#311 - Gregg Brunclik - Navigating Retirement: A Personal Journey - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You know, we were talking beforeabout me retiring, not retiring.
And you know, I, I was struggling early on with, at my,
when I got to the age where I felt like I should start wanting
to do personal stuff, but I, I took on ACEO not from our
industry resume was incredible. You know, it looked like a rock
star, but I took him on because I, I knew it was going to be

(00:22):
hard to mentor my sons as their boss and their father.
And so I took on ACEO to mentor my sons, which happened to be
just 3-4 months before COVID. And he ended up having to deal
with all kinds of other things outside of mentoring my sons,
like renegotiating, you know, leases and stuff like that.
But at the end of the day, when he did get back to actually

(00:44):
focusing on, you know, his primary duties here, it wasn't a
good cultural someone from outside the industry, no matter
what their business chops are. It it just, you know, we're a
special breed. And as I've said many times
since about this particular guy,he's probably an awesome manager
of 300 people in cubicles, but that's not who we are.

(01:35):
Hello and thanks for checking out another episode here today.
So I don't know if you heard or saw the Benoit Richard episode
yesterday. Well, it was recorded for me
yesterday, but I don't know whenyou're seeing this or when you
might have seen or heard that one.
But it's a great list. And if you haven't heard the

(01:57):
latest Benoit Richard podcast, which I'm not even sure the
episode number, but check it outbecause this guy has made two
careers from one really great things to learn and to teach in
this episode, especially if you're considering some sort of
a pivot in your lighting career,sound career, whatever career.

(02:20):
The the real probably message here is that there's something
on the other side. You know, there's there's green
grass still on the other side, there's grazing available on the
other side. And you know, he really made the
best of a rock'n'roll touring career.
And since that time, he's reallybecome a rock star in the in the

(02:43):
TV and film lighting arena. So please do check it out and.
What else? In the world of AI, there's a
lot of buzz on this collaboration between ChatGPT
and Shopify. It's really changing a lot and
has already started to change a lot about how things are being

(03:03):
purchased or going to be purchased online, especially
when you're using AI to search for things or to search, you
know, to to shop basically. And maybe you don't think you're
shopping, but you might be shopping.
And so they've collaborated witha lot of AI to create a shopping
experience online within ChatGPTand within open AI and within

(03:29):
future products that haven't even been thought of yet.
And you know, really, I think it's the first time in history
that I would say that Amazon really has some competition
coming. Like they've done things so well
at Amazon, but I think finally now not based on the fact that
they're going to be cheaper or it's like Temu where it's, you

(03:52):
know, just bottom dollar stuff coming from China or whatever
this is. This is bigger than that.
And I think, you know, finally we're seeing an opportunity for
the small sellers out there to sort of group together and use
these bigger platforms to reallygrow their businesses and to be
able to compete with the Amazonsof the world.

(04:13):
So it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
But I would watch for this collaborate collaboration
between between Shopify and OpenAI.
And has anyone out there listening to this or watching
this right now ever engaged yet with AI agents?
And it's also known as sort of the world of a gentic AI, it's

(04:35):
called. And you know, it's basically
where you're creating these AI agents who behave almost like
human assistants, I guess I would say.
And instead of just like LLM large language models, which are
just able to answer questions orcommunicate with you in sort of
a question answer sort of way, these are able to not only do

(05:00):
those same things, but in a bigger picture, this form of AI
actually performs tasks like human sort of tasks based on
simple prompts. So you could tell an AI, for
example, that I need to go to London to visit so and so from

(05:23):
whatever lighting company in London.
And it'll not only give you a list of flights, but you know,
it'll know your likes and dislikes.
It'll know all of your differentpreferences, whether you like
aisle or window seats, the airlines and hotels, whether you
fly business or coach, whether you upgrade your flights or pay
for those business class seats. Everything that a real travel

(05:46):
agent or a real assistant who works for you would know, like
an executive assistant. And from there it'll look
through your calendar. It could look at communications
you've had back and forth with that customer that you're going
to see in London. What else it could It could
schedule, it could see what yourschedule.

(06:08):
Looks like it could. Look at the agenda for this set
of meetings or this meeting and schedule flights, hotel, dinner
reservations. It could block time off on your
calendar if you haven't already done that.
And really it could also coordinate any changes,
cancellations, etcetera on that on that journey.

(06:29):
So you know, right now it's obviously playing out really
heavily in coding. Like you're seeing websites and
apps and all kinds of technologybeing created using AI to do all
the coding. That is incredible.
I've been paying a lot of attention to that recently, but
I think, you know, we're going to see a lot more of this
agentic AI happening where like my company today, like we're

(06:53):
starting to see our org chart shape up with human people,
human agents, human salespeople,human whatever.
And also these agents, these AI agents as well.
And as we continue to hire people, we're also going to be
continuing to build agents. And I keep hinting, but we are

(07:15):
building a platform that's heavily based on this technology
right now, and we expect to launch it in July.
And so I'll continue to tell youmore about that going forward.
So today on the podcast, Greg Brownclick is the founder and
Chairman of Clearwing Productions, Inc, a live event
production company he established in 1985.

(07:37):
With over 40 years in the industry, Greg built Clearwing
into a trusted provider of full service production support
including audio, lighting, staging, video and backline
services for events of all sizes.
From intimate presentations and corporate general sessions to
large scale concerts, multi stage festivals and presidential

(07:59):
appearances, Greg's experience spans every corner of live
production. Known for his calm leadership
and deep technical knowledge, hebrings a solutions first mindset
to every project. Greg has been a leader in
comprehensive production and stage management services,
offering clients a seamless one stop shop for technical

(08:19):
execution and event coordination.
His legacy is rooted in precision, professionalism and a
passion. For elevating the live
experience, please welcome Greg Brentclick.
It is high tech we got a countdown how do you like that
that's nice. You know, I wanted to have like
a little dancing person going across the screen with the

(08:39):
countdown, like with little cards going 5-4 Yeah, right.
But the. Clap or.
Something like that, you know, But I guess the budget went away
on that and we weren't able to do it.
But do what you. Can with what you got This works
for me. Yeah, exactly.
And of course, every time I get an audio company person on an
audio guy, their sound is the worst.

(09:00):
And so, Greg, you have not disappointed.
Your sound, your mic is terrible.
Well, I I used the term the lasttime we talked that I have a
stereo defecator inserted on my mic line.
But I don't, it's just, I'm justtalking to, I'm talking to a
computer. So we get what we get.
Yeah, no, it's all good. It's all good.
And you know, the good thing about my podcast is I've set the

(09:24):
bar pretty low, so. So it's pretty easy to get over
it. You know, it's pretty easy to
come up and go. Yep, I did great.
I'm just kidding. We've had incredible guests on,
of course, including yesterday Irecorded a, a really great
podcast. Do you know Benoit or Ben?
Richard worked at high end for anumber of years and then went

(09:45):
out with Metallica and John Broderick and was Matchbox, 20s
LD and a few other bands. And then he just decided, hey
look, I'm not seeing my family as much as I really should be.
I've got a new daughter. My wifes probably going to leave
me if I keep touring. And he said I'm done.
And he went and got his union card in LA, in Hollywood and

(10:06):
started doing TV and film and he's just risen right to the
top. You know, he's, he's just really
kicking ass in in LA. So it's really cool to see
somebody turn a career into two careers, you know, and, and just
completely pivot. We persevere.
Yeah, that's what we do. And we learned it in the
entertainment business, didn't we?
We kind of did. Like, show us, go on.

(10:28):
If there's something that sort of mimics the military, you
know, it must be this business, you know, the the production
world, like where not only does the show go on, but you always
have to find there's always a way to do it.
You know, there's a way to get this done.
And you know, I can't think of many other businesses, I guess
maybe some medical stuff, but but the military and, and our

(10:54):
business are just so intuitive and so creative with, with
coming up with ways to solve very unique problems.
There's no question about that. Yep, yeah, I love that.
I love that about our industry. You know, I think while you and
I, we'll get into some of the conversations we had during
COVID, but while, while we were talking, at one point, I think

(11:16):
we had that conversation, which is just like, let's just hand
this to, to our industry and we'll solve COVID.
You know, we can fix this. We can do safe shows and have
people in seats and, and people earning a living so that they're
not, you know, desperate and, and going bankrupt and losing
their houses and stuff. But no.
One had the vision to give us that opportunity so.

(11:38):
Not really, no. God, it took a long time, you
know, and that was another thingthat came out on this recording
that I did yesterday with Ben was he actually didn't want to
talk to a lot of people during COVID because he was working and
they weren't. And he felt it was like guilt,
you know, like, what do they call it?

(11:59):
Survivor's remorse or survivor'sguilt or something.
And so he was feeling that because he was very gainfully
employed, like doing a bunch of Netflix stuff and whatever and
he was working like crazy and never stopped.
Like he, he was out of work for I think 3 months, he said.
And that was it. He was gangbusters.
After that, well. Good for him.

(12:20):
It was a much longer stretch forsome of us, but.
Yeah, it sure was. Yeah, still here.
So it was, yeah, I, I remember, I remember, you know, you were
one of the people that I remember an awful lot during
COVID because I know that thingsgot a little tough for you for a
while, like so many people. And I remember one conversation

(12:41):
where you said something almost political, like almost against
the tribe with regard to COVID, and you just got completely
attacked. Like it was just like all your
friends just announced on you onon Facebook or whatever it was
I've. I've taken a lick here and there
in my life for sure. Yeah, I, I think I called you
and I just said, Greg, I just want to give you like a, a

(13:04):
telephone hug, you know, becausethat is crazy what's going on
right now. I.
Appreciated that. Yeah, You know, in the end we
survived. We had a a model during COVID,
survive and Thrive and we were in survival mode for a while and
we got some help like a number of other companies in the
country. And then we we switched our

(13:26):
perspective to Thrive. And and get back.
On the horse and and build and things have been going super
well since we had a great year last year with the political
campaigns we do a lot of. That work every year I guess.
So, you know, I can't complain about a thing.
I, I, I think the best thing about the way that I personally
dealt with COVID is I probably shared I'm a 12 step a, a guy.

(13:49):
Right. So yeah.
Even though COVID could have been the most catastrophic thing
that ever happened to our business, our industry, our
lives, I never worried about it.You.
Know, I, I just had this philosophy that was going to be
whatever would be would be and you know, whatever happened,
we'd be OK. And so it's all good.

(14:14):
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(14:43):
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While others are content to remain unchanged, a true hero

(15:08):
rejects the ordinary and embraces transformation.
They ascend and become the paragon.
Complaints. Yeah, you know, it is, it's hard
to even look back at, you know, like I think of this often,

(15:30):
like, you know, 10 years from now, how am I going to explain
that to like grandkids or something?
You know, Like how do you, how do you tell young, young people
who didn't really go through that exactly what that was and,
and what happened and, you know,why it happened and all that
kind of stuff? Like it?
It's a tough conversation 'causeit's like, it still doesn't make

(15:50):
sense to me. Right, but unfortunately,
history does repeat itself and they'll have their chance with
something in their lives. You.
Know that's one of my biggest prayers is that my children you
know are are OK in the world that is continues to morph into
something I don't understand these days I mean that's that's
you know I I'm an old school catyou know I'm still analogue guy

(16:13):
I have trouble getting my head around AI and all the other
things so. Right.
Yeah, I'm glad to be. I'd say I'm glad to be old some
days, but. Well, you know what?
And I'll tell you what's funny 'cause I'm old too, but I, I am
really into the whole AI thing and it deeply.
Like I'm building a couple of businesses around AI right now
within our industry and, and I get so excited about it that

(16:41):
like I go the opposite direction.
I wish I was younger 'cause I want to spend more time working
with AI to to become better, to make a better place, a better
planet, a better life, a better whatever, right?
Not to make more money. I don't care it it's more about
just wow, think of the diseases we can do away with completely.
We're going to obliterate disease.

(17:02):
My only concern with AI is what it'll do to employability for
people and whether or not it's going to run hundreds of
thousands of people that work. That's obviously one of the main
concerns. So the the two big AI concerns
are that and what about AI is like, you know, a gun in, in the
right hands, it saves you, in the wrong hands, it kills you

(17:25):
and and AI in the wrong hands certainly can become a weapon
for very bad things. You know, I just believe that
the world is going to figure that one out and and have have
enough senses to say we need to put up guardrails on this.

(17:47):
We need to make sure because it is going to be smarter than us
in not very much time. It's going to be within the next
few years. It's going to be smarter than us
completely. It's already way smarter than
me. The.
Matrix. Yeah, well, The Matrix, so many
of those movies, they're all coming true now.
Yeah, for sure. My youngest son is about to go
off to College in the fall. And you know, I, I say to him

(18:10):
and you, you sure you don't wantto go into the trades?
You know, I mean the guys in thetrades are making back nowadays
and and AI, as brilliant as it will be, it's not going to be
able to replace what we do with our hands, I don't think.
Oh yes it will. Oh yes, it already is.
AI is going to pull a wire. AI is going to do all of those
things every, you know, watch that, that show.

(18:32):
What's that guy's name? Roe.
Watch his show Dirty Jobs. Every one of those jobs is going
to be replaced by robots and AI.Everyone like look at one of the
ones that they're targeting already.
Drivers of all kinds, truck drivers, taxi drivers, Uber
drivers, you know, whatever drivers, all drivers will be

(18:53):
replaced. And that's shocking when you
think of that. But that wouldn't be the first
one that I'd say, OK, they're going to replace all drivers
with AI. But but it's happening and it's
probably that's going to happen relatively quickly, like maybe
in the next 5 or 6 years. Yeah, we don't have it here in
Wisconsin, but when I go to my home in Arizona, there's the
Waymo thing, the the driverless Ubers are all over Phoenix and

(19:18):
that's a little freaky to pull up next to one of those and.
Oh, you haven't ridden in one yet.
It's weird as hell. That is weird.
I'll tell you that. Well, and now the Tesla ones,
the whatever they're called, youknow Tesla taxis or whatever
they're called, they don't have a they don't even have a
steering wheel. It's just a smooth dash like it,

(19:39):
you know, it's they don't even have a steering wheel, so
they're not even pretending to be a, you know, a normal car
like they're just saying, hey, it's.
Freaky. It is.
It is freaky. Well, you know, I was talking to
somebody about this yesterday. Like the thing about these,
these autonomous driving cars, you know, self driving cars is

(20:00):
that there is a point where if they're all connected and
they're all self driving and they're all communicating with
each other, there will be no more accidents.
But what about when you have some old ladies in cars and some
crazy young people on motorcycles and in hot rod cars
and and then some of these autonomous vehicles, you know,

(20:25):
it could still get messy, like really messy, you know, so.
Only time. Only time will tell, right?
Yeah, but but I do I, I feel like most of the jobs that
people, the more, the less people want to do those jobs,
the more they're going to be motivated to replace them with
robots and AI. You know, there's already robots

(20:49):
that are sort of generalists. Generalist.
Robots that are being created. I just saw a new thing in China
on one that they've come up withthat's very inexpensive and
really, really good right now, but is.
That the one that can do backflips and all.
That yeah, well, most of them can like that's their that's
their sort of get people excitedtrick, you know, but they have

(21:10):
police officers. I think that was in China that I
saw that where they're doing flips, the, the police officers
are doing flips, robot police officers.
But no, there's these ones now where you could buy one and Elon
is saying they're going to cost around $30,000.
But you could buy one and depending what basically code

(21:30):
set you put into it tells it what job it's going to be doing.
So today it might be a warehouseworker, tomorrow it could be a,
a house cleaner, the next day itcould be doing yard work.
You know, whatever you want to program it to do, it'll do.
And so it's not like they need to be retrained or.
Well, I get all that, but I got to tell you, I like people.

(21:54):
Me too, I do too. I like.
People. So I guess time will tell.
We'll see. I like some people.
Well, true. I don't like all people.
Some people really suck. I've done.
Wrong. I've been done wrong by.
A few, yeah, yeah, yeah, some people suck, but I I agree with
you. Like that's the weird part.
What's it going to do to all thesocial connections and all the,

(22:14):
you know, but the, the people who talk positively about it,
like Sam Altman, who is the guy who runs Open AI, he will say
that it enables you to spend more time with people because
you're not doing the shitty jobs, you know, you're not doing
the stuff you don't feel like doing, like yard work or
whatever. I could see that I guess too.
Yeah, I don't know. It's it gets spun both ways

(22:37):
depending on if the cup's half full or half empty, right?
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If you're negative and and everyall new technology sucks, you're
going to find all kinds of reasons that this shouldn't be
happening, but it is so. What do you, what do you think
it'll do to our industry show business?

(24:04):
And you know, I mean, I don't think that streaming ever really
caught on. There's nothing about the energy
of a live show. Yeah, live shows aren't going to
go away. So, but what do live shows look
like? I mean, if you look at some of
the most, some of the, the, the biggest ticket sales, our EDM
shows right now, you know, some of these EDM festivals are the

(24:25):
biggest festivals. They are, there are and yet
there's no musicians. So does there need to be a DJ?
You know, I think at some point we're going to realize that the
DJs just. Play.
Yeah, I mean, how about having AI that just feels the crowd and
goes, OK, we should be a little softer right now, OK, things are
starting to happen and you know,we need to get going.

(24:47):
Feels the crowd. Feels the crowd, it just feels
the crowd. It reads the audience and
figures out what to do. I don't mean feels the crowd
like in a sick way, I mean feelsthe room, you know, figures it
out. But it's it's a great question,
like what's going to happen to our industry and, and live

(25:08):
shows? And I don't think live shows are
going away, but I do think AI generated music is coming in a
big way. And you know, I think instead of
a mix on Spotify, you're going to be able to have a completely
custom written mix on Spotify. So you could put in a genre and

(25:31):
it'll just make up songs in those genres and you can have
new music going all day long. Well, I suppose.
On the Labour side, you can certainly have a robot inhabited
warehouse that goes down aisle 6and picks this piece of trust
and brings it to the staging area and a robot that bolts it
together and whatever. All that, probably.
That stuff, that stuff, I mean, it'll take time because our

(25:52):
industry is so small, so to get everything working together like
that will take a long time. So I don't think we're going to
be one of the first ones. Where I do see it changing
immensely is all the obvious stuff like audio consoles, you
know, do you really need to do sound check and do you really
need to do all those things whenyou've got AI and, and, and the

(26:15):
thing can basically do it itself, you know, so lighting,
same kind of thing like lightingwill change immensely.
And I don't want to say too muchbecause I always get shit for
saying it, but you know, do we really need somebody pushing
buttons? Do we really need someone

(26:35):
programming every show, you know, independently, we're going
to learn. I don't know, like I, I'm not,
I'm not saying we don't. I'm saying that those questions
are going to be answered in the future.
And, you know, pricing and and cost controls and all kinds of
things are going to drive that, you know, so it's it's going to

(26:58):
be interesting. That's that's for sure.
It's going to change. It's going to be interesting.
It's going to be different, you know, and more more immediate.
You've got, you know, tariffs, like what's that do to the
landscape? You know, do do Chinese lighting
brands just disappear? Of course not, you know, because
I think this is going to be short term.

(27:19):
But like, what if it wasn't short term?
You know, people aren't just going to suddenly pay $25,000
for Chauvet fixtures. You know, it's just not going to
happen, so. Well, you know, on the front, we
were wondering what we're going to talk about and we found
something right away. I mean, that was, I'm not that
AI literate. So if you're down the rabbit

(27:39):
hole with that stuff, kudos to you.
I mean, you know that it's an interesting, it's an interesting
thing for sure. I just nobody can tell where
it's going to go, I suppose. Where are the boundaries?
Yeah. Well, you know, for me why I'm
so excited about it is because my business will never be PRG,
My business will never be clearwing.

(28:02):
I'm never going to have more than maybe 20 employees.
You know, today I won't tell youexactly our revenue, but we're
doing reasonable revenue with eight employees and.
We'll probably a good model. That's a great model.
It's, but it's partially enabledby this technology, this, this

(28:23):
AI stuff. And we're going much further
down that rabbit hole to where not I'm not going to get rid of
people, but instead of adding like another body for every
500,000 or $1,000,000 in sales, we'll be adding a body for every
5 or $6 million in sales. Like I have an org chart now
that's starting to combine people and AI agents basically.

(28:49):
So we have sort of AI, you know,fake people mixed into the into
this group of, of individuals and, you know, it's not doing
anything like talking to a customer and saying, yes, this
one has this many gobos and thisone has this many.
It's not doing any of that stuff.
But it does do that on the on the site.

(29:10):
So, you know, if you go to our live chat, for example, it's fed
a ton of information and it can have a conversation with you and
it's an AI bot basically, right?So, and of course you can always
hit give me a human and, and you'll get someone less smart
than that AI thing. But so I don't know, I'm excited

(29:33):
about it because I think one of the things is it, it's an
equalizer. So it allows a smaller business
to act closer to the bigger business and to be more
profitable than the bigger business.
And that, to me, is exciting. Well, and you know, a couple
minutes ago I said I like peopleand I do like people.
But you know, the wouldn't it bean amazing business model if you

(29:56):
could do hundreds of millions ofdollars a year in revenue with
one or two employees and you'd, you'd skip all that drama and HR
and all the other stuff that comes along with people?
You know, in tech that stuff is happening right now.
Like you're seeing right now, you're seeing some of the
largest companies ever built with the least amount of people.
Like you're seeing $100 million businesses with five employees

(30:17):
now in tech companies or or callit sub 10, you know, sub 10
employees. So 10 million per employee.
Like, that's a number that wouldhave been unheard of 10 years
ago. So that stuff's kind of
exciting. You know, the flip side of that,
again, is, is, you know, what dopeople who can't find jobs do?
And right now, that's a hard thought to have 'cause we're so

(30:40):
short on on labor in so many different areas that, yeah.
But you know, again, here's the thing.
Like it's this sort of cyclical thing that's fueling both sides
so. Like if I had an egg factory,
you know that that. Took eggs and processed eggs
from chickens. I'd be looking at ways to

(31:03):
automate because as the market, as the world becomes more global
in a sense of business where, you know, there's less barriers,
less borders, call it. And I'm not a globalist thinker,
even though I have a global company.
I do believe you have to, you know, protect your own country.

(31:23):
But I think it's a global marketat this point for most
businesses potentially. And as it becomes more and more
global, you know, you have to beable to compete on global
markets. And so, you know, one of the big
differences between China and the US isn't that it's not like
everyone keeps thinking it's allabout cheap labour.

(31:45):
And yes, labour in China is across the board.
It's going to probably be less than the United States, but it's
no longer the cheap labour sort of capital like you got to look
to India and, and Cambodia and Malaysia and places like that to
get really cheap labor now. But China has automation beyond

(32:08):
what most American factories have, or North American
factories, and the the level of automation in China and
technology behind that automation is becoming scary.
It's so good. You've been there to see this.
I have. Yeah, I have.
I have not, so yeah. Oh my God.
Well, and I was there before too.

(32:28):
So I was there before they had all this automation where you
had people sitting outside on the street putting together like
PC boards and stuff because theydidn't have enough room inside
this tiny little sweat box of a factory.
And it was, it was sad. It was like they're just really
abusing these people. Well, that kind of stuff has
moved to other countries now andChina's become, you know, much

(32:50):
bigger thinking and, and you know, when you see some of the
stuff coming out of their car factory, the BYD car factory,
it's incredible some of the stuff they're coming up with and
the pricing is just scary low, you know, so, so anyway.
We were, you know, so we were touched on labor just a little
bit because, you know, that's one been one of the biggest

(33:12):
struggles for companies like mine in the last two years is
and I say to myself, yeah, it's so hard to find people 1 and
retain them too. But what are all these people
who don't want to work doing? How are they paying the bills?
You know, I don't know. I don't either, you know,
obviously like right at the end of COVID, we had this sort of
mass movement to more stable jobs.

(33:35):
Call it like, not that our industry isn't stable, but like
they got to be home by 5:00 for dinner with their family or
whatever. They got proper insurance where
in some cases in our industry, they don't.
They were paid as employees instead of contractors in many
cases. So they got AW 2 and and they
didn't have to travel, you know,and so we lost a lot of people

(33:59):
obviously to that and most of them didn't come back.
And so, so that was problem one.Problem 2 was that, oh, look, I
got a thumbs up problem. Problem 2 was that, you know,
our industry grew so much like all of a sudden everybody and
their dog wanted to go out and tour and all at the same time,

(34:21):
right? So obviously there was a huge
bubble where we we didn't have enough and people just wore
themselves out just working to the bone as you know, you know,
shorthanded and everything else and longer days, more days, blah
blah, blah. So that was a problem.
I. Don't know.
I don't know about the other players, but our experience with

(34:42):
the the freelancers or the permalancers, the guys who, you
know, want to manage their own time.
Yeah. And we, those people are still
all employees. They're on our payroll, but they
just manage their own time. Because.
They have to because of work comp and all that.
Yeah. But our experience was that when
COVID ended and people came back, the rates went way up.

(35:03):
People were trying to make up for lost time or whatever.
And then that first year after COVID, the, the promoters were
throwing money at us. They all just wanted to get
shows going again. And it was manageable that first
year or so. But since then, the promoters
and what they're willing to pay for service has normalized, but
the freelancers, perlancers are still still there.

(35:24):
So, so you know, and at the end of the day, companies like mine
are on some levels candles burning at both ends a little
bit. We're doing well too.
That's a common story that I hear though, like the the fact
that normalizing those prices meant putting it back to 2019
rates and but yet your costs arestill much higher than they were

(35:45):
in 2019 is basically what you'regoing.
Up even more and all the and. Going up more, yeah.
So yeah, they're like, hey, you used to be able to do this show
for me for 100 grand. You know, I know I had to pay
140 last year or the year before, but if you won't do it
for 100 grand, I'm going to go somewhere else and then they'll.
Find someone that will do. It and they'll find someone.

(36:06):
And so, you know, especially I think it's the small companies
like the five to $10 million companies are being most
impacted by that because they'refinding themselves either
breaking even or even losing money, you know, and, and that
obviously isn't sustainable. So right.
Now, I mean we, we had in late last year during the political

(36:30):
campaign season, we established our CapEx budgets for the coming
year of course. Well, we're rethinking all of
that right at the. Moment because we're the.
Tariff business and we're not going to get nearly what we
thought we'd get for the money. Or whatever, Yeah.
So we're we're dragging our feeta little bit on some of the
things that we were going to do just to kind of wait and see if
this is a short term deal or not.
Yeah, Yeah, that's, that's crazy.

(36:51):
And you know, we've seen some ofthat business, you know, panic
buys where it's like, Yep, we either cut out the CapEx all
together or we're gonna buy used.
Can you get us this? And and by the way, we need it
by you know, 13 days from now orwhatever.
And so I think. We went, we went through that
too. We, we had CapEx that we're

(37:11):
gonna spend on, I don't pick X lighting fixture that we're
gonna buy in, let's say May thatwe had to pull the trigger on in
January or February because it was in stock now.
And if we had to wait for it to come over from China, it was
going to cost 2025% more. So we pulled the trigger earlier
in our cycle too. Yeah, Yeah.
Well, the good news is at least you got it because, you know,

(37:32):
right now you probably wouldn't because it's going to be 100%
more like I I've heard some trickery where it's only, you
know, 30 or 40% more, but only 30 or 40%.
Come on now. Boy, who gets who gets
accustomed to that? Yeah.
It's not much different than what we experienced coming out
of COVID with with the supply chain issues.

(37:53):
Yeah, yeah. You know, then it was just
supply and now it's, you know, supply is probably there if
you're willing to pay for it. Yeah, so it's two different
animals, but. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
That's true. What a complicated industry.
It really is a hard business. Like if they taught this in
Harvard Business School or something, people would be like,

(38:13):
why would I want to do that? That makes no sense.
Well, and I think for us it's paid to stay a family owned
small conglomerate of people because we can turn on a dime
when we need to. It's not like we got to go to
the boardroom and and have 20 people get a consensus on what
decision we're going to make. Right, because.

(38:35):
That bogs down the process too, so we've been fortunate that way
in the ability to turn quickly when we need to.
Yeah, you can make a decision. Yeah, Yeah, sure.
No, that's a, that's a great point.
And I mean, you know, as you know, not that many companies
are left in that position. You know, it's it's changed.
The whole landscape has changed.And and now, you know, bigger

(38:57):
private equity firms are buying private equity held companies
from other private equity firms.And it's just, you know, that
that sort of ball of yarn just keeps getting weirder.
Well, I mean, the dynamics started.
I started noticing it when, you know, the Walmarts and the big
box stores were rolling over themom and pop little shops.

(39:20):
And now it's just the big eight and the small.
I mean, that's. Yeah.
But it's we're just gonna changethe course of, you know, a
glacier. Well, but at the same time and,
and you would know this as well as anyone, are we in an industry
now where unless you have accessto that kind of capital, you're

(39:41):
not going to be able to compete on many of the bigger shows,
like you're just not going to beable to do a Taylor Swift or
something like that, right. Well, I think for certain that's
a factor. Yeah.
I think another factor for us is, you know, the companies that
are global and you know, it's not like we've never shipped a
container somewhere to do a show, but it's a lot more

(40:02):
cumbersome for us than it is oneof these major international
players that just sends an e-mail to the Afghanistan.
I'm going to pick a new example Afghanistan office.
And, and you know, they, they package it all up there with
everything exactly the same as it was here in the States,
right? It's a real advantage for a band

(40:23):
that's doing international touring.
It's a lot more cumbersome for acompany like mine to Addy up to.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, No, I I get that that's,
that's, that's a big one right there.
But it's also, you know, like you look at some of these
companies who became international and I won't
mention any names, but one of the more recent ones bought a

(40:44):
company over there and it was a disaster.
Like it was, they lost so much money for the first year and a
half, two years, that it just, it was like, Oh my God, what did
we do here? You know?
Yeah. And I'm.
Not Privy to knowing anything about that one, but.
Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you offline.

(41:05):
I'll tell you offline, but yeah,you know, and part of that is
cultural. You know, it's like, I know
businesses who keep saying I'm going to expand and put an
office in Dubai and, you know, I'm like, have you ever been
there? And they say, no, I haven't.
And well, you might want to makea few trips over and, and really
understand the culture and how business is done there.

(41:25):
And you know what types of regulations you're going to have
to follow and expats and all this stuff like they like things
done their way, you know, and even just doing business as, you
know, in a different state or ina different whatever, like can
be completely different. So.
Well, and I'm, I'm not, I don't know enough about private equity

(41:48):
to really testify. I mean I we get panged by
people. You know of?
Course all the time. You're of that size.
I'm of that size, but you know, my gut says that, you know, when
you get consumed by somebody like that and it becomes a, you
know, you're held to ratios and covenants and all this stuff
over 5 to 8 years until they canroll you over to the next PE

(42:11):
firm. That's not a.
And in the meantime, you pay, let's just say $1,000,000 a year
in management fees while you're trying to meet your ratios.
That's not necessarily a vice. I want to put my head in, you
know, so I'm, I'm much, I, I really prefer the family owned
dynamic that we have where, you know, we talk to each other
about what's going to happen. And but again, I haven't been, I

(42:34):
haven't dealt with private equity before.
So I don't, but I have talked topeople that have and it's kind
of that dynamic, yeah. So, well, not every deal, not
every deal has like earn outs and stuff like that where where
you're lending money back to thecompany.
A lot of deals you're just paid out.
And and then, you know, if you want to stay on for five years,

(42:55):
you know, they'll pay you a salary for five years.
If you don't want to, they usually want you to stay at
least a year so that, you know, they can figure out where all
the bodies are buried and stuff.But but yeah, a lot of lot of
deals don't involve, you know, those earn out situations.
I agree with you. Like it never seems to end well.
Most earn out deals that I see done don't end up paying out at

(43:19):
the end or I shouldn't say most,but certainly a lot of them.
And so, yeah, like I've always said, if I sell my company, I
sell my company. You write me a big fat check and
I walk away as soon as possible.Yeah.
You know, clearly there are all different ways to skin the cat.
You know, depends on how what your motivation is for wanting

(43:41):
to get out. Yeah, if you want to get out or
if it's just the right time or the right deal, Yeah, there's
all kinds of ways that can happen.
But it's, you know, it's individual to each.
Person, you have two sons. I have two sons in the business.
So, you know, that's been a big factor for me as well as I, you
know, I, I, I, I consider with high priority what they would be

(44:05):
subjected to if I were, if I were to turn over ownership to
someone else. So that's, that's a big criteria
for me. So that's why, you know, that's
another one of the reasons why Ithink I'm, I'm a little, I don't
want to say negative about private equity, but I, it's a
different set of criteria than if, if it would have been, I
don't know the way Bert Perry got out.

(44:28):
Yeah. So.
Well, you know what though? I mean, the other thing is, you
know, like I, I don't have that,that option.
In other words, you know, my succession plan is sell the
business because I, my, I have one son, that's it.
And he has shown 0 interest in working in the business, you

(44:49):
know, even like he just turned 21 couple weeks ago and I said,
do you ever want to maybe go outon a tour?
Do you want to be a pyro guy? Do you want to be a lighting
guy? Do you want to, you know,
whatever, I can get you a gig and you could go test it out for
a year. And he's just like shown no
interest in it whatsoever. I know a lot of guys in my

(45:10):
segment of the industry who are in the same boat, who, you know,
built really nice sized production companies and they
have nobody in the next generation that has any interest
in it. So I think it can go both ways,
but I feel very fortunate to have.
Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic.
I call the chromosomal abnormality, Yeah.
Now that's, that's amazing. I mean, it must also give you a

(45:33):
great source of pride and, and you know, so and, you know, I've
talked to at least one of your sons.
I don't remember if I've talked to both, but you know, smart guy
and, and knows what he's talkingabout and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm somewhat envious of that
because, you know, for me to sithere and tell you I'm going to
sell my business, it almost pains me in the stomach because

(45:55):
I've spent 22 years building it and, and nurturing it and
nursing and, and helping it along and stuff.
Blood, sweat and tears. Yeah, oh, so many, like I could
tell you all of the blood, sweatand tears stories, but so yeah,
just passing it on to somebody who can build it bigger and make
loads of money on it. Well.
But you know, an important pieceof that is, you know, we were

(46:16):
talking before about me retiring, not retiring,
retiring, not retiring. Yeah.
And you know, I I was strugglingearly on with at my when I got
to the age where I felt like I should start wanting to do
personal stuff more than. Business stuff.
What was that 20 I? Much later, yeah.
Yeah. But I, I took on a, a CEO not

(46:40):
from our industry and resume wasincredible and it looked like a
rock star. But, and I took him on because
I, it was hard. I knew it was going to be hard
to mentor my sons as their boss and their father.
And so I took on ACEO to mentor my sons, which happened to be
just 3-4 months before COVID. And he ended up having to deal

(47:03):
with all kinds of other things outside of mentoring my sons,
like renegotiating, you know, leases and stuff like that.
But at the end of the day, when he did get back to actually
focusing on, you know, his primary duties here, it wasn't a
good cultural. Fit, you know.
Someone from outside the industry, no matter what their
business chops are, it it just, you know, we're a special breed

(47:26):
in this industry. And I've said many times since
about this particular guy, he's probably an awesome manager of
300 people in cubicles, but that's not who we are.
Right. You know it's so true.
Yeah. So that didn't go all that well.
And and that's part of the reason that I came back is
because the people just needed somebody who think the way they
think. You know, they could trust that,

(47:49):
you know, my word is my bond. And I didn't make all my
decisions based on ratios. Yeah, well, you know what, take
pride in knowing that companies much larger than yours, PRG
have, have struggled with the same thing.
You know, PRG is, I think on their 4th CEO in, in a few years

(48:09):
or whatever. And you know, it generally boils
down to culture. It's not because the guy's
stupid or or isn't well educatedor is earning too much money or
whatever it is. It's it's culture.
And when, when you lose your people, you know, like when your
people don't believe in you, forget it.
It's time to go. Like you're not going to

(48:30):
convince them to believe in you once they've decided otherwise.
They've decided you're a schmuckor you're not a you're not one
of us. Yep, they're gone.
I. Had I had well, I had two CE OS
in a row actually, my first guy went out with a health issue.
I hired another guy from outsidethe industry, but it was the
same dynamic basically. Yeah.
And the second guy went out and I mean he helped do load

(48:51):
insurance and dump trucks and and it bought him a lot of St.
Cred, don't get me along. Yeah.
But when it came to managing thebusiness and the way those guys
make decisions based on everything on paper, it just
there just wasn't the ability toconnect with the people out
scanning cable in and out or whatever.
Right, so. It it, it had its challenges and

(49:12):
I just had at one point make a decision or lose some really
good key people just because of the changes in culture.
Yeah, I completely get it. You know, I, I so even my little
business gear source one point, it was probably around 2007 8,
something like that. And I had this LED company that

(49:35):
I was growing and it just kind of took off and, and it started
to get fairly big and needed a lot of my attention.
And so I hired ACOOI wasn't brave enough to hire a CEO, but
I hired ACOO, which just meant that, you know, if he was an
asshole, I could put a CEO abovehim or I could step in again or
whatever, right. And, you know, it was probably a

(49:59):
year into his reign. And I went in there on a Sunday
when nobody was around. I went into that building
because at the time we had a building and I sat at his desk
and I didn't look at stuff. I just sat at his desk and kind
of thought and looked around andI said I got to fire this guy.
Sense the energy. Yeah, and, you know, people like

(50:22):
I would walk in my building during the day when when we
were, you know, at the height ofbusiness and it felt like a
morgue, like it just nobody seemed happy.
Nobody was making noise and jumping up and down and dinging
the bell and whatever, you know.And I let him go and I'll tell
you how bad it got was my sisterworked for me and right before I

(50:44):
let him go, she she quit and I was like on the brink.
Of exactly the same thing. Yeah, I was like on the brink.
What do you mean you quit? And she says I I just don't want
to talk about it, but I'm I justcan't work here anymore.
No, she. Didn't say for.
Him, She didn't throw him under the bus, but as soon as I fired
him, she called me and said OK, I'm coming back now.

(51:04):
And I was like, oh. That was honorable.
That was honorable, yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, I'm sure you had a similar dynamic with your son's
saying dad. Yeah, So one of my son's Max is
now the CEO and president and the CEO for now, Yeah, he just
gets a few more miles on his tires.
He's kind of a young buck still.Yeah.

(51:25):
And my other son Brian is the VPof production.
Cool. And then we have Nick Dressler
down in Phoenix who's the, the VP of, of integration.
So cool. Well, our our machine is is
running well oiled. At the moment I.
Got no complaints. So what?
What? Denver's gone, right?
Yeah, Denver's gone. Yeah.

(51:46):
You know, I really love Denver and I was really hoping it would
be a great farm team in the beginning for us, if you will.
Yeah. But So what happened was, and I,
I'm not going to throw any dartsat anything or anybody, but what
our experience in Denver was basically a result of the jam
band Mark. I mean, it's such a jam band
market there that every show is 200 moving lights and pyro and

(52:11):
smoke and lasers and blah, blah,blah.
And so we were supplementing theDenver shop with gear from
Phoenix and Milwaukee to the point that Milwaukee and Phoenix
were just ranting and raving about their, you know,
constantly having to sub rent toknock out their stuff.
So it just became a feasibility study on sustainability.
And yeah, we just went. I did.

(52:33):
At the time, I didn't have the kind of CapEx to sink into
completely setting Denver. Yeah.
Myself at that level, yeah. So it just was an experiment
that that didn't pan out. The way, yeah, you split 22
shops into three and. And the math didn't work at the
end of the day. Yeah, and.
And then, you know, in fairness,I didn't have the best of luck.

(52:56):
I want to be a little careful, but I didn't have the best of
luck with the company I acquired.
There were. Some speed bumps there that were
unforeseen. Even though we did rigorous
diligence, it was more of a cultural thing and it ended up
going the way that I'd hoped it would.
So that was then and this is now.
Yeah, it happens. Yeah.

(53:16):
No, I, I actually didn't even realize that it, you know, I
think I was talking to one of your guys if maybe a month or
two ago. I didn't even know that you had
closed Denver and it came out onthat call.
Oh, no, we don't have Denver anymore.
And I'm like, oh really? I didn't know that.
Well, you know. We made big noise when we went
there, but we. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, as you do, as you do, right, yeah.

(53:38):
And. You know, and we, so we pulled
production out of Denver first and like an example of what I
was just talking about on the first festival we did after
pulling production out of Denver, I saved $80,000 on sub
hires on the first show. Oh my goodness.
So. Much of the gear came back to
where it belonged. Wow and.
So we pulled production 1st and radically minimized our sub

(54:02):
hires in both the other offices.And then we left integration
there for a few years and went to a smaller building and did
some other things. Yeah.
But it that became a little bit of a challenge after a while as
well. So we finally just said, you
know, yeah, go in the towel. Let's let's get back to what we
do well. Yeah, and.
So. Anyway, that was, you know,
integration. Integration is an interesting

(54:24):
place right now. And you know, maybe you can tell
me why, or maybe you're not experiencing the same thing, but
it seems like even large, large companies are shutting down
integration divisions in their businesses and we're.
Doing well. There.
Yeah, yeah. I can't complain.
About well, that was one of the things I was going to say though
is it seems like not the largestbusinesses are doing well and

(54:48):
some of the largest businesses aren't and I don't know why.
Well, you know, we don't do. We do primarily production
really entertainment places, yeah.
And we were doing some themed stuff a couple years ago and we
still do a little bit of that, but we've tried to narrow our
focus on to what's the highest margin.

(55:10):
You know, we've decided we like to work half as much and make
twice as much instead of workingtwice as hard to make half as
much. And so we, I mean, we don't do
corporate boardrooms, we don't do sign digital signage, You
know, we don't do a lot of thosethings that are diversions from
what we know best. And, and live entertainment
production is what we cut our teeth on over the years.

(55:31):
So we do primarily production spaces now, which has served us
well. And you know we have, we have
relationships with a couple of Co-op situations that bring work
to us as well. Yeah, that's cool.
So. That segment of our business is
probably in the range of 40 to 50%.
Wow equal equal equal with production now so.

(55:53):
I stand corrected. Yeah.
It, it just seems like a, you know, like so many people I
talked to are like, we're not making any money there.
We're, you know, like I know one, one small group of
companies just recently sold offtheir, their, that division of
their company and, and others have closed it and some of the

(56:15):
bigger ones have closed it, likeSolo tech actually closed their
e-commerce business And, and I, I was.
Just going to go there. I was just going to go there and
say that that that is probably more of what we experience in
the e-commerce because there's, so you know, there's so many
people selling stuff online. Now, yeah.
It's, it's hard to compete in that segment and get any real

(56:36):
margin. So we do, we are noticing a
decline in our pro shop business, Yeah, or the brown box
sale part, but the, the integration division where we're
actually going out and installing the rig or the, you
know, the intelligent waste systems.
And all that stuff now, yeah, we're.
We're doing well there. I can't.
Yeah. Good, good.
Yeah, Well, and I, I would guessthat most of that is regional,

(56:58):
right? Like or is it national still?
Yeah, it's national. I mean I have.
AI probably. I think I have a crew out in
Wyoming right now. We have a crew, some now in
Phoenix. It's a bit more regional, but
that's a much bigger market thanWisconsin is.
You know, I mean, Miss Phoenix is what, 6 or 7 million people
with new venues and stuff going up all the time.

(57:19):
Milwaukee and Chicago is a little more.
You know we're. Not concentric or whatever the
word is, you know, it's, it's, it's confined.
So but but we're still, we're still doing a lot of production
related stuff. Yeah.
So you know, what are you, what are you thinking?

(57:44):
Like, how do things sort of fix themselves?
You know, like, I mean, we're still struggling for people.
We're, we're obviously starting to see some, I'm seeing more and
more businesses struggling just to make money right now.
Like, you know, one of the interesting trends that I'm
seeing is you've got some companies that are growing

(58:05):
rather quickly, young guys that are fairly well funded and but
they're growing on this model, which is basically we'll work
24/7 and never take a break and we'll sleep at the shop and that
kind of thing, which as you know, it will.
Race to the bottom on the numbers.
It is not sustainable. No, I don't see it as

(58:26):
sustainable. I, I mean, I say that I'm glad
to be old in a number of contexts.
You know, 1 is I've seen a lot of stuff and I've experienced a
lot of things that we've had to change to grow and, and you
know, what's the phrase change or die, I guess.
As a business, evolve or die, I'm.
I'm glad I wouldn't want to be starting out in the in the
industry of any nature right nowwith the economic climate, just

(58:50):
the lack of people and labor. I'm not a fan of of, of, of
social, the whole kids living intheir phones thing, you know, so
I'm a little old school that way.
But the reason, the other reasonI say I'm glad to be old is
because we've got a head start on a lot of those guys.
And our business is big enough and well known enough and we
have a reputable enough reputation to to to get to get

(59:15):
some things just based on who weare and how we have.
Done this. That's very helpful.
To get to start clawing and scratching at the market now
would be really challenging. Yeah.
I don't know if I'd have the patience.
Yeah, well, I, I mean, I know some people doing really,
really, you know, big shows, lots and lots of work and stuff.
But, you know, you could call them at 11:00 on a Thursday

(59:38):
night and they're at the shop, you know, And like, one thing I
know is I know a lot of people who are either dead or dying who
had that kind of lifestyle. You know, you, you do have to
have other things in your life, otherwise this will burn you out
pretty well. And so and.
I, you know, again, I feel fortunate along those lines.

(01:00:00):
We're we're, it's not like my people haven't put in 100 hour
weeks a bunch of times in the last year, but it kind of ebbs
and flows. Yeah, you know, and that's
that's another good thing about having Milwaukee and Phoenix,
which are inverse busy seasons. You know it when it, it slows
down up here, we've got revenue streams and whatnot coming from
Phoenix. So the that's been a nice

(01:00:21):
synergy in in our evolution too.Is, is going to another climate
where things subset, you know, our things subsidized each other
and, and being multi discipline helps too.
You know, when sound is down, lighting is up, when you know,
backline, backline or, or integrations is down, production
is up. When production is down,
integrations is up. So and and frankly along that

(01:00:42):
line, you know, integrations saved us and COVID.
Yeah, a lot of businesses. Yeah.
I mean the schools that were shut down for three or four
months all said we want to get this work done and we can do it
with social distancing while none of the students are here or
anything. So having having that multi
discipline really saved us too. I just got a little shiver when

(01:01:02):
you said social distancing. I don't ever want to hear that
again. I know.
Like, I didn't realize I liked people until you made me stay
away from him. And then I was like, well wait a
second, this sucks. I don't like this.
We were just shooting the breeze.
There was a guy from another company here a couple minutes
ago and we were shooting the breeze out in the front office
and I remember going to a show. I don't remember where it was.

(01:01:24):
I don't remember the show or anything, but I walked out onto
the space where the audience would be and there were 6 foot
diameter circles. Jesus Christ.
All the floor so that people canstand to the center of.
Their six my diameter. Circle.
And try to. Watch some kind of show now.
It couldn't have been something big because obviously you were

(01:01:45):
limiting your attendance, but I remember seeing that and just
thinking, where the hell are we doing?
That yeah, so many things like the grocery stores where you had
one way lanes down each of the aisles, you know, this ones only
to go this way. Oh, no, you got to go to the
next lane to go this way. It's like, what if I chose the
wrong lane, you know? Ever want to live like that?

(01:02:05):
Oh my God. Or even those circles like in
the bank and stuff, you know when you're like they're showing
you how closely you can stand topeople and it's like God and
there's a line like 3 blocks outthe door and it's only 12 people
you know it's. Like or the the vinyl
footprints. On Oh Jesus, those and.
There was always the joke that there were those every six feet

(01:02:26):
lined up behind Anita Baker's monitor guy, because when that
guy got fired, the next guy would.
Oh my God, that's hilarious. That's hilarious.
Anyway, yeah, so. Funny stuff we've seen in our
years, huh? Yeah.
What what do you think is the hardest from a gear standpoint?
What's the hardest department tokeep up with?

(01:02:46):
Like who? Who demands the newest, latest
gear and at the highest cost? Is it audio?
Well, yeah. And lighting, you know they're,
they're kind of run parallel forus and you know, because we have
both disciplines, we were as from a CapEx standpoint, we were
jogging every other year. One year was audio, the next
year was lighting. OK, Yeah.

(01:03:07):
But then COVID threw a wrench inall of that timing too, because
by the time we came out of COVID, we were like 3-4 years
behind latest technology. And.
Lighting especially and I was kind of hoping that there would
be a sensitivity by the guys spec and the gear that hey, we
know all these vendors took it in the shorts here for a couple
years. We're going to use gear that's a

(01:03:27):
little bit aged for a while thatdidn't.
Happen. Really.
No, I want the latest, greatest thing that's new off the market.
Oh my God. So.
But it is what it is. Yeah, well, yeah, cuz I know
when we were coming out of COVIDand we'd be on those like my
zoom calls every week or whatever, people would talk
about, you know, coming out of this, we're going to be much

(01:03:47):
more sensible and some things we're going to totally change
and we'll never go back again. And you know, we're going to be
more disciplined and all this stuff, right?
And no, people will have to use whatever's in my shop.
And then the first show you see them do, you're like, no, wait,
you didn't used to have those Roby, you know, Forte's or
whatever. And well, you know, a customer

(01:04:08):
needed it, you know, so people in our industry are too willing
to go massively into debt too. That's the other thing, like
debt is they're addicted to debt, you know?
Well, and I'm not gonna RIP on anybody.
I completely respect all the guys who are the geniuses of.
Course. Have the design and the creative
element of this who then spec the gear.

(01:04:30):
But I've said for many, many years it it must be nice to be
the guy that just has to write what I want on a piece of paper
and someone else has to buy it and provide.
It you know. But at the end of the day, it
you know, we've survived throughall of these.
Iterations, right? Exactly, we're doing.
Well, so I don't have an axe to grind with anybody, but I still
think it would be nice to just say this is what I want, please

(01:04:52):
provide it for me. And yeah, somebody else has to.
Buy it. Well, or how about a collab, you
know, where, where somebody comes into you and says, hey,
Greg, what would be the best gear for us to spec on this show
that we're doing with you next week based on what you have in
stock, you know? Well, I'm pretty sure that some
of the the real heavyweights in our industry have that ability.

(01:05:15):
Yeah, you know, but a company atmy scale just doesn't have that
kind of leverage. Yeah, so you give them what they
want. Imagine some of the major
players, you know, they fly a guy in and do they win him and
dine him or do whatever they do and and they work those
compromises out. Not really.
Not really. Yeah, I, I don't know, it's.

(01:05:35):
Speculation, yeah. Speculation.
No, it doesn't seem like it. It, it seems like, you know,
whatever they want, they get. And, and, you know, I think when
a huge player does a smaller show, perhaps, you know, like if
they're doing, you know, if, if you know, a solo tech or a PRG
or somebody's doing a, a theatretour and the LD says, I gotta

(01:05:56):
have these. And they say, well, would you
take these? Because we're going to be able
to hit your budget, if you will.And we've been doing.
It for 20 years within your budget and you know we've always
taken care of you here. So can we get a little back
scratch here? Yeah, yeah.
I don't. Yeah.
You know the game. Yeah.
I mean, we've, we've had to passon many a project over the years
just because we didn't have the capacity.

(01:06:17):
Yeah. I mean, from a people or a gear
standpoint, that's really hard when you want to continue to
grow your business. And especially if it's an act.
I mean, I've had several acts come our way that I was just
love to work with. I'd love to do that to her if
the timing was wrong or whatever.
And, and I, I had a friend who was a, an agent for us a few

(01:06:38):
years ago. And he said one of his biggest
frustrations in the business, heworked for a bigger player
before he was an agent for us. And he said I worked for three
or four years to get this act togive me a crack at him.
And as soon as I got the crack at him, we couldn't do it.
And that's so frustrating. Yeah, yeah, no kidding.

(01:06:59):
Well, I mean, but the flip side of that is, you know, and I've
seen this one happen where literally it bankrupted a
company when they reached further than they they could,
then they should have, you know,so I just really want to do it.
It's The Beatles reunion. I got to have this, I got to
have it. And so they they take an
incredible amount of debt and buy this crazy package for

(01:07:21):
really low returns. And, you know, they lose their
ass and two years later they're gone, you know well.
You know, there was a there was a company I won't name a few
years ago that was blew up, flash in the pan kind of same
thing, one hit wonder type of deal and massive.
And I was thinking, boy, what are we all going to do to
compete with these guys? And then they were only around
for a couple. Years, Yeah, Yeah, You know, I

(01:07:44):
happen to know who you're thinking about.
Yeah. But no, I mean, you know, I, I
think at the end of the day, like there are some successful
businesses that you look at and you go and chances are they're
either going to be sold to private equity within a couple
years or something's going to give.
Because you can't just keep fueling that thing, you know,

(01:08:07):
with debt and debt and debt and more debt, you know, unless you
just have really rich parents. No one can own enough gear to do
everything you know with everyone.
PRG is sub hiring from solo techor solo tech?
From Claire or whatever, yeah. Pick all the big players there,
but no one can own enough of everything to.
No, Pull it all off. No.
Yeah. So you're saying basically

(01:08:30):
lighting and audio are both impossibly expensive and hard to
keep up with? I.
Won't say impossibly, but they're both challenging to keep
state-of-the-art and both at thesame time.
Yeah, yeah. But audio, it's like.
It's an interesting thing because like it just seems like
L acoustics and DNB like you know, first it's this rig and

(01:08:52):
then you got to have this one and then you got to have this
one and then you and it's. Just like 2,000,002 million,
3,000,002 million, 2,000,000. For sure it's huge money and
and. It would be nice if it stopped
at speaker systems you. Know you've got.
Consoles and processing and you know.
I can't believe what amps cost these days.
You know these power soft amps are just like holy shit, you

(01:09:13):
want how much for an amp? Yeah, dude, we had a incident
last summer. We were had a transfer truck
coming up from Phoenix, 3 trucksright at the end of the busy
season in Phoenix. The trucks were headed to
Milwaukee for Summerfest. The RNC was here last summer, we
do the Harley anniversary and wedid another big corporate thing
and they were all stacked up. So we had three trucks

(01:09:34):
transferring from Phoenix to Milwaukee and one of the three
trucks in Liberty, KS experienced a problem and the
the truck went up in flames. Fire.
And. The the IT was the tractor that
started fire. The axle froze up or something
but once the tires went up rubber burns hot.
The whole front third of the trailer burned up and when I got

(01:09:56):
the pictures it was like a stackof L Acoustics K1 that you know
the firemen had used axes on. Oh no.
So I mean in the just the front third of that trailer was
$2,000,000 worth of brand new power amps and and K1.
K2 Speakers. Just so I mean, we pulled it

(01:10:18):
off. We scrambled to sub rent from
other people to cover our needs,but it was, yeah, I mean, the
the expense and such a small package of stuff now you can't
even get your head around 1-2 rack spaces $10,000 yeah, you
know, I mean. Really crazy I remember.
When I was first in business, I thought, why does everything
have to cost 100 bucks? Yeah.

(01:10:38):
Then a couple years later is whydoes everything have to cost
1000 bucks? Yeah.
Then a why does everything have to be 100?
Well, now it's, you know, every new system is 1,000,000 plus.
What about video? Do you do video as well?
We don't have video. Yeah, you're, you're smart.
Well, a few years ago and that that same thing, the the
obsolescence of something that was 8 mil one year and it had to

(01:10:59):
be 5 mil the next and three mil the next and 1.8 the next.
We just couldn't keep up with it.
Yeah, well, and meanwhile the price went down dramatically
like that. The I don't know where they're
at today, but at one point I know it went from like $400.00 a
tile down to $40 a tile or whatever.
You know, I happen to be at at Costco yesterday for something

(01:11:20):
and I I was looking at ATV for 399.
Dollars remember. The the first one I bought that
was half that size was 4000. Dollars I I say it every time I
go into Costco, I stop with my girlfriend and I just look at
the latest like whatever it is, 100 inch LEDTV that's like, you
know, 1995 or whatever and I'm going, how is that even

(01:11:42):
possible? Like that was 50 grand, you
know, five years ago or whatever.
That's great. TV's blow my mind in Costco
every single time, you know, andI don't need one.
I got an 85 inch TV here that I don't really watch so.
Yeah, we went from what, 1K resolution to 5K or something?
8K yeah. 8K yeah, no, it's it really is that that technology

(01:12:04):
and it talk about a race to the bottom.
Like how can you be making moneyon a 75 inch TV at 399 or
whatever? Like the shipping for me to ship
it would cost that much, you know, So granted you get good
shipping deals, but still it hadto cost something to ship it
from China to here here to the store, you know, put it on the
shelf. Like I don't get it.

(01:12:26):
I don't get it. I remember, I remember when LL
Acoustics, when we were going into COVID, and I don't remember
actually, I shouldn't mention all acoustics because I might
have the wrong vendor in mind, but I remember whatever we had
to ship from Europe, a container, the price of a
container had gone from 10 to $20,000, Yeah, or something like
that. Yeah, more than that even.

(01:12:47):
Yeah, almost $30,000 like I think.
Yeah, maybe one. We sold a sound system from like
right at the toughest time, 2021or whatever it was when
containers were crazy expensive.We sold a big sound system from
Singapore to I think it was either the US or Canada, I can't

(01:13:08):
remember. And I think we paid $28,000 per
container and it was 2 containers that we had to get.
And I was shocked and oh, I remember one thing and I won't
say which touring company it was, but they had an act going
out. This was, it had to be the end
of either 21 or 22, I can't remember, but it was the end of

(01:13:30):
the year. It was December, I think it was
December 28th between Christmas and New Year's.
And I get a call in a panic. You know, I need 100 of this
particular lighting fixture. I think it was a mega point or
something. I need 100 mega points.
And I said, OK, great, you know,we can get you those no problem.
And he said, OK, you know how much when you know, blah, blah,

(01:13:53):
blah. And so we said, OK, yeah, it's
going to cost X amount of dollars.
And I, I can't even remember. It was probably $600,000,
whatever those lights were or something.
It was around 600 grand. Shipping was more than the
lights. 600 grand. So then he says I said, OK, so
when do you need it? And this is December 28th and he
said I need it January 8th in such and such city in in America

(01:14:19):
for rehearsals. And I'm like, what the fuck are
you doing ordering this stuff atthe end of December?
You know, it's coming from another country like, and I
think again, that came from likeChina or Hong Kong or somewhere
over there might have been Australia.
I don't even remember but it wasfar and so we had to ship by air

(01:14:40):
and we had to like pre clear customs and do every magical
thing we could do to get this toget to rehearsals on time.
And shipping was more than the cost of the lights.
It was. Over 600 grand for shipping and
I I can't I. Couldn't even believe it at the
time. I was like, here's how much it
is and they're like, I don't care.
Client will pay I thought. You were going to say they

(01:15:03):
blocked? Oh, no, no, no, they bought it.
They had no choice. They had no choice.
They had to do it, you know, So I, I was, it's the craziest deal
I think that I've ever seen where, you know, it was like a
$600,000 sale and the total billwas 1.3 million or something,
you know, and I was like, this is insane.
Never seen anything like it. Well, and it's the same like I

(01:15:26):
had a TV go South the other day at my house and they're not
worth fixing anymore. Yeah.
And buy another one. Yeah, yeah.
Do you still get involved in thegear?
Are you still excited by the tech in our industry?
On some level, yes, but I, I again, I can't keep up and, and
I'm not around in that realm as much as I used to be.

(01:15:47):
I'm more on the business management side.
So I can't tell you how many times I walk around the shop and
go. When did we get that?
Yeah, you know what is that I? Don't know what that is, you
know. How long?
Oh, we've had that for a couple years already.
Never even seen it, don't know what it is.
What does it do? Yeah.
When's the last time? When's the last time you've
stood at a console and tried to figure out how it works?
It's. Been a few years, yeah.

(01:16:10):
Yeah, like I there's, I don't even know how to turn them on
anymore. Like it's it's no, no idea.
I'm an analog guy. Me too, yeah.
I mixed on a digital console once for a friends band at
Summerfest a few years ago and it they it's funny because I
walked up to the console and there's a little box on the
console and I opened it up and it was a pair of white gloves.

(01:16:32):
Funny walk in a white glove. But I had to have my systems
tech from that stage set the console up for me so that I
could basically just turn a little EQ and run some faders.
Other than that, when you go into pages and pages of this
kind of waves this or that or just I'm lost.
I'm just. Lost.
Yeah, yeah. So no, not that I've ever been a

(01:16:53):
sound guy. I was a musician and I sold lots
of sound equipment, but but I could walk up to like an old
sound craft, you know, whatever it was series 5 or something,
series, whatever, but an analog sound craft 24 channel board.
And I could, I could make a sound, a band sound pretty good.

(01:17:13):
But today I, I literally wouldn't know how to turn it on.
And then all this Dante stuff, like I don't even know how to
work all these plugins and everything.
I have no idea. So me neither.
Yeah, it's it's wild, the. Same ilk, my friend.
Yeah, yeah. While you're around it a little
more than I am. But but yeah, I just, I have no
idea how to do any of that stuff.
I can dust them off with the best of them, but that's about

(01:17:35):
as far as it goes. Yeah, take a paintbrush and get
all the. So I don't even think we
mentioned, but it's it's your 40th anniversary this year,
right, for Claire? Wayne Oh, I think it's more
yeah, I think. It's, isn't it, 1985?
Well, that's when I incorporated, yes, but I started
the business in late 1970. 4 so.Yeah.
So we called that too. OK, so 50 years.

(01:17:58):
Getting up there. Jesus, no wonder you want to
retire. I'm glad to be above the side,
my friend. Yeah, well, we all are.
We all are. So many people aren't.
You know it's, you knew Bob Chakra, right?
Yeah. He just passed away a few days
ago. Oh.
No, I didn't. Know that.
Yeah, he did. Yeah.
He passed away a few. I mean, he was in a hospital for

(01:18:18):
a number of years since I think I had him on the podcast in
2019, right after he retired from Roby.
And not long after that, I thinkmaybe early 2020 is when he he
went into a dementia home and just dropped really quickly.
I liked him. Yeah, Bob's Bob was a good guy.

(01:18:40):
I. Bought my first verilites from
him I think. Really.
Yeah yeah. Used.
Yeah. Yeah, well, and you know, it's
funny because there have been a bunch of guys dropping lately,
too. We just lost the production
manager for Odessa here a month or so ago, and he was only like
50. Yeah.
And also there's a lot of weird stuff.
Going on, it's a tough life, youknow, not tough, but it's, you

(01:19:02):
know, we're hard on ourselves. Like lack of sleep, bad things,
bad food, you know, way too manylong days.
This guy was a a a recovery guy.Yeah, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guy.
Great. Shape.
Yeah, he had a he had a cardiac event and we lost him.
Really sad. Geez, really sad.
Yeah, I pay a lot of attention to that cardiac thing.

(01:19:23):
My, my dad died in my years, eight years ago, you know, but
he died when I was a little kid.And, and so, yeah, I pay, I pay
a lot of attention to the heart thing.
Got to. But, you know, I mean, what can
we actually do other than just try and behave, you know, try
and eat well and sleep and exercise and all the boring

(01:19:45):
stuff? For sure.
It's, it's not that hard. So when, when do you think
you're actually going to stop? When are you going to retire for
real? Not not too long now.
Yeah, not too long. Your son's almost a little bit
longer. Your son's almost ready to take
over. Yeah, yeah.
And I, I might like to go through one more summer just
because, you know, we make hay here in the summer in Milwaukee

(01:20:06):
and there's a lot of festivals Ireally enjoy going to.
That's the only really, that's the only thing I really would
like to retain a perk for is just being able to go in some
place and stand at the front of house mix where I get a little
elbow room and I'm not getting mosh pitted by anybody.
I think they'll probably still let you.
Yeah, probably will. Probably.
Will you still spend a lot of time on the lake in the summer,

(01:20:27):
right? Yeah, I've got a lake house and
now I have a house out in the forest as well.
I've got 20 acres of wooded land.
Very cool 30. Minutes West of West of
Milwaukee, so I have the best ofboth worlds.
And then I have a house in Phoenix too, so when it gets
bitter cold up here, I escape tothat.
Yeah. I I look, I'm I'm so blessed in
so many ways. I can't.
I can't even bliss them. Well, you so you've worked hard

(01:20:50):
for 50 years, my friend, so I think you.
Deserve it. But that's I was just saying
somebody earlier today too. The one of the greatest joys of
being where I am is knowing thatI earned it, yeah.
You know. There's a lot of great people
that are are, you know, second, third generation or whatever
that step into it. I've got a couple here are my
boys that that are are picking up something that was had pretty

(01:21:11):
good inertia going, you know, when they got it.
But I feel really good about having earned it, no question.
Yeah, that's fantastic. And I really am.
I'm happy for you that that you do have that succession
situation because I think, you know, first of all, like there's
a lot of people in our industry that don't have it, myself
included. And there's a lot of people in

(01:21:33):
our industry that don't even think about it.
You know, I know guys in their 60s and even 70s who don't have
a succession plan at all, you know, and they're just like,
yeah, this is going to last forever, you know?
No, it ain't. I mean, I called somebody
unnamed company not too long agomore in the corporate segment,
not necessarily in live music. And I said, you know, you guys

(01:21:55):
have been around for around for a long time.
I think you got a good business.You know, what's your exit
strategy? Is there any chance we could
talk about me acquiring you? And the response was no, sorry,
we're going to die at our desks.Oh.
Geez. OK, Well, yeah, I guess if
that's your aspiration. Yeah, well, me.
Neither. Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
I don't want to do that. No, me neither.

(01:22:17):
Well, we, you know, we didn't know what we were going to talk
about when we got started, but we found plenty of.
Stuff. Yeah, no kidding.
Well, I made you listen to my theories on AI and you know
that's that's going to kill 10-15 minutes no matter what.
Yeah, it's all good though. Yeah, well, I hope to get up
there this summer, so I might actually make some noise.
Well, I kind of, I think I told you no, maybe I didn't tell you

(01:22:39):
last time, but I drive through if I drive because I go up to my
house in Canada for the summer, so I have.
A lot less these days too. Yeah, driving.
I mean, it's a long drive from Florida to Western Canada, But
you know, I was going to buy a car up there and then COVID
happened and cars were so expensive and it was stupid and
insurance was crazy up there. And then for the car to sit for

(01:23:02):
half the year, it didn't make any sense.
So the cheap side of me said well.
Yeah, I got this nice BMW in South Florida.
It's just going to sit for six months.
I'll just drive it up there. And so for the first couple
years, I, I transported it to like Chicago or, or Minnesota or
something and then drove from there up and it wasn't that bad,
1819 hours. And last year we just drove the

(01:23:26):
whole way and I was like, that wasn't that terrible.
That was OK. And so now we're planning it.
It's in a month and I think my son's actually going to drive
with his buddy and and I'll justfly up with my girlfriend.
If if you happen to change your plan and pass by here, certainly
come knock on the door. And absolutely, yeah, a lot.
Of great festivals here in the summer there's a a festival of

(01:23:46):
some generation like you know Milwaukee's a ethnic melting pot
right yeah, we we do Summerfest but right before Summerfest we
do Polish fest and then there's Italian fest German fest Irish
fest Mexican Fiesta and so there's.
Sounds like Fat Belly Fest for me because I like all of those
food related things, you know? Yeah, they're all fun.

(01:24:07):
Really good looking red headed blue eyed girls come to an Irish
fest. That's yeah.
Well, I used to, but I have a girlfriend so I'm not allowed to
like those. She's British, so she's close to
that, but yeah, look, yeah, you can still look.
Well, keep us in mind if you come this way.
Absolutely, Greg. Thank you for doing this.
I appreciate it. It's nice to catch up with you.
No worries. Yeah, great to see your face

(01:24:29):
too. Yeah, yeah.
Be well, take care of yourself all.
Right bud, take care.

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#311 - Gregg Brunclik - Navigating Retirement: A Personal Journey

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#311 - Gregg Brunclik - Navigating Retirement: A Personal Journey