John Meglen

and saw. Oh it was when she had retired, kind of took time off because she was going to go have a kid and all that, and she went and saw oh. And after she saw it, she basically said to Renee, when I come back, I'd like to do something like that. And Renee being Rene and her husband and Rene Bian really the brilliant guy that he is, was um, you know, he he had that Elvis Colonel Parker mentality that it was a it was a belief

in him. Of of he loved the colonel. He really loved the colonel when he loved the way the whole Elvis sing in Vegas. So that was a big part of it for Renee. So instinctually he knew how to put it together. Okay, So you've been working with them before I had, Well, I hadn't been working with them before. I had been working with Lloyd Brow who worked for them, And Lloyd originally worked for Donald Kay Donald up in Montreal when I was working for Michael Cole. So that's

how we knew each other. I heard about the thing and thought it was a brilliant idea, but didn't have the money to do it. And at the time, what was happening at the time is that there was a man named Arthur Goldberg who was the president of Caesar's Palace, and Arthur and Renee we're going to do this steel themselves. Okay, there was no outside person. Arthur unfortunately passed away. When Arthur passed away, and the new president, I think it was a guy named Tom Who it was? Guy named

Tom Gallagher was the CEO of park Place Entertainment. They owned Caesar's at the time. Um. He said, look, we'll build the building, but we're not in the show business, you know, find somebody else to do the show. So that was our window. Okay. So how many years did you make the deal for originally? Uh? Two? How many didn't end up running? Uh? Sixteen, almost seventeen, and you had an exclusive on the building, right absolutely, which just ended, Yeah,

just ended. Well it will end July one. And you know some of these things you may or may not be able to want the answer, how can we decided not to renew the building? Well, wasn't that necessarily that we didn't decide? I think that one there was a miscommunication between our organization being involved in the arena at MGM UM and that had something to do with us operating the colisseum and that so um. But at the end of the day, you know, they picked their horse

after all these years. I don't know why exactly, but you know we're not happy about it. Okay. So the original deal she did how many dates a year? Well, the original deal was two hundred shows a year, which was unheard of, and it was for two years, and it was five shows a week, forty weeks a year. We were keeping two weeks for maintenance of the theater or the show, and then we wanted to go out

and find someone else to do the other ten weeks. Now, that other ten ultimately turned out to be Elton, correct, and he did all ten um initially. Yeah, I mean at the very beginning, it was only Selene and Elton, you know. Oh, I'm sorry. And then there was you know, a few weekends of Jerry Seinfeld. Okay, So the building was essentially open, like nights a year. Not only that, we would program Asian shows for New Year's Eve. Uh, I'm sorry for Christmas Eve Christmas Day a different type

of holiday for them. So I mean we tried to book that building as much as we could. But yes, that building was full all the time. Not to what degree was your company at risk? M Well, we're at risk for all of Well initially, I mean you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars um one. Nobody thought it would work. So you told me the famous story of Martyr looking, why do you tell the audience? Oh? Man, Marty,

it was great, Barty. I think it was at the Grammys about a year after we had opened, and Marty walked up to me and he said, you know, Magdalen, only two people in this business I ever thought this thing would work. You and I still haven't met the other one. And of course Marty is the longtime manager of Barbara Streisan. But when you went into Vegas, no other rock pop stars were there right. No, I mean at the time, it was you know, it was Circus l A and Siegfried and Roy. That was it. And

to what degree did the tickets sell? You know, it was it was a roller coaster at the beginning. Okay. Uh, the initial sales were great just because of such a tremendous fan base and and I swear Canada could have carried you know, the first one shows um, but it took a while. We kept saying to ourselves, this is not as sprint as the marathon. That was our That's always been our line. These aren't sprints. These are marathons. It's got to build over time, you know, don't try

to do everything at once. Spread it out a little bit and it seems to work. So did business stay steady all the way through the run? No? Uh, we all everything dropped in two thousand and eight with the economic crash. Yeah, that went kind of across the board. Her popularity. No. The The amazing thing is it's stronger today than it ever was. Now. Yes, we're doing the end of the tour or end of the run in Las Vegas, but you know, we just began pre sales

this morning on her tour and they were massive. We were rolling into multiple arenas in many cities this morning just on you know, the American Express and the team Selene pre sale. So people have always underestimated this lady. And then how about the other acts that went in there, like Elton? How did they do? Elton was? He was a dream? I mean Elton was you know again, you're looking at somebody that was only doing at that time forty shows a year versus slid to two hundred shows

a year. So Elton was virtually sold out the entire time. And um, and he kept with the theme of of let's create a show. Okay, let's do something. See what's happened today has kind of changed it, and it's kind of to me, it's a little bit depressing because one of my lines to artists was always, look, remember all that stuff you wanted to do but you couldn't take on the road. It was too big to travel with.

This is the place you can do at all. And you know, and we wanted to make it a show that you could only see here and the only place you can see that artist become a bit bastardized to a degree where people are just driving through with their tour in shows and nothing special about it. So to what degree is Vegas a factor in your business? Now? Wow? I think it's become a big factor in everybody's business. The number of artists today that want to do residencies,

let alone the ones that exist. Think about there's probably five for everyone that has one, there's five more that want one. You know what I mean. Everybody's looking for quote the residency I, and it is maybe we're maybe there's no MORATORI and maybe we just do residencies and festivals and that's it. Well, certainly we probably have a lot fewer drug overdoses if the fans came to see

the bands. This is true, Okay. Um, anything that hasn't worked in Vegas, whether it be yours or competitors, it's tricky. I've always found that the Broadway stuff, it's really tricky. It's almost like the stuff that Clive Barnes trashes in New York should be in Vegas and it will do great. I remember years ago, uh, Jimmy Dean Atlanta jujor Jimmy a good friend about it week. He took me to Will Rogers Follies at the Palace Theater and Broadway, right,

and and the show just got panned. And I'm sitting there going, it's a great show. I'm like all American guy going, I love this show. You know, the fact is, if that show had been in Las Vegas instead of on Broadway, probably would have been a hit. So the Mama MIA's the Jersey Boys, you know, that type of stuff is good. I don't think people go to go to Las Vegas. He's Phantom of the Operas, per Se or or Cats or you know. I think it's a little more. It's got to be more of a show

and more musical. So generally speaking, what does the promoter do m in Las Vegas? In general, we take risks, we put up the we put up the risk capital. We believe that we could sell enough tickets to pay the bills, pay the band, and there's something left over. It's no more complicated than that. Well, you know, I know a guy works for Black Rock and New York big investment firm, and he said he hadn't gone to bed without being at risk for decades. So do you

ever worry? Like you ever, you know, lie awake at nights, say, holy funk, this better work? Oh, I mean, look, you know what's the worst thing about getting tour is get the tour. I mean it's like talk about buyer's remorse. Okay, you get you know, you get into this competition, especially today with the dumpers that are thrown out there today. You know, it's like it's almost like monopoly. I mean, it is like monopoly money, you know. And and yeah, I mean one thing about Gongore and I We've always

always that's your partner, that's my partner. We've always always we were taught at the beginning. You act like, you know, you're you're risking your own house here your mortgage, which by the way, we both did for a while. You know. So once you know that feeling of what it's like to really risk your own money and go, you know, wait a minute, I'm gonna lose everything, and so go ask mom and dad from my room back and get a job at McDonald's. That's what a promoter is. Okay.

So let's assume you have something that's not an instant sellout. How do you move the tickets? How do you make your money back? Mm hmm, Well, it depends on what what you're involved in. Okay, we are I like to think that we have a long term artists perspective, okay. And this goes back kinder to our upbringing, which was way back to the Jerry Wine Troub concerts West Management three Days, where you had guys like Tom Hewlett and Terry Bassett, Jerry Wine Trout amazing mentors, but they managed

the artist and we toured the art. Yes, And so there were times I remember John Denver tours where you know, he had a hit record, he sell every ticket. The house didn't have a hit record, He sold half the ticket. And I did one tour where all I did was go out in front and quote paper of the house. Uh, because John never played in front of an empty house. So I've always believed that if you make the right decisions for the artists, for the long term of the artists,

if you do that, the money is going to follow. Okay. Now, there's many ways to get out of it quickly, Okay, I mean, and that's unfortunately probably of our business. A zillion ways to get out of them. Give me a couple. Well, the secondary market on ticketing, people have been using that they've been you know, ticket rebates. It goes all the way back to you know, had n caterie bill for five hundred bucks. Okay. Uh, you know what happens with losers.

It creates a system of insights of people, you know, making a little money here on the side, making a little money here on the side. You know, Fred Rosen started making a nickel right, right, So it was five sets of ticket back then. Okay, So it's uh. The way people now protect themselves is by other sources of revenue that they tried to to me hide from the artist, or hide from the business equation or you know, no,

and they've got a lot of valid arguments. I meant, if a guy invest money in a venue, you should be able to get his money back right and make a profit on his real estate investment. Okay. Now, generally speaking, on these really big tours, your competition is Live Nation. What it does it? What do you find someone all to an act makes their decision on in terms of who to go with, Well, make it on basically two things, right, who's going to do the right job and how much

they're paying me. The unfortunate thing is how much they're paying me. It most of the time, you know, is the deciding factor as opposed to who's going to do the right job. Okay, let's go back to the beginning for my audience. So you grew up where as an army brap but kind of beaute Montana and then the Northwest, Okay, in Washington. Okay, you know we're sitting here in Hollywood.

Those places seem like backwaters relative to hollydood God, and they're very attractive, by the way, and it's where I'd like to be. No, I mean they are, but but part of that was we learned how to do everything back then. I mean I was running by high school dance committee. Oh really, So you got into it that, Yeah, yeah,

I did. I put my first concert on my junior year in high school don Zaga Prep and spokead and I saw this magazine in Father Gobel he was the head of our He watched over our dance committee and we did all city mixers in Spokane. And I'm in Gobs office one day, that's what we called him. And

he had this magazine and they're called Performance Magazine. And I start flipping through it and I go, hey, Gobs, this has all the big bands and look it says where they're going, and it's got a phone number there, it says b A. And he said that means booking age and John and I went, well, I had this band. I just got their first record, you know. And the look they're up there playing in Seattle. Let's call the number. What was the Okay? Sold out two shows of the

high school Jim Days and we made fifteen hundred bucks. Okay, But let's go back to the begetting. Did you call the agent? Yes, and you said what happened? I? I mean I just I called him and I said, hi, uh, I run a dance committee at a high school. It's okay, And and I see your band is in Seattle and you know what are they doing on Saturday night? And he took you seriously? Yeah, well I had I told him that father Gobel was with me, so I had my priest with me. It was pretty good, okay. And

do you think you got ripped off? No, it was actually we paid them. We made money, So it wasn't about that. Back then. Remember it was all flats. You know, they showed up. You had to have you know, a p A system and some lights and uh you know, you had addressing room. And it wasn't even before riders, you know. So it was fun that when I went to college. Did you do any more shows in high school? Uh? Because after that I went off down to Washington State, um and uh and they know they had more of

the college concert committees there all right. And in the mid seventies there was a lot of guys, a lot of guys that are around today came from that program. But um, they didn't have a coffeehouse things. So I started one. I started a radio station, I started a festival. I mean that's what. That's a lot of stuff. Yeah, that kazoo is now the number one station of Pullman, Washington. And my roommate and I started that thing. It was what do you call it? Ten want class D Remember

those I remember you could hear like three miles away. Yeah, exactly, not even that you know, but um, the they have when where I went to college, but it was there before I got out there. So you're basically an entrepreneurial guy, you know at Hart of course that's what this is about. Okay, how many kids in your family? Five? And what do the other four do? Uh? Well, they're all girls too old, too older and too younger ones of c p A. There are three of them are married to guys from Montana.

So that's the good thing is we've got we've kept the Montana thing alive. But they're they're all over the country, and uh, they're all doing great. I mean they have the same personality as you. Like. You know, I'm gonna make it work for myself. Um, i'd say half at half. There's two sisters that are definitely that way. They're there two that well, there's one that's completely happy living in Dila, Montana, never wants to leave. That is where. It's about sixty

miles south of Butte. And what's there, um nothing Uh, Canyon, Ferry Reservoir, people river, the Big Hole River, Um, the salmon fly hatch if you're fly fishermen, those are all important things. So do you How long do you go to Washington State? I went three years? Yeah, I quit in my senior year. And why did you quit? I got hired by Concerts West, I thought I did. Okay,

we'll tell that story. Well, Um, there was a guy that, believe it or not, worked for Irving Dennis something anyway, artists touring so something I forget what it was called, but it was one of Irving's agencies and Irving off of course and Irving at the time, Uh, managed Tim Wiseberg, remember the of course and the duel and that. Yeah, okay, So what year were in nineteen seventy seven? All right?

So I was the block booking coordinator in the Northwest for the college campuses, and Tim Wiseberg just really caught on up there, and in fact I was doing to cut down and read it with Tim Weinsberg. So in five six thousand seats in Poland Washington, Tim Weinsberg still alive. Yeah, he's a great guy. I haven't thought of him so long. Yeah, you know, he's really good. Was it Dan Fogelbergelberg Wisberg? Different mothers, twin SuDS, different mothers or something like that?

That was another There was a part of the plan with what was no the Great Song? Yeah, I think it was part of the plan. Uh yeah, it was. Okay, So you're booking a book at Tim Weisberg and this guy Deists were just a little bit slower. You're where You're still at Washington State. Yeah, and you're booking for other places too. Yeah. How did that? Well? I got an office in the student union building and my roommate and I out, I guess I gotta back up a

little bit. We first figured out that all these dorms and fraternities and sororities all had to book two or three bands a year for their little you know, uh proms or whatever they call them, their their little balls, right, So we started a little thing called the Student Booking Service.

And what we did is we got one agent up and spoke in Washington, and we gave him an exclusive and we signed up all the dorms and the fraternities and sororities, and so the agents would all split their commissions with us, and we would book and we because we would tell the every year as a new social director fraternity and we're like, hey, guys, we don't want you to get ripped off. We know what the band's cost.

We'll get you good deals and all of that. So, you know, fast forward to their we started, you know, block booking, and we called it so I'd get the guy in Bellingham, Washington to buy a show. Guy it you know huge its sound to buy a show, and the guy at Idaho State to buy a show, and the guy in Missoula to buy a show that was clip Mitchell, by the way, the way you were He was the guy in Mizzoula, and uh yeah, we just put all these together and then this guy called one day,

this agent he worked for Irving. I remember that. He said, you know, you need to work for Concerts West. And Concerts West brought all their shows into Pullman because we had a pack eight thousand seat arena, and up in Seattle they had a seven thousand seat civic auditorium. So the big shows would come down and play Pullland and they had to go through the students. How far as Pullman from Seattle sixty miles south? Not from Seattle, Seattle three miles. It's on the Idaho's close to boise O.

It's close to Spokane. Uh, court a Lane. You know, if you go down from Spoke candad cord a Lane sixty miles you have Pullman in Moscow wide. Okay, yeah, at Washington State University and the university about it? Okay, where were we a lost tracks? Okay, so you're block booking, you get tracked on by this guy says you should work at Conscience West. Yeah, so I got an interview.

Uh and in fact, this is the first time I'd ever been on an airplane, and I go up to Spokene and a guy said, and me, remember when you got a prepaid ticket? Yeah? Right. I sat all day long and Spokene Little Airport waiting for my prepaid ticket to go through. Okay, I'm a kid in college, right, and I'm thinking, and my buddy's gonna pick me up and when I get there and drive me to this interview. And I go and have an interview with this guy named Tom Hewlett. And this is weird. Is in Seattle.

So I flew over to Seattle, right and uh Cascade Airline, yeah, with this Cascade alleghany almost and it was like I go over there and I get I had this interview. I remember I wore I think I looked like the guy at Midnight Cowboy because I had on like a you know, like a tan like almost crest velvet pants vest right actually vest jacket, uh boots and and you

know the collar out right. And I meet this guy Tom Hellett, and he's like, oh, yeah, I got all these tours going on, and I got this air Clapton tour. I I think I could use you on that, right, That's what he says. So I leave, I go back to school. I quit college I load everything in my car and I drive out to Seattle and uh move in and uh living on the floor by I had four buddies. They had a two bed of apartment, so

I was a fifth guy. So I slept on the floor out in the you know, the couch around the living room. I've done that, yeah, I mean that's how it's art. And I would go every day and show up at this office. Right, So Conscience West had an office. Yeah, it was in Bellevue, Washington, and you had Paul Gonda. Weare, um, Tom Hewlett, Bassett, Terry Bassett. I mean it's a really great Dan Fiala, um uh, Bill Leopold, I mean some great names. We're all out of that office. They were

all out of the Bellevue office, all those guys. And then Terry went down and started the Dallas office. Sims Scott hired, he went out, he started the Atlanta office. And but no, I started showing up. But I didn't have a job. I mean I would sit there and I could tell Hewlett after a few days to be walking in and whisper to people, go who is that kid? Right?

And I just kept doing things and walking around and asking people if they anything to do until I got like became whatever I was there, and I finally after about two three weeks, got the courage to walk into Bill mackenzie asked if I could get paid? And what are he's saying? He said, yeah, no, he was good by that, and I started two a week. That's what

it was, um. And when you're on the road, you had twenty dollars a pretty and you Concerts West had a cool thing back then called show pay and it was like a sixty bucks show if you're on the road, but it was like the tour director's decision how to split the sixty bucks. So if you're like the guy out with Gong, were like one of the ones I started with second right, you know, he'd split it with you, no offense, Sims. But if you're out with Sims, you've

got ten dollars, you know. And so what happened is you generated a brotherhood with these guys. But what was so cool about Concerts West is we were never really local promoters. You know, we didn't do We weren't in that club theater business, and every local promoter was. We were like a arena up touring company, you know, and it was just so cool to be back there and see that at that time. Now, that was all Jerry Weintraub, right, was Wintroub. It was Bassett, It was Irving and his

relationship with Bassett. It was Bill McKenzie and and the relationships were deep, you know, they were Like the first thing I worked on was Swan Song. That's what I was assigned to. So and that was Peter Grant and Clive Coulson and so you worked on Bad Company, but if David went out, you had to work on David still. And like Paul and I were, we were putting the Zeppelin tour on sale when Bottom died. After that, I had to do the firm, which was you know, Jimmy

and Paul Rogers. But I never got to do led Zeppelin. Okay, how much of the time are you in the office and how much of the time are you on the road. Back then you were on the road. I don't know, nine months sometimes, I mean you could be on the road for fourteenth straight months. We'll break for Christmas or something in that. And back then we did five shows a weeks. It shows a week traveled and the bus has slept sixteen guys today they sleep six at all different.

It was different time. And were you ever making any money or just in for the experience at that point? Oh? No, you're for the experience. I mean, look, the first tour, first big tour idea was with Gaga were the nineteen seventy eight Bad Company Desolation Angels, and that was multiple arenas. It was fact then as big as you got in the rock and roll. And I remember I'd ever been in Las Vegas, played the Aladdin in Las Vegas, and one night I lost everything I made on the tour.

And are you still a gambler? No? No, I just like it was. You know, it was just stupid, you know, but but you didn't care. I mean it may sounds really weird. This is again all give part of this as a Gaga wear line. Okay, we don't think about the money, we really don't. We think about what's the right thing to do, and if you do the right things, the money will follow if you start and this is where God, if you start thinking about the money, you're

going to compromise the decision making. So maybe that's why, you know, we just kind of live in our own world the way Paul and I do but it's pretty simple to us. No, that's a cool project. Here's how you could do it, here's how you could make it work, and let's go do it or not do it. Okay, So you work for Concerts West for how long thirteen years? It was? There were variations. It was called you know,

it ended up being called Wine Traub Entertainment Group. But really from seventy eight to nine I was at concerts and then what happened. Then Michael Cole hired me to go up and I was the director of touring for CPI. This was right after right at the end of the steel wheel wheel right, and so I went up there and they kind of figured, I mean Michael told me and Arthur told me. They just said, look, you know,

we're going to be at the story business. We figured we needed to hire a Concerts West guy because they do. They knew we We've grown up in that, in that environment. So I started there. My first day was July one. It was very funny though. I had this marketing kid named Jeff Shabon that was going to be working for me, and I knew him from before I think it worked

for John Stall. And they put me in like one of those old court apartments and he and his little marketing buddy from Lobats comes over to pick me up, a little marketing buddy, little marketing buddy, Michael Repeat, and they take me out on a boat on Lake Washington Head where there's this DJ who Joey Scolari was. Yeah, it was like you know, and by the way, what

a great time. I mean I loved every minute up there and probably would have stayed if they you know, I hadn't moved down to Hamas or Perview to wherever. I mean, that was really the factor for me. So how many years were you there? Almost seven? Okay, six seven seven? And what was your responsibility there? Well, I was kind of I was the operations director of those

tours citizens you know, we routed those tours. I did all the building, deal did all the tickety tickety was very different then than it is today with hard tickets. Back then, um so really routed, did the deals and of course the they did the stones. Who else were you doing it that we were doing? We did Pink Floyd's last tour, Vision Bell did Paul Simon. It was that was a great tour. What of the greatest bands, diversity of My Life. Uh, Stones of or Its Foodoo

Lounge Urban Jungle Tours. Uh. David Bowie Uh did Bowie Bowie Nail's Tour. That was an experience. That was a tough tour. Bowie Morrissey with Morrissey walked off the tour halfway through it. Uh, and they were look and it was right at the beginning of the YouTube relationship. But I left a very very beginning. Uh. Well, they sold the company and they went to Bahamas for tax reasons.

What happened to you? I got married someone you met Toronto? No, no, somebody? Well, actually I met her while I lived in Toronto, but she was a Uh. She was directed a show for Disney that we were touring, and it was called Disney Symphonic Fantasy. Uh. One of the mean an amazing show. But we were allowed to play arenas because of the Felt contract. Really yeah, the Feld contract prohibited Disney from

producing a competitive touring attraction, right whatever. So we tried to see if we can put this in amphitheaters and that big mistake and the reason we actually did it, I remember because you know, Michael was doing a lot of you know, bus and truck Broadway stuff. Very very successful up through Canada and even into the States do cats and all that kind of stuff. So we wanted to get the bus and truck rights for you know,

Beauty and the Beast. That was the first Disney Broadway thing they were doing, and Disney was kind of inferring that, well, if you do this tour for us, said you'll be in line to do the bus and truck. Of course, we did the tour, lost money, and they decided to do the bus and truck in house. But I got a wife out of it. Uh. We lost a million dollars on the tour, so worth it, but it wasn't your million a Yeah, okay, so they move away. You're

now getting married. What's your next step? Well, while I was over in um that was the only this is the only time you've been married. Yeah, twenty five years coming up this September. Pretty rare in this absolutely, I know, it's pretty pretty amazing. Well we got married later, so and on the road, everybody got their old fantasy exactly

exactly thought about him. Um. So, Brian Becker started calling me while I was over in London with Bowie and he started going, hey, we want to get into touring business. Wherever you want to live, if you want to live in This is when he's running Live Nation is when you know, this is when he's running Pace Pace concerts. And then you know, he said, come on and we'll start this touring group. You and Louis are tight, so we came. I agreed to go work with them. Uh God,

Ironically at or it just happened. Shelley Dyan is like, oh God, there's nothing. I just love that. I meant anyway right it at the last minute, Shelly calls me and gets my wife and I had to fly down in San Francisco because they're like, why did you come and start GPS story. Now, ironically both of them got bought by the same time, so I guess it would ended up the same place. But um yeah. They flew us and wine and dined us and all of that

down at San Francisco, and very funny. The last night there, my wife got we were staying at the CASTLEMA drone out in Sasolito. Last night. We're gonna fly back to Toronto and go across streets some Italian seafood place. My wife has seafood us and by two o'clock in the morning. We're in Barren County General the worst food poison. I'd see him my life. It was terrible. But that's not

why I picked Pace over GP. But uh so, anyway, I ended up doing the Pace Storian thing and Louis and I kind of got together on that and we started. I remember we started oz Fest, then we did the first Fleetwood mac Reunion tour, and Louis started this sig called the George Straight Country Music Festival. And honestly, that's that's what kicked it off for him. That's what really got him to be in country. Louis. You know, good

for that. We all knew Louis the rock promote Texas right and um, and we're I mean, Louis and I were having a great time because you know, I was like, I'm more the business structure operator kind of guy, and I mean he is greatest salesman over see it. He really is. I mean he's like, you can't beat Louis and the two of us would go in a room. I mean, I didn't think we could get beat. I really didn't. But then the sellarman thing comes along at s f X buy his Pace and Pace story wasn't

even two years old. And to be honestly, with the Bubber, I really hated seeing that happened, you know, And maybe that's maybe I had it like in my head ahead of time that I was going to get out of there anyway because of the consolidation and all of that, and I just hate that. And but I didn't. I didn't, you know, I didn't get along with the guy that

question about that. I mean that was everybody knew that, and that's what I knew, you know, I got to get out of here now, and well everybody was running into this place. It's really weird because, yeah, I'm going, okay, I'm gonna quitting my job. My wife and I are adopting a baby from Romania, and I'm buying a house. I've been living at Gaga Ware's house, right and all of this at the same time, You're making all these commitments with no incoming nothing. Yeah, it was all I

used to call it outcome. Then we're looking for income right now, it's all going out. Um. But you know, thank God for Paul, you know, like my like my big brother, and you know, he came to me and said, come on, let's go be the other guys. No, uh, they're just we could just go out. We thought of it. We'll just go out there and maybe we'd be able to get one or two tours, you know, just say, look, we're the personal you know, the quality over quantity, hands on all the time, dona dada ah. The way we

do Tori, it has never changed. We're doing Tori today the way we did it back to the concerts West, which is everything goes to the pool. It was a real easy line back there, which was I'd rather make my back then it was I'd rather make my of it a hundred times and steal all of it once. And that was always our thing, so we always put everything out on the table with the artists. It was always about the right decisions for them. So Paul and I thought, well, there was that's missing, you know, and

we should be able to go out. And I think it more personally wanted to do that because of our lifestyles. That makes sense. It's like, I mean, didn't we get into the music business because we didn't want to wear a suit, I didn't want to cut our hair, I didn't want to work five. I mean, now, why is everybody pushing for that. Why is that, like you couldn't agree more even if this late date, I know it's

and it's there. I mean, you know, but it's like so, but that's really what's see two be That's what's cool about it is that as things consolidate, it also means things will fracture. And I'm always a guy. I've always be one of the fractures. I think, whatever, but and I think it's because one guy. But we're dealing with art, Okay, our job. What does the promoter do? We marry art with commerce in the live business, that's it. I don't records.

We just do live. We sell tickets, and we know how to do that right and how to control your expense is and how to do it your way. Okay, but I'm not getting off topic here. You know how you're talking about Pace Consulting, SFX and how you decide to go independent with Gongaware. It was we just felt like something was missing, okay, and we felt like what was bussy was really exactly what what we do, which is, you know, does anybody care about the artists in this

equation in the life side. And I'm not trying to be idealistic or anything. Or I'm just trying to say that it's a perspective that you could take if you take them, because we learned that from Gerry Wantrump. Okay, you know, if I didn't do what was right for his artist, they got fired, right. Okay, that's that's simple. So I look at it that way today. If I don't do what's right for Seline, she should fire me. If I don't do what's right for the Rolling Stone

Paul and I Doe, they should fire us. Okay. I want to make sure what we're doing is the right job up. So that's what we felt like was missing, and we felt like that's what we enjoy doing. Okay, Yeah, I was talking to about this earlier today. What we really love doing is is doing what we love doing, and what we love doing is fighting a project and going out there and making sure we're doing it better than anybody else's trying to think through everything we could

possibly think of. Every artist is different. How could how can you do the how do you take this tour model for this other artist apply to that artist? I mean, you can't look at it that way. You gotta look and say, Okay, this artist and they want to do live, right, let's just start there and then let's work it backwards from there. Um. When on our tours, the best type of touring deal is the deal that the guarantee is the last thing you get to, you know, because what

it means is everybody's worked together. Okay, should be playing these kind of places? What should the ticket prices should be? How much we're gonna spend on production that? Who? What are we trying to achieve here? What's it going? Do you want to bundle the record? You not want to all these different things? Okay? What what is right for you? And then you sit down and go, okay, I'll bet on then I'm going to do it right. But it's like, go through the numbers, and here's what doing it right does,

and I'll give it to you that. Okay. So what was the first tour you've got with Gone? I think it was it was but Shelly is West Coast for one, And and you know why we got it, everybody was we dynamically priced the first fifty runs let's go, and that generated a half a million dollars bore and our numbers were that much bigger. Whose money were you using? That? One? Was ours? Ok that one was like, uh, but we

found uh uh. Then we did Beriah and the Dixie Chicks, where our next two tours I might have been Dixie Chicks, said Mariah, one way or the other. Um. And for that we had found a guy up in outside of Portland, Oregon, Alan James Bless his soul passed away. Um kind of. He was from Wilbur, Washington, which, believe it or not,

that's a summer camp that I worked at high school. Okay, and nobody would know anyway, think about it was on it you took a y across an Indian reservation to get okay, so um, and he did like low budget films, and Paul and I explained our whole thing to him and Darren Libanatti, the kid at the time was that Thomas and Mac and he called us and said, hey, you should beat this guy. He's doing boxing promoting and

he's doing some low budget films. And Paul and I went in and our you know, our whole thing is very we're very transparent. So our deal with investors was always looked the money gets half right and the work gets the other hand. Okay, And that's really how we conducted our business. Paul and I were responsible for all the people that work for us, So Paul and I didn't Paul and I with his funny we put ourselves.

We had two fifty dollar weeks salaries for our first year, just so we'd have insurance and stuff like that, because anything we may basically gave to the employees. And then you ultimately sold that company to a G. Yeah, and and a godfather of that to us was irving, of course, and he saw it. Uh. Ironically, Paul and I were actually beating with SMG because part of our whole pitch. Remember, Paul, we started a little company called Arena Network back and it was part of uh a fact his fuddy story.

Back then, we couldn't afford to fly, so we drove back and forth to Vegas for meeting. It's right, so we're driving. I went to I got the name he said for this RITA thing. He said what I said as Rita's for excellence. And I would have been right. At the same time, it would have been great explain what Arena Network is. Rita Network and it still exist. No,

we sold it back to the members. I don't know a number of your ago now, but it was it basically came from the concept that the arena managers retired to waken up and seeing that an act was seen in the Sunday paper that an act was playing at an amphitheater down the street and they never even got a phone call because their local promoter in the marketplace on the amphitheat So this was created to really protect

the arenas. Concerts. West, I guess was always an arena company just because you know, the first ones who had amphitheaters were the needer Landers and there weren't that many of them, Okay, so uh we felt that those guys needed a you know, a voice. And at the same time there were a group it was Brad Mayne, it was Tim Ryan h Kevin tuwig Hat Spokane, Darren Libanoni. That's how we got tied with Darren um I'm sure

I'm forgetting somebody Jim from San Jose. They were like the core guys and they were like, look, our owners are our owners are you know? They're not happy with this situation? What's going on with these amphitheaters. Okay, what people forgetting our business is that because you've been around, you've seen a lot. Okay, you and I grew up with civic and university facilities. Okay, it was Spokane Civic Center,

was University of Tennessee Arena, whatever. It was. Okay that the Amphitheaters came along as a cheap outdoor venue, you know, kind of the Dead Landers. And then they were owned by promoters, owned by promoters, right, But then the arenas went private, which the Palace gunned. Those were like the first And when the owners of the NBA and the NHL team said hell, I'm gonna go build my own places, that was another paradigm shift, okay, and that's what we

kind of exist there today. Um, you know, the amphitheaters. Let's put it this way. I don't think the amphitheaters are as popular today as they were. They're not. I think a repeenum would agree with you owns most of them now. Hollywood Ball it's not anything. I know, it's great, you know. I mean I wouldn't call that at the Amphitheater,

No I would. But because there was stuff that would sell at Hollywood Bowl before they turned tore down the Revine meadows that wouldn't that would lose money at Refinement correct, correct? You know? Well, I mean again they started back then there mixes. So at a certain point, I guess we all called it, ah, the Jimmy Buffett deals. We're paying a hundred and five percent of growth or whatever it us. Right, that was another that was the shift. Okay, So I

don't know. Okay, so you're sold to a G. So what is the mission for Concerts West at this point? It's really funny the well, the bishop for Concerts West today is very different than the biship for a E G presents all of that because Paul and I we we were the original block of it. UM. We had touring and kind of golden Voice in our minds um, but we did have regional offices in our plan. And then if I go back to the original business plan that Irving Paul and I presented to Phil and his

guys in Las Vegas, it had all that in it. Okay, but we said we wanted to start with the touring. UH actually wanted to buy a Golden Voice because of their relationship with developing artists. Okay, Coachella was not Coachella at that time. Because Paul Goga and I, you know, we're helping back Paul t Um after his first year. The first year they did it, they lost, they lost everything, okay, and then and Paul came. Then there wasn't the one

the next year. And then Paul Ty came to our office and asked Goga and I if we take a ride out to the desert with him, and God, wear was like he got it immediately. He was like, hey, it takes three years to get these things to happen. So we backed them. Irving was part of that. UM lost money. But then when we sold the company, they're

going like, what's this Coachella thing? You're throwing your ship at the deal here and you know, um, but our vision back then was always to be equality over quantity, guy, and I hope that is what it is today. In fact, I I forever telling people that were you know, in our group and all of that, and when they get into this competition thing, and I'm always like, don't compete. It's just a waste of your energy. Be different, be yourself,

be you know you've got something to offer. You know, in our business, there's always horses for courses, you know what I mean. And when you're when when you have to match people up with personalities and not just the artists, but also the other personalities around them. A lot of times that are handling it. Sometimes it's simple as just having the right person, you know. So to Paul and I, here,

I'll tell you what this is. Here's our mission statement. Okay, this will say what we want Concerts West to be. It's exactly this. I don't want to buy companies. We want to hire good people. We want to empower them. Empowerment means that if you give somebody responsibility, you give them authority, you give them the resources that they need, whether it's the money, back office support, et cetera. And the most important thing to get the funk out of

their way. Okay, and it's so hard for people to do. Everybody wants to listen. I know it's listen. I watched Jim Allison and John Nelson first Legal the job that they're doing on Selindi on right now, and there they're the ones doing the job. Okay, so you're working on Selene now, you're working on the Stones. We've got Asia's you know, we've got Edgar and running all over Asia right now. Uh uh. Seline is finish it at the

at the policy and there's only sixteen shows left. That's pretty amazing, and there's some other tours were working on. I mean right now, my focus right now with Selene's tour and um, because it's we're an on sale week okay, so you're still an arena company looking for complete tours, correct, Okay? And a globally it doesn't happen us. We're stadiums too. I think we have a bunch of experience stadiums worldwide. Is anybody if not more? Okay, tell the story of

how he got the stones? Oh god, it's better Paul telling the story. Uh he was the one that sat on Joyce's doorstep and that's their attorney manager. Correct And uh well at the time they had Dainty in Australia. Yeah, and I you know, I don't know. I can't really say what happened why that fell apart. I think they have to do with my But you know that's look, I mean, that's why above all you got you love

Phil Answers. Okay, I mean, if you really look at it, why are we able to get the rolling Stones because we have Phil Answers, somebody who's willing to write to check and who gets it and his guys get it. Okay. I mean when you really look at it. I mean dand becker By, Ted Vick Ray, Todd Golts, the Jay Barciato, Ted Tanner, the guys right there around Phil. They're really good guys. And the interesting thing is we say this internally that, but every single deal that I've brought to Phil,

he has said yes, wow. And and that includes telling this guy about a thing called Seline on the show in Las Vegas and heard her husband want to do and everybody in the world thinks it ain't gonna work. And he says, well, how much are we risking here? And I said, rofully, a hundred and fifty billion dollars that ballpark is someone and he and he just looked at me and said, you know, John, I think we

should do it. Okay. I mean, there aren't that many guys out there like I mean, that is like and to have, honestly, you know, I mean, it fills a much more conservative regular guy than the rest of us. Okay, to have the patience to put up with all of our crap. I mean that alone. You know, he's good. But I think Phil loves what's been created, like I

think of it. I tell people this, it's like a playground. Okay, if you look around a e g. There's so many cool things to play with, and if you come up with something cool and it makes sense, Phil will say, let's go do it. The Bangkok arita that they're all working on like Strasbourg in Denver or there in the Mission ballroom, etcetera. But going back to the stones, Okay, you know, talking generally and act like that, how do they let you make money? You're putting up all this money.

They have a legend of take of getting these guarantees. Do you say, hey, you know, uh, we gotta make our expert sentage or how does it work? Uh? We put up in big guarantees. But I mean it's Look, they're very fair people. They understand. Look, they know this business. Well is anybody Okay, I give you a brother. Have no one been doing it and doing it at that level for as long as they've been doing it. And

they have nothing but amazing people behind them. Choice or manager Tim Woolley who produced is all of the tours, all the financial supporting them, everything to do with that Opie, their production at Patrick Woodruff and then all of the people on our side, uh that are out there working these things. Um, what's so cool about the Rolling Stones is that every time they go out to another tour, do you look around the organization? Maybe one person changed.

I mean, it's like everybody's still there. Everybody wants to be there. It's as professional as you can be at all. So but there they're they're fair guys. You know, they get it, you know, and and Enjoyce gets it, and you know, I think, yeah, they they allow us to make money. They want us to make money, okay, but they know that our first priority is, you know, to do the tour the way they want their tour done. Okay.

So famously, although you mentioned you did it earlier in your career when the Stones came back after their fifty you've been doing dynamic pricing. So explain the motivation and how that ultimately works. Easy motivation. Um, we had an open ticket, which I define as as soon as you sold it to the consumer, they were free to do whatever they wish with it. And uh, we were watching. We would sell a ticket for a hundred dollars and

watch it get resold for five. It went, that's wrong, okay, Uh, you can't stop supplying to that, okay, So we said, wait, a minute, that money belongs to the artist. But he doesn't, you know, And again I always say the artists, because what we make is based upon what the artist makes. The artist makes more I make, So I look at it, I go, wait a minute, that money belongs to the artist. So it has been a concern. I know everybody is

aware of it now. As you know, this has been a concerted effort of ours now for over a decade, okay, that we have been figuring out how to get that money that used to exist in what we call the secondary market. How do we get that back over onto at least the side of the fence of the industry be it goes to the artist. But even you guys are your building to get it back on your side of the fence. Don't have these outside guys they have they have no right to be in our business to

the degree that they are today. Um. And and it's our own fault because we look at but now the stones legendarily starting decades ago, UH would charge with the the real price of the ticket, okay, the secondary market price. Do you think it call market value? Market value? Absolutely? Uh? Do you think of the who's other acts? Developing acts or acts with different issues of credibility to charge less or should everybody charge what the market will bear? No, No,

I think it's a gad go back to the individual artist. Okay. Um, for the Rolling Stones, what they don't have is time. Okay, they're only gonna do X number of shows. If you remember when Paul and I did Princess Musicology tour, Okay, we had no scalping problem at all. We had no secondary ticket problem at all. Why because we kept at each shows so we were able to keep our price down, and we were at each show after show after show.

And even Prince said back then, he said, look, if we've sold four Philadelphias and we think we can only sell a half of another one, we're already set up. Let's do the show. We'll figure out a way to take care of underprivileged kids and stuff like that with the rating tickets. So we never had the twenty one nights and London we never had a It was the theory behind the fifty Nights of Michael and Michael Jackson.

That's the way you keep your ticket price down, and it is important for artists to keep your ticket price down. Younger artists should keep it down, but they have to play more. Okay, an older artist who can't tour as much, who's going to have less frequency on the road, has got number one a bigger you know, there's going to be more demand because there's less supply. And then if you get to let's call it, the artists have been

around for four or five decades. Their generation is also at the time of their lives where they have money. I got a great analogy for that. I heard this when I was over in London a couple of weeks ago. You know, we always talk about how it's the boomer generation can afford all these hype prices. Somebody from the eighties came up to me and said, hey, you know what, I don't mind paying two hundred and fifty dollars a ticket to go see Duran Duran for being my wife.

And I just started laughing at I loved it. It's great because that the only problem is that generation so smaller. Right, So going back to the stones, tell us how the dynamic pricing works? Well, um, oh yeah, how do I I don't know, you know, what's a henway. I mean, it's it's hard to explain. Let's just assume for the sake of numbers. You have an arena that's twenty people, the big arena, but let's just use that number and you go on sale, forget any pre sales. Whatever, you

go on sale. How many of those tickets would actually be on sale at the beginning or do you just put a certain number to figure out what the price would be. Two things you've heard, like Marcus talk about it, uh, which is slow ticketing. Right. Okay, you kind of got to decide up front what you want to do. Okay. You can't say, oh I want quick ticketing and it didn't work, and then later you said, oh I really wanted slow ticketing, That right could get sucked up. Okay.

So slow ticketing is something for where you don't mind taking the time to sell all of the tickets, but you're gonna be able to learn more and and the technology is all there today. You're gonna be able to learn more over a slower process and be able to

adjust your prices. So, like Ticketmaster has a program called price Master today, and if you use price Master after you're on sale, it will say, hey, see those two roads of tickets that you have a hundred seventy Well, if you drop them to a hundred and fifty, they'll all sell in three days, or they just do its algorithms. So they know that here's here's a good way. I

look at the ticketing world today. Okay, we just went through I don't know, maybe it was a couple of decades, but at least one decade figuring out the technology, right, Okay, so you have to go today, and you've got to go the technology exists today to do whatever you want to do. Okay. So it's not about technology, it's about

business rules. Okay. So that's going to be the challenge next. Okay, because there is transparency, we know that we could follow everything, so you can't hide anything anymore because a lot of people are like, I haven't explained now why they hid things a long time ago and why they hit them all. Um. Problem with lyon as you've got to remember them okay. Um.

So it's become a very transparent world. Okay. We can see what the supply and demand is today on anything, okay, and we have the technology to do it anyway we want to do it. Okay. So it's really good to put the onus back on the business rules. Should I allow one company to exclusively sell all of my tickets? Should I do it a bunch a bunch of companies? You know, if I have one company sell all my tickets,

maybe they'll give me more money. But I think we're I kind of think we're passing the big check from ticket Maaster. You know, well, well the ticket master a lot of times they have an exclusive with a building. That's so you don't have the option to use other ticketing companies. How do you think Coca Cola would have done if they could only sell a Ralph's stores? They would not have done well? And why have we been

doing that for all these years? Now? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying, say, do you believe the buildings themselves will not take that curate? I think it's either them or the artist. Okay, I think ultimately it's there. I mean I should guess I should be able to say it should be the promoter to since we're putting up the buddy. But remember we put up all the money and we're still at the very bottom of them

food here. Yeah, but either the venue control the tickets because they have a civic responsibility, or the artist controls their ticket They're fucking their tickets. Okay, it's like we go back to Pearl's head, we go back to ever we want. Okay, I mean Pearl jab never went in and asked a simple question of can we sell our tickets without service charges, to which at the time Terry Barnes would have said, sure, here's how much it cost.

Nobody wanted to talk about that, you know, so think of it as a leaky bucket, right, and the leaky bucket was really bad at the secondary market. Okay, Now we've started to learn how to close up our bucket, but we still need open distribution tools to not have open distribution for our product. Well, I know, if I'm talking to someone in your organization, they made a deal in Amazon sold some tickets for them, and they sold tickets.

You know that they couldn't reach through the traditional ways. Correct. That was that over in London and worked beautifully. Okay. I mean, well, we all know there's giant communities out there, online community, these other it's just communities, right, and so why shouldn't we be reaching out to those people? Okay? We want you know, you try to get your music out to everybody. You try to sell your records everywhere I used to. But why aren't we make making our

tickets available the airlines? Do I mean? Do you think American Airlines and United dislike Orbits? Of course they hate Orbits, but they liked that. But the only one that's independent is Southwest. Yeah, but everybody else I understand your point. No, my point, Okay, they have They're on Expedia, they're on Orbits, are on their own site. Because you never know where the customer might be. That happens to be all the time.

I tell people to the Southwest, I didn't know well because it wasn't on Orbits and it wasn't on Expedia. It's like a buddy A Biden told me the story about uh to Me and Costco and how to Me said they would never ever put their product in Costco. They had a two thousand and eight they had a bunch of orders they couldn't get rid of. Called Costco and said you might taken some of it, and Costco said, how much do you have? We'll take it all. Guess

who sells more to me than anybody else today? And I think to me just made a deal with Amazon, to one of those companies. Of course, otherwise you're putting yourself out of business. How about premium ticketing? Anything we haven't covered here well previously. Listen, here's what I think. Okay, it's because everybody gets really confused. So there's a couple of ways to look at this real simply, there's primary

and their secondary. Okay, primary to me means and I'll use an old analogy, but what prints out on the ticket is what they paid. In other words, I have never in my life. I have never scalped a ticket of my life. I've never sold a hundred ticket that says a hundred dollars on it to somebody for five dollars. I have sold five tickets and they say five. I have sold packages, and those packages might be fifteen hundred

dollars and include a five ticket, but they explain that. So, in other words, our responsibilities to keep things in the primary sale and keep things out of quote the secondary market. Now, secondary market always wanted to exist, you know, but I don't want them taking the lift as they have been for the last decade. I'm fine with them taking ta Then they're my orbits, got you, Okay, So how do

you decide to walk us through the process of premium ticketing. Um, premium ticketing is at a reserved house, preferred locations, preferred roads, live nations, doing it now where you can pay extra to get the aisle. I pist I did come up with that. Um, you know it's uh because we live in the sliced up world today. You can slice it up and you can take little I mean, I haven't seen it yet, but I was told that you could buy seats sitting at a cocktail table on the stage

at Lady Gaga's she does her jazz. And I'm like, okay, that's what premium ticketing is. Okay. So if you have a show, if we get the stones with the dynamic, how many you were in an arena? How many tickets do you use for premium ticketing? It varies, you know, obviously it's gonna be more your majors. It could be how much should it be? It's probably running about well for us. I'm trying to run as hive a percentage

of that as I can five inventory. I hope eventually we are in looking at our entire inventory in that way because we're capable of it. Okay, So um uh pets on the artists and the pets odd obviously the demand okay, how with the scarcity is going to be okay? And at what areas also could we diedabatically lift? Okay? In other words, we all know the front row of any balcony anywhere, it's usually a pretty cool seat, right, I mean like the front row the Dodgers, a front

row of the first balcony Dodgers cap. It's a great seat, right. Okay, So we're applying that now, a lot of that just because we can so. But premium or platinum as it's called on Ticketmasters is about the more special. It's like you've got great car, gold card, platom card and the black one, right, So it's the same thing. It's first class, it's business class. It's a one term sweep. It's a one better sweet with a balcony. Okay, But do the

perks matter? People just buying the tickets? Uh? I think it used to be, honestly, just the tickets of the location. Where does it sounds? I think everybody's really getting into the perks. Tell us some of the perks you've used. Oh god, I think the greatest perk was and continues to this day, that Shelley started with the Paul McCarty sound check package. I bought what myself get to sit and watch Paul McCarty to do a sound check for

an hour. He acts back right right, all right, right right right right, and that you get an amazing seat. I bought two. I mean, you know, I mean it's a great experience. Okay, So um, I think kids today are bored to that experienced stuff. We are we think of experiences because we're old parts. We think of these experiences like like paying for first class. Okay, capture experiences, but capture it so everybody could capture it. That's where you make the money. Now switching gears again, we have

an endless issue with the ticketmaster fees. Ticketing fees. Public hates them. StubHub included them and their business went back down, and they would what's the future of the ticketing fee? Mm hmm, gotten way up there? Um, okay, what is it? We all now know it costs nowhere near that amount of money to sell at it. Okay, I mean we know that. Really, Come on, you're not even making anything now, okay, everything electronic? All right? Yes, I believe somebody should be

able to make a profit at what they do. But I think by adding charges, creating charges, increasing charges, putting things on top, as they call it, Oh, push it on top, put the credit card charge up on top, and all of that you hurt of your product. Okay, because at the end of the day, you know, who are you fooling if you if if you say selling my tickets for a hundred dollars, but when the person

shows up, they're paying a hundred. Trust me, the guy who paid a hundred forty five paid a hundred forty five. It's the other guy who thinks the only sold it for a hundred rightly sold tickets for a hundred dollars. Yeah, but he's playing on or fifty by the time all the charges are on top. Again, I think transparency is going to kill a lot of that, you know, I mean. And there's nothing wrong with choices, okay, Like you know,

you want to go online shopping Costco or Amazon. You want the jungle chip, You want the jungle chim delivered tomorrow. You want two guys to set it up. Oh, you can do that for X amount of money. So our business is now capable of doing all these Okay, But it's kind of back of well did you get into music? Business because you wanted to be a computer geek. I

I was just reading about that today. They were reviewing a book in the Wall Street Journal because they were talking about money ball, you know, the scouts as opposed to stats. And no matter what I mean, he says, you know, the facts have to come from somewhere. So I don't know. I mean, this becomes a because you're when you do arena tours. That's the top of the business, arenas and stadiums. And we grew up in an era when the record company supported the clubs, which they certainly

don't do anymore. And the clubs don't exist. And I'm talking about a real club for undred fifty people. Now they'll say club. That's not a club, that's a theater of my book. So but uh, you know, the developing acts the other things you talk about in terms of selling tickets to different places, that's another issue where there are acts that sell out arenas that most people never heard of. You know, the message doesn't get out there. Let's stay on the technology for one more minute, though,

the paperless. What's the future of that? Oh, it's mobile ticket like so it's so the ticket will be tied to the person who pushed it wanted, Yeah, it's got to be closed by clothes. I mean, just the same way you can't sell your hotel room or somebody else what's the hotel says it's okay or whatever. In other words, what I was making my point about the business rules.

Our job is going to be the business rules. I'm not saying what those are today, but I'm just saying that that is good to be what we have to deal with. That makes sense. Okay, So in today's uh, you know, you got into the business. I got into

business because music really drove the culture. Music was everything, And despite some younger people saying otherwise, it does even though it's ubiquitous, it doesn't hold the same mind sure, the same place in the mind that it did when you had your transistor radio and your stereo and that's all you had. So obviously you're very excited by the business end of it. Are you still excited by the music? Yeah? But I gotta find what I like? Okay, like because

I'm a I'm a contrarian by nature. Okay, I'm not a big I'm not a big hip hop fan. Man, did I love R and B? And when I hear that in it. I love that, okay. Um. I think country is the one that's got a little click track ish myself. Um, it's like they all and that one's sounded a little too much alike to me, And I think there needs to be some branching out there. But then I look for the branching out. Okay. I'm one of those guys who everybody's saying rock and roll is dead.

That that energizes me, okay, because I'm the guy who says, you know, the time to buy when you hear about buying gold, that means it's over exactly. I'm a big believer in I'm a country area too. Let's just go You mentioned that you got involved with Coachella, it took three years to ultimately make money. What do you see as a festival business in the health of it or the future of that in America today? There's one side

of it I like, okay. But the side I like is the community side, Okay, that they're all going out enjoying the live experience. I don't know if the festivals today are the um the roller rink um what we call them pop shows back in the sixties when when you know you had Buddy Holly and and you know you had multiple acts. Um, it kind of represents that. It does represent this experience thing. Okay, I mean, um, but it'll always it's like anything else. The strong will survive,

the week will die. There will be you know, there will be those that look like the bar business, which is you go down the street and buy the dump. You turn it into a hot place. A second it's hot, you sell it. You go down and buy it. So there will be a contingent of guys that go and do that, and there will be the wrong that survived. The ones that I think that will survive though, will be the ones that have a strong community based too. It sounds weird, but I see that more of coming.

I see there's more. The festivals carry the greatest social message that we have in our business. Okay, I mean, without talking about the lyrics are the words of a song. But I'm just saying, where else do we have a better communal experience than a festival? Right? Okay? And if we loved it when we were kids, absolutely amenities and and and our concerts were almost festivals anyway because we had jay floors, okay, and and it was a whole Billity Jays ran around, so I that's an important thing

to keep live entertainment alive. But then, but then Brian Becker's story and holograms and the selling tickets to Boom is it. Yeah, well certainly the first one. Roy Orbison in the UK did relatively well. So this has been wonderful. We could talk for hours. Anything you didn't come, we didn't cover that. You have to say, oh, um, since we're talking about concerts West, we're talking about Goggle and all of that. Concerts West is Honestly it's about our people.

My g and A and is nothing but overheads, mating salaries. Okay, Um. We have the most incredible people who we lived by those lines. I mean the the the ladies and the gents that work at our place. They just love what they're doing. And Paul and is aug Is we could keep having fun to it this we're gonna do it. And corporate wearing a suit stuff always scared. I agree with You've been listening to John Meglin on the Bob Left Sets podcast. You were fantastic job. Thanks for coming. Thanks Bob