart and soul of what makes life worth living.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: So the earlier that we can introduce kids to that
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: experience and have them see the joy and the positivity
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: and all the amazing things that live music can do
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: for your soul and for your well being, the better.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: So let's say, first avenue to make the numbers work,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: how many dates do you want a year?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so in the different venues, you know, we have
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: different KPIs you try to hit.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: I think first.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: Avenue tell people what that is key performance indicators, so
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: you know, metrics, metrics.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: That we try to hit.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: So we have you know, the seven Street End Tree,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: which is our two hundred and fifty cap room. You know,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: we want to do three hundred and twenty days. We
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: want to effectively. I think last year maybe we did
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: three hundred and sixty days, So we want to be
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: open almost every day. The main room, which is fifteen
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty capacity. Most well known were Prince Shop,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: Purple Rain and Still you know, carrying on the legacy
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: of the Replacements and Whoscredo in Soul Asylum and all
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: the amazing bands of the Minneapolis scene.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: That's fifteen fifty.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: We want to do maybe one hundred and eighty one
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: hundred and ninety shows a year. We have a Palace
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: Theater which is twenty three hundred. It's a ga floor
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: and a seated balcony. You know, maybe we're trying to
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: do sixty shows a year there. So we vary it
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: based on the room.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: So you come to Minnesota, you have one venue, how
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: do you end up with seven venues?
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: It turns out.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: Running a venue is really hard and a lot of
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: people don't like to do it. So, you know, I
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: stepped in in two thousand and nine. We had first
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: avenue in the seventh Street Entry, and we were booking
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: a lot of shows outside of our venues. You know,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: we want to be we want to be able to
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: service artists at every stage of their career when they
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: come to Minnesota, if you're just starting out, if it's
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: your first play in the state of the country, all
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: the way up to like building your fan base here,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: giving you a solid home base and helping helping them build.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: Their career and their fan base. So, you know, we started.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: Doing shows at rooms around town, and we were doing
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: a whole lot at this this venue called the Turf Club.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: So you know, the economics of the business. If you
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: don't oh, if you don't have the inside, it's pretty
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: hard to make it work. So we just met with
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: the owner and he said, you know what, I got
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: two bars, and my wife says, that's one too many.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: So we bought the Turf Club and then we uh
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: the cityct polishly came to us and wanted to open
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: the or renovate the Palace. Theater had been dark for
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: maybe years. I'm didn't get my numbers wrong, but they
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: wanted to They wanted to renovate it. They wanted a
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: local partner to help promote it. So we stepped in
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: along with our great partners from Chicago, Jam and Jerry Michaelson,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: and we worked on the renovation that opened in twenty seventeen,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: and then the we were doing a bunch of shows
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: also at the fine Line. Those folks didn't want to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: operate anymore, so they came to us. We have a
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: thousand seat historic theater called the Fitzgerald in Saint Paul.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: You know the radio station. They didn't want to own
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: that anymore. So we kind of became, I think the
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: go tos of when people didn't want to operate their
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: venues anymore. I think we were seen as good operators,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: good local partners, try to operate, you know, ethically.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: And well and.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: With the full way to the community of mind. So
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: that's how that's how we grew and then were developing
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: an amphitheater. Will start construction soon hopefully, and so that'll
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: be an eighty two hundred boutique urban amphitheater right on
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: the Mississippi River in a neighborhood called North Minneapolis. It's
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: a really kind of marginalized, disenfranchised community. So that project
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: is aiming to be more than just a stage and
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: seating area, but really generating renewal and revival for the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: local community as well.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're the operator to what degree in these cases
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: do you own the facility?
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: We own all the buildings. We have one lease, but
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: we owned the properties for the others.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, and Jerry Michaelson as your partner in one theater.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Where did the money come for the rest of the places.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: It came from loans and it came from you know,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: we I am fortunate in that, you know, money is
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: not my as an owners, my motivator, and so I
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: put all profits and all revenue kind of back back
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: into the companies.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about building an amphitheater. Generally speaking, amphitheaters
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: are controlled by Live Nation and even people in markets
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: where they or not have had hard times. So how
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: do you plan to compete?
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: That is a.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: Great question, all the more reason to come back on
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: your podcast in three years and I can give you
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: the update.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, then let's flip the story over. You like to
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: be the Minnesota partner for all these acts that used
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: to mean, well, you know, you played them in the club,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: you played them in the Excel Center. That doesn't really
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: happen anymore, right.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: No, no, it doesn't.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: And I think maybe we're the you know, fortunate or
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: not fortunate to not have that kind of arena backdrop.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: You know, we kind of started with Fresh Eyes a
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: decade or so ago, but certainly, you know, listening to
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: your podcasts and knowing the history of the industry, that
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: that has been an impact for sure.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: And you're an independent there in the Minneapolis area. If
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: they don't go with you, what's your competition.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: Live Nation and the other We have other independent venues
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: in town also, but Live Nation has competing venues at
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: most levels.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: And so how do you end up getting the talent
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: as opposed to Live Nation.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: I think a combination of ky, you're going to make
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: me reveal all my secrets.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I can do that.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: No, you know, no way, you don't say anything you
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to say. But is it because you're more localized,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: or you have a better sales bitch, or the numbers
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: are better? Generally? What gets you the talent?
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: Like I said, I'm not a talent buyer, But I
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: do think that we have the best team of anyone
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: anywhere in the country. I mean, I just can't say
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: enough amazing things about you know, everyone who works at
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: First Avenue works there because they really care, you know,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: because they love the place and they want to see
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: it succeed and they want to do the very best
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: they can for the mission. And I also think we
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: you know, we have the best rooms without a doubt.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: I don't I wouldn't want to, you know, operate a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: room that I didn't think was the best venue of
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: its size in the market. We go out of our
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: way to treat people really well. We are the local guys,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: you know. We are committed to this community. We're committing
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: to doing everything we can to nurture and sustain the
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: concert going community of the Twin Cities. And so I
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: think the you know, bands get that. Some don't, but
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of bands want to.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: Be a part of it.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: They see what we've built here, They see the job
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: that we do. They see that, you know, they know
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: everything is going to be one hundred percent taking care
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: of all eyes dotted, all teas cross. They want to
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: play the best rooms. We just put in, you know,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: the brand new state of the art sound system, the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: first L two installation in the country. We have, you know,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: the best facilities, and we go out of our way
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: to create the best experiences for bands and for artists
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: and for customers.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, as one goes north in Minnesota becomes more rural,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: there is Dluth. You go up north, you know there
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: are other things. Do you want to expand do you
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: do shows there? Or are you Minneapolis Saint Paul focused?
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: Right, we do a couple of shows in Duluth.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, we will try to service the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: artists wherever they want to play. We kind of we
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: view our responsibility as making sure that the artist has
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: the best experience and plays the right room in the
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: right city at the right town. And so we have
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: done shows in Duluth. We've done shows, like I said,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: at outdoor venues, at other folks venues. It's not you know,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: in the plans right now to build our own venue.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: But like I said, like we want to service the bands.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: So if I'm coming to Minneapolis and I can sell
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: out First Avenue and I want to play more in
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: your area, how many places.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: Can I play larger than First Avenue or No?
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: No, Like I come, I can sell out First Avenue Minneapolis,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: I say, Dana, I'd like to play more in the
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Minnesota area. Do you say, well, you know, after you
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: sell a thousand tickets, maybe de Luthen that's it. Or
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: are there are other markets in Minnesota that you can play.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: Many? Yeah, the Twin Cities are the major metropolitan area.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: There is a five thousand capacity Amphitheater, you know, maybe
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: an hour north. There's Rochester that has the Mayo that
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: they've got room down there. There's Mankato. So there's other
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: like tertiary markets that people can play in Minnesota.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: And that Amphitheater is that a Live Nation.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: Amphitheater, No, that's a man at Amphtheater.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you don't do the buying, what do you do?
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: I do the kind of management, oversight, business operations, new venues,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: the amphitheaters is taking up you know, a large majority
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: of my time, but also kind of staff management, and
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: again like the financial side of things.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, everything's different post COVID. But how often are you
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: showing up at these venues and at these shows?
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: Oh? I try to get to four venues a week,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: or you know, I try to go out two nights
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: a week more, you know, in this in the busier months.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: And does every employee know you?
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: Most do?
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think sometimes, you know, if we have
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: a new employee or we have about four hundred employees.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: So I don't want to say every single one, but
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: I like to talk to the employees. I like to
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: introduce myself, so I try to make sure that that
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: I meet them.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: Are you working seven days a week?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: Of course we have all right.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm asking. And you know, there's a great
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: line at Katzenberg at Disney. If you don't come in
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: on Saturday, don't even think about coming in on Sunday.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: But so when do you start and when do you finish.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, is this typical all day all the time?
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I am available all day all the time.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: I try to eat dinner with my kids every night,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: so I try to you know, be home from you know,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: six to eight. That's kind of my window. It's my
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: favorite time of the entire day. It's it's when I
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 3: am you know, my most happiest and just you know
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: again seeing them getting filled.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: In on their day.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: So but yeah, I'll work from eight am to you know,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: midnight sometimes.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: So what is the future? You're the head of the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: of Diva. What is the future of the small venue
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: in the music business?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm super excited. I also, you know, want
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: to say I stepped down as board president a few
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: months ago. Andre Perry is the new board president. We
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: have a great executive director. I'm super excited about the
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: group purchasing organization that we're rolling out. I think that
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: the future of the small club is always gonna, you know,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: lay in the networking communications, in the community of talking
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: to other folks and seeing how other people are operating
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: efficiently and in working together. That was you know, the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: vision and the the kind of m O behind Neiva,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: and I think that is going to be even more
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: important in the next decade as we continue to hit
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 3: all these struggles.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: Now, the boomers were the first ones who really started
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: to go to clubs regularly, the blow up of rock
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: and roll, et cetera. Now is there going into the sunset.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: It feels confident about the audience and the acts.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: I think I.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: Feel confident in club's abilities to adapt to what customers want.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: I think that's a really great question because we know
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: that your generations, they're more you know, focused on the
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: social media elements and sometimes on like the more.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: Flashier show. Is that that's the right.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: Word, or like the kind of once in a lifetime experiences.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: But I have absolute faith in the power of music
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: and the power of a song and that live music
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: experience to totally transform somebody's life and to transform not
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: only just their like daily experience, but in you know,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: everything about their continents. And so I think that is
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: again when I look at clubs like that is the
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: experience that we offer is for customers to come in
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: and have that really intimate experience with the artists, get
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: to see hear their favorite song in three D be
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 3: treated really well. And so I have absolute faith in
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: that experience to transform another generation.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: And if you do twelve hundred shows a year or
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: how many are unprofitable.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: Oh man, more than I would care to admit in
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: a public podcast. But like I said, we're we're We
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: do shows for a lot of different reasons, right, Like
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: we all know Minneapolis went through a really hard couple
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: of years. It's still going through an exceptionally challenging time.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: I like to keep our clubs open. I think, you know,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: giving folks hours to work. I know downtown Minneapolis is
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: safer when we're open. We want to generate that economic
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: impact for our city. We want to give people those experiences.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: And so we have a lot of reasons to open
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: and to do you know, local bands, you know, given
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: the experience to like play on the stage, build their audience,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: get some local fans to you know, do dance nights
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: on a night that you know, otherwise we might be closed,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: you know. I like the attitude of our company to
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: be yes, like, yes, let's try it. We want to
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: be experimental. We're local, we're small, let's take some risks,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: let's have some fun. So we're probably more inclined to
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: do unprofitable shows than other folks because there's a kind
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: of greater mission behind them.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 4: And how big is your private business private events?
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not anything.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: Really not No, We're we're but we're we're doing a
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: lot of you know, bands and ticketed events are our priority,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: and so they're always going to have They're always gonna
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: have first priority on our calendar. They're always going to
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: be who we want to cater to.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: And then what would you tell to young women if
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: they wanted to get into this business?
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: You know, I do a lot of informational interviews and
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: mostly with young women, and I would say, you know,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: my advice is always you've got to work really hard.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: Nothing just comes to you. You know, it's fun, but
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: it's also don't underestimate the time it takes and the sacrifices,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 3: and you know the fact that like if you want
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: to work nine to five and you know, go to
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: the gym over lunch, and that this might not be
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: the career for you. You know, I think people you
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 3: have to you have to be willing to really sink
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: your teeth into it and give it all you have.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: And you talked about when you first came back to Minneapolis,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: when your father was ill about gussing it all up
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: to sell to live Nation or age. How long do
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: you plan to do this? Would you ever sell? Do
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: you see your kids running the business?
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: You know, my kids, if they want to, it would
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: be nice for them to have the option. I have
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun and I absolutely love, love, love
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 3: what I do, and I'm really proud of what we built,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: and i love my team, and so you know, we're
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: just really again, we're enjoying what we do. We're enjoying
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: our impact on the community. We're enjoying seeing these bands.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: And you know, my favorite thing in the entire world is,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: you know, watching the show and watching people. I don't
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: I'll watch the show, but I'll watch people's faces and
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: just the change and how they walk into the venue
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: from how they walk out, And I couldn't imagine doing
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: anything else.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: Two best shows since you've been an owner.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: Two best shows?
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm gonna have to plead the fifth.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, just talk about one or two highlights?
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, perfect, that's that's a great that's a great question.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 3: You know, we had the Pretenders and the Entry in September.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: That was a bucket list once in a lifetime, just
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: holy shit. I can't believe I am here right now moment.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, Lizzo came up through First Avenue
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: and so seeing the rise of Lizzo's career.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: From you know, when we promoted.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: Her album release show to I don't know, one hundred
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: people or whatever, and then you know, watching her sill
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: out the main room to then come into the palace
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: and seeing a true superstar in the making that was
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: that was a real joy to behold as well.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: You are so warm and open and smiling. If we're
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: there settling a show, are you ever a hard ass?
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: Or is this who you are twenty four or seven?
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe there's.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 3: A reason I'm not a talent buyer, right, I'm not
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: settling that show. I'm buying you a drink and asking
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: about how your kids are.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, Dana, I know that you got to go back
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: keeping Minnesodah's Live Entertainment Business. Live has been wonderful talking
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: to you, and I know that this is just the
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: middle for you. There's so much left to do. I
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for talking to my audience.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, and I'm glad
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: to hear it. I feel like I'm just just getting
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: started to.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, till next time. This is Bob left sets