January 21, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of Tickets to Travel: The Business of Travel Experiences, host Mario Bauduin sits down with Dan Josebachvili, a pioneering entrepreneur who has shaped the experience economy through innovation and passion. From co-founding Urban Escapes and redefining adventure travel to scaling festivals and events at LivingSocial, Dan shares insights into the creation of unforgettable experiences and the importance of intentionality in building products and marketing.
The conversation explores the significance of authentic company culture, lessons from scaling travel and entertainment startups, and how bold thinking can spark innovation. Dan also recounts the challenges of organizing large-scale events, including a festival headlined by Aerosmith, and the pivotal role of resilience and adaptability in success.
Whether you're a startup founder, an industry professional, or simply a travel enthusiast, this episode delivers actionable advice, inspiration, and a behind-the-scenes look at the business of creating moments that matter.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Tickets2Travel, the business of travel experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bedouin, and this is the show where we explore the stories and strategies shaping the world of travel, entertainment and unforgettable experiences. Today, we're thrilled to have a true visionary in the experience economy.
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Join us. Dan Jose Bocvilli, a seasoned entrepreneur and multi time founder. Dan has built his career around one central theme, creating moments that connect us to the world and each other. As a founding member of Urban Escapes, Dan helped redefine adventure travel, bringing people together through unique outdoor experiences.
After Urban Escapes was acquired by LivingSocial, Dan scaled new business initiatives launching large scale festivals and events across the country, leaving a lasting mark on the travel and entertainment space. Dan is now revolutionizing HealthTech as the founder of Silvertree, a company dedicated to enhancing the lives of older adults with cutting edge wearable technology.
With a career spanning travel, adventure, and innovation, Dan embodies the transformative power of experiences. So whether you're building your next big idea or just dreaming of your next adventure, you're in the right place. Let's dive into the journey of Dan Jose Bochvili and don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because Tickets to Travel starts now.
Welcome to Tickets to Travel. I'm your host Mario Bedouin and we talk about the business travel experience. And today we have. Dan Jose Bachvili on the show. Thank you for coming to Tickets to Travel, Dan. Thanks, Mario. Happy to be here. Well, you know, this show is about tickets and travel and travel experiences.
And so, as I started to do a bit of my research of various startups and companies in the space, I started to look back at one part of my career that was very memorable, was at a company called Living Social, and that's where we met, right? That's right, 15 years ago now. 15 years, and we looked great, because we were probably teenagers at the time when that happened.
But, all kidding aside, you were part of a group of people who I think you guys were called Urban, Urban Escapes, Urban Escapes. And so when I start to look back on some of the research I've done about these types of companies and travel experiences, that particular company sticks out to me the most because of the way you put together the experiences.
You sold tickets, you created travel, uh, you marketed specifically to audiences within large metropolitan areas, namely New York City. And travel experiences, And so that is one of the very first companies that, yes, there were tour operators and travel agencies and stuff that did this, but you guys were very deliberate about how you created products and marketed them.
Absolutely. I mean, and I love the way you're phrasing it, deliberate. We were very intentional in everything that we did. And for us, Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. We were the audience, right? We were creating things almost for ourself. And at the time when we did this in the, you know, late aughts, I guess you'd call it, what's that?
That's the late, late 2000s, 2008, 2009, 2010, the whole idea was sort of centered around this premise that if you were a young professional working in one of the major Metro areas in, in, on the East coast, you were a slave to the desk and the concrete jungle. For 60 hours a week. And then your nights and weekends all looked the same.
Bar, club, kickball league. But if you had the wherewithal to look 30 minutes outside of New York You would have access to some of the best hiking, rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, ski shooting, I mean, you name it. The opportunities were endless. And these were things that we just like to do. And we said, well, there's a way to productize this.
And at the time, we weren't thinking through the lens of, oh, we're going to build the next billion dollar travel business. It was purely a passion play. We said, we love to do this stuff. Let's just go do it and invite people to do it with us. Amazing. And so through that process, You were acquired. That's right.
So, and that's where we met. I, I was, uh, I want to say number seven or so on the living social escapes team, which was the pure travel where we put together escapes packages for bed and breakfast first, and then all the way up to resorts and casinos. But you guys were a little bit different. We shared an office to a certain extent, but the adventures portion of living social, which by the way, everybody was then later acquired by.
Groupon, very similar business model, but a little more soul on our side, I would say. Yeah. And no offense, any Groupon people out there. And by the way, I will always say this, we were eight months ahead of Groupon getaways on Living Social Escape. So I also, I don't think they ever got to an adventurous type of product.
They did not. And from everything I remember and like it's been 15 years and a lot's happened since then, but, uh, we had the soul, we had the vision, we had quite a bit behind us. to create this new category of travel experiences. And, you know, look, kudos to the LivingSocial execs, the Tim O'Shaughnessy and the board who believed in what we envisioned was possible with travel.
Right. Well, you also have to say something about Doug Miller, who put us all together, right? He was an Expedia guy, was part of that leadership team at one point, and then came over and really kind of had the vision to pull everybody together. So, back to Urban Escapes, because it is 15 years, I'm trying to recall.
So, during that process, when you guys were Urban Escapes, because I think a big part of this, a lot of startup founders in this space, listen, is part of our audience, but how did you guys get to a point where LivingSocial was like, hey, I'm going to write you a check? It's, uh, like so many things in life, a combination of hard work, Good fortune, and just being in the right place at the right time.
I mean, when we started the company, and I have to give a shout out to my older sister Maya, who started the company, Bram Levy, who was also a co founder, and then these sort of eight of us delinquents spread out around the East Coast. Who are responsible for planning these adventures across Boston, Philly, New York, and D.
C. And, again, the whole idea for us was, these are the things we want to be doing on weekends anyway. Why can't we package them together and treat them like an experience that is curated for this group. population of people who are like us and bootstrapped the whole thing, never took salaries, self funded.
We relied a lot on just our intuition, on grassroots marketing, on word of mouth. And we knew we were onto something because our focus from day one was always on the experience. I think as a connoisseur of travel and experiences and events, I've seen folks who do it really well and I've seen folks who just don't really think about the end consumer experience.
And those are the ones that don't last. And for us You know, look, we got lucky in the sense that we hit this interesting inflection point of Creating virality before that was really a thing before Facebook marketing was really a thing just by virtue of we package these experiences that people love and they would tell their friends about and the way we got introduced to living social and we've heard about them in the past, but we didn't, we never really thought much about the idea of.
How do we amplify our message through digital marketing, at least not in the early stages. Inc Magazine back in, I want to say 2005 or so, they started doing this thing called 30 under 30. The top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 years old. And I think it was in 2008 or 2009 when Maya, my sister. Ram, our other co founder, and Tim O'Shaughnessy, the founder and CEO of LivingSocial, were all featured at the same time.
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No way, I didn't know that. They met at a party, and Tim and Maya kind of hit it off, and they started talking about fun things we might do together. And, for us, that just immediately, we, the light bulb came on, which was, We could use LivingSocial as a marketing platform. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that that dance meeting at a party would turn into an acquisition and a blank slate to go and build this thing at a scale that, frankly, none of us anticipated was possible until we were sort of already doing it.
I guess the moral of the story is, as, you know, 15 years later, as we keep saying this, Networking is key, right? You got to show up, got to show up. Half a life is showing up and, and finding those opportunities with like minded individuals to hopefully plant seeds. And, you know, I think, uh, you know, the energy in the world sort of makes things happen, right?
So when, so you got acquired, you end up sitting in an office across from me and a bunch of other guys grinding out on the phones because it was a really big sales organization at the time. So it was, I mean, we could shout out thousands of people at this point. And I remember a little bit about LivingSocial, and since it's no longer there, it's kind of fun to talk about a little bit, because I remember a 20, 000 bar tab weekly in D.
C. And as being an older guy, because I was in my thirties at that point, and everybody else was under the age of 20, 25, 25, yeah, for the most part, I mean, there's a ball pit that no one would go into. There was rock climbing walls. There's, it was the rock climbing wall that we couldn't use. That's right.
For insurance, because the insurance that we spent all this money on a beautiful rock climbing wall in our office that nobody was allowed to use. I mean, some people, I said we weren't allowed to, I didn't say we didn't do it, Mario, but it was an awesome office. So shout out to 918, 918 F stray street. Yeah, so that, that was, but that was actually the first time when, when you hear about like startups, right?
Like Google and. Any of these bigger ones where there's scooters and ski ball and ping pong tables. We had all that stuff at living social. Yes, we did. Snacks, kegs on tap, bunch of young people who would date all the time. Yeah, weekly with a 20, 000 bar tab. That's right. In fact, I have a great story. Please.
The day that we signed the deal to get acquired by LivingSocial. We were all in New York City at the time. You were there. I was there? We all went out after Doug Miller took us out to, gosh, what was it, it was a rooftop bar in Manhattan. I want to say it was 35th. That's right. 35th, that's right. And Doug had just had surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles.
So he was in a walking boot, and I don't remember exactly the bar tab amount for good reason, but it was flowing freely. And I distinctly remember as we're leaving the bar at some obscene hour, Doug asked how to get back to his hotel, which was only a few blocks away. And the good Samaritan that I am pointed him in the exact opposite direction, poor guy in a walking boot recovering from Achilles surgery.
In Manhattan. In Manhattan. After midnight, probably. Well, after midnight. And I remember the next morning he told me he walked several blocks frustrated and then hailed a cab. Yeah. That speaks a lot to the culture. Because I remember Doug doing the Dougie in Park City. Doug did the Dougie. I mean, we had really great team building.
We did. The culture that we built there together was unbelievable. Right. Still, some of the strongest people in terms of culture builders I've ever been around. Which really trickled down into the quality of the work. I mean, because there was such a strong office culture, and such a strong camaraderie, and shared vision, the stuff we were able to put together.
between escapes, packages, adventures, collaborations, festivals. I mean, it was, it was unmatched. It was unmatched. We still haven't seen anything like that, I think. No, no, it's true. And that's sort of why, you know, we're sitting here talking on tickets to travels that we're really in search of that. I think there's a few companies that are trying it.
There's some big companies who are trying it. But to put it all together, whether you take it from marketing, product development, operations. I worked for a company called Pollen, which was kind of doing the same thing, but with some bigger name artists. But I think 15 years ago, LivingSocial was the one who was doing it.
And no one has really tried it because it's a little crazy. Yes. Like. Can you talk me through at that point, how you develop certain products, whether it's a ski trip to a mountain somewhere, a beer festival, or even some of these bigger ticket stuff that you guys were going for towards the end that maybe you can enlighten us about.
Yeah. So look, I think a lot of it always came from what are the things that we are doing on our own time? What are the types of activities that If we weren't working, and if we had unlimited funds and resources, where would we spend our time? And that was where it started. And it started with simple things like hiking, and kayaking, and rock climbing, and rafting.
And we would always pair it with a visit to a local brewery, or a winery, or a distillery. Why? Well, because we were in our twenties and that's what people like to do. Totally. They like to exercise and then go have a drink. I don't know if that would still fly today, to be honest. There's probably more cold plunges.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. saunas. And rompics. Right. And you know, uh. Yeah. Kombuchas. The kids don't drink anymore, Dan. They don't. They don't. Good for them. Yes. Good for them. It's true. But. So, so that's where we started. It was like, hey, where do we want to go this weekend? No, but what I'm getting at is, we, I understand the origin, but to actually put it together, To go contract the bus.
Yeah. To go and run the event to make sure everybody is having an amazing experience like Sushi and Sumo. That was a good one. That was a good one. That was a good one. And first of all, let's talk about Sushi and Sumo because I went to a couple of those. Yeah. And who was our friend in San Francisco who did that one?
To Michael? Yeah. It was Michael Siler. Michael. Shout out Mike. Shout out to Michael Siler. Who put that one together because no one had really thought about what if you had two more wrestlers? In the United States, and you serve sushi, and we dealt you as a package, not just serve, we taught you how to make sushi.
That's right. It was make your own sushi. And then watch a couple of world champion sumo wrestlers go at it on the mat. Amazing. What I'm getting at is How hard was it to understand? Like, you dream up sumo and sushi. Yeah. And then you're like, okay, who's gonna call the sumo wrestlers now? I mean, that was us, right?
We were young and bright eyed and probably not so disenfranchised with the way the world is today. Right. And we just said, look, we have an idea. We're gonna go figure it out. We're gonna go do it. And I think that's That's what's missing. That's what's missing. That's what's missing. And I don't want to reminisce about how golden life was 15 years ago, because we had our struggles and we had our challenges like everyone else.
But I think what we had built so well was a conviction that if we believe it, we can go figure it out. And we had. Phenomenal support from Living Social, from the Escapes team, from our legal team. Could you imagine trying to organize a trip today called shootin and drinkin I remember, I think Jay Leno called us out for it on late night TV.
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I think you're right. I think you're right, cause it was, let's have a couple beers, and then hand someone a firearm. No, no, no, no, no. Of course the opposite. Flip, flip, flip the order, flip the order. We were, we were safe. It was, let's go do some trap and skeet shooting. Which, for those who don't know, it's, you're shooting sporting clays, you're shooting these little clay discs, you yell pull, it flies out, you destroy it with a shotgun, everyone is happy.
And then, we would take you to a brewery or a distillery for a tasting. So the order was important. But, I would argue that today, no matter how you package that, there is no world in which that would fly. Possibly, I mean, well no, definitely not, to be honest. Yeah, no, no, I remember Leno or somebody switched it around and then I remember just getting phone calls from people like, what are you guys doing over there?
But you know what? That's what made us so special. Well, there's there was there was an edge to it, right? We, we knew how to create buzz. You know, we, we understood this idea of this is something people want to talk about, right? When you go back to the office Monday morning and everyone's talking about their weekend and what they did, don't you want to be the one to say, I just went and blew up, you know, 20 clay pigeons and then had an awesome beer tasting through this company called Living Social.
Hence the name. No, no, it's, it's, it's, and since then though, Dan, you've, you've been in a number of startup situations and do you still hold that experience of culture and the type of product that you were selling and developing as, as this, so your baseline, because I'm, I'm only saying that because I have a bunch of people in my network who I still talk to you being one of them, uh, who are just long for those days of, man, that was a great time.
And it was unfortunate when things sort of, and we'll talk about the ending of all that stuff. Yeah. But that was like lightning in the bottle. That was a period of time where we were doing something cool, edgy, and everyone liked each other for the most part. You know, like it was, it was one of those special things.
So fast forward through your career, do you sort of use that as a baseline and have you achieved it? It's really hard, I think, to compare life today to life back then, right? Today we are older, maybe a little wiser, we have families, but this idea of culture being critical to success is something that I've carried with me everywhere I've gone.
And whether it's identifying companies that have the right core culture to join. Or taking it upon myself to go build the culture I want is paramount because at the end of the day, I, and I firmly believe this, the true blasting competitive advantage for most companies is culture. People come and go, products succeed and fail, but strong company culture is responsible for persevering through the difficult times and taking advantage of all the success.
No, I would agree with you, but it's authentic. Culture, because I remember after I left you guys. And I went to TripAdvisor, we had some of that cool stuff, you know, we had all the snacks and the beer on tap and the cold brew. And then, um, I remember very vividly, you know, people on the sales team going in there and having fun on, you know, PS5s and a, uh, VP once came in and said, What are you, what are you guys doing here?
Like, oh, we're just playing PlayStation and we're having some snacks. Like, that's not for you, that's for the engineers. That's how we kept the engineers here. And so, I think LivingSocial had this culture of just being very inclusive with everyone as well. And that's why we're still talking about it to this day.
So, you know, obviously that was a baseline. That was something that was very special. Uh, like I said, lightning in a bottle. And so why do you think that there aren't any, I mean, maybe, maybe you've heard of them, but are there other startups that kind of have the same cachet, like did an Uber at the time have it, or did, because I feel like that ship has sailed, the, the scooters in the office and the ping pong tables, they're there.
But they're more for aesthetics on a glass door, you know, profile rather than, Hey, I want you to play. Have you seen any other cultures where you're like, Hey, let's, let's bring that back from the thousands? Certainly not in the same way. And, and, you know, look, I don't think I think when we talk about culture, it's important to recognize that it is not just about all of the cool things in the office for you to do and play with and the free food and all that.
That's an element of it. The culture I'm thinking of and the stuff that you and I have talked about so much over the years is it's the people. It is the people who want to be there, who push each other to be better, but who are inclusive, right? It is not competitive. But it is a very shared mission of a rising tide will lift all ships.
And does that still exist today? Look, I think so. Does it exist at the scale that we had it? I'm not sure. I haven't seen it, but that doesn't mean it's not there. And it doesn't mean it's not possible. I think the challenge today is you have, and look, this is so cyclical, right? In today's startup culture and startup environment, there is such a premium place to be.
Um, profitability, that it's really hard to replicate some of the things that we were able to do a living social when being profitable was not the top priority growth was, and these things come and go around and that's right. And so today in today's market, I suspect that you are going to see less ultra building the way we had it.
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Visit Bookseats. com today and make your next sports trip unforgettable. Bookseats. Your all access pass to the ultimate sports travel experience. Makes a whole lot of sense. So towards the end, if you listen to Tickets to Travel a bit, we've talked to some promoters, some ticketing companies, people in the travel world, a lot of startups, and There's always, when you're creating a travel experience, and we have to thank Taylor Swift for this, for creating these economies around her Heroes Tour, uh, 2023, and of course this past year in 2024, there are other companies sort of focused on artist travel or fan travel.
And I remember you guys at Adventures were doing something with, I believe, Aerosmith. At one point. That's right. And, and that was really interesting to me to see because, you know, there were a couple other larger festival promoters who'd come to the escapes team and say, Hey, we want to put packages around this.
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Can you create some hotel inventory and we'll put it together and we'll market it on your behalf and you'll help us market our own festival. But this was a little bit different. This was you guys put together, um, one, you started off with beer festivals, which I think was your baby. It was. And then it sort of escalated quickly in a matter of weeks.
To booking Aerosmith. Yeah. Can you walk me through that experience? Because I think I saw you grow up, you know, in, in a matter of maybe three months? Where it started out, yeah, we're wildly successful with the beer fests and then it just was like, okay, we're going to take on more. I remember all of us were like, maybe you should, the breaks a little bit, but of course, as we're talking about this now, you're like, yeah, we didn't care.
It wasn't in our DNA. Going slower was never, never something we could do. So, you know, look, the, the origin story there was back to this idea of. Let's do the things we want to do. I was always a bit of a craft beer nut. And I said, you know, we were living in DC at the time. I hadn't seen a good craft beer festival in a way that spoke to me.
Right. I saw ones that were kind of not focused on the experience, right? It was, you get a one ounce pour of six beers and there's nothing else to do. And it just didn't, it didn't fit. Right. And so for us, the whole idea was. Let's create, let's focus on the experience, let's make sure that we've built something that people want to come to, and let's not stress as much about the margin.
Let's just proof of concept. Does this thing work? Will people come? Will it sell? And the first DC Beer Fest that we planned was over a two day weekend. We sold 7, 000 tickets, which sold out. What was the venue? The first venue was at Castles Stadium. It was a tennis, tennis venue that sold out in a few hours.
7, 000 tickets in a few hours. And the experience was such a wild success that immediately there was excitement about planning another one even bigger. Also in D. C. And so six months later we planned another one just outside of the Washington National Stadium. Over 12, 000 tickets sold. Two days. But let's, let's be clear, Living Social Headquarters was in D.
C. so about, you know, 3, 000 of that 7, 000 were employee. Which is fair. And, and they had a great time, as evidenced by the fact that most of them didn't make it to work on Monday. Right. But that, but that is a differentiator to other craft beer festivals. The manner in which you had the tastings that was different.
That I think was the whole, it was experiential. It was experiential. You know, we, you had band and you had, we had music, we had games. I mean, we tried to draft this idea, no pun intended, on this concept of when I'm going to a festival, I don't want to have to think about really anything. I just wanna be able to enjoy myself.
And so this idea of how many tastings have I had, how much do I have to pay for food? There's no punch ticket. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It was just. Hey, go have fun, be responsible and go have fun. And so, you know, we, we did our best to sort of theme out these festivals. So the one in D. C. outside of National Stadium, we themed out like it was a, a backyard barbecue, which was part of the impetus for where you want to go here, which is the Aerosmith show.
And it was just a raving success. And so we did, and that beer fest, we ended up taking that product on the road. We probably did another two dozen over the course of two years across all the major cities in the U. S. Atlanta, New York, Boston, Philly, L. A., San Francisco, Chicago. And we would do the Met. Really interesting venues.
I remember the one in Chicago was at the Lincoln park zoo after hours. Wow. I forgot about that. Yeah. So, I mean, it's been some time, so we could talk a little bit about numbers here. So like top line, well, how many ticket sales would you have sort of equate to just the beer fest and then just, you know, gross revenue, you know, you can give me a range.
Sure. I would say this is going to be hard for me to recall this, but I would say anywhere in the ballpark of. 50 to 75, 000 tickets sold for beer festivals across the country. And I would say each one sort of top line gross was four, 5 million. So it was, it was a pretty compelling business and it's what gave the leadership team the confidence to give us a much bigger to go and plan.
Well, we ended up calling Living Socials Backyard Barbecue Festival in New York City. Well, I will say though, my metric that I tell people, which is totally true, and that's really cute. You guys did that, you know, four or five million, but the escapes team did 150 million net. We did four or five million per event, Mario.
Oh, okay. Per event. That's all. Okay. So that's, how many events was that? We can do some quick math. Still less than escapes. You're right. You win. You win. If that's what you're going for, you win. I'm just putting it out, out there. So. Now we're at the point of, we're going to do something cute. That's right.
The backyard barbecue. I don't know any barbecues that have Aerosmith at it, but what was You're going to the wrong barbecues. That's very true. I am. But there's a whole topic along the podcast about just lineup development. Yes. That for a live music experience is completely matters. Very much in terms of the pre sale, the on sale and how many people are going to happen.
So how did you, let's face it, you're novice. A hundred percent. I'm not going to pretend we were anything other than that. How did you get to Aerosmith? And then what was the lineup development like? Did you guys sit around in a room and sort of say, I would love to have these four or five bands and let's kind of knock it down.
And we want so and so to open and we're going to have a comedian and we're going to have, at that point you didn't have influencers, you know, it was like you guys up on stage. So how did that process work in terms of developing the lineup and the talent? And then of course, doing the on sale and securing the venue for what is one of the most iconic venues in the world.
Yeah. I mean, look, so when we came up with this idea, so the mandate for us was quite simple. It was beer fest has been a raging success. What's next? How do you top that? And how do you top a traveling beer festival that gross, whatever, 80, 100 million. We knew we had to go big and it was around that time that, you know, governor's ball in New York city was really big.
There were a bunch of other sort of large alt music festivals that catered to a, I would say a younger crowd, you know, a little more EDM focused, you know, some alt rock. And when we started thinking about how do we differentiate from those, right? What is our experience? What's our calling card? It was actually one of the first times that we spent really thinking about the living social for customer versus Who do we want to, and knowing that our core customers were, you know, men and women in their mid thirties, maybe even a little older, we knew we had to go a little bit more, I want to say vintage because Aerosmith, obviously they're, they're iconic, right?
But someone that appealed to a broad swath of the population. And when we landed on this idea of Aerosmith, we started thinking, okay, well, Where would Aerosmith play, right? Like, in the most ideal world, what would this look like? And we couldn't get this idea out of our heads that New York City's backyard was the perfect place for it.
And for those who don't know New York City, you know, Randall's Island right on the East River is it overlooks Manhattan and they had planned countless music festivals in the past, including Governor's Ball, which started on Governor's Island and that eventually graduated to Randall's Island. So that's kind of where it all started, right?
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We had this idea, we said, we want to plan a festival in New York City, one of our largest markets. Okay. Thanks. We know we want Aerosmith to be the headliner because we think they have cross generational appeal and the theme is going to be New York's Epic Backyard Barbecue. Got it. Yeah, so when we talk to other people who are in this space of creating a travel experience around music in particular, the biggest expenses or costs on the P& L is talent and production.
And so just knowing from what I know, when you're trying to get a headliner of that size, that's anywhere from 1 million all the way up to, I think Bruno Mars is charging JLo 5 million. Wow. Yeah, that just came out last week or something. Are we in the wrong line of work, Mario? I mean, I'm not very good on the PN.
Had I done it over again, you're probably right. At least maybe we could, we could work in the business side, but that piece obviously was a big part of the PNL. Oh. Uh, make that happen. The one thing that was very cool about LivingSocial, you kind of had this built in marketing system. Yes. Because we had, what, 60 million emails?
Couldn't even tell you. Yeah, right. That sounds right. It was a lot. It was a lot. Tens of millions. That we could basically turn on and get a pretty good conversion and open rate from because of the viral type of content you guys were creating. And so when you look at the talent booking, the production side and canceling out some of the marketing, what were some of the lessons you learned in executing or not?
A festival that size and, and really I commend you guys because it was a big swing. Yeah. It was a, a very ballsy wing to take. And what happened? Well, look, I think there are times in life when you say ignorance is bliss. Had we not, had we known what it would have, what it was going to take to put this together in the 10 month timeframe that we had, there's a good chance somebody would have told us, eh, try something else.
And so this idea that we didn't know what we were in for, but we had the chutzpah to go after it, that set us on the path. Right. And I think sort of some of the challenges that I remember, some of the things that opened my eyes to this world in a very different way, you know, number one, I had never really seen a writer before.
You never saw like only blue M& Ms? So like I saw the version of that or the sort of C level talent we used to book for Beerfest, which was pretty basic. I'd never really seen a writer for a, an A list. Performer. And so, uh, you know, I won't go into details there because I don't think Steven Tyler would appreciate it, but it opened my eyes to the way this game is played.
You know, I think that was one. I think two was it was the first time we ever engaged with a professional outside production firm. Okay. We used to always do it ourselves, right? We would go, we would book, we would get a stage built, we would get our own sound, all of this stuff. Yeah. This was the first time we said, this is too much for us.
We need a professional production crew who knows what they're doing. Yeah. I think that was the first inkling that I later fast forward how many years when I was at Paulin, because then I got to really look at the PNLs because the hotel rooms were part of the PNL. And for those of you who don't know out there to get a top, you know, an A list performer stage, 350K?
Sounds right. Right. Sounds right. Sound and production, because they won't even show up if, if you're not on a stage or have the audio quality that they're used to performing on. So that in and of itself is probably half a million bucks. So sorry to cut you off. No, no. Like, but that, that is something that is a rude awakening once you're like, Hey, I'm trying to make something happen.
That's right. And so we, we recognize the budget we would need early on, thankfully. Yeah. Absolutely. When we started gathering some quotes and estimates from people we had met along the way in the industry. And we knew that we had to do something really big and unique to make things work. The sponsorship is an obvious angle which we pursued and we got quite lucky with and we had some pretty amazing sponsors.
The thing I'm most proud of. With that whole festival and we'll talk about what happened, uh, later, but we had inked a deal to work with Union Square Hospitality Group. Uh, so Danny Meyers restaurant group to Effectively curate the menu and all of the food at the festival. Because he had Blue Smoke at the time, right?
Blue Smoke, Shake Shack, and just a New York City icon, right? And this is before Shake Shack was franchised and was in a million locations. It was basically just in Madison Square Park. That's right. There were maybe a few dozen locations around the U. S. that were all owned and managed and operated by Union Square.
But so we, we went sort of above and beyond. Now, if you go to a typical festival today, unless you go to a, uh, and you're in a VIP package or something like that, you're getting really basic fare and you're getting overcharged for it. And we felt strongly, and we took some cues out of, uh, the Masters Golf Tournament here.
If you can create something like truly unique and special and not charge an arm and a leg for it, you've won the hearts of the people there. Keep their bellies full. That's right. Keep the drinks flowing, don't run out of booze, don't make the bathroom lines too long, make the food really good, everything else falls into place, you know, and so, and, and we really focused on that, on how do we create the best possible concert experience for people who are coming to the show, because we knew, look, we had one shot, right?
We had to knock this out of the park. If we wanted to keep going, we knew we had no room for failure. And so that really pushed us to the edge of. What I would consider like there are things that today probably you couldn't get away with you couldn't try and we had to I remember you that week you were stressed out man.
I can't imagine why. Yeah, you were I remember running into you in the office and you were barely there and you were like in a cold sweat for an entire week. Is now the time where we get to talk about what happened? Well, I, I was going to get there because maybe there's some things that you can account for, like weather.
Yeah. Yeah. Another big journey. Which is the kryptonite to any festival promoter. Uh huh. So this was 2013. It was June. I want to say it runs, oh, I remember it all too well. Clearly. I want to say that the festival was planned for June 13th. I think that's how, how precise my memory is of this. Because. It was two weeks after Governor's Ball.
Okay, right. On Randall's Island. It's usually June 1st ish. That's right. Is Governor's Ball. Yeah. And during the last day of Governor's Ball, that's Sunday, New York got hit with I think it was Tropical Storm, Andrea or Irene, I forget. Okay. I was trying to remember, I, cause I remember I was already in Connecticut at this point, but like, yeah, I think it was Irene.
It was a massive storm. Yeah. And if you looked at pictures of GovBall, which I was at, I was at all three days because we became very friendly with the organizers and founders and yep. And they let us sort of behind the scenes so that we could make the last minute optimizations and tweaks to our festival, which was two weeks later.
If you look at pictures. It looked like what I imagine Woodstock looked like in the 60s with the mud pits and the mud people. I mean, I distinctly remember Monday morning doing a walkthrough of Randall's Island to assess the storm damage with someone from the New York City Parks Department, with our production team.
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And we counted no less than like 80 abandoned pairs of shoes in the mud pit. And we wrapped up that walkthrough. And I just had that pit in my stomach where I, I was expecting the worst. And sure enough, the next morning at 9 a. m. we get a call from the commissioner of the New York City Parks Department saying that due to unanticipated weather events, they were declaring a state of emergency on Randall's Island.
They were canceling all planned activities for at least 30 days for them to restore the grounds. And that meant canceling our festival. 13 days. Before the show talk about a gut punch. Oh, yeah, we fell for you, man That was that was a rough day. I'm trying to remember the communication process to the fans Once that news came, I remember everyone just being silent.
And this was not a silent office, by the way. We were all, yeah, we were all in pain. You know, we, we had to obviously first make sure everyone at LivingSocial knew what was going on. Right. Everyone all the way up to Tim O'Shaughnessy. You know, look, we were smart enough. And I give a lot of credit to Scott Hanley, who worked with us, who was our sort of man on the inside, who really understood the way festivals work, right?
And he'd worked at WME before, so he knew this world. He implored us to take festival insurance several months before the event. It saved, it saved everyone, right? Because through that, not only could we refund everyone, but we ended up not losing a dime on the production, on the Aerosmith fee, which we weren't getting back.
But so, once we understood that It softened the blow a little bit in the sense that, you know, look, we didn't, we were not responsible for bankrupting living. So sure. Yeah. That, that felt good. But at the same time, Ten months of work, of painstaking work just evaporates that quickly with an email from a person sitting in an office.
And, and yeah, look, the next few days were rough and painful and we had to communicate quite a bit to all of our customers, to all of our partners. What was the, what was the fan reaction? I mean, they were probably like, wait a second, we still got a bunch of time here. Why are you calling it off early for the sentiment?
You had a mixed bag, right? You had some people who were gracious and appreciative of the full refund and the 13 day notice and all that. You had others who were saying, this is. Yeah. Traveling for this. Yeah. I've booked accommodations. Yeah. I've, you know, I've made all these arrangements. This is my, my wife and I's 30th wedding anniversary, like you name it.
We heard stories and you know, you just had to sort of go hat in hand and say, look, we're really sorry. It's completely out of our hands. It's always nice when you can kind of point to a force majeure and say, look, out of everyone's hands, like nobody could have predicted this, but still for some people that wasn't enough.
Amazing. I'm, I'm just like, you're making me relive these painful memories. Well, that's what we do here at tickets. This was not part of the deal. Oh no, but I, I, I feel it, man. I feel how it is. So As we come to a little bit of an end here, obviously you got to come back. We can talk about other kind of startup stories because you have a unique experience that I think lots of people in the travel experiences world, whether it's a promoter, a ticketing company, a travel company trying to get into this stuff, you have a very valuable experience that I hope you come back.
But what I'd always like to do is one, let's the themes here, our culture. Yes. It's what else I would think about it in a few ways. I think culture sustains, right? Culture is a competitive advantage and companies that understand that and can harness that can weather any big risks. I think that's a big one.
I think another one is content and Doug Miller. You saw about this a lot, right? Content is king. I think Bob Sillerman, Corbett, purple cows, right? Especially today when we are all so inundated with offers and opportunities and things to do, you know, our non renewable resources time. And so where we choose to spend that time matters quite a bit more now than ever before.
The attention. And delivering content. That people are excited about, that they're drawn to, that resonates on a personal level. And this is not just for, for travel. This is for anything, right? Content will win. I think that's number two. And I think number three is, you know, look, this is going to sound cheesy, but just dream, right?
Dream big. Like go after it. At the end of the day, ideas are a dime a dozen, but if you can't execute, if you don't have the conviction to go get the thing you want, no one's going to give it to you. It's not just going to show up. Go do it. Go get it. And, and I think if you can master those three things of creating a strong company culture, really focusing on content in whatever industry you're in, and then having the conviction to go get it.
Man, you're tough to stop when you have that unstoppable, you know? Yep. And then like attracts like, right? That's right. You find the right people, you find the right mission, and, uh, success or lessons are learned. Dan, thanks for coming to Tickets Travel. I hope you come back. Mario, it's been a blast. I will be back anytime you'll have me.
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Welcome to Tickets2Travel, the business of travel experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bedouin, and this is the show where we explore the stories and strategies shaping the world of travel, entertainment and unforgettable experiences. Today, we're thrilled to have a true visionary in the experience economy.
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Join us. Dan Jose Bocvilli, a seasoned entrepreneur and multi time founder. Dan has built his career around one central theme, creating moments that connect us to the world and each other. As a founding member of Urban Escapes, Dan helped redefine adventure travel, bringing people together through unique outdoor experiences.
After Urban Escapes was acquired by LivingSocial, Dan scaled new business initiatives launching large scale festivals and events across the country, leaving a lasting mark on the travel and entertainment space. Dan is now revolutionizing HealthTech as the founder of Silvertree, a company dedicated to enhancing the lives of older adults with cutting edge wearable technology.
With a career spanning travel, adventure, and innovation, Dan embodies the transformative power of experiences. So whether you're building your next big idea or just dreaming of your next adventure, you're in the right place. Let's dive into the journey of Dan Jose Bochvili and don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because Tickets to Travel starts now.
Welcome to Tickets to Travel. I'm your host Mario Bedouin and we talk about the business travel experience. And today we have. Dan Jose Bachvili on the show. Thank you for coming to Tickets to Travel, Dan. Thanks, Mario. Happy to be here. Well, you know, this show is about tickets and travel and travel experiences.
And so, as I started to do a bit of my research of various startups and companies in the space, I started to look back at one part of my career that was very memorable, was at a company called Living Social, and that's where we met, right? That's right, 15 years ago now. 15 years, and we looked great, because we were probably teenagers at the time when that happened.
But, all kidding aside, you were part of a group of people who I think you guys were called Urban, Urban Escapes, Urban Escapes. And so when I start to look back on some of the research I've done about these types of companies and travel experiences, that particular company sticks out to me the most because of the way you put together the experiences.
You sold tickets, you created travel, uh, you marketed specifically to audiences within large metropolitan areas, namely New York City. And travel experiences, And so that is one of the very first companies that, yes, there were tour operators and travel agencies and stuff that did this, but you guys were very deliberate about how you created products and marketed them.
Absolutely. I mean, and I love the way you're phrasing it, deliberate. We were very intentional in everything that we did. And for us, Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. We were the audience, right? We were creating things almost for ourself. And at the time when we did this in the, you know, late aughts, I guess you'd call it, what's that?
That's the late, late 2000s, 2008, 2009, 2010, the whole idea was sort of centered around this premise that if you were a young professional working in one of the major Metro areas in, in, on the East coast, you were a slave to the desk and the concrete jungle. For 60 hours a week. And then your nights and weekends all looked the same.
Bar, club, kickball league. But if you had the wherewithal to look 30 minutes outside of New York You would have access to some of the best hiking, rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, ski shooting, I mean, you name it. The opportunities were endless. And these were things that we just like to do. And we said, well, there's a way to productize this.
And at the time, we weren't thinking through the lens of, oh, we're going to build the next billion dollar travel business. It was purely a passion play. We said, we love to do this stuff. Let's just go do it and invite people to do it with us. Amazing. And so through that process, You were acquired. That's right.
So, and that's where we met. I, I was, uh, I want to say number seven or so on the living social escapes team, which was the pure travel where we put together escapes packages for bed and breakfast first, and then all the way up to resorts and casinos. But you guys were a little bit different. We shared an office to a certain extent, but the adventures portion of living social, which by the way, everybody was then later acquired by.
Groupon, very similar business model, but a little more soul on our side, I would say. Yeah. And no offense, any Groupon people out there. And by the way, I will always say this, we were eight months ahead of Groupon getaways on Living Social Escape. So I also, I don't think they ever got to an adventurous type of product.
They did not. And from everything I remember and like it's been 15 years and a lot's happened since then, but, uh, we had the soul, we had the vision, we had quite a bit behind us. to create this new category of travel experiences. And, you know, look, kudos to the LivingSocial execs, the Tim O'Shaughnessy and the board who believed in what we envisioned was possible with travel.
Right. Well, you also have to say something about Doug Miller, who put us all together, right? He was an Expedia guy, was part of that leadership team at one point, and then came over and really kind of had the vision to pull everybody together. So, back to Urban Escapes, because it is 15 years, I'm trying to recall.
So, during that process, when you guys were Urban Escapes, because I think a big part of this, a lot of startup founders in this space, listen, is part of our audience, but how did you guys get to a point where LivingSocial was like, hey, I'm going to write you a check? It's, uh, like so many things in life, a combination of hard work, Good fortune, and just being in the right place at the right time.
I mean, when we started the company, and I have to give a shout out to my older sister Maya, who started the company, Bram Levy, who was also a co founder, and then these sort of eight of us delinquents spread out around the East Coast. Who are responsible for planning these adventures across Boston, Philly, New York, and D.
C. And, again, the whole idea for us was, these are the things we want to be doing on weekends anyway. Why can't we package them together and treat them like an experience that is curated for this group. population of people who are like us and bootstrapped the whole thing, never took salaries, self funded.
We relied a lot on just our intuition, on grassroots marketing, on word of mouth. And we knew we were onto something because our focus from day one was always on the experience. I think as a connoisseur of travel and experiences and events, I've seen folks who do it really well and I've seen folks who just don't really think about the end consumer experience.
And those are the ones that don't last. And for us You know, look, we got lucky in the sense that we hit this interesting inflection point of Creating virality before that was really a thing before Facebook marketing was really a thing just by virtue of we package these experiences that people love and they would tell their friends about and the way we got introduced to living social and we've heard about them in the past, but we didn't, we never really thought much about the idea of.
How do we amplify our message through digital marketing, at least not in the early stages. Inc Magazine back in, I want to say 2005 or so, they started doing this thing called 30 under 30. The top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 years old. And I think it was in 2008 or 2009 when Maya, my sister. Ram, our other co founder, and Tim O'Shaughnessy, the founder and CEO of LivingSocial, were all featured at the same time.
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No way, I didn't know that. They met at a party, and Tim and Maya kind of hit it off, and they started talking about fun things we might do together. And, for us, that just immediately, we, the light bulb came on, which was, We could use LivingSocial as a marketing platform. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that that dance meeting at a party would turn into an acquisition and a blank slate to go and build this thing at a scale that, frankly, none of us anticipated was possible until we were sort of already doing it.
I guess the moral of the story is, as, you know, 15 years later, as we keep saying this, Networking is key, right? You got to show up, got to show up. Half a life is showing up and, and finding those opportunities with like minded individuals to hopefully plant seeds. And, you know, I think, uh, you know, the energy in the world sort of makes things happen, right?
So when, so you got acquired, you end up sitting in an office across from me and a bunch of other guys grinding out on the phones because it was a really big sales organization at the time. So it was, I mean, we could shout out thousands of people at this point. And I remember a little bit about LivingSocial, and since it's no longer there, it's kind of fun to talk about a little bit, because I remember a 20, 000 bar tab weekly in D.
C. And as being an older guy, because I was in my thirties at that point, and everybody else was under the age of 20, 25, 25, yeah, for the most part, I mean, there's a ball pit that no one would go into. There was rock climbing walls. There's, it was the rock climbing wall that we couldn't use. That's right.
For insurance, because the insurance that we spent all this money on a beautiful rock climbing wall in our office that nobody was allowed to use. I mean, some people, I said we weren't allowed to, I didn't say we didn't do it, Mario, but it was an awesome office. So shout out to 918, 918 F stray street. Yeah, so that, that was, but that was actually the first time when, when you hear about like startups, right?
Like Google and. Any of these bigger ones where there's scooters and ski ball and ping pong tables. We had all that stuff at living social. Yes, we did. Snacks, kegs on tap, bunch of young people who would date all the time. Yeah, weekly with a 20, 000 bar tab. That's right. In fact, I have a great story. Please.
The day that we signed the deal to get acquired by LivingSocial. We were all in New York City at the time. You were there. I was there? We all went out after Doug Miller took us out to, gosh, what was it, it was a rooftop bar in Manhattan. I want to say it was 35th. That's right. 35th, that's right. And Doug had just had surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles.
So he was in a walking boot, and I don't remember exactly the bar tab amount for good reason, but it was flowing freely. And I distinctly remember as we're leaving the bar at some obscene hour, Doug asked how to get back to his hotel, which was only a few blocks away. And the good Samaritan that I am pointed him in the exact opposite direction, poor guy in a walking boot recovering from Achilles surgery.
In Manhattan. In Manhattan. After midnight, probably. Well, after midnight. And I remember the next morning he told me he walked several blocks frustrated and then hailed a cab. Yeah. That speaks a lot to the culture. Because I remember Doug doing the Dougie in Park City. Doug did the Dougie. I mean, we had really great team building.
We did. The culture that we built there together was unbelievable. Right. Still, some of the strongest people in terms of culture builders I've ever been around. Which really trickled down into the quality of the work. I mean, because there was such a strong office culture, and such a strong camaraderie, and shared vision, the stuff we were able to put together.
between escapes, packages, adventures, collaborations, festivals. I mean, it was, it was unmatched. It was unmatched. We still haven't seen anything like that, I think. No, no, it's true. And that's sort of why, you know, we're sitting here talking on tickets to travels that we're really in search of that. I think there's a few companies that are trying it.
There's some big companies who are trying it. But to put it all together, whether you take it from marketing, product development, operations. I worked for a company called Pollen, which was kind of doing the same thing, but with some bigger name artists. But I think 15 years ago, LivingSocial was the one who was doing it.
And no one has really tried it because it's a little crazy. Yes. Like. Can you talk me through at that point, how you develop certain products, whether it's a ski trip to a mountain somewhere, a beer festival, or even some of these bigger ticket stuff that you guys were going for towards the end that maybe you can enlighten us about.
Yeah. So look, I think a lot of it always came from what are the things that we are doing on our own time? What are the types of activities that If we weren't working, and if we had unlimited funds and resources, where would we spend our time? And that was where it started. And it started with simple things like hiking, and kayaking, and rock climbing, and rafting.
And we would always pair it with a visit to a local brewery, or a winery, or a distillery. Why? Well, because we were in our twenties and that's what people like to do. Totally. They like to exercise and then go have a drink. I don't know if that would still fly today, to be honest. There's probably more cold plunges.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. saunas. And rompics. Right. And you know, uh. Yeah. Kombuchas. The kids don't drink anymore, Dan. They don't. They don't. Good for them. Yes. Good for them. It's true. But. So, so that's where we started. It was like, hey, where do we want to go this weekend? No, but what I'm getting at is, we, I understand the origin, but to actually put it together, To go contract the bus.
Yeah. To go and run the event to make sure everybody is having an amazing experience like Sushi and Sumo. That was a good one. That was a good one. That was a good one. And first of all, let's talk about Sushi and Sumo because I went to a couple of those. Yeah. And who was our friend in San Francisco who did that one?
To Michael? Yeah. It was Michael Siler. Michael. Shout out Mike. Shout out to Michael Siler. Who put that one together because no one had really thought about what if you had two more wrestlers? In the United States, and you serve sushi, and we dealt you as a package, not just serve, we taught you how to make sushi.
That's right. It was make your own sushi. And then watch a couple of world champion sumo wrestlers go at it on the mat. Amazing. What I'm getting at is How hard was it to understand? Like, you dream up sumo and sushi. Yeah. And then you're like, okay, who's gonna call the sumo wrestlers now? I mean, that was us, right?
We were young and bright eyed and probably not so disenfranchised with the way the world is today. Right. And we just said, look, we have an idea. We're gonna go figure it out. We're gonna go do it. And I think that's That's what's missing. That's what's missing. That's what's missing. And I don't want to reminisce about how golden life was 15 years ago, because we had our struggles and we had our challenges like everyone else.
But I think what we had built so well was a conviction that if we believe it, we can go figure it out. And we had. Phenomenal support from Living Social, from the Escapes team, from our legal team. Could you imagine trying to organize a trip today called shootin and drinkin I remember, I think Jay Leno called us out for it on late night TV.
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I think you're right. I think you're right, cause it was, let's have a couple beers, and then hand someone a firearm. No, no, no, no, no. Of course the opposite. Flip, flip, flip the order, flip the order. We were, we were safe. It was, let's go do some trap and skeet shooting. Which, for those who don't know, it's, you're shooting sporting clays, you're shooting these little clay discs, you yell pull, it flies out, you destroy it with a shotgun, everyone is happy.
And then, we would take you to a brewery or a distillery for a tasting. So the order was important. But, I would argue that today, no matter how you package that, there is no world in which that would fly. Possibly, I mean, well no, definitely not, to be honest. Yeah, no, no, I remember Leno or somebody switched it around and then I remember just getting phone calls from people like, what are you guys doing over there?
But you know what? That's what made us so special. Well, there's there was there was an edge to it, right? We, we knew how to create buzz. You know, we, we understood this idea of this is something people want to talk about, right? When you go back to the office Monday morning and everyone's talking about their weekend and what they did, don't you want to be the one to say, I just went and blew up, you know, 20 clay pigeons and then had an awesome beer tasting through this company called Living Social.
Hence the name. No, no, it's, it's, it's, and since then though, Dan, you've, you've been in a number of startup situations and do you still hold that experience of culture and the type of product that you were selling and developing as, as this, so your baseline, because I'm, I'm only saying that because I have a bunch of people in my network who I still talk to you being one of them, uh, who are just long for those days of, man, that was a great time.
And it was unfortunate when things sort of, and we'll talk about the ending of all that stuff. Yeah. But that was like lightning in the bottle. That was a period of time where we were doing something cool, edgy, and everyone liked each other for the most part. You know, like it was, it was one of those special things.
So fast forward through your career, do you sort of use that as a baseline and have you achieved it? It's really hard, I think, to compare life today to life back then, right? Today we are older, maybe a little wiser, we have families, but this idea of culture being critical to success is something that I've carried with me everywhere I've gone.
And whether it's identifying companies that have the right core culture to join. Or taking it upon myself to go build the culture I want is paramount because at the end of the day, I, and I firmly believe this, the true blasting competitive advantage for most companies is culture. People come and go, products succeed and fail, but strong company culture is responsible for persevering through the difficult times and taking advantage of all the success.
No, I would agree with you, but it's authentic. Culture, because I remember after I left you guys. And I went to TripAdvisor, we had some of that cool stuff, you know, we had all the snacks and the beer on tap and the cold brew. And then, um, I remember very vividly, you know, people on the sales team going in there and having fun on, you know, PS5s and a, uh, VP once came in and said, What are you, what are you guys doing here?
Like, oh, we're just playing PlayStation and we're having some snacks. Like, that's not for you, that's for the engineers. That's how we kept the engineers here. And so, I think LivingSocial had this culture of just being very inclusive with everyone as well. And that's why we're still talking about it to this day.
So, you know, obviously that was a baseline. That was something that was very special. Uh, like I said, lightning in a bottle. And so why do you think that there aren't any, I mean, maybe, maybe you've heard of them, but are there other startups that kind of have the same cachet, like did an Uber at the time have it, or did, because I feel like that ship has sailed, the, the scooters in the office and the ping pong tables, they're there.
But they're more for aesthetics on a glass door, you know, profile rather than, Hey, I want you to play. Have you seen any other cultures where you're like, Hey, let's, let's bring that back from the thousands? Certainly not in the same way. And, and, you know, look, I don't think I think when we talk about culture, it's important to recognize that it is not just about all of the cool things in the office for you to do and play with and the free food and all that.
That's an element of it. The culture I'm thinking of and the stuff that you and I have talked about so much over the years is it's the people. It is the people who want to be there, who push each other to be better, but who are inclusive, right? It is not competitive. But it is a very shared mission of a rising tide will lift all ships.
And does that still exist today? Look, I think so. Does it exist at the scale that we had it? I'm not sure. I haven't seen it, but that doesn't mean it's not there. And it doesn't mean it's not possible. I think the challenge today is you have, and look, this is so cyclical, right? In today's startup culture and startup environment, there is such a premium place to be.
Um, profitability, that it's really hard to replicate some of the things that we were able to do a living social when being profitable was not the top priority growth was, and these things come and go around and that's right. And so today in today's market, I suspect that you are going to see less ultra building the way we had it.
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Visit Bookseats. com today and make your next sports trip unforgettable. Bookseats. Your all access pass to the ultimate sports travel experience. Makes a whole lot of sense. So towards the end, if you listen to Tickets to Travel a bit, we've talked to some promoters, some ticketing companies, people in the travel world, a lot of startups, and There's always, when you're creating a travel experience, and we have to thank Taylor Swift for this, for creating these economies around her Heroes Tour, uh, 2023, and of course this past year in 2024, there are other companies sort of focused on artist travel or fan travel.
And I remember you guys at Adventures were doing something with, I believe, Aerosmith. At one point. That's right. And, and that was really interesting to me to see because, you know, there were a couple other larger festival promoters who'd come to the escapes team and say, Hey, we want to put packages around this.
(01:04):
Can you create some hotel inventory and we'll put it together and we'll market it on your behalf and you'll help us market our own festival. But this was a little bit different. This was you guys put together, um, one, you started off with beer festivals, which I think was your baby. It was. And then it sort of escalated quickly in a matter of weeks.
To booking Aerosmith. Yeah. Can you walk me through that experience? Because I think I saw you grow up, you know, in, in a matter of maybe three months? Where it started out, yeah, we're wildly successful with the beer fests and then it just was like, okay, we're going to take on more. I remember all of us were like, maybe you should, the breaks a little bit, but of course, as we're talking about this now, you're like, yeah, we didn't care.
It wasn't in our DNA. Going slower was never, never something we could do. So, you know, look, the, the origin story there was back to this idea of. Let's do the things we want to do. I was always a bit of a craft beer nut. And I said, you know, we were living in DC at the time. I hadn't seen a good craft beer festival in a way that spoke to me.
Right. I saw ones that were kind of not focused on the experience, right? It was, you get a one ounce pour of six beers and there's nothing else to do. And it just didn't, it didn't fit. Right. And so for us, the whole idea was. Let's create, let's focus on the experience, let's make sure that we've built something that people want to come to, and let's not stress as much about the margin.
Let's just proof of concept. Does this thing work? Will people come? Will it sell? And the first DC Beer Fest that we planned was over a two day weekend. We sold 7, 000 tickets, which sold out. What was the venue? The first venue was at Castles Stadium. It was a tennis, tennis venue that sold out in a few hours.
7, 000 tickets in a few hours. And the experience was such a wild success that immediately there was excitement about planning another one even bigger. Also in D. C. And so six months later we planned another one just outside of the Washington National Stadium. Over 12, 000 tickets sold. Two days. But let's, let's be clear, Living Social Headquarters was in D.
C. so about, you know, 3, 000 of that 7, 000 were employee. Which is fair. And, and they had a great time, as evidenced by the fact that most of them didn't make it to work on Monday. Right. But that, but that is a differentiator to other craft beer festivals. The manner in which you had the tastings that was different.
That I think was the whole, it was experiential. It was experiential. You know, we, you had band and you had, we had music, we had games. I mean, we tried to draft this idea, no pun intended, on this concept of when I'm going to a festival, I don't want to have to think about really anything. I just wanna be able to enjoy myself.
And so this idea of how many tastings have I had, how much do I have to pay for food? There's no punch ticket. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It was just. Hey, go have fun, be responsible and go have fun. And so, you know, we, we did our best to sort of theme out these festivals. So the one in D. C. outside of National Stadium, we themed out like it was a, a backyard barbecue, which was part of the impetus for where you want to go here, which is the Aerosmith show.
And it was just a raving success. And so we did, and that beer fest, we ended up taking that product on the road. We probably did another two dozen over the course of two years across all the major cities in the U. S. Atlanta, New York, Boston, Philly, L. A., San Francisco, Chicago. And we would do the Met. Really interesting venues.
I remember the one in Chicago was at the Lincoln park zoo after hours. Wow. I forgot about that. Yeah. So, I mean, it's been some time, so we could talk a little bit about numbers here. So like top line, well, how many ticket sales would you have sort of equate to just the beer fest and then just, you know, gross revenue, you know, you can give me a range.
Sure. I would say this is going to be hard for me to recall this, but I would say anywhere in the ballpark of. 50 to 75, 000 tickets sold for beer festivals across the country. And I would say each one sort of top line gross was four, 5 million. So it was, it was a pretty compelling business and it's what gave the leadership team the confidence to give us a much bigger to go and plan.
Well, we ended up calling Living Socials Backyard Barbecue Festival in New York City. Well, I will say though, my metric that I tell people, which is totally true, and that's really cute. You guys did that, you know, four or five million, but the escapes team did 150 million net. We did four or five million per event, Mario.
Oh, okay. Per event. That's all. Okay. So that's, how many events was that? We can do some quick math. Still less than escapes. You're right. You win. You win. If that's what you're going for, you win. I'm just putting it out, out there. So. Now we're at the point of, we're going to do something cute. That's right.
The backyard barbecue. I don't know any barbecues that have Aerosmith at it, but what was You're going to the wrong barbecues. That's very true. I am. But there's a whole topic along the podcast about just lineup development. Yes. That for a live music experience is completely matters. Very much in terms of the pre sale, the on sale and how many people are going to happen.
So how did you, let's face it, you're novice. A hundred percent. I'm not going to pretend we were anything other than that. How did you get to Aerosmith? And then what was the lineup development like? Did you guys sit around in a room and sort of say, I would love to have these four or five bands and let's kind of knock it down.
And we want so and so to open and we're going to have a comedian and we're going to have, at that point you didn't have influencers, you know, it was like you guys up on stage. So how did that process work in terms of developing the lineup and the talent? And then of course, doing the on sale and securing the venue for what is one of the most iconic venues in the world.
Yeah. I mean, look, so when we came up with this idea, so the mandate for us was quite simple. It was beer fest has been a raging success. What's next? How do you top that? And how do you top a traveling beer festival that gross, whatever, 80, 100 million. We knew we had to go big and it was around that time that, you know, governor's ball in New York city was really big.
There were a bunch of other sort of large alt music festivals that catered to a, I would say a younger crowd, you know, a little more EDM focused, you know, some alt rock. And when we started thinking about how do we differentiate from those, right? What is our experience? What's our calling card? It was actually one of the first times that we spent really thinking about the living social for customer versus Who do we want to, and knowing that our core customers were, you know, men and women in their mid thirties, maybe even a little older, we knew we had to go a little bit more, I want to say vintage because Aerosmith, obviously they're, they're iconic, right?
But someone that appealed to a broad swath of the population. And when we landed on this idea of Aerosmith, we started thinking, okay, well, Where would Aerosmith play, right? Like, in the most ideal world, what would this look like? And we couldn't get this idea out of our heads that New York City's backyard was the perfect place for it.
And for those who don't know New York City, you know, Randall's Island right on the East River is it overlooks Manhattan and they had planned countless music festivals in the past, including Governor's Ball, which started on Governor's Island and that eventually graduated to Randall's Island. So that's kind of where it all started, right?
(01:25):
We had this idea, we said, we want to plan a festival in New York City, one of our largest markets. Okay. Thanks. We know we want Aerosmith to be the headliner because we think they have cross generational appeal and the theme is going to be New York's Epic Backyard Barbecue. Got it. Yeah, so when we talk to other people who are in this space of creating a travel experience around music in particular, the biggest expenses or costs on the P& L is talent and production.
And so just knowing from what I know, when you're trying to get a headliner of that size, that's anywhere from 1 million all the way up to, I think Bruno Mars is charging JLo 5 million. Wow. Yeah, that just came out last week or something. Are we in the wrong line of work, Mario? I mean, I'm not very good on the PN.
Had I done it over again, you're probably right. At least maybe we could, we could work in the business side, but that piece obviously was a big part of the PNL. Oh. Uh, make that happen. The one thing that was very cool about LivingSocial, you kind of had this built in marketing system. Yes. Because we had, what, 60 million emails?
Couldn't even tell you. Yeah, right. That sounds right. It was a lot. It was a lot. Tens of millions. That we could basically turn on and get a pretty good conversion and open rate from because of the viral type of content you guys were creating. And so when you look at the talent booking, the production side and canceling out some of the marketing, what were some of the lessons you learned in executing or not?
A festival that size and, and really I commend you guys because it was a big swing. Yeah. It was a, a very ballsy wing to take. And what happened? Well, look, I think there are times in life when you say ignorance is bliss. Had we not, had we known what it would have, what it was going to take to put this together in the 10 month timeframe that we had, there's a good chance somebody would have told us, eh, try something else.
And so this idea that we didn't know what we were in for, but we had the chutzpah to go after it, that set us on the path. Right. And I think sort of some of the challenges that I remember, some of the things that opened my eyes to this world in a very different way, you know, number one, I had never really seen a writer before.
You never saw like only blue M& Ms? So like I saw the version of that or the sort of C level talent we used to book for Beerfest, which was pretty basic. I'd never really seen a writer for a, an A list. Performer. And so, uh, you know, I won't go into details there because I don't think Steven Tyler would appreciate it, but it opened my eyes to the way this game is played.
You know, I think that was one. I think two was it was the first time we ever engaged with a professional outside production firm. Okay. We used to always do it ourselves, right? We would go, we would book, we would get a stage built, we would get our own sound, all of this stuff. Yeah. This was the first time we said, this is too much for us.
We need a professional production crew who knows what they're doing. Yeah. I think that was the first inkling that I later fast forward how many years when I was at Paulin, because then I got to really look at the PNLs because the hotel rooms were part of the PNL. And for those of you who don't know out there to get a top, you know, an A list performer stage, 350K?
Sounds right. Right. Sounds right. Sound and production, because they won't even show up if, if you're not on a stage or have the audio quality that they're used to performing on. So that in and of itself is probably half a million bucks. So sorry to cut you off. No, no. Like, but that, that is something that is a rude awakening once you're like, Hey, I'm trying to make something happen.
That's right. And so we, we recognize the budget we would need early on, thankfully. Yeah. Absolutely. When we started gathering some quotes and estimates from people we had met along the way in the industry. And we knew that we had to do something really big and unique to make things work. The sponsorship is an obvious angle which we pursued and we got quite lucky with and we had some pretty amazing sponsors.
The thing I'm most proud of. With that whole festival and we'll talk about what happened, uh, later, but we had inked a deal to work with Union Square Hospitality Group. Uh, so Danny Meyers restaurant group to Effectively curate the menu and all of the food at the festival. Because he had Blue Smoke at the time, right?
Blue Smoke, Shake Shack, and just a New York City icon, right? And this is before Shake Shack was franchised and was in a million locations. It was basically just in Madison Square Park. That's right. There were maybe a few dozen locations around the U. S. that were all owned and managed and operated by Union Square.
But so we, we went sort of above and beyond. Now, if you go to a typical festival today, unless you go to a, uh, and you're in a VIP package or something like that, you're getting really basic fare and you're getting overcharged for it. And we felt strongly, and we took some cues out of, uh, the Masters Golf Tournament here.
If you can create something like truly unique and special and not charge an arm and a leg for it, you've won the hearts of the people there. Keep their bellies full. That's right. Keep the drinks flowing, don't run out of booze, don't make the bathroom lines too long, make the food really good, everything else falls into place, you know, and so, and, and we really focused on that, on how do we create the best possible concert experience for people who are coming to the show, because we knew, look, we had one shot, right?
We had to knock this out of the park. If we wanted to keep going, we knew we had no room for failure. And so that really pushed us to the edge of. What I would consider like there are things that today probably you couldn't get away with you couldn't try and we had to I remember you that week you were stressed out man.
I can't imagine why. Yeah, you were I remember running into you in the office and you were barely there and you were like in a cold sweat for an entire week. Is now the time where we get to talk about what happened? Well, I, I was going to get there because maybe there's some things that you can account for, like weather.
Yeah. Yeah. Another big journey. Which is the kryptonite to any festival promoter. Uh huh. So this was 2013. It was June. I want to say it runs, oh, I remember it all too well. Clearly. I want to say that the festival was planned for June 13th. I think that's how, how precise my memory is of this. Because. It was two weeks after Governor's Ball.
Okay, right. On Randall's Island. It's usually June 1st ish. That's right. Is Governor's Ball. Yeah. And during the last day of Governor's Ball, that's Sunday, New York got hit with I think it was Tropical Storm, Andrea or Irene, I forget. Okay. I was trying to remember, I, cause I remember I was already in Connecticut at this point, but like, yeah, I think it was Irene.
It was a massive storm. Yeah. And if you looked at pictures of GovBall, which I was at, I was at all three days because we became very friendly with the organizers and founders and yep. And they let us sort of behind the scenes so that we could make the last minute optimizations and tweaks to our festival, which was two weeks later.
If you look at pictures. It looked like what I imagine Woodstock looked like in the 60s with the mud pits and the mud people. I mean, I distinctly remember Monday morning doing a walkthrough of Randall's Island to assess the storm damage with someone from the New York City Parks Department, with our production team.
(01:46):
And we counted no less than like 80 abandoned pairs of shoes in the mud pit. And we wrapped up that walkthrough. And I just had that pit in my stomach where I, I was expecting the worst. And sure enough, the next morning at 9 a. m. we get a call from the commissioner of the New York City Parks Department saying that due to unanticipated weather events, they were declaring a state of emergency on Randall's Island.
They were canceling all planned activities for at least 30 days for them to restore the grounds. And that meant canceling our festival. 13 days. Before the show talk about a gut punch. Oh, yeah, we fell for you, man That was that was a rough day. I'm trying to remember the communication process to the fans Once that news came, I remember everyone just being silent.
And this was not a silent office, by the way. We were all, yeah, we were all in pain. You know, we, we had to obviously first make sure everyone at LivingSocial knew what was going on. Right. Everyone all the way up to Tim O'Shaughnessy. You know, look, we were smart enough. And I give a lot of credit to Scott Hanley, who worked with us, who was our sort of man on the inside, who really understood the way festivals work, right?
And he'd worked at WME before, so he knew this world. He implored us to take festival insurance several months before the event. It saved, it saved everyone, right? Because through that, not only could we refund everyone, but we ended up not losing a dime on the production, on the Aerosmith fee, which we weren't getting back.
But so, once we understood that It softened the blow a little bit in the sense that, you know, look, we didn't, we were not responsible for bankrupting living. So sure. Yeah. That, that felt good. But at the same time, Ten months of work, of painstaking work just evaporates that quickly with an email from a person sitting in an office.
And, and yeah, look, the next few days were rough and painful and we had to communicate quite a bit to all of our customers, to all of our partners. What was the, what was the fan reaction? I mean, they were probably like, wait a second, we still got a bunch of time here. Why are you calling it off early for the sentiment?
You had a mixed bag, right? You had some people who were gracious and appreciative of the full refund and the 13 day notice and all that. You had others who were saying, this is. Yeah. Traveling for this. Yeah. I've booked accommodations. Yeah. I've, you know, I've made all these arrangements. This is my, my wife and I's 30th wedding anniversary, like you name it.
We heard stories and you know, you just had to sort of go hat in hand and say, look, we're really sorry. It's completely out of our hands. It's always nice when you can kind of point to a force majeure and say, look, out of everyone's hands, like nobody could have predicted this, but still for some people that wasn't enough.
Amazing. I'm, I'm just like, you're making me relive these painful memories. Well, that's what we do here at tickets. This was not part of the deal. Oh no, but I, I, I feel it, man. I feel how it is. So As we come to a little bit of an end here, obviously you got to come back. We can talk about other kind of startup stories because you have a unique experience that I think lots of people in the travel experiences world, whether it's a promoter, a ticketing company, a travel company trying to get into this stuff, you have a very valuable experience that I hope you come back.
But what I'd always like to do is one, let's the themes here, our culture. Yes. It's what else I would think about it in a few ways. I think culture sustains, right? Culture is a competitive advantage and companies that understand that and can harness that can weather any big risks. I think that's a big one.
I think another one is content and Doug Miller. You saw about this a lot, right? Content is king. I think Bob Sillerman, Corbett, purple cows, right? Especially today when we are all so inundated with offers and opportunities and things to do, you know, our non renewable resources time. And so where we choose to spend that time matters quite a bit more now than ever before.
The attention. And delivering content. That people are excited about, that they're drawn to, that resonates on a personal level. And this is not just for, for travel. This is for anything, right? Content will win. I think that's number two. And I think number three is, you know, look, this is going to sound cheesy, but just dream, right?
Dream big. Like go after it. At the end of the day, ideas are a dime a dozen, but if you can't execute, if you don't have the conviction to go get the thing you want, no one's going to give it to you. It's not just going to show up. Go do it. Go get it. And, and I think if you can master those three things of creating a strong company culture, really focusing on content in whatever industry you're in, and then having the conviction to go get it.
Man, you're tough to stop when you have that unstoppable, you know? Yep. And then like attracts like, right? That's right. You find the right people, you find the right mission, and, uh, success or lessons are learned. Dan, thanks for coming to Tickets Travel. I hope you come back. Mario, it's been a blast. I will be back anytime you'll have me.
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