OVERCOMING THE CURRENT LABOR CHALLENGES IN THE LIVE EVENTS INDUSTRY

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world, this is Les Goldberg on the road ahead. I have three amazing guests today. I have Joe Mertz, who's the CEO of Mertzcrew. I have Greg Decker, the president of PSS or Production Support Services, and I have Stephen Campbell, the executive vice president of BrainHub, an ETP company. Guys, welcome to the show. Thanks, Les. Thank you guys. Today this is our 51st podcast. I'm excited that you all are here. We're going to talk about a subject that's near and dear to our hearts, the subject of technical labor and labor, for fulfilling all the shows as we return to live. And we continue this voyage of some version of virtual that we continue. And today we're going to talk about this and the reality we're living in today. So I'm going to throw the first question to Joe, and Joe, what is your opinion about the status of the labor pool for the events business? That's a great question. I think it's I think it's fragmented and broken. I feel like many companies had to let their full time staff go. The people that they've had with them for many, many years, it was just so uncertain. There was too much costs. So I think they had to let a large number of people go, and they're now turning to the freelance or the temporary staffing situations to fill that void, because it's still uncertain where they're going. I don't think they're I don't think they're hiring everybody full time back again, I think they're trying to do temporary staffing until they can get a real clear picture on how how things are going to progress in the future. Okay. I don't disagree with you, Greg. What is your thought on this question? What is the status of the labor pool for our live events business? Well, I agree with Joe that it's fragmented. We haven't done enough large stuff to really find out how big of an impact the people that have left the business moved to other areas, and it is going to be a challenge going forward. Got it. A challenge going forward. That could be the hashtag for this podcast. Mr. Campbell, would you share your thoughts on the status of the labor pool for the events business? I think it's different by specialty. So the technicians and the teams that were able to stay, I'll use the term relevant through the pandemic when everything went virtual and stayed engaged in the process. I think a lot of that those teams are fairly robust, where we're really seeing some interesting times as as we start to spin up bigger stuff, it's live in person, trying to find those teams that really, you know, the lighting teams, the rigging teams, especially in the stagehand teams. It seems to be that there are big calls that aren't being able to be filled in those, because a lot of those people just went without work for very long time. So we're seeing different results around different parts of the industry, okay. Different results, different parts of the industry. Okay. I'm moving on to Joe. Joe, what do you see as the greatest challenges as we go back to live regarding crewing? And I want to make this a two part question. Do you see the crew all being required to be vaccinated? So so kind of tell me what you think the greatest challenges are. And then do you see this vaccination thing as a requirement, a request or is it optional or not? What are your thoughts? Well, the biggest challenge I'm running into is some of the a lot of the team crew members are just dusting off skills they really haven't used for a long time. So I've seen, you know, audio guys who've done audio for years. And I've asked them what I would consider a pretty straightforward question, you know, and I think they've got to dig deep back into the recesses of, of how they used to do it or find those types of things. So I think just dusting off their skills is one of the biggest challenges. And getting back into it. We were we were going so fast and doing so much that I think people got used to being able to do that pretty quickly. And now they have they skills are just not there anymore and they've got to they've got to bring them back up to the forefront. Do crews need to be vaccinated? I would say we're running in. It's basically by by client. It has specific requests. But I would say being vaccinated is like having a passport or like having a specific skill. The more you do that, the more the more opportunity you have that you're going to have to work, because there's certainly going to be doors that are close to you. If you're not vaccinated or you're not willing to take a test, it's equivalent to having a passport. If you don't have a passport ready to go, then if you get a call to go do an international event and you're not ready to go, then you're not going to be able to pick up that event. So I would recommend it. I think it opens up more people for work, but I think the we're seeing it's very client specific as far as what their their requirements are, and they're very conservative and they're very liberal. They're across the board. Got it. Very, very thoughtful answer, Greg, this same question to you, the greatest challenges and do crews need to be vaccinated. And Greg, obviously living in Vegas, that's the I think the number one meeting destination in the world. Well I think the biggest challenge for me is whether they're vaccinated and how many people have left the business. We're starting to get more and more clients that require it and venues, and it seems like without taking a poll, the percentage of union stagehands here in Vegas that are vaccinated runs pretty well statewide, and we're probably at about 53%. So as we have more clients and venues requiring it is going to be a bigger challenge to fill those numbers. Just because people just want a large percentage haven't been vaccinated. Well, that doesn't sound good. Steve, what do you think are the greatest challenges of going back to live right now, and what are your thoughts on this vaccination idea? I think the vaccination thing I agree with what's been said is it's it's a fairly self-limiting choice. If you choose not to get vaccinated, you are self opting out of a lot of possibility as work comes along. Combine that with what I think the greatest challenge we're seeing right now is the very short timeline on a lot of shows, confirming we're seeing a lot of stuff confirm in the 7 to 14 day range, even stuff that's even less than a week out. You combine that with the shortages we're seeing in labor and the teams that are not vaccinated. That that all adds up to the biggest challenge that we're dealing with on a day to day basis is just that short window of time that we're operating in, and information coming in and trying to get crews that are already a little bit limited out on shows in an organized fashion. You know, the think it's kind of like buying a plane ticket. If you've got to buy a plane ticket last minute, it's going to cost a lot. And I think the idea of local crews is one of those challenges, because a lot of people are not in the city. We're, we're we're holding the show, obviously, but I'm moving on. So, Joe, this question is to you, what is the greatest challenge to finding the right crew? And you mentioned on our previous question about like being rusty or not being, you know, their skills, but how can you qualify the crew, especially as we go back to life and such a shortage of people? We've kind of talked about, how do you qualify them and know that this person is an A-1 or a, you know, a V1 or a projectionist. How do you go through that process to make sure they check all the boxes? And then then when they get on site, they can perform? Yeah. The biggest challenge is, as Stephen mentioned, is the last minute. It's the volatility. We're planning large shows. But and so you try to plan for that as far ahead as possible. All while knowing that the rug can be pulled out of you and it goes away like it had been. So you're hesitant to book your guys that you have a good relationship with because you don't want to pass that volatility on to them, but you also got to try to lock them in so you can feel secure. And then as things are, are starting to confirm very late and multiple things are coming in last minute, you have to stretch your bench, you have to move your bench out and start to possibly hire people that that you've that you've got referrals from some other folks that you're just doing a phone call. And that's what we'll do, is just try to vet them through a phone call. You get a referral from somebody that you trust. Most people will not refer somebody unless they trust them. And then if they do refer somebody or they post those skills on their as their capabilities, it's just a phone call and a conversation to try to get them through and see. Do they really have the capabilities that that they, that they say that they have had? Because I've had plenty of people who say they're an audio operator or an audio engineer, but they're really a DJ on the side. So it's the best. The best way for us is a phone call, a conversation, even if it's just a few minutes to just have a couple questions to see how, how skillful and how knowledgeable they are of the equipment that you know is going to be on that show. Got it. Okay, then I'm going to throw the same question to Greg, and, and, Greg, maybe you could enlighten us about the protocol under the union. You know, about getting the most experience or the most competent person, or is it the most person with the most seniority, or do we just get to hand-pick and select our crews? How does that work with you? Well, with my contract, I'm allowed to request 100%, and most of the time they're just assisting production people. So the real high end skill levels, we're not being asked for. So we're in a little different game than the other gentleman that they're dealing with. Got it. And do you find that the the ability to fill calls is still normal right now, or kind of like what Stephen was mentioning that 7 to 14 day, the last minute things are hard to fill those calls. What's the situation in your world? The big question is whether the clients requiring vaccination or to be COVID test. We had a large car show that we did this summer. In the last day where we had 200 people, we were shorted 12 people just because there was no one else that was would a was vaccinated or had been tested within a certain amount of time for cold. Got it. Okay. All right. I'm going to go on to the next question for Steve. And this speaks towards the idea that we're still living in the virtual world and doing those streaming shows at a broadcast studios or cloud studios. So so we have a labor force that does live events. A lot of them pivoted to doing some virtual events. And now as we go back to live, you know, we're still sharing the same labor pool. And so how has that impacted the need to continue to do virtual and to provide people in the live world? I think for us it's been a matter of training because we did transition. Like you said, a lot of our live technicians are from before into these virtual roles and train them. And and they really were instrumental in helping us make this transition and bring that live show experience into a virtual and make it something that our customers and producers recognized and felt comfortable. And as live is coming back, we are back in a sort of a state where we're training new technicians. We're doing a lot of training, we're bringing a lot of people in and getting them up to speed so that we're still able to fill those virtual roles that seem to be continuing to come our way, but are mixing in with live. So now we're seeing what used to be a live show that maybe had 25 technicians from us on on site. Now there's a virtual element that needs another 8 or 9 technicians on top of that for for the same event. So really bringing in a new workforce and getting that workforce trained in these virtual positions so that they're able to work at the levels we need them to to start to free up the technicians that we rely on so heavily for the live events to be able to get back into the field. But honestly, that's also been the biggest bright spot in all of this, is the technicians that we see coming in and are able to train a newer generation that are very diverse and very eager to get into this industry and see it as a career path. It's been very encouraging to see the quality of people that are coming in and just the overall diversity of that team that's coming in. Well, that is that's finding some good. And all of this craziness is awesome. So, Joe, the same question to you. You know, the labor force doing these virtual events and the live events and having to, you know, split. Let me tell you, if I'm doing a virtual event and I don't have to unload truck full of scaffolding and, and kind of lift heavy cases over people's heads, and I could sit in front of a computer screen, obviously it's a little bit of a lighter. Ask, what are your thoughts on that? To reiterate with Stephen said, it's absolutely it's compounding our problem. All of our events are basically taking on another layer instead of swapping something out. It's it's just compounding on that. And the clients definitely feel the same way. It's super. Even if they are doing a live event to them. It's just simple to add the virtual layer on top of it and and throw it in there. You know, we're already doing this. Can we just add a virtual layer on top of that to them? If they don't realize the complexity that they're adding on from a labor standpoint and the additional bodies that that need to be brought in there, but they all feel like they all have a TV channel now that they can just pull out whenever they need to and throw it in there. But I do think it it does open it up, open up the door to to a group of people that may not have considered this a career, probably the past few years, when I would explain to people what we do and how we do it. Most people didn't even comprehend it as a job, and that was actually something that people could make a career and a good career doing. I think these younger folks growing up with these virtual devices and seeing the access they have to people, it does open up a larger pool of people to bring into the industry and start a career down this path and actually come into the industry and become new members of that. So I kind of see that same, same positivity, but I think we need to do a better job of trying to recruit people and bring them into the industry. So. So that gives me a question for Greg. And how is the a training strategy bringing new people into the workforce? And are you seeing this and whether it's the Las Vegas area or the local union, what are you seeing in that? Because obviously what Stephen was mentioning and what Joe was mentioning is that that this is such a great opportunity to bring in new blood into our business. The training program the union has has been kind of shut down due to COVID, and they really haven't reached out and started doing more training and really kind of disappointed with it. So there hasn't been much going on. I think they're waiting for it to pick up again, and then when the demand increases, that's when they're going to do it. It seems like training right now is we're training people on a whole new way of communicating in this virtual streaming cloud world, and it seems like maybe there's a missed opportunity there with the people of the local that you work out of. Most definitely. And on another note, on virtual events, I supply some crew for it. Many of the people that were doing live before don't want to stay in the virtual world. They want to go back out to live events. So there's there's going to be an opening on both sides. I was going to say the there are sometimes there are people that especially I use the example of an audio engineer who's mixing an audio for a project. It's not as rewarding to sit behind a computer screen with a complete remote audience than it is to sit in a ballroom with 5000 people and the applause, and that's a very different experience. You know, I it's a much lower level of cool. Oh, absolutely. I definitely don't feel like you could on the small speakers, on the monitor or whatever listening device you have. It's not the same as when you crank the subs and you rock the room and and the big announcement comes of the CEO or the marketing person, and they're rolling some big product out. That's a big deal. Stephen, can you just touch on the the training strategy? You mentioned that we're bringing a lot of people in. What would you suggest as a is a strong idea idea for the training strategy that for a company is bringing people up. So as you look at even before the pandemic, you could see there was an aging issue with the industry. You walk in the ballrooms and you recognize a lot of the faces that you've been seeing for the last 20 years. There were there was efforts to get people in and trained at that point. But I think really the specialty right now in the in the heavy lift right now is to get a new, younger generation into the industry. I recently talked to a class at a university up in Baltimore, and it was really refreshing to see there was 18 students in there. All of them were were curious to find out. Is there real possibilities of a career in this industry, and being able to talk to them and give them some direction and some just personal experience on all the opportunities? It's not, is there? There's so much opportunity in this industry. That generation was very interested in getting into this, and all they really need is reach out. You need a pathway. They need guidance into how to get into the industry. I know when I came into it, I didn't know the industry existed, came into it like a lot of people through a friend that brought me to a load out for, you know, you can go make $50. Sure, I'll go do that. And that's how I found out about the industry. I think the lift for us is to be very focused and very intentional about recruiting, about getting the word out that this industry is a great career and lots of possibility, and bringing those people in and then doing focus training on what is interesting to them, because not all of that generation wants to be out in the field. I don't want to be in the virtual. A lot of want to deal with XR and AR, but all of that is now much more of a possibility than it was a year and a half ago. So it's all great opportunity to have new conversations and wider conversations. It's just a lot of work to be done. You know, that was a very thoughtful answer. I will tell you that I'm proud of the fact that we bring on many, many interns and we have a CoiL program internally, which stands for Continuing Improvement and Learning. And we are actively, always working with the local colleges to encourage. And I think that's how it helps our industry with bringing in new blood. I'm moving on. This is to Joe. Joe, what things are you seeing to try and keep crews safe with the return of live? Like what's happening in the field? I'll be honest, it's really more about keeping the the attendees safe. You know, the crew is kind of support. So it's really about, you know, they want to know how are we keeping the crew safe so that ultimately the attendees are safe. And it just all depends on the particular client. But testing, vaccination requests, vaccination cards, those I've seen, those requested and then just some sort of a of a plan for and masks, of course, masks continue to be an effective method that they request the crew to wear. And they kind of similar to the staff, but we're also seeing just some sort of a plan, or at least an operational procedure to deal with if someone test positive or if they have any kind of indication that they have coronavirus to just share with those. These are the plans and protocols that we'll follow in place to ensure that it doesn't pass on to anybody else within the crew. So are you are you suggesting that the shows now have either most of them have some kind of dedicated COVID safety officer or someone to engage on a COVID protocol? Yes, there are. I've seen that multiple times. We've we've had and again, it ranges based on what the venue requires, what the client requires or the production company requires. But I have yes, even seen COVID protocol COVID person on site. Who is that? Their whole job is to enforce that protocol. Got it. I want to ask the same question to Greg. You know, what are you seeing in Las Vegas when it comes to COVID safety and protocols? Are you seeing what kind of what Joe mentioned, all those things like masks and temperature and testing. Is that something that you see regularly? We are, but is more client driven or venue driven. So that's where the onus comes. The client has to request it or they require it as a, as a measure of protection or protocol. Yes. You know, this is probably my last question I wanted to throw out. And I'm going to throw it out to Stephen Campbell to start first. And I'll ask both of you and and Joe as well. Greg, fast forward next year Stephen, and advise what is the labor pool look like and what would our conversation be like if we we were talking about October 2022 and the world will have changed in whatever way it will under the new normal. What will the labor pool look like? I as I think about it, I think it's going to be interesting to see what a ballroom looks like on Lowden Day a year from now. And you know, you're going to see those that mix of those familiar faces that we've all seen in the ballrooms for the last, you know, 20, 30 years that we all recognize. I think there's going to be a gap in the middle there. And then I think we're going to see a real a real mix of younger people coming in to, to fill in where a lot of people have left. But I think it puts us in an interesting space to move forward and to be really purposeful in their training, because there's such a wealth of opportunity, because our industry is so much wider than it was a year ago. And the possibilities with the virtual mix that has been brought into this and everybody talking about platforms and then online switching and all of those elements are going to mix to have a much more diverse, much wider group of people in the industry that that will be. I think it's going to be exciting to see that growth and the potential around those, those new people in the industry. Greg, your thoughts? It's a year from now. Labor pool. What will it look like? I still think it's going to be kind of ugly, just just mainly because of how many shows will be coming. And the ugly side is there won't be enough people to do really the effective work. Well, in 2019, we had some of the same challenges and it was a real slog through. I, I believe that it's going to be the same way next year. Once we kind of get out of COVID, I think you'll see a lot more larger shows and everyone kind of hit back. Got it. Okay, Joe, give us your final thought on this. Take me a year from now, what will the labor force look like? And your thoughts? Yeah, I think they're going to be younger. I think they're going to be more diverse. They're going to be learning from the the old school folks that have stuck around. I think they're going to be eager, but I just think they're going to be green, younger, more diverse and eager to learn. So it's going to take a little bit more time on site. But I do think I do think that'll be filled. I think as people the word gets out and the opportunities appear and the the camaraderie and the enjoyment this industry brings, I think it will bring a lot of those, a lot of those folks into the industry, and I agree. I'm optimistic about it, and I think it will be a very exciting and interesting to see what that looks like a year from now. Well, I want to tell you all our industry is super cool. What we do every day is do amazing things and put on the show. And sometimes people are they don't recognize that, realize how much fun it can be and and challenging and rewarding. But I want to thank all three of my guests Joe Mertz, Greg Decker, and Stephen Campbell. You guys are amazing professionals, and I look forward to seeing you all in ballroom and convention centers and getting us all back to work in a meaningful way with a great crew. No matter what, the show requires a competent crew to push the buttons to make the the sound go, the lights go, the video plays, and we live and die by the crew. That is an essential element. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead everybody. Great job. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.