#327 - Brian Boyt & Sonny Dyon - Behind the Scenes of Live Events - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think what excites me the mostis our ability to do shows
across the board at different scales.
Like it's just a whole nother level that we have right now.
And we've really got a good process going with live events
with all of our Opcos and reallyintegrating pyrotechnical and
yeah, just trying to maximize, you know, we call it the 360

(00:20):
approach that we have. And like you said earlier, the
service stuff, it's kind of whatwe hang our hat on.
I think we're pretty good at it.I'm the VPS sales, so my whole
job is growing business, right. That's literally what I do, you
know, producing good shows, growing business and best way to
grow business is produce good shows.
And I think the the most exciting thing for me is the one
thing I love about working at delicate and if so facto live

(00:43):
events is we just have great people like I this is the first
place I've ever worked that I just like everybody I work with.
They're good at their job, they give a shit and it like it.
They have a sense and I like that we everyone really has the
same focus and there were drivento make great shows happen.
And then the other part of that too, which is obviously kitten
kindle is clients, man, I we meet new clients every day and

(01:05):
they're always some exciting newchallenge and I love when we
work with a new client that doesn't know us, you know, comes
in, they're trepidatious at first, like I hope you guys
don't fuck this up and and we kill it and they're like, man, I
don't I don't want to go anywhere without you.
Like I love you guys. I.

(01:51):
Hello, you're on Gears of gear. You're not on it, but you're
listening to it or watching it wherever you may be.
And I of course am your not so illustrious host Marcel, and
thanks for joining me today. One of the things I forgot to
mention yesterday on my intro was that we have launched a new
website. And if you haven't seen it yet,

(02:11):
why not gearsofgear.com? We are using some pretty new
technology for this site. It is built really for a
podcasting journey, a podcast company, podcast guests, podcast
sponsors. It is built for this exact
purpose. And so, you know, one of the

(02:33):
things that it has that I think is really great is a new intake
form or a like a guest sign up process where you can select
your dates and upload some information, answer a few
questions, give us a picture. It just collects all of those
details. So one of the really cool things
it does after that is once your podcast actually launches after

(02:54):
you've recorded with me for, youknow, hopefully not too painful
hour or so, then it actually connects your bio information
and all of your details and yourpicture back to the episode.
So you can always see the episode and then you can see who
was on the episode, which is amazing.
We've always wanted to do that. It was never easy.

(03:15):
Now it is. And so that's one of the things
that's included. Another thing that's really
great is there's links to all ofour show sponsors whom of course
I'm very grateful for because I don't really make any money from
doing this podcast, but it does cover our expenses and it
certainly pays for, you know, our illustrious, wonderful,
beautiful producer, Sarah. And so thank you to our

(03:40):
sponsors, of course, and I'm very happy to have this new site
up. We're going to keep updating it
and again, check it out, even drop a review.
We do have it collects our reviews, whether it's from the
platforms or from the website. So you can drop a review in
there. It's always helpful and we
appreciate it. And that's about it.

(04:01):
That's all I wanted to tell you about.
I forgot to tell you yesterday, and I meant I meant to.
So today we actually have two guests on the episode.
We don't do this very often, butwe're doing it today.
And part of the reason is because Delicate Productions,
who has just become a new sponsor for us over the past few
weeks is has provided us two of their leaders at Delicate.

(04:24):
So I'm going to read you their bio here, which is a little
confusing because it's two people, but we'll get to it no
problem. So of course, as I mentioned,
Delicate Productions is one of our newest sponsors.
Brian Boyd is the Chief Operating Officer of Delicate,
overseeing strategy, operations and business development.
With 25 plus years in live events and audio visual

(04:47):
production, he brings expertise from both leadership and touring
roles. Having worked with artists like
Maroon 5, Jimmy Eat World and yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's it. It ended right there.
So I guess it's having worked with artists like Maroon 5,
Jimmy Eat World and yeah, yeah, yeah.

(05:09):
Secondly, we have Sunny Dion. Dion, Sunny Dion.
Sorry Sunny, I messed this one up too.
VP of Sales where he helps deliver world class audio,
lighting and video solutions forconcerts, tours, corporate
events and experiential activations.
AUS Air Force veteran and award-winning broadcast

(05:32):
journalist Sunny has built a diverse career spanning live
event production, film and strategic business development.
He has held leadership roles with major AV companies and
served on the Board of Directorsfor the Central Florida Film
Festival. Welcome gentlemen.
Gentlemen, welcome to Geese of Gear.

(05:56):
I had to look around. I'm like, are you talking to me?
Sounded like a radio promo, yeah.
That was great. But yeah, well, you're a
gentleman too, Sunny. I don't even know you yet.
I already pronounced your name wrong in the in the intro.
How do you pronounce your last name?
Dion D. It's funny because everyone
asks. One of the three versions.
It's it's it's so common that mykids grew up and we almost think

(06:18):
our last name is Dion DYON because we, because the way it's
spelled, people say Dion, whatever else.
So anytime someone says what's your last name, I say Dion DYON.
Like, like that's my last name. Yeah.
Well, I mean, if if you said Dion to me, obviously I'd spell
Dion probably. But yeah, so I I pronounced it
probably 3 different ways and hopefully Sarah will edit. 2.

(06:41):
Of them out and I won't look like such a Dick, but thank you
guys for joining in and especially thank you for
becoming one of our most recent sponsors.
We appreciate it very much and Ilove the brand.
I love smoother, You know, I love that you guys have the
domain delicate.com. Like I remember when live events

(07:04):
was acquiring your company and there were discussions about
well, does the name change to live events or and I'm like, you
can't give away that web domain and give away that name.
It's such an amazing name. I love it and.
We get, we get emails like probably once a month where
someone's like, I'm interested in inquiring your domain name.
And I'm like, yeah, don't because you're not getting it.

(07:25):
Yeah. Well, yeah.
There were times like during COVID the, the name might have
sold for more than the company. You know, like I mean it, it's,
it's such a crazy good name. Like I could see, you know,
Charmin or someone like that owning it, like some big PNG or
something, owning it and, and paying a couple $1,000,000 to
acquire it, you know, because itis that it's that good of a

(07:47):
name. You know, it's quite, it's not
quite penis.com, which I heard sold for like $10 million or
something, but you know, it's upthere.
I miss that. I miss that in the bubble.
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
It's amazing what people will pay for domain names.
Like I, I've had to buy a couplebecause it just matched a brand
that I had already started and stuff.

(08:08):
And I think I paid $6000 once for one, but I don't know that
I'd pay much more than that. Even that one hurt.
I was like, it's just a domain name.
Like call it something else, putA-IN it something.
And yeah, so anyways, but again,thank you guys so much.
And you know, one thing we were discussing a little bit before

(08:28):
we went on air is most of our listeners, I believe, who are
interested in delicate will havealready heard the the smoother
podcast we did a couple months ago.
I don't recall the number, but you can go search for for
smoother on Giza of gear and you'll find it.
And it was a great podcast. Obviously Smoother's quite a

(08:51):
personality and had some good fishing stories too.
And, but, so I don't know that I, I think it's necessary for us
to go all the way back to the beginning of time on Delicate.
We all know that basically Delicate was formed around
Supertramp and he was holding Supertramp's gear and was
renting it out in a partnership with Supertramp and, and then

(09:13):
bought sort of the other half ofthe gear.
And now he had a sound system, he had a company name and well,
I guess we better go out and grow a real business here.
And so it was a really, really cool founding of a business, of
course. And Smither's done such great
stuff over the years besides Supertramp as well.
He's a legend. Iconic.

(09:33):
Yeah, I love that guy. How much is he still involved?
So he's he's involved a lot. He actually sits right across
from me. So we're in this like Brian's in
the GM offices. He's the boss, but Smoother and
I are in the sales office. Yeah, he's, he's 2 doors down,
but Smoother and I are in the sales office like 10 feet away

(09:54):
from Brian. And we, our desks face each
other and I typically only come into the shop.
I live in Hollywood. Our office is in Thousand Oaks.
Not that it's that far, but it'slike an hour.
And because, you know, the majority of my work is, you
know, on site or, you know, withclients or whatever else.
I'm the VP of sales, so I only go to the shop once a week or if

(10:15):
we're prepping a major show. But when I get into the office,
smoother sits, you know, 20 feetaway from me face to we face
each other. And I can't tell you it's the
funniest thing in the world. But I'll be on like a Zoom call
like this or something, and I'llhear him get up because he can't
tell that my headphones are in because he's just walking over.
And they'd be like, all right, so it's 1984.
It's me, Maggie Thatcher, Marty Feldman, Mick Jagger.

(10:38):
We're at Barney's Beanery. And I'm literally, I'm like, Oh
my God, this is the most incredible story of my life.
And it's true. Like, it's 1000 stories like
that. They're all true.
And it's incredible. Yeah.
I got another smoother story. Yeah.
Can I, can I call you guys rightback?
That's hilarious. Yeah, well, you know, because
he's so old, so he'll forget. You got to listen right now.

(11:00):
Otherwise he'll forget the although, you know, it's
incredible. Like, he's one of those guys who
the stories that he told me on the podcast were like, well,
yeah, back in 74, you know, like, I'm younger than him and
probably haven't had as much damage as him perhaps.
I can't remember what I did in 1974, you know.
He remembers every name. Incredible memory and just his

(11:24):
chronological order is just one after another.
It's it's really impressive. I'll float out a name.
Sometimes we'll be looking at a client and somebody will come
across and I'm like, why do I know that name?
And I'll be like smoother this person and he'll be like, Oh
yeah, used to work with Bounce. Then before that was with Merv
Griffin. And then we did a thing.
We did a thing at the White House and blah, blah, blah.

(11:45):
And I'm like, how do you it was 1982.
You're like unbelievably uncanny, uncanny memory.
It's almost like Rain Man ish, you know, It's like that stuff.
And. I'm so terrible.
Like I'm the guy who shakes yourhand, walks away and goes, God
damn it, what was his name? You know, and you just told me.
That 12 seconds. Ago, right.

(12:06):
I'm terrible with that. Terrible.
So you know, people will tell methings that happened in so I'm
61, so things that happened whenI was like 21 or 20 years old or
18 years old playing in bands orwhatever.
And they'll be like, remember that time And I'm like, no, tell
me more. And then they'll be like, well,

(12:28):
I just scanned all my pictures. Hang on.
I got a picture of it and they'll show me a picture of me
when I was 18. And I'm like, what is that?
Like, what are you doing? I have no pictures of me when I
was 18. So yeah, it's amazing.
I love memories like that. It's me too precious because,
and it's also good for a podcastbecause otherwise you come on
and you go, we wanna talk about like they don't know anything.

(12:51):
They don't remember anything. So.
Yeah, no, he's incredible. And he's like, he's somebody
I've been with delicate for almost for like around 9 years.
And in the nine years, I've never once swear to God, never
heard a single person say a bad thing about smoother.
Never. Everything.
All I ever get is smoother stillinvolved.
How smoother doing man, I've known smoother for 30 years.

(13:13):
Everybody loves him. He's an icon.
I'm I'm you know, I, I know Brian, I'm sure feels the same
way. We're lucky to be involved, you
know, in, in a company. We joke around about stuff all
the time. And he'll ask me stuff, you
know, in my capacity as as VP ofsales or whatever, Like what do
you think, boss? And I'm like, boss.

(13:35):
Like we literally sit in a building, you know, basically
that you built. You know, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm not, you know, but he's just, he's the best.
I mean, he's just incredible. And all those stories and all
those experiences, like you mentioned earlier, the delicate
brand is so strong because of 45years of smoother and the and
Gus and and spy and all those old boys kicking ass for years.

(13:56):
And then Jason coming in and obviously Brian, you know, has
is retaken what they've done andcontinued, you know, the legacy
of of just doing great shows, great tours like the.
Grown up in the room, right? Yeah.
Totally I. I.
Mean I wouldn't. Go that far, Caller.
He's got a caller on. He must be in Poet.
You know, he's in, he's in the office upstairs.

(14:16):
You know Brian is, But no, I mean.
I call myself the the leader of the complaint department so.
That's the CEO role you. Know unfortunately true yeah
yeah that's. What I do, I get to clean shit
up after everybody else makes it.
No, you know, the, the thing about smoother and, and people
like smoother and it's, it's something I love about doing a

(14:39):
podcast. And it's also something that
bugs me about doing a podcast because a lot of people are
aging out and, and getting olderand some of our friends are
dying and stuff like that. And it's, it's, it's sad, but
it's also incredible that we have access to these people from
a standpoint of, you know, passing on that knowledge,

(15:00):
telling those stories that he tells you in the office.
And for me, he tells it on the podcast.
And I was just sitting in awe the entire time on my podcast
because, you know, I've, I've been around smoother 1000 times,
but I've never sat and listened to his stories for two hours.
And this time I did. And it was just amazing.
And you probably would go listento it and go, Yep, I know that
one. Yep, I know that one.

(15:20):
Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I listened to it
and actually I think there was like 2 stories in there that I
had never heard before. Wow.
And is that what you're saying? No, I don't think, I feel like,
I feel like he shares about like1A thousandth percentage of all
the stories. And I think if he actually, if
he sat down, we used to do a thing on Tuesdays, everyone goes

(15:42):
in the office because we have meetings all days.
We have a production meeting, sales meeting.
It's where everybody, we kind of, you know, get our minds
together, you know, to discuss high level things, you know, of
what we have going on. And we used to do this thing
where every Tuesday night after work, everyone was invited go
have a beer if we wanted to. So this is, you know, we would
all go out to this little bar and have a beer afterwards and

(16:03):
just shoot the shit a little bit.
And every like after a while you'd have it's, it felt almost
like compulsory where you had like all the department heads
came almost reluctantly because they felt like they had to.
And so like they'd have their one beer in the big all right,
well, bye. And they'd leave.
And it always ended up, you know, being like me smoother.
And this guy Richard Galvez, whoworked with us a lot and still
does. There'd be like three of us in

(16:25):
Basilski, Brian Basilski, who's been with us 1000 years.
And it's like, you know, one of those guys has forgotten more
about this industry than most people will ever now.
And the four of us would sit there and just talk.
And that would be the time when Smoother, you know, could
smoother. He could just be who he is.
And he shared these incredible stories.
And I, you know, my wife be texting me, Hey, are you coming
home for dinner? And I'm like, I just, I like
smoother in telling me this story right now.

(16:47):
And he's playing soccer with Mick Jagger and the Brazilian
national team. I can't leave.
Matter of fact, I just ordered another drink.
I'm never leaving. You know, they're incredible.
It's wild. And you know, the, the thing
that I was going to say is I think so many of us forget in
our industry, like especially when you get big private equity

(17:08):
involved and stuff. And I'm not knocking private
equity, it's so necessary in ourindustry right now.
But when you get private equity involved and, and it becomes
more corporate and all of that, sometimes it's easy for people
to be sort of either forgotten or kicked to the wayside or, or
you forget that, that the brand and the company was built on 45
years of smoother, not not necessarily the great brand that

(17:31):
it is or the great gear or the whatever it's it was built
because of smoother and around smoother and buy smoother and
all of that stuff. And, you know, one of the things
that makes me really happy is that he is still there because I
know when, when the company originally sold, there was a lot
of talk about him stepping down and, you know, relaxing and you

(17:53):
know, blah, blah, blah. But Brian?
You need to. Jump in.
He couldn't do it. Yeah.
He tried, he tried to retire. Yeah.
He literally, he he he was in Oregon.
He tried to retire, you know, was going to sail off into the
sunset with this fishing pole. Yeah.
And that lasted about what, maybe six months or so, if that.

(18:17):
Yeah. And he, he just likes being in
here. He likes, he's in the office
almost every single day. He likes to do handle his stuff
that he handles and. And chat and just be around it,
God. Bless them.
I mean, yeah. The thing is, even if you love
fishing, when you're able to do it every single day because you
have nothing else to do, it's not as fun.
It all changes like the things that you do for leisure

(18:39):
activities when they become yourdaily activity.
And certainly, I mean, if you really love fishing, you'd love
to do it every day or golf or whatever it is.
But I don't know. For me, there's got to be, you
know, it's like I travel, I, I live in Florida, but I have, I
spend the summers at my house upin Canada.
I'm from Calgary and so I have ahouse in Banff.

(19:00):
And I remember my ex-wife used to always complain, you know,
it's like, because it's always two flights.
So it's seven and a half, 8 hours to get there.
It's such a pain in the ass because she's from Chicago and
doesn't have, you know, the roots that I have here in
Alberta. And I said that's what makes it
special. You know, the fact that it's
takes 8 1/2 hours, If it was a 30 minute drive and we could be

(19:24):
there on Thursday or whatever, yeah, it'd be great, but you'd
get bored of it after a while. Like this to me is so special
still. And I've had it 22 years or
whatever and it's still so special to come up here every
year. So it's the same kind of thing,
you know, it's but. I don't know, I think.
I think I think you make a greatpoint about the flip side of
that too, is I think one of the things that makes it this

(19:44):
industry we're in and that you talk about on your podcast is
what makes it so interesting is every show is, is something new.
Like one of the reasons I've been doing this for 25 years
and, and I've been in all different companies and
different roles and, you know, and.
Hundreds of shows, probably thousands of shows over the
years. And the reason I'm still here

(20:05):
because I am someone who's like,I get bored super easy.
I am, I'm not like if I, I don't, I'm not a desk guy.
I get, I go crazy, like one of the things that I, that I keep
coming back and why I love this industry so much, you know,
because I, I still fancy myself an artist.
I you know, I want to be a film maker, you know, and I've, I've
been working on this forever, But one of the reasons I love
this job and I I still love coming to work every day is

(20:28):
because every show is, is something new.
It's a different challenge. It's interesting, it's a new
client, it's a new brand, it's anew show, it's a new album, it's
new something and it's man, it'sfucking great.
It's so cool to be able to say, you know, you talk to your
buddy, what do you do? I'm an accountant.
You were going to accounting forhim.
Cool. You know what I mean?
Like, that's great. What do you do?
I just did a show for Spotify with their new lossless thing.

(20:49):
What? They're offering a new thing.
Oh, man, that's cool. Yeah, Phineas was there and you
know, or I we just did, you know, Brian does music cares
every year and it's just massivething with all these incredible
iconic artists. And it's just something we do
every single day. And it never gets old to me.
It never does. Well, and the other thing is how
creative and, and just like our industry is made-up of, I don't

(21:12):
know if you remember the show MacGyver, but it's a bunch of
Macgyvers who are able to figureshit out, you know, and it's
like when, when COVID happened, I said, just give it to our
industry. We'll fix it.
I mean, we'll find ways that people can still get together
for concerts. We'll find ways that people can
still, you know, go for Thanksgiving dinner or whatever,
Like just give it to us and we'll find some solutions

(21:32):
because our industry does that. We're we're fixers, you know?
We did drive in concerts. We did like drive in theater
concerts. You know, you talked about
stories in here. We did a drive in concert with
with Cypress Hill and be real. I was, you know, we were all
hands on deck, you know, like we're because we were a skeleton

(21:54):
crew. We had pared down because of
COVID. And so we're doing this driving
concert. No PA, just, you know, stage
wedges for the band, you know what I mean?
But no actual PA because everybody's getting it through
an FM modulator into their cars and they're supposed to stay in
their cars, which by the way, nobody did.
Everybody just kept getting out of their car.
We're like, we are making announcements, please go back in
your car. And they're like, yeah, no, you

(22:15):
know, so we're like, whatever. Remind me of like which Cheech
and Chong movie was it where, you know, the police pulled them
over and they you couldn't even see the guys in the car.
Well, that's it, was it. Had to be like.
I was cutting the video togetherlike because again, all hands on
deck and you do what you're goodat.
So Jason at the time and Brian were like, hey, why don't you,
you're a video guy. Why don't you cut video

(22:35):
together? I was like, great, I can cut
cameras, no big deal. So I jump in, I'm cutting
cameras and I'm having fun because I know Cypress Hill's
music so I can cut together to it.
And I'm like mixing the camera shots and just kind of having a
good deal with it. And be real.
Comes, you know, backstage and he's leaning next to me and he's
smoking a joint that's the size of a drumstick.
And, you know, I mean, this is only because my camera doesn't
show it, but it's it's gigantic.And he like, he's like, yo, man,

(22:57):
what are you doing? I'm like, I'm I'm doing the
video. Is it OK?
He's like, oh, it's great, man. He goes hit this and I'm like,
no, like I'm in the middle of working.
And I'm like, and also, I don't know if you've heard of this
ongoing pandemic. I don't know if I want to share
a joint with you right now, but it was just crazy shit that this
is happening because we're doingthis live driving concert with

(23:19):
hundreds of cars, this drive in movie theater.
Because just like you said, we had to MacGyver away to get
revenue and and to continue liveshows.
Unfortunately, most of those lost money because.
Oh yeah, you know, let's. Face it, getting cars that have
to be 20 feet apart or something, I don't know.
The rules in California are probably like 2 on each block or

(23:40):
something, you know? So by the time it's all said and
done, you get like 100 paid tickets or 200 paid tickets.
It ain't gonna pay for Cypress Hill, you know, with or without
a sound system. So yeah, right, most of them.
I loved seeing the innovation. I loved seeing people trying
different things and they let's face it, everyone was just so

(24:00):
happy to put on your show blacksand go out and do something.
You know, it was just fun to do something, get the hell out of
the Netflix on a couch in in your house, you know, with your
your wife and kids and stuff whoare like Sunny, could you please
leave? You know, you've been here way
too long right now. Could you leave?
You know, like so many wives gotto know their husbands and vice

(24:22):
versa during COVID, because, youknow, people like all these LDS
and and sound engineers and whatever are on tour like
constantly. And now all of a sudden you
haven't left the house in eight months and they're going, please
go somewhere, do something. So, yeah, it's funny for sure.
It's funny. Look at productions.
Since 1980, Delicate Productionshas mastered the art of

(24:45):
lighting, audio and video in high energy live settings.
From iconic music festivals to global tours, corporate
launches, award shows, sporting events and beyond.
For Delicate, the only way to get it right is to get it just
right. With precision, creativity and

(25:05):
full service production capabilities, they turn bold
visions into moments that lingerin pop culture's subconscious.
Need a single touring partner tohandle audio, lighting, video,
rigging and production design? Delicate delivers it all.
Florida State Located in the greater Los Angeles area and
part of the Live Events Productions network, Delicate

(25:30):
has access to a deep nationwide inventory of gear and is powered
by a highly skilled team, amplifying your tour's full
potential. Whether you need rigging,
production design, or end to endshow management, they deliver it
all seamlessly. And it doesn't end there.
Delicate delivers a full 360° production experience by teaming

(25:52):
up with sister company Pyrotechnico, experts in
fireworks, special effects and drone light shows.
Together they create truly immersive multi sensory
experiences that elevate every show.
Visit delicate.com to see how unforgettable events get made.

(26:12):
That's delicate.com where technical brilliance meets
creative impact. So delicate.
One of the things I'm I'm curious about and you guys can
be as honest as as your able to be or or not, but going from
being a bunch of Yahoo Cowboys, you know, flying by the seat of

(26:33):
your pants behind smoother to being part of a fairly
structured private equity held company.
And you know, I know Steven Vitale really well and Rocco and
the whole team and and even Stevens partner, but it is
structured because it has to be,you know, you now have some
finances invested into the company and some people you're

(26:57):
responsible for the money and for making sure that it's spent
well and stuff like that. But how different is it really
from a standpoint of the like the customer viewpoint, the
staff is it is it really, reallydifferent or just a little bit
different? And like any any thoughts on
that? Yeah, I think I'll jump in here

(27:19):
real quick, Sonny. I think it's good.
I, I think it's been an adjustment, you know, but it's,
it's all for the, the greater good of it.
I think the, the real benefit isprobably our access to
inventory, our clients. It's good we're able to service
more shows where we'll take on more than we normally would

(27:40):
because we do have access largerscale stuff, you know, our our
ability to quote things that we normally would would kind of shy
away from, you know, we're goingto take a shot at see if we can
do it. So I, I think it's a good thing.
Yeah, just the overall support. Yeah, it's a little bit of a
learning. Curve.

(28:00):
It's an. Adjustment.
Obviously, yeah. And and, you know, but it's sort
of a double edged sword. Like you now have a lot of
support and systems and processes in place, which you
know, can help you to be able todo things.
You don't have to fly by the seat of your pants quite so
much. But at the same time you have

(28:22):
systems and processes you have to follow and, and expectations
and accountability and all of those things, right.
And so I think at the end of theday, like you said, it is a good
thing because I think especiallythe direction the business is
going and has gone, the industry, I should say, you
know, it's it's so important that everything has ROI and that

(28:45):
everything that utilization's really high and stuff like that.
Cause a moving light that used to cost 5 grand is 17 or 18
grand or 15 grand now. It's crazy, you know?
And yeah, I mean, audio consolesused to be 20-30 grand, Now
they're 150 or whatever, Yeah. I think it's, I think it's
twofold too. Like you, you kind of mentioned

(29:06):
this in in, you know, just that kind of what Brian said, there
are some things about it that are a no brainer benefit to us
expanding our reach nationally. Now, you know, we can launch
shows because we're part, you know, our sister companies are
Gemini in Dallas, Zenith in Orlando, active in Atlanta and
obviously pyrotechnico writ large, you know, because we have

(29:28):
this. So now we have this whole 360
services we can offer that we weren't able to offer before.
You know, now I have clients call me, they're like, hey, do
you have anybody you could reachout to in Dallas?
I'm like, I can do your show in Dallas.
Like what you mean I'm like, yeah, I can sell your show in
Dallas and my sister company will operate and I'll come out
there and it's just like you're,you know, I'm your quotes going
to come from delicate, even though technically it's coming
from Gemini in Dallas. And for a client thing, that's

(29:51):
great because if they, you know,they buy the laundry, you know,
they buy delicate and they want the way we do a show, they still
get a delicate show in a different city.
So that's an awesome thing for us.
The flip side of it, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but
this is adjustment. Thing is, we used to be able to
be like if we got a wild hair upour ass and wanted to buy a
piece of gear, we would just Jason would just buy it.

(30:13):
So we would just buy it. What Brian could just buy it.
We could look at the finances and be like, I want this piece
of gear and now there's a process and a structure for that
because it affects a, a much bigger thing.
You know, there's, there's investors, there's CapEx
expenditures there. It's a lot more structured to
the way, you know, oh, there's atour coming.
They want us to buy all these pictures, like you said, the
latest and greatest. We would just be like, let's buy

(30:33):
it, let's buy 10,000 magic rings, let's buy all these
things. And now we're like, are we going
to use that anymore? You know, like, does that make
sense? Because I've seen the I've seen
the downside of, of not being that way, not having a structure
was the early days of PRG when, you know, they were just shoving
these inventories together from companies on the East Coast with

(30:55):
companies on the West Coast. And none of the cabling matched,
none of the connectors matched, none of the cases matched, none
of the infrastructure matched atall.
And so I remember having that conversation early on with, with
Steven is, you know, be really careful about infrastructure and
also types of gear. Like you don't want a bunch of
shops that have 12 of each moving light.
You want some sort of, you know,collaboration between brands.

(31:20):
Like if you're, if you're AD andB house, be AD and B House
across the board, if you're, youknow, L acoustics or if you're
Martin lighting or if you're this lighting or that lighting.
And there's so much advantage todoing it that way.
So I do think that that becomes a part of the process.
But then a lot of it's just being bean counting, you know,
they're just counting beans doing what they're supposed to

(31:40):
do. And, and that obviously comes
when you have bankers as partners.
It just happens that way. There's there's pluses and
minuses to having bankers as partners.
Yes, you can write a really big check if it makes sense to write
it, but you know, you're going to be held accountable for the
results, you know, and that's where it gets sometimes

(32:01):
troublesome. Brian, I know your background is
like both operational leadershipand and also like hands on, I
think engineering. Yep, with lots of artists too.
Like, I didn't actually even know that you had like a a
touring background as an engineer.

(32:22):
Yeah, yeah. I toured pretty heavily from
about I think 2000 or 99, two thousand around that time to
about 2009, yeah. Worked with several artists, you
know, like lots of people on this podcast and but yeah,
really kind of cut my teeth withthat.
Prior to that was I worked for acouple different companies as

(32:46):
shop tech and company called Industrial Sound.
I don't know if you remember those guys.
I do, yeah. But they were they were a mom
and pop operation and that was kind of my first step into the
touring stuff. I was I was excited to work with
them. I had, I would see truck driver
slash shop guy slash engineer slash whatever you need me to

(33:07):
do, dude, and kind of work from the bottom up on that end.
And yeah, kind of jumped in the touring stuff and did that for
about 10 years and then kind of jumped into the business side
after that, so. It's it's funny because you
know, when I look at you, even just on this podcast, you again,
you look like the grown up in the room and I.
Didn't I? Assumed you came in through

(33:30):
either some sort of a, a bankingrelationship or this kind of
relationship or whatever and youjust look like a business guy.
You don't, you know, Sunny lookslike a touring guy.
You look like a business guy. And which is funny because it's
the opposite. Oh, really?
Probably I've. Never been a background.
I've never been a touring guy. I've never been an engineer.

(33:51):
Ever. My entire background in this
industry is in sales and management period.
Like if I'm behind a console, ifI'm behind a console at an
event, fucking shits on fire. Big trouble.
Like if you see me behind the console, I was always in sales.
I, I was in the military as a broadcast journalist.
I got out and was, I thought I had a job and it fizzled out and

(34:13):
then was like, oh, I should probably find a job.
And it's hard to break into civilian broadcasting when your
only background is military broadcasting.
And I freelanced as a camera engineer because I was, you
know, I could shoot camera and stuff.
I freelance doing IMAG for a PSAV gig.
And then like I, I was a tech for like 2 weeks and they're

(34:35):
like, hey, do you want to be a director?
You're really good at sales. And I was like, sure, what does
that mean? And then they gave me my own
hotel. I got to ask though, what?
What is broadcast in the military like what is that role
entail? Because I think of, you know,
good morning. What I did?
That's what he was. Yeah, yeah.
So for three years, I was stationed in Panama from 95 to

(34:57):
98. And I hosted a radio show,
morning radio show. And then I did a lunchtime radio
show. And then I was an anchor on the
news. And this is, it seems kind of
silly, but like in Panama there are over 1,000,000 people.
We are the only English speakingstation.
So everybody watched us. So I was like a minor celebrity
there. There, you know where people go.
So did the catalucho. Like they knew me because I was

(35:19):
on TV and I was on the radio allthe time.
But yeah, so I hosted ATV show called Panama Now and then I was
an anchor on the news and I was a reporter on the news and I did
radio news. I learned every aspect.
I worked in every aspect of friggin awesome cut commercials.
Why would you work for the military doing that though?
Because you're are you speaking to the military or are you
speaking to just anyone who's listening?

(35:40):
You're so it started out with being an on base station, but
because of part of the treaty, the set, this is way too much.
But the 77 Carter Torrios Treatyof of Panama, what they did is
the AFRTS stations, armed forces, radio and television
stations would have to provide acommunity benefited as well.

(36:00):
So and also a lot of people liveoff base.
So you have an on base station, which is like commanders access
channel that anybody lives on base could access.
But then there was also off basewhere people off base, like
Panamanians had us on channel 15on cable so they could watch
Seinfeld, you know, because we could, we had all of those huge
TV shows would license their products was like a year behind

(36:22):
or six months behind or whateverit was, but for free.
They just gave the programs to the military for nothing.
And so we could air those shows.And so, man, if you want to
watch Seinfeld or if you wanted to watch it in English, you had
to watch it on AFRTS or AFN. Now it's called Armed Forces
Network. But so our news station was
heavily watched, you know, and most of the stuff we covered,

(36:43):
you know, was primarily militarybased.
So I mean, nothing like we're not like, oh, and we're going to
bomb this place coming up in five days, you know, like we
couldn't talk about anything like that.
So it was literally like, I remember we were on a cast one
time and it was literally the day before the OJ Simpson trial
verdict was announced. And so it was like we were
talking about that. It was such a huge national

(37:03):
story. And I wanted to be more like
real national news and not like,oh, there's a fair today on base
and, you know, blah, blah, blah,take your kiddies out and ride a
roller coaster. Like, who gives a shit?
You know? So like, but that's what we were
supposed to do. And this day, I got literally
preempted right before we went on news.
The public affairs was a Colonelcomes running in.

(37:25):
He grabs the news director. He hands on this paper, they
stop us because sometimes we would record it.
We would pre record the news because you know, these are guys
that yeah, we're professional, but not all of us are great at
our job. So like, you know, sometimes
we'd fuck up while we're in the news.
They'd have to edit it and fix it.
So we didn't want to do that live.
So it's super embarrassing. So we would try to record the

(37:46):
news and then air it a live tape6, you know, like at 6:00 PM.
So we tried to record it like 435 o'clock.
We did this 30 minute newscast. And so this, my news director
runs in. He stops us recording, hands me
this. He's like, we have to lead with
this press brief. I'm thinking the president's
shot. I'm thinking, you know, this is
breaking news. A kiddie train derailed at a

(38:08):
fair and some kids fell out. Nobody's hurt or anything.
And I go, Oh my God, you're we're not really leading with
this, right? And he's like, yeah, well, this
particular day, I read the thingand and, you know, they pump,
pump it into the teleprompter and I'm like, the Usarso
commander was this guy named JoeCurtain, Colonel Joe Curtain.
And I was like, this thing happened at the Usersa fair.

(38:30):
And now with more, we go to a sound bite from Colonel Joe
Curtain. And then I paused because
they're supposed to cut it and then edit it together.
And I go and it's so important. Oh no, they didn't cut that off.
So I'm at home watching it with my wife.
And I'm like, Oh my God. And my phone goes, my
commander's like, I want to see you on the carpet first thing

(38:50):
tomorrow morning. And I'm like, I'm fucked.
Yeah. I went from there to Nellis Air
Force Base in Vegas and hosted ATV show.
No, they didn't. No, I got yelled at.
I think I got moved to radio news for like a week.
I got Jimmy Kimmel. I got slapped on the hand and
removed from the air for, you know, a couple of days.
And then I came back and had to apologize.
And then, yeah. But yes, I did that.

(39:12):
And then I stumbled into this industry and then I've been
doing it for, like I said, 25 years.
So did you go to school for broadcast or did you just walk
into a recruiting office and goes, that looks hard, that
looks really easy, I want to do that, you know?
I, I, I stumbled into it. I, I actually joined because I
watched A few Good Men and thought it was great.

(39:33):
And everybody's always said, oh,you're, you're such a good
arguer. You should be a lawyer.
I didn't realize that this is a thing too.
Apparently you have to go to lawschool to be a lawyer.
I mean, it doesn't mean Kim Kardashian doesn't, but some
people do. And so I I went into a Navy
recruiting office and was like, hey, I saw this movie.
I like to join up. I want to be a lawyer, you know?

(39:55):
And they're like, did you go to law school?
I'm like, Nah, they're like, didyou go to college?
Like, I got married when I was 20 after dating for three
months. And I work at Musicland.
You know, I'm like, can I get a job as.
And they're like, yeah, they're like, but you work in Musicland
and you like entertainment stuff.
Ever thought about being a journalist?
And I'm like, why? I'm a writer that sounds great.
And ended up not during the Navyfor too long of a story.

(40:16):
So I joined the Air Force. And then originally they made me
a crypto linguist because I had high test scores, which meant
basically a translator. And then some stuff happened and
they had to reclassify me to something else.
And by chance, this broadcaster guy, there was no spots open for
the broadcasting job because theschool was closing and not going
to reopen for a year. And so where I was cycling in my

(40:38):
training, I wouldn't have been by the time I got out of basic
training, I wouldn't have been able to make the school.
But by chance, some dude who wastwo classes behind me and he
fell on the confidence course. You know, that's the only thing
they ever talk about, about basic training is the confidence
course. And this dude fell and broke his
arm, so he was getting out. So they're like, there's a spot
open. And I took it.
And then I did that for six years.

(40:59):
Yeah, it was, it was great. But that's kind of how I
stumbled into this industry, youknow, by, by learning
broadcaster. So I knew a little bit about all
the things that we do with the exception of like projection and
LED and everything. But I knew I could mix sound a
little bit. I'd shoot camera, you know, I
could do some switching, directing, you know, that kind
of stuff. But I never was an actual, I

(41:20):
mean, I for PSAVI mixed small rooms because, you know, hotel
AV, you do everything. But I was never really good at
it, you know what I mean? Like I I was good at
bullshitting. I was going to talk looking to
clients and selling stuff and I knew that was not my skill set.
I, you don't, you know, like again, if I'm, if I'm behind the
console or something's on fire, we're in big trouble, you know,

(41:40):
like, you know, it's. The same.
I mean, people come on and they'll talk to me about, you
know, different types of shackles and stuff and I'm like,
I have no idea what you're talking about.
And I'm like, well, you know when?
Whenever you. Fly a rig and I'm like, I've
never flown a freaking rig. You know, I stood under them
occasionally, but yeah, I've never flown a rig.
And it's funny because I run outof knowledge before.

(42:02):
I run out of, I think, ideas to ask questions and stuff.
And but yeah, that's really cool.
I would have never guessed that that would be somebody's
background coming into this industry coming insane.
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(42:25):
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(43:10):
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We're proud to have you on board.
So let's talk about Delegate Delicate again, because I want
to get into sort of, you know, again, I love the brand, I love

(43:33):
the company, I love the people in it.
I think there's a great opportunity for sort of small to
mid sized touring company right now coming in and, and really
just growing into a spot where you're taking a lot of those.
Like, I just see a lot of the bigger companies are fighting

(43:55):
over the same big tours and someof the smaller ones are finding
a harder time to, to get a lot of attention or to get, you
know, real personal, you know, just the right group around them
and stuff. And I've heard this a lot.
I had a conversation, I won't mention which company, but had a
conversation with a touring execat one of the major companies
yesterday. And, and it was really funny

(44:17):
because it was kind of like, well, you know, yeah, we're not
doing those kind of shows right now because it just doesn't make
sense for us. You know, we're, we're really
focused on, on some of the bigger stadium stuff or
whatever. And great.
Like if that's your business model and that's where you want
to be and that's what fits, you know, the, the, however your
business is structured and your CapEx model and all of that

(44:38):
stuff, great. You know, knowing who you are,
you know, knowing your identity is probably one of the most
important things in business. Not trying to be everything to
everyone. And I've always said like, you
know, remember the IBM ThinkPad?I don't even know if they still
make it. But the only reason that even
worked as a product and and didn't get screwed up completely

(44:59):
by IBM is 'cause they, they madeit a completely separate
company. So when they were building these
big mainframe mainframe computers, this is a dumb story
that doesn't match our industry at all, but I'm going to tell it
anyway. They were building these massive
mainframe computers and they were, they were that size,
right, dealing with massive enterprise customers.

(45:19):
And, you know, their average customer was in the, in the, you
know, top 500 or whatever. And so when they were coming out
with this laptop, someone got really smart and said we need to
right size a business for going after the personal computer
laptop market because otherwise,you know, we're just going to
try and sell them to enterprisesand stuff and we're going to

(45:40):
fail. And so they completely started a
different company outside their main buildings.
I think it was based in Florida or something, smaller group of
people, very entrepreneurial, completely separate from IB, Ms.
books and everything else. And it worked like really,
really well because you right sized the business to to fit the
customers. And so that's why sometimes I

(46:02):
think some of the largest companies going after, you know,
a small theater tour, they're not going to feel the love
perhaps in that theater tour. And I'm not saying in every
case, but that's what I feel like in some cases probably.
No, I think you're totally right.
And I think that's kind of whereour niche is, what we do really
well, probably better than anything else.

(46:23):
I mean, everyone's got gear, everyone's got crew, you know,
everyone's got gear and guys, everybody does that, right?
We all know what the best gear is.
We all know who was a great A1, who's a great front of house guy
who's mixes monitors. Well, everyone knows that those
are not big secrets. You know, everyone has that.
What differentiates us delicate and I would say, you know, writ
large, the whole live events family is that we're, it's

(46:48):
completely service based. So our thing is like we pride
ourselves on if my client calls me and they're on a small tour,
theater tour, I mean, whatever, within 1/2 an hour, I'm going to
answer them, you know what I mean?
Like I'm going to message them back, even if it's just to say,
you know, hey, I got your message.
I'm working on it. Like a lot of times I'll send
clients a thing where I'll literally just say on it, That's

(47:09):
all I'll say. And I know Brian does the same
thing. I think where we right size
ourselves into the industry right now.
And you've got behemoths, you have these, you know, monolith
companies that are just, they own the whole lion's share of
the industry. It's really tough to compete
with that. The only thing we're what would
separate. I mean, everybody wants to do
Taylor Swift, you know what I mean?
Like she's unbelievable. That's a billion dollar tour.

(47:31):
I mean, it's a it changes the whole game, But one that'd be
really tough for us to handle that, you know what I mean?
Like it's not the right, it's not a good thing for our
business model, but these smaller theater tours,
basketball arena, even like somewe've done a ton of stuff at
Sofi, you know, so we can do arena tours, you know, like, you
know, if if it was the right size, you know of that.

(47:52):
But what we will do, what we cando that maybe the behemoths
don't offer just because of scale, you know, just because of
the, you know, pure size of the their book is we still give a
shit. We still answer the phone, we
still answer text message. You can reach us.
Basically, I hate to say this and my wife hates it, but you
can call me 24 hours a day and I'm probably going to freaking

(48:12):
answer, you know, because this live events doesn't shut down,
you know, I mean, like there is no, we don't.
We didn't jump into this industry to work 9 to 5 like
that doesn't exist, you know, sofor us it it has to be something
where when you know your client is on the road.
We've had it happen like we did the killers for years.
And I I'm Brian, you know, fielded a lot of those calls and
smither did where they picked upa one off and they need AB

(48:36):
system and you know, we're like,OK, how are we going to do this?
How are we going to ship this toBrazil in two days or who can we
partner with? And even if we lose our ass, but
we got to take care of our band.We got to take care of our
client and I think that level ofservice is something we do
really, really well. And I think it comes down to the
fact that every one of us still cares.
We still really want to do good shows.

(48:56):
It matters to us that our name is on a show like that.
It's when the client is done, they're like, God, you guys
kicked ass. Like every time I get a note, a
text, a letter, whatever that client says, the show is great.
I, I'm still happy about it. I'm still excited.
I don't just go, who cares? You know, I mean, I'm like, we
did it again, boys. We whipped them again.
I'm like, I'm excited. I'm very close with, with all of

(49:17):
the big companies out there too.And I would say that for the
most part, they all care it It'sjust that you can't care for
Taylor Swift and you know, a 2000 seat theater tour at the
same time. So that's either a, a completely
separate business within a business or, or you just go,
hey, this is a better focus for us at this end or at this end of

(49:41):
the of the industry. And but it's got to be tempting
for you guys like 1-1 more thingI'd like to mention and then
Brian, I'll shut up and you can talk is that it's got to be it's
got to be tempting when pyrotechnico is as strong as
they are right now in touring, like almost every major show
major tour major event major, this major that seems to be them

(50:03):
doing the pyro and special effects.
And I'm sure that Mister Vitali is constantly saying, hey,
Brian, you know, is there a way we can get the sound on, you
know, this mega stadium show that we're doing right now or
whatever? And but you got to be
disciplined, right? Just like the big guys have to
be disciplined as a smaller 1, you have to be disciplined as

(50:26):
well and and know where know where you're at.
Yeah, definitely. Now those opportunities come
through and we try and find where the synergies are.
Definitely like to take a look and take a shot of some of that
stuff there. Yeah.
But like you said beforehand, some of that smaller things,
those are really kind of in our wheelhouse.
I think we service them really well, you know, big fish, small

(50:48):
pond kind of stuff. You know, I think we've kind of
set the standard here at least on on our leadership side, even
across the board and live eventsof look, we've got to take care
of our clients. Our clients are everything.
Try not to put one above the other.
Everybody deserves the same amount of attention.
Yeah, I mean, I I understand exactly what you're talking

(51:09):
about, Marcel. Some of the big box companies
and and yeah, how do you competewith some of these massive
stadium tours and these other people that have, like you said,
some of these one offs that pop up and we need AB and C systems
to go to different countries andstuff.
And how do you prioritize that? That's something that Delicate
does really well. But even just from an account
exec standpoint, like if if Sonny's the VP of Sales, you

(51:33):
know, how is Sunny going to be out at the Taylor Swift opening
that just happens to be the samenight as as the, you know,
whatever. I can't think of a an artist
that's in the sort of five to 10,000 seat venue type of.
It's a great question. But you know what I mean.
Like so you you can't is the answer.
And you can't also, I know companies, companies have tried

(51:55):
to have two or 300 sales executives or whatever, but it
doesn't work out that well. And you know, because again,
we're a personality and relationship industry, right?
So I just think that it's, it's a good thing that you've got
like, you know, this company over here that's focused on sort
of from here up. And then this company here is
focused on this middle section and this company here might be

(52:18):
focused on the middle down kind of thing.
It makes the most sense, like itreally does.
And I think you guys have a really great sweet spot
opportunity in there between thelegacy of your business, you
know, the smoother side of your business, but also how hard you
and, and Sunny and others in theorganization work and, and you
know, the, the support and branding and effort and

(52:41):
everything else of live events as well, which I think they've
been doing a better and better job all the time here with their
marketing and stuff as well, especially Pyro, like Pyro's
been crazy. They've done such such a great
job on the Biro side getting those shows out, like I mean,
getting them out to the public as far as whether it's emails or
social media or whatever. They've done a really good job

(53:02):
of just saying, hey, look at this cool thing we did and the
branding is really good and stuff, so.
The marketing team has been like, I, I mean, I used to
handle it before and it was a nightmare.
I hated it and I wasn't good at it.
And I, you know, I, there were certain things like I could, I
was great at publicizing my shows, but then I wouldn't know
how to, what I should talk aboutfor Brian's shows or, you know,

(53:23):
for Baz's shows or smoother shows or somebody else's.
I would struggle because it wasn't my show.
I don't really know all the details.
I can look at our quoting software and kind of get the
details, but I don't really knowthe show.
Now we have, you know, the marketing department for live
events and we meet with them every at least once a month.
We do a marketing call and talk through everything.
Every time they're going to do ablast or an Instagram post,

(53:44):
whatever else, they send it to Brian and I and we both look at
it. We're like, Hey, can we change
this to this? Or we didn't do video for that.
We only did lighting for it. And you know, or I'll make sure
we tag this company because that's who hired us, you know,
but by and large, they're just awesome.
They're really good at what theydo.
They they pick great pictures. They're smart, you know, but it,
it's expanding our reach and nowadays where, you know, it

(54:05):
used to be smoother, could go toBarney Barney's beanery, you
know, bump into Vince Neil and we have the motley crew tour.
And nowadays it's like the 23 year old marketing major that's
hiring us now. It doesn't know us if we're not
on TikTok or Instagram, they have no idea who.
We are. It's wild, isn't it?
That's so true. So.
True, but you, you meant, you said this earlier and I, I think
you hit the nail on the head. There's a great quote from Sun

(54:26):
Tzu that's know yourself and know your enemy and you need not
fear 100 battles. It's the same thing like know
yourself, know your market, and you do not fear 100
interactions, right? If you actually know who you are
and what you're selling, you're going to be completely better at
selling it than being like, no, we're going to go after Taylor
Swift. Why?
Yeah, it's a heck of a lot. Taylor Swift.

(54:47):
It's a lot less frustrating, a lot less disruptive to your
business, you know, because if you did take on Taylor Swift,
just imagine what a what a hell life would be in general, you
know, it just doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense. We would decimate our other
clients if we. Of course.
Yeah. And you'd lose those
relationships. And I've made these mistakes 100

(55:09):
times in my career where, you know, I was always reaching
beyond what I knew my boundarieswere.
And you know, when you do that, it usually punches you right
back in the face real quickly and reminds you to get back in
your seat, son, go sit down. Yeah.
Let the let the grown-ups. Yeah.
So you guys both have had, like,such diverse and, and unusual

(55:31):
careers. Not necessarily that unusual.
But if you weren't in live events, what do you think you'd
be doing right now? And Sonny, I know you'd probably
be some host of a weird TikTok show or something.
I'd be making movies. I mean, I like, I really, I
still, I write, I direct stuff on the side.
Just, you know, it's, it's it's more than a hobby because it's a

(55:53):
passion, but I don't make any money out of it.
Yeah, it's apparently getting inthe movie industry is really
hard. But yeah, I mean, that's like I
tell stories. I mean, that's what I like to
do. So I love to write.
You know, I love to just tell stories.
Yeah. Maybe I'd be hosting a podcast.
I don't know. But that's what I would be doing
if I didn't. That's what I was going to say.
Like one of the cool things about social media, the

(56:16):
Internet, YouTube, just online video in general and stuff is
you don't have to do all of thatother stuff.
You don't have to make big production movies.
You can make little mini movies that people download 8 billion
times and you become Mr. Beast, you know.
Yeah. So not that that's easy to do

(56:38):
either. But, you know, there's all kinds
of opportunities. And it's like, I've never been
somebody who wanted to be a radio host or wanted to be, you
know, a broadcaster of any kind or anything.
I just saw a lot of cool people with really cool stories.
Nobody was talking to them. I got a big mouth.
I like to talk. So I said, no, I'm just going to
throw together this podcast and and you know, it's worked out

(57:01):
really well. So what about you?
Brian But you picked a niche thing that's like that you know
about like that's really smart. Like the best podcasts, like the
things that I listen to or anybody actually that finds an
audience, they find an audience because they pick one thing, you
know, like they're not doing this generalist podcast that
you're like, what are the, what is, what are we doing here?
I, the ones I listen to are likeI watch the the rewatchables is

(57:23):
a ringer podcast with Bill Simmons and they talk about
movies and you know, it's talking about airplane or it's
Bill Hader on there. And I'm like, oh man, this is my
thing. You know, those are the ones I
like to listen to. Whereas, you know, if you do a
podcast about the news, about daily events and you know, I get
enough of that. Yeah, it's, it's so funny
because I have a really good friend up here in Canada who

(57:44):
just started a podcast a few months ago.
He's on like episode 13 or 14 orsomething now.
Great guy, good friend of mine, musician for many, many years.
I, I used to own a music store when I was like 19 or 20 years
old or something. And he used to buy stuff from me
at my music store. And, and so he started his

(58:04):
podcast and at first it was about his life and, and music
and local bands and stuff like that.
And I thought, OK, this might have some legs.
And then he got into politics. Like I'm going to talk about
politics and how screwed up the world is right now.
And, and I mean, and he's enthused because he's getting a
couple 100 views or whatever already, which is decent for

(58:28):
somebody who's on episode 13 or something, but it just doesn't
make a lot of sense. Like, and I told him, I called
him right away and I said, dude,you know, like you're, you're so
good at talking about the thingsthat you're passionate about,
You know, let the politics people talk about politics.
You're never going to get a big following.
And if you do, you're going to have to be so controversial that

(58:49):
you're going to lose most of your friends and stuff.
So is it really worth it like. Especially where we are now, the
divided, divisive nature. Of politics, it's brutal, it's
brutal. I just avoid it.
I avoid it like the plague. Like yesterday.
I think the podcast won't be outtill next week, but the podcast
I recorded yesterday at the beginning, I talked, I said, OK,

(59:10):
so I want to talk about something that's really fresh
and and very relevant right now,this Charlie Kirk thing.
And I know that there's people cringing when they're going to
be listening to it next week. They're going to be like, Oh my
God, he's not going there. And I said, but I don't want to
talk about what you think I wantto talk about because that's
I'll leave to the political pundits out there, but I want to

(59:31):
talk about how does that change our industry?
Are we going to see Taylor Swift, you know, walking around
the stage under a under an acrylic Dome, you know, a
bulletproof Dome from now on? Like, are we going to start
seeing, you know, big sheets of plexiglass at the front of
stages, you know, and, and like,what's it going to look like at
some point? Because you've got artists who

(59:52):
are picking a side on politics and stuff.
Some of them are very outspoken and you know, so does some crazy
wing nut out there go and start shooting artists at at shows
because they don't like their opinion.
It's scary. It seems to be headed that
direction. You know, they're getting bolder
and bolder, these crazy fuckers with guns and knives and, you

(01:00:15):
know, cars and whatever they're using to kill people.
So I just wonder, like, I don't know why that thought popped in
my head. I think it was because, you
know, first of all, I saw the thing and then I saw Trump doing
a speech somewhere. I think it might have even been
at the funeral. And he was behind Plexi and I'm

(01:00:35):
like, oh, this is different. Especially a guy that's so bold
and willing to walk out in frontof anyone and anywhere.
Like he's, he's been very, very almost nonchalant about it, you
know, even though half the worldwants to kill him.
And, and now he's talking behind, you know, bulletproof
glass. And so that was the direction I

(01:00:55):
went with it. I didn't go the, the direction
of talking about the politics because that's not my job.
I, that's not what I want to do.So yeah, but what about you,
Brian? Where would you be if you
weren't doing this? That's a great question.
This is kind of all I know. So I think I'd probably be a
starving musician. Really.
Honestly, Do you play some? Are you a musician?

(01:01:18):
I, I, I used to, yeah, I used toplay the bass for about 9 years
and that's kind of how I got my start in the whole business.
Yeah, yeah. Fun fact of the day.
That's I'm actually. I'm actually a recovered bass
player too. I, I, I was a singer.
I started as a singer and our manager was a Catholic priest
and he shows up at rehearsal oneday and we were a rock band.

(01:01:39):
And he shows up at rehearsal oneday and he goes, Hey, he fires
our bass player and he goes, Marcel learned to play it.
We our next gigs in four weeks. And, you know, so I had to learn
to play an instrument while singing and learn 40 songs like
in a month or something, right. And it wasn't super hard songs.
It was, you know, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk.
It wasn't that hard, right? But But yeah, so I was a bass

(01:02:03):
player, too. I still have a bunch of basses I
don't play, but yeah. Yeah, that was that was kind of
my intro into the biz too, because like a lot of people, I
was the dude that was setting upthe sound gear.
You know what, a little band andI was hauling everything around
and I just kind of took a likingto it.
So that kind of parlayed into a couple of different steps.

(01:02:23):
I have a local guy we worked with that did some college stuff
as well. And you know, I thought I had
the greatest job ever in high school.
You know, most people were delivering pizzas and stuff and
I was able to go out and hump some speakers around stuff so.
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I don't know.
This is like I said, all this isall I know.
So. Yeah, so our industry is full of

(01:02:45):
like, dude, you ain't going to believe what just happened sort
of stories. Do you have a do you have a
favorite story, either one of you like a a war story from the
road or an event or. I I got 1.
Cool. We, we were doing a, a festival

(01:03:07):
and it was, it was a larger one out here in Southern California
and we had a, a. So it was one of those festivals
that was supposed to be DJ oriented and little by little
look just kind of turned into adding some pretty large bands
in it. And we were, we were at a
changeover into a headliner and we had a, a front of house

(01:03:29):
console die that he was working on.
At that time. It was about 50,000 people and
everybody's trying to bring the bring the console back to life.
We're trying to everything and the mother, it just, it wasn't
coming back. This thing was dead and everyone
was kind of looking nice. So like, what do we do now?
And we ended up ended up decidedthe only way this is going to

(01:03:52):
work is we're going to have to mix front house from the monitor
desk. And so we ran and we ended up
taking just a left right feed off of the side fill send and
put it in and started and it wasa full success.
So. Oh my God, that's pretty wild.
That was probably, it was, yeah.You know, we, we, you always

(01:04:13):
think about all these other scenarios you have to back a
plan. And it's not actually, but for
whatever reason, it just, there was no other way to do this.
This is either that or the band's not going on.
So. Wow.
Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah.
What about you, Sonny? Anything.
Mine is similarly disaster oriented.
I love disasters when they're. Not I was.

(01:04:34):
Yeah, for sure. It's like watching somebody
trip. It's funny because it's not you.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
I was doing a gig. This is like I own my own
company for several years, like a much smaller version of
delicate, but like a it was and also more like niche, like
corporate conferences and conventions and stuff.
And I was doing a publishers conference at the New York

(01:04:56):
Marriott Marquis. And I don't know if you, yeah,
I'm sure you guys have worked there or been there, but the
hotel docks, the hotel dock shuts down like 5 hours a day
because it backs up for Broadway.
So you can't at some point of the day, the dock completely
shuts down during the matinees because they don't want to hear
trucks because of the Broadway theaters behind it.
So this this corporate event, the client that I was working

(01:05:18):
with at the time completely spaced that he didn't book the
actual space for loading day. So we are loading in same day
show, which we didn't know untilwe got there.
So we're literally trying to getin the ballroom and it's not
available. And so I'm calling my client.
I'm like, hey man, we're my whole team's here.
My truck is dumped and they can't, they said there's
something going on in the ballroom, but we don't get the
ball until tomorrow. And he's like, Oh yeah, we

(01:05:39):
talked about that. I'm like, Nope, no, we didn't.
I'm like, I'm like, all my quotes have set us loading in
today and I'm here and you have my hotel rooms.
Like why would I come in two days before the show?
Like, why would I? You know what I mean?
And he was like, no, you got to load in the same day.
So we're like, all right, I'm Michael.
Here's my concern with that. If something goes wrong, we're
fucked. Like we're we, there's this

(01:05:59):
window that that we can't get anything delivered to the dock.
And it was almost like I spoke the evil into the world.
And about 45 minutes before the show started, our console
crashed, completely crashed, would not recover.
And I'm like, oh, shit. And so we called.
I think it was VER. Don't call Brian, he ain't got a
spare. Yeah, exactly so.
Not that day. They come in and, and I, I go to

(01:06:22):
the hotel and I'm like, hey, listen, we're, we're in a pickle
here. This is the situation.
And they're like, sorry. And I'm like, well, no, the show
has to go on. We we don't have a backup.
There's nothing else we can do here.
And they're like, sorry. So it was AVER.
And I told VR I'm like, listen, come up in a Sprinter van, come
to valet and we're going to dumpthe truck.
They're like, we're not allowed to do that.
I'm like, listen, we're, the show is going to crash if you

(01:06:44):
don't do this. I know you're not supposed to do
it, but I'll take the brunt of it.
So we, I come out there with like 2 local 1, you know, New
York State Jam guys. And we get out there and I'm
like, grab the console and go and I'm going to run
interference for security. And security is like, you can't
do that. And I'm like literally standing
in front of them. So these guys can push this
console through the lobby hotel.We get in, we barely get in on

(01:07:05):
time. We can't sound check.
So we go hot live. And it was situationally had
dueling podiums and they had podiums, but they also wanted
lobs because at some point they were going to walk out and talk,
you know, away from the podium. Well, you know, we're all
everyone's flustered because, you know, the show probably
wasn't going to happen about 10 minutes before doors.

(01:07:26):
And we get it in, we do a quick,you know, try to do as much as
we can to get it going. But the room's not EQ D
Everything is like a mess because we're literally starting
from scratch. We get it up.
We do like a quick sound check and play some music for it.
We test the mics, whatever. And the, my front house guy just
gets lost. And so he starts getting
feedback because he's got a lot of channel open with the podium

(01:07:47):
mic and they're feeding back andhe can't figure it out.
So we're sitting there watching and then these guys start
moving. So now he's like, you know, and
you can see he's lost. And my client leans over and
goes, do you know how fired you are right now?
You are so fired. And I'm like, I, I got it.
You know, I'm like, I'm like, sowe're trying to figure it out
and it was just a mess. It took us like 3 minutes.

(01:08:07):
It was the longest 3 minutes of my life.
I'm, you know, the sales guy in the corner.
Just like, Oh my God, that's just just the most brutal.
You know, like 5 seconds of feedback or whatever is a
lifetime. It was 3 minutes.
I'm just, I mean, it was the most embarrassing.

(01:08:28):
It was terrible. Remember who who the show was
for? Was it for anybody big or
someone? No, it was a corporate.
It was like a a it was like a publishing awards conference for
like mostly like trade wet rags,you know, It was like something
like that. So you never worked with them
again? We did and they didn't pay us

(01:08:49):
and they came back and said Oh well this is a credit because
that show went so poorly. And I was like, Nope, we never
agreed to that. Yeah, it was.
It was. Business fun.
It isn't business fun. It is so awesome sometimes like.
It was embarrassing. Yeah.
The rest of the show actually went well too though.
Like after that we did four days.
So that was just the opening night.

(01:09:09):
Then we had general session everyday and breakouts everyday
and like 20 breakouts. It was a, you know, big
corporate show and everything else went literally Florida
State. But no one cares about how the
rest of show goes. 3 minutes was, you know, Armageddon, you
know, as far as it was like the like the rapture that we didn't
get raptured yesterday, or at least I'm still here.
I don't know who else got raptured.

(01:09:31):
Can I heard about that? Can either one of you name like
from the time that you've been at delicate and iconic?
What's the most iconic production that you were a part
of? I'll let I'll let Sonny take
this because I know you got one.Yeah, we did this K pop show at
Capitol Records. Biggest show in the history of

(01:09:51):
Capitol Records, biggest show inthe history of delicate.
Like one off. You know, we had huge, massive
tours, but the biggest one off we ever did and it was put
together in like 3 weeks. And the sales guy for it was so
out of his depth. And I know this personally
because it was me. We were, I, you know, it started
out as a small, like little, youknow, trailer stage show,

(01:10:13):
intimate pulls up. Yeah, it's just Vine Street.
Well, they were, they were goingto shut down Vine Street and
they were going to put like a Sam 575 on Vine Street, you
know. So it was like a, you know, rats
and stacks, a couple of LED walls on the eyebrows, whatever.
It's like a very simple show. We've done 10,000 times and even
I, who hadn't done shows like that at the time, could have
pulled that off no problem. It ends up being this custom

(01:10:36):
stage with servo motors for all of the LED walls.
So they go in and out and then the stage had lifts like lifts
in it. I'd never done any of that
before. Like I, I literally was like,
OK, but they were like, hey, canwe do that of mine?
Sure, totally. I'm like going back to my mom,
figure it out, go back to Brian and and Jason, our old GM and

(01:10:57):
I'm like, hey, how do we do this?
I'm like, and we it was just, there's a massive, massive show
and they had pancakes Theatre, you know, Speaking of like
theaters is right next to, you know, Capitol Records, you know,
on Hollywood Blvd. famously. And they had somebody from the
pancakes Theatre come over and said, hey, we're worried about

(01:11:18):
this concert because we've got aBlue Man Group show happening
like right after it. And we're like, yeah, but our
our thing ends at, you know, 728and your doors are 8:00.
So we're 32 minutes. Our show's completely over
before your thing. They're like, but we do pre show
music. I'm like me what jazz muzak

(01:11:38):
you're playing in the lobby, Youknow what I mean?
But this is the 10,000 people coming to the show on Vine
Street. You know, it's good for the
neighborhood and it's cool. It's Capitol Records, most
historic building in the in the city.
You know what I mean? It's amazing.
And they were just would not back off of this.
So they try to hold us to ADB rule.
They're like, you can only go to100 DB and I'm like, that's not

(01:12:00):
loud enough. You know, I'm like, it's just
simply not loud enough. And they're like, well, we
really wanted you to go 90 DB. I'm like, that's like a lawn
mower, you know, I'm like, that's just, you know, it's not
loud enough for when we have 10,000 bags of meat sitting here
and the music's going off of. And, and they like it got to the
point where I had sent so many text messages saying, guys, I, I
really got to tell you that thisis a bad idea that they were

(01:12:21):
like, stop talking about it, stop saying, you know, whatever.
And then of course, the soon as his concert started and there's
all the people there, the CEO ofthe record label was like, this
isn't loud enough and you got tochange it.
We're like, we were told we're, we had AVU meter there.
They're like our DV meter. They're like, you can, it was
red lined. And I'm like, all right, well,
we're told this. And he's like, I don't give a

(01:12:41):
shit, make it louder. So then we made it louder and
the showing great. It's his problem now.
It was 8. It was an 8 day build in a
parking lot. The mural lot at the Capitol
Records, the famous mural lot, the IT was behind them in the
personal Capitol records, like the people who work at Capitol
Records. It was in that parking lot.
So it wasn't even in that mural lot because the mural lot's
huge. It would have been easy in that

(01:13:01):
lot. We had 15 semi trucks blocking
like Vine Street. And people are pissed off.
The cops are coming. They're like what are you doing?
And I didn't know how to do any of that.
Like I didn't know how to Marshall trucks.
Like that's just not something Idid.
But. I thought you were going to say
pay off cops. I didn't know how to pay off.
Cops. Yeah.
And, and our our cash thing at the our petty cash thing was a
whole process at the time, you know, so, but yeah, so it was

(01:13:24):
just, it was a huge, giant learning experience.
But in the end, the show went perfectly.
And it's still historically just50 million people have watched
the video that we did. And, you know, it's it's just
amazing. It looks great.
It's such a cool show. And I learned so much because I
failed completely at every step of the way as I was learning.
I didn't know how to figure it out.

(01:13:44):
Yeah, we had to figure it out. And it was just.
It's still something this damn, it's probably one of the my most
proudest moments of the world isthat I didn't, I shouldn't have
sold it, you know, because I really didn't know.
It could have been a disaster, you know, but it wasn't.
And we, you know, and we, we made it happen and the show
ain't great. And the client overall was
thrilled. You know, afterwards the show

(01:14:05):
was flawless. When was this actual?
Production 2019 or 2018, I thinkmaybe it was Brian was right
when you started right at Delicate just in 2019.
Yeah, it was, but it was massive, massive show.
Like, you know, and, you know, in the end I learned so much
about we, we had a, we had a video wall on top of the roof

(01:14:27):
there and it had been engineeredby the city and approved and it
been engineered by the building engineer and approved.
And the guys that we had building LED wall walked up and
called me up there like not building this.
And I'm like, why? And they're like, 'cause the
wind is going to knock this LED wall and you're going to kill
people. And I was like, well, it was
stamped. The engineering said it was
safe. They're like, they're dumb.

(01:14:47):
They should never stamp this. This is not the motors and all
the stuff. And so immediately I was like,
all right, well, if it's going to hurt people, we're not doing
it, you know, And we had to go to the clients and explain to
them, like, I know I sold you this and I know it was stamped
engineering. And we went through all the
right processes, but the engineers are actually building
this wall are right. It's the there's not enough
ballast because the roof is soft.
So we couldn't get enough act like G blocks or something on

(01:15:09):
there to hold it. And I'm like, it's not safe.
And they're like, but we need that wall.
I'm like, you don't need the wall enough to kill, you know, a
5 foot 2K pop fan. You you don't like, trust me,
like this is this is like a career.
This could get ugly really, really quick, yeah.
And they were, Capitol Records is great about it.
They were literally like, well, if it's not safe, we're not
doing it. So we had to cancel it.
But this is like 5 hours before the show, you know?

(01:15:30):
So there was just all these little unique challenges of
something we'd never done before.
And yeah, it was great with Trial by Fire.
And I mean, after that I was like any show they threw at me,
like, can you do this? Yeah, why not?
Sure, we'll figure it out. That's funny.
Yeah. Well, that's our industry,
though, you know, it's, it's, you know, say yes and figure it
out. And that's how people have

(01:15:51):
created careers. That's how companies have
created themselves, you know? Oh, yeah, we can do.
Oh, yeah. Have you ever done it before?
Oh, many times. Never, you know.
So fake it till you make it. Yeah.
Fake it till you make it. Last question, what what excites
you guys the most about the future?
Future of delicate? Future of your role in delicate?

(01:16:12):
Where you guys are taking this thing?
What excites you? I think what excites me the most
is our ability to do shows across the board at different
scales, Like it's just a whole nother level that we have right
now. Yeah.
We've really been working hard to kind of tweak our process of
how that works. You know, everything sounds

(01:16:33):
great from the outside and then you get into the devils in the
details and the nuts and bolts and we've really been kind of
working hard to try and get all everybody on the same page.
And how does that work and how do we gear wise quoting all of
that stuff? I think we're, we're really at a
point where we can kind of attack all of our clients
anywhere, feel pretty good aboutit, not just, you know, Hail

(01:16:54):
Mary, hey, we got the show popping in and we've really got
a good process going with live events with all of our Opcos and
really integrating pyrotechnico And yeah, just trying to
maximize, you know, we call it the 360 approach that we have.
Like you said earlier, the service stuff, it's kind of what
we hang our hat on. I think we're pretty good.
At it it's a superpower. You know, it's definitely it's a

(01:17:15):
superpower. It's you know, I know some of
the bigs are are starting to addaudio like for example, 4 wall
says that, you know, they're nowadding audio and I think it's
because they were struggling on some of the massive 360 stuff
they were going after and the audio quotes they were getting
probably weren't quite as good as it needed to be to make it

(01:17:35):
happen and it was kind of nukingthem out of the deal.
And so I know they're starting to acquire some audio now so
that they can kind of manage it on their own.
I think it's probably going to be harder than what they think
it is. But you don't just take a
behemoth lighting company and say, OK, we're going to buy a
couple sound systems and have a sound team sound department.

(01:17:57):
Like you got to find all those A1 folks out there and and
they're all busy, you know, so it's not.
That easy but good people are always busy, right they.
Are yeah, they are, yeah. I mean, that's, that's really
exciting. I I think it's a fantastic
company. I love Steven.
I love live events. I think, you know, other than
delicate, Live Event Productionsis probably one of the cooler

(01:18:19):
names in the industry. You know, it just makes so much
sense. Like, what do you do, You know,
look at our name. What do you think we do right?
Sometimes the obvious is the best, you know?
And I loved, I was surprised that the name was available when
they came up with it. I was like, Are you sure you can
call it that? Unbelievable.
Yeah. It just kind of worked out well,
the same thing. I was surprised you guys have

(01:18:40):
the domain for delicate.com. I was like, no, it's got to be
like, it's been around so long or something.
Yeah, I think it's because we were around.
You started the Internet smart enough.
You. Designed the Internet, yeah.
Smoother. Smoother it was called.
Smoother net when it first started.
Smoother. It's me, Maggie Thatcher, Al
Gore. We are Barney's Beanery.
We invented the Internet. Yeah, we did.

(01:19:02):
That's fucking hilarious. That is so funny.
I think they just like also justto just kind of talk about what
Brian said too. What's exciting for me, I'm the
VP of sales, so my whole job is growing business, right?
That's literally what I do, you know, producing good shows,
growing business and best way togrow business is produce good
shows. And I think the the most
exciting thing for me is the onething I love about working at

(01:19:24):
Delicate and if so facto the live events is we just have
great people. Like I this is the first place
I've ever worked that I just like everybody I work with.
They're good at their job. They give a shit and it like it.
They have a sense of pride and that like, I'm 52, you get old,
you get tired of the shit. You get some people that are not
content and don't like what they're doing.

(01:19:45):
It's like, do something else, learn to color, learn to code,
you know, like do something else, you know, like don't do
this. And I like that we everyone
really has the same focus and there were driven to make great
shows happen. And then the other part of that
too, which is obviously kit and Kindle is clients.
Man, I, we meet new clients every day and they're always
some exciting new challenge. And I love when we work with a

(01:20:06):
new client that doesn't know us.You know, comes in, they're
trepidatious at first, like I hope you guys don't fuck this up
and, and we kill it. And they're like, man, I don't,
I don't want to go anywhere without you.
Like I love you guys. I, that's such an incredible
feeling. And the fact that I get to do
this over and over and over again for, you know, 1/4 of a
century so far, it's amazing. And you know, and if my heart,
you know, continues to be strong, maybe two to three more

(01:20:29):
years, you know, it's great. I feel very lucky about it.
I mean, I'm always excited aboutit.
Well, you talked about people and attitude and, and great
people and all of that kind of thing.
And you know, this is going to sound like a promotion.
It's not, it's personal experience.
A lot of companies are bottom up.
So they've got really good people at the bottom and they're

(01:20:50):
like, but don't talk to the management.
They're a bunch of assholes. You know, I will say at live
events, you know, it's a top down approach.
Like really, the people at the top, you know, goofy, wonderful,
kind Mark, you know, Steven, youcan argue with them all you
want, but the guy's a great guy with a big heart and he cares

(01:21:12):
about your family. And, you know, if you tell him
that your your kid is sick or whatever, he'll ask you every
time he talks to you. You know, how's how's your kid
doing today? You know, is he feeling any
better? You know, I've had so many long
like just really life human conversations with Steven and
with Mark and with other people on the team, and I just feel

(01:21:33):
like they're such a people firstkind of organization, like they
really care about the people andthey screw up just like
everybody does. It's it's so easy to screw up on
the moving parts, the people in a business and but, but I love
that approach. I I think that the company does
lead by example when it comes tohow to treat people and how to

(01:21:55):
behave and that kind of thing. Well, I mean, I think I think
you're totally right. And I think part of the deal is
like Delicate was a family business, Gemini was a family
business, Zenith to some extent,Pyrotechnical, obviously a
family business. Stephen Rocco.
So, so I think what happened is they, yes, we're a larger
corporation, you're a larger corporate business now, you
know, with, with multiple tentacles, but we're still kind

(01:22:18):
of run in some ways like a family business.
Like we still all, you know, we,we call ourselves our sister
companies, our, our brother companies, whatever else.
And I know that's, you know, common nomenclature, but like in
reality, like we kind of feel like that, like we sometimes to
the extent where we're mad at each other, you know, whatever
else, because we want to help, we want to do something.
But like, it is like we, we are,you know, family.

(01:22:38):
Like daddy gets mad. I mean, every time Steven comes
to town and he's got a, you know, 10 of me, you know, more
of that than that with Pyro and everybody else.
He's got 10 guys that do what I do, so every time he comes to
town, he calls me and we go havelunch every time they're, you
know, like he's, you know, and, you know, in our vertical
itself, Brian and I talk five times a day, You know what I
mean? Like we like we, you know, we

(01:22:58):
all really care about each otherand care about what we do.
But I think that's what the funny.
Thing is, you know, again, when there's bankers involved it,
it's different, it's a differentdynamic.
But even the bank in your case, So, you know, Andy Stevens
partner, like, I've had many conversations both in person and
on Zoom calls and stuff with Andy.
The guy's a great guy. I mean, you could just talk to

(01:23:20):
him like a regular guy. And he's a regular guy.
And, and he makes decisions too.Like, it's not like it goes to a
committee of 12 people and they have to decide whether or not to
spend the money or to acquire the business or to whatever.
He just kind of goes, yeah, sounds like a really good
opportunity. Let's go after it and that's
done. You know, the boss just said

(01:23:40):
yes, let's go right. So that dynamic, A dynamic I
think is really great as well. It's not like, you know, some of
these other larger businesses that have rather aggressive or
what do you want to call it? I don't know what to call it,
but companies that you know would would watch them burn, you
know, if they had to like that are.

(01:24:02):
Behind PNL, it's all the yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Like you miss your numbers. You're dead to me.
You're dead to me, Brian, you know.
I think a lot of this stuff is like culture based too.
Which is? It is culture based.
That's the. Right word.
We, we really kind of push here too as well.
And everybody's in line in live events across the board just,
yeah, if you got bad culture, bad things happen, you know?

(01:24:25):
And we really push good culture and get the right people in here
and the right attitudes and everything that's good, you
know, it really. Shows that's where we need to
end. That's a perfect ending.
The culture. It's it's all about the culture
and I think you guys have it. So that's a good thing.
I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much, and thanks
for being a sponsor of the podcast too.
Thanks for having us have an. Amazing day.

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#327 - Brian Boyt & Sonny Dyon - Behind the Scenes of Live Events

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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;}#327 - Brian Boyt & Sonny Dyon - Behind the Scenes of Live Events