THE INGREDIENTS FOR AN AMAZING PRODUCTION TEAM

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 and The Road Ahead. Today, I have three amazing guests. I have Mike McCauley. He's the president and creative director for Slane Hill Creative. I have Chris Gerhart. He's the CEO of Crescent Event Productions. And I have Ted Rockett, head of production at BlueprintNYC. Guys, welcome to the show. Thanks, Les. Thanks for having us. Guys, today the show is dedicated to production teams, and we're going to talk about the ingredients for amazing production teams. All of you lead and work and create amazing production teams every day in your professional lives. And I have a lot of questions, and I think the audience wants to know if they are building a great production team, what are the best practices? And what are your ideas and how you implement them? So I'm going to throw the first question to Michael. Michael, in your opinion, what are the elements that make up a great production team and make them successful? And that's it. I mean, that's an excellent question. So here's the thing. OK, everybody on our production team, like number one, I think it's everyone be, obviously, as good as you can be at what you do, right? Be the very best you can be and strive to that. Number two, it's chemistry, like it's great if everyone, but if you've got a team, it really doesn't get along. I've worked with teams that have worked together for years, and it's like they're finishing each other's sentences. Things get done better. They get faster. And then attitude, you know, attitude and stay in your lane. Like when I'm on site and I have a question for or I mean, I'm under as we are less under tremendous pressure as we all are. I don't have time to sort of, you know, explain my train of thought. Hey, can you guys shift the audio? Yeah, sure, Mike. No problem. They're not going to question that. I've actually been on site once and I can you can you just tweak that? But they go, well, how come? Just do it. I don't have the time for that. So it's like that attitude. And then that that sort of that that that kind of can do spirit. It means means everything. You know, I think less creative directors are kind of born and not made. You have to be geared a certain way. I think producers are exactly the same way and good, good production people. They're just geared a certain way. And when that that person is is in their lane and doing their job, it's almost like like a basket weave, like everything's tight. And if there's one strand missing, if there's one little piece, everybody knows it. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I think what you're describing is that a successful production team has some kind of synergistic things where they absolutely, especially if they've got a lot of experience working together. You get great outcomes. Chris, what what are your thoughts on this question? What do you think of the elements that make a successful production team? Yeah, I mean, I think the synergy piece is huge time together, having having knowledgeable people, but then time together. So they can, you know, to Mike's point, finish each other's sentences. No, no. How the other one's going to function through whatever scenario you're thrown. Right. Whether it be some, you know, heavy cue stack or something else, they just kind of know how each other flows. That's that's a key piece of it, because you don't have time as you're directing a show to actually call for every last thing that has to happen to some degree. The folks behind, you know, pressing the buttons have got to know, you know, have got to have a good sense of how the others are going to flow in the group. And then the other thing that I thought it was was, you know, to the point of of everybody staying in their lane is also knowing your skill sets as a director, as a producer and knowing there's right. There are certain areas where I'll say, hey, let's let's go ahead and shift the audio here. And there's other times where I'm like, hey, you're the system engineer. You've designed the audio for this room. We're having, you know, we need to add 100 seats over here and it's probably going to impact coverage. I'm going to let you solve that using your skill sets. And I'm not going to step on that. You know, I think it's really good when, you know, they say that, quote, teamwork makes the dream work. Right. And when when we act like a team, we together, everyone achieves more. And I feel like that the best production teams leverage each other's strengths and get the best outcomes. Ted, what are your thoughts? Yeah, you know, I agree with Chris and Michael. Fit and attitude are are huge. And, you know, you need to be allies. So like have each other's back. Yeah, we have a blame free culture, you know, like no outliers. You know, we uncover that sometimes and then, you know, like, correct. But it's it's rare, you know, to have that blame free culture. And then for everybody to kind of, you know, buy in and go for it. And it's extremely effective. I think of basketball coaches who say you got to love your teammates or you got to care, you know, and I think that, you know, like if you start there, all the idealistic teamwork values can, you know, really be easily met. Yeah, Ted, I just want to comment on that. I think I think you're absolutely correct. And I think that it's that mutual admiration and that mutual respect. And like we say on our show set, all the stripes come off. I don't care who's what or what the hierarchy is. We got to get it done. And everyone shares that mentality. And we respect each other and we want to do our best for the team. Right. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. We have a common goal. And I think what you're really describing is for a team to be in alignment where everyone's pushing in the same direction to get this amazing production done. And, you know, whatever one person has to do to support the rest of the team, I think we kind of have to roll with the punches. And but it's always about this flawless execution. And I think that is the promise. The audience might not know what that is supposed to look like, but the production team surely does. They they've gone through rehearsals and they have, you know, a lot of time was spent producing videos and making content. And it's always always about finally executing. My next question, I'm going to throw this to Chris. Chris, as you're making up personnel to create these events, what do you look for in those people? What are the qualities that you look for in your production team? I mean, if you're if you're adding, whether it's a producer, a technical director, a writer, what are the things of the qualities you look for when you add people onto your team? I think we probably touched on a little bit in the last question, but first and foremost is that kind of can do attitude. You know, to Ted's point, we run a very similar blameless culture. I'll often say that, you know, when we find an error or a mistake, we will beat a dead horse to figure out what happened. But only for the purpose of not repeating that. Not not to put anybody on blast for what happened. But it's really to this collaborative, solutions oriented, never say no attitude. You know, you might be you might be in a specific role and you might be asked to do something entirely different. But, you know, is your attitude one that's just kind of let's go, let's do it and you're excited about it? Or are you doing it begrudgingly or are you just straight saying no? I think that, you know, there are we all have access to some of the most incredible, you know, video engineers, audio engineers, producers, graphics, whatever, whatever, whatever position it may be. And some, you know, stay busier than others because they have that can do attitude and they want it, you know, and they want to be part of a collaborative team. And honestly, the ones who get excited about the outcome and creating it something special, as opposed to just knowing which buttons to press on it, you know, so. Oh, sure. I think that's a big to me. That's that's the first thing I look for. And honestly, the people who we work with the most frequently, the most successfully have that attitude from start to finish. And I also think it comes down to leading by example. You know, there's there's if I'm producing a show, there's there's no role that's beneath me. I mean, there may be tasks that that my time is better suited to do. But if I have the free time and somebody who's got to do something else does not have the free time to do it, there's not a task. I'm going to say, well, yeah, but I'm paying you to do it or vice versa. It's a team effort through and through. And when you adopt that mindset, you can move mountains. It's pretty incredible. I like the quote, moving mountains. That's hashtag Chris Gerhart, moving mountains. Ted, same question. And in the interview process, when you add producers and people to your team, do you try to figure out in that in that process whether they they're a fit, a cultural fit for the culture that BlueprintNYC has? 100 percent, you know, first off, are you customer service driven? You know, that's really important because who is, you know, sure that I'll be around next year? It's our clients. And so we need to have people who have that as a priority skill for sure. Right. That's table stakes. Everybody, anybody in that room can do it. You know, they can do they can do the job. But will they make their client look good? Will they make our client look good to their bosses? That's what you know, that that's for for the for the last 50 plus years in this in this, you know, in this industry. That's what's made a difference. You want your clients to look good to create a win for, you know, for them. So that it's easy for them to come back to you. Got it. Michael, what are your thoughts on when you select a team and you build that team, what do you look for? Yeah, I mean, they both both of them said it so well. You know what you look for? The person that will almost look to you as a creative director, they'll look to you, say, Mikey, give me something to produce. Like they're excited to do it. Like Chris said, you know, they're not begrudging. You know, those crews a mile away where everyone's under pressure. Could you go to blah, blah, blah? And they'll be like, OK, no. It's like you got it, Mike. You know what I'm saying? It's that attitude, 100 percent like that's flawless execution. Like that's baseline. I mean, that's assumed. But the reason that like Chris was saying that there's all those people out there getting the work and really talented people that aren't. It's that attitude and that way that they that they work. OK, my next question is to Ted. And what is the most important elements of storytelling and delivering clients' messages as people that work in the production team and produce shows? I believe all of you all are experts at storytelling in some capacity. And so what are the most important elements of doing that for your clients? Like, you know, how do you approach it and how do you see that? How do you execute the best storytelling? Yeah, I want to simplify it and bring it back to strategy. So it's all about creating, you know, learning from your client what their objectives are, driving that process. However, you do with your input sessions or your workshops or, you know, dinner, just making sure that you understand what their objectives are, what they want their attendees to think, feel and do. And then everything that you create, design or employ from that point on, as long as it's meeting, you know, or exceeding those objectives, then I feel like you're there. Cool. Chris, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I'd say, well, and mine would go back more to some of the the pieces of that strategy that Ted mentioned, you know, your workshop and whatever you're doing, but it's really getting an understanding of their story. I deal a lot more with the the implementation than the creative development side. But so, you know, but oftentimes, you know, Ted might come up with a great creative strategy, but then you have to also build and execute that in terms of a live event. Right. And understanding that story and how you can uniquely design a space to help support those end goals, I think, is critical. You know, I mean, you step back to just a very basic, you know, room layout and you've got a couple of, you know, 16, nine screens and call it a day. But but there could be a million more creative ways to actually get a message out there that that is more all encompassing in the space than people sitting here looking at something, you know, that's standing there, that kind of a thing. I'm sitting here in the audience looking at a screen in front of me. And it's very much like, I mean, I could see that on my, you know, listen, if COVID taught us nothing is that I can gain all that content looking at my little, you know, 17 inch MacBook screen as opposed to, you know, as opposed to going to an event. So it's it's the the way that you can build a space, a room, an event to to help further the goals that you'll come up with through the creative process. What is it that you want your audience to, you know, feel, do and and, you know, see what were the three you mentioned there, Ted? But I think feel do. Yeah, I think feeling do. Yeah. So, you know, it's it's really about designing the the the technical around that then so that you help elicit that outcome. It sounds like you're really trying to precipitate engagement and it's and take a space and it's not just screens, projectors and where you can hear and see it's taking the space and converting it into something that helps deliver that message. And in whatever creative ways you can do that. Mike, same question. What are your thoughts on the importance of the elements of storytelling and delivering that client's message? We'll see that. I mean, let's see what both of those guys said is exactly right. Like Chris was saying, you know, your job as a presenter or someone on that stage, you have to make an emotional connection with that audience and all the technology, all that isn't going to do a thing. They can't even listen to you. You know, it's like I tell our clients, we start with that. You know, you know, Lincoln didn't have, you know, PowerPoint or keynote at the Gettysburg address. Oh, man, he didn't. And I mean, like, like, like, like those guys are saying, it's like it's like you can have all the technology. That's the icing on the cake. And boy, it can make your message ten times better. But it's not going to replace the message, you know? Right. You don't start with the tactics. You you you end there once you have the story. And once you use that, as Chris said, to, you know, bring it, pull it through. That's awesome. OK, we're moving on. This question is to Chris. Chris, how do you identify, find and retain producers as you build your team? What are the things that you do to find them? I know there's a labor shortage for technical people to execute, but I also hear there is a high demand for producers, coordinators and all the people in the creative process between the very first meeting with the client till you're on site and the doors close on the truck. So what's your strategy or can you share what is the best practice to identify great people and, you know, bring them onto your team? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I think, you know, listen, there's certain there's certain hurdles that you have to just kind of, you know, well, I'll mention, but they shouldn't have to be mentioned. And that is, you know, you listen to the most obvious. You have to there's their standards for what certain pays are in the industry and things of that nature. You got it. You got to cross that barrier to make sure you're attracting the right talent to begin with. But once you've done that, the best strategy we found is honestly is word of mouth referrals, because to the point of building a good crew and like minds think together and you get a can do attitude, quality people attract quality people. Right. So talented people will attract talented people. You know, if you do an. Event, if you're a producer, you do an event with a terrible technical team, you probably not going to want to do that again because your reputation is on the line there as well. So quality, you know, intelligent, well-trained, can do type of folks are going to attract similar minded people. And so we found our best strategy is just that is is is reaching out to, you know, our existing the existing folks we work with and asking who they know and who do they recommend and who would you have produced a show if you were the one on stage or who would you have produced a show if you couldn't, you know, accept a job? Whatever the case may be. And we've gotten some really good referrals through that. And then it's just nurturing the relationship with them. And honestly, it comes down to like going back to the very first question, building a team around those folks, too. Right. You might only have one producer on a show, but your producers can kind of, you know, support one another and create a team. And and, you know, from there, I think, you know, the sky's really the limit in terms of what you can do with it. Ted, same question. What do you think of the things you do to attract or retain the production staff? And I know how crazy your business is right now. So I think everyone is trying to attract best people. And I know some people would say and on what kind of what Chris said, something about, you know, your inner circle, who do they know? I think people want to work for winning teams. And I know your team very well. So I would say, you know, you guys have a great team. So definitely a winning team. But what is the technique that you would say to to attract and add producers and people in the production process? Yeah, I agree with Chris. It's it's actually really simple, but it's not easy. And that's networking. And that's so my network, I've got a great network. Right. But every single person in that network has a network. And so it's just about encouraging that, you know, level of trust so that I can, you know, like I answer everybody's call. I know you do too less. I, you know, respond to every incoming request and I invite it. I have town halls where, you know, like we have a production huddle where we, you know, like reach out to all the freelancers and make them feel like they're part of it. So then they're going to want to say, hey, to their best friend or their, you know, fellow producer friends, you should call Ted. So so that's that's number one is networking. You never know where that, you know, next reliable from reliable all the way to a superstar is going to come from. And, you know, so that so I'm like diligent about that. And as far as retaining, you've got to be their advocate. You know, you have to provide support. You have to make sure they have a good team. You have to hear them. You have to listen to them, but you have to hear them, too, and then make sure that you onboard them, not just to your processes or your culture. Don't just assume because they've got 20 years in the business that they know how to work for Blueprint or that, you know, that, you know, they can just fly solo. They want they want to have that support. So, like, that's our commitment. Got it, Mike, same question. Thoughts? Love it. I mean, absolutely. And it's also about that that mojo each each production company has their own mojo and you get people to kind of embellish that. Like what Ted said about answering every call, that is very admirable because we all get a million calls. And I think it's the best boss that does answer those calls. And that's where you find those hidden gems. And I think also, to Chris's point, if you do great like every day, we're in this. OK, at least for my I'm sure my colleagues are the same. We're in this to create and produce big things that have important things that have big impact on people's lives. Right. We love it. And our kind of fire burns from within. So it's a small community and word gets out. And then, as Ted said, once you do have those good people take care of them, the pay, again, the pay is baseline. Work with them. I've seen horrible things on crews with like they'll send out for like pizzas. It's like, are you kidding me? These guys are working 10, 12 hours a day. Take good care of them. Make them feel part of the family. And if you do that and trust them, it'll come back in space. I like that. Take care of the team. Well, I think they made a good point, too, on the onboarding process and how you bring people up. I mean, again, you might get somebody with 20 years experience and they might be able to run shows left and right, up, down and do a great job. But but if they don't feel that level of support, you know, I think that goes back to the secondary part of your question. Less was was how do you retain them? And I think that that's a big piece of it. Retention is all about that support. And I think the fastest way to to burn through people and have high turnover is not to onboard them properly. So they feel that support right out the gate. Got it. Got it. OK, my next question is to Mike and Mike, the teams that you have and you work with that are delivering these shows, how technical are they? Because some people in production and some producers and EPs and all the people in the group that actually execute the shows, some are super technical and some are not technical at all. And I just want to know what is the experience that you have? Because I run a technical company and I realize the value in transferring that knowledge. But, you know, some producers come in and they don't have a lot of it. I just want to know what are your thoughts? Well, that's that's absolutely exactly what we're saying about staying in your lane. The technology changes at such a clip today. It's almost impossible to stay ahead of it. We need people like LMG because I don't want to come in there and say, OK, I want 24 projectors. I want this. I don't I shouldn't have to as a creative director. I shouldn't I should come in and say, guys, here's my vision and here's what here's what I am trying to accomplish. You then come back to me and say, Mike, we can do that for X amount of dollars. We do it this way or that way. That's the best way to engage. I think it's a huge mistake when production companies come to to to equipment suppliers and say, give me this, this, this, this. And they're like, OK, but I could recommend this for you. So make them part of the team. That's what I would do. Yeah. Got it. Ted, your thoughts. Yeah, Michael's right. You know, it's varying levels. But to me, in the end, it doesn't matter because the best producer will surround themselves with the best technical people. And so, you know, we're relying on our TDs. We're relying on LMG and all of our friends, you know, who come in with the black shirts and make everything sing for us. I mean, we have at Blueprint, we have various departments where we have very technical people, you know, video, digital. And that has a great impact on it. But for the producer, it's the same story. They're going to rely on them, you know, on specialists. Got it. Chris, your thoughts. How technical is your team? Yeah, I think it comes back to the point Mike made earlier, and that is staying in your lane. You know, the more technical that a producer is, maybe they can deviate out of their lane a little bit. But it's knowing your knowledge base and then staying in your lane. How technical do they need to be? Going to the point Ted just made, I mean, if you're surrounding yourself by the smartest people in the industry, then you don't need to be all that technical. But you have to know that, right? You can't come in there and say, you know, I could set audio in a breakout room. And so I'm going to pull off this, you know, this massive general set. You know, it's just not how it works. So you have to know, I don't think that there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer to that. I think it's about surrounding yourself with smart people. You've got to do that, period. Because on these productions, there's no way one or two, you know, it's a large crew. You need a lot of people to pull them off. From there, you know, the more technical you are, as long as you're willing to, again, acquiesce to those folks who are smarter than you and they're given areas of specialty, I think it's valuable. But I don't think it's a must-have. As long as you know your knowledge base, you have a certain level of competence, and you're willing to acquiesce to the folks who have more. Got it. Okay, this next question is to Ted. Ted, I was on a call yesterday for a big technical company. And we're talking about doing live, and we're talking about doing hybrid. So sessions that have to work in those capacities. Are you finding that most of your events have a hybrid component? This is me. This is what I'm seeing. I'm not seeing it right now. What I'm seeing is, one, some of the smaller meetings have become virtual, you know, just sort of as a new option for clients to not travel everybody on a smaller meeting. But then for, you know, where they're spending the money on an in-person program, plus they're not also spending the money on a high-level virtual production. They may add a stream. That's just what I'm seeing. You know, it could be different in other industries. Got it. Chris, what are your thoughts? Yeah, it's actually very much in line with what Ted said there. We're seeing more clients who will add maybe a recording component for a later virtual event. You know, something that kind of sisters off of the live event. But full-fledged hybrids with a high-end produced virtual component. It's, you know, I don't know that enough of the clients have rebuilt their budgets to support that. Because the reality is when you have that conversation with a client, you're essentially running two simultaneous events. And that's totally doable. But it's not doable for the price of one. And so once you get them to understand that piece of it, oftentimes, you know, you might add a few cameras, record some of the things, edit it, and post. And then restream that down the road as a virtual event. You can do that a whole lot more cost-effective. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing clients who ultimately want to do it, but don't necessarily have the bandwidth or the budget to do it simultaneously as a hybrid. So they'll run them separately. Michael, your thoughts? Hybrid, no hybrid? You know, during COVID, it's funny. We got through COVID doing virtual and hybrid. And the feedback we got was clients found it really difficult, really expensive, and really technical. And they were really looking forward to getting back to a live event. Now, that's not to say we shouldn't have it. Again, as Ted said, this is what I'm seeing. It's kind of a whiplash effect. My personal belief is that, yes, there should be a virtual component to everything. But let's not let the tail wag the dog. You don't bring people together to share a bunch of information and data and all this. You bring people together to move their hearts and minds and cement that vision. So you know what I'm saying? Hybrid's great for that informational stuff. I just like Chris said, I think they're two different things, to be honest with you. It's very hard to engage emotion and to get camaraderie and networking and teamwork without having people in a room together. There's that energy that is created. Yeah, and let's not to stop you, but every exit survey that we've done, as you know, I'm sure as my colleagues know, the number one thing people say the best thing they got out of the event for the meeting was the networking with my colleagues. That's the number one value they get. Got it. Okay, so we're coming to the end of our podcast. I have two more questions. So this is to Ted. Ted, are our clients' budgets impacted with the state of the U.S. economy? Are you hearing the budget word? Is that a common thing right now? Because if you turn on the TV and the stock market and all the challenges that people are having, are you hearing that? Or is that secondary to other goals they have? Not hearing it. But again, that's just me. And maybe that's industry-based where we have, you know, our client base is growing and they're not backing down. Got it. Okay. Chris, thoughts on the economy? And are you hearing the word budget? No, not yet. I mean, honestly, it's starting maybe to creep in the conversation with a handful of customers, but not really. And it's more of a, let's talk about our options. And they ultimately are still kind of continuing on the path that they had been on if budget weren't a concern. I think that, you know, maybe organizationally, they're starting to look at it a little bit more, but the folks who are making the final decisions are still making it as if that's not a concern. Got it. And Michael, your thoughts on the budget word? Yeah, let's put it in the words of a client. A friend of mine who's C-level at a large corporation said, we are so excited to be going to Vegas for a live audience for 3,500 people. We have not had an event since before COVID. We are excited. So for what I'm hearing, it's at the moment, unless it's the opposite, people are very excited to do, and seeing the value in doing these live productions. I love hearing all that from you guys. I'm just telling you straight, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really good point too, because, you know, since live events really made a return, there are still a lot of groups that have a lot of face-to-face networking interaction to catch up on. You know, I mean, we've seen a ton of events come back, like way quick, super, super fast. But there's still a lot that have yet to bring their live events back and do it in an effective manner. It's interesting. It'll be interesting to see how things unfold, specifically within the live events industry, because it was so hamstrung in its whole purpose. It wasn't like a supply chain thing where I couldn't get a part. The entire purpose of live events, to the point that Mike made a minute ago about these exit services, is this networking piece, right? And so you lose that connect, that human connection. And, you know, it's one of those things that I don't see as the opportunity for live events has come back since COVID has effectively kind of wrapped up and live events have been able to make a comeback. I don't see companies, you know, using the economy as a reason not to get together when they've missed it for two years as it is. I just think it's making a strong comeback. And while budgets may be a consideration in how lavish they go with their event, the events are still definitely going to be happening. And one of the first things that we find out from them in our discovery calls is, you know, we have teams who haven't been together. We have teams that, you know, haven't been anywhere in two years. And we have new associates. And so that's really like a... Well, it goes back then to the very first question we all kind of chatted on was the synergy amongst teams, right? That doesn't just affect the production team. All these teams are missing out on that. And the effectiveness of the organizations that we serve is diminished because they haven't been able to get together. So, you know, there's a ripple effect that, you know, we kind of play a pretty important role at the center of. It's pretty exciting. But yeah, I haven't seen the budget thing come up too dramatically. Well, I like hearing that. All right, this is my final question. I'm going to start with Mike. Mike, I want you to predict the future. In your crystal ball, I would like to say if we were in February of 2020... 24, this year had been completed. Let's reflect. What was 23 like? What will it be like? So when we listen to this podcast a year from now, we can say, was Mike genius? Was he on it or was he off? So you all get to go on the record as to what kind of year it's going to be. We've got 11 months left to go. What are your thoughts, Mike? Barring any, God forbid, catastrophe or virus or anything of that nature. I think it's kind of the live event spring. And this isn't just for me. I'm hearing this from corporate clients. People are loving getting back together. So I think 23 is going to be a pretty good year. I'm going to say, because I know 22 for a lot of my colleagues was actually a very good year. So I'm going to go on record less as saying I think 23 is going to be a pretty excellent year for the live event business. Excellent. Okay, Ted, your thoughts. What kind of year is 23 going to be? A lot of on-site less. You're going to be happy. Less is going to be less is going to be happy. A lot of ballroom shows. A lot of, a lot of ballroom carpet, a lot of ballroom carpet. A lot of live events. That's right. You'll be taking pictures of all those, all those carpets and putting them on that website you talked about. Yes. The carpet website. We were joking about when I saw Ted last week in Vegas and we said someone should in our industry take a picture of all the different carpets from the ballrooms and have like a multiple choice and see if you can get it right. Because there are some experiences that we, we may not know the room as well, but we surely remember the carpet. So, Ted, Michael said it was going to be very excellent. So what are the adjectives you're giving me? I'm just going to say heavy volume. Heavy volume. I like that. All right, Chris, take us home. 23, what will it be when we reflect back in the beginning of 24 and we say, boy, that Chris Gerhart, he just nailed it. He called it well in advance. He knew exactly what the future was going to be. I'm going to take the adjectives the other two guys did. That way, if it's wrong, I can blame them. If it's right, I can take the credit. No. No, listen, I think right in line with that. It's everything we're seeing, everything we're forecasting is showing an incredibly strong year, steady year. The ebbs and flows seem to be leveling out because people are trying to figure out where they can fit an event in and venue space is tight. So it's going to be a strong and steady year, I think. I love hearing this from you guys. You've made my day. I hope for any of the listeners out there, fasten your seatbelts because we're going to do a lot of shows in 23 and we'll all be busy, whether there's going to be a hybrid piece to it, who knows, a stream, whatever. But people are going to gather and that is the key to what we do. We're in the people gathering business in some form or fashion and we tell stories. Listen, guys, I thank you so much for joining us today. I want to thank Michael, Ted and Chris. You guys are amazing. I look forward to seeing you in a ballroom, a convention center somewhere where we're unloading big, heavy road cases and building screens and LED screens and projectors. And here's to the best 23 we can have. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Guys, everyone, thank you so much. Great job. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.