July 21, 2023 • 57 mins
Meet Mizuki Asakura an event partner in crime and friend who has made his mark in the festival work both in the US and internationally. The guys share some crazy and trauma-bond-y stories from over the years working together- from EDC to Lovers and Friends to the ULTRA Festivals in Asia. Please subscribe to support and check out the podcasts available on all streaming platforms. Thank you for being here with us! **All Episodes Filmed Before the WGA and SAG/AFTRA Strikes" Chaos Controlled Podcast Season 2 - Show Credits Produced By- Little Mikey Media & Daymaker Productions Host/Executive Producer/Director - Mikey Tableman from Little Mikey Media and A Minds Pursuit Host/Co-Executive Producer - Danny J Gomez - Danny J Gomez Sound Engineer /Sound Mixer/Co-Executive Producer - Nick Dewar Producer/Director/Executive Producer - Sofia Monroe from Daymaker Productions Producer/Co-Executive Producer - Zeke Rodrigues Thomas from Mindjam Media Sound Assistant / Sound Engineer Support - Joy Christos from 1500 or Nothin Sound Academy (Alumni) Post Production and Graphics Team - Alex Shandelman, Kevin Caldwell and Chris Kim Social Media BTS/ Social Media Strategy Support - Jean Pierre Betancur aka “JP” #chaoscontrolledpodcast #festivals #international #producerlife
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the chaos, we. Should probably start the show
first, I think. What's up, everybody?
And welcome back to the chaos. I'm your host, Mikey Tailman,
alongside my cohost. Michael Tableman Oh wait, my
name is Danny Jay Gomez. Danny Jay Gomez is in the house.
Gomez and I'm very excited abouther episode today.
(00:27):
I mean, I'm always excited aboutevery episode we do every day,
but we have on a very good friend of mine.
He is my partner in crime, does a lot of festivals all over the
world with me. Mr. Mizuki Asakura thank you.
Thank you. I'm flattered.
Mike, thank you, thank you, thank you for the invite.
Appreciate having you on. Awesome.
SO. Mizuka's got a really cool
(00:49):
background, but also a really cool type of how he's been
through different cultures because he's Japanese.
I was like, what? Is that what you're getting at?
But no, that's not what I was. Yo.
He left his. I left his hand.
Yo he I lost my thought bro. He built the tension so good I.
Was like I was trying to put theworries together, but Mizuki.
(01:13):
Mizuki does a lot of festivals over in Asia.
Which? Is really cool.
So like I'm really excited to hear about a lot of the cultural
differences and things that he'slearned in Asia that he's taken
here and obviously in the US over to over to Asia because you
you have dual, dual citizenship,right?
No, I actually only have a Japanese citizenship.
I have a permanent residency here so I'm a green card holder.
Still an alien though, registered alien and but no,
(01:37):
there's a good reason for that for me.
Like you said Mike, I've my backgrounds Japanese, but I grew
up here Orange County born and raised more or less not born,
sorry, raised in Orange County. And that Japanese passport for
me is so much more accessible toso many other countries.
That's right. The number one passport in the
world right now has been for like the past many years.
(01:58):
So in that aspect I I get to travel you know with my work a
lot. So I don't need a visa every
every time I go into different countries.
So kind of works out a lot better.
So let's start there then. Cuz that's when you got actually
started getting into the nightlife and festival scene.
Yeah, that's right. So jump in.
I know you kicked it off in Ultra.
(02:18):
Yeah, so I currently own an operator company called NSC LLC.
But previous to that I started as an intern to the Ultra Music
Festival organization in Asia. Worked my way there ever since I
got there in College in Tokyo and literally was the guy
opening doors and holding backpacks and stuff.
(02:41):
Stuck with it for many years went by and sooner or later I
was overseeing 14 countries operationally across the region
until COVID hit. Realistically, no.
But no. It's like you said, it's been a
great experience. Over there, 14 countries now
that I look at it, 14 shows. It doesn't seem that many now
(03:04):
that we have so many damn shows,but it was so far spread across
the region that, you know, there's definitely different
kinds of stress. And I was overseeing the whole
show, not just the sky deck. And the whole show operations
consisted of much, much longer planning times, as we all know.
But yeah, I kind of made my way back after COVID.
(03:30):
I literally went from 14 shows to quite literally zero.
That was the one thing we couldn't do.
It wasn't quite literally. I mean, there was 0 shows, yeah,
yeah. What were the people doing
without their shows, exactly? Right.
Fucking raving by themselves. No, they were.
There was the virtual raves. Yeah, yeah, there was.
Virtual raves that people would pay for.
Some of those were actually likeTomorrowland did.
(03:51):
A really sick virtual rave. Really.
Yeah, it was I. Remember doing a little?
The house party app became. Popular and just a bunch of my
friends got on there and we justget drunk.
Yeah, pretty much looked like. Musical.
So what is it? Like, the Celebrity Square?
Yeah, The Brady Bunch, you see it was wild over here right in
the beginning of COVID. I was in Taiwan at the time and
Taiwan was one of the countries that had quite 0 COVID for a
(04:16):
very long time. But that was because of all,
like, the restrictions flying inand all that.
Damn, I was watching the news over here.
I'd call, I called my buddies over here.
But while you guys were still partying, you know, Miami's a
different beast. It's always.
But I see news in Miami. Miami in close period.
That's that's not a thing. Florida, Florida.
Miami, especially. Wild, Wild, wild, wild.
(04:39):
Yeah, no. But you know, for better or for
worse. I came back but came back home.
Reconnected with you Mike and it's been a great, great, great,
great run for the past, what little bit more than a year
going on two years now, yeah. So Mizuki's a big part of the
Skydec team now. There's a lot of things.
Not only do we work together, he's also a partner of mine on
(05:00):
multiple different projects we have coming out in the next
couple of years that we've been working really hard on.
But he's become such a big part of the Skydec team, I really.
I appreciate the man. He's so supportive and the guy
is like so knowledgeable on his shit.
He's one of the best people to work with in hospitality and
he's become one of, like, my best friend, so extremely,
extremely grateful for this human being.
(05:21):
So tell us a little bit about though, because I really want to
go if I want to. I really want to go to Tokyo,
but I'm only going to Tokyo if Igo with him.
I want to Japan is like my number one travel destination.
It's been for a long time. I've never been, but I can't say
it's a great place to visit, a great place to visit, but I
lived there for all through college and a few years after
that. But man, I cannot live there.
(05:42):
I grew up in Orange County, so I'm not a city boy personally.
What's the difference though? Like obviously there was, there
were so many things that you know you can't do here that you
do there. Vice versa, culture.
So different culture, like, so like what's something that
really sticks out that's very different.
Especially maybe what in what wedo in the nightlife.
Realistic. Basic I can't smoke weed at all.
You. Can't smoke weed there at all.
(06:04):
Yeah, yeah. No, that was really tough.
Yeah, it's highly legal over there, so.
But you can drink your face off in the middle of the day.
Yeah, right, right. There is no alcohol laws over
there. It's 24 hours.
So the whole thing when I came here and the whole industry in
California especially, I mean, realistically, first things like
you said earlier, super quickly in terms of work, alcohol
(06:28):
doesn't stop serving at 2:00 AM.That's a massive blessing for me
as producers. When I first came into the USI
was like, oh, damn, show signed at 2:00 AM, that's awesome.
But over there, 2:00 AM, that's when the clubs are popping.
That's when peak peak madness happens.
That's when all the bottles start flowing and people are
zombies walking out at 5-6 AM trying to catch the first train
(06:51):
back home. Yeah, people are wild over
there, man. But it's it's it's very
different in all reality. You know, getting down to the
nittygritty, I guess entertainment in Asia revolves
around their drug of choice, alcohol and it in that aspect it
(07:11):
gets pretty sloppy as we have all seen.
As we see very often, yeah, veryoften US is absolutely alcohol
too, but there's so much more other substances that come into
play. So there's just different ways
of dealing with people. There's different ways to
produce that given event becausethey're such choice of substance
is different. For instance, like Asia, when we
(07:32):
put on shows, like it's all the attraction is facing forward,
there's no one wandering all over, all over the place because
they're not on substances. People over here looking all
over the place because they haveno idea what the going on now.
That light over there? Let's follow that light but
exactly. Yeah, right.
But that's kind of the premise. It's you have that ability to
showcase that production in all directions.
(07:54):
We don't need that over there. We just need something boom
happening over there. All your attention's there
anyways. So in that aspect, that's very
interesting that I've noticed quite simply though, man,
agents, agents shrink a lot. I can't keep up with that.
It's It's wild. But see over here, like you
said, like when we we have a lotof Asians that are are
demographic that comes to a lot of our shows.
(08:15):
They have a lot of money. I can only imagine what the
spends are like over there with some of the spends that we see
here. But here they said they're
doing, I mean everybody's doing so many drugs, but that just
seems to be the thing. And like a lot of festivals,
I've seen no bias on a bottles, but they'll just sit there and
then they're all just going to pop it and then just do and look
around. This for hours.
(08:37):
I'm like, I don't know how that doesn't hurt your.
Head But the thing about when, like working in clubs, when we
had the the Asian nights, that'swhat they were called.
They the the alcohol choices were so strange.
Yeah, like it was like Henny. There was a lot of Hennessy.
Hennessy, Johnny Walker Black. The whiskey game over there.
I don't understand. I can't drink shots of whiskey
in a nightclub, but people love it over there and they take
(08:58):
shots of gin over there. Yeah, chugging out the bottle.
There's a lot of vomiting. Yeah, I know about that.
But they're actually very good about, you know, like getting
all that, you know, so because they're used to it so much,
right? They're just boom, boom, boom.
And it's gone and it's like nothing happened.
I. Remember we used to have like
buckets strategically placed throughout the venue and like
the little cap powder, the Kittylitter, Kitty litter.
(09:20):
Kitty litter is the best thing to sort about.
Yeah, it's the best thing to so go vomit.
Absolutely. I'm so glad we don't have those
days. Where we gonna vomit anymore?
We've come a very long way, Daddy.
Right. Ohh for sure.
So what is the service like there in in in Asia, Japan like
from bartenders perspective likewhat are they, you know I'm used
(09:40):
to like speed and and volume andwhat is the quality there?
I think quality is good, but in general US alcohol is made much
stronger, like cocktails are made much stronger, like the
shot servings are larger. Here you ordered gin and tonic.
Here it's pretty strong and generally speaking, in Asia.
(10:00):
Heavy hand, Yeah. In Asia it's pretty, pretty
weak. It's, you know, half, it looks
like it's half a shot here, but like, is that what?
They just Chuck from the bottlesall the time then, and that's
the thing, right? Especially in nightclubs, the
bottle culture is so much larger.
Just looking at the space, the GA dance floor is much smaller
compared to the table space thatit takes up in the whole venue.
(10:23):
So you know, everyone's popping bottles in that aspect.
Especially if you go to fuck like China or Southeast Asia,
man, where money really started stalking, man, those people are,
yeah. That's.
Had that always been like, because I know here when I got
to LA in like 2005, it was the the dance floor was large and
(10:44):
the bottle area was there was small.
It was a couple tables here and there and then it slowly started
kind of flipping and growing andgrowing because but you know,
funny thing is half the people you see at the tables, they're
still Asians. Exactly.
And it is like that all over thedamn world, man.
Yeah, but you know, I think that's because they're just so
(11:08):
much more accustomed to that. Like having your own space,
especially after COVID. Everyone wants their own space.
Everyone wants to, you know, nothave to butt heads with everyone
and have that quality service ifif it's available.
We saw a massive boom just in like what people were spending.
We have wait lists for people, like we sold out tons of people
(11:31):
that still wanna come if it opens up willing to spend double
the amount just to get in just to have their own space.
Yeah, I mean we picked up so many other festivals and shows
we started doing cuz it just became in such a demand.
And we're one of if not the bestteam in the business that
handles that aspect of an operation.
So it's like we were just we still get hit up left and right
to do events all over no matter like we get hit for Coachella a
(11:53):
year in advance. We get hit for all these other
like it's crazy how many and it's still growing because.
One thing I'm curious about is like these companies that throw
the the events like Ultra and like how how does somebody like,
there's so many that seem to be popping up like how does someone
just be like hey I want to throwthis festival and.
And call it my own thing like. How does that work, people?
So people come to us all the time.
(12:15):
So I got an idea for this festival I'm like, don't, no,
don't even want to hear. People don't realize how much
actually goes into building one of these festivals.
And then you start to tell them and either they get frustrated
because they think you're being negative and don't want to help
them, or you start doing it and they run out of money.
Very. Very often.
So we we try to stay away from any startup.
(12:36):
Things like we only work things that are established.
People that have been around, wedon't like working with people
we don't know, and the only startup things that we do is our
own personal events, right? Because you already have a name,
you already have a brand that you're building off of.
Plus like the way we operate andhow we're built for, we're built
for large scale like so that youhave companies that'll come that
are like oh, we only have like 1020 thousand people and this is
(12:59):
what we're doing, it's like. They don't have the budget to
pay us what we need to go in andmake happen.
Also, they don't have the clientele.
People. People don't see the bigger
picture. Like, everyone sees the
glamorous side of this world, right?
Like festivals, especially. The table service is glamorous.
It's bottles, fireworks, pretty,you know, pretty ladies, you
(13:19):
know, guys, whatever is everywhere.
Yeah, And it's and it's genuinely a good generally and
genuinely a good time. But people don't realize that as
an operator standpoint, it's notthat profitable as a like
festivals are not profitable, period.
In my opinion. There's just so much that people
(13:40):
don't see. Like, do you realize how much
those fireworks cost the drone shows?
You know, like those are big costs.
Sure. And like these artists.
God damn. Yeah.
Yeah. Then you're not even, you don't
even. People don't even realize what
it's like for the security, the medical correct, the labor porta
pot. Like, yeah, the, the.
The craters. Yeah, everyone who, people that
(14:01):
are driving golf carts around. Like, there are so many aspects
that people don't think about because they only see.
The funny part is that was like,especially people that we like,
I want to throw a festival. People will be like, oh, you run
all the shows. I'm like, no, no, no, I run one
part of the show. But in their mind, they don't
actually see anything else in the festival.
So in their mind, I'm the one who produces the whole thing and
(14:21):
I'm the man. And it's like, no, you guys
don't even realize there's like 10.
I might be the front facing for you at the moment, but.
Cuz people just don't realize how much goes into it and how
big it actually is. Yeah.
I mean, our biggest show is like180,000 people that we do a day.
Yeah, I think 100, yeah, that's about, that's about accurate.
Yeah, a little bit. No.
(14:41):
Yeah, a little bit more than a half 1,000,000 / 3 days, right?
Wow, so where where is Ultra compared to like an EDC for
someone like? I'm not in the festival world,
so I'm not familiar with that. So we both we know that there is
like the big three usually right.
There's the EDC Las Vegas, there's the Ultra Miami and
there's Tomorrowland that's kindof in my idea has been kind of
(15:03):
still continuously is and for a little bit will foreseeable you
know we'll be the three that will continue to stand as the
big dogs in my opinion. Yeah.
They travel all over the world though.
Yeah, so Ultra is the most global show.
Which is more global? OK, Yeah, there's like I said, I
have 1.14 shows in Asia. There's tons of shows across
(15:26):
South America, South America. North America is Miami, Europe,
Scotland and Croatia. South Africa, I think it's in
six continents, quite literally,yeah.
All inhabitable contents. It keeps on expanding though,
because like the one thing that festival brings is like, yo,
it's community. Like so many people are lost
(15:48):
nowadays. There's just so much going on.
But it's like, it's a space. Like the thing that I love about
my about my job is like, yo, we get to curate a space for people
to come in and forget about their issues and just not hate
life so much for a day, a couplehours, like like that helps us,
you know? There's some days I'm depressed,
this hell working and just like.Then someone comes up like Oh my
(16:09):
God, thank you so much, This means the world to me.
And like, we take that for granted cuz we don't even think
about it. But they're like, this is one of
the best moments of their lives.Yeah, that's quite literally
kind of the reason why I'm stilldoing this.
I mean, cuz we talk all the time.
It sucks, man. You know you're loading it for a
whole week. Yeah, like we're working 1516
(16:30):
hours a day, you know, still driving back an hour to the
hotel. It's pretty bad at one point.
Like it was high intensity. Like it's not like when the show
start, like it's a 15 hour day, It's not like, you know, it it
be like in the nightclub. Oh, it opens up and then we
build. We hit it and then it comes back
down as soon as doors open. Yo, we're at 150 mph until doors
close. Open to close, open to close.
(16:53):
And you're over and you're on before the like you're where you
open, you're still gone. Yeah.
I mean, we're there weeks beforesetting it up, right?
There are. Certain festivals I plan months
in advance, like four to five months in advance.
We start working on this. So yeah, then leading up to it.
And then that's what people don't realize, Like we do all
this work leading up to it, which is just so time consuming
(17:13):
and tedious and then the show happens and then we're expected
to be on and deal with the most neediest of people like.
You know it it mentally, physically, emotionally.
You know it takes a toll, takes a toll on all of us.
But like me and you have talked about us so much, so from your
end, how is that taking a toll on your side?
Cuz we've never actually had that like deep conversation on
like when you deal with your anxiety.
(17:34):
And you know, how is it stressful wise in Asia also than
what we deal with now, cuz what we deal with now is on a whole
of the level this past year. Absolutely.
Yeah, like I said, the number ofshows that we've been crushing
these past year or two has been astronomical to say the least.
Mentally, yes, but physically I you've seen me crumble
(17:56):
throughout the shows. So that's definitely, it's a
very apparent thing that's been happening.
I've I've had this Nash like gnarly stomach gastrointestine
issue for a couple years now andI'll go down once or twice a
year where I just cannot take down anything.
No food, no water, no liquid, nothing.
(18:18):
And I'll just be constantly vomiting for sorry, little
graphic, but vomiting for hours.Yeah, yeah.
Hours and hours for, you know, six days straight or something.
Wow. So.
It was scary. It happened to him in Vegas is
that we were all just like, likeobviously the show is happening,
we have to work. But we're just like more
concerned. Like, yeah, we can have like
does he have to go to the hospital?
Should we be doing more? Like, he wasn't even functional.
(18:39):
Like I he passed out on the track and I literally had to
pick him up and carry him to hiscar, cuz he physically couldn't
stand up. Yeah, and it just happens once
or twice a year and it's been crazy.
I've looked into a lot of thingsto see what it is, but it's been
hard to figure that out. But the doctors are definitely
saying it's stress induced. I've put my business partner
(19:00):
through hell and back just to especially in Vegas, he had him
go out for hours looking for a damn watermelon, 'cause that's
what I was like, do you need anything?
I said I wanted a watermelon andhe just could not find it for
the life of him he had. To bury your face in a water.
Yeah, he's in the hoods of Vegas.
Just like you know, looking at every other small mom and pop.
Start looking for a watermelon. He comes into the room pissed
(19:22):
off drops off the whole watermelon on the bed.
He couldn't find a spoon so he gets me an ice cream scoop and
and like some cutlery knife and he's just like boom, drops it
off and bounces. I'm like, ohh thank you ohh man.
But yeah, so physically, that's definitely taking a massive toll
(19:44):
on me. Gastro stuff will man will kill
you. Like, I mean you could be the
strongest person, look look likethe strongest person in the
world, but when that that stomach messes up on you.
Yeah. When I first started, I met this
producer guy who was on for Ultra and he would have this
intense diet for juices. You would be like, hey on my
(20:06):
writer, I need a, you know, likethose juice cleanse sets every
single day of my show. And I was young at the time, you
know, I was 17181920, you know, I had no idea.
But now looking back on it, you know, 10 years later, I'm like,
damn that guy. That guy's been through it all.
I I finally get him like I I understand like we're Downing
(20:28):
vitamins and stuff mid show, youknow like.
Five years ago, it'd be a lot ofbooze and.
Food. And now it's like, we have these
routines where get, we're like every morning we have to make
sure we get breakfast, we have to get, we have to be taking
certain vitamins and stuff like that.
Like we have to physically take care of ourselves and like we
look obnoxious, but we're wearing compression socks.
Like it's yeah. Helps her lives.
(20:51):
Like, that's weird. Like, just like, not like you
don't. You don't understand.
I'm on my feet for 15 hours. Like my feet are killing me.
My legs are killing me. I need anything I can get like
any little thing we can to help us, we do.
Yeah, you know, we we had a guest on last season, Piconut,
who we saw bartend with and he started his own like digestive
health kind of Wellness supplement brand and it's called
(21:13):
Gobiotics. Little plug there.
Yeah, right. But seriously, it changed.
Like when I had my spinal cord injury change my digestive
system completely, it was it. Just like I could eat the
spiciest from 7:11 and you know,and be solid for the next day.
But now it's. Like after that it's like I
can't eat so many things, but when we had him on, he told us
(21:35):
about it and I started using hisproducts.
Doing it was like night and day,so probiotic.
Probiotic prebiotic, An enzyme with every meal and it really
worked, so you. Can add it to the kit.
Yeah, yeah man. It's so good.
ADD it to our Rd. case. Yeah, something in that.
Vitamin. C This episode of Chaos Control
is Go Biotics. For your everyday clinic, fix
(21:56):
your damn this is a huge plug. That's our boy, man.
We plug Everybody gotta keep theyeah something you.
Can look into you know and help you out when you're absolutely
no it's it's been massive that I've been really trying to be
careful about health eating clean during shows whatever I
(22:17):
can. Although it's really hard when
you're at the things you can only get at those times or Dr.
throughs, you know, at McDonald's and stuff.
And then during the show, sometimes we're so busy we don't
eat. Or if we eat, it's just like
chicken fingers from the nearestfood truck.
Yeah. You come by with chicken
tenders? Yes.
Yeah, I like one of those. So I love seeing uh Mikey's
(22:38):
Instagram videos when he's in the middle of a show madness and
he's just sitting with his snacks.
Out of all the things I've done and try to and try to, you know,
put out there, the thing that has hit the most has been my.
Chicken 10D Videos and yeah, TheChicken 10 D Yes dude.
Every year you need to have a wrap up video.
The foods you ate at all the shows, you know it's the biggest
flex. Somebody eating at the festival
(23:01):
or something, You're like, oh, he's definitely not on drugs.
I do. It he knows what's up, we'll.
Bring pizza in a club you man. Some of the food trucks are
phenomenal though. You have some like 5 star food
trucks that are like all over the place and like featured and
all these things and like some of the food is really.
Good, dude. I'm all about that agua frescos
at the at the shows through thatwatermelon.
(23:22):
Just every show. I get it.
It. It's the spot Nice.
It's the greatest. Yeah.
So, So what have you been doing on the shows?
Like what is your actual position?
Like, what do you do when when you show up to a show?
Or like, when you're when you'reprepping for something?
So Mikey invited me on to help. After what, two years ago?
(23:45):
After Gold Rush? Which is a whole nother story
you. Have to get back to that, Yeah.
The craziest thing I've ever experienced in a music festival.
And that's that'll be his final story for the Yeah, this is
like, we'll take 10 minutes to go through this stuff.
It is layered. Yeah, that was that was serious.
That was some serious stuff right there.
(24:05):
But after that, yeah, he helped me, had me literally jump on
from EDC Vegas officially was for a show.
Just kind of just threw me in the fire.
He's like, hey, can you go and manage this deck out of the
three decks that was out in Vegas?
And I was like, yeah, love to help.
Didn't really know what I was getting myself into at all, so.
He had a bail on me last minute.Oh, no way.
(24:25):
And then he jumped in for Supi. Wow.
And you know, I really. I think I know what I do.
I I do best. I've been in this for long
enough to at least know that it all shows what has to happen.
Realistically, so more or less. You know, we clicked mass, we
clicked massively at Gold Rush. It was that, you know, nod the
(24:48):
head and know what you're thinking.
And we just get after it kind ofthing.
And that vibe just carried on all the way through.
And EDC Vegas was crazy, but it was magic.
Yeah, a lot of good things came out of that show.
You know, the whole Factory 93 situation was amazing.
I loved it. What was that?
So when it come like your original question to him was
(25:09):
like what does he do specifically like?
When it comes to the core team, there's five of us.
Everybody has to be interchangeable because like you
can have one specific job, but it's all hands on deck to get
done. So there's five of us that run
the initial core and like everybody has their own lane to
stick in, but everybody can handle a client can talk to
staff can deal with back a housecan set up a POS system, can do
(25:31):
an order, can defuse a situation, can drive a van.
Sometimes like is literally, we have to do it all.
So like as. I'm driving the bus, but it's a
full team effort and he's one ofthe people I lean on, cuz I'm
like, yo, I can't go deal with this person right now.
He's like I got it, he'll go there.
So there's a lot of times when it comes to like client
relations and dealing with people, yeah, and I'm facing.
(25:54):
Stuff. Yeah.
I'm like, I can't deal with Mizzou.
Please just go deal. I can't do it at the moment.
I'm spent like I can't do it. Put me in coach.
That's exactly. And yeah, he's like, no problem,
dude, I got you. That's the best thing about our
team is like you're. Exact team wrestling dude.
Bro, that's the best thing. Like if if you're going to be
successful in events, you need abunch of people who have 0 ego
and just like all right, cool. Let's just get this done.
(26:15):
Like, we make a lot of money. We throw a party for a living.
So like as long as you're there to help out and you do whatever,
like everybody's on the same page is just get the job done as
best as you possibly can. But because it is those
atmospheres, it is full of snakes.
I hate to say it, you know, it'shard to find the ones that you
can truly lean on, you know, luckily I ran into Mike and we
(26:38):
just, you know, straight off thebat we hit it off with a head
nod and it worked. But sometimes it doesn't work
out, sometimes it works out. But you know, the team that
we've or I've been gifted to join, it's it's been phenomenal.
Everyone's fantastic. Everyone leans on each other,
you know, especially the management.
We're super open with everything.
(26:59):
Everyone's just like, hey, can you handle this?
No problem, you know. Didn't y'all break some records
at the last CDC? We break records every.
Every. Every year.
Every. Every year.
But that's what we're saying. It's like every show now.
There's just so many things popping up.
I mean, we broke, we break records.
Every show we pass surpassed numbers.
We've done some iconic shows this past year about the when,
(27:20):
Yes, I like to wear all of my I have so much in merch.
Oh dude. Festivals.
Wait, was this but like, this season?
When was this? When were you?
We were young. This was the one that happened
in October 2022. It was the big one of, like, all
the throwback emo rock. Yes, Avril Lavigne.
Yeah, My Chemical Romance, AvrilLavigne and like.
(27:42):
It was iconic. And then we were also at the
Lovers and Friends one which wasthe hip hop.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
So like getting just getting to do some of those things, it's
like that's even cooler because like we're getting to see like
icons and people from back in the day that you would never
thought you'd see and. Super nostalgic.
Beyond nostalgic, I'm like, we're working, but we're like,
when you're doing an EDM show, it's like like all that whole.
(28:06):
In time. But it's like we got a earplug
you like we usually we walk in and we're like head down like
another show we're up like yo wego to site yet we ready sound
check. Like bro, there was Lydia sound
check. Is that most like?
Most people got kicked off the kicked off the site and we're
sitting there and we're on the main stage and Usher and Luda
are doing their full sound check.
Wow. And we just watched the entire
(28:27):
soundtrack. I mean that show at the end of
the night. I remember sitting there.
And Lauryn Hill and The Fugees closed the show and they played
the score album. And I just sat there like this
for an hour. I didn't move.
What were the crowds like? So go.
Ahead the crowd. So the cool thing about this one
was the crowd was an older crowd.
It was more of our generation, so that people weren't going,
(28:49):
you know, there wasn't really many fights, everyone was chill,
a lot of people smoking weed. It was hot, yes, but something
crazy that happened there. And this is like one of the the
downsides of festivals is. There was a fight that happened
in the crowd. Somebody yelled gun and it was a
mass Stampede. Like luckily we're up on a deck
but people are jumping through back at houses.
So like, we're looking for, likewe're looking for everybody, you
(29:11):
know, everybody get down, stay in the section, you'll go in
this container because like, we have no idea what's going on.
All we hear is that, Oh yeah, there's a shooting gun and it
like it's a that many people is dangerous. 6060 thousand people,
all scattering chaos like chaos doesn't even begin to explain,
right? The Stampede is fucking real,
(29:33):
people. Get hurt.
Like, yeah, people are getting literally trampled, jumping over
the fences, getting hurt, falling off the fences, you
know? You got 60,000 people in a fight
or flight. Like just like holy people are
shooting. I might die and like, you mean
this. And we're in Vegas, which is
where, you know, there's so muchtrauma from what happened at
(29:55):
Route 91 and. It's sad to say, like, this is
what our country is like. But every festival I go into, I
mean, I sit in the meetings withsecurity, but it's like that's
always in the thought of my head.
Okay, like where's every exit? What do I got to do?
Is this person like, it sucks that every time I go into a
show, that's the first thought? And what was somebody?
Did that really somebody have a gun or somebody was crying wolf,
Like just cause a scene? So obviously we don't really
(30:18):
fully know cops came in, so the festival stopped for two hours.
Cops came in a situation, all that, and they said it was just
there was no actual gun. Somebody just called it out.
I mean, it's really hard to get a gun into one of these
festivals. I'm sure it's been done.
I know it's happened before, butlike you're going through
multiple layers of security, you're going through metal
detectors. Come on, people, be better.
(30:41):
Don't do that stuff. No, I mean, it's not even about
not being that douche is like. Yo, everybody is on high alert,
right? So if you see some commotion,
you see somebody going to pull something you're not.
I don't think whoever screamed it, I don't think they were
doing it to cause havoc. Now, if you do that purposely,
just the cause of commotion, you're terrible human.
Yeah, yeah, that's just so tough.
But like you, man, people are solike the world is a really scary
(31:04):
place right now. Like it's.
You're very much on edge, especially like I said, anytime
I'm at one of those things, you're definitely nervous and it
sucks that we have to feel that way, right?
Because there's so much love andyou know, passion for the music
and you know the fans are there,genuine.
Most of the fans at least you know, are there to genuinely
enjoy the music and party. So and like like you said
(31:27):
earlier, you know a lot of people will only come to these
shows once, once in their lifetime.
Possibly they saved up for possibly a whole year just to
come to that whole show and you know, just to get hit with such
an experiences so gnarly. And I feel for that, like it
sucks for us, but it sucks on somany levels.
I mean, there were people. I definitely, I'm trying to do a
(31:49):
better job, but I definitely take it for granted that you
like music. You said people are saving up
for years to go to Coachella, get the house, get the ticket,
maybe go to an after party and we decide morning of, yeah, I'm
going production pass, parking list, all that.
It's like. We we definitely take it for
advantage cuz most people don't get to do that kind of thing.
(32:10):
I mean back then I used to take so much more advantage cuz we I
hate to say it but we got used to the whole thing of like what?
Ohh, I wanna go to a nightclub shoot a text.
Someone will come out, escort you all the way wearing slippers
and a hat, you know and shorts. So when we did when we were
young, day one actually was cancelled 40 minutes before
(32:32):
doors. The festival made the proper
call. The winds were too crazy.
People would have got hurt. But how are you going to explain
that to people who bought these tickets, flew into town only
here for that day and are waiting outside for doors to
open to run in? So they cancel it.
We're trying to do everything and now they're still about
maybe a good 800 people outside.And we have to walk through them
(32:55):
and they see us walking out. And people were just like
putting heads down and like and.Somebody stopped.
Like, walking through? Like to leave?
Yeah, so like I need. To go to a parking lot.
So the gate, So there's the gatethat nobody can come in and the
parking lots on the other side, and there's all these people,
they're all just sitting. There.
And they, and rightfully so, they're super pissed.
(33:17):
So like, I remember walking out.I just put my head down and
people are cursing at me and I'mjust like, I feel terrible for
him. I really do.
I felt so bad and like, yeah, there was one girl walking past
and she was like, crying. And I had an extra wristband and
she's like, how much do I got topay you?
I was like nothing. Like, I I feel, I feel so bad
for you. And she's like, you literally
just made my year. She was like, I was devastated.
(33:40):
I I flew out here. I'm only here for today.
I I'm so, I was so sad. Like, thank you so much.
So it's like you. It makes such a difference to
somebody who's never been to something like this.
There are shows where we do a thing where we like, Hey, did
you do a good deed today? Yes.
Then we'll come back at the end,the shows like, hey, I did one
good deed today and usually we'll pull someone possibly if
(34:04):
all situations work out last forthe last few minutes or
something on the finale, we'll pull someone up and let them
have that show to have it from agood view or something.
But that really, really makes their night like makes their
whole year. It's, you know.
I mean people have told me like we do some experience with our
front of house, experience stufflike that and like.
You giving me the best experience of my life.
(34:25):
And these are people in their late 50s, very, very wealthy,
can literally do anything in theworld, probably have.
But they're like what you guys did for us.
And this whole thing is one of the greatest experiences in my
life that I'll never forget. I still haven't had that.
I still haven't had that experience the.
I don't know why you're not coming, bro.
I went to E DC-1 time in days and I had a terrible time.
(34:46):
But I was, you know, Gai didn't know anyone.
It was long. It was a long time ago.
I didn't know you. You were?
Probably still in high school when I went to EDC.
Probably actually walking through that motto, taking it
all in at that show is somethingcrazy.
That half the time we're runningaround we're just like, you
can't even look up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But when you actually look up and suck it in, it's like whole
(35:08):
there. Cuz there's moments in the show
where I look up, take a second and I'm like, damn, there's a
lot of people here. We're doing some like, crazy
things and you come to that realization mid show and you're
just like, wow, it's pretty brilliant, you know?
And then you know. And then you go home after and I
have a depression crash. Well, you know you're just
(35:30):
around all those people and likethink about you're around so
many people and so many people want your attention or need you
for something. And then it's so loud, it's so
over stimulating to them back inyour bed and you're just like
it's very quiet. It's dark.
I don't know what the to do right now.
That's why I smoke so much. We talk about that loud silence
(35:50):
all the time. It's definitely really.
That music stops and you're like, it's just, you're just
like, I feel like it's really hard.
Everybody's reality is different, but I feel like we
live in such a capacity where we're on the go so hard for
months in these crazy environments and literally just
flying by in the seat of our pants.
And then we have two months and we're completely off with
(36:12):
nothing. And it's just like all people
like go travel. I'm like, I don't want to get on
a plane. I just did four months traveling
all over. I just want to sit there.
I want to sit in my house. I don't want to move.
So like you live, we live in these extremes and it's
definitely, you know, it's really hard to juggle a lot of
the times, especially for me, like that term, like burnt out
was real. We were all so burnt out.
(36:35):
Like, you want to do anything? No, just sit here in my bed.
I'm tired. It also gets tricky too, because
there's like there's five of us as the core managers, but then
we have like another five or sixpeople that are like part of the
core team. So there's ten of us that are
together for three or four months, like every day. 10 hours
a day. So it starts to get people start
(36:56):
getting on each nerves, everyonestarts getting a little chippy
with each other. Everyone starts getting worthy.
You're seeing some blowout. The cool thing is like, people
will have it out and usually 10 minutes later it's forgotten
about or it's apologize. Heat of the moment.
But like, yeah, what happens more often than not, Because
how, how could it not when you're in that type of
atmosphere and there's that family aspect, Yeah.
(37:18):
I saw you. Have to be careful because if
somebody comes in like we have areally good vibe and if somebody
comes in and and throws that vibe off, it all goes down, it
all goes down. You carefully choose the people
you work with now at this. But if you don't have like the
right setup and I think this is the best segue into our favorite
festival of all time, sorry to everybody who who works, who
(37:42):
works that show and and that team, we have a lot of respect
for you guys love you all what you're doing that point in time.
You just want to throw that out there because we're not trying
to. On this festival, they're doing
great. Now.
One of our guys, John Romano, runs the program now.
He's amazing. Kid is kid has so much
potential. We love him to death.
It was just something new. And we were kind of brought in
(38:02):
last minute and we were, what doyou mean?
Last night? The fucking day of the show for
you, right? And the day.
Before the show. But it was just one of our
buddies was running it and then he was.
It was just more. There was.
There was way more than he bargained for.
So he's like, yo, come help us out.
He's called me. He's like, he's like, yo, can
you come? I'm like, I need this, this and
this thinking he's never going to be able to come through with
(38:23):
it. He's like, all right, cool.
I'm like, I guess I'm going. And that was like one of my only
weeks off, too. I'm like this.
But I was like, all right, I went, Oh my God, I've, I've been
through some, my dude. I have seen some.
This was on a whole other level of like.
I want to hear the details, man,the details, mind you, because
(38:45):
this is one of my first shows back in the US.
Like I've been focused most of my time in Asia.
Grant. I did Miami, sure, but like, not
a massive part here. I get thrown into this show.
I reunite with Mike. I just brought you were actually
working. I was just a consultant, so he
he, he asked me to come, but he asked me like a week, two weeks
(39:06):
before. So I had a heads up a little bit
and I reunited with him. I reunited with Chris.
Chris Kim, who's our other the the, the three, the the third
head of this trio. Yeah, yes.
Much love to Chris. So it's funny because they're
all get there and I get picked up from the airport and they're
all standing outside and I walk in and I'm just kind of like and
(39:29):
they all just start laughing like this is, when's the
festival? Like tomorrow?
I was like, wait, really? So, so, so walk me through this
for someone who doesn't do festivals.
Like what? What are you expecting to see
when you get there? Where?
Where is it? What city?
We're in Arizona. Well, hold on we're We're
spoiled because we've worked forsuch large organizations.
So yes. We're we're very, very spoiled.
(39:51):
We work with the professionals, the best of the best.
So we get in here and now when you get to a preshow you're
expecting, like when you go to aconcert or somewhere, there's a
stage that is built, everything there.
There are activations. There are rides.
There are bike rack. There is a check in.
There is stations festival. The the stage was not fully
built. There was random things all
(40:14):
throughout. We didn't, we didn't have any
anything to set up. We didn't have any.
There was no like security out there, like anybody could just
walk on the site like when we doin Zami Act shows.
There's three levels of securitythat you have to have proper
wristband just to get on If you're building the show.
Zero. Anybody could.
Random people were walking on. We flat out drove onto the
(40:35):
ground. Like literally, like drove like,
I can't do that and I can't drive my car off to the deck.
Literally, I drove my car to where literally drove the car
right up there. And we're still and like the
crazy thing is we're still underselling this because unless
you were there, you won't understand like that feeling.
We were just like we had half ofour guys that were there.
(40:57):
A lot, a lot of people from my team ended up going out for one
of our other friends to support.And halfway through the first
night of setup we're just like, Nah man, like this and so like
barely get doors open doors. I think doors got pushed.
It's opening now there is now. I've never seen this before
ever. And I think we have a picture
somewhere and if we have it, it's going to pop up.
(41:19):
There is a day one. There is a car in the middle of
the festival, like right smack in the middle of the festival.
Just a random car. Just a random car.
In front of the stage, Yeah, like a little bit out.
Like a little bit out. And nobody knew whose car it was
and they couldn't tow it becausethey didn't have a thing to tow
(41:39):
it. So they just bike racked around
this car. Now the music goes on, it's
loud, so it makes the car alarm go off.
Now the car alarm is going crazythe whole show.
Literally the whole show. Are people thinking this is part
of the show or I don't know, like we we, we we try to, we try
to stay in our own little world.Yeah.
(42:00):
And in these shows and not venture out but.
I could imagine me being not nota big festival goer and I see
something like, oh that. That's an interesting.
Choice. Yeah, people might have thought
it was. What kind of what kind of car
was it? Like 95.
Like Toyota Corolla. Even better, some like even beat
up like old school car. Yeah, it was pretty beat up.
It was pretty bad. But the fact that it just got
(42:22):
left there and the show went on just absolutely baffles me like
any of our other shows. Probably just, you know,
forklift God, you wanna want to keep going and tell him about
day one. Yeah, it's.
And then, you know, my buddy walks on.
It's it's, it's chaos the whole time.
And my buddy who's an attorney walks on.
(42:44):
The first thing he goes is. Looks up the stairs like, is
this, is this okay? Let's just say there's like
massive holes in the back of theneck.
Anyways, there's no we, we. So when you come in through a
bottle service, there's a special check in you went
through yourself. There is.
It has its own intent, its own walls, its own security, its own
POS system. We had none of that, nothing at
(43:06):
all. There wasn't even security.
Like, we didn't have actual security.
Like they hired like mall cop security.
So on the actual deck we had four security guards.
This one guy had to be in his sixties, 121 year old girl,
another like 25 year old girl, and this other guy like in his
40s. And that's all we had.
Wow. Fight.
(43:28):
Yeah, I did. That was on.
Yeah, right. I got into a fight.
I got jumped. Yeah, that got that happened
too, right? Yeah, it was like, so night one.
This is supposed to be a Zooky story.
But it's like it's a Co hold on.You were there.
You were there. He was there.
So night one it's just it's justnight one is just so
unorganized. Chaos.
It's to the point where halfway through we're like, hey Pyro and
(43:52):
we'd radio each other, and Pyro for us was code word and we'd
just go on a smoke break. Yes.
And it got to the point, we're just like Pyro, Pyro, Pyro, Pyro
this is. The festival where that was
born, The Pyro. Yeah, yes, yeah, the Pyro was
born there. So, like, we sure, like we had
1G carts to share between all ofus.
So someone would come pick us all up and we would drive her
(44:13):
out and find a little spot. And, like, it wasn't even just
like a joint break. Like he would rip out a bomb.
We were just sitting there taking bong ribs.
I came out with my holes like this is how you know we're over
it, cuz like at one of our regular shows that would never
like. We wouldn't even think that,
bro. Then I remember there was a
point in the night. It was just so chaotic.
(44:34):
Everyone was over it. There was like the front of
house table, which is like the big table in the middle, which
they shouldn't have done in the 1st place.
We ordered pizza. We ordered.
We didn't order. One of my good friends, she
picked it up on the way. We had five pies of pizza.
We took a bottle of 42 at a couple of blunts out to the
front of house table. It's me, it's him, it's Chris.
It's real hot tail. Way he radios.
(44:56):
Means like, hey, I need you to come to the front of house.
I'm like, OK, we're sitting there.
Well, you know what, a bit better if you would have been in
the 95 Corolla, OK, that was toofar away.
So like we're literally in mainstage sitting there smoking
blunts just like. And I think like Diplo was on at
this time, we're all rage and having a good time.
And the guy who's, like, runningthe show, who brought us all out
there, just comes out and just sees us and grabs a slice of
(45:17):
pizza and everyone just starts laughing.
And one of the guy and one of one of the guys was like, if
this was you, you would have lost your mind.
Like, if this was me, you wouldn't even have the audacity
to try this. So the end of night one, we're
sitting around and we're just like, Oh my God, what the do we
do? And our buddy love him to death.
(45:39):
He's just like can you guys like, you know came out here to
consult Not working this is. You ended up working.
We go. Two days or three days.
This is a three days show. What do we got to do?
I'm going to apologize to the staff.
What do we say? I was like, you don't say
anything, I'll do the talking. So we literally go in, apologize
to everybody. We come back in day two and we
(46:02):
had this whole thing of like, all right, this is how things
are going to be. This is how it's going to go.
We walk in, we have a big staff meeting.
I'm like this, this, this. If you don't like it, like you
can leave. You guys are on my terms now.
People weren't very happy about that in the beginning, but as
the day went on they were fine because now we took over me, him
and Chris just like all right soyou go here you yo, you run the
(46:24):
podium. I'll run the deck.
Chris, you run the front. Let's all stay in touch this go.
So now things are moving pretty well up to this point.
Well, that security issue becamea problem.
There's a couple of really people and the guy who was in
charge like yo, I want them off the deck.
I'm like what the want me to do?So he tells the security guard,
(46:45):
the security guard and this old 60 year old man who's literally
at this point loving the show and his head bagging like this
on the island, not even watchingwhat the is going on.
So he's trying to kick this guy out, but he doesn't know how to
be a security guard so he's pushing this guy oh shit.
And he's pushing him and this guy is getting hammered.
(47:06):
So this guy can just throws him on the floor and starts beating
the shit out of the security guard beating him.
So and I then go to to to like help the security guard out.
But this guy is bigger than I amand outweighs me by like 40
pounds. I go to it's like try to pull
him off. He flips me over him.
Now he's holding me down and just wailing away at me.
(47:26):
Then two of the two of the TSA'swho's our usual team come see
this comes and tackles him Then his friends come over this way.
Then the cops come because there's cops in the festival
break it all up. A lot of words were said between
a lot of people that we don't really need to get into Day 2.
That was Day 2. That was Day 2.
(47:48):
Yeah, so day three comes around and we mutiny.
Oh yeah, we mutiny. We mutiny.
We were pissed. We were pissed.
So we wake up, we all go to brunch.
We're supposed to be there at 4:00, o'clock.
We're all sitting at brunch and a text comes through to all of
us from the guy in charge and everybody just looks at me and I
have my head down and I'm just. We're literally just eating
(48:11):
casually at lunch. So if y'all go, I'll go too.
You know, I don't really know what's going on.
I don't really care. Thanks to no way everybody reads
it. He calls me.
I don't answer. He calls Chris.
Chris screams, screaming at him.Everyone's like, what are we
doing? I was like, so I finally I got
on the phone. I was like, yo, we're only
coming back if I have a the proper security team.
(48:32):
So I want you to send me article.
I want you to send me articles of accreditation.
I want to know where they're from.
I want to talk to them. You got 4 hours.
You better get to work. And we just sat there and kept
drinking. We just out.
Yeah, man, Like we got lit. Like half the servers we got
lit. 4:00 o'clock comes, we're supposed to be there.
We're not there, 5:00, O'clock comes.
(48:53):
We're still not there. 5:30, I got the phone call.
I'm like, all right, let's go over there.
Check with these guys who go in.Somebody's like, OK, can they?
I'm like, nobody move. Everybody sit here and until I
come back and tell you we're working.
Otherwise we were walking off. So they were all like, really in
their pants. So me, him and Chris go to meet
these, go to meet the security guards, and I don't know, by the
(49:14):
grace of God he got like actual nightclub security.
But it was the most epic moment,because you see them come out
the corner. You see like a bunch of big
dude, just turn, turn around us three, look at each other.
We're like. All right, it was like, you seen
the meme where it's like the Power Rangers Ninja Turtles.
Yeah. All right, cool.
We go, let's go walk in, walk in, this, here, that there,
(49:37):
blah, blah, blah, blah. We start, they go ahead with the
staff and then I walk in with the staff.
And if this was a movie, it'd belike, it'd be like when, like,
they all walk out, like the teamwalks out and then it pans up
and everybody in. The Avengers end game, Remember?
Like in Monsters and like, yes, like in Monsters Inc Will they
all come walk out and they all come out.
(49:58):
The whole team starts cheering because I'm a standing ovation.
Like what the y'all go through? We're like, you have no idea,
bro. No idea.
Oh my God, it was again. We can look back now and laugh
on it, but at that moment I didn't talk to Homie for like 6.
I'm like, I'm so mad. I was so mad because then, but
(50:19):
also on that part, what's the worst night you could work in
hospitality sometimes the worst night industry night.
Oh, when you're in an industry that you don't know the people.
So now nobody told us it was an industry night.
So there was 11 comp everyone. Yep, 11 comp tables that night
(50:39):
for industry throughout Arizona that nobody told us about.
So you can get the entitlement of the industry there.
Massive. And they didn't know.
None of them know who we were, right?
Right. Didn't really matter.
So it was just arguments left and right I was out of.
I probably have done over 200 festivals.
(50:59):
That's in my top three, competing for #1 as to the
biggest show I've ever been a part of.
Yeah, but we like, you know, like you said, the good things
came out of it. We like genuinely trauma bonded
over that experience, right? But it's just the crazy thing of
like, yo, the festival went off,people had fun, everything was
fine. And if you're watch, if you're
there, you can see that there's some issues, but it's not that
(51:21):
big. You're still having a good time.
You don't realize that behind the scenes we're drowning.
It is. It is utter and pure chaos.
Nobody wants to talk to anybody.Everybody's pissed off.
It was a pretty monumental show for that group too, that year,
you know? So at the end, you know, all
sudden done, everything works out.
You kind of have to work it out at this point.
(51:41):
You know, you don't got a choice.
You. Yeah, you make it happen.
It's you it. Would have happened if you guys
didn't go back that day. I don't know.
I mean they would have been all the people that paid for tables
would have had a would have had to be refunded there, it would
have been there would have been nobody there to work it like a
couple people like it was. So the thing was it was a
combination of our team plus some local people.
(52:04):
So the local people would have went back, but it was just us
who were like, no, we're not, but we're the ones who are the
professionals that know what we're doing.
What a lot of people don't understand is just cuz you hire
a bunch of the people that work together.
Doesn't work like that. And just because you work in a
nightclub doesn't mean you know what the fuck.
You're doing It doesn't transferover.
Yeah, parts only. Your work ethic transfers over,
(52:24):
yeah. I mean there are some
similarities like once they get to the table and the service
throughout the middle, that's similar.
But the before the the getting them out because you actually,
you have to help them egress. You have to be aware of what
time it is because they have a helicopter they got to get to
and they're trusting you to get them to that helicopter on time.
You have different types of paperwork, different types of
financials you're dealing with, so it does differ a lot.
(52:47):
So it just they took a bunch of club people and thought it'd
work and it did not. Yeah, but they're doing great
now. Like we said, love, love the
guys, love the show. You know, I wanna say, Miss
Johnny, I mean, it's not like again, there's nothing personal.
We all just, yeah, it's just a crazy environment.
So that's a crazy. So you got any more crazy
(53:07):
stories? Something from Asia, some of the
some of the things you've seen over there before I wrap up and
get out of here. I've been put on pretty gnarly
spots. Like obviously, yeah, there's,
you know, all these kind of trauma experiences, but like,
I've been in like literal life or death situations in that
aspect and that, like, people get really fucking wasted.
(53:29):
People are drunk as hell and when they can't have their way,
especially when they're, you know, people who are throwing
hundreds of thousands of dollarslike it's nothing they think
they don't. Which, you know, granted, they
do in that space, but like, you know, they can't get everything
they want. We still have to you know,
there's ways. You know, we operate things.
(53:51):
And at one point I, this guy wasso pissed he took his champagne
bottle, snapped it on the table and just put it up to my neck.
And I'm just that's why. Which is impressive.
Break A champagne bottle too. But but when you're putting that
moment, I'm just like, holy I. I froze.
And luckily I have security on me.
(54:12):
I I had an assistant. I would walk around with me, you
know, all of it just kind of went down and everything was
handled very quickly. But when you put in that
situation, holy, I was frozen like I thought I was.
You know, I saw my life flash before me in a music festival.
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, there's been
pretty stressful situations in that aspect, but most of the
(54:33):
stressful things that I rememberare operational disasters.
Um, I'm sure a fair share of people in production can share
the same sentiment about a, uh, a glorious group of three people
who makes her life so easy with three three dots.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the Mafia.
(54:54):
The Swedish House Mafia is uh, yeah, we've we've been cancelled
by them on the day of the show, which, you know, that was
catastrophe. I don't know.
There's just so. Yeah, we paid like $1,000,000
for those fools. Yeah, just to get them on the
show, to get cancelled on the day of we thought there was
gonna be a riot and stuff. Like, you know, when, when when
(55:18):
we talked about a Stampede of 60,000 people coming at you,
it's real. Like we set up barricades, we
increased security, We had exit routes like people, you know, it
it gets nasty sometimes when people are angry.
People are, man, you can't stop that.
That's the biggest Yeah, that's the toughest thing to stop.
(55:41):
Yeah, so you know, despite all those things though, like we
said in our journey though, it'sbeen looking up.
We got a lot more shows now. It's been tough, but we got a
lot more cool shows coming up, cool shows.
We got a lot of cool projects, something things we can't touch.
Yeah, Speaking of your shirt, man.
When we were young, dude, the lineup is absolutely sick.
(56:02):
Sick next year or this year likeBlink 182 and green?
Day and Blink 182 are headlining.
Where's the tickets? Like a grand already sold out.
They they sold out instantly. But to know that we could be
something a part of that is super cool.
Yeah, you know and like you said, that's why I get merged
from every. Show and are they doing, are
these the festivals they're going to keep doing?
Yes, the same, the same people that did lovers and friends as
(56:24):
well. And it's a similar lineup for
lovers and friends with like theOld School, Nineties Nostalgia,
and R&B. The cabanas are beautiful, by
the way. Yeah, there's.
That's great. Yeah.
Musuki, we love you. Love you too.
Thank you so much for being on here.
It was a treat as always. I look forward to all we have
going on. I look forward to keeping
everybody. Updated so much and is.
(56:44):
There anything you want to plug your socials or any events that
you have coming up or? I guess our industry is just so
internal that there's not too much, you know?
Yeah, it's he knows, he knows. But.
You know the partner that I mentioned earlier that my
business partner shout out Newman Law love him to death.
(57:05):
He's been awesome. He's my guy, too.
Newman Law, Watermelon Expertise, he's he's a very big
part of what we do as well with a lot of our future ventures.
But you know Mizuk, again, we appreciate you.
Thank you. That was the chaos.
Join us next time.
Welcome to the chaos, we. Should probably start the show
first, I think. What's up, everybody?
And welcome back to the chaos. I'm your host, Mikey Tailman,
alongside my cohost. Michael Tableman Oh wait, my
name is Danny Jay Gomez. Danny Jay Gomez is in the house.
Gomez and I'm very excited abouther episode today.
(00:27):
I mean, I'm always excited aboutevery episode we do every day,
but we have on a very good friend of mine.
He is my partner in crime, does a lot of festivals all over the
world with me. Mr. Mizuki Asakura thank you.
Thank you. I'm flattered.
Mike, thank you, thank you, thank you for the invite.
Appreciate having you on. Awesome.
SO. Mizuka's got a really cool
(00:49):
background, but also a really cool type of how he's been
through different cultures because he's Japanese.
I was like, what? Is that what you're getting at?
But no, that's not what I was. Yo.
He left his. I left his hand.
Yo he I lost my thought bro. He built the tension so good I.
Was like I was trying to put theworries together, but Mizuki.
(01:13):
Mizuki does a lot of festivals over in Asia.
Which? Is really cool.
So like I'm really excited to hear about a lot of the cultural
differences and things that he'slearned in Asia that he's taken
here and obviously in the US over to over to Asia because you
you have dual, dual citizenship,right?
No, I actually only have a Japanese citizenship.
I have a permanent residency here so I'm a green card holder.
Still an alien though, registered alien and but no,
(01:37):
there's a good reason for that for me.
Like you said Mike, I've my backgrounds Japanese, but I grew
up here Orange County born and raised more or less not born,
sorry, raised in Orange County. And that Japanese passport for
me is so much more accessible toso many other countries.
That's right. The number one passport in the
world right now has been for like the past many years.
(01:58):
So in that aspect I I get to travel you know with my work a
lot. So I don't need a visa every
every time I go into different countries.
So kind of works out a lot better.
So let's start there then. Cuz that's when you got actually
started getting into the nightlife and festival scene.
Yeah, that's right. So jump in.
I know you kicked it off in Ultra.
(02:18):
Yeah, so I currently own an operator company called NSC LLC.
But previous to that I started as an intern to the Ultra Music
Festival organization in Asia. Worked my way there ever since I
got there in College in Tokyo and literally was the guy
opening doors and holding backpacks and stuff.
(02:41):
Stuck with it for many years went by and sooner or later I
was overseeing 14 countries operationally across the region
until COVID hit. Realistically, no.
But no. It's like you said, it's been a
great experience. Over there, 14 countries now
that I look at it, 14 shows. It doesn't seem that many now
(03:04):
that we have so many damn shows,but it was so far spread across
the region that, you know, there's definitely different
kinds of stress. And I was overseeing the whole
show, not just the sky deck. And the whole show operations
consisted of much, much longer planning times, as we all know.
But yeah, I kind of made my way back after COVID.
(03:30):
I literally went from 14 shows to quite literally zero.
That was the one thing we couldn't do.
It wasn't quite literally. I mean, there was 0 shows, yeah,
yeah. What were the people doing
without their shows, exactly? Right.
Fucking raving by themselves. No, they were.
There was the virtual raves. Yeah, yeah, there was.
Virtual raves that people would pay for.
Some of those were actually likeTomorrowland did.
(03:51):
A really sick virtual rave. Really.
Yeah, it was I. Remember doing a little?
The house party app became. Popular and just a bunch of my
friends got on there and we justget drunk.
Yeah, pretty much looked like. Musical.
So what is it? Like, the Celebrity Square?
Yeah, The Brady Bunch, you see it was wild over here right in
the beginning of COVID. I was in Taiwan at the time and
Taiwan was one of the countries that had quite 0 COVID for a
(04:16):
very long time. But that was because of all,
like, the restrictions flying inand all that.
Damn, I was watching the news over here.
I'd call, I called my buddies over here.
But while you guys were still partying, you know, Miami's a
different beast. It's always.
But I see news in Miami. Miami in close period.
That's that's not a thing. Florida, Florida.
Miami, especially. Wild, Wild, wild, wild.
(04:39):
Yeah, no. But you know, for better or for
worse. I came back but came back home.
Reconnected with you Mike and it's been a great, great, great,
great run for the past, what little bit more than a year
going on two years now, yeah. So Mizuki's a big part of the
Skydec team now. There's a lot of things.
Not only do we work together, he's also a partner of mine on
(05:00):
multiple different projects we have coming out in the next
couple of years that we've been working really hard on.
But he's become such a big part of the Skydec team, I really.
I appreciate the man. He's so supportive and the guy
is like so knowledgeable on his shit.
He's one of the best people to work with in hospitality and
he's become one of, like, my best friend, so extremely,
extremely grateful for this human being.
(05:21):
So tell us a little bit about though, because I really want to
go if I want to. I really want to go to Tokyo,
but I'm only going to Tokyo if Igo with him.
I want to Japan is like my number one travel destination.
It's been for a long time. I've never been, but I can't say
it's a great place to visit, a great place to visit, but I
lived there for all through college and a few years after
that. But man, I cannot live there.
(05:42):
I grew up in Orange County, so I'm not a city boy personally.
What's the difference though? Like obviously there was, there
were so many things that you know you can't do here that you
do there. Vice versa, culture.
So different culture, like, so like what's something that
really sticks out that's very different.
Especially maybe what in what wedo in the nightlife.
Realistic. Basic I can't smoke weed at all.
You. Can't smoke weed there at all.
(06:04):
Yeah, yeah. No, that was really tough.
Yeah, it's highly legal over there, so.
But you can drink your face off in the middle of the day.
Yeah, right, right. There is no alcohol laws over
there. It's 24 hours.
So the whole thing when I came here and the whole industry in
California especially, I mean, realistically, first things like
you said earlier, super quickly in terms of work, alcohol
(06:28):
doesn't stop serving at 2:00 AM.That's a massive blessing for me
as producers. When I first came into the USI
was like, oh, damn, show signed at 2:00 AM, that's awesome.
But over there, 2:00 AM, that's when the clubs are popping.
That's when peak peak madness happens.
That's when all the bottles start flowing and people are
zombies walking out at 5-6 AM trying to catch the first train
(06:51):
back home. Yeah, people are wild over
there, man. But it's it's it's very
different in all reality. You know, getting down to the
nittygritty, I guess entertainment in Asia revolves
around their drug of choice, alcohol and it in that aspect it
(07:11):
gets pretty sloppy as we have all seen.
As we see very often, yeah, veryoften US is absolutely alcohol
too, but there's so much more other substances that come into
play. So there's just different ways
of dealing with people. There's different ways to
produce that given event becausethey're such choice of substance
is different. For instance, like Asia, when we
(07:32):
put on shows, like it's all the attraction is facing forward,
there's no one wandering all over, all over the place because
they're not on substances. People over here looking all
over the place because they haveno idea what the going on now.
That light over there? Let's follow that light but
exactly. Yeah, right.
But that's kind of the premise. It's you have that ability to
showcase that production in all directions.
(07:54):
We don't need that over there. We just need something boom
happening over there. All your attention's there
anyways. So in that aspect, that's very
interesting that I've noticed quite simply though, man,
agents, agents shrink a lot. I can't keep up with that.
It's It's wild. But see over here, like you
said, like when we we have a lotof Asians that are are
demographic that comes to a lot of our shows.
(08:15):
They have a lot of money. I can only imagine what the
spends are like over there with some of the spends that we see
here. But here they said they're
doing, I mean everybody's doing so many drugs, but that just
seems to be the thing. And like a lot of festivals,
I've seen no bias on a bottles, but they'll just sit there and
then they're all just going to pop it and then just do and look
around. This for hours.
(08:37):
I'm like, I don't know how that doesn't hurt your.
Head But the thing about when, like working in clubs, when we
had the the Asian nights, that'swhat they were called.
They the the alcohol choices were so strange.
Yeah, like it was like Henny. There was a lot of Hennessy.
Hennessy, Johnny Walker Black. The whiskey game over there.
I don't understand. I can't drink shots of whiskey
in a nightclub, but people love it over there and they take
(08:58):
shots of gin over there. Yeah, chugging out the bottle.
There's a lot of vomiting. Yeah, I know about that.
But they're actually very good about, you know, like getting
all that, you know, so because they're used to it so much,
right? They're just boom, boom, boom.
And it's gone and it's like nothing happened.
I. Remember we used to have like
buckets strategically placed throughout the venue and like
the little cap powder, the Kittylitter, Kitty litter.
(09:20):
Kitty litter is the best thing to sort about.
Yeah, it's the best thing to so go vomit.
Absolutely. I'm so glad we don't have those
days. Where we gonna vomit anymore?
We've come a very long way, Daddy.
Right. Ohh for sure.
So what is the service like there in in in Asia, Japan like
from bartenders perspective likewhat are they, you know I'm used
(09:40):
to like speed and and volume andwhat is the quality there?
I think quality is good, but in general US alcohol is made much
stronger, like cocktails are made much stronger, like the
shot servings are larger. Here you ordered gin and tonic.
Here it's pretty strong and generally speaking, in Asia.
(10:00):
Heavy hand, Yeah. In Asia it's pretty, pretty
weak. It's, you know, half, it looks
like it's half a shot here, but like, is that what?
They just Chuck from the bottlesall the time then, and that's
the thing, right? Especially in nightclubs, the
bottle culture is so much larger.
Just looking at the space, the GA dance floor is much smaller
compared to the table space thatit takes up in the whole venue.
(10:23):
So you know, everyone's popping bottles in that aspect.
Especially if you go to fuck like China or Southeast Asia,
man, where money really started stalking, man, those people are,
yeah. That's.
Had that always been like, because I know here when I got
to LA in like 2005, it was the the dance floor was large and
(10:44):
the bottle area was there was small.
It was a couple tables here and there and then it slowly started
kind of flipping and growing andgrowing because but you know,
funny thing is half the people you see at the tables, they're
still Asians. Exactly.
And it is like that all over thedamn world, man.
Yeah, but you know, I think that's because they're just so
(11:08):
much more accustomed to that. Like having your own space,
especially after COVID. Everyone wants their own space.
Everyone wants to, you know, nothave to butt heads with everyone
and have that quality service ifif it's available.
We saw a massive boom just in like what people were spending.
We have wait lists for people, like we sold out tons of people
(11:31):
that still wanna come if it opens up willing to spend double
the amount just to get in just to have their own space.
Yeah, I mean we picked up so many other festivals and shows
we started doing cuz it just became in such a demand.
And we're one of if not the bestteam in the business that
handles that aspect of an operation.
So it's like we were just we still get hit up left and right
to do events all over no matter like we get hit for Coachella a
(11:53):
year in advance. We get hit for all these other
like it's crazy how many and it's still growing because.
One thing I'm curious about is like these companies that throw
the the events like Ultra and like how how does somebody like,
there's so many that seem to be popping up like how does someone
just be like hey I want to throwthis festival and.
And call it my own thing like. How does that work, people?
So people come to us all the time.
(12:15):
So I got an idea for this festival I'm like, don't, no,
don't even want to hear. People don't realize how much
actually goes into building one of these festivals.
And then you start to tell them and either they get frustrated
because they think you're being negative and don't want to help
them, or you start doing it and they run out of money.
Very. Very often.
So we we try to stay away from any startup.
(12:36):
Things like we only work things that are established.
People that have been around, wedon't like working with people
we don't know, and the only startup things that we do is our
own personal events, right? Because you already have a name,
you already have a brand that you're building off of.
Plus like the way we operate andhow we're built for, we're built
for large scale like so that youhave companies that'll come that
are like oh, we only have like 1020 thousand people and this is
(12:59):
what we're doing, it's like. They don't have the budget to
pay us what we need to go in andmake happen.
Also, they don't have the clientele.
People. People don't see the bigger
picture. Like, everyone sees the
glamorous side of this world, right?
Like festivals, especially. The table service is glamorous.
It's bottles, fireworks, pretty,you know, pretty ladies, you
(13:19):
know, guys, whatever is everywhere.
Yeah, And it's and it's genuinely a good generally and
genuinely a good time. But people don't realize that as
an operator standpoint, it's notthat profitable as a like
festivals are not profitable, period.
In my opinion. There's just so much that people
(13:40):
don't see. Like, do you realize how much
those fireworks cost the drone shows?
You know, like those are big costs.
Sure. And like these artists.
God damn. Yeah.
Yeah. Then you're not even, you don't
even. People don't even realize what
it's like for the security, the medical correct, the labor porta
pot. Like, yeah, the, the.
The craters. Yeah, everyone who, people that
(14:01):
are driving golf carts around. Like, there are so many aspects
that people don't think about because they only see.
The funny part is that was like,especially people that we like,
I want to throw a festival. People will be like, oh, you run
all the shows. I'm like, no, no, no, I run one
part of the show. But in their mind, they don't
actually see anything else in the festival.
So in their mind, I'm the one who produces the whole thing and
(14:21):
I'm the man. And it's like, no, you guys
don't even realize there's like 10.
I might be the front facing for you at the moment, but.
Cuz people just don't realize how much goes into it and how
big it actually is. Yeah.
I mean, our biggest show is like180,000 people that we do a day.
Yeah, I think 100, yeah, that's about, that's about accurate.
Yeah, a little bit. No.
(14:41):
Yeah, a little bit more than a half 1,000,000 / 3 days, right?
Wow, so where where is Ultra compared to like an EDC for
someone like? I'm not in the festival world,
so I'm not familiar with that. So we both we know that there is
like the big three usually right.
There's the EDC Las Vegas, there's the Ultra Miami and
there's Tomorrowland that's kindof in my idea has been kind of
(15:03):
still continuously is and for a little bit will foreseeable you
know we'll be the three that will continue to stand as the
big dogs in my opinion. Yeah.
They travel all over the world though.
Yeah, so Ultra is the most global show.
Which is more global? OK, Yeah, there's like I said, I
have 1.14 shows in Asia. There's tons of shows across
(15:26):
South America, South America. North America is Miami, Europe,
Scotland and Croatia. South Africa, I think it's in
six continents, quite literally,yeah.
All inhabitable contents. It keeps on expanding though,
because like the one thing that festival brings is like, yo,
it's community. Like so many people are lost
(15:48):
nowadays. There's just so much going on.
But it's like, it's a space. Like the thing that I love about
my about my job is like, yo, we get to curate a space for people
to come in and forget about their issues and just not hate
life so much for a day, a couplehours, like like that helps us,
you know? There's some days I'm depressed,
this hell working and just like.Then someone comes up like Oh my
(16:09):
God, thank you so much, This means the world to me.
And like, we take that for granted cuz we don't even think
about it. But they're like, this is one of
the best moments of their lives.Yeah, that's quite literally
kind of the reason why I'm stilldoing this.
I mean, cuz we talk all the time.
It sucks, man. You know you're loading it for a
whole week. Yeah, like we're working 1516
(16:30):
hours a day, you know, still driving back an hour to the
hotel. It's pretty bad at one point.
Like it was high intensity. Like it's not like when the show
start, like it's a 15 hour day, It's not like, you know, it it
be like in the nightclub. Oh, it opens up and then we
build. We hit it and then it comes back
down as soon as doors open. Yo, we're at 150 mph until doors
close. Open to close, open to close.
(16:53):
And you're over and you're on before the like you're where you
open, you're still gone. Yeah.
I mean, we're there weeks beforesetting it up, right?
There are. Certain festivals I plan months
in advance, like four to five months in advance.
We start working on this. So yeah, then leading up to it.
And then that's what people don't realize, Like we do all
this work leading up to it, which is just so time consuming
(17:13):
and tedious and then the show happens and then we're expected
to be on and deal with the most neediest of people like.
You know it it mentally, physically, emotionally.
You know it takes a toll, takes a toll on all of us.
But like me and you have talked about us so much, so from your
end, how is that taking a toll on your side?
Cuz we've never actually had that like deep conversation on
like when you deal with your anxiety.
(17:34):
And you know, how is it stressful wise in Asia also than
what we deal with now, cuz what we deal with now is on a whole
of the level this past year. Absolutely.
Yeah, like I said, the number ofshows that we've been crushing
these past year or two has been astronomical to say the least.
Mentally, yes, but physically I you've seen me crumble
(17:56):
throughout the shows. So that's definitely, it's a
very apparent thing that's been happening.
I've I've had this Nash like gnarly stomach gastrointestine
issue for a couple years now andI'll go down once or twice a
year where I just cannot take down anything.
No food, no water, no liquid, nothing.
(18:18):
And I'll just be constantly vomiting for sorry, little
graphic, but vomiting for hours.Yeah, yeah.
Hours and hours for, you know, six days straight or something.
Wow. So.
It was scary. It happened to him in Vegas is
that we were all just like, likeobviously the show is happening,
we have to work. But we're just like more
concerned. Like, yeah, we can have like
does he have to go to the hospital?
Should we be doing more? Like, he wasn't even functional.
(18:39):
Like I he passed out on the track and I literally had to
pick him up and carry him to hiscar, cuz he physically couldn't
stand up. Yeah, and it just happens once
or twice a year and it's been crazy.
I've looked into a lot of thingsto see what it is, but it's been
hard to figure that out. But the doctors are definitely
saying it's stress induced. I've put my business partner
(19:00):
through hell and back just to especially in Vegas, he had him
go out for hours looking for a damn watermelon, 'cause that's
what I was like, do you need anything?
I said I wanted a watermelon andhe just could not find it for
the life of him he had. To bury your face in a water.
Yeah, he's in the hoods of Vegas.
Just like you know, looking at every other small mom and pop.
Start looking for a watermelon. He comes into the room pissed
(19:22):
off drops off the whole watermelon on the bed.
He couldn't find a spoon so he gets me an ice cream scoop and
and like some cutlery knife and he's just like boom, drops it
off and bounces. I'm like, ohh thank you ohh man.
But yeah, so physically, that's definitely taking a massive toll
(19:44):
on me. Gastro stuff will man will kill
you. Like, I mean you could be the
strongest person, look look likethe strongest person in the
world, but when that that stomach messes up on you.
Yeah. When I first started, I met this
producer guy who was on for Ultra and he would have this
intense diet for juices. You would be like, hey on my
(20:06):
writer, I need a, you know, likethose juice cleanse sets every
single day of my show. And I was young at the time, you
know, I was 17181920, you know, I had no idea.
But now looking back on it, you know, 10 years later, I'm like,
damn that guy. That guy's been through it all.
I I finally get him like I I understand like we're Downing
(20:28):
vitamins and stuff mid show, youknow like.
Five years ago, it'd be a lot ofbooze and.
Food. And now it's like, we have these
routines where get, we're like every morning we have to make
sure we get breakfast, we have to get, we have to be taking
certain vitamins and stuff like that.
Like we have to physically take care of ourselves and like we
look obnoxious, but we're wearing compression socks.
Like it's yeah. Helps her lives.
(20:51):
Like, that's weird. Like, just like, not like you
don't. You don't understand.
I'm on my feet for 15 hours. Like my feet are killing me.
My legs are killing me. I need anything I can get like
any little thing we can to help us, we do.
Yeah, you know, we we had a guest on last season, Piconut,
who we saw bartend with and he started his own like digestive
health kind of Wellness supplement brand and it's called
(21:13):
Gobiotics. Little plug there.
Yeah, right. But seriously, it changed.
Like when I had my spinal cord injury change my digestive
system completely, it was it. Just like I could eat the
spiciest from 7:11 and you know,and be solid for the next day.
But now it's. Like after that it's like I
can't eat so many things, but when we had him on, he told us
(21:35):
about it and I started using hisproducts.
Doing it was like night and day,so probiotic.
Probiotic prebiotic, An enzyme with every meal and it really
worked, so you. Can add it to the kit.
Yeah, yeah man. It's so good.
ADD it to our Rd. case. Yeah, something in that.
Vitamin. C This episode of Chaos Control
is Go Biotics. For your everyday clinic, fix
(21:56):
your damn this is a huge plug. That's our boy, man.
We plug Everybody gotta keep theyeah something you.
Can look into you know and help you out when you're absolutely
no it's it's been massive that I've been really trying to be
careful about health eating clean during shows whatever I
(22:17):
can. Although it's really hard when
you're at the things you can only get at those times or Dr.
throughs, you know, at McDonald's and stuff.
And then during the show, sometimes we're so busy we don't
eat. Or if we eat, it's just like
chicken fingers from the nearestfood truck.
Yeah. You come by with chicken
tenders? Yes.
Yeah, I like one of those. So I love seeing uh Mikey's
(22:38):
Instagram videos when he's in the middle of a show madness and
he's just sitting with his snacks.
Out of all the things I've done and try to and try to, you know,
put out there, the thing that has hit the most has been my.
Chicken 10D Videos and yeah, TheChicken 10 D Yes dude.
Every year you need to have a wrap up video.
The foods you ate at all the shows, you know it's the biggest
flex. Somebody eating at the festival
(23:01):
or something, You're like, oh, he's definitely not on drugs.
I do. It he knows what's up, we'll.
Bring pizza in a club you man. Some of the food trucks are
phenomenal though. You have some like 5 star food
trucks that are like all over the place and like featured and
all these things and like some of the food is really.
Good, dude. I'm all about that agua frescos
at the at the shows through thatwatermelon.
(23:22):
Just every show. I get it.
It. It's the spot Nice.
It's the greatest. Yeah.
So, So what have you been doing on the shows?
Like what is your actual position?
Like, what do you do when when you show up to a show?
Or like, when you're when you'reprepping for something?
So Mikey invited me on to help. After what, two years ago?
(23:45):
After Gold Rush? Which is a whole nother story
you. Have to get back to that, Yeah.
The craziest thing I've ever experienced in a music festival.
And that's that'll be his final story for the Yeah, this is
like, we'll take 10 minutes to go through this stuff.
It is layered. Yeah, that was that was serious.
That was some serious stuff right there.
(24:05):
But after that, yeah, he helped me, had me literally jump on
from EDC Vegas officially was for a show.
Just kind of just threw me in the fire.
He's like, hey, can you go and manage this deck out of the
three decks that was out in Vegas?
And I was like, yeah, love to help.
Didn't really know what I was getting myself into at all, so.
He had a bail on me last minute.Oh, no way.
(24:25):
And then he jumped in for Supi. Wow.
And you know, I really. I think I know what I do.
I I do best. I've been in this for long
enough to at least know that it all shows what has to happen.
Realistically, so more or less. You know, we clicked mass, we
clicked massively at Gold Rush. It was that, you know, nod the
(24:48):
head and know what you're thinking.
And we just get after it kind ofthing.
And that vibe just carried on all the way through.
And EDC Vegas was crazy, but it was magic.
Yeah, a lot of good things came out of that show.
You know, the whole Factory 93 situation was amazing.
I loved it. What was that?
So when it come like your original question to him was
(25:09):
like what does he do specifically like?
When it comes to the core team, there's five of us.
Everybody has to be interchangeable because like you
can have one specific job, but it's all hands on deck to get
done. So there's five of us that run
the initial core and like everybody has their own lane to
stick in, but everybody can handle a client can talk to
staff can deal with back a housecan set up a POS system, can do
(25:31):
an order, can defuse a situation, can drive a van.
Sometimes like is literally, we have to do it all.
So like as. I'm driving the bus, but it's a
full team effort and he's one ofthe people I lean on, cuz I'm
like, yo, I can't go deal with this person right now.
He's like I got it, he'll go there.
So there's a lot of times when it comes to like client
relations and dealing with people, yeah, and I'm facing.
(25:54):
Stuff. Yeah.
I'm like, I can't deal with Mizzou.
Please just go deal. I can't do it at the moment.
I'm spent like I can't do it. Put me in coach.
That's exactly. And yeah, he's like, no problem,
dude, I got you. That's the best thing about our
team is like you're. Exact team wrestling dude.
Bro, that's the best thing. Like if if you're going to be
successful in events, you need abunch of people who have 0 ego
and just like all right, cool. Let's just get this done.
(26:15):
Like, we make a lot of money. We throw a party for a living.
So like as long as you're there to help out and you do whatever,
like everybody's on the same page is just get the job done as
best as you possibly can. But because it is those
atmospheres, it is full of snakes.
I hate to say it, you know, it'shard to find the ones that you
can truly lean on, you know, luckily I ran into Mike and we
(26:38):
just, you know, straight off thebat we hit it off with a head
nod and it worked. But sometimes it doesn't work
out, sometimes it works out. But you know, the team that
we've or I've been gifted to join, it's it's been phenomenal.
Everyone's fantastic. Everyone leans on each other,
you know, especially the management.
We're super open with everything.
(26:59):
Everyone's just like, hey, can you handle this?
No problem, you know. Didn't y'all break some records
at the last CDC? We break records every.
Every. Every year.
Every. Every year.
But that's what we're saying. It's like every show now.
There's just so many things popping up.
I mean, we broke, we break records.
Every show we pass surpassed numbers.
We've done some iconic shows this past year about the when,
(27:20):
Yes, I like to wear all of my I have so much in merch.
Oh dude. Festivals.
Wait, was this but like, this season?
When was this? When were you?
We were young. This was the one that happened
in October 2022. It was the big one of, like, all
the throwback emo rock. Yes, Avril Lavigne.
Yeah, My Chemical Romance, AvrilLavigne and like.
(27:42):
It was iconic. And then we were also at the
Lovers and Friends one which wasthe hip hop.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
So like getting just getting to do some of those things, it's
like that's even cooler because like we're getting to see like
icons and people from back in the day that you would never
thought you'd see and. Super nostalgic.
Beyond nostalgic, I'm like, we're working, but we're like,
when you're doing an EDM show, it's like like all that whole.
(28:06):
In time. But it's like we got a earplug
you like we usually we walk in and we're like head down like
another show we're up like yo wego to site yet we ready sound
check. Like bro, there was Lydia sound
check. Is that most like?
Most people got kicked off the kicked off the site and we're
sitting there and we're on the main stage and Usher and Luda
are doing their full sound check.
Wow. And we just watched the entire
(28:27):
soundtrack. I mean that show at the end of
the night. I remember sitting there.
And Lauryn Hill and The Fugees closed the show and they played
the score album. And I just sat there like this
for an hour. I didn't move.
What were the crowds like? So go.
Ahead the crowd. So the cool thing about this one
was the crowd was an older crowd.
It was more of our generation, so that people weren't going,
(28:49):
you know, there wasn't really many fights, everyone was chill,
a lot of people smoking weed. It was hot, yes, but something
crazy that happened there. And this is like one of the the
downsides of festivals is. There was a fight that happened
in the crowd. Somebody yelled gun and it was a
mass Stampede. Like luckily we're up on a deck
but people are jumping through back at houses.
So like, we're looking for, likewe're looking for everybody, you
(29:11):
know, everybody get down, stay in the section, you'll go in
this container because like, we have no idea what's going on.
All we hear is that, Oh yeah, there's a shooting gun and it
like it's a that many people is dangerous. 6060 thousand people,
all scattering chaos like chaos doesn't even begin to explain,
right? The Stampede is fucking real,
(29:33):
people. Get hurt.
Like, yeah, people are getting literally trampled, jumping over
the fences, getting hurt, falling off the fences, you
know? You got 60,000 people in a fight
or flight. Like just like holy people are
shooting. I might die and like, you mean
this. And we're in Vegas, which is
where, you know, there's so muchtrauma from what happened at
(29:55):
Route 91 and. It's sad to say, like, this is
what our country is like. But every festival I go into, I
mean, I sit in the meetings withsecurity, but it's like that's
always in the thought of my head.
Okay, like where's every exit? What do I got to do?
Is this person like, it sucks that every time I go into a
show, that's the first thought? And what was somebody?
Did that really somebody have a gun or somebody was crying wolf,
Like just cause a scene? So obviously we don't really
(30:18):
fully know cops came in, so the festival stopped for two hours.
Cops came in a situation, all that, and they said it was just
there was no actual gun. Somebody just called it out.
I mean, it's really hard to get a gun into one of these
festivals. I'm sure it's been done.
I know it's happened before, butlike you're going through
multiple layers of security, you're going through metal
detectors. Come on, people, be better.
(30:41):
Don't do that stuff. No, I mean, it's not even about
not being that douche is like. Yo, everybody is on high alert,
right? So if you see some commotion,
you see somebody going to pull something you're not.
I don't think whoever screamed it, I don't think they were
doing it to cause havoc. Now, if you do that purposely,
just the cause of commotion, you're terrible human.
Yeah, yeah, that's just so tough.
But like you, man, people are solike the world is a really scary
(31:04):
place right now. Like it's.
You're very much on edge, especially like I said, anytime
I'm at one of those things, you're definitely nervous and it
sucks that we have to feel that way, right?
Because there's so much love andyou know, passion for the music
and you know the fans are there,genuine.
Most of the fans at least you know, are there to genuinely
enjoy the music and party. So and like like you said
(31:27):
earlier, you know a lot of people will only come to these
shows once, once in their lifetime.
Possibly they saved up for possibly a whole year just to
come to that whole show and you know, just to get hit with such
an experiences so gnarly. And I feel for that, like it
sucks for us, but it sucks on somany levels.
I mean, there were people. I definitely, I'm trying to do a
(31:49):
better job, but I definitely take it for granted that you
like music. You said people are saving up
for years to go to Coachella, get the house, get the ticket,
maybe go to an after party and we decide morning of, yeah, I'm
going production pass, parking list, all that.
It's like. We we definitely take it for
advantage cuz most people don't get to do that kind of thing.
(32:10):
I mean back then I used to take so much more advantage cuz we I
hate to say it but we got used to the whole thing of like what?
Ohh, I wanna go to a nightclub shoot a text.
Someone will come out, escort you all the way wearing slippers
and a hat, you know and shorts. So when we did when we were
young, day one actually was cancelled 40 minutes before
(32:32):
doors. The festival made the proper
call. The winds were too crazy.
People would have got hurt. But how are you going to explain
that to people who bought these tickets, flew into town only
here for that day and are waiting outside for doors to
open to run in? So they cancel it.
We're trying to do everything and now they're still about
maybe a good 800 people outside.And we have to walk through them
(32:55):
and they see us walking out. And people were just like
putting heads down and like and.Somebody stopped.
Like, walking through? Like to leave?
Yeah, so like I need. To go to a parking lot.
So the gate, So there's the gatethat nobody can come in and the
parking lots on the other side, and there's all these people,
they're all just sitting. There.
And they, and rightfully so, they're super pissed.
(33:17):
So like, I remember walking out.I just put my head down and
people are cursing at me and I'mjust like, I feel terrible for
him. I really do.
I felt so bad and like, yeah, there was one girl walking past
and she was like, crying. And I had an extra wristband and
she's like, how much do I got topay you?
I was like nothing. Like, I I feel, I feel so bad
for you. And she's like, you literally
just made my year. She was like, I was devastated.
(33:40):
I I flew out here. I'm only here for today.
I I'm so, I was so sad. Like, thank you so much.
So it's like you. It makes such a difference to
somebody who's never been to something like this.
There are shows where we do a thing where we like, Hey, did
you do a good deed today? Yes.
Then we'll come back at the end,the shows like, hey, I did one
good deed today and usually we'll pull someone possibly if
(34:04):
all situations work out last forthe last few minutes or
something on the finale, we'll pull someone up and let them
have that show to have it from agood view or something.
But that really, really makes their night like makes their
whole year. It's, you know.
I mean people have told me like we do some experience with our
front of house, experience stufflike that and like.
You giving me the best experience of my life.
(34:25):
And these are people in their late 50s, very, very wealthy,
can literally do anything in theworld, probably have.
But they're like what you guys did for us.
And this whole thing is one of the greatest experiences in my
life that I'll never forget. I still haven't had that.
I still haven't had that experience the.
I don't know why you're not coming, bro.
I went to E DC-1 time in days and I had a terrible time.
(34:46):
But I was, you know, Gai didn't know anyone.
It was long. It was a long time ago.
I didn't know you. You were?
Probably still in high school when I went to EDC.
Probably actually walking through that motto, taking it
all in at that show is somethingcrazy.
That half the time we're runningaround we're just like, you
can't even look up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But when you actually look up and suck it in, it's like whole
(35:08):
there. Cuz there's moments in the show
where I look up, take a second and I'm like, damn, there's a
lot of people here. We're doing some like, crazy
things and you come to that realization mid show and you're
just like, wow, it's pretty brilliant, you know?
And then you know. And then you go home after and I
have a depression crash. Well, you know you're just
(35:30):
around all those people and likethink about you're around so
many people and so many people want your attention or need you
for something. And then it's so loud, it's so
over stimulating to them back inyour bed and you're just like
it's very quiet. It's dark.
I don't know what the to do right now.
That's why I smoke so much. We talk about that loud silence
(35:50):
all the time. It's definitely really.
That music stops and you're like, it's just, you're just
like, I feel like it's really hard.
Everybody's reality is different, but I feel like we
live in such a capacity where we're on the go so hard for
months in these crazy environments and literally just
flying by in the seat of our pants.
And then we have two months and we're completely off with
(36:12):
nothing. And it's just like all people
like go travel. I'm like, I don't want to get on
a plane. I just did four months traveling
all over. I just want to sit there.
I want to sit in my house. I don't want to move.
So like you live, we live in these extremes and it's
definitely, you know, it's really hard to juggle a lot of
the times, especially for me, like that term, like burnt out
was real. We were all so burnt out.
(36:35):
Like, you want to do anything? No, just sit here in my bed.
I'm tired. It also gets tricky too, because
there's like there's five of us as the core managers, but then
we have like another five or sixpeople that are like part of the
core team. So there's ten of us that are
together for three or four months, like every day. 10 hours
a day. So it starts to get people start
(36:56):
getting on each nerves, everyonestarts getting a little chippy
with each other. Everyone starts getting worthy.
You're seeing some blowout. The cool thing is like, people
will have it out and usually 10 minutes later it's forgotten
about or it's apologize. Heat of the moment.
But like, yeah, what happens more often than not, Because
how, how could it not when you're in that type of
atmosphere and there's that family aspect, Yeah.
(37:18):
I saw you. Have to be careful because if
somebody comes in like we have areally good vibe and if somebody
comes in and and throws that vibe off, it all goes down, it
all goes down. You carefully choose the people
you work with now at this. But if you don't have like the
right setup and I think this is the best segue into our favorite
festival of all time, sorry to everybody who who works, who
(37:42):
works that show and and that team, we have a lot of respect
for you guys love you all what you're doing that point in time.
You just want to throw that out there because we're not trying
to. On this festival, they're doing
great. Now.
One of our guys, John Romano, runs the program now.
He's amazing. Kid is kid has so much
potential. We love him to death.
It was just something new. And we were kind of brought in
(38:02):
last minute and we were, what doyou mean?
Last night? The fucking day of the show for
you, right? And the day.
Before the show. But it was just one of our
buddies was running it and then he was.
It was just more. There was.
There was way more than he bargained for.
So he's like, yo, come help us out.
He's called me. He's like, he's like, yo, can
you come? I'm like, I need this, this and
this thinking he's never going to be able to come through with
(38:23):
it. He's like, all right, cool.
I'm like, I guess I'm going. And that was like one of my only
weeks off, too. I'm like this.
But I was like, all right, I went, Oh my God, I've, I've been
through some, my dude. I have seen some.
This was on a whole other level of like.
I want to hear the details, man,the details, mind you, because
(38:45):
this is one of my first shows back in the US.
Like I've been focused most of my time in Asia.
Grant. I did Miami, sure, but like, not
a massive part here. I get thrown into this show.
I reunite with Mike. I just brought you were actually
working. I was just a consultant, so he
he, he asked me to come, but he asked me like a week, two weeks
(39:06):
before. So I had a heads up a little bit
and I reunited with him. I reunited with Chris.
Chris Kim, who's our other the the, the three, the the third
head of this trio. Yeah, yes.
Much love to Chris. So it's funny because they're
all get there and I get picked up from the airport and they're
all standing outside and I walk in and I'm just kind of like and
(39:29):
they all just start laughing like this is, when's the
festival? Like tomorrow?
I was like, wait, really? So, so, so walk me through this
for someone who doesn't do festivals.
Like what? What are you expecting to see
when you get there? Where?
Where is it? What city?
We're in Arizona. Well, hold on we're We're
spoiled because we've worked forsuch large organizations.
So yes. We're we're very, very spoiled.
(39:51):
We work with the professionals, the best of the best.
So we get in here and now when you get to a preshow you're
expecting, like when you go to aconcert or somewhere, there's a
stage that is built, everything there.
There are activations. There are rides.
There are bike rack. There is a check in.
There is stations festival. The the stage was not fully
built. There was random things all
(40:14):
throughout. We didn't, we didn't have any
anything to set up. We didn't have any.
There was no like security out there, like anybody could just
walk on the site like when we doin Zami Act shows.
There's three levels of securitythat you have to have proper
wristband just to get on If you're building the show.
Zero. Anybody could.
Random people were walking on. We flat out drove onto the
(40:35):
ground. Like literally, like drove like,
I can't do that and I can't drive my car off to the deck.
Literally, I drove my car to where literally drove the car
right up there. And we're still and like the
crazy thing is we're still underselling this because unless
you were there, you won't understand like that feeling.
We were just like we had half ofour guys that were there.
(40:57):
A lot, a lot of people from my team ended up going out for one
of our other friends to support.And halfway through the first
night of setup we're just like, Nah man, like this and so like
barely get doors open doors. I think doors got pushed.
It's opening now there is now. I've never seen this before
ever. And I think we have a picture
somewhere and if we have it, it's going to pop up.
(41:19):
There is a day one. There is a car in the middle of
the festival, like right smack in the middle of the festival.
Just a random car. Just a random car.
In front of the stage, Yeah, like a little bit out.
Like a little bit out. And nobody knew whose car it was
and they couldn't tow it becausethey didn't have a thing to tow
(41:39):
it. So they just bike racked around
this car. Now the music goes on, it's
loud, so it makes the car alarm go off.
Now the car alarm is going crazythe whole show.
Literally the whole show. Are people thinking this is part
of the show or I don't know, like we we, we we try to, we try
to stay in our own little world.Yeah.
(42:00):
And in these shows and not venture out but.
I could imagine me being not nota big festival goer and I see
something like, oh that. That's an interesting.
Choice. Yeah, people might have thought
it was. What kind of what kind of car
was it? Like 95.
Like Toyota Corolla. Even better, some like even beat
up like old school car. Yeah, it was pretty beat up.
It was pretty bad. But the fact that it just got
(42:22):
left there and the show went on just absolutely baffles me like
any of our other shows. Probably just, you know,
forklift God, you wanna want to keep going and tell him about
day one. Yeah, it's.
And then, you know, my buddy walks on.
It's it's, it's chaos the whole time.
And my buddy who's an attorney walks on.
(42:44):
The first thing he goes is. Looks up the stairs like, is
this, is this okay? Let's just say there's like
massive holes in the back of theneck.
Anyways, there's no we, we. So when you come in through a
bottle service, there's a special check in you went
through yourself. There is.
It has its own intent, its own walls, its own security, its own
POS system. We had none of that, nothing at
(43:06):
all. There wasn't even security.
Like, we didn't have actual security.
Like they hired like mall cop security.
So on the actual deck we had four security guards.
This one guy had to be in his sixties, 121 year old girl,
another like 25 year old girl, and this other guy like in his
40s. And that's all we had.
Wow. Fight.
(43:28):
Yeah, I did. That was on.
Yeah, right. I got into a fight.
I got jumped. Yeah, that got that happened
too, right? Yeah, it was like, so night one.
This is supposed to be a Zooky story.
But it's like it's a Co hold on.You were there.
You were there. He was there.
So night one it's just it's justnight one is just so
unorganized. Chaos.
It's to the point where halfway through we're like, hey Pyro and
(43:52):
we'd radio each other, and Pyro for us was code word and we'd
just go on a smoke break. Yes.
And it got to the point, we're just like Pyro, Pyro, Pyro, Pyro
this is. The festival where that was
born, The Pyro. Yeah, yes, yeah, the Pyro was
born there. So, like, we sure, like we had
1G carts to share between all ofus.
So someone would come pick us all up and we would drive her
(44:13):
out and find a little spot. And, like, it wasn't even just
like a joint break. Like he would rip out a bomb.
We were just sitting there taking bong ribs.
I came out with my holes like this is how you know we're over
it, cuz like at one of our regular shows that would never
like. We wouldn't even think that,
bro. Then I remember there was a
point in the night. It was just so chaotic.
(44:34):
Everyone was over it. There was like the front of
house table, which is like the big table in the middle, which
they shouldn't have done in the 1st place.
We ordered pizza. We ordered.
We didn't order. One of my good friends, she
picked it up on the way. We had five pies of pizza.
We took a bottle of 42 at a couple of blunts out to the
front of house table. It's me, it's him, it's Chris.
It's real hot tail. Way he radios.
(44:56):
Means like, hey, I need you to come to the front of house.
I'm like, OK, we're sitting there.
Well, you know what, a bit better if you would have been in
the 95 Corolla, OK, that was toofar away.
So like we're literally in mainstage sitting there smoking
blunts just like. And I think like Diplo was on at
this time, we're all rage and having a good time.
And the guy who's, like, runningthe show, who brought us all out
there, just comes out and just sees us and grabs a slice of
(45:17):
pizza and everyone just starts laughing.
And one of the guy and one of one of the guys was like, if
this was you, you would have lost your mind.
Like, if this was me, you wouldn't even have the audacity
to try this. So the end of night one, we're
sitting around and we're just like, Oh my God, what the do we
do? And our buddy love him to death.
(45:39):
He's just like can you guys like, you know came out here to
consult Not working this is. You ended up working.
We go. Two days or three days.
This is a three days show. What do we got to do?
I'm going to apologize to the staff.
What do we say? I was like, you don't say
anything, I'll do the talking. So we literally go in, apologize
to everybody. We come back in day two and we
(46:02):
had this whole thing of like, all right, this is how things
are going to be. This is how it's going to go.
We walk in, we have a big staff meeting.
I'm like this, this, this. If you don't like it, like you
can leave. You guys are on my terms now.
People weren't very happy about that in the beginning, but as
the day went on they were fine because now we took over me, him
and Chris just like all right soyou go here you yo, you run the
(46:24):
podium. I'll run the deck.
Chris, you run the front. Let's all stay in touch this go.
So now things are moving pretty well up to this point.
Well, that security issue becamea problem.
There's a couple of really people and the guy who was in
charge like yo, I want them off the deck.
I'm like what the want me to do?So he tells the security guard,
(46:45):
the security guard and this old 60 year old man who's literally
at this point loving the show and his head bagging like this
on the island, not even watchingwhat the is going on.
So he's trying to kick this guy out, but he doesn't know how to
be a security guard so he's pushing this guy oh shit.
And he's pushing him and this guy is getting hammered.
(47:06):
So this guy can just throws him on the floor and starts beating
the shit out of the security guard beating him.
So and I then go to to to like help the security guard out.
But this guy is bigger than I amand outweighs me by like 40
pounds. I go to it's like try to pull
him off. He flips me over him.
Now he's holding me down and just wailing away at me.
(47:26):
Then two of the two of the TSA'swho's our usual team come see
this comes and tackles him Then his friends come over this way.
Then the cops come because there's cops in the festival
break it all up. A lot of words were said between
a lot of people that we don't really need to get into Day 2.
That was Day 2. That was Day 2.
(47:48):
Yeah, so day three comes around and we mutiny.
Oh yeah, we mutiny. We mutiny.
We were pissed. We were pissed.
So we wake up, we all go to brunch.
We're supposed to be there at 4:00, o'clock.
We're all sitting at brunch and a text comes through to all of
us from the guy in charge and everybody just looks at me and I
have my head down and I'm just. We're literally just eating
(48:11):
casually at lunch. So if y'all go, I'll go too.
You know, I don't really know what's going on.
I don't really care. Thanks to no way everybody reads
it. He calls me.
I don't answer. He calls Chris.
Chris screams, screaming at him.Everyone's like, what are we
doing? I was like, so I finally I got
on the phone. I was like, yo, we're only
coming back if I have a the proper security team.
(48:32):
So I want you to send me article.
I want you to send me articles of accreditation.
I want to know where they're from.
I want to talk to them. You got 4 hours.
You better get to work. And we just sat there and kept
drinking. We just out.
Yeah, man, Like we got lit. Like half the servers we got
lit. 4:00 o'clock comes, we're supposed to be there.
We're not there, 5:00, O'clock comes.
(48:53):
We're still not there. 5:30, I got the phone call.
I'm like, all right, let's go over there.
Check with these guys who go in.Somebody's like, OK, can they?
I'm like, nobody move. Everybody sit here and until I
come back and tell you we're working.
Otherwise we were walking off. So they were all like, really in
their pants. So me, him and Chris go to meet
these, go to meet the security guards, and I don't know, by the
(49:14):
grace of God he got like actual nightclub security.
But it was the most epic moment,because you see them come out
the corner. You see like a bunch of big
dude, just turn, turn around us three, look at each other.
We're like. All right, it was like, you seen
the meme where it's like the Power Rangers Ninja Turtles.
Yeah. All right, cool.
We go, let's go walk in, walk in, this, here, that there,
(49:37):
blah, blah, blah, blah. We start, they go ahead with the
staff and then I walk in with the staff.
And if this was a movie, it'd belike, it'd be like when, like,
they all walk out, like the teamwalks out and then it pans up
and everybody in. The Avengers end game, Remember?
Like in Monsters and like, yes, like in Monsters Inc Will they
all come walk out and they all come out.
(49:58):
The whole team starts cheering because I'm a standing ovation.
Like what the y'all go through? We're like, you have no idea,
bro. No idea.
Oh my God, it was again. We can look back now and laugh
on it, but at that moment I didn't talk to Homie for like 6.
I'm like, I'm so mad. I was so mad because then, but
(50:19):
also on that part, what's the worst night you could work in
hospitality sometimes the worst night industry night.
Oh, when you're in an industry that you don't know the people.
So now nobody told us it was an industry night.
So there was 11 comp everyone. Yep, 11 comp tables that night
(50:39):
for industry throughout Arizona that nobody told us about.
So you can get the entitlement of the industry there.
Massive. And they didn't know.
None of them know who we were, right?
Right. Didn't really matter.
So it was just arguments left and right I was out of.
I probably have done over 200 festivals.
(50:59):
That's in my top three, competing for #1 as to the
biggest show I've ever been a part of.
Yeah, but we like, you know, like you said, the good things
came out of it. We like genuinely trauma bonded
over that experience, right? But it's just the crazy thing of
like, yo, the festival went off,people had fun, everything was
fine. And if you're watch, if you're
there, you can see that there's some issues, but it's not that
(51:21):
big. You're still having a good time.
You don't realize that behind the scenes we're drowning.
It is. It is utter and pure chaos.
Nobody wants to talk to anybody.Everybody's pissed off.
It was a pretty monumental show for that group too, that year,
you know? So at the end, you know, all
sudden done, everything works out.
You kind of have to work it out at this point.
(51:41):
You know, you don't got a choice.
You. Yeah, you make it happen.
It's you it. Would have happened if you guys
didn't go back that day. I don't know.
I mean they would have been all the people that paid for tables
would have had a would have had to be refunded there, it would
have been there would have been nobody there to work it like a
couple people like it was. So the thing was it was a
combination of our team plus some local people.
(52:04):
So the local people would have went back, but it was just us
who were like, no, we're not, but we're the ones who are the
professionals that know what we're doing.
What a lot of people don't understand is just cuz you hire
a bunch of the people that work together.
Doesn't work like that. And just because you work in a
nightclub doesn't mean you know what the fuck.
You're doing It doesn't transferover.
Yeah, parts only. Your work ethic transfers over,
(52:24):
yeah. I mean there are some
similarities like once they get to the table and the service
throughout the middle, that's similar.
But the before the the getting them out because you actually,
you have to help them egress. You have to be aware of what
time it is because they have a helicopter they got to get to
and they're trusting you to get them to that helicopter on time.
You have different types of paperwork, different types of
financials you're dealing with, so it does differ a lot.
(52:47):
So it just they took a bunch of club people and thought it'd
work and it did not. Yeah, but they're doing great
now. Like we said, love, love the
guys, love the show. You know, I wanna say, Miss
Johnny, I mean, it's not like again, there's nothing personal.
We all just, yeah, it's just a crazy environment.
So that's a crazy. So you got any more crazy
(53:07):
stories? Something from Asia, some of the
some of the things you've seen over there before I wrap up and
get out of here. I've been put on pretty gnarly
spots. Like obviously, yeah, there's,
you know, all these kind of trauma experiences, but like,
I've been in like literal life or death situations in that
aspect and that, like, people get really fucking wasted.
(53:29):
People are drunk as hell and when they can't have their way,
especially when they're, you know, people who are throwing
hundreds of thousands of dollarslike it's nothing they think
they don't. Which, you know, granted, they
do in that space, but like, you know, they can't get everything
they want. We still have to you know,
there's ways. You know, we operate things.
(53:51):
And at one point I, this guy wasso pissed he took his champagne
bottle, snapped it on the table and just put it up to my neck.
And I'm just that's why. Which is impressive.
Break A champagne bottle too. But but when you're putting that
moment, I'm just like, holy I. I froze.
And luckily I have security on me.
(54:12):
I I had an assistant. I would walk around with me, you
know, all of it just kind of went down and everything was
handled very quickly. But when you put in that
situation, holy, I was frozen like I thought I was.
You know, I saw my life flash before me in a music festival.
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, there's been
pretty stressful situations in that aspect, but most of the
(54:33):
stressful things that I rememberare operational disasters.
Um, I'm sure a fair share of people in production can share
the same sentiment about a, uh, a glorious group of three people
who makes her life so easy with three three dots.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the Mafia.
(54:54):
The Swedish House Mafia is uh, yeah, we've we've been cancelled
by them on the day of the show, which, you know, that was
catastrophe. I don't know.
There's just so. Yeah, we paid like $1,000,000
for those fools. Yeah, just to get them on the
show, to get cancelled on the day of we thought there was
gonna be a riot and stuff. Like, you know, when, when when
(55:18):
we talked about a Stampede of 60,000 people coming at you,
it's real. Like we set up barricades, we
increased security, We had exit routes like people, you know, it
it gets nasty sometimes when people are angry.
People are, man, you can't stop that.
That's the biggest Yeah, that's the toughest thing to stop.
(55:41):
Yeah, so you know, despite all those things though, like we
said in our journey though, it'sbeen looking up.
We got a lot more shows now. It's been tough, but we got a
lot more cool shows coming up, cool shows.
We got a lot of cool projects, something things we can't touch.
Yeah, Speaking of your shirt, man.
When we were young, dude, the lineup is absolutely sick.
(56:02):
Sick next year or this year likeBlink 182 and green?
Day and Blink 182 are headlining.
Where's the tickets? Like a grand already sold out.
They they sold out instantly. But to know that we could be
something a part of that is super cool.
Yeah, you know and like you said, that's why I get merged
from every. Show and are they doing, are
these the festivals they're going to keep doing?
Yes, the same, the same people that did lovers and friends as
(56:24):
well. And it's a similar lineup for
lovers and friends with like theOld School, Nineties Nostalgia,
and R&B. The cabanas are beautiful, by
the way. Yeah, there's.
That's great. Yeah.
Musuki, we love you. Love you too.
Thank you so much for being on here.
It was a treat as always. I look forward to all we have
going on. I look forward to keeping
everybody. Updated so much and is.
(56:44):
There anything you want to plug your socials or any events that
you have coming up or? I guess our industry is just so
internal that there's not too much, you know?
Yeah, it's he knows, he knows. But.
You know the partner that I mentioned earlier that my
business partner shout out Newman Law love him to death.
(57:05):
He's been awesome. He's my guy, too.
Newman Law, Watermelon Expertise, he's he's a very big
part of what we do as well with a lot of our future ventures.
But you know Mizuk, again, we appreciate you.
Thank you. That was the chaos.
Join us next time.
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