← Dream Life Club
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome Dan Smalls to the Dream Life Club podcast. It is so great to have you on, and I am so excited to share you with our audience today.
- [00:09]
B
I'm excited to be here anytime I get to talk to others about my journey and hopefully have some nuggets of wisdom that came out of what I've learned all these years. It's a super fun day for me.
- [00:19]
A
Thank you so much and for sharing your time and wisdom. We're going to get so much out of this. I can't wait. Okay, so first tell me you have been. You have now been called one of the top 100 promoters in the world, concert promoters in the world. And I want to know how this story. I want to know how this story started. If I understand correctly, you were a kid from the Catskills, and now you're one of the top promoters in the world. Tell us the origin story.
- [00:46]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's very funny. I grew up in the Dirty Dancing Catskills, I like to say, and most people who've seen that movie know exactly what I'm talking about. All those hotels were there, but it was also seven miles from where Woodstock happened. And I was born in 1970, so my folks were there. I was not conceived there like many other people were, but they were at Woodstock. My dad had a motorcycle, so they went in and out. But, you know, I grew up in a very musical sort of town. And one of the coolest things that happened is that, you know, I had such an affinity for great music. My dad was into, you know, folk music in that era, and he knew, you know, Arlo Guthrie at the Gaslight Cafe in New York City and stuff. So it was around me, but I never, like, played an instrument or never got really into it. I was a kind of an athlete and a kid whose school came really easy to. I was valedictorian in my high school and, like, a top five skier in New York State. But I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I got offered a spot at Cornell University, and everyone said, you should go be an engineer. So because I was good at math and science, I'm like, sounds great. Let's go do that. And my third day there, I was still a little homesick, and I was walking to see a friend on another part of campus, and I heard music coming out of a fraternity house. And I walk in, and there's the band Blues Traveler, my age, just out of high school. No one knew who they were. And here I am, you know, making friends with a band I start booking.
- [02:06]
A
Wait, what year was this?
- [02:08]
B
This was 1988.
- [02:09]
A
1980.
- [02:10]
B
There really wasn't a jam band scene yet. It hadn't really become a thing. There was the Grateful dad, right. But that's what it was.
- [02:17]
A
Yeah.
- [02:17]
B
So I got to know them, and they were my age and we were fast friends. And before I knew it, I was booking them at fraternity parties and pairing them up with other bands from the era. And I got offered. I sort of got confronted by the local version of me at the time, who said, why are you doing shows and taking them away from my nightclub down downtown? And I. It was the first, like, inflection point of my life. What do you do? Do I say, screw you, I'm gonna do this myself? Or should I come work for the guy who was me of the era, you know, promoter in town?
- [02:46]
A
Wait, what do you mean taking them away from the nightclub? Like, you were Dr.
- [02:50]
B
I was booking bands that he wanted to put in his room, but I was putting them in frat house parties and, you know, places on campus, like, nights that they should have been at the club town. This club was called the Haunt. It was a legendary nightclub in the. In the. In the time, it only had a 300 or 350 capacity, but we were so perfectly situated between New York and Toronto or. Or Boston and Philly. Like, it was the place we could get those off night shows with bands that were generally too big. And so I went to work for him. And before I knew it, you know, the. This guy named Trey Anastasio from Burlington called us about bringing his band Fish down to the club. And the first time they came, three people came to see them. Literally, it was like that early in the era, so we grew with all of these bands and. And as they got bigger, we started putting on shows in theaters around the region. And I really learned the business from John and. And he was a. He was the guy who was huge in the reggae and blues scene. So I learned a ton about music from him. And there was no business for Ithaca, New York, to have the best blues and reggae club in. In New York State, but somehow we did. And then he let me take. Take chances, you know, and get to know agents as they were coming up. I. Yeah, one of my best stories ever is I paid Pearl Jam 50 bucks and only 40 people came to see them when their first album had just come out. It was that early in the game.
- [04:09]
A
Oh, my God.
- [04:10]
B
Yeah.
- [04:11]
A
What an amazing time to be, like, coming up.
- [04:15]
B
It was crazy, you know, like. And then the Jam Band scene really just took off and so to. To. To tie my worlds together. One of the summers. So back up and say I went from a 4.0 straight A student to a 1.7 my first semester at Cornell and realized I'm not going to be an engineer, but I should learn business. So I moved over to the business school and got that degree. But while I was doing that, I was working at the club. And one of the summers, I heard some news that. That. That some guys from New York City were going to do a series of shows with all of these sort of jam bands. The Fishes and Blues, Travelers and whatever, but also Ziggy Marley and the Band and bands like that right near where I grew up. So I went down one day and I found the guy in charge, and I talked my way into a job. And it just so turned out that it was the son of the legendary promoter from San Francisco in New York City, Bill Graham. His son David was in charge. Okay, I talked my way into a job there for the summer, and we put on a series of really cool events and became this fun place for New York City folk to come hang out on the weekend. Like musicians and artists and stuff would come up to this dude ranch with horses in the country. And we did these great shows on the weekend. I mean, Lenny Kravitz was there when he was married to Lisa Bonet, and they were around. It was just crazy, the people who were around all weekend and.
- [05:34]
A
Yeah, this was while you were in college or after.
- [05:36]
B
While I was in college, 1991. It was the year before, like, the Horde tour, which was one of the first tours of all those jam bands together around the same time that Lollapalooza became a thing and. And all of that. So the last weekend, Bill Graham, the father and the legendary promoter, comes into town to watch the operations. And it just so happened that his son David and all his friends were several years older than me. They partied a little more than I did. And I was just so into the job that I worked my butt off. And, yeah, I think Bill saw that, and he took us all out to dinner on the last weekend, and he. He says, cornell, get over here. And he calls me over to the bar, and he's like, I really like what I'm seeing with you. You're. You should come work for me when you graduate. And I said, wow, that is amazing. This is going to be so cool. So I went back to college while all my friends are interviewing for jobs, and I'm like, I'm set. I'm going to. Going to San Francisco. I got this great, great guy to work for. And the irony was he came over on a boat to avoid the. The Nazis in World War II and settled in Brooklyn and then wound up spending his summers, literally, in my hometown at the Concord Hotel as a busboy. And he started running poker games. And soon enough, that's how he learned to be a promoter and got in the business. So there's this great, like, similarity. You know, I've always sort of, like, wanted to live up to what. What he stood for. And, you know, he was a promoter who did things a very special way and cared about artists and cared about taking care of the fans. Like, you would hand an apple out on the way into every band or whatever. Just had these great little extra touches that made it really special. And I think I learned a lot from him. And the sad part was, about a month before I graduated college, he was in a helicopter going to see Huey Lewis in Golden Gate park, and they clipped a wire and the helicopter crashed and he passed away. So my job never came to be.
- [07:23]
A
Oh, God, no. Okay, so when. So. Oh, my gosh. So you just kind of gleaned from him then, like, looking at what he had done over his career, and you never actually got to work for him?
- [07:35]
B
No, I mean, outside of that summer. But, I mean, he was around and, you know, there's some funny stories that he's told. And, you know, I think that weekend the sheriff came and was giving us grief, and I just went over him, was like, joe, I've known you my whole life. And Bill saw that, and he was like. He just saw a lot of me in him, which was. Which is one of the coolest things that's ever happened. I did never get to work for him, but it sort of felt like a vindicating moment of, okay, maybe I can do this with my. With my career. You know, maybe there is room for me in this giant world of corporations, you know?
- [08:06]
A
Right. Because you. Okay. And then since then, you've stayed totally independent.
- [08:12]
B
Yeah. So what happened next was I didn't know what to do, and I stayed at the Haunt for another year, and all these jam bands were getting bigger, and the fish shows were in 2,000 and 3,000 seat rooms. But I had also helped Spin Doctors and other bands like that, and. And I. And through them get. They. They all got record deals and they were putting albums out. So I got offered a job at Columbia Records in New York City, and I took that job in 93 and I went down to New York and you know the thinking, I'm gonna be the Frank Sinatra song, I'm gonna make it there, whatever. And I quickly realized that I had a different soul for music. It was, it was the era of shipping tons of CDs and, and the album charts were based on what was shipped, not what was sold. And it just felt very corporate in like this bean counting world. And it didn't ring true to me. And I happened to meet a young woman from Boston and said, okay, I'm gonna quit this job and move to Boston and see if I can get in the business out there.
- [09:02]
A
Okay.
- [09:03]
B
And so that was the second.
- [09:04]
A
You mean a love interest that took you to Boston?
- [09:06]
B
Yeah, yeah. Kind of like goodwill hunting, right? I gotta see about a girl. I went to Boston and gotta see
- [09:11]
A
a girl love that.
- [09:12]
B
Yeah, exactly. I, I, so I, I taught, I got a job there booking a band that, that had a terrible name, but it was a really cool pop band called Angry Salad.
- [09:23]
A
Okay.
- [09:24]
B
It was the era of all those like, sort of, sort of what I call pop is that sort of like, you know, upbeat alternative rock era. And yeah, while I was booking them, there were all these young bands that we work with, the artist development reps at different labels. At this company I work for called the Planetary Group, I was booking little mini tours for these bands that were on EMI and Columbia or Capital and other albums like that. And I can say that I booked five for Fighting and Marcy Playground and Train and, and this band called Kara's Flowers that changed their name to maroon five in hundred seat rooms for $100 a night. You know, when I was 20, whatever years old, very cool era, but also kind of peripheral to where my soul and my heart was. You know, the, I wasn't promoting shows. I was, you know, basically a booking agent at the time. Time. And it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't for lack of trying. But we were sharing office space with another promoter at that time. And the gentleman I worked for did the promotion for that company. And the company was called Great Northeast Productions. The guy's name was Dave Werland. And by getting to know him, he said, well, maybe you should come work for me and you can be a talent buyer and we'll produce shows together. So it was a pretty easy transition back to being a concert promoter. And so I worked for him starting in 1996. And our claim to fame was not the 150 or 200 shows we did a year, but we were based in Boston but we did most of our shows in the surrounding areas because there was this this guy named Don Law, who'd been there forever, was one of the biggest promoters. And every city had a guy like that. And we were sort of the little mini thorn in his behind. You know, we do a show every once in a while in Boston. But the majority of what we did was Portland and Burlington and Portsmouth and all in Providence and all the surrounding mini cities around Boston. But our claim to fame was that we both had this Fish connection and Dave had a much bigger one than me. So we started to produce their end of summer tour camping festivals.
- [11:20]
A
And now this is to produce the Fish End of Summer tour right in their.
- [11:25]
B
In their festivals. And this was the era before Coachella and Bonnaroo. None of those had happened. And Fish would end their summer tour with a two or three day event in the Northeast US that the first year was called the Clifford Ball. We did it in Plattsburgh, New York and we drew over 40,000 people for the weekend, which was really.
- [11:42]
A
Oh my gosh, now that was nothing
- [11:46]
B
until we watched the next year. The next year was 70,000 and we moved all the way to Northern Maine. And then the millennium one in 1999 was almost 100,000, I think, or a little more than that in Florida.
- [11:57]
A
So wait a minute. Is this just Fish or is this like a festival? Just fish.
- [12:02]
B
They were at the peak of their popularity.
- [12:04]
A
Yeah.
- [12:05]
B
And it was amazing. Like, we would build these venues out of decommissioned Air Force bases because they were so easy to use. They had fencing and towers and buildings and places to sleep. And then they would have a Runway where we could park the cars. And next to this two mile long Runway was grass where they could camp. And at the end of it was this big open space where we could build a venue. And it was life changing. Like, the stuff we pulled off was really, really cool. And wow. Yeah, Lucky, lucky times, you know, like just stumbled into a situation that made a lot of sense and worked for another good guy, you know. However, like everything else in my life, things changed in the industry. Next. So you. I'm sure you and all your listeners have heard of Live Nation and they've been in the news massively lately with the Ticketmaster stuff. But whatever. Before they were Live Nation. Yeah, there was a. It all started with a guy named Bob Sill who had done the same thing with radio stations. He bought as many as he could and rolled it up into this big corporate thing. And he did the same with concert promoters. And it was originally Called SFX Entertainment. They bought Don Law in Boston and Delsner Slater in New York and JAM in Chicago or the one in Chicago and the one in Denver and the one. And even Bill Graham presents after Bill passed, all became part of this big corporate time. And the agents we worked with, it was, it was. No one knew what was coming. You know, no one's called it a monopoly, but they were, you know, afraid because everyone that that represented the act seemed that they had to work with Live Nation. They didn't want to upset them by working with independents like us and.
- [13:42]
A
Right.
- [13:43]
B
It really made times difficult. So we were lucky to have the FISH event, but we weren't doing as much as we used to because the roll up in the corporatization of the music industry, that was happening. Okay, it was an interesting time. How does that work?
- [13:58]
A
So, so basically like what became SFX Entertainment, you're saying like started to control all of the tours and all of the booking and the shows for like the major acts.
- [14:10]
B
At the time, you know, at the time, I don't know that I was. They didn't, they weren't there yet. That's where they got to in the end and that's where they are now. You know, there's still room for indies, mind you, because we're surviving. But at the time it was so new and novel that I think the agents that represented the acts were like, I can't piss these guys off because they have, they buy the entire Dave Matthews tour and plinking into rooms around the country. Like, you know, like, it's just things like that were, were what were happening. It was novel and new and I, I get it, you know, like I wouldn't, I don't know how much to trust this guy. I do 20 shows a year with Dave, but I do 2, 000 shows a year with Live Nation. So it just created this sort of new dynamic in the industry and guys like us were sort of, we were some of the casualties early on, you know. And then FISH decided to take a break, which they did for a number of years. So Dave and I came to the decision that maybe I should look for something else to do, which made sense. I understood where he's coming from. And it was fortuitous in a good and a bad way in that they were starting to build the Bethel Wood center for the Arts on the original Woodstock site right near where I grew up, which is now a 25,000 seat outdoor venue. And at the same time, my dad had been diagnosed with cancer and was sick so it was a good time for me to say, I'll leave Boston and go back to, you know, the. Seeing about the girl didn't work out, but it was great for my career. I moved back to the. To the Catskills for a while and helped get Bethel woods off the ground. And then when that contract was up, my. My dad was doing better, but he wanted to retire. So I worked for his company, which was a contracting business, for about eight or eight months or a year, until we found someone to buy it and take it over.
- [15:54]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [15:55]
B
So I ran another business that I didn't know much about at the time,
- [16:00]
A
but what kind of contracting did that business?
- [16:03]
B
It did plumbing, heating, air conditioning.
- [16:05]
A
You know, so a totally different field.
- [16:07]
B
Oh. It made no sense to what I. What I was doing. I mean, granted, when I was a kid, I worked for him in the summers, but I.
- [16:12]
A
Okay.
- [16:13]
B
You know, I wasn't doing the business. I was digging holes and running pipes. You know, that kind of things.
- [16:17]
A
Right. Okay, interesting. So you kind of helped your dad take it. Like, you took it over from him and then sold it.
- [16:24]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Helped help them through it. I worked there with them for a while, and, you know, I didn't know how to answer the guy's questions. I found that the foreman was really, really smart. He knew the business, and I talked him into, you know, understanding that he could run a business. And he and his wife have been running it ever since we sold it, and my mom was able to retire, too. And unfortunately, the cancer came back years later, and we lost him about 12 years ago. But it was a good time to, like, reassess again, you know, and when I lived there for that year, it was not. I mean, it wasn't the cat skills of the 60s. It was pretty run down. You know, there wasn't a lot for a, you know, approaching 30 or early 30s guy to do. So I was in New York every weekend. It was only 80 miles away. Or I'd go back to Boston, or I'd come up to Ithaca where. Where I went to college. And I always loved it up here. And as fate would have it, I met my wife on one of those trips, and I moved. After we sold the business, I moved up here thinking my days in the music industry were over. And this was 2004.
- [17:28]
A
Okay. Okay. Interesting. Because then, since then, it's taken a big turn. Okay.
- [17:33]
B
Yeah. Well, what happened is I didn't know what I was going to do. So for the first six months, I was supposed to be consulting with the New owners of the plumbing business. And I was going to be down there one or two days a week. It turned into, like driving down in the morning and driving back at night. It was so easy every other week. And I was getting paid, so it was great. But while that year was progressing, the first place I ever did a show in Ithaca outside of Cornell's campus was at the State Theater in downtown Ithaca. And it was a 1600 seat building that's turning 100 years old in two years. But it was really close to being knocked down and turned into a parking lot because no one knew how to book it. No one knew how to run it. It was owned by a historic preservation organization at the time. So in what hindsight is a great idea, but at the time felt like the dumbest thing I ever did. I went and met with the executive director of the preservation company and said, hey, I'm the guy. I can fix this. Why not, right?
- [18:31]
A
Something in you knew you wanted to get back in and that was like, reminiscent of your concerts, maybe, like turning it. I don't. Okay, okay.
- [18:39]
B
But it was, it was, it was torturous. I didn't know the level of debt. I didn't know any of what I was getting myself into.
- [18:46]
A
So you like bought it or how does it work?
- [18:48]
B
No. So I went to work for the. The not for Profit to stabilize it. At the time, this is just. DSP is just a few steps ahead of this. But so I went to work there and I realized very quickly that they had no idea what they were doing and that my contacts in the industry were still there. I hadn't talked to him in a year or two. But all those agents, oh, my God, Dan, now you're in Ithaca, I'm gonna sell you all these shows, you know, So I had the credibility, I had the buying power, I had the smarts to put shows on. But the company that owned it was. So right before I moved back, they were probably about a million dollars in debt, which was, you know, manageable. They brought on a young man to book it who tried to be the cultural hand of God and bring in these, like, performing arts center type shows, which in some markets make a lot of sense, but in a place in the town like Ithaca that has Cornell University and Ithaca College, who do their own programming and have those same things and sell, you know, they're ten dollar tickets for these kind of things, you can't put the same show downtown for 50 bucks. It's like, I don't know. When you're up on Campus, like here, here's an iPhone that I could sell for you for a thousand bucks, but you can have it for 200. You would sell a ton of those at 200, but not at the downtown price. So by the time his first year was over, it was almost 4 million in debt.
- [20:03]
A
Oh, my gosh. Okay.
- [20:05]
B
And that's what I didn't know when I took the job, but I found out very quickly.
- [20:08]
A
Okay.
- [20:08]
B
And we went through the rest of that year and I booked a bunch of really good shows. And I realized at the end of that year that the historic organization was not escrowing the ticket dollars. So we got to the last show of the year, and they didn't have enough money to pay the act. So I was lucky enough to know some very wealthy local business people and banks who, who I went to with the, the, you know, the, the one weekend business plan and said, this is what we need to do. You need to help me find the town to give us the money, give us a loan to put this off, and blah, blah, blah. And two weeks later, we went to the urban renewal agency and got a 4 million dollar loan and did this complex, you know, property transfer and everything else. And we spun off two buildings downtown. Historic preservation took over this building called the Clinton House. State Theater of Ithaca, Inc. Was born as a not for profit. And we paid off all the debt, had a much more manageable thing. And I don't know how it happened as quick as it did, but I was very lucky to find the folks who believed in my model for this place. And at the same time, I said, you know, I'm. I'm going to run State Theater of Ithaca, Inc. But I'm also going to start my own company and we'll build towards a place where I'm the exclusive buyer for the room. And we hire an executive director to take care of the building. And over the course of about nine months, we brought that dream to reality.
- [21:27]
A
This is wild, Dan. You just keep doing like one huge thing after another. Like, how did you have the insight or the foresight to imagine what this could be and take the risk and go out?
- [21:42]
B
Yeah, it's funny.
- [21:43]
A
It takes a lot of vision or faith in what you see. Right.
- [21:48]
B
I felt like every time I was right at the precipice of greatness, I would get hit over the head with a hammer. Like Bill dying or the fish taking a break or what. Or the corporatization. This time it was that debt. It was like, holy, you know, what, what do I, you know, I took a job without them showing me. I mean, it's on me. I probably should have asked more questions, but, you know, I didn't know how bad it was, but I worked.
- [22:14]
A
But also, like, someone else may have just, like, quit. Like, you didn't have any stake in it at the time, right? Like, no, no. Have to stick around.
- [22:21]
B
Yeah, I didn't, but I, you know, I. It. It was near and dear to me. I love this town. I love that I don't have to be in a major market. So at the same time, they knew that within six months I would start Dan Smalls Presents, Inc. At the time, which was my homage to Bill Graham Presents, Inc. You know, which is his company.
- [22:39]
A
Okay.
- [22:40]
B
And that was 2007.
- [22:42]
A
Okay.
- [22:43]
B
And by, you know, 2008, I think I'd booked 62 shows. I had found someone to take over as executive director of the building. So the model I created is not standard for a building like this, but there was two parts. There was the. There was the not for profit that takes care of the building. And then they had a relationship and a contract with my company to book as many shows as I could in there.
- [23:05]
A
Okay.
- [23:06]
B
So. So DSP Dance Malls Presents started with just the State Theater, and there was a 200 or 300 cap club across town that I would do some shows in. In addition here, it was called Castaways at the time. So that was one of the rooms that I put stuff in. And like, by the end of year one, I'd done about 60 shows.
- [23:26]
A
Okay.
- [23:26]
B
And I probably explain.
- [23:28]
A
Can you explain to the listener, like, how it actually works with, like, producing promo, like, the difference between being a promoter and a booking agent and, like, how it works to actually get the thing going?
- [23:39]
B
Well, there's a lot of ways, but at this time, I was a promoter, which meant I took 100 of the risk on all of the shows I did. So every band has a. Has an agent. Well, most, you know, bands at the touring level, the national touring level, have generally have a manager who handles their business and an agent who handles their bookings. They're paid, you know, various percentages that, you know, they negotiate in contracts. So I would. My friends were at agencies, and I knew a lot of managers too. And. But. But generally the procedure is promoter talks to agent, agent talks to manager, manager talks to band, and then they come back through the cycle.
- [24:13]
A
And by agent you mean booking agent?
- [24:14]
B
Basically booking agent. Right. So that's the caa, the William Morris, but also the independents at the time, the High Road Tourings and the arrival are, you know, all. And they change a lot too. Like there's been mergers and splits and whatever. But yes, the agencies were where I had the closest relationships. And I think that's how I really leveraged the State Theater into a successful organization, by booking at first things that the town like, but also things that the students would come off the. So Ithaca is based at the bottom of the south end of Cayuga Lake, and on the east hill is Cornell, and on the south hill is Ithaca College. So we want to get the kids off the hills down into town at the same time. So I would book the Emmylou Harris and Arlo Guthrie and Lyle Lovett's of the World, but at the same time, I was booking the Nico Cases and Modest Mouses and, And. And bands like that, you know, to
- [25:01]
A
try and get the kids off Townsmen plus college kids. Both the interests, Right.
- [25:06]
B
Because, I mean, in a town like this, we have three economies, we have tourism, we have colleges, and we have wine. Those are the things that the Finger Lakes are known for. Right. We're the eastern version of Napa Valley or whatever. Right. Because of the lakes. So that's all there was. And I figured the State Theater could be. Could be number four. You know, people will come here to see shows. And people were being underserved in the other markets, the Syracuse's, the Rochesters, the Binghamtons of the world, the bigger cities near us. But for some reason, I was able to make it happen in Ithaca in the early days of DSP with, you know, doing 15 or 20 theater shows a year. And so this was 2008. Right.
- [25:45]
A
That's the time when Coachella started. Right. Like when the whole backlash against Ticketmaster
- [25:51]
B
started and all it was going on through that. I mean, at the same time, like when we. When Fish took their break, Bonnaroo became the big festival because most of our staff that did the Fish things went to work for Ashley Caps down there. And they, you know, as much as I wanted to do more in. When. When we'd build these events for Fish to go backwards, I always wanted my boss to say, hey, let's. We've already built it. Let's do a indie rock fest the next weekend on the same site.
- [26:16]
A
Yeah.
- [26:16]
B
And I think he was just really comfortable in what he was doing. So. But yes, at that time, the festivals were beginning. There was the. The few really big ones. You know, there was the. There was Austin City Limits and Coachella and. And all those were starting to become really big things. But I was really small again, you know, like just this, this little guy up here that was. But at the same time I, I, I had a mentality of how I was going to do it that was different than most. It was never, I, I've never from day one of my own company let money be the motivator of why I booker book a show or don't. It was always how can I give a better experience to the artist and the fan? Like when a show was sold out, I didn't just do it was on the writer. I'd call the manager and say, hey, what's, what's, what's Lyle into? Lyle love it. And they say, oh, you know, you know what he misses on tour the most? He loves to have a shiner Bach beer after, after every show. So I called a friend in Austin when they weren't distributing it here and had them FedEx me a six pack or 12 pack of his favorite beer. And I'd have that backstage. You know, things that weren't little touches that.
- [27:20]
A
Yeah, okay. That's amazing.
- [27:22]
B
From day one, that's kind of how we tried to do it. And the same with, with the fans. We wanted the coming into a show to be a good experience and not and buy from the, from the minute they look to buy a ticket, that's where you have to be perfect in my opinion. Right.
- [27:37]
A
You don't start like the fan experience during 100%.
- [27:40]
B
100%. There's a million ways to go wrong. And all you ever hear about is the mistakes you make. You don't hear about the good very much.
- [27:47]
A
Right.
- [27:47]
B
We focused on that from day one.
- [27:49]
A
And I think things did you do like you mentioned, Bill Graham used to give apples out to people in line.
- [27:54]
B
Right. I mean it was more so like never cutting the catering, making sure the restaurants that we brought food in were really good. Because I thought about these guys. They live on a bus, right? They finish a show, they might get a shower. They get on the bus, they sleep in this coffin sized bunk while, while they're sleeping there, they're driving to the next city. They wake up. Half the time they don't know where they are. And they go in these dingy basements of, of old theaters and clubs. It's not, I, it's not Xanadu like some people think, you know, it's not. So how can I make that better for them? You know, like whether it's comfortable furniture or just renting a, you know, little touches like that, you know. So we, we started with that and we've stuck true to it over these last 19 years of doing this, like, as I've grown. So. So the rest of the story is I was on my own in 2008, and it was. I brought on some interns from colleges, and they really helped. And. But it. It really became a thing. I had met a. I had a friend. We used to go to music conferences, south by Southwest and polestar&. And APAP in New York City. And I met a guy named John Sanders, and we got to be really good friends. He was the ME of Northampton. Now, he wasn't booking for himself. He was working for another guy that. I don't want to say bad things, but he was not well liked in the industry for how he treated acts. He was the opposite of how I did things. But John was his talent buyer, and John was an amazing talent buyer. And we would communicate over who we should book and what we should pay them because Northampton and Ithaca were very similar college towns and educated populations. And so around 2011, I started lobbying him to leave. I'm like, you don't like the guy? Come work for me, with me, whatever. You know, we'll figure it out. Took me three years to convince him, and in 2014, he was finally ready to make the jump, but he was not in a position to buy in. So I had to make an interesting decision, which was, do I believe in this enough to bring him on, pay him more than I pay myself, because that's what he needed, and then agree to, if it worked, to slowly start gifting him port, you know, percentage of the business. And it was a really good decision in that because we. When we merged, we just doubled business. And then once we got better at that, we doubled again. And it was just mind blowing to see how well we work together.
- [30:14]
A
Okay.
- [30:14]
B
So that dynamic really worked out well. And that I probably made the same amount or slightly more for. For. For, you know, half the company over those next, you know, seven to eight years than I would have if he could have bought in. It didn't put him in a bad situation. It was. It was a really risky choice, but it really paid off for us. So, you know, I still have that one extra vote in the company now, but we've grown from doing 62 shows a year year. We did over 800.
- [30:44]
A
And where are you doing these shows now?
- [30:46]
B
Like, yeah, so our territory is much bigger.
- [30:49]
A
Much bigger.
- [30:50]
B
We sort of. When John left, a lot of Northampton came with him to us. So we do a lot of shows in Northampton, Massachusetts. We have clubs there we have theaters there. We do, you know, we have exclusive relationships with about a dozen rooms where we book 100% of the shows. And this goes back to your question about how we do it. The majority of our business, I'd say 60 to 65% of our business, we take 100% of the risk. We rent the room or we have the exclusive in the room. We pay rent, we pay advertising, security. You name it, we're paying it. We, we bet that it's. When people ask me what I do, I say, I gamble for your enjoyment. I'm a professional. I bet that X people will pay X dollars to see X act on X night and X City. There's a lot of X's in there. And you know, luckily we're right about 85% of the time. So we've grown to, you know, 65 is set.
- [31:40]
A
You never ask the bands to take, like, have a, take the, take any portion of the risk if they don't sell a certain number of tickets.
- [31:47]
B
It's not really like that anymore. You know, I mean, we do have relationships like that with some acts where we'll do a split of the gross or the net. Excuse me, at the end.
- [31:55]
A
Okay.
- [31:56]
B
But you know, nobody cares about me or my name on a poster. They care about the band. Right? That's the important part. But so just to go back, to answer your question, then I'll come back to more of the methodology. But we, we work from Boston to Buffalo. We work down in the Hudson Valley. You know, probably 450 of those 800 shows, we have 100% of the risk on. And the rest of them are clubs where we have a signed contract where they'll pay us either a flat fee for the year or a percentage of the artists take to book those shows where they take the risk and all the reward. So it's a nice little mix of and. And we go from 200 capacity up to 10,000 capacity in some of our spaces. So, okay, there's a lot of diversity. And what we really pride ourselves on is the stuff we do in summer where we go outside to a place like, you know, you see these amphitheaters everywhere. But our summer shows are in beautiful spots where we take a field and turn it into a venue for the summer, like at an apple orchard south of Syracuse or at Treehouse Brewing in Western Massachusetts. And, you know, we'll do 20 or 30 shows a year outside, sometimes more at some of these breweries that are just that we really get to put our stamp on Them, you know, like, you. You show up to a place, and people want to get there three hours early, and they bring their families, and they have this great experience and great food, and then they slide into the concert venue that's attached to all this stuff, and it's really amazing, and it's really fun. And at the same time, we treat the artists the same way and that they feel almost like it's an off day where at the end, they have to play a show, so they come at it with just this. These great feelings. And the shows are always more spectacular, I think, than other places because they're not in some concrete building or. Or, you know, a place that you don't know what city you're in. Like, oh, my God, this is so beautiful. They show up, they get in an RV tour of the apple orchards, and they. You know, and they. They see the cannabis they're growing for their CBD drinks, and they. They get that kind of an experience. You know, it's like you give them a day off where at the end, they get to play a show that's really fun.
- [34:00]
A
I love that.
- [34:01]
B
Yeah, that's my Bill Graham way. Now that I'm big enough to pull this kind of stuff off, how can I add that extra layer to what we offer the act?
- [34:11]
A
So you're making it just an experience, really. Not just a concert, not just a show, but an experience for both the fan and the artist.
- [34:19]
B
Yeah, totally. And that's how you grow, right? So my growth has happened because an artist will come, and we'll get the first show with. With Band of Horses or something, and they'll be like, oh, my God, we've had the best day ever. So the next time they're in the Northeast, they want us to work in six or seven other markets with them. Now, there's a lot of history that we don't want to take it away from another promoter, but there are other markets to look at that they've sort of missed in the past.
- [34:41]
A
Okay.
- [34:42]
B
You know, that's kind of how it's worked, and it's been. It's been spectacular. And I will say to you that the motivating factor isn't the growth. It isn't the money. It's always been this moment, whether it's outside at these shows or inside of the theater, there's the moment that whether we made money or lost, whether it's 10 people, 100, 1,000, 10,000, where the act, the headline act, walks on stage and the crowd erupts. You know, that Moment, you know, you're a musician, you get it, and I'm an artist that's in the wings of the stage to watch that happen as much as possible, because that feeling, you don't think about how you did on the show when you see that happen. And like I said, no one cares about DSP being on a show or on a poster. But to me, to. To have that moment that's so unique and special and it's so motivating that. That the rest takes care of itself. You know, if you can create that synergy where one, you know, they're happy to be playing a show even if there's less people than there should be there, you've done something right. You know, and, and still it lets me be a guy who looks in the mir at night and likes what I. What I see, because I'm not trying to rip off the act or have two sets of books. It's just a little grow through volume, you know?
- [35:57]
A
Have you ever had a moment where you thought was like a huge failure that then turned around and turned into either a big lesson learned or actually, like, catapulted you into something?
- [36:07]
B
I think there's been a lot of those. Like, you know, losing my first job was a huge one. I mean, there was. Like I said before, there's. There's moments where I feel like I come to this place where you just get hit over the head. And where do I. Why am I starting over again? Thank goodness. This final chapter. And, And I don't think I, you know, I, I don't.
- [36:25]
A
What about in the final chapter, like in the past six.
- [36:28]
B
Oh, here. I mean, look, we, We. We book shows all the time that lose money. Now, sometimes we do it because we know it's going to happen, and we're trying to develop an artist, you know, and grow from small clubs up to things. But sometimes you book something that's a slam dunk and it's Christmas come early, and nobody buys tickets to it, you know, but you can't find the reason why. I mean, we had a. We had an actual. And. But, but those are the moments where you not only learn about your own fortitude, you learn about the, The. What you've created and how other people look at you. So we had a show last February with an artist. I won't say the name, but we'd worked with this. This. This artist five or six times. Always sold out, always made money. And we were doing it at the State Theater in Ithaca on a Tuesday night in February, and we Were paying them a large amount of money, and for some reason, we were like, oh, a fourth or a third of the tickets we normally sell. And we were upside down, well into the five figures, probably $60,000, you know, and it was terrible. And the other thing I will say is that when you. When the artists are on tour, they have a tour manager who does the business for them on tour. And that's who I deal with when I settle up and pay them money at the end of the night. So I'm backstage that night writing the check to the tour manager, and the artist who I know comes back. So we didn't have so many people out there, Dan. I'm like, go away. I'm doing business. I don't want to talk to you later, you know? And it keeps prying in. So I shut the door into space, okay? And I wrote the check for the full amount, because you got to treat the wins and the losses the same, and you hope that in the year you do better, you know? You know there's going to be a few of these, right? And so I wrote the check, and then I went out and I had a drink with this act, and we didn't talk. I said, if you bring up money, I'm not talking to you anymore. So we had a glass of wine, and then we gave each other a hug, and out the door I went. And the next morning, the. The agent called me and said, we ripped up the check, blah, blah. Said, he's not going to let you take the hit alone. And he reduced the fee by half of the loss that we had. So we shared it. And those are the moments that. I don't know if you've seen the movie goodfellas, but there's this line about how Henry finally had respect, and he never had to wait in line for fresh bread anymore. I. You feel like you've come to a place where people respect you to say, hey, we're in this together in this. And I never asked for that. You know, I. There. It just. It was amazing that it happened, and it's happened a handful of times over the years. So I always believe that if we do it right and treat people with respect, you'll be okay in the end. And then sometimes you learn that there are acts that don't do things like that, and they just take the money and run, and that's the nature of the game, you know? But if. And I learned this from my dad in his contracting business, like, you can't look at one job, and you can't look at one show. You have to look at the year as a whole and say, okay, that one sucked, but the other 800 were pretty good, you know, and there's going to be 40 of them that suck every year. But yeah, you know, hopefully they're at the smaller level of risk and the big ones don't happen like that. So, you know, it's hard, you know, because I liken what I do to being like a poker player maybe because you have to pick, you have to
- [39:38]
A
bake in a certain amount of risk or a certain amount.
- [39:41]
B
But what level are you comfortable? Right. Are you playing $1, $2 or $20, $40 poker or a thousand, two thousand. So I've come to places where, when I was, when, you know, when, when I worked for John Peterson at the Haunt, he would let me book my own shows and I would lose money on those shows sometimes. And I have to go to the ATM in 1989 and drain every dime I had to pay an act and live off a sack of potatoes for the week. Thank God his wife would make me dinner a couple nights. But I learned that lesson, right? And I have tons of friends who work for other companies. Live Nation, aeg, the big ones.
- [40:14]
A
Yeah.
- [40:15]
B
And I respect them. They're great buyers, they do great work, but they haven't risked their own money yet.
- [40:20]
A
And there's a different level difference of,
- [40:23]
B
of this business when you got your own skin in the game. And I think having had that from day one, I still am blown away by the volume of business. I think we did $15 million plus in ticket sales last year. And I don't know where that ranks us because we don't report our, you know, ever since Live Nation bought Polestar or have control. I don't report our shows anymore to know where we rank on the list. But back in the day we were definitely top 30 or so in the US which was pretty amazing.
- [40:49]
A
Okay.
- [40:50]
B
Considering a lot of the top ones were all those big companies and segments of them. So, so it's, it's a mind blowing place to be. I never thought we'd, you know, I still look at us as a small company. There's.
- [41:02]
A
Well, you seem to carry that like small company ethos even though you're not small. I think that. Okay, that's so interesting. So what advice would you have? Like a small act coming up, say like independent artists, like looking to book shows, looking to kind of maybe do their first tour. Like what would you, what at what point would you recommend is a good point. To, like, get in touch with somebody like you.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, well, it's hard, you know, because. Because the challenge with that. I love to work with young acts. I really do. And it's just. It's harder and harder to do so because at our level, the majority of what we book is an agent who's got another baby band that's the opening act on that. On that tour. You know, I don't discourage folks from sending me links to their stuff. I'm happy to check it out. And I will sometimes say, hey, go talk to agent. Because I don't get to say, I'm going to put a third band on this bill with. With, you know, these two bands that are playing, or. I. I don't get that opportunity very often, you know, so I don't have the power that folks think I do. And, you know, in some ways, even amongst the local scene in Ithaca, there are bands that think I'm the devil for that. And I'm like, you don't understand the business. It just doesn't work that way. But I have friends who do get it and want a tour. And I say, you know, you should talk to this agent at this agency. I think they'd really help you out. But those agents have to come see you. So for me, what I say to young bands is, you got to prove your. Your. Your worth. You got to play a lot of shows, but you can't play too many shows because then you make it like if you're playing every week somewhere, there's not. It's not a novelty to see you. And people like, I'll just go see him next week, you know, and then you start having 20 people come, and that's not. That's not exciting. Right. There was a local band here in Ithaca called the Blind Spot, and they. They could sell 400 tickets at their height. And I. I would say to them, why are you playing at this brewery and this free thing on the commons and this thing over here? Play once a month, play once every six weeks. Make it a big deal, and I guarantee you're going to make more money in that one night than you would playing, you know, six, 200 shows. You're gonna walk away with $4,000 in one night and then use the rest of that time to go play in other cities, you know, instead of here. And they learned a lot from that. You know, there's. There's a tremendous music scene here, and I support them as much as we can, but it's really hard, especially, like, you know, bands want to. I get it. It's, it's never been easier, though, to reach people on your own. You don't have to have a record deal to make an album. You can gain traction in tremendous variety of ways. You know, it's just, it's just, can you do it in a way that's not nauseating to the people like me? You know, don't jam it at me every 10 seconds. Like, trust me, we're watching. And, and if you can sell tickets, we'll find a way to get you on a bill, you know, and you grow that yourself, and I'll, I'll advocate for you when that happens. I mean, we had a show with a hip hop act years ago when we had a club in Ithaca, which we don't right now, but we're working on it, and it wasn't selling very well, and there were already three acts that they're touring with. I said, look, I'm going to find someone local and put them on the bill and see what we can do. And I found this young kid from Ithaca College, and he brought 50 kids to that show.
- [44:10]
A
Yeah.
- [44:11]
B
You know, and I gave him 50 bucks because he didn't even want to get paid. I'm like, here's 50 bucks. Those 50 tickets really made the difference for us. And I will put that, you know, I was, I say all the time, I'll put him on as many shows as I can. Because you worked hard and could draw some people and have it make sense. Like, it's not putting money in my pocket, it's making me lose less money. You know, that's kind of how I look at that.
- [44:30]
A
So, so if you have a band could, like, or if an artist or a band could, like, guarantee a certain draw in a certain city, whether it helps, then would you say, like, do, like, reach out to promoters or, like, who's the best person to reach out to?
- [44:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, you have to start with the club. Sure, they're going to get those opportunities, but if these clubs are doing a large enough volume of business, they're going to know a lot of the same people that we know in our place. Right. So you want them to be a champion for you with the agents they talk to all day, every day? Yeah, yeah, they want to know, because agents are always looking to sign someone new, but they can't be in every city all the time. So I, I, I've. There's been hundreds of times where I've said to Joe Smith at caa, you got, have you Heard of this band in, in Chicago. I saw them at this thing. It was amazing. You know, that's, that's how it can start. As simple as that. And then they go find you because I, you know, my, my time for, for, for reinventing myself when I say that this is the last chapters, because it's the best, best chapter. I'm doing it myself. I, I've thought, can I manage a band? Would I. You know, I. Maybe 10 years ago I would have added it to our portfolio. But we've grown so much that I have so many good friends who are managers. I'd rather say, hey, go work with this guy and I'll get all the shows in the northeast because of it, you know, and, and not have to reinvent who we are as a company in some ways, you know, so.
- [45:54]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [45:55]
B
But we do know a lot of people and can help, but I don't think we're the, the first line of making that happen in the ways we might have been in the past. Like Bill Graham could make an act. Back in the 60s, it was a different music industry.
- [46:07]
A
Right.
- [46:08]
B
You know, not the same. Now there's just such volume and such. So many corporations, you know.
- [46:13]
A
Yes. So you have Green River Festival coming up, right. And is that kind of. That what you were telling me about earlier in terms of like in an orchard or like a day long? Like, tell us about similar.
- [46:24]
B
Okay, yeah. This one. So this one had been around for 36 years when we bought it. And the guy that owned it was a friend of John and myself and he had a little indie record, very much independent and it was very much grassroots oriented sort of thing. And it wasn't. I don't mean this in a bad way. It wasn't like the most professional. You know, the fences weren't, you know, it just didn't feel like a festival at times. It was. And that's cool. That's what it was. I think our vision was to take it it several steps higher and we, we did it very quickly, which certainly cost us some financial strain. The first couple of years we had great bills, but we didn't, we haven't made any money on it yet. I think this might be the first year we turn the corner and if we can make money in year three of owning it, that's, you know, towards paying off what we, what we paid for it. That's wonderful. You know, I think that's what everyone looks for, but again, we don't let. It's the closest, I think we come to letting Money be a part of it because we have to understand the budget it in a. In a much bigger way. And you know, festival. You say the word festival and act is generally getting substantially more to pay it to play it. But it's a really cool one and
- [47:32]
A
gets more to play a festival. Usually.
- [47:34]
B
Usually because it's a flat. Right. They're not. There's no back end to the deal. You know, they can't come into a theater with 2000 seats and get guaranteed 100,000 plus 80% after X dollars or something like that. How those deals work. Right. So. So if you're coming to a festival, it's a flat amount and you have to be willing to deal with sponsors on the stage and stuff that you normally don't do. So this. There's generally a little bit of a tax for that. And the ticket prices are generally higher too. So I get it. I don't necessarily love it, but it is what it is. Especially at the lower level where you're paying bands almost 3x, you know, instead of. Instead of 1.5x or something like that. So okay, you're getting on those is a good thing. But I mean this is a three day event. It's relatively small and boutique. It's 7,000 people a day. And it's. It's. We. We got very lucky this year, you know, with Geese really becoming a huge thing all at once. They're one of our headliners. And then Charlie Crockett on Another Day and Spoon and Kurt Vile. So really cool there. Last year I think we had Waxahachie and. And Mount Joy one year and Cake and been just great level of. Of talent. But we've really worked to have an international flair to it. And I think what we're hurting the most this year is with the way the state of the world and the US government's bad rules is we've had three or four of our international acts have to cancel because they can't get visas or they're afraid to come to the US right now, which is just terrible. You know, it's terrible for the arts.
- [48:58]
A
I hate that. That's wild. I have a song coming out called American Dream and it's kind of about the death of the American dream that we all.
- [49:07]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to hear it. That's so cool.
- [49:09]
A
Yeah. And so I that love that you shared that and like the realities of some of these policies in action.
- [49:16]
B
It's the stuff that rounds it out, you know, to bring these acts from like you Know, tiny little countries in Africa that come over to the US for the summer. And you know, it's just, it's, it's a shame that, that they're not going to get that the width of the festival, the depth of the festival that we've had in the past, but we found enough that are here that are going to make it, it pretty cool, you know, at the same time. But that's the beauty of it. We try to be really round. And the goal of a festival is to come away from it with three or four new bands you never heard of before that you really want to check out, I think. So that's, that's our goal. We've certain, like I said, we've made it a different level. A 7,000 cap festival doesn't need video screens, but we do it anyway, you know, just to make it feel like you're at a bigger thing. And, but so, so to your, to your answer. Yeah, it's in a, it's in a park in Greenfield, Massachusetts. There's nothing there except for some horse barns and spaces like that. And we create a vibe for sure out there.
- [50:13]
A
And I think that's beautiful. I want to come out. Maybe I'll try to make it.
- [50:16]
B
If you're out, let me know for sure.
- [50:17]
A
Okay, I will. Last question for you. You've been doing this for 35 years. How do you keep the drive alive? How do you keep the magic alive? How do you keep being excited about what you're creating?
- [50:31]
B
Well, I told you that moment, I mean, the moment of watching the artist and fan connect is amazing. There have been a lot of little moments that, that, that keep it interesting too. Like, you know, I've got a, a son who's just turned 18 in February, and he's a recruited college baseball player going to play next year in Providence. So we're really excited for that. So the beauty of being in new markets really help what will help a lot for me. Like I, I'm not afraid to like, take a shot in Providence or somewhere like that anymore. That's really cool.
- [51:02]
A
You're so, you, you're still growing. You're still pushing yourself. You're doing new things. Things.
- [51:06]
B
Yeah, look, I, it was funny, you know, we, we met through the Founders Club, right? But I, I, I got the flu the day after Christmas or the day of Christmas, and I probably never would have sat down and done that planning session that, that they did, Aaron did. And I went into it thinking would all be about business, you know, and I, I wrote this I got the book here, you know, that I did.
- [51:28]
A
Yeah.
- [51:28]
B
Oh yeah. And I came out of it with like a whole new outlook on life and, and, and there's a lot of personal stuff in it and personal growth, but at the same time in business, my, my answer was like, why am I afraid to go in another market? Why what? You know, Live Nation would take that away from me in a heartbeat. Why, why should I be afraid? You know, so we'll, we'll roll the dice a little more in places we haven't before. We're working in markets and bigger rooms that we haven't as much before because I think we're a little more comfortable financially. So yeah, it's, it's exciting to do new things and, and I'm continually shocked. I'll tell you a quick story. A couple years ago my I, I, we, we built, I built a, a FileMaker database that we run our company and it's sort of our own. It started as a way to just keep our history of all the shows so we could see how exact did in X market. Now we do our offers, our settlements, our advertising. Like when, when my staff is settling a show in Buffalo and I'm not there, I can see the same thing on my computer and help help them through it.
- [52:28]
A
Okay.
- [52:29]
B
And, but the point is that no, no, I lost my train of thought. The, the growth of the company has, has really put us in a place where we have to create our own ways to, to deal with it, I think. And that's, and that's the beauty of, of, of, of being independent. You know, you don't have to live up to someone else's sort of guidelines. You know what I mean? You can pick the shows you want in the markets you want. So I, I think the story I was trying to say is that I came out of this not being afraid of new markets. I, I've been in a guy who finds solutions to problems as they come up and, but at the same time being humble enough to know that we're not going to get all the shows. We're going to read the, the, the, the, the New York City emails each week and say man, we never get all the cool tours. I still get grumpy that, that certain things are playing places instead of for us. You know, it's right, but we're Ithaca, we're, we're secondary tertiary markets. You know, we're Northampton, Albany, Buffalo, Rochester. You know, they're places that no band has to play them. Right. A national tour is Boston, New York Chicago, you know, the big cities. We're the second leg, third leg, you know, and there's seven offers for every date that I get. So my job is to make it easy for you as an agent to say that I'm gonna play Ithaca because this is the best offer. It's the best people we know, the act's gonna get treated right. I have to make it easy for you to say, yes, we'll play Ithaca, you know, because there's other options. And it's not always about the money. It's about, like we said, how we treat people and, and, and the feeling about it, you know, it's. I don't know. I mean, I'm wearing a shirt with our logo on it, but I, I like, that was where we started. I give those to the acts or things like that. I can't tell. People have sent me pictures of. Of them with Trey Anastasio on Instagram wearing my DSP shows winter hat or something. You know, like, little things like that really build the brand, even though I don't think the brand matters. You know what I mean? It builds it within.
- [54:33]
A
You mean it doesn't matter to the public? To the public, yeah, but it matters.
- [54:39]
B
Why? If I just said, hey, there's a DSP show at the State Theater tonight, you should come, right? Like, who's dsp?
- [54:46]
A
Who's playing?
- [54:47]
B
Yeah, exactly. But within the industry and they say, oh, those DSP guys are pretty good guys. They're gonna do, they're gonna do right by you, you know?
- [54:55]
A
Right, right. Yeah.
- [54:57]
B
That's kind of how you go. Yeah.
- [54:58]
A
Yeah.
- [55:00]
B
It took me 45 minutes to lose my train of thought once, though only
- [55:03]
A
was not bad at all. I think that, like, growth, I, you know, to me, like, your answer is like, like growth and like continual, like, new ideas and new expansion, like, keeps you excited, like you are doing. You have the same business, but you're. You're focused on growth. And I think for all entrepreneurs, that's what makes it new every day and exciting every day, because you actually never know what new challenges are going to come up along the way.
- [55:28]
B
The growth is organic is what I would say about it. We don't sit down at our retreat, John and I, every year, and say, hey, we're going to grow this year. We just say, is this the. Is this venue working? Is that one. Should we do more in this place? Should we do more in that place? Like, it's. And then the opportunities, I, I can't tell you how many of them come my next call Today is someone who wants to open a club in Binghamton, and I'm going to probably try to talk him out of it because he's going to lose whatever he puts in it, you know, it's not a market. It's not a viable thing right now, you know.
- [55:56]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [55:57]
B
And that's a shame. But I, I, I, I think I'm successful because I know when to say no more than I know when to say yes. And it's a tough time, for sure. You know, in, in markets, we're seeing people spend less money this year. The gas prices are, are super high.
- [56:12]
A
It's crazy.
- [56:14]
B
It's a nutty time right now. So we're, you know, we're all in, but we're always eight months ahead, so I can't, like, dial it back. I have to, I have to work my butt off to get people to come out this summer. And I think the beauty of music and comedy and what we do is that people like to commiserate with each other.
- [56:29]
A
Yeah.
- [56:30]
B
When times are good or they're bad because it's someone else to share your experience with. And that's the beauty of what we do. And like I said, I, I just want to do that in a way that at the end of the day, I can see myself when I brush my teeth at night and be like, wow, I'm, I'm proud of what I did today, you know, and, and I didn't do it at anyone else's expense, and I've made money for other people and, you know, made a little bit for myself and, you know, my share. You look at Live Nation, they're a publicly traded company. Their biggest shareholders are Saudi princes and things like that. You know, my shareholder is, is, is this guy right here. You know, that's, that's who's my shareholder. You know, that. That's the difference of how you look at business. And you can still grow to a really respectable level. That still blows my mind. By being true to what, you know, what's in your heart and soul.
- [57:19]
A
Well, Dan, this has been such a great conversation. I'm gonna take your advice and send you some of my music. See if you can recommend.
- [57:24]
B
Please do I want to hear that. The one about the world that especially I want to hear about the American dream.
- [57:30]
A
I will send you that. Thank you so much again for your time and your wisdom and your story, which I'm sure has been an inspiration to everybody listening just to, I don't know, take risks, follow your heart, do right by the people Just so many great little nuggets that you don't have
- [57:48]
B
to follow how other people have done it. Because if you do, you're never going to be alone. You're never going to be different. You're just going to be the same. And who wants the same? You know, Like, I could have tried to be what other markets are, and I, I just. No, I, I, I create. Like, I, I did a talk a few weeks ago at this little music expo here, and it Ithaca, and I resurrected a TED Talk I did years ago, and it. And the whole story was like this. I just, I find it better to tell my life story and that the things I've learned come out in the stories of what I've gone through, you know? You know, Ithaca was a micro culture. We created one here that made sense for this market. You know, the same kind of thing that we're doing in other places. We, you know, I, like you said, no two places are the same. And, and being the same isn't going to get you anywhere, you know?
- [58:34]
A
Right.
- [58:35]
B
You're just going to get stepped on by the big boys.
- [58:37]
A
And do you feel like you also brought your, like, authentic personality into the culture you created? Like, was it kind of like your blueprint?
- [58:46]
B
I think so. I mean, look, from the beginning, I, you know, not to take this full circle, but it's a great way to do it, is that Bill Graham had a mentality for how he would do things, you know, and not just to share things from my past, but I look at him every day. There's a bobblehead that someone once sent me, a Bill Graham in San Francisco. And when I don't know whether to book a show or not, I sort of shake his head and does he say yes or no? You know, so Bill has come full circle with me in that. You know, back then, his name on a poster meant, I'm gonna go see this band. Like, one of my favorite Bill stories is, and I'll close with it, is the. The Doors came over for the first time, and he was in the Fillmore east in New York. And the first night everybody had heard, the Doors are amazing. I gotta go see them. And so the show's happening. The manager of the Doors comes in. He says, bill, I can't believe it. Sold out show. And Bill shakes his hand, says, what a band. And then the next night, everybody heard how great the first night was. There was twice as many people jammed in the club to see them. And the manager and Bill connected the back of the hall and the manager says, bill, I can't believe it. This place is packed. He's like, yes, another sellout. And the manager says, bill, there's way more people in here tonight. Bill says, no, same number, bigger people, same thing. So, like, there is a little bit of that sort of, you know, you know, hilarity that comes with being a promoter. But, you know, you learn from back then, though, his name on the poster. Man, I should go see them. I do want to believe that somewhere in their mind, we have a little bit of that going for us. Maybe not with the public the way he did, but within the industry, you know, because everybody wants to help the smaller guy.
- [60:25]
A
Right.
- [60:26]
B
Fight the bigger guy a little bit. Even if they're making all their money from the bigger guy, they still find ways to support us. And. Yeah, and I think we're very lucky that we have the relationships that we have.
- [60:36]
A
I love it. I love what you're doing. Thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for being with us today.
- [60:42]
B
Absolutely.