Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hey everybody. Welcome back to gig. Ready, Jordan Goodfellow here real quick. Before we get started today, just wanted to say, thanks again for listening. You guys are awesome. We appreciate all your feedback. We appreciate you letting us know how we're doing. So please feel free to keep that feedback coming. You can send us
[email protected] or jump online onto your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Tell everybody we're five stars. Cause I know we are and we're looking forward to a great show today, but first off, I just wanted to say, thanks. You guys are awesome as professionals. Uh, I know we've been through a tough time over the last 12 months, uh, but as professionals go, you guys are the greatest in the world and there's nobody else like you. So thanks so much for being an event professional. And we're looking forward to this new episode of the gig ready podcast.
Speaker 2 00:00:52 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:08 All right, guys. Thanks for that dance. I appreciate it. Jordan Goodfellow here, gig ready. We're really excited about today. Um, we've got a very special guest with us from the actual local chapter in Oregon, the live events industry of Oregon, Dwayne Thomas. He's also the president and founder of Greenlight creative. They are a boutique event, lighting design and production company. He of course has been a lighting designer for 40 years, which is an incredible career. Um, and recently he actually became the founder and president of the live events industry of Oregon really long intro. But, uh, Dwayne, thanks for being here. Uh, really appreciate it. Looking forward to talking about what's happening in the industry right now and how people can, uh, get some help support and help support our industry.
Speaker 0 00:01:56 Cheers. Thanks. It's great to be here. Appreciate it. And we all said, you guys both got your sidekick there.
Speaker 1 00:02:04 That's and that's where I was going to next. We have a sidekick today bringing the color, bringing the commentary co-host today, Joe Mack of more than light he's here to help us talk about what the industry's doing and where it's going, Joe. Uh, so glad to have you here. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 Thank you for having me back. I had such a great time. Last time. I couldn't couldn't keep me away.
Speaker 1 00:02:25 Stay away. Well, where to start, um, you know, Dwayne, you jumped onto the, the board of the national board of the live events, coalition, um, being the government affairs chair over there, quite the responsibility, um, moving from being a lighting designer and having not had much work I'm sure for the last 12 months or so now you're lobbying on Capitol Hill, you're working on behalf of the events industry. Uh, what has that role kind of brought to you brought to mind the change, everything that revolves around that?
Speaker 4 00:03:02 Well, I it's, it's, it's a lot, um, uh, it is, it is not like about lighting design at all whatsoever, as you can imagine. Um, it's not like it in, in so many ways. Um, the business cycle is really different for, we have a very closed loop in our world in, in events. And so, you know, the curtain goes up at seven o'clock on, on the ninth, whether you're ready or not. Um, so deadlines are a real thing with us and although there's deadlines in governance, certainly, um, uh, there are so many ways to delay those. Uh, so getting used to that cycle of events, uh, and learning that patience has been a pretty heavy lift so far. Um, the, the other thing is, um, I put it to someone the other day like this. Um, imagine if we didn't have, uh, almost any access to a client that we're trying to sell something to, to sell our services to, but you desperately need to sell it.
Speaker 4 00:03:59 Um, that's kind of what talking to members of Congress is like, um, you you'll probably get the meeting. Um, the member probably won't be in it, um, but it could take months and, and your, your problem could have sunset by then, um, or, or the opportunity to get your foot in the door. Might've might've now just disappeared. Um, the other thing about it is, uh, uh, we, especially in lighting, um, you know, you get to look at the results of your work and go cool. Uh, and most always it's, it's, you know, something, something you're at least reasonably happy with it, if you're any good at it, I suppose, um, the results are almost always disappointing in, in government, um, advocacy. Uh, it's generally too little and it's often too late. Um, and I'd say the last thing about the difference and the thing that you got to adjust to is just, uh, how do I say this delicately politics is really, really dirty it's as exactly as dirty as you think it is.
Speaker 4 00:05:02 Um, just the back biting and the, and the, you know, one guy leaves the soup and the other guy says, okay, I can finally say what I was going to say, but I had to wait until he left. You know, it's just, it's really, uh, it's a pay to play world. Um, our industry has a sort of established lobby through NEBA national, uh, independent venue. Um, and the reason why they got so much done with save our stages was that they have that lobby was established. Um, we, we don't, we're just getting, we're actually, we're building the plane and trying to fly it at the same time because the need to fly. It is very real. That need for relief is very real that need for, um, uh, legislation that's going to help our industry is, is, is appreciated it's now. And, um, so we have no choice, but to bobble around actually still bolting the plane together, as we're trying to take it off, um, there was just no choice in matter.
Speaker 4 00:05:57 So it's been, it's been a, a very frustrating process to get to where we are. Um, you know, in April, we all thought we'll, we'll, we'll get a nice check coming our way and, uh, uh, you know, cares that came along and we thought, Oh, that was easy. Um, and ever since that, w we didn't know we had nothing to do with that, by the way, we all thought that our letters had actually helped. Um, now we know how much more focused our efforts have to be and how we, now we have a lobby that's actually 10 months old rather than brand new that nobody's heard of. Um, so the, the, the winds are starting to happen for us, fortunately, uh, based on that. And there's still plenty of losses, but, um, that's kinda the, that's kinda the difference and the thing it hasn't similar.
Speaker 4 00:06:45 Uh, the thing is similar about doing, uh, advocacy work and being a lighting guy, um, is that there's definitely a unique technical language that you have to know that, uh, and that has been a learning curve, like no other, I find myself, um, in presentation meetings, you know, with, with other organizations, you know, talking to an Eyelea chapter in Minnesota or something like that, which I do frequently now, um, I find myself saying spitting out these things that I didn't even know we could go and, and, you know, the onus is on me to sound like an expert. Um, but let me tell you, the imposter syndrome is real with this work every night you go, why is this me doing this? I, I can't be the only one who sorta knows what they're doing, but furthermore, I really don't know what I'm doing. So a lot of times you have to check yourself and realize, look, just keep learning, just keep doing the work. Just keep reading, read, read, read, read, read, and, and I have access to professional lobbyists. So I get to ask them just candidly, what does this mean? What is reconciliation? How does that work? And things like that. And just having said those words now, I realized it was only two weeks ago. I didn't know a thing about how reconciliation works or even what it was, or even that it existed. Um, so anyway,
Speaker 0 00:08:03 Huh. So that, that actually brings up a really great question. How did you even end up in this role? I mean, tell us what kind of things you were doing before, and then how did you jump into this, like deep than pool of, of advocacy?
Speaker 4 00:08:17 Well, I, I tell a lot of people, um, uh, folks do funny things when their backs are up against the wall. Um, so, uh, I rightfully or not rightfully, I suppose I do get a lot of praise and thanks from, from colleagues all over the country, and that's really heartwarming and wonderful, um, and, and makes this so much easier. But the truth of it is, is, um, this isn't, you know, a hundred percent, uh, something that you do, uh, out of this sort of kindness piece. Um, I certainly do care my industry and my colleagues and absolutely I want to raise them all up. But at the end of the day, uh, I had to go save my business and, and that that'll get you started in a thing like that, like this to me, uh, there was, there's nothing else I could have done.
Speaker 4 00:09:11 Um, but I, I started because, and by the way, I've heard this story from other state chapters who all have now funneled into LEC. Um, I started one morning waking up realizing this is late March and the order to closed down, it just happened. And we actually lost our first event, uh, back in, in late February, about a week before loading, we, we lost a large, uh, sales launch for Adidas. And so we had seen the writing on the wall, but really we, we thought it was still just basically the flu season, you know? So by the time the state shut down a third week of March, a couple of days after that, I woke up and realized, you know, governor's gonna open us back up, probably June-ish July I should. And that, that is what happened. Uh, and by, by us, I met the businesses, people know like gyms and restaurants and, you know, uh, not essential retail and things like that that were at that time shut.
Speaker 4 00:10:08 Right. And I thought, but here's the thing. Everybody will think everything's fine now. And it's demonstrably not fine for our industry because they won't open us back up and no one will leave an at bat. And I, or ask a question about it. I need to do something. I don't know what that looks like. So I started having conversations with what became the, the, you know, basically the, the other four founders of Lei IO. Uh, we started talking about who else can we bring into the fold? We started, you know, researching, um, all the health issues around reopening. Cause we thought one of our plans was to be in on the conversation about what reopening for our industry could look like and what measures we would have to take to even have an event. Uh, I mean we did things like go out, go out and find thermal scanners that people could put at the door.
Speaker 4 00:10:54 So people could come to the event and get their temperature taken. All these things that we thought were going to be critical at at the same time, we saw this guy named Isaac Rothwell, who was, uh, basically the guy that started the effort at LEC. Um, he's considered, uh, one of the founders, but he did this thing on his own. He wrote, you guys probably signed it. He wrote a petition effort, uh, in mid-March and, uh, put it on change.org, this, this kind of petition host website, um, and, uh, almost a half a million people signed it. Um, sadly change, won't give you change.org. Won't give you people's emails that sign the petition, uh, for anything less than I believe the price was 80 cents an address. So not having a $400,000, um, then we never captured those contexts. So we don't know who signed that thing, but the out of that came Elysee and that kind of inspired me to do something at the state level.
Speaker 4 00:11:56 So, and I, at the same time, I started reaching out to people at LEC, just any who, whoever I could find on their Facebook page. And, and it took a while. It took about two months and we had formed our, our organization. And we're, we're actually, uh, an official, uh, we're an, we're an LLC, believe it or not, we're changing, but that's another story. Um, so we, we got that going and our intent was to do some federal outreach with our own members of Congress here in Oregon, uh, and also do a lot of state outreach and find out what we can get done. Um, one of the things that we we won on right away was, um, uh, commercial eviction moratorium here in the state. So that was definitely useful. Um, and we ultimately became part of the engine that got the PPP rules to change.
Speaker 4 00:12:47 Initially, you only had two months to use the money and it had to be 75%, uh, payroll. Um, and we got that changed, uh, in late may. That was our first big win and a lot of what drove that was just going to our own two senators here in Oregon, who then go to their caucus, uh, on the Senate floor and say, listen, this is what we're hearing. And you're hearing this too. And that's how that got done. So, um, that's kind of the, the opening of the thing. And it, I won't pretend that I had this grand strategy to write, uh, for the national and to sit in on every member of Congress meeting. I did not think that or intend that, um, this all just sort of steam rolls and, and it has been, uh, it has driven itself, honestly. Uh, um, I would tell you that there's a good chance. I wouldn't be saying now cooped up at the house without this work. Um, it's not like I have any lighting to do so. Yeah. It's been a blessing in that way to have a purpose and a function
Speaker 0 00:13:49 That's watching from it, watching from a distance it's, it's actually been inspiring to me to see, uh, cause I know you so well. We worked together on Hollywood lights, uh, many moons ago, but it's really cool to see how you took the principles of your being and who you are as a person. And you converted it into this, this position of advocacy for everybody in our industry. And it's really powerful to watch. I mean, it really is just, just, just being on the sidelines. It's really cool to see. So I think you,
Speaker 4 00:14:27 I appreciate it. It's I, I I've said it before. I'll say it again. It really is an honor to be trusted with this important work. Um, and you know, uh, you, you fight off the imposter syndrome because you know that somebody has to do this and it's okay if you don't know everything, um, go out and ask and learn. And if you trip your trip, you get back up. Uh, but it, it, it is absolutely an to be trusted with the support and work and, and I hope, I hope we get done what we're, what we set out to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:59 I think it's been, um, I've been watching the LEC from the sidelines too, and it's been very encouraging to see, um, some of the work that's been done. I mean, it's, it's, when you look at our industry, we've always lived in the shadows. Everybody we're always in the we're the backstage where the people in the dark, where in black, you know, because the whole goal we're doing it, right. Yeah, exactly. It was for nobody to think about us. Don't worry about us. We're just here to make the show go well. And, um, you know, thank you for stepping out of the light or stepping out of the dark into the light and helping those that don't have a voice or don't know how to do it. Um, I was actually messaging through LinkedIn with the president at LEC just, uh, last week. Uh, uh, say that again, Nancy?
Speaker 1 00:15:46 Yes, with Nancy. And, uh, we were just talking back and forth a little bit about what they're doing and what they're up to. And, uh, it's just really cool to see all the great stuff that's been happening. Um, now taking on such a big task because it is, I mean, it's giant, it's, it's not easy as you, as you've mentioned before to lobby Congress or any sort of influence in that nature. Um, how do you, I guess, how do you manage this role of, you know, not only being your own business owner, because it's not like you're just, full-time getting paid to, to lobby and work with the live events chapter in Oregon or anything like that. Um, how are you managing both, you know, both from a personal standpoint, family, life, home life, and then business, and then also, you know, adjusting to really taken on all the advocacy stuff.
Speaker 4 00:16:41 I don't know if I do manage it. Um, if I'm honest, well, okay. I must. Um, so, well, first of all, there's not much lighting to manage right now. Um, after, after shutdown in March, I believe we successfully pulled out eight total events. Um, I think we, we had five virtual, uh, fundraisers that we got involved with, um, pennies on the dollar and mind you, um, literally literally like 5% of what we would have gotten paid to do the live event. Right. Um, but we didn't mind, we were happy. I was happy to give them my staff, some work, Lord sakes. Um, and I, then I think we had three outdoor micro lettings, uh, and that's it. Um, I think we rented a gear to a couple of people here and there as well, which, you know, ends up costing you more to send somebody to the shop, to open up and pull it.
Speaker 4 00:17:37 And, you know, you pay them their four hour minimum and then you, you get a $90 rental out of it. So, um, but you know, there hasn't been much, uh, to be honest. Um, and I did keep my, my business manager, um, uh, who's, I've worked with for, uh, nearly 30 years now, going way back to before I was at Hollywood lights. And before I, obviously, before I started this company, uh, Dina, so she is on, uh, like an 18 hour a week schedule just to keep, you know, uh, she goes to the shop and gets the mail once a week and starts the trucks. And, um, that drives around the parking lot and stuff like this. And, uh, she also keeps the bills paid and the lights on. Um, and she's been the, the engine that, that, that does things like help get our PPP and our IDL loan and things like that.
Speaker 4 00:18:26 Um, so it really has freed me up to do, I would say 95% of my day is advocacy and the other 5%, um, I might work on a proposal or something for a new piece of business a year from now. Um, and that, by the way, I hope that other people in our sphere are starting to see the outlook, um, improve. Uh, I think it's like, there's a hard line between June and may, right? Where there's nothing in may and all of a sudden we've got all these things on the books for June. Um, if you're in multiple verticals, um, you're probably just seeing the weddings we're at, we're in all the verticals we do. We don't care. We do weddings, we do corporate events, we do, uh, rock and roll, whatever it is. Um, and there's a war. The only thing we're seeing is people having weddings and the summer is actually looking quite full, but, um, that could all go away. This vaccine doesn't have it, but, uh, yeah, the bottling of, of the two things, I've, I'm fortunate to have a little bit of help and, um, a nice home office where I can hang out with my dog and just work away. And, um, yeah, that's how I get through it pretty much.
Speaker 0 00:19:42 So how help the listeners here, uh, understand the structure of the live events industry machine, the, between the coalition and the States and how many States do you have involved and, and, uh, and, and, uh, is, are all 50 States represented is my next question.
Speaker 4 00:20:05 Yeah. But, um, our, our three-year plan, and by the way, we're not putting this away when the pandemic goes away, this is going to stay. Yeah. Um, I think I hinted at that if we had been around five years ago and had, uh, already built the plane, um, we would have had very different results, um, from our efforts. So this is, we're keeping this, it's been too hard to get it going to take it apart. Uh, but so the way it's working now is there's been about a six month effort to get this formalized. And just yesterday, they got the final paperwork back from legal, um, uh, as to the agreement between a chapter state and the national Lac. So it'll look a lot like lab, you guys ever heard of the American rental association. So all rental houses like party rental places and so forth, they tend to be a member of this.
Speaker 4 00:20:58 And when you basically, you, you sign up and you, whatever state you're in, you're a member of that States chapter now, but your money goes to Lac, Bailey C will then kick the state's back, a portion of that money to help them keep their operations open States are free to do whatever they want, um, in their own state efforts, but we will be feeding out each state chapter, the national language. So if there's, if they want to talk to them, a member of Congress, uh, we asked them to sing from our hymnal. Basically we want to control the narrative when it comes to federal governance, but they can take on any project they want in terms of, of their own state. Also, we'll be able to offer members things like we are already have group health mind up. So if you're, if you're out there in the individual world, you know how expensive that is?
Speaker 4 00:21:52 Um, I know I priced mine out and it was about a 30% less than I was paying for my own individual health care. So we already offered that and we're going to continue with things like that. We're going to continue with, uh, seminars and mental health programs on next week, uh, on, well, a week from today, uh, we are doing, um, a seminar about, uh, basically advocacy one Oh one, myself, and one of our lobbyists and another one, uh, fellow on, um, on our government affairs committee is going to be leading that. So you can basically come and learn how to better advocate. What do you say when you're in a meeting zoom meeting with, with these people? Um, things like that. So, and there are, uh, there's an entire committee that's working out membership, um, um, details and, and how, what members are going to get for their $75.
Speaker 4 00:22:42 There there's people figuring out how to raise money because lobbyists are expensive. The entire reason that this is not expensive, running a coalition, by the way, the Oregon has had the same $2,000 from the bank for like six months now. Um, basically we've never fundraised. We all just chipped in some money, uh, on our own. And you know, it got us, our website up and, you know, constant contact, uh, subscription and things like this, but it isn't expensive to do it really. Um, but if you have lobbyists, that's different. Yeah. Um, those guys, uh, those guys seen you coming and, but you can't do, you can't do it without them. You know, there's just no way to get into a Senate leader Schumer's office, without them, you, you can knock on the door if you like as a little unknown, uh, advocacy group. But if you have a lobbyist that can open the door for you, because the guy used to work there, that's a whole different thing. So you, and that's again, you got to pay to play
Speaker 0 00:23:41 Now who, the, the lobbyists that are assisting you a federal level, you know, who, um, what do they specialize in? Are they just, they're just the key to the door or do they actually have a stake in live events?
Speaker 4 00:23:58 They don't, um, they, they have, uh, industry, group clients. For instance, my, I work with a guy. I work with two guys from the company that we use. Um, one is GOP and the other one's with them. And, uh, the damn guy, uh, used to work for a Senator, um, on, on, uh, chief of staff for a Senator and the, uh, Republican guy, uh, worked in the house for John Bayner. Um, so I get both chamber perspectives. Um, you know, it's a house strategy that I talked to the, to the Republican guy. If it's a Senate strategy, I generally get everything I need to know from the dam. And same thing. If it's a party strategy, my Republican guy, won't, I hardly talk to him at all right now, because you know, for the first time we hate to say it, but we're not really doing that much outreach to, to GOP.
Speaker 4 00:24:50 Um, because, uh, Congress is completely controlled by the Democrats. And at the moment, the efforts they're making are going to happen strictly on a party basis. Once we have an initiative, that's going to take 60 votes, that'll all change. Then we have to dig down and we'll pretty much only be talking to Republicans because we already have the 50 on the Dem side. And so we, we know we'll have to find 10 more so that they will, they show us how to do that, right. They help us, they actually call themselves a, a creative advocacy strategy for him. I think it's how they, how they term it. So they are in our committee meetings and they'll come and speak at some of our, um, member meetings. Um, they shoot us down a lot, uh, in particular, uh, I've had my heartbroken on a couple of things I thought we could get after and they, they they'll tell you no. And they'll tell you why. Um, and that's really critical. They save us from spinning our wheels a lot. Uh, the other thing is, is if you have something you want to get into, uh, congressional leadership, that's a, you know, majority leader, minority leader, speaker of the house, these things, uh, it's just going to get there easier if they send it. So they press play on a lot of our member of Congress communication efforts for us.
Speaker 1 00:26:11 So that begs the question to me. Then if we're, if we have to use lobbyists to get to a lot of these people, does the individual efforts of the constituents and all the States, you know, that the talking about, Oh, send your email to your Congressman or your, or your Senator, or send this or send that. I mean, I've done it countless of times in the last 12 months. Does that really make a difference? Do they really see the volume of that? And is it worth their time or really? Is it just to send it out? So you get the automated response email that says, Oh yes, we see you. And we care about you. I don't, I'm not trying to be insensitive about it. I'm just asking the question. Like, I mean, who's, who are they really listening to? And do they, are they really, do they care about the constituency and they're actually listening? Or is it just the lobbyists?
Speaker 4 00:27:04 Yes. Is the answer that they do care. Um, it does get to them. Uh, what you don't know is if you send it to the general inbox at your Senator or representatives, um, website it by law, it becomes an official congressional record your letter. Okay. So if you happen to know a staffer and you send them an email, that's not an official part of lots. That's a, that's just a communication. And they may or may not answer you. I have entire months where my own guys here in Oregon, just ghost me. And then all of a sudden they'll call me out of blue and they'll say, Hey, we have an idea. So what's like, it's such madness on Capitol Hill right now that, um, I can't sometimes even expect to get an answer, but to the single person out there in your state, it is absolutely critical that we keep the echo chamber full of noise.
Speaker 4 00:27:55 The more noise in the echo chamber, the better shot we have of getting recognized right now, would we like you to sing from our hymnal? Yes, we would. That's why we do letter campaigns. That's why we do petitions. Um, and when you see those, uh, please click them. It's easy. You're, you're, you're not going to have your taxes go up. They're not going to send, uh, immigration over to find you that it doesn't work that way. There are so many millions of these communications going on. You're what you're doing is you're elevating this. Cause they can see that their inbox is now full of this letter in a case of a letter campaign or in the case of a petition, we can go, this is how many people signed this thing. What do you think there were this many in your state, there are this many in your district, so forth and so on.
Speaker 4 00:28:37 So, um, it is absolutely critical that you do though, that of course, but if you were of the mind to pick up the phone and call your Congress person's office in, in your, in your jurisdiction, in your area, you don't have to call the DC office. In fact don't but call, call their local office. Especially if you know that the Congress is on recess, right? There's, there's no reason not to. You're going to talk to a staffer. And, and they're often, uh, right now, because of COVID, you're not gonna talk to anybody. You're gonna leave a message and you may get a call back, but in your message, say the problem say what's going on. Talk about 12 million people who are impacted by this talk about the over a million businesses, small businesses, mostly that are getting crushed and have been forgotten. Talk about the fact that, you know, save our stage is only 8% of our industry.
Speaker 4 00:29:29 The rest of us are in the exact same condition, but we're out in the cold. So it, congratulations, Congress, you just picked winners and losers and you're not supposed to do that. So yeah, absolutely no, the talking points, but even if you don't, even if you just want to call and say or write and say, I don't know what to say here, man, I've been an independent, whatever. Uh, I've been an, a two for the last blah, blah, blah. And I'm out of work. I don't know what's coming back. What can you do to help our industry? That's better than nothing. I mean, our story is really easy because it's true. If we were having to stretch to get to something impressive, as we talked to these folks, that would be different. That would be a real challenge. And I don't even know if I'd be comfortable doing it, but our story is just flat compelling. Uh, and you don't have to lie or exaggerate at all to get to the compelling part. It is written itself. And I'm not saying that's a good thing that we're all living this, but we do have a unique situation where we can go, Oh, that's cute that you think restaurants are in trouble. You want to come over here. We can't go do to go food. We can't set up a tent in their front yard and do events is not happening. It's adorable that you think is the hardest hit, but they're not. Here's
Speaker 1 00:30:47 An led par can't take it home for the day,
Speaker 4 00:30:50 Take off. Right. And do, please enjoy. And uh, remember charge it up when you're done. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's ridiculous to think. And, and, but that's that again, like you said, it really well, Jordan, it, uh, we're invisible. We're supposed to, we were supposed to be in the background. We've, it's our sacred mission to, for nobody at that fundraiser to know that right now in the room, there are 180 people who probably work for something like 20 to 22 companies doing this event. And you don't even know where there you're not supposed to. You're just supposed to come sit down, have a so-so dinner and donate generously. That's it. That's your whole job. And then when the band comes on, you'll go, Oh, there's some employees, it's band members. That's literally all you're aware of. And maybe the MC right. The auctioneer, that's it. But you don't know, there's video guys running PowerPoint. You don't know that. And that's our job, but it's, it's, it's really been detrimental, uh, for 11 months. Now that that's the case. Um, we thought we'd be just offering, uh, congressional bills by June. Right. And, and no, really what we, what we've done the first six months. It's just become known by explaining who we are and how many we are. That's been the exercise. Yeah, we've done the ass. Don't get me wrong. But so that's been the biggest part of it.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 So circling back to what you said earlier about making phone calls, it sounds to me like while email could be effective, honestly, picking up the phone and just having the little bit of, I would say boldness, because picking up the phone and calling some random number that you don't really necessarily know can be intimidating. And I can personally say myself, I don't want to call some staffer in my state and be like, Hey, we have this big problem. And then they'll, you know, and then have somebody on the other line be like, Oh, that's not a problem. Think about this problem. But making that phone call like really sounds like the right way to get a hold, like to get a, I guess, a face with the problem, put a face or a name or a voice to the issue versus just an email. That's a line in an automated inbox that shows up with a certain title on it. Would that be a, would that be a pretty good way to, you know, actually create better advocacy?
Speaker 4 00:33:08 I do both. I honestly, um, there are so many because of COVID and because he's, they're not working in their offices, so you're going to get the office, you're going to get a machine. Uh, and so somebody is going to check it and hopefully they will get back to you. But when you call, leave your phone number and your email address, cause they might be happier sending you an email. Right. Um, but then also do go if nothing else again, go to the general inbox and send the email, don't do this unless, you know what you're going to say, don't do this unless you know what the ask is. Um, I mean, calling and bitching is what every other one of their constituents are doing all day every day. Yeah. Tell our story, be compelling, be okay. Telling the story of our industry and why we are, where we are and how much longer we're going to be here.
Speaker 4 00:33:52 Tell them that. Just because the state's opened us back up doesn't mean we just hang the open sign and start doing events tomorrow. You can take months to where it's got to get booked. Right. I mean, it's not going to happen that way. Besides most of corporate has already said, they're not meeting in 21 at all. Doesn't matter. They're just not doing it. No, in-person in 21 for our major corporate clients have all said that. Yeah. So, um, you got to do both. I think Jordan, honestly, I think it's, you got to hit both ends of that. And the other thing is, um, it's public record who chiefs of staff are and legislative directors are on these staffs. So you can go, uh, congress.com or whatever it is. You have all those email addresses right there, just type in your state. It'll tell you who your rep is, who your two senators are and there's the right address. So send it to a person if you want. I mean, that's, again, it does not automatically become official record that way, but really the point is, is to start a conversation and be prepared, for know, be prepared for, uh, to get ghosted. And you guys got to have, you have to keep going back over and over and over and over. Let's let's theorize that we're all out of work right now. Right. What else are we doing? Yeah, just take 20 minutes a day and do this. Um, and again, echo chamber. It matters.
Speaker 0 00:35:14 So now, uh, about that, like, so we know on a grassroots level we can call, but do we call our state reps? Do we call, I mean, how much, how much of an echo chamber do we need to create? Is it our mayors? Do we call our, you know, our local, uh, house rep in our state Congress? Like that's on the ask. It
Speaker 4 00:35:38 Depends on the ask. If you're asking for something that will get legislated on the state level. Absolutely. Um, if you're looking for something that you know, is the kind of money that's got to come from the feds, then there's not much will happen there. Um, I've, I've noticed situations where I've talked to a few local reps here in Oregon, um, and they've said, well, I'll get on the phone with, with Senator Merkley or Senator Wyden, um, our, our two us senators and that doesn't not have value, but it it's a long shot to get that much interest because the first thing they're going to do when you get on the phone with them, and by the way, you will be able to talk directly to your state reps. Often they, they aren't even, most of them have jobs by the way, this is a part-time gig for them.
Speaker 4 00:36:17 So getting in front of them, isn't hard. Um, but they're going to be very confused as to what it is you want from them. If you don't know. So if you want to talk about, Hey man, you need to pick our state's unemployment system. It is a train wreck and I had to wait eight weeks to get one check. That's a very valid thing to take up with your state. Or if you've, you're noticing that the state has done several small business assistance, uh, grant programs and you couldn't get in on any of them, you know, that's a good thing to go. Hey, just so you know, that money is going fast. And I applied for the last five and I couldn't get through any of them. You got to do more because we are shut down, man. Those are all things that if you know, that's where the money comes from or the, where, where the legislation can happen then.
Speaker 4 00:37:01 Absolutely. But in terms of the things that, the big stuff like PUA, PUC, all the unemployment stuff, the States, aren't going to influence that at all. And your, and your mayor definitely won't. Um, mostly what you'll get from the state down is a lot of ceremonial stuff. Um, that said, boy, uh, in Utah, they did a bang up job. Uh, they, they spent all their time on States and Utah is like I said, their industry is so small that people from from our world are getting a check every month. So it's not that it can't happen. I just think the odds are better. Um, this is such a huge problem and you probably need so much money that the federal is probably the only way you're going to get it.
Speaker 1 00:37:46 Got it. Well, that's, that's great information. I love that. Um, what, thinking about advocacy, thinking about all of the assistance that you just talked about, where can we, where can people get the most concise information to communicate exactly what the problem is? I mean, we've talked about 12 million out of work, tons of small businesses, all small businesses. I mean, I don't know more than two or three live event companies that have more than 500 employees. So, I mean, we're talking to all small businesses as the big, you know, federal government classification, uh, you know, lots of independent contractors, 10 99, uh, people that may not have qualified for unemployment in the first place. Is there a good place to go and get all of this in one,
Speaker 0 00:38:36 You know, relatively concise format.
Speaker 4 00:38:39 So you're talking about, uh, where do I get the talking points? Is that yeah. Yep. Okay. Um, I am checking right now. I know, sorry that we're live and I shouldn't be stumbling on this, but, um, we, uh, we generally keep, uh, copies of our letters on the website and I'm seeing one now. Um, I'm checking to see if there is actually,
Speaker 0 00:39:07 Okay. Last page, dense coalition.org,
Speaker 4 00:39:12 Correct. Live events, coalition.org. Uh, yes, here it is. Um, if you click on resources, uh, it'll take you to a lovely page. Um, and it says, uh, legislative wins, uh, for the live events industry. So that'll tell you, um, you click there and that will take you to my summary. It's about five pages long associate on Google docs, and you can see broken down, what's going to be for you and what isn't, that's the first thing. Um, then we're, we generally keep, um, talking points letters in there. Um, you know, you should give out my email address and any of the listeners are welcome to contact me and I can send you ready to go. Um, MOC packages, sorry, a member of Congress. I am totally turned it into a walk here. I don't mean to do that member of Congress packages. We have a nice nine page graphic.
Speaker 4 00:40:09 That's ready to roll. We have a letter that's ready for you to personalize. It's even yellow highlighted in the places you need to personalize it for your member of Congress. Um, so that's ready to go. And we're just today finishing, um, uh, case study document. Uh, we're, we're trying to do one in key member States. That's just case studies from their state of what's happening to our businesses. Like with specific revenue numbers from 19 compared to 20, um, we don't name the company, but we say, what, what vertical they're in? Uh, like here's a, an exhibit builder in this state, blah, blah, blah. So, but we have one that I believe there's a New York and a Kentucky and an Oregon example and it's a, an AB house and a exhibit builder and a caterer. So it's nice and broad, nice and diverse. And it just, it's, it's three hard hitting bits of stat. So we'll have that available for you to send center around because numbers don't lie. Um, uh, so they're welcome to email me. I just say, Hey, I'd like to get your, your talking points back. If you let her package your communications package, because I want to take this on. I want to reach out to my guy. I will happily send that to you. You can either send it verbatim or you can lift sentences and paragraphs out of it to make your own thing.
Speaker 0 00:41:27 Okay, great. I will. I'm uh, I'm in,
Speaker 4 00:41:30 In fact my email address is on the same page, so it's on the resources page.
Speaker 1 00:41:36 I was just going to say, make sure to drop it into the notes, uh, below this episode with, uh, advocacy resources, live events, coalition.org resources, so that people don't have to try and do it while they're listening and they can actually go back and just click on the link. Perfect.
Speaker 0 00:41:51 Perfect. Um, so if I'm in a different state than Oregon, uh, where, how can I find my state level? Can you find it from the live events, coalition.org site?
Speaker 4 00:42:02 No, not at this, not at this time. Um, there, there are folks on a committee that is other than mine that are working really hard to gather. For instance, they're trying to gather every single state's reopening guidelines and every single States where they are on reopening, because there's a great deal of consternation about number one, what can I do? And what can I not do, especially since it's getting really janky and you got Florida basically open, and you got New York threatening to open this, especially with, um, uh, sports with professional sports. Uh, you got Oregon is still essentially shuttered in terms of live events. So there's a lot of, a lot of ringing hand-wringing over. Where do I find this? Um, and so there's a group in LEC. That's working on gathering all that right now and making it a live thing with live links.
Speaker 4 00:42:51 So you can go find the latest in addition to, you know, a current data summary. Um, that's a, um, pretty big lift 50 States, but, uh, I know I'm not involved, but they are working on that in terms of finding your, your MOC is, is really easy. You just basically go to, uh, just type in, into the Google search, um, your state's name and then legislature. And you'll go, you'll end up at a site. That'll have contact for everybody. You generally, you enter your zip code and they'll tell you who your reps are and who your senators are
Speaker 1 00:43:28 Outstanding. What, um, so thinking of partners, thinking of other States, what if you don't find one in your state, um, what should somebody who says, Hey, I want to advocate. I want to be the voice for our state, for the people that live and work in our state. Um, what are a couple of steps they can take to begin that process of establishing that
Speaker 4 00:43:55 If you're not already, you should be following the, uh, you should be in the Facebook page for Lac. That's a good Brucey resource for that. I rather than send an email, um, uh, to me, because I'm not that committee, um, uh, just going to, double-check see if this guy who, who had just committed anyway, there's a guy who does nothing about this. He's onboarding new States and helping guide you through getting your local efforts started. Um, at one point I was kind of doing that because I I've now helped California, Washington, Illinois, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, uh, get rolling. Um, and I, I built the Kentucky chapter from the ground up myself. So everybody thought, Oh, this guy's perfect for that. And there's no, this guy is busy, man. So we finally got somebody else to do it. Um, and he, I see he is not yet on the website cause it's just happened last week, but he's working actively to help people form their own small coalition.
Speaker 4 00:44:55 You know, sometimes the coalition is literally just a Facebook group and the people who are following it are people you invited in from the industry. And what happens is you start talking about, Hey, I heard there's this program coming up. It's super helpful. But anyway, I would rather than try to email him, his name is Sean Nicholson. He's in Connecticut. Um, I would go to the Facebook page and say, Hey, I really want to get a state effort going. And I don't think there's one in my, in my state. Um, can you let me know a, is there, is there one and B if there's not how I can get this rolling. Um, that, that was, that's what I would do. We're really good about answering questions on Facebook. I'm one of the PR people that does it.
Speaker 1 00:45:36 That's outstanding. And if let's say people don't want to go through the effort or they don't feel like they have the chutzpah to start a coalition in their own state, um, even as freelancers, should they, do you think that it's a good idea to go and become a member of the event coalition? I mean, I shouldn't even say, should it be a good idea? It is a good idea to go jump online, go to the live event, coalition.org site and, and become a member. It, yes, it's a couple of dollars, but your dollars go to a place that is going to help your industry and make your life better in the long run. Um, tell me a question.
Speaker 4 00:46:18 I don't a hundred percent man. Um, we, we, we need members. We need, honestly, we need your membership dues and you know, for once there's an organization you can join where we'll just candidly tell you exactly what we're going to do with the money. You know, uh, I will tell you we're dead in the water without our lobbyists and you know what we're about to get unemployment extended. Okay. It was, does that matter to you because if it does, does it, we're 75 bucks to you to help, uh, to help us help you? Um, I think personally it's a no brainer. If you're a business owner, you know, you, you, you join as a business and you get, you know, X amount, depending on what level you join at X amount of your employees can automatically be members. So they, if you're not somebody who offers insurance to your, to your people, for instance, uh, now you have a way that people can get a great deal on, on health insurance. Okay. Um, there's just so many reasons. And, and more importantly, w when you join that helps us have your voice. Um, we can only ask you to sign a petition or to get onto a letter campaign, or to share your data, um, as part of a survey, if we have your email address and you only your email address, if you join, I mean, it comes down to that. Um, so more voices just makes us louder, just keeps the echo chamber full. So that would be my pitch.
Speaker 0 00:47:41 So the, uh, the current bill on the Hill, um, I've heard a couple of different scenarios and what's going on, but there's so much chaos going on because of impeachments and whatnot. Um, do you think the saber stages act helped or hurt our case to get the restart act going? Because, you know, if I'm a Congressman from, I don't know, Idaho, and I don't know anything about the live event industry and I signed, yeah. Okay. I'm going to vote for save our stages. I feel like maybe I already did my part for the live event industry by doing that. But what they don't understand is that it's more than just the venues. It's the people that run the venue that need help as well. So do you think they've already, they think that they've already done enough
Speaker 4 00:48:36 And many of them do. I was talking to leader Schumer two nights ago, um, at a, at a virtual event. And, uh, you know, uh, raised my hand and got started my pitch. Um, I was two sentences and Chuck loves to cut you off by the way. Um, uh, I, he interrupted me. He goes, yeah, we got you guys dialed didn't wait. Cause I was just starting to explain what we were, didn't even get through the sentence. I said, actually, you're probably talking about SPOG, that shuttered vineyard. Then he was going to said, yeah, that is a wonderful program. And it does help 8% of our industry. And he says, what, what what's left? What didn't we get? And I just basically went through a well we're, we're the guys that we do AB and we were we're event for us and designers and rental agencies and, and rental venues and planners and producers we're, we don't just do live performance.
Speaker 4 00:49:27 We do corporate events and we do weddings and private events and social events and fairs and festivals they're there. They only get to go once a year and they're just dead in the water. And I got him to finally say on, on camera and it recorded because yeah, here's who and my staff, you've got to talk to him. I said, I just talked to him this morning. And, and he is now looking at our proposal and we hope that you will too. And he goes, okay, great. We have to help you guys. That's on record. Awesome. That's that's huge. But the moral of the story is I'm pretty sure you're right. We're all pretty sure you're right. They think done and done with SPOG and that by that measure, that means it did more harm than good and not taking away anything from our, our colleagues too, who own performance venues or happened to be a talent agent that not taking anything at all away from that. I still take a lap on, on SOS because it was partially our parlance that got it pushed to the front. Unfortunately, Senator Klobuchar saw it as a way to get reelected. And so that's why she started pushing it in the first place. And it was, as we know in complete, honestly, it's harmless. It is the reason why in the current package, there's not much meat on the bones for our industry.
Speaker 0 00:50:54 Okay. I think that's, I think that's something important that, that our listeners need to hear right now. We're not, you know, it's not necessarily in this bill, but the LEC is working for that next, that next step, that, that next package that's going to be specifically targeted towards our industry. Our freelancers, our companies are, are people that are, uh, are needing help on a big scale. And we're gonna for, you know, the coming year for, for sure.
Speaker 4 00:51:30 Well, it's, it's a once. And for all thing, we really ran into a perfect storm with this whole thing. Now think about it. You add a contested election that happened the presidential election. So, you know, you fast forward to, they get the last relief package. Bill signed finally, too late. We all missed our unemployment for a couple of weeks, but it did get signed. And then everybody goes home for Christmas. Oh shit. Okay. Now we're in recess. No point in bothering them. So we just went, all right, let's just lay down until January 4th. Can we start our work on the next package on January 4th? What we didn't know, we couldn't have known is it president Biden already had an outline of a platform that we couldn't have known. And you know, what, if we hadn't seen the Dems win those two Georgia seats on the sixth they had, and it was still a Republican Senate.
Speaker 4 00:52:23 That Biden plan would be very different. We'd still be arguing over it. We'd still be able to get something we want in it because it would, the whole thing would be being fought over. Now he's got the house and he's got the Senate and they're just going to go lockstep. They're just going to say, yeah, let's get Joe. Everything he wants. And nothing about us was really in there, $50 billion for a small business, uh, 25 of it's going to go to restaurants. We hope that caterers will qualify for that because that's a tiny, tiny, tiny win for our, for our world. But let me tell you, that's not really winning the restaurants have we're lobbying for 290 billion. They got 25. That's less than a 10th of what they need, right. So let's not get all excited quite yet on that one, the other, the rest of it, they're putting another billion into SPOG.
Speaker 4 00:53:13 Apparently they thought that 15 wasn't enough. It's not, um, and that a billion would fix it. It won't. Um, but there you go. Uh, and then the rest of it is going to go back into, uh, idle there'll. I don't have not read the text. I just got it before we started this, this recording. Um, but I don't know if they're going to let us have a second idle or not, but I would wager most business owners in our world don't want another idol cause I can't take on any more debt. So there's, this is, it's not just us losing the hotels, got nothing. Uh, hotels are in trouble as well. We got by and large nothing, but next package is where we're going this time, hopefully this perfect storm that we encountered with insurrectionists at the Capitol and, and not knowing which party was going to control the Senate and, and, uh, uh, an incoming president that was absolutely shackled by an outcoming president who wouldn't help with the transition.
Speaker 4 00:54:11 So this bill just got foisted on us with, we had no time to lobby for anything. Um, I believe the next one we'll will in my heart. The next one will go better. Um, uh, Schumer's office wants to work with us to help craft some, some language around it. But at the end of the day, they, they can't sponsor it politically, but they're helping us push us to the right Senator to sponsor it. We're looking at Cortez, Mastro in Nevada really, really seriously right now. Um, she has a habit of, of being a little light handed. So we don't know if that's our champion. We're basically looking for a member of Congress, uh, to help us write and introduce this legislation around business grants, by the way, spoiler alert. It's gonna look a lot like SPOG. It's going to look a lot like it, you, you get a grant based on your new 2019 revenue. It's basically, we're trying to mimic your operating costs. If they can figure out what your operating costs might be and give you that money. So you can stay open
Speaker 1 00:55:12 Well in S and M and S SVG, S shuttered, S V O G. Um, originally it did include, or I thought it included like audio visual type companies, because I watched a whole, like a speaker Schumer did an entire P like an entire press conference about it and had like the venue, the venue association, and had, uh, like AAV companies and a whole bunch of stuff up in somewhere in New York and like long Island, I think. And they did this whole press conference about it. And that was what got me excited about the shuttered venues grant. And then we saw
Speaker 4 00:55:50 A version of that too, um, that didn't fly.
Speaker 1 00:55:52 Yeah. So
Speaker 4 00:55:54 Remember he, he didn't have a dog in that race, um, because he was a minority leader then. So that's the 116 con Congress. Now we've moved to him being the majority leader and he does have a dog in the race. Um, and it's funny that, you know, you heard him say, Hey, be companies. And then the other night he was shocked that we still had a problem. Um, but no, they, they had to negotiate out of that. And by the way, I think the package looks something like 150 billion then, and there ended up being 15. Yeah. Somebody has to get left on the sidewalk, sadly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:56:27 And we did as normal. Um, I mean, I'm not gonna pull punches at this point. I just had to lay two of my guys off today because I can't afford to keep them on anymore. Cause we keep burning cash and nothing's coming back. I mean, it's sorry, as a business owner, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna relent on, on that particular
Speaker 4 00:56:47 Nor should you. And I'm sorry that that had to happen. Um, but you, you should be commended for keeping them on this long. I mean, I, I floated my guys in March. Yeah. There was, I writing was on the wall. There was no way we were going to be bankrupt if I didn't, you know, to their credit. Um, they all can't wait to come back that I've filed for unemployment for them so that I can get them back. You know, you, you know, you guys know as well as I do. You put years into training, these people, bringing them up in your image, how, whatever you want to call it. And, and they, they're more important than the gear. You, they're more important than your, than in anything. In fact, as you know, we're all essentially in the creative trades here in events. So we can, we can all talk about how we are the creative and design drive. Our style has to be their style or it doesn't work. Right. Yeah. So to that extent, you want to start over, find another staff. I know, not at all. Uh, and you know, what good for you for hanging on that long that that could not have been easy? No.
Speaker 0 00:57:49 Um, the more I'm talking to two other designers and of the event spaces and places that, uh, I think we're going to lose about 30% of our workforce in this, you know, through all this, because people are changing their careers, they're taking less pay, but they're finding, you know, the quality of life doesn't change a whole lot, you know, their benefits go up, uh, they're home every night. And, and I think, I think we're going to get in a situation, come, come pull the trigger. And we're doing events again, that we're going to be, uh, scrambling to find people. And, uh, that's going to be a tough pill to swallow. I think down the road,
Speaker 4 00:58:30 Our survey results, hold that theory up, Joe, um, that it's actually probably worse than 30%, but we, we literally ask people, uh, how long can you hang on without just pivoting to another industry? The average response was somewhere in the one to two months range. This is in December. And then there was one option they could click that said, um, I've already, I'm out, I'm already out. And that was on the order of 20 ish percent of the respondents who were, who were, uh, employees and or contractors, not, not a business owner.
Speaker 0 00:59:02 Wow. But if the current, if the current bill, uh, includes PUA than potentially, we might be able to keep more people in the fray because,
Speaker 4 00:59:11 So, and that's, yeah, that's something that's the second half of my statement about being dead in the water. When I say dead in the water, I mean, yeah. On the other UI, I'm pleased to say, I can't get anybody on the Hill to tell me that UI isn't getting extended. Every single one of them, both parties, both, both chambers, all the wanks, all the commentators, no one thinks this isn't going to happen. It is going to happen. And it's going to go through Q3 Q3. So into September, and it is going to give us a raise. They're going to go from 300 bonus to 400 bucks. So that in fact, that thing is driving the entire conversation because there's a deadline that it expires on March 14th, March 14th. So that is lit a fire under Congress was ass to get this done. And, um, so it would be silly to think that that won't be part of it and, and it easily fits into reconciliation and easily.
Speaker 4 01:00:13 Um, they're going to do a thing, uh, starting the 22nd called giving this bill, the bird bath, um, there's, there's these bird rules that basically tells us the Senate parliamentarian parliamentarian, what he can let through reconciliation and what he can't. The thing about reconciliation is you can do it with a simple majority. Our problem is we don't have 10, 10 Republicans. So that's always been a must, but it really has to be a budgetary thing. You can't say, um, no more gays in the military as a reconciliation, it has to be a budget basis. So because UI is already an ongoing program as the federal feds have been involved with it, since what the cares act early April, because it already exists. It's, it's easy to get that way. And because it's a budgetary thing, it's easy to get that way. So it's done. And that is demonstrably great news. I think every one of us in here in this room get, get unemployment. Right? I do. My staff does. Um, geez. I mean, this is great and if not the whole picture, so, but it is a win.
Speaker 0 01:01:19 Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 01:01:21 It's one less thing to argue about with it. Now we're open to just look at business relief going forward. As we, we make these relationships and look for a champion and talk to leadership and say, you guys keep leaving us out. Cause you thought it was all good with another round of PPP and SAS bog. You thought you were all good. You're not, you're not all good. And here's why, so it lets us just focus on that conversation. So, um, I'm personally pumped about that.
Speaker 0 01:01:47 Yeah. Well I know it gave me peace of mind understanding that that the unemployment was going to continue past, past March. Absolutely. That's not your one to two months, everybody in December was realizing, you know, end of February, I'm done. Like what, what do I do next? And so, uh, I think once we get that ball rolling it, you know, that'll, that'll buy us some time to figure out what's next and how to keep this rolling. Hopefully we, hopefully we save
Speaker 4 01:02:20 A few workers that don't leave the industry, you know? Um, it's already a hard enough industry to be in, right? I mean, you, you don't do this because you think it's sexy. You do this because you can't not do it. You know? Uh, somebody wants to told me, uh, you don't, you don't write a novel because you want to write a novel, you write a novel because you have no choice. And I think that's true of working in this industry. You, you, you do, uh, not because it pays ungodly great way, or because people look up to you when you do it or you get to meet rock stars or whatever the hell that is. That's never been the reason you do it because you just love it. I imagine if you Debra had to worry about money, you would do this jump for free.
Speaker 4 01:03:03 And I know I would be, I would, I would do this same. It's it's, it's the perfect thing for me. I, by the way, I don't know about you guys. I can't wait to get back to it. I get told a lot. Are you going to totally go into advocacy full-time and become a lobbyist, move to DC? I'm like, Oh hell no, good Lord. No, this is the hardest shit I've ever done. I never want to do it for one minute longer than I have to. I do still have my campaign, badge DT for president. I made it back in 2004. I'm like, yeah, I got this job promotion. Uh, when Joe and I work at Hollywood lights, our boss decided there, the owner and CEO decided to retire and moved to Mexico. Uh, well, you know him, Jordan, you work with him, right? Rich, fuller. And uh, so he made me the pres of the company. Joe makes these present stickers that were based on the Obama election because it was that it was, Oh no, that's right. It was a John Kerry was running. He stole his, his logo and then stuck my name DG for president. I about peed my pants. That was awesome.
Speaker 1 01:04:12 So what, so we've talked a lot, tons and tons about advocacy. All the stuff people can do with the live event, coalition, uh, tons of great information. Let's, let's wrap everything up with one last. Joe asked me, bent my arm to say this what's the toughest gig that you've ever done. And that can include advocacy. This, this has to be pre March, 2020, because as you just said, this is the toughest thing you've ever done, but we can't include that. So toughest gig you've ever done, uh, what it's like banging your head against a wall kind of gig.
Speaker 4 01:04:47 Are these two friends that we, we do this thing, we would go to a, we rented a cabin out in central Oregon. Every summer we'd go hang out and basically drink tequila for three days and play ping pong and pool and watch movies. And we always have give ourselves a projects. We do, we do a best of list. And so we have like, it's like most influential songs of your life. It's all this other stuff. And one time the guy suggested why don't you let's do our favorite songs of all time. I'm like, screw you. No, that's impossible. No one can do that. So along those lines, it would be impossible for me to pick a worst job. There'd have to be like five to 10 of them. The one that comes to mind for me as I was out on a short leg with Kenny Loggins in the, this would have been she's 90 ish.
Speaker 4 01:05:34 Um, and Oh God. Um, is it the poor Hollywood lives? It's my old company that I used to help a guy run. Um, and so it was one of those, everything that could go wrong did go wrong things. Uh, we were first night of the tour. We were in Seattle at the paramount, and we had cobbled together, every Edison, dimmer eight pack we could find and, and kind of bandage them, or Robert banded them into a anvil rack to, to look like a real dinner rack. And, you know, we have these, these breakouts, break-ins, whatever everybody calls them. I call them breakouts from soca packs. And then we had a bunch of multi cable that was not so CapEx that just had strings of Edison's outlet that you string along to the trust. It's a three trust Hunter and Eddie can park and rig and, and you know, the sparks start coming out and like bands already sound check.
Speaker 4 01:06:39 There are sparks start coming out. And so we're taking everything apart. We have one spare, eight package T Atronix anybody remember Tia tronics out there, see Atronix old Denver brand not relevant anymore. Let the old diabetes, not the old shit anyway. Um, and so sparks start coming out, the patches all wrong. Everything's wrong. I'm back at the desk. Um, trying to program, um, any, and the doors are open, man, and the doors are open. And I went out to the, if you're familiar with the paramount you load in right from the street, and it's just really steep ramp and I'm standing on this steep ramp and it's raining and I slip and I fall, I smacked my head on the thing and I go, screw it. I'm good. The Greyhound bus Depot is six blocks from here. I'm going to get out. I'm going to Vancouver, BC. I'm not coming back. What if I just walked out? And I haven't even told you everything that went wrong. I mean, there's Oh, Oh my God. I had a gig where, or a motor bag started on fire. And one of the spot ops, uh, got up and peed on it.
Speaker 4 01:07:47 I love that. That was the, I was the eighties. I don't, I don't remember who he put his Doobie out in it exactly. Right. I mean, I have a dear friend and yeah. And he's a musician who I worked with for a long, long time as, as their LD, um, local, local, local. And, uh, he, he has been collecting a thing. He's writing a book called best gig stories. And, um, the shit he has is a scurrying man. And it's it's musicians. It's LDS. It's sound guys. You just tell these preposterous stories of, of these gigs just gone wrong and you will laugh so hard. Um, w I, I wish I had another three hours. I could tell you all the other crazy gigs, but that's probably the, the, one of the, the, the only time I've ever questioned, whether I'm gonna stay in the industry was that night opening night, Kenny Loggins tour, 1990 or so in Seattle, I about walked away. It sounded like she were ready to leave the country. I was ready to leave the country and just not come back. I absolutely was.
Speaker 1 01:08:56 So would that be considered a, uh, so would that be considered the highway to the danger zone? Is that
Speaker 4 01:09:04 Love that love, that, love that rock, that wrap that comment. I love that well done,
Speaker 1 01:09:15 But, uh, awesome. Dwayne, thanks so much for your time today, man. Um, I know we went way over what we were planning on, but, um, you know, advocacy in our industry could not be more important right now, especially for the next two to three months. And, uh, not to say that those two to three months are more important than the 24 that'll follow, but for right now, until things get rolling again, uh, it's going to be incredibly important that we see an increase in people just being active in our industry and talking about what's going on. Like you said, echo chamber, um, keeping it loud and, uh, go ahead, Joe. Sorry. What'd you say?
Speaker 4 01:09:53 I said, just raise up the, you know, make your voice, heard your voice. Absolutely. Man, your voice matters. It doesn't matter how dim you think it is. Your Mo your voice matters. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:10:02 Awesome. Well, Joe and Dwayne, thanks guys so much. Uh, I really appreciate you guys taking the time today and had a great time, tons of good information stuff. I had no clue, um, about live events coalition. Um, maybe I need to actually see, try and get Nancy on here too sometime, and talk about things that are going on, even going up to the, to the federal level and the LEC and kind of the, the creation of that with Isaac and, um, and everything else could be a really cool opportunity to talk some more about what's going on. Um, I don't think this conversation ends here and, uh, it's something that should be continued. So,
Speaker 4 01:10:40 But your miles to travel for sure. Thank you so much for having me. It was an honor. Thanks for stay well, stay well out there.
Speaker 1 01:10:46 Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Have a great day. Thanks for taking the time to listen today. Couldn't appreciate your time more than right now. As we talk about advocacy, we talk about how you can work with and help in the audio, video lighting and live events industries. I want you to know that everything that you do is going to help those around us. So take your time, send your emails, make your phone calls, talk to your members of Congress, your senators, so that they know how important it is to support the live event industry. Now more than ever. Thanks again for listening to the gig ready podcast. I hope you have a wonderful day, please. Like the podcast, leave a review, give us five stars. Let us know how much you liked it, and we'll see you next time. Have a great day.
Speaker 2 01:11:34 <inaudible>.
