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In this month's Make More Money webinar, 6 industry leaders discussed themed events and fad trends (Taylor Swift party, anyone?) that offer:
Watch last month's Make More Money Webinar on Event and Tour Marketing here.
Jeb Banner:
Okay. Let's get going. Welcome, everybody, to the second Make More Money webinar sponsored here by Opendate. I'm Jeb Banner, the CEO of Opendate, excited to present this panel we put together. It's a fantastic panel. Some of the leaders across the country when it comes to running themed events, both on a venue level and also as promoters and organizers, so we're going to go around the room here, if you will, virtually introducing everyone. Everyone's going to share a little bit of their background and how they got into doing themed and unique themed events. I'm thinking about dance parties, etc. That's kind of what we've categorized them as. I'm going to start off with Chris Ring from After Dark. Chris, could you kick us off?
Chris Ring:
Yeah. Thanks, Jeb. So yeah, my name is Chris Ring. I am the owner of After Dark Entertainment. We are an entertainment company that produces concerts and events throughout Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany, New York. I also own a 500 cap venue in Buffalo called the Rec Room, where we house a lot of these themed party events outside of After Dark, still promoting them in other venues throughout upstate. But yeah, we started these primarily, I'd say post-COVID. They kind of hit the ground running pretty quickly when we were looking for programming. Maybe artists were still looking to get their touring schedules together or whatnot where sending an individual DJ out to your venue was something a little easier to control and route. You know, pre-COVID, prior to that, we used to dabble more in like the emo nights, not necessarily something that we consider like these niche theme parties. It was just a genre that I grew up booking and throwing like a once a year, twice a year party in that world, always did really, really well.
Now obviously, like I said, post-COVID, you're seeing the Emo Night tours and Emo Night Brooklyn, Emo Night L.A. And all these things kind of like, you know, growing, which is pretty cool to see. You know, as a venue owner, you're always looking for additional programming to complement the current booking schedules or even offset some of your late night stuff. So to see these themed night events kind of come out and be pretty unique. There's definitely been some unique ideas, whether it's the Shrek raves or the Taylor Swift nights or the Discos. It's been pretty cool to see. And like I said, definitely offsets or complements, you know, the alternative programming that we have with our weekly basis of late night DJs or the concert schedules. So it's been a welcome addition to my booking calendar from a promoter as well as a venue owner.
Jeb Banner:
Thanks, Chris. And we're going to be showing some photos here, by the way, in a little bit of some of these nights. So that's why we have a slideshow put together here. I'll take that away after the photos, so we'll get bigger pictures of the panelists here. Sho, could you jump in and share your experience?
Sho Mitchell:
Hey. How's it going? I guess you're picking on upstate New York today.
Jeb Banner:
That's right.
Sho Mitchell:
Well, Jeb, first of all I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on this panel today. Definitely grateful for Open Date and I've been on board since meeting you guys last year in D.C, so I definitely thank you for that. My name is Shomari Mitchell, I'm a music tech entrepreneur. I reside in Los Angeles, California, born and raised from Rochester, New York. I own Water Street Music Hall, which is a 1,000 cap room on our hall side, and we have a 400 cap small side to our venue. Our building is 110 years old in the heart of Rochester, New York. I am very proud of it and I'm a music lover. I think that in regards to doing theme events, I had a history. I started off a 15 year old doing guerrilla marketing handing out flyers, and I worked my way up to promoter to booking shows to just kind of different spaces, different jobs in this space.
So when it came to doing theme events, I think we started in 2020 and I think it was just like everyone else, we had to be innovative. We had to be creative. Artists weren't torn. The business was changing a bit, and I think that we saw that, you know, we had to fill our calendars, so we just had to get creative with brainstorming and we created some in-house themed events. We have nothing but R&B where we just do primarily R&B music. We have another themed event called Reggae versus R&B, which sells out, and then we do your Shrek Raves. We do silent discos and some of those types of tradition events. I think the thing that I pride myself about Water Street Music Hall is just having a diverse venue with events for everyone and that it showcases our community of Rochester, which I love.
Jeb Banner:
Awesome. Thanks, Sho.
Jeb Banner:
Jordan, Jordan with Higher Ground. Could you chime in here?
Jordan Gechtman:
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Jeb. My name is Jordan. I am the marketing manager for Higher Ground. We are an indie venue in Burlington, Vermont, south Burlington, if you want to get super specific. We have two rooms in-house. One is a 750 cap room. The other being a 300 cap room, GA standing room, so lots of flexibility. We do coordinate seated shows every once in a while, but in terms of the topic at hand with unique and themed events, we haven't produced much in-house. We've worked a lot with the Burwood events, you know, the Gimme Gimme Discos, the Emo Nights, and tried to tap into what works well for our community. We have a little bit of a longer history in some capacity, if anyone's familiar with Hyperglow, which I think is pre what we're considering themed events, but can kind of fit under that category from a broad perspective.
We have had Hyperglow in the past. College town, you know, that always did well and we even had some, I think it was called Wizard Fest back in 2018 or '19. So it's probably our start to this, I would say. But as everyone else has mentioned, it's really picked up in the post-COVID world, not only as a way to fill the calendar, but also as a way to tap into different groups of individuals. And I know we'll talk about that more later on, but it definitely is a really strong way to kind of bring together specific communities that aren't maybe specific to a single artist, but more a single genre and therefore a little bit more broad.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. I'm noticing an early theme here around COVID really being a forcing function, if you will, around accelerating these themed events when artists weren't touring. And I think that'd be fun to dig into is just how that dynamic has potentially changed as touring has picked up as well. Chris Copen from the Bottlerocket.
Chris Copen:
Yes.
Jeb Banner:
I know you're doing some fun stuff. What's going on?
Chris Copen:
Yeah. So I own Bottlerocket Social Hall in Pittsburgh, which is a 240 cap venue and bar. And we develop, I'd say, 75% of our calendar in-house, so we do a lot of themed dance nights, but we don't just do dance nights. I know for unique and themed events, we do Elvis Bingo. We've done movie parties. We've done Homecoming Prom, a Wedding Party. We do really out of the box themed events, and that's a big part of the business. So we started primarily comedy focused and we opened in 2021, so after COVID and we pretty quickly, or maybe it was 2022, I don't know, we're two years old. And, you know, the comedy business was great. That's what I really love. But then we kind of just had different ideas and we're like, what if we tried this? What if we tried this? What if we tried this? And it's slowly grown into its own wing of the business, which is these private, or not private, but these unique custom events that we build. And they're always packed out and they do very well. So yeah.
Jeb Banner:
Right. We're going to show some pictures here in a little bit from some of those events.
Chris Copen:
Yeah.
Jeb Banner:
Keith, Keith Richards from The Vogue and 45.
Keith Richards:
Jeb had to sneak in the last name. Didn't you?
Jeb Banner:
I mean, you know, you're famous, you're famous.
Keith Richards:
Keith Richards, if you want to hear some other stories, I'll tell you after the panel. You can hit me direct. I came to 45 Entertainment, who owns and operates The Vogue and owns and operates The Rock of Ruins as well as partners with some other venues in town and some other Indianapolis event producers. But I came kind of a different path. I was an agent for 10 years prior to coming on here, so I know the other side from like the Burwood folks and Chris was talking about of having properties, trying to get it into venues. Then I was in the live stream space for two and a half years with Mandolin before jumping on board here at 45. I'm based in Nashville, but operating in Indianapolis, so a little bit of a different strategy there.
But yeah, so this, you know, coming on board in April of last year is my first foray into really kind of understanding the need to keep the lights on at the venue, both for our staff and for margins and for profitability and how to continue to do that in new and unique ways that energize the fan base. But it was really good to hear Jordan kind of talk about how Higher Ground wasn't new to this concept. The Vogue Theater wasn't new to it really either. I mean, retro rewind, I've got a video clip back from 1997, which was the Dance Nights on Tuesdays at The Vogue Theater that just goes way back.
It was the seventies and eighties and then they brought it back for Tuesdays last year and it was clearly like nineties, 2000s types of music, so it's been around. I think that it's evolving and like some of my panelists, fellow panelists have talked about here, it definitely evolved and exploded post-pandemic, very similar to the explosion I felt when I was in the live stream space. I think we're all kind of just figuring out where it sits now, how to keep it fresh, how to keep people coming back, how to keep them interested and put on great events, so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Jeb Banner:
It's great to have you, Keith. Ethan, rounding out the pack here.
Ethan Maccoby:
Yeah. Hey, everybody.
Jeb Banner:
Can you share a little bit of what you're doing? Yeah.
Ethan Maccoby:
Hey. Thanks so much for having me, and it's really great to share a panel with so many friends that Burwood Media works with. So I'm Ethan Maccoby. I'm the co-CEO, co-founder of Burwood Media, and we put on theme dance parties all over the country. So we do events including Emo Night Brooklyn, Gimme Gimme Disco, Taylor's version, and Broadway Rave and our story is really very organic. My best friend and co-founder, Alex Badanes, we grew up together in England and we met when we were like one years old. We always loved music, and round about middle school, we started getting really into emo and pop punk scene. We would go to shows in London all the time, see all of our favorite bands when we weren't going to shows, we would throw some epic pre-games and parties at our parents' houses growing up.
And at these pre-games, like everyone else, we'd be blasting music of artists that we love, but instead of having it be kind of a background thing, Alex and I would get pretty ridiculous, be moshing in the middle of the living room, just everyone getting weird, singing along, having a good time. Both me and Alex moved to the states for college in Boston and we kind of kept this party going in our dorm rooms. And then we both moved to Brooklyn in 2012 and similar things, kind of epic pre-games at our apartments, blast music that we loved, jumping off the couch, rocking out, having a good time, everybody's singing along, very ridiculous. And then, you know, the parties started getting a little out of hand, so actually we went across the street to a bar called Cameo, which is unfortunately no longer around in Williamsburg. And we asked, hey, can we throw a DJ party where we played emo and pop punk music? And this was January, 2015, so it wasn't like emo nights were a thing really back then. It wasn't like a big touring prevalent thing in the States at least.
And so it was pretty unique and pretty novel. And so when we kind of created this first Facebook event and called it Emo Night Brooklyn, it started getting a ton of buzz. We had hundreds of people trying to get into this 100 cap little basement bar. We had only invited our friends, but it kind of just got bigger and bigger. And so we did two free shows in Williamsburg, which were just the most insane nights of our lives where me and Alex just drank beers, played music that we loved, rocked out, and so did everybody else screaming along to all our favorite songs, having a good time. And then after those first two events back in January, 2015, we got hit up by Brooklyn Bowl in New York and they asked us to host the party. And so we started actually having to sell tickets for five bucks to this party where me and my best friend would just DJ on stage and be ridiculous. And we hooked up with some amazing booking agents, Andrew Ellis and Jason Parent, which many of you guys know nine years ago.
And they helped us grow the party and spread it not just in New York and move that monthly, but we also started moving Emo Night Brooklyn to Vegas, Florida, California, and it was never meant to be a business. The goal for me and Alex was not to try and make tons of money or anything like that. We had full-time jobs. It was a side gig. The goal was just, and really still is today, to bring people together from all different walks of life over a shared love of music to have the best nights of their lives. And so with that goal, after growing Emo Night Brooklyn, we wanted to spread the love with new genres.
So we started Gimme Gimme Disco about five years ago, a disco-themed event, very much inspired by ABBA and other amazing artists. We also started Broadway Rave about a year and a half, two years ago, a musical theater celebrating show tunes, musical theater, and we also have a Taylor's version, which is obviously Taylor Swift, inspired by Taylor Swift night. And of course we also do tons of other events as many of the folks on this call will tell you that we've worked with. And so yeah, it's been an amazing ride and we're so stoked to be here to be working with such amazing people. I'm sure many people on this call we've worked with as well. So thank you so much for having me and really pumped to be part of the conversation.
Jeb Banner:
Thanks, Ethan. That's great. Well, let's take a look. Let's look at some of this stuff. So start here with Keith. This is The Vogue, and so this is The Barbie party, and I think this is an in-house production. Right?
Keith Richards:
Yeah. It was. And this is, I'll be interested to kind of talk very similar to what Chris C. was talking about earlier. We had a cancellation on a Saturday night in July of last year, and one of our marketing team members was like, hey, that's the week that Barbie drops. I think it's already kind of viral online, curious if we could put something together and see how it would perform. And it outperformed probably our wildest imaginations.
It was a sellout in advance for us. It was a viral, as far as like attendees there. We had a pink carpet outside for folks to walk into the venue. There was one of our marketing interns was doing pink carpet interviews and posting on social media. So definitely something that was really exciting to be a part of and experience up to that date. Our internal produced events, to my understanding, kind of felt a little bit like an afterthought or a scramble. And so to be able to do this and do it well and see it be a really big success both for the event itself and for the profitability of the event and the venue. It was great.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. Thanks, Keith. I just want to point out the little drink specials down here. It's something I think we'll see at some of the other venues coming up here. These drink specials seem to be a real hit as well. And we'll talk more about bar sales at these events shortly, but I've noticed that's a trend as well to have special drinks for these nights that relate to the theme. All right, Bottlerocket. Tell us about this one, Chris.
Chris Copen:
Sure. So this was our wedding party and kind of a similar thing, it was December, we, you know, touring kind of slowed down. We had an open Saturday and this is an idea that we had been discussing internally for a while. So we put it together and you can kind of see, so it was kind of a unique event. We had a wedding band that we work with a lot. They do different cover shows with us, but normally they're a wedding band. So we had them play for two hours. We had all the attendees dressed as if they were going to a wedding, and then we had a team of improvisers in costume walking around who were guests of the wedding. So you could go up and talk to the bride's mother. You know, they all had different storylines that they were playing out throughout the night. And then it all kind of climax during the speeches right around midnight while the band was taking a break. And then the bride and groom kind of made a very dramatic entrance. That's the bride right there.
They came out and did a drag number right in the middle of the dance floor. It was a huge hit for us. It sold out on advance, 240 people. It was packed all night. I know there was posts on the Pittsburgh Reddit of like, did anybody see the fake wedding at Bottlerocket last night? This looks crazy. It's probably the event we've been asked to do again the most. We're planning a destination wedding in July this year, June or July. So that's the next step. And, yeah, and I will say too, coming out of it, we had three or four inquiries to host people's weddings as a result of this party. And the wedding band was booked for five or six weddings coming off of this party. So it was a smash by any metric for everyone involved. And you can see in the picture, they're like, everybody is dressed up. Everybody was fully committed. Those people, the only person who was like a cast member was the bride in the middle. Everybody else just came dressed ready for it. And I can tell you about the next picture too. It's very funny.
This is another night we do. Very different from a dance night, this is Elvis Bingo. We hire an Elvis impersonator. And the idea originally was just I thought that those two words sounded funny together and they made sense in my brain as a party or a night. So we hired the local Elvis impersonator and we were like, great, you're just going to run Bingo and then maybe do a few songs in the middle. And then we quickly realized he couldn't read the Bingo, the Bingo cards through his sunglasses and he wouldn't take the sunglasses off 'cause he didn't look anything like Elvis without the sunglasses. So it turned into me reading the Bingo cards and him interrupting me. And it's very much like a two comedy review with me and this insane Elvis Bingo impersonator. And yeah, this is another one that we get asked to do all the time. We posted this picture on our social media a few days ago and half the comments were like, OMG is Elvis Bingo coming back? Is Elvis Bingo coming back? Please bring it back.
So it's another one we try to do kind of sparingly, but I don't know, we're talking about a world tour of retirement homes in the future for it. So maybe that's the next step. And then this was our Y2K Party, which is our New Year's Eve party every year. And this was really one of the first big crazy themed events we did. So the first half of the party is all nineties music and we're playing the 1999 ball drop. We have like a three hour clip of the entire New Year's Eve, Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve from 1999. And then we watch the ball drop and it's timed. It syncs perfectly with the actual ball dropping, but it is the 1999 ball drop. And then at midnight, Y2K hits, and there's like a whole video effect and the video glitches out and all the lights cut out and it becomes a blacklight party. And we enter the Matrix and it's 2000s music from midnight to whatever. So this is a huge hit for us.
This sold out in probably two or three days this year, and it's the type of thing where I'm mad we don't have a bigger venue because I know the demand was there for three, four, or five times what we fit in our bar for it. And this is another one that people have asked us to do when it's not New Year's Eve and just do in the middle of the year. So that is something we're thinking about next. And then I was thinking too, trying to think of unique events. I didn't send a picture of it, but we do a barrio cart, which we have a jazz band that specializes in video game music and they score a live Mario Kart tournament. And that is next week for us is our third version, and that'll probably have 150 people in it as well. They all do very well.
Jeb Banner:
Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, Chris.
Chris Copen:
You bet.
Jeb Banner:
Some really creative stuff going on there. All right. Ethan, want to walk through some of your slides here?
Ethan Maccoby:
Yeah. For sure. All those sound awesome, by the way. Very cool. So this is a picture from Gimme Gimme Disco. So it's a disco based party, high production usually, and it's probably one of our most successful parties that we've ever done. So we just had, this past summer, we had our most successful event. We sold out the rooftop at Pier 17, 4,000 tickets and people just, you know, we do it everywhere. So just to give kind of a sense, we do about 100 shows every month all over the country. I don't know when this specific, I think this is, I'm trying to think when specific image is from, but yeah, it's really an amazing event. People come dressed up in all of their disco attire. People sing along. People get on stage and confetti cannons, CO2, you know, depending what kind of infrastructure the venue has or will allow us to do, we kind of bring it, so it's super fun. Yeah. Last year I think specifically Gimme Gimme Disco, we did like 450 shows around the country, a lot of New Year's Eve parties as well, so a lot of fun there.
And here's Broadway Rave. So we started this party about a year and a half ago. My co-founder, Alex and I, are huge musical theater nerds. We were in all the middle school and high school musicals together. And so we love Broadway. We love show tunes. And we wanted to see if other people were as excited about getting together in a room with us and singing along to all their favorite show tunes. And it's been a huge hit. So we do tons of these shows around the country and it brings together a really cool group of people that you might not necessarily see, you know, a different demographic of people that you might see at kind of a Gimme Gimme Disco or kind of a rage event, so that's really cool. And people dress up as their favorite characters. People get on stage. And we've had a lot of cool special guests from Broadway actually join us at these events. So we had the whole cast of Hamilton actually join us at our last New York show at Gramercy Theater, which was wild.
And we've had a host of other Broadway and TV stars join us at Broadway Rave and it's super cool seeing them perform and also DJ some of their favorite show tunes and sing along, so that one's been gaining a ton of steam. And then of course, this is our original event that we started with, Emo Night Brooklyn, and so, you know, this has been going on for nine years. We just celebrated our nine-year anniversary at Irving Plaza, which was sold out in advance, which is awesome. We've had plenty of really cool special guests from some of our favorite bands perform and join us for this ones.
We've been really lucky enough to be part of When We Were Young, Riot Fest, and it's just been super cool being able to spread Emo Night Brooklyn all around the country and in Canada and in London as well, just to bring together tons of people who love emo and pop punk, and I think it's super unique event as well. You know, now obviously with Emo Nights being kind of prevalent, ours takes a hopefully unique twist. And then here is Taylor's version, a Taylor Swift inspired party, super cool, and obviously Taylor Swift is the queen, so those have been super fun too.
Jeb Banner:
All right. Thank you, Ethan.
Ethan Maccoby:
Yeah. For sure.
Jeb Banner:
And we also had some examples here. I think these are from Chris Ring. Right? From After Dark…
Chris Ring:
Yeah.
Jeb Banner:
... of drink specials. This must be from Beauty and the Beast. Is that right?
Chris Ring:
It was just a Disney…
Jeb Banner:
Disney theme.
Chris Ring:
... dance party, so all Disney music all night long. Yeah.
Jeb Banner:
Nice. Nice.
Chris Ring:
Yeah. It's pretty well and guests were encouraged to dress up and, you know, all the themed events that we do, we'll always do a themed food and drink menu. It just gives it a little bit more of that pizzazz. You know, you get people in there wanting their Justin Timberlake drink or this drink, whoever the ex-boyfriend is of the artist and things like that, and it just kind of turns into like a fun night. You know, we want to kind of recreate our room and develop it into something that's a little bit more specific to that theme opposed to just keeping it the same old, same old where if we came to a show one day and then the theme party the next, the room looks the exact same. We like to tweak it from a decoration standpoint, a food menu standpoint, out obviously videos and visuals and things like that to complement whatever theme is that night.
Jeb Banner:
We've got some great video. We couldn't do video here, but if you want to throw that in the chat. I know you've got a couple good videos, if you will feel like sharing those as well.
Chris Ring:
Great. Yeah. I just posted the Barbie one. I'll post the…
Jeb Banner:
Oh great. Yeah. Thank you.
Chris Ring:
... Taylor Swift one as well. Yeah.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. And then here's the Britney night. I was looking for the Toxic drink and I thought maybe you wouldn't do toxic drinks.
Chris Ring:
Yeah. So Britney was one that we created in-house. I mean, just like some of the other guys on this chat, we've created, you know, a bunch in-house to be honest. You know, nothing taken away from the guys that do this for a living, but at the end of the day, us creating a Britney playlist and things like that and then adding in the special stuff, you know, it's not that difficult. Obviously the routing stuff is the more difficult stuff, but kind of helping do the behind the scenes stuff, you know, create it or curate it, work with like a local DJ and use our built-in fan base and our social media networks has allowed us to really diversify and add to these special theme nights. We've done a Rihanna night. We've done a Lady Gaga Night. Madonna versus MJ Night. And it's just been a really, really nice addition to our programming.
Jeb Banner:
That's great. Thank you. I'm going to pull us back to just the crew here. So we dig into some conversation, appreciate you all sharing that. You know, it seems like the theme here is COVID really accelerated these dance party themed unique events, right, a forcing of the dynamic of artists not being on tour. As artists have come back on tour and they're starting to claim more dates in the calendar, how do you look at the balance here between these themed events and the more traditional bookings and nested in that as a question around is this the new normal? Do you think that is a thing where we look back and say, oh, back in the twenties we had all these great dance parties and then everybody stopped going to them? Or do you think they've got staying power and we're just going to have a new balance between traditional bookings and these themed events? Jordan, I'm going to start with you. I'm curious for your take on this.
Jordan Gechtman:
Yeah. Definitely. I think to answer the first question, as we get more artists touring and, you know, heavier routing in general, we are in a fortunate and probably a slightly unique situation. There's a few other folks with two rooms in their venue here, but we can host two events on a night. So let's say one room is dark and the other isn't, that gives us the opportunity to have a low overhead event going in the second room that probably would have been dark on otherwise, so it's nice. You know, you don't necessarily have to ramp up your production staffing or your security staffing depending on what it is and the demo that's going to be there. So for us, we definitely can balance it, which is really helpful. We are still probably averaging like it's not consistent that we're doing one every month. Vermont's a really unique market where as soon as we get sunshine, so May to like September, getting people inside is pulling teeth because you don't get vitamin D after that. So it's probably close to average one a month if you were to spread it out.
Sometimes that's two. Sometimes that's none. So it's not taking over our calendar, but they're definitely still present on our calendar, and there's a variety. You know, we've got the Emo Night Brooklyn. We're bringing back the Warped Tour Band, which is a live band, but it's Blink 182, it's Green Day, all sorts of tributes like that. So there's a variety of things coming in that speak to those different little like esoteric pockets of folks. And then the staying power of them, I think we'll probably touch on this again later, but at the core of this, more than going to see a concert, it's a party and a drinking event. Culturally that's what people are there for. You know, obviously you're brought together by a common love for something, but the expectation is to go out and have fun and probably not feel so great the next day.
So if you really lean into the drink specials and the decorations and making it that experience, I think your staying power just increases one notch every time you take an investment there because people remember it and they say they had a great time. Again, just as we're up against challenges in the summer, we have a unique advantage in the winter where things slow down. Things are quieter. People want to get together and have that sense of community here. So if they've gone to Emo Night, it's one of our top performing ones consistently in terms of like per head and just it's a really consistent audience. They've had a good time. They know they're going to love it. They grab a couple friends every time and boom, the staying power is there. So I've only have a few years of insight on that, but if I had a crystal ball, I would say the better the experience you make it, the better the staying power is.
Jeb Banner:
Thanks for that. Yeah. Anybody else want to chime in on the longevity, if you will, of these themed events? Are we at peak? Are we approaching peak? You know, I curious for the take. Go ahead, Ethan. I'm curious for your thoughts.
Ethan Maccoby:
Yeah. I agree with a lot of what Jordan said, and I don't think we're at the peak at all. I think, like Jordan said, people are always going to want to go out, listen to a bunch of their favorite music and drink and have a good time. And I think just the fact that Burwood Media has been lucky to be able to do what we've been doing for nine plus years now just shows that we're not throwing fads. We're not doing kind of shock value events. We're focusing on events that we really care about, that we really love. It's not just let's make a quick buck and do this crazy out there event that gets people's attention, but then quickly burns out. I think by doing something that you're really actually passionate about, you can find an event that other people are also passionate about as well.
And I think these events, they're a lot harder to put on than I think people think. I think a lot of people think, hey, you just get a playlist and you get a DJ and you throw it. But like making the artwork, selling the tickets, you know, marketing it is really hard. And sure, you could throw a Taylor Swift night, but why does anyone care about going to that Taylor Swift night again and again when there's just another Taylor Swift night? So I think it's also making your event unique, making people identify and love your brand, and instead of going to, hey, let's go to the random ABBA night, they're like, I want to go Gimmie Gimmie Disco, because it's amazing. It's awesome. They work really hard in their events, and so I think these can be a lot harder than people think to put on, especially if you're trying to create a long-term brand that people connect with.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. The brand side of this is interesting. So a lot of times the brand is related to the Taylor Swift brand or, you know, like sort of these other brands, but yet find their own standalone brand in time. Gimmie Gimmie Disco has a very distinct brand at this point, you know, in the market. Emo Night is another example. Kieth, yeah, what you got?
Keith Richards:
Yeah. Hats off to Ethan. The exact answer that I wanted to hear him say and thought was coming from him of like these are not going anywhere and we do them better than anybody else, so kudos, man. We are Burwood customers, so we know that to be true. But I mean in balancing it out, a couple things. Right? So Jordan kind of talked about dance nights and drink specials and getting together. We really had to lean into the sober movement mocktail situation over the last couple of months just to make sure that it wasn't so centralized around just drinking that you can continue to stay on your sober journey and still come out and hang out and have fun. And that's been a huge impact for us, not just for community involvement, for making sure that when we say that all are welcome at our venue, it remains true, so that was a big thing.
But even talking about, I don't even know if Ethan knows this, but we did Gimme Gimme Disco I think three times in 2023, and it just felt like maybe once too many for our market and for our venue, and it was a conversation of that we're not moving away from the event or the party, but we want to make sure for the sake and sanity of our marketing team that we're helping kind of naturally rebuild that demand for that event and not trying to overdo it and splitting our audience into different events. But he's right. We tried to take our Barbie party to two different markets that I would say that if I gave us a grade for doing that, I'd give us maybe a C minus. It is really important. It's really important. I think an MC is really important, and if you've got one of those in house, great, just keep, either that or a DJ that will naturally MC in that. So just all the things that you don't immediately think about needing to see this successful.
You know, I saw it incredibly successful at The Vogue in Indianapolis, and then we did one here and we sold it to a venue here in Nashville and it was just a dud and it was a little hard to be in the room and be around it, but it got our wheels spinning again, just thinking about what all it really does take and what we do in-house. And, you know, there's sometimes that you have a calendar fill that you need to pivot really quickly. I think the interesting part about this panel for me is that we're all what most would consider church area markets, not major markets, main markets. And so we're not always immediately on the tour routing for all of these artists, or we may be getting the second leg of the tour, not the first leg. So there will always be these unplanned, unintentional off Friday, off Saturday peak nights that we've got to do something and don't want to keep the lights off and the doors closed.
We want to keep the staff happy and making sure that they've got enough shifts as well as making sure that we're hitting our internal goals. And so there's always going to be the need for this. And I'm starting to understand more of where a larger party that has its own following, that we've done multiple times makes sense. And then where we're continuing to challenge our team of what's the next trending moment. Like what's going to be the next viral moment on its own that we can capitalize like we did off of Barbie? A good example is that Indianapolis is in the eclipse path this year.
It's a Monday, April 8th, and we were kind of like, how do we capitalize on this given it's a Monday and going to happen for all of 12 minutes in Indianapolis at 3:15? So we leaned in and we're going to do an Edward versus Jacob dance night that night and run the Eclipse movie and just, it's ridiculous and we know it, but you're hanging out with your friends that day, so why not just keep hanging out and long into the night and make it an event? So all those things that we're all learning and growing from, but don't miss opportunities like that to capitalize on for sure.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. I'm curious for input from some others on this too, thank you, Keith, on trends that you see sort of emerging or sort of one side potential topic, but also what's the alchemy here? Like you know, you talked about sometimes it just doesn't seem to work and sometimes it does seem to work. It seems like there's just this alchemy side to where when you were kind starting off, Ethan, just like, hey, this party just kept happening and just got bigger and bigger and bigger, I'm curious to hear some of the ingredients that create that alchemy, that drive the success of these events. Because obviously when that's not there, it seems like you get some duds, as Keith put it, and Chris, Chris, you have the hand up. Wanna jump in here?
Chris Copen:
Yeah. I think that the alchemy of it is really, I find that it is passion driven and people can detect if you're doing it because you want to make money or if you're doing it because you think it's fun. Right? And that leads through the whole event. Especially the Taylor Swift party, 'cause I'm always kind of in awe of them because that's such a passionate fan base and they are so militant on when they feel like they're being taken advantage of. Right? And those parties do such a great job of they're not doing that. They're doing it, and they're getting that community to buy in and be part of it. And I think that's amazing. I think when you do see the parties that are just like, oh yeah, it's whatever, Black Eyed Peas night, whatever, and this is just what it is tonight, that's in my experience tends to be the duds versus if you do the hyper-specific thing for the hyper-specific group of people and you get them to buy in because you're bought in, that works.
You know? And I've found people can detect it. People can detect it on the announcement. They can detect it when they're in the space. They can feel it, and that feeling is what gets people to come back. You know? Something we do at Bottlerocket is we do every month or so we do like a bad idea night, which is literally something that we've self-described as a bad idea, and that's where the wedding party started, and it's like an excuse of like, hey, this is a really dumb idea with a lot of moving parts that could go horribly wrong or it could be really fun. We did formal beer pong where we had a string quartet play during a beer pong tournament. It's like an exercise of us for silliness. And I think people buy into that 'cause that is coming from a genuine place of this is ridiculous. We want to try this. We own the venue. No one can say no to us, so…
Jeb Banner:
Yeah.
Chris Copen:
... you know, for me, I really think, yeah, that alchemy comes down to passion for it.
Jeb Banner:
It sounds like with a good dose of absurdity as well, it doesn't hurt.
Chris Copen:
That's how we tend to approach them. We tend to approach it as like, this is insane. This is ridiculous, like really going over the top. You know, that's something that Ethan talked about is like the high level production. Like the video components we do the drink specials, the video stuff. That's why we hired an improv team to play guests at the wedding, not just hired a wedding band. You know? Because it was that extra step that I feel like people really buy into. And if you do it consistently and you do it well, then when you have a weird, like we're about to throw a Mary Kate and Ashley pizza party next month for 90s month. We're doing a whole nineties themed decade. And that is an idea that by itself means nothing, but in the context of all of these other nights that we've done, we have that buy-in. We have that trust. People know we're going to take it seriously and it's going to be an elevated experience. So they'll come out for a party themed around people we watched when we were eight.
Jeb Banner:
Awesome. Hey, Sho. Curious for your input here. I saw you raise your hand.
Sho Mitchell:
Yeah. Just to Chris' point and Keith's point, one thing that we've been doing a good job is over the years is collecting the data and segmenting the audiences. We really have a big audience that really like the night out events so the theme events. So we regularly just email them and say, hey, who would you guys like to see this quarter or next? Or let us know the acts that you guys want to see. I think just talking directly to your audience once you're able to get enough data and build up a community, you can just say, hey, you know, this is what we're thinking about doing, or a silent disco or another Shrek Rave or what theme events. And then also I think just touching on a couple other points, the theme events kind of make you a better owner and operator because you kind of have to focus on the smiles more than the profits.
And one of Chris pictures, I think it was the Elvis, it was nothing but smiles. And sometimes at the shows you don't get an opportunity that kind of bring a community in and you don't get an opportunity just to focus on solely the experience of just others being together and celebrating music or a genre or a period in time. Right? So I think it gives us, as operators and owners, an opportunity to just really just be a part of our venue and just create these long-lasting experiences that are really special. And as we collect more data and talk to our audience, I think that theme events are just going to get better and better. They're getting more personal, and we're just getting better at just creating more memorable experiences for the audience.
Jeb Banner:
Awesome. Love that. I love the emphasis around community too. I'm hearing that a lot with this conversation of like people are getting together. It's like a community experience. Whereas sometimes going to a show, you're standing there, it's loud. You're kind of, it's hard to talk and that's great too 'cause you're in the music, but this is more of a community event than a traditional rock show, and there's value in that and there's value in that for the venue 'cause you're building loyalty. I think, Chris, you've spoken to this a lot.
People just want to come out and see what cool stuff you're doing because they trust you. We've got some good questions here. Earlier on, Samantha asked novelty timeline before themes can be exhausted and lose their sparkle. We've talked about that a little bit. I'm curious to dig into that more. I'm just going to read these through, if anybody who wants to grab them. Making them scalable versus keeping them niche. And then also how many flop themes per successful party. You know, Keith addressed that a little bit. But, you know, like the bombs, a lot of times talk about the wins, not the bombs. Right? But, you know? Anybody want to chime in? Jordan.
Jordan Gechtman:
Yeah. We definitely have had some bombs. I would say it's a one-two punch, one, if you do not have the market for it's not going to go anywhere no matter how much passion is behind it, no matter how much you love it. The most clear example of that for us was K-pop Night. We just don't have a K-pop community. And we could beat it over the head. We could put all the dollars behind it. We could bring in XYZ to market it. And it wasn't going to go any further than it went because we just don't have that community. So, you know, that's a situation where you could take it somewhere smaller within our community and make it more scalable, but for us, it didn't make sense just based on how it filled the room and then what it took in terms of our resources. And I think I would say with that, the marketing behind it is really important to helping it keep that shiny appeal. I think Ethan, I'll give you guys this, hats off.
Every time I get something from Burwood, the graphics are good. We've got video reels to go along with it. I've got a lot of shows on my plate. I would love to say that I have all of the time in the world to give every show I have that attention and I don't. So when I can get handed something that's really plug and play and goes that extra mile to make something special and help it succeed, that's really valuable to me. You know, I'm likely to use it. And also you guys have been really receptive too.
I will say we don't really run a lot of boost ads, but that was something that initially was coming over a lot was a request to boost something, and we just weren't seeing the success on that. To be able to give that feedback and be like, hey guys, we are going so much further with our ad budget just by running a traditional feed ad. And you guys were like, great, put your budget behind that, no big deal, it worked, really helped the two of us to work side by side well together and help those events succeed and get it out in front of as many people as possible.
Jeb Banner:
That's great.
Ethan Maccoby:
I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you so much. And I think one thing that's so important, just to harp on what Jordan said, is really working together with the marketing team has been so important, creating a plan together. So I'm glad it's been a really great experience and I know my team loves working with you too, so thank you.
Jeb Banner:
Chris Ring.
Chris Ring:
Yeah. To touch a little bit more on what Jordan's saying, you know, I think it's important for the agents that are selling these tours to really listen to the venue owners and the promoters because we are the ones working with the community. You know? We do know what the other venues already hosted a metal night or a Britney night, you know, things like that, so we're already conscious of what's happening in the marketplace. And then again, you know, it's our night that we're giving up for these events. So sometimes with the touring world, we as talent buyers get pushed to book something that we necessarily might feel a little uncomfortable with, but you roll the dice where when it comes to these theme nights or these late night events, working with the venues and listening to them saying, maybe it's not a good time to bring back, Gimme Gimme Disco a third time or fourth time in the market and working with those partners and not saying, oh well, if you're not going to book it, I am going to sell to the venue down the street. Right?
Because at the end of the day, the Andrew Ellises and Jason Parents, they're still agents. You know? They still got a job to do and they still have to sell these things. So obviously not just singling out Ethan, but all these touring theme nights have been relatively really, really good to work with. It's just asking to kind of a listen and work with the venues and trust the gut and intuition of what we think is going to work, and also the timing of the events. We've noticed that some events that are skewed a little late night do a little bit better. Some of the events that, oh shit, this should be better at six o'clock doors than a 10 o'clock thing based off of the clientele, all ages versus 21 and older. Again, just listening to the venues and kind of going by what they think might make more sense for their market. Not every market is New York City. Not every market is L.A. and just kind listen to what our gut is and roll the dice on one and hopefully it turns out okay.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. I think-
Keith Richards:
Yeah. I'll even compliment Christian on Ethan's team over at Burwood. We had the exact conversation while I was talking about Silent Disco twice this year instead of three times. I mean, he's got a job to do. He needs to sell that as many times as he can, but he listened and he heard and wants to see those events be successful. You know, we talked about bombs. We bought a Beyonce party. It tanked. We bought a new metal party. It tanked. And not because it wasn't sold to us well or had the right materials, we just didn't have the demographic. And so you live and you learn.
We did an internal like ski lodge event this year, not great. And additionally, I think that the Barbie moment is over. Right? So if we tried to do that again this summer, I don't think it would be nearly as successful as what it was. So recognizing those that are the one and dones, but they're also the gifts that keep on giving. We buy Taylor Swift nights. We do our own internal Taylor Swift silent discos. There's an Emo Night Brooklyn that Old National Center does in the market, and we buy a different emo night and they both play in the same month and they're fine. So there are some that just have that insatiable appetite and will continue to be successful. And there's some that you've got to, it's there and you've got, I think the more you continue to repeat as much as you can to make, like let that brand embed into the expectation of people that are coming out is great. And then you got to recognize sometimes that there's just times that it didn't work. We got to figure out the next thing.
Jeb Banner:
I'm curious. Thank you, Keith. I'm curious to hear from everybody here, particularly on the venue side, what do the bar sales look like? You know, I'm sure after that I'd like to talk a little bit about what advice you'd have for a new venue that's, sorry, a venue that's looking to get into themed events to get going with this. I have a feeling we've got a lot of people on the guest side here that are interested in doing this. So what's the per-head at bar look like? You know, let's assume it's a good night. How does it compare to a good night with traditional artists? Jordan.
Jordan Gechtman:
I went and pulled all of mine, so I could give that to you honestly. It ranges. It really depends on the demographic. I think if you're talking about like emo night, most of the people in that room are going to be 21 plus. It's, I think, also packaged as elder emos in a lot of the content versus Gimme Gimme Disco, they are in our two separate rooms, so 300 versus 750, you get a heavier portion of those 18 to 20 year olds showing up in there, for sure, more college kids for us. So we can have a $15 per head night in the emo night realm, or we can have like a $5 per head night on the Gimme Gimme Disco side. So it really depends on the demographic for us, and that is our market. I would expect New York City Gimme Gimme Disco is a completely different story for that. But yeah, we definitely have quite a range there. And also to piggyback, we do need to get probably more invested in some of the specials and that to really cater to it.
Jeb Banner:
Sho, I'm curious your feedback on how these nights do.
Sho Mitchell:
I'm sorry. I was on mute. Yeah. It varies depending on the crowd and the demo and the age. We've had, in some instance with themed events, our overhead is very low, so it's all profit. We don't have a talent buy. In our room we invested in a 19 by 19 foot LED wall. So on our theme nights, we like to double down on the production and keep people having a party that tends to have them returning to the bar versus sometimes with a tour or a paid act, we have our peaks where people are drinking and then the performer comes on and then the bar kind of slows down and tapers off.
So I think that one thing that I noticed with the theme nights is that consistency bar revenue for each hour. Our venues typically open from seven to 11, so we see solid numbers from the door opening all the way until about 10:45 winding down the night versus where we have a live performer, we'll peak maybe at like 9:45 and then we'll just simmer down into the end of the night. So that's one thing that I did notice regarding the themed events.
Jeb Banner:
Anybody else want to chime in?
Chris Ring:
Yeah. One thing we noticed is from doing a traditional concert where it's a two or three band bill, four band bill, some of the people might want to skip the openers, so they come a little bit later just to see the headliner. In between a traditional concert, the band's playing 30, 40 minutes. You have that 15 minute change over to kind of make your money. Your bar gets that rush. Where these theme nights, people that are coming out, they're coming to party. It's all Britney all night, all disco all night. So to me, you get a little bit of a longer window. People spent that money to listen to that genre all night long, so they try to get their little earlier.
So you get that traditional three, four hours to meet with a customer, then opposed to like a two hour customer window. And we used Toast at Rec Room and it's great at breaking down the per hours and things like that. And we notice that on these theme nights, we get crushed earlier and it kind of dwindles obviously as the night's going on because they're getting ready to go home. But opposed to the concerts where it's a little more even keeled or a little more like two hours in, three hours in is where we get the brunt of our business. You know, that's what we've noticed at least when we do the theme nights versus regular concerts.
Jeb Banner:
That's great. Real quick.
Jeb Banner:
We got, okay, we got two minutes left. Go ahead, Keith.
Keith Richards:
No. Go ahead, Jeb. I think it's been said.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. Let's do a real quick, any advice to a venue that's looking to start doing these theme nights? How do they get started? Do they want to do in-house? I mean, you know, what's a good sort of first step, low risk way to get going?
Keith Richards:
Yeah. I mean, because I just started it. The venue didn't just start it, but I just started it in April of last year. I think that it's about balance, about understanding your demographic of not trying to, a balance of when you not only do the certain properties, but what demo are you targeting and are you targeting the same one twice in each month. Be considerate of your marketing team. I mean, kind of like what Jordan just said, these are highly profitable nights for us because it's usually a low spend for a DJ or even a touring party that oftentimes will work off a door deal and get bonus structures as we sell more tickets.
We're a 21 plus venue, so [inaudible 00:57:54] remains high for us, but with the margins that we can see on when they're done well, we're currently going to hire an events manager. That is that balance between marketing and talent and execution of site ops the night of that is kind of the umbrella of helping make sure that these nights run and get executed swiftly. So I would just say try and activate off of something that seems to be garnering interest already in your market. Double down on all the entire themes. Like we've talked about, drink specials and promos, et cetera, and there's nothing that is too, like there's no bad idea. I just want to love about Chris C's thing. It's just like the bad ideas are probably the best ideas. Just lean into it and see what happens.
Jeb Banner:
Yeah. Chris, do you want to chime in here? I know you're a newer venue and you've done a lot of innovative things here.
Chris Copen:
Yeah. I think the best approach I could say for a new venue is just attack with creativity. You know? Maybe hire, do what we inadvertently did and hire a bunch of 23 and 24 year olds and let them figure it out. That was kind of how we built our team. And yeah, I think just not being afraid of the misses, not being too safe with the programming. I think when we first talked about Elvis Bingo, that definitely was like, that makes no sense. Those are two completely opposite ideas, but then we did it and it's grown into a thing now. You know? So just like attacking with creativity. Don't be afraid to be different. Trust your audience that they will embrace a good idea when they see it, even if it's branded as a bad idea.
Jeb Banner:
Love it. I love it. Anybody want to have the last word here? All right, go ahead, Jordan.
Jordan Gechtman:
Just watch your calendar. If you're in a college demo like we are, do not put a Gimme Gimme Disco, this is my opinion, on a college break. They'll do great and then that one will struggle because college demo is your demo for that most likely, or it's going to really help it. So just pay attention to who you're marketing to and where they are at the time.
Jeb Banner:
Know your calendar. That's right. Thank you all so much. It's been a great conversation. I think we can keep going for another hour. I appreciate you all making the time. I know you're busy running your businesses. Thanks everybody for attending. We'll be back again in February for our next Make More Money webinar. Thank you all. [inaudible 01:00:19]
Chris Ring:
Thanks, Jeb.
