September 11, 2023 • 34 mins
In this episode of “Inside the Oval” presented by Dignity Health, Emily Eskin spoke about her journey to the 49ers, discussed starting her sports career in ticketing, shared a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to book a concert at Levi’s® Stadium and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome back to the Inside the Oble podcast presented by
Dignity Health. I'm Patti Kwan and I'm Hayley Jones and
for this episode, we are joined by Emily Eskin, who
currently serves as the head of.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Levi Stadium Events. Emily, thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hi ladies, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
First things first, what are your responsibilities as the head
of Levi Stadium Events?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Great, great starter.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
So in my current capacity, I am responsible for bringing
in all NONFL events, so concerts, soccer matches, sporting matches,
we had upper deck golf, So anything that is a
public ticket event outside of an NFL game falls under
my scope, and so I go out in a contract
(00:57):
and negotiate all the agreements for these events. And then
I also oversee our private events business. So if you
think about holiday parties, social events, sales, kickoffs, anything in
the private sector that falls under my umbrella as well.
So I oversee our sales and service team and also
internal events. Our department oversees all internal forty nine ers events,
(01:18):
so anything event related in the building does fall unto
our umbrella.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So we saw that you earned a bachelor's in secondary
education and physical education from the University of Nevada. Did
you originally think you wanted to be like a teacher.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I did.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
I wanted to be a teacher so bad that for
Christmas I would ask my parents for grade books. I
had a very well behaved class of dolls and cabbage
chat kids.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So that was my dream growing up, was to be
a teacher.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
And then once I hit college and I started exploring
some of the coursework and actually fulfilling my degree and education,
I quickly realized that sports and entertainment was focus my efforts.
So I just switched out some screaming kids for screaming fans.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
How do you make that transition, like you're already getting
a degree in something, How do you get something on
your resume or start gaining experience in a completely new
career field while you're still in college?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Good, good question.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So while I was in college, I went to you
and LV.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
I started working in the ticket office part time my
sophomore year.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So, oh, I'm going to age myself.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
So back in the day before mobile tickets were a thing,
people actually had to come up to the.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Box office to buy a ticket.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
So I worked for our time in the ticket office,
and I worked at a venue. We had a three
thousand person arena, an eighteen thousand person arena, and then
a forty five thousand person football stadium, and in that
venue we did all of our college sports and then
we also booked all of our events. So it was
really my first time seeing what the sports and entertainment
(02:58):
industry was like, and I spell.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
In love with it.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
It was awesome the events that we brought in, the
projects that I got to be involved in. And so
I quickly realized that my education, my dream of being
a teacher, had then transitioned into a dream of events,
and so I was already pretty far down the path
of getting my degree. So I stayed focused on finishing
out my education and getting my degree, but I had
(03:23):
really already started working in the sports field. So after graduation,
I just kind of continued along that path while while
still holding my degree. There's always a day you never know,
might want to, you know, go back to the classroom
and teach something about sports entertainment.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I think the coolest thing about Vegas is we've already
known like it's a very strong entertainment capital with all
the artists that come through and stuff, and I feel
like only recently they're getting more and more professional sports teams,
right like you have the Nights, you have the Raiders,
now you have on the Aces, and so I think
it is becoming very much like a hub of sports
(04:03):
and entertainment. Which is cool that you were able to
discover there because you're from there, right.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
And it was incredible because I think back to I
left Vegas about a decade ago, and when I left,
there were no professional sports teams, and at the time,
I had been involved in some of the conversations about
building a new NFL facility, which is now Allegiant, and
it was it was just it's so phenomenal to see
(04:30):
where the city has gone and be a part of
some of those initial thoughts and initial conversations. I mean,
I knew it was only a matter of time. And
it's so fun to go home now. It's such a
different city from where I from when I left, and
it's so amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And my dad will take me to all these venues
now and he's showing me.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And the Golden Nights games and then they have the
Henderson Silver Nights and it is just exploded, and I'm
so proud I mean, that's my hometown of Awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What was your first job after you graduated?
Speaker 5 (05:03):
So started in the ticket office, and when I was
in college, I was a ticket office supervisor.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And then right after.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I graduated, there was actually an amazing opportunity to be
an assistant director of athletic ticketing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So I was fortunate enough I.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Graduated in May and at the end of May, my
first role was assistant director of athletic Ticketing. So I
oversaw all of our ticket sales and operations for all
of our athletic events football, baseball.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Basketball, volleyball, and it was great.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It really gave me such a strong background in ticketing,
which now I can translate to everything that I do
today in my world.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
What's the difference between working in ticketing? Like, both are
a little customer facing, but one would be like more
fans and with events, I'm assuming you're more like businesses, managers, companies.
Like what it was that transition, and like.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Yeah, with ticketing, it was definitely face to face with
the fans and with our season ticket holders and with
our donors and boosters. So this role is a little
bit different because I am working directly with artists, agents
and their promoters. But a lot of the talk of
what we do is about tickets and about ticketing. So
(06:23):
the fact that I do have, you know, some of
that knowledge of how that process works is great. It's
just another tool in my kit so that I can
at least have some knowledge about what that portion of
our agreements or of the events look like.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
So from assistant director of ticketing, how did you get
to the forty nine ers?
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Ooh, it's a good one. Well, after you and l V,
I then took a role with the Houston Astros. So
I was at UNLV for a little over eight years
in total, and the Houston Astros had a position open
which was overseeing all their private events. So decided, you know,
(07:06):
I had been in Vegas for so long, I really
wanted to get into the professional level. So the new owner,
Jim Crane, had purchased the Astros and so they were
really revamping the organization as a whole, and they had
a position open which was very intro level sales representative
for private events. So I took that leap over to
Houston and it was phenomenal, one of the vast experiences
(07:30):
I ever had. I had a really wonderful role model
who booked all the public events, and she was amazing
at letting me see how that worked, insight to some
of those p and ls, to some of the contract negotiations.
I got to meet some of the promoters in the industry.
So I worked mostly on private events, but also public events,
(07:53):
and I was there with them for five years. And
one of my clients with the ASTROS was JJ Watt.
He did a large charity softball game with us, so
he was with Houston Texans at the time, and he
was a client of mine for about three years, and
I ended up becoming fairly close with his PR and
marketing firm and his family who ran the foundation, because
(08:13):
we had done his event three years in a row.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
It was phenomenal. It was a charity softball game.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
They sold forty thousand tickets to a charity function and
it was so amazing. So after my time with ASTROS,
I ended up transitioning into a vice president role with
Capture Sports and Entertainment, and that company focused on athletes
and their foundations, so doing all PR, marketing and event
management for their foundations. So my role within that organization
(08:41):
was to go out and meet with agents and with players,
and sign them on as clients for us to manage
all pr PR marketing and events specifically focused on their foundations.
So that was fantastic because they started working on some
of these larger scale events with these athletes and negotiating
(09:02):
some of the agreements with buildings like Levi Stadium or
different venues.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So I then had the tools to.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Negotiate agreements on like the venue side, and now I
had the tools to negotiate agreements on the client side,
almost like on the promoter side. So it was awesome
to have those hats to kind of where, you know,
to understand both sides of the world and where.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
It came from. And I was very fortunate to work
with some amazing clients.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Carson Wentz was one of our clients, Zach and Julie
Ertz who are Bay Area Anthony Lynn who is now
a coach with US, so we helped him start his
foundation with his wife Stacy, so very fulfilling.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It just such.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Incredible work that some of these athletes were doing. And
after a few years there, I really wanted to get
back to one venue. I knew that my love was
with a venue and booking major events. So those role
here an entry level role. Here pop up and I
had to go forward and here we are.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
What's the hardest thing about moving from Vegas to Houston
The humidity.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
A hundred percent, one hundred percent. I am a sunshine, dry,
heat kind of girls. So the first month my hair
was frizzy.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Every day and that was very tough.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
We had when I was there.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
We I lived through three floods and one hurricane, and
I think it was the hurricane that probably put me
over the top, like we're ready to go back to
the where the sunshine is.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
What was the first project you worked on when you
joined the Niners.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
So when I joined the Niners in my first my
role has transitioned several times as I've been with the organization,
but my first role was to focus on private events,
and so I really wanted to establish some amazing collateral
as a salesperson, especially when you're trying to sell a
vision of ale that's like a blink space and you're
(11:02):
trying to show clients.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
What this could look like, what it could be.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I really wanted to get together a formal collateral piece
of every single event space that we have in the building.
I mean, we have some beautiful spaces here with the
United Club, fox Con Industrial.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Internet Club, the Identico green Room.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
So the first project I really did was I tackled
that and we built out about a twelve to fifteen
page collateral piece highlighting all of our event spaces, showing
photos of events that we've done in the past, and.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
It's fun. We still use that piece today.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
What's your favorite private event space in the stadium?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Oh, the field.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
I don't know if I could say just one. I
think it's more so what we do with each event space.
So we just had a Cadence event in the building
and it was phenomenal. They did it in the fox
Con Industrial Internet Club and just decked it out the
way that they transitioned the whole space with some background,
with lighting, with the drapes, with all of the vendors
(12:09):
that they used to enhance the space. It just popped
and it was gorgeous. We also did a concert series
with HCl one of our clients, and we transitioned United
Club into a private theater.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
That was really fun.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
It's so cool to see our team and the clients
really come up with these grand visions and just transform
some of our spaces into masterpieces with the stadium opening
back up to non fort nine ers events, I know
it's been a few years now since that has happened.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What event are you most looking forward to in twenty
twenty three?
Speaker 5 (12:50):
So I have to say I'm a swiftie. She Fortunately,
when I was with the Astro, she was one of
the first clients that I got to work on the
private events, So I definitely have an affinity to her
and her team just throughout my career.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So it's going to have to be Taylor.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
You know, she's she's just a powerhouse in this industry.
And to see what she's done with her latest tour,
knowing that you know, we've been working on this one
for a few years now and to see it actually
come to Fruition, that's the one I'm most looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And I'm back to back nights.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Oh yes, I mean she what she's doing on her
tour and how many nights she's put in is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Was keeping secrets like it feels very marvel almost that
you have all of these secrets and events that you
kind of have to keep in your head. Was that
something that like took getting used to it?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Is?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
It really is something you get you have to get
used to, because, like my style is to be pretty transparent,
and especially when you have an organization and your team
knows that you're you know, always planning and trying to
hair different teams for what's to come. But these are
very you know, high profile, confidential things that are in
(14:10):
the works and look, you know we we could be
working on an event for tears that doesn't happen, and
that's you know, that's really tough. So yeah, I had
to learn pretty quickly that you do need to keep
some of this stuff close to the vest just as
as it transpires. And a lot of that is I
mean that's at the request of the promoter so and
(14:30):
the artists themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
So yeah, that one's it has taken some getting used to.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
When you go to other events not at Levi's, do
you are you able to turn your work brain off
or are you the whole time seeing how people are
doing those events, whether they are big public ones or private.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
If you can tell me how to turn that brain off,
that would be a nirvana.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
No, Unfortunately, I can.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Every time I go to an event, I'm always looking
at it from every different angle and also wondering how
can I get that to Levice Stadium.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Now that we are back to full slight of events,
What does your day to day look like? And then
can you take us through what your event day looks like?
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Yeah, day to day varies. So it's a multitude of things.
A lot of it is communication with promoters. Depending on
where we're at with events, I could be helping them
with routing. So routing tours are an incredible task. As
you can imagine, you're piecing tons of different puzzle pieces together.
(15:39):
You're working you know, they're trying to route their show
either east to west or west to east, and working
with other venues, working internally on our scheduling, working with football,
trying to understand where the football schedule is going to lie,
Working with stadium operations to see if we can actually
get the event in during those windows. What the field
transition looks like, what stage build looks like, what.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
The artist wants.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
So a lot of it is working with agents and
the promoters. And so that's a lot of it on
the public events side, and then on the private event side,
I oversee our sales and service team. So working with
our sales team as far as you know the different
opportunities and different events that we can bring in from
the private event side, working with our service team on
(16:24):
how we can best execute the events and how we
can keep our clients extremely happy.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So it is it really varies day to day.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I can't say that every single day is cookie cutter
because I could be talking to you know, Taylor Swift's
Asian at one moment, a soccer promoter, a next Moment
Gold Cup which we have coming, and we're heavily involved
with Conca Calf, a private event client, a bar mitsbook
client that's coming in. It's amazing because your day transitions.
(17:00):
You're working with so many different eclectic groups throughout the course.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Do you have a preference between throwing on private versus
public events?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (17:12):
No, They both fulfill me the same way, whether whether
it's a private event or a public event. I think
that it's so fun when you have a private event
client that is so happy that you know, to see
that all of our hard work and building their vision
and their dream at the end of the night, when
they're sitting there and telling you what a great job
you and your team have done, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
The public event side is so fun.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
When you hear people who get so excited for the
artists that you're bringing in or the match that you're
bringing in, and that to me is like the most
rewarding when people tell you like I cannot wait to
see this artist and you're like, I know, I've been
trying to tell people for two years, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
What is I honestly don't know the answer to this.
What is the largest private event you could have at
lee By Stadium.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
So you could do a full stadium buy out?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, We've actually had Facebook LinkedIn Cisco, Google have done
full stadium buyouts picnics, holiday parties and it's incredible. So
we'll activate all the event spaces, all of our plazas
field level that could range anywhere from a couple thousand
people to ten thousand people.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
How long would that take to plan?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Usually takes about a year.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Yeah, So we'll start working on it about a year
out and then you know, the final product is always
so fun because you'll see the event in the vision
transition in more several times over the course of the
planning process.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I'm curious what the quickest turnaround you've ever had to
execute has been?
Speaker 5 (18:58):
My service team won't like this, but we've done events
within about two weeks. Not ideal, certainly not ideal, but
we have definitely done it.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
What's the quickest turnaround you could do for a public event? Like,
I know you said some of these like Taylor Swift
was years in the making, but have any of them
just kind of come up as like, hey, this is happening.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
It's not typical, but sometimes it does.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
So there are some artists who just decide they won't
have a concert, and I won't name names, but it's
been done. We've personally probably turned around a public event
within a couple months.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
As far as like going on sale and then the
event actually happening, I know some venues that have done
it two months turned around again, not ideal, but you
can do it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I just think of those artists who will literally have
a tour and then there's just such high demand that
they go new dates, and it's like, do they pre like,
give you a heads up this could happen, or we do.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
So we tend to have an idea that the show
could roll into two. You know, there's there are very
good metrics that we use to identify if an artist
we'll be looking to roll it over into two so
I can say we do have an idea when the
artist is announcing their show.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
If we're if we're going to add another show or not.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
How early before an event do you have to be
here on event day? What does your day kind of
look like.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I come in fairly early.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
I like to, you know, walk around, get the scope
of things, check out the stage build, make sure that
you know everything's going well. Granted, by the time it
gets to that, our stadium operations team is so dialed in.
I mean Francine and Nelson and Kamiela and Dale, they
are really the people who are running the show, and
(21:01):
they do a phenomenal job on event day. But I
definitely get here early. The promoters. Will you come in
and we'll certainly chat with them and make sure that
everything's going smooth. You will always have your last minute
request of things that the artist wants or things that
need to be done. But in my world, like if
(21:21):
everything goes according to plan, it should be a pretty
chaos free day.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I spend most of my time with the promoter themselves.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Who fulfills on like an artists writer. Is that you
that is not me?
Speaker 5 (21:38):
So that is our stadium operations team, Yes, I know
that that's always such a question. Is the artist writers
and what they look like? And some of them are
pretty funny, But yeah, Nelson and our crew over in
stadium Operations really really takes the lead on all of that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I feel like that's so good.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
I don't know if I would want to be in
charge of that. That feels like too much pressure.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Yeah. I get asked the question a lot, and sometimes
I'm like, I haven't even seen it, and it's probably
better that I don't.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Since you've been here, which event has had the longest
build time? Like me and Haley were here last year
for Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was here for the
weekend and like the weekend was just insane.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Taylor Swift a couple of years ago had the Snakes.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Yeah yeah, And what do you mean build? Do you
mean like their stage build?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, like a stage build like who I was taken
the longest.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
For the time that I've overseen this department.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
I would probably stay the weekend just because his stage
was pretty complex.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
It went all the way across the field.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
It was it was definitely one of the coolest stage
builds that I've seen super unique. But even that it's
only it only adds like an extra day or two.
It's nothing too crazy, But we do have to know
that going in so we can understand, you know, scheduling wise,
when the building is going to start to be tied up.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Yeah, what are the what is the process of getting
an event?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Like?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I think we kind of talked on the fact that
there are conversations with promoters and stadium ops, but what
does that process look like? Do like promoters come to
you because they want to do something at Levi Stadium
vice versa.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Well, I have a firm believer in relationships, so I
am definitely one to reach out to the promoters first
and I believe in in person meetings And a lot
of our promoters are located in La Nashville, Chicago, New York, Miami,
(23:43):
So I really spend a lot of time in our
non and evelevant season season going out and meeting with
promoters and really understanding what artists they have, what artists
are looking to go out on tour, where the tour
is going to start, where it's going to stop, what
markets they're trying to identify, and making sure that Levi
(24:05):
Stadium is always top of mine for every artist, every
genre that's on the concert side, flipping to the soccer side,
same thing. You know, obviously with the World Cup coming,
the Bay Area is huge for soccer, and with you know,
the Women's League starting, and with all of the build
(24:26):
up that we have here after the Quakes games. So
really getting front of all the promoters for soccer and
letting them know, you know that we're certainly open to
all of the matches and we do want to host them.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
What are those conversations with like artists or artists agents
kind of look.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Like, yeah, it's very different.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Sometimes they'll have an idea if the artist is looking
to go out on tour, or some artists are already
on tour and they're doing very well, so they're going
to extend their tour into another year. So it's really
look and sometimes sometimes the promoters don't know yet, you know,
they say, we're thinking that we're we're going to go
on tour next year, or due to personal situations or
(25:10):
other circumstances, the artist decides to hold for a year
and push their tour to the next year. So it's
really just doing a lot of education and a lot
of research.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I read a lot.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
I read a lot of articles about, you know, different
artists and where they're if they're coming out with a
new record. You know, if an artist is going to
drop an album, that's probably a pretty good indication that
they might be they might be looking to go on tour.
And it's I do try to stay connected a lot
too within colleagues, within the industry. We have a network
called the grid Iron Stadium Network, which is comprised of
(25:44):
NFL stadiums, and everyone who does what I do so
heavily involved in that sharing information as far as you
know what other venues are hearing and what we see
out there, so we can kind of project and forecast,
like what are years to twenty twenty four will look
like and what twenty twenty five would look like.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Do you look at like social media?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So like I I obviously see like Levi's stadium mentions
and things like that, and a lot of times I
get people who are like, please bring so and so
artists or so and so banned to Levi's stadium. And
from what you're talking about, it almost sounds like it's
mutual beneficial, right, Like you should come to a live
bit Levi stadium and like, you know, they need places
(26:27):
to host their concerts. Like how much I guess influence
could you have or like do fans have.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
On bringing events to certain locations.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Well, first of all, I love that, and I'm whenever
I read some of those comments, I'm always.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Like, I know I'm trying.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
So yes, I mean, we certainly have our eyes open
for everything. That the tricky part is being a stadium
act is it's aggressive, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Our depending on your stage.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Shut up, it's forty five thousand people to share in
his stages in the round, so he's going to be
in the middle of the field and he can host
over seventy thousand. So sometimes as much as an artist
as big as can they fill a stadium or is
it better for them to go to an arena and
to do two nights at an arena or go to
(27:21):
a ballpark. So that that is the trickiest part is
making sure that the artist is a stadium act because
that can be daunting. I mean, these are large venues
and not everyone can sell them out.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I am sad we weren't here yet for when they
had the hockey game on the field, So that would
be my wish list. Do you have a wish listed
event that you wish that you would want to bring here,
like if we're manifesting.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I mean, I have some artists, but I don't think
I want to say them because I feel like I
might be judged. Yeah, the NHL That Stadium series was
incredible looking back at some of those photos. WWE was
another one that was absolutely phenomenal. So I look, I
(28:11):
just love the uniqueness of events. I have been a
part of a venue at Minim Park. We did cricket,
we did boxing, which was really cool. So anything that's
unique and outside of the box, I mean, I absolutely love.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What would you say is the most stressful part of
your job?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
HM, I would say.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Really probably managing the calendar and dates, because you do
have a lot of artists that overlap. They overlap the
we call them holds. So a certain artist will let
me know I want these particular date period and we
call them one H. It's a first hold, and then
another artist will come and say I want the same dates,
(28:55):
and then they're two hs.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
They're a second hold.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
But you don't really know how everything is going to
shake out, you know, So it's it's really managing the
calendar and man engineting it to a point where you
can get everything to fall in place where you know,
you might have four or five artists that are looking
to do a stadium tour, but they're all doing their
routing and I want every single piece to fall in
(29:20):
place where we can get all five of them. But
sometimes you know, the load in schedule won't work, the
routing won't work, and you you could lose an artist
just because of scheduling. So I think that is the
one piece that is probably the most challenging, is just
being strategic about your holds, about your routing. And also,
(29:40):
you know, if we're going to book a soccer match
in between two concerts, you know what does that timeline
look like to replace the field to get the field ready?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
So I would say the calendar is running a calendar?
Is that something that you've learned on the go? Or
how did you like? I'm assuming it's just like immaculate now,
but how did you get there?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well?
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Fortunately or unfortunately. I am extremely OCD and very organized
and very methodical, and I live by my calendar in
my personal life. So when it transitions to managing a
calendar for an NFL schedule and a stadium, I actually
enjoy it. You know, I feel like ours is not
(30:26):
as daunting as some other venues. I mean, look, some
other venues have an MLS team, have a women's team,
have a college team, have several different layers. For us,
I feel like it's a little bit easier with our schedule.
And I came from baseball, so you know, eighty five
home games is really tough to work around.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So coming here and saying like, wait, hold on, I
have like one eighth of that. This is great.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
What is the most number of non NFL events we've
put on at Leeby's Stadium?
Speaker 5 (31:02):
So earlier when we open up the building, we had
as many as fifteen and so that included college football
college football games that we had concerts. Last year we
had seven, which is a really good year for us,
and the share will have seven as well.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
This might be like asking you to choose your favorite child,
but have you had a favorite event that you've brought
into the stadium?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
That is like asking about my favorite child?
Speaker 5 (31:29):
And I think you know, it changes depending on how
your child's behaving. I think personally, well, look, all the
events are awesome. They all have unique versions of why
they're all my favorite and they all have a special
place in my heart. You know. Coldplay was the first
show that I did here of the opening up the
building after COVID, So that was incredible and that was
(31:53):
really special to get to get Coldplay back.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
In as the first one.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Another fun one that I absolutely love working on was
Group of fair May. It was our first Latin show
in Levi Stadium history. It was an up and coming
group that was just going on tour, and so you know,
if you have an artist who's just going on tour,
there's always so much excitement around that and they just
to see, you know, how well it performed. We had
(32:21):
over thirty thousand people in the building.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
That one was. That one was really fun, really fun
to work on.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Do you have any advice for someone or anyone who
wants to get into this industry?
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Absolutely relationships, building your relationships, not being afraid to ask
people to meet in person, not being afraid to ask
people to, you know, connect you with someone else in
the industry, and just grinding. I mean, there's not being
afraid to travel to get on a plane.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
To go meet with someone.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Some of those days have been some of the longest,
but also the most rewarding and seeing, you know, the
relationship that has been developed after you took the two
or three days to fly to Nashville to meet with
this particular client and then years later actually getting that artist.
(33:16):
So I would say, you know, just just in meeting people,
meeting people in person, and not being afraid to go
out and talk to anybody in the industry to learn,
you know, ask ask people who you want to, you know,
if you want to get to that person's position, ask
for fifteen thirty minutes of their time. I you know,
(33:37):
I had a lot of really great mentors do that
for me, and so whenever people aspiring to get in
this industry ask me for some of my time, I
will absolutely give it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, Emily, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, thank you both. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I think to be
Welcome back to the Inside the Oble podcast presented by
Dignity Health. I'm Patti Kwan and I'm Hayley Jones and
for this episode, we are joined by Emily Eskin, who
currently serves as the head of.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Levi Stadium Events. Emily, thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hi ladies, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
First things first, what are your responsibilities as the head
of Levi Stadium Events?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Great, great starter.
Speaker 5 (00:36):
So in my current capacity, I am responsible for bringing
in all NONFL events, so concerts, soccer matches, sporting matches,
we had upper deck golf, So anything that is a
public ticket event outside of an NFL game falls under
my scope, and so I go out in a contract
(00:57):
and negotiate all the agreements for these events. And then
I also oversee our private events business. So if you
think about holiday parties, social events, sales, kickoffs, anything in
the private sector that falls under my umbrella as well.
So I oversee our sales and service team and also
internal events. Our department oversees all internal forty nine ers events,
(01:18):
so anything event related in the building does fall unto
our umbrella.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So we saw that you earned a bachelor's in secondary
education and physical education from the University of Nevada. Did
you originally think you wanted to be like a teacher.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I did.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
I wanted to be a teacher so bad that for
Christmas I would ask my parents for grade books. I
had a very well behaved class of dolls and cabbage
chat kids.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So that was my dream growing up, was to be
a teacher.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
And then once I hit college and I started exploring
some of the coursework and actually fulfilling my degree and education,
I quickly realized that sports and entertainment was focus my efforts.
So I just switched out some screaming kids for screaming fans.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
How do you make that transition, like you're already getting
a degree in something, How do you get something on
your resume or start gaining experience in a completely new
career field while you're still in college?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Good, good question.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So while I was in college, I went to you
and LV.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
I started working in the ticket office part time my
sophomore year.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So, oh, I'm going to age myself.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
So back in the day before mobile tickets were a thing,
people actually had to come up to the.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Box office to buy a ticket.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
So I worked for our time in the ticket office,
and I worked at a venue. We had a three
thousand person arena, an eighteen thousand person arena, and then
a forty five thousand person football stadium, and in that
venue we did all of our college sports and then
we also booked all of our events. So it was
really my first time seeing what the sports and entertainment
(02:58):
industry was like, and I spell.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
In love with it.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
It was awesome the events that we brought in, the
projects that I got to be involved in. And so
I quickly realized that my education, my dream of being
a teacher, had then transitioned into a dream of events,
and so I was already pretty far down the path
of getting my degree. So I stayed focused on finishing
out my education and getting my degree, but I had
(03:23):
really already started working in the sports field. So after graduation,
I just kind of continued along that path while while
still holding my degree. There's always a day you never know,
might want to, you know, go back to the classroom
and teach something about sports entertainment.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I think the coolest thing about Vegas is we've already
known like it's a very strong entertainment capital with all
the artists that come through and stuff, and I feel
like only recently they're getting more and more professional sports teams,
right like you have the Nights, you have the Raiders,
now you have on the Aces, and so I think
it is becoming very much like a hub of sports
(04:03):
and entertainment. Which is cool that you were able to
discover there because you're from there, right.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
And it was incredible because I think back to I
left Vegas about a decade ago, and when I left,
there were no professional sports teams, and at the time,
I had been involved in some of the conversations about
building a new NFL facility, which is now Allegiant, and
it was it was just it's so phenomenal to see
(04:30):
where the city has gone and be a part of
some of those initial thoughts and initial conversations. I mean,
I knew it was only a matter of time. And
it's so fun to go home now. It's such a
different city from where I from when I left, and
it's so amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And my dad will take me to all these venues
now and he's showing me.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And the Golden Nights games and then they have the
Henderson Silver Nights and it is just exploded, and I'm
so proud I mean, that's my hometown of Awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What was your first job after you graduated?
Speaker 5 (05:03):
So started in the ticket office, and when I was
in college, I was a ticket office supervisor.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And then right after.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I graduated, there was actually an amazing opportunity to be
an assistant director of athletic ticketing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So I was fortunate enough I.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Graduated in May and at the end of May, my
first role was assistant director of athletic Ticketing. So I
oversaw all of our ticket sales and operations for all
of our athletic events football, baseball.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Basketball, volleyball, and it was great.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It really gave me such a strong background in ticketing,
which now I can translate to everything that I do
today in my world.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
What's the difference between working in ticketing? Like, both are
a little customer facing, but one would be like more
fans and with events, I'm assuming you're more like businesses, managers, companies.
Like what it was that transition, and like.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Yeah, with ticketing, it was definitely face to face with
the fans and with our season ticket holders and with
our donors and boosters. So this role is a little
bit different because I am working directly with artists, agents
and their promoters. But a lot of the talk of
what we do is about tickets and about ticketing. So
(06:23):
the fact that I do have, you know, some of
that knowledge of how that process works is great. It's
just another tool in my kit so that I can
at least have some knowledge about what that portion of
our agreements or of the events look like.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
So from assistant director of ticketing, how did you get
to the forty nine ers?
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Ooh, it's a good one. Well, after you and l V,
I then took a role with the Houston Astros. So
I was at UNLV for a little over eight years
in total, and the Houston Astros had a position open
which was overseeing all their private events. So decided, you know,
(07:06):
I had been in Vegas for so long, I really
wanted to get into the professional level. So the new owner,
Jim Crane, had purchased the Astros and so they were
really revamping the organization as a whole, and they had
a position open which was very intro level sales representative
for private events. So I took that leap over to
Houston and it was phenomenal, one of the vast experiences
(07:30):
I ever had. I had a really wonderful role model
who booked all the public events, and she was amazing
at letting me see how that worked, insight to some
of those p and ls, to some of the contract negotiations.
I got to meet some of the promoters in the industry.
So I worked mostly on private events, but also public events,
(07:53):
and I was there with them for five years. And
one of my clients with the ASTROS was JJ Watt.
He did a large charity softball game with us, so
he was with Houston Texans at the time, and he
was a client of mine for about three years, and
I ended up becoming fairly close with his PR and
marketing firm and his family who ran the foundation, because
(08:13):
we had done his event three years in a row.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
It was phenomenal. It was a charity softball game.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
They sold forty thousand tickets to a charity function and
it was so amazing. So after my time with ASTROS,
I ended up transitioning into a vice president role with
Capture Sports and Entertainment, and that company focused on athletes
and their foundations, so doing all PR, marketing and event
management for their foundations. So my role within that organization
(08:41):
was to go out and meet with agents and with players,
and sign them on as clients for us to manage
all pr PR marketing and events specifically focused on their foundations.
So that was fantastic because they started working on some
of these larger scale events with these athletes and negotiating
(09:02):
some of the agreements with buildings like Levi Stadium or
different venues.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So I then had the tools to.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Negotiate agreements on like the venue side, and now I
had the tools to negotiate agreements on the client side,
almost like on the promoter side. So it was awesome
to have those hats to kind of where, you know,
to understand both sides of the world and where.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
It came from. And I was very fortunate to work
with some amazing clients.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Carson Wentz was one of our clients, Zach and Julie
Ertz who are Bay Area Anthony Lynn who is now
a coach with US, so we helped him start his
foundation with his wife Stacy, so very fulfilling.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It just such.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Incredible work that some of these athletes were doing. And
after a few years there, I really wanted to get
back to one venue. I knew that my love was
with a venue and booking major events. So those role
here an entry level role. Here pop up and I
had to go forward and here we are.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
What's the hardest thing about moving from Vegas to Houston
The humidity.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
A hundred percent, one hundred percent. I am a sunshine, dry,
heat kind of girls. So the first month my hair
was frizzy.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Every day and that was very tough.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
We had when I was there.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
We I lived through three floods and one hurricane, and
I think it was the hurricane that probably put me
over the top, like we're ready to go back to
the where the sunshine is.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
What was the first project you worked on when you
joined the Niners.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
So when I joined the Niners in my first my
role has transitioned several times as I've been with the organization,
but my first role was to focus on private events,
and so I really wanted to establish some amazing collateral
as a salesperson, especially when you're trying to sell a
vision of ale that's like a blink space and you're
(11:02):
trying to show clients.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
What this could look like, what it could be.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I really wanted to get together a formal collateral piece
of every single event space that we have in the building.
I mean, we have some beautiful spaces here with the
United Club, fox Con Industrial.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Internet Club, the Identico green Room.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
So the first project I really did was I tackled
that and we built out about a twelve to fifteen
page collateral piece highlighting all of our event spaces, showing
photos of events that we've done in the past, and.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
It's fun. We still use that piece today.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
What's your favorite private event space in the stadium?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Oh, the field.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
I don't know if I could say just one. I
think it's more so what we do with each event space.
So we just had a Cadence event in the building
and it was phenomenal. They did it in the fox
Con Industrial Internet Club and just decked it out the
way that they transitioned the whole space with some background,
with lighting, with the drapes, with all of the vendors
(12:09):
that they used to enhance the space. It just popped
and it was gorgeous. We also did a concert series
with HCl one of our clients, and we transitioned United
Club into a private theater.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
That was really fun.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
It's so cool to see our team and the clients
really come up with these grand visions and just transform
some of our spaces into masterpieces with the stadium opening
back up to non fort nine ers events, I know
it's been a few years now since that has happened.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What event are you most looking forward to in twenty
twenty three?
Speaker 5 (12:50):
So I have to say I'm a swiftie. She Fortunately,
when I was with the Astro, she was one of
the first clients that I got to work on the
private events, So I definitely have an affinity to her
and her team just throughout my career.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So it's going to have to be Taylor.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
You know, she's she's just a powerhouse in this industry.
And to see what she's done with her latest tour,
knowing that you know, we've been working on this one
for a few years now and to see it actually
come to Fruition, that's the one I'm most looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And I'm back to back nights.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Oh yes, I mean she what she's doing on her
tour and how many nights she's put in is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Was keeping secrets like it feels very marvel almost that
you have all of these secrets and events that you
kind of have to keep in your head. Was that
something that like took getting used to it?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Is?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
It really is something you get you have to get
used to, because, like my style is to be pretty transparent,
and especially when you have an organization and your team
knows that you're you know, always planning and trying to
hair different teams for what's to come. But these are
very you know, high profile, confidential things that are in
(14:10):
the works and look, you know we we could be
working on an event for tears that doesn't happen, and
that's you know, that's really tough. So yeah, I had
to learn pretty quickly that you do need to keep
some of this stuff close to the vest just as
as it transpires. And a lot of that is I
mean that's at the request of the promoter so and
(14:30):
the artists themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
So yeah, that one's it has taken some getting used to.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
When you go to other events not at Levi's, do
you are you able to turn your work brain off
or are you the whole time seeing how people are
doing those events, whether they are big public ones or private.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
If you can tell me how to turn that brain off,
that would be a nirvana.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
No, Unfortunately, I can.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Every time I go to an event, I'm always looking
at it from every different angle and also wondering how
can I get that to Levice Stadium.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Now that we are back to full slight of events,
What does your day to day look like? And then
can you take us through what your event day looks like?
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Yeah, day to day varies. So it's a multitude of things.
A lot of it is communication with promoters. Depending on
where we're at with events, I could be helping them
with routing. So routing tours are an incredible task. As
you can imagine, you're piecing tons of different puzzle pieces together.
(15:39):
You're working you know, they're trying to route their show
either east to west or west to east, and working
with other venues, working internally on our scheduling, working with football,
trying to understand where the football schedule is going to lie,
Working with stadium operations to see if we can actually
get the event in during those windows. What the field
transition looks like, what stage build looks like, what.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
The artist wants.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
So a lot of it is working with agents and
the promoters. And so that's a lot of it on
the public events side, and then on the private event side,
I oversee our sales and service team. So working with
our sales team as far as you know the different
opportunities and different events that we can bring in from
the private event side, working with our service team on
(16:24):
how we can best execute the events and how we
can keep our clients extremely happy.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So it is it really varies day to day.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I can't say that every single day is cookie cutter
because I could be talking to you know, Taylor Swift's
Asian at one moment, a soccer promoter, a next Moment
Gold Cup which we have coming, and we're heavily involved
with Conca Calf, a private event client, a bar mitsbook
client that's coming in. It's amazing because your day transitions.
(17:00):
You're working with so many different eclectic groups throughout the course.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Do you have a preference between throwing on private versus
public events?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (17:12):
No, They both fulfill me the same way, whether whether
it's a private event or a public event. I think
that it's so fun when you have a private event
client that is so happy that you know, to see
that all of our hard work and building their vision
and their dream at the end of the night, when
they're sitting there and telling you what a great job
you and your team have done, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
The public event side is so fun.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
When you hear people who get so excited for the
artists that you're bringing in or the match that you're
bringing in, and that to me is like the most
rewarding when people tell you like I cannot wait to
see this artist and you're like, I know, I've been
trying to tell people for two years, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
What is I honestly don't know the answer to this.
What is the largest private event you could have at
lee By Stadium.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
So you could do a full stadium buy out?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, We've actually had Facebook LinkedIn Cisco, Google have done
full stadium buyouts picnics, holiday parties and it's incredible. So
we'll activate all the event spaces, all of our plazas
field level that could range anywhere from a couple thousand
people to ten thousand people.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
How long would that take to plan?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Usually takes about a year.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Yeah, So we'll start working on it about a year
out and then you know, the final product is always
so fun because you'll see the event in the vision
transition in more several times over the course of the
planning process.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I'm curious what the quickest turnaround you've ever had to
execute has been?
Speaker 5 (18:58):
My service team won't like this, but we've done events
within about two weeks. Not ideal, certainly not ideal, but
we have definitely done it.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
What's the quickest turnaround you could do for a public event? Like,
I know you said some of these like Taylor Swift
was years in the making, but have any of them
just kind of come up as like, hey, this is happening.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
It's not typical, but sometimes it does.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
So there are some artists who just decide they won't
have a concert, and I won't name names, but it's
been done. We've personally probably turned around a public event
within a couple months.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
As far as like going on sale and then the
event actually happening, I know some venues that have done
it two months turned around again, not ideal, but you
can do it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I just think of those artists who will literally have
a tour and then there's just such high demand that
they go new dates, and it's like, do they pre like,
give you a heads up this could happen, or we do.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
So we tend to have an idea that the show
could roll into two. You know, there's there are very
good metrics that we use to identify if an artist
we'll be looking to roll it over into two so
I can say we do have an idea when the
artist is announcing their show.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
If we're if we're going to add another show or not.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
How early before an event do you have to be
here on event day? What does your day kind of
look like.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I come in fairly early.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
I like to, you know, walk around, get the scope
of things, check out the stage build, make sure that
you know everything's going well. Granted, by the time it
gets to that, our stadium operations team is so dialed in.
I mean Francine and Nelson and Kamiela and Dale, they
are really the people who are running the show, and
(21:01):
they do a phenomenal job on event day. But I
definitely get here early. The promoters. Will you come in
and we'll certainly chat with them and make sure that
everything's going smooth. You will always have your last minute
request of things that the artist wants or things that
need to be done. But in my world, like if
(21:21):
everything goes according to plan, it should be a pretty
chaos free day.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I spend most of my time with the promoter themselves.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Who fulfills on like an artists writer. Is that you
that is not me?
Speaker 5 (21:38):
So that is our stadium operations team, Yes, I know
that that's always such a question. Is the artist writers
and what they look like? And some of them are
pretty funny, But yeah, Nelson and our crew over in
stadium Operations really really takes the lead on all of that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I feel like that's so good.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
I don't know if I would want to be in
charge of that. That feels like too much pressure.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Yeah. I get asked the question a lot, and sometimes
I'm like, I haven't even seen it, and it's probably
better that I don't.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Since you've been here, which event has had the longest
build time? Like me and Haley were here last year
for Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was here for the
weekend and like the weekend was just insane.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Taylor Swift a couple of years ago had the Snakes.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Yeah yeah, And what do you mean build? Do you
mean like their stage build?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, like a stage build like who I was taken
the longest.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
For the time that I've overseen this department.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
I would probably stay the weekend just because his stage
was pretty complex.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
It went all the way across the field.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
It was it was definitely one of the coolest stage
builds that I've seen super unique. But even that it's
only it only adds like an extra day or two.
It's nothing too crazy, But we do have to know
that going in so we can understand, you know, scheduling wise,
when the building is going to start to be tied up.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Yeah, what are the what is the process of getting
an event?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Like?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I think we kind of talked on the fact that
there are conversations with promoters and stadium ops, but what
does that process look like? Do like promoters come to
you because they want to do something at Levi Stadium
vice versa.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Well, I have a firm believer in relationships, so I
am definitely one to reach out to the promoters first
and I believe in in person meetings And a lot
of our promoters are located in La Nashville, Chicago, New York, Miami,
(23:43):
So I really spend a lot of time in our
non and evelevant season season going out and meeting with
promoters and really understanding what artists they have, what artists
are looking to go out on tour, where the tour
is going to start, where it's going to stop, what
markets they're trying to identify, and making sure that Levi
(24:05):
Stadium is always top of mine for every artist, every
genre that's on the concert side, flipping to the soccer side,
same thing. You know, obviously with the World Cup coming,
the Bay Area is huge for soccer, and with you know,
the Women's League starting, and with all of the build
(24:26):
up that we have here after the Quakes games. So
really getting front of all the promoters for soccer and
letting them know, you know that we're certainly open to
all of the matches and we do want to host them.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
What are those conversations with like artists or artists agents
kind of look.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Like, yeah, it's very different.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Sometimes they'll have an idea if the artist is looking
to go out on tour, or some artists are already
on tour and they're doing very well, so they're going
to extend their tour into another year. So it's really
look and sometimes sometimes the promoters don't know yet, you know,
they say, we're thinking that we're we're going to go
on tour next year, or due to personal situations or
(25:10):
other circumstances, the artist decides to hold for a year
and push their tour to the next year. So it's
really just doing a lot of education and a lot
of research.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I read a lot.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
I read a lot of articles about, you know, different
artists and where they're if they're coming out with a
new record. You know, if an artist is going to
drop an album, that's probably a pretty good indication that
they might be they might be looking to go on tour.
And it's I do try to stay connected a lot
too within colleagues, within the industry. We have a network
called the grid Iron Stadium Network, which is comprised of
(25:44):
NFL stadiums, and everyone who does what I do so
heavily involved in that sharing information as far as you
know what other venues are hearing and what we see
out there, so we can kind of project and forecast,
like what are years to twenty twenty four will look
like and what twenty twenty five would look like.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Do you look at like social media?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So like I I obviously see like Levi's stadium mentions
and things like that, and a lot of times I
get people who are like, please bring so and so
artists or so and so banned to Levi's stadium. And
from what you're talking about, it almost sounds like it's
mutual beneficial, right, Like you should come to a live
bit Levi stadium and like, you know, they need places
(26:27):
to host their concerts. Like how much I guess influence
could you have or like do fans have.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
On bringing events to certain locations.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Well, first of all, I love that, and I'm whenever
I read some of those comments, I'm always.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Like, I know I'm trying.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
So yes, I mean, we certainly have our eyes open
for everything. That the tricky part is being a stadium
act is it's aggressive, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Our depending on your stage.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Shut up, it's forty five thousand people to share in
his stages in the round, so he's going to be
in the middle of the field and he can host
over seventy thousand. So sometimes as much as an artist
as big as can they fill a stadium or is
it better for them to go to an arena and
to do two nights at an arena or go to
(27:21):
a ballpark. So that that is the trickiest part is
making sure that the artist is a stadium act because
that can be daunting. I mean, these are large venues
and not everyone can sell them out.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I am sad we weren't here yet for when they
had the hockey game on the field, So that would
be my wish list. Do you have a wish listed
event that you wish that you would want to bring here,
like if we're manifesting.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I mean, I have some artists, but I don't think
I want to say them because I feel like I
might be judged. Yeah, the NHL That Stadium series was
incredible looking back at some of those photos. WWE was
another one that was absolutely phenomenal. So I look, I
(28:11):
just love the uniqueness of events. I have been a
part of a venue at Minim Park. We did cricket,
we did boxing, which was really cool. So anything that's
unique and outside of the box, I mean, I absolutely love.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What would you say is the most stressful part of
your job?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
HM, I would say.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Really probably managing the calendar and dates, because you do
have a lot of artists that overlap. They overlap the
we call them holds. So a certain artist will let
me know I want these particular date period and we
call them one H. It's a first hold, and then
another artist will come and say I want the same dates,
(28:55):
and then they're two hs.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
They're a second hold.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
But you don't really know how everything is going to
shake out, you know, So it's it's really managing the
calendar and man engineting it to a point where you
can get everything to fall in place where you know,
you might have four or five artists that are looking
to do a stadium tour, but they're all doing their
routing and I want every single piece to fall in
(29:20):
place where we can get all five of them. But
sometimes you know, the load in schedule won't work, the
routing won't work, and you you could lose an artist
just because of scheduling. So I think that is the
one piece that is probably the most challenging, is just
being strategic about your holds, about your routing. And also,
(29:40):
you know, if we're going to book a soccer match
in between two concerts, you know what does that timeline
look like to replace the field to get the field ready?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
So I would say the calendar is running a calendar?
Is that something that you've learned on the go? Or
how did you like? I'm assuming it's just like immaculate now,
but how did you get there?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well?
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Fortunately or unfortunately. I am extremely OCD and very organized
and very methodical, and I live by my calendar in
my personal life. So when it transitions to managing a
calendar for an NFL schedule and a stadium, I actually
enjoy it. You know, I feel like ours is not
(30:26):
as daunting as some other venues. I mean, look, some
other venues have an MLS team, have a women's team,
have a college team, have several different layers. For us,
I feel like it's a little bit easier with our schedule.
And I came from baseball, so you know, eighty five
home games is really tough to work around.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So coming here and saying like, wait, hold on, I
have like one eighth of that. This is great.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
What is the most number of non NFL events we've
put on at Leeby's Stadium?
Speaker 5 (31:02):
So earlier when we open up the building, we had
as many as fifteen and so that included college football
college football games that we had concerts. Last year we
had seven, which is a really good year for us,
and the share will have seven as well.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
This might be like asking you to choose your favorite child,
but have you had a favorite event that you've brought
into the stadium?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
That is like asking about my favorite child?
Speaker 5 (31:29):
And I think you know, it changes depending on how
your child's behaving. I think personally, well, look, all the
events are awesome. They all have unique versions of why
they're all my favorite and they all have a special
place in my heart. You know. Coldplay was the first
show that I did here of the opening up the
building after COVID, So that was incredible and that was
(31:53):
really special to get to get Coldplay back.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
In as the first one.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Another fun one that I absolutely love working on was
Group of fair May. It was our first Latin show
in Levi Stadium history. It was an up and coming
group that was just going on tour, and so you know,
if you have an artist who's just going on tour,
there's always so much excitement around that and they just
to see, you know, how well it performed. We had
(32:21):
over thirty thousand people in the building.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
That one was. That one was really fun, really fun
to work on.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Do you have any advice for someone or anyone who
wants to get into this industry?
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Absolutely relationships, building your relationships, not being afraid to ask
people to meet in person, not being afraid to ask
people to, you know, connect you with someone else in
the industry, and just grinding. I mean, there's not being
afraid to travel to get on a plane.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
To go meet with someone.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Some of those days have been some of the longest,
but also the most rewarding and seeing, you know, the
relationship that has been developed after you took the two
or three days to fly to Nashville to meet with
this particular client and then years later actually getting that artist.
(33:16):
So I would say, you know, just just in meeting people,
meeting people in person, and not being afraid to go
out and talk to anybody in the industry to learn,
you know, ask ask people who you want to, you know,
if you want to get to that person's position, ask
for fifteen thirty minutes of their time. I you know,
(33:37):
I had a lot of really great mentors do that
for me, and so whenever people aspiring to get in
this industry ask me for some of my time, I
will absolutely give it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, Emily, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, thank you both. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I think to be
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