WHAT IS HAPPENING ON SITE THESE DAYS?

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 guys. I have Mark Allen, a technical director. I have Tom Spital, a technical director and a show caller. And I have Jeff Kalafus, who's a technical director. Guys, welcome to the show. I'm super excited you're here. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us. Happy to be here. Well, guys, today, the subject of our podcast is what is happening on show site these days. And it's definitely different than it was a few years ago, pre-COVID. And so we're going to talk about all of that stuff and get your firsthand knowledge of what you're experiencing. So my first question, I'm going to throw it to Jeff Kalafus. And Jeff, what are you finding at show site now when you get to the load in these days? What's happening out there? And is it as planned or are you having to kind of roll with the punches? Well, a little bit of both. You know, I think it varies depending on where you're going. What I've found is that there are cities and markets that are still doing well. And there's others that are really, really hurting, especially from a labor standpoint. You know, we've had I've done shows where, you know, 30 percent of my requested labor showed up and then I've had shows where I was able to fill 100 percent of my labor. I think that part of what happened on COVID during the pandemic was that a lot of a lot of people just stopped doing what we do and found other jobs. And the other thing I found, and this is a big challenge that I'm finding, especially in, like, you know, the Bay Area, for instance, a lot of key leads and really strong technicians that I used to work with have taken full time jobs at other places or have just gotten out of the business in general. So I feel like there is definitely a void in skilled labor to help us on these show sites. And again, it varies by city. You know, I've had good luck in Orlando lately. Las Vegas seems to be hit and But that's probably my biggest challenge in the last, you know, eight, nine months has just been honestly labor across the board. Got it. OK. Tom Spital, do you agree with Jeff? Are you finding the same challenges or you have different challenges, unique challenges? What are you thinking? What's happened on show site? No, I absolutely agree with what Jeff is saying. Yes, it's don't want to say hit or miss, but it is. You know, you've got to come into a venue and you're hoping the call is filled. Also finding even though we're hoping COVID is in a rearview mirror, it doesn't seem to be completely yet. But in terms of show positions, you know, we are, you know, in still position in the position of sort of padding the deck, if you will, overstaffing, if you will, just to have a warm body on site that's able to jump in, you know, where and then selling that concept to the producers and the client and all that. And that that is a bit of a challenge still. But we're still just trying to, you know, stack the deck, stack the decks as best as we can. So that's what I'm saying. But I definitely agree with Jeff. And we're doing it with the same budget, right? We're trying to bury. That seems that I guess that's something else that's changed from a loading standpoint. Maybe I'm jumping ahead here, but budgets, for whatever reason, you would think that budgets would have gone up and they're going down. So we're trying to still pull off the show, but with less money and in less time, which is the other the other big thing I'm seeing on load in days. So you need to do more with less. That's me. With Les. Hey, there you go. And cue the LMG ad right now. Oh, OK. Mark Allen. So what are you finding on show site these days? Well, I agree with Jeff and Tom 100 percent, but I look at the other direction. I look at the venue or the hotel side, which is struggling as well. That directly affect everything we do in our production environment, even though that the CSM can sell you a whole boatload of promises. The people that are in the trenches from the hotel side for everything from loading requirements, from power, from rigging, from dropping stages, from dropping chairs can be a challenge and not meet your expectations or timeline. A lot of times of they're only having staff in the building from eight to six. They don't have an overnight staff. All those people at some of the hotels is not in place. So outside of struggling for labor and all those other things that we deal with, the hotel side is also a struggle in meeting expectations and the client expectations to get the show up running in time. That's a good point. I haven't seen as many temp staff working with everything from catering to set up to anyone in a long time. I feel like they're leaning into a lot of, you know, labor markets that aren't really made for what they need or do. That's a good that's a very good point, guys. So I want to move on to my next thought and I'll start with Mark on this one. You know, when we're doing an on-site schedule and we're trying to plan for loading and all the departments, are the schedules so tight now that if any department has an issue that needs to be resolved that those opportunities don't exist? Are we jam-packing schedules? Are we doing them in the most effective way that allows for success? What are your thoughts? Well, one of those it is a challenge and it's a challenge with some younger producers. Those skilled producers and people putting the shows on that are more client-facing to understand the challenges, you can always try to get some wiggle room in the schedule. Those lower budget shows with less experienced producers who don't fully understand what that turbulence may be and how to deal with it are the ones that are jam-packing budgets and timelines together to try to save a dollar. When in the end, all they're doing is spending more money, some overtime and overages. You know what I'm finding too, though, is that on top of that, the creative side of things, they're not taking that into account when they're pitching creative. There seems to be a gap of the dream that's being sold and then the reality that we come up with from the TD standpoint of what it's going to take to execute that. Because there's been multiple shows this year where it's been fantastic, creative, great ideas, but then with the load in time and the contract and the doesn't work out then with the budget. Sure, we can do anything. It just takes time and money. It seems like lately there's less of each, right? I have found, at least for myself, and maybe you guys have found the same thing, there's times when I get a creative drawing or rendering and then I look at the on-site schedule and have to tell someone that this is probably not a reality, that we can't load the show in in 10 hours and rehearse you because that's not going to work. What does the show really need to be successful with the timeline that we have available to us? Yeah, and then they say, well, that's what we've sold the client. Right. Well, an interesting situation just recently had is had the on-site schedule that pre-show on paper looked fantastic. We had a load in day, we had a tech day, we had a client rehearsal day, then we had three days of shows. Fantastic. We get on site, we load in, we're an hour into tech where it was an LED wall, it was multiple screens, five screens. It took an effort to put it all together. It just had to be put together. Then the client shows up and said, oh, they need to rehearse. They want to rehearse now in the middle of our tech day. So we still didn't tech anything, but we still were required to put the client on stage and rehearse something we have not teched. Didn't take away the need that we needed to, but we still had to do it with the client live. And we're seeing this more and more, at least I've been experiencing this more and more, is that our time is not our own to do what we need to do on site. So to answer your question, Les, yeah, the schedules have been created, but are they adhered to? Well, so my theory here is that as the shows get more complicated and there's more elements, especially if you go to Vegas and these monster shows that happen, and there's just no time for recovery if anything doesn't come out of the gate perfect. And it doesn't matter how small or how big the issue can be. But in a schedule building a little bit of time, we used to have for projectionists way back when, when we used lots of projectors, we used to have dark time, everyone's going to dinner or lunch, we'll go ahead and work in the dark. But nowadays, it seems like the schedules are so aggressive that what does success look like? And when can someone recover if any piece of equipment needs to be exchanged or resolved or even tuned? Audio systems need to be tuned, white, pink noise, we have those kinds of things. Okay, I'm moving on to my next question. And this is I'm throwing this to Tom. Tom, do you think things are better on site now? You know, post COVID? Or better pre COVID? And you know, what is happening on site that we are able to make this opinion, this judgment call? Well, better than, than virtual, absolutely. So it's better, better than that. Whereas it's, you know, a lot of things are just different. You know, of course, as we mentioned, you know, the labor and all of that tighter, tighter budgets. And the good side of this is that everyone wants to be on site now. I mean, everyone's wanting to be, you know, working and everyone's misty, you know, we're still running into people that we haven't seen in, you know, several years. So that's, that's the good side of it. You know, we now have that we still have the hybrid element that was is showing up in our events now, which is giving more people work and more, more opportunities for folks on site. But as to whether better or worse than it was prior to I think it's just different. Yeah, I missed the days beforehand. Yeah, yeah. Mark, would you say that we lived in the good old days and now we're living in whatever the different new days are? What are your thoughts? At least for me and the shows I'm working on is pretty much status quo, except for, you know, everyone's fully aware of the labor challenges and supply and demand happening. But for me, for the most part, it's been status quo of, you know, pre-pro advanced show on site, deal with the challenges. I definitely find at least with this group of TDs on this calls and others who have been on your podcast is that, you know, the more experienced you are as a TD and the more client relationship you have to be upfront with the client on site, Hey, we're behind, this is happening. This is going to happen. As long as you're upfront with the, with the client who's hiring you from the start of loading and keeping them updated, then this process gets easier and relationships get stronger. Absolutely. I feel like some of this too is being, is being caused because shows are stacked back to back to back. You know, even if we wanted to add more time, I don't think a lot of these shows, the time exists because I'm loading in right as someone is loading out reminds me of, you know, like the, the late nineties, early, you know, two thousands when, you know, you were turning rooms and I'm loading in it at midnight, you know, for a 10 AM show the next morning, maybe not that extreme, but you know what I mean? Like the venues are stacking these things up back to back to back and they're just squeezing everything they can into any time in open space, which doesn't help for sure. So Jeff, my question to you is if you had to suggest to a producer who is planning an event, what, what, what suggestions would you give them about how to approach this? And I'd like everyone's feedback on that. So if you're, you're talking to a Mr. Or Mrs. Producer, what advice would you give them as to how to approach, you know, their show for the best outcome? Well, I think it starts just with that schedule. First of all, is look at the venue, look what it's going to take from a load in standpoint and then reverse engineer everything else from there. Hopefully, you know, if there was a perfect place, it would be that we get our foot in the door working with the producer prior to even the hotel contracts being signed. You know, that we, we know ultimately what we're trying to do and the time it's going to take to do it. And then let's find a venue that, that we think it'll fit in, in whatever timeframe they're, they're, you know, as we all know, there are venues that you can load in faster than others, and there's others that take a heck of a lot longer to load in. So getting, having us be part of that team much earlier on, I think is, is absolutely key because then we're factoring in also that past histories of if labor is bad and, you know you know, and we'll know pretty much by looking at something, if it's going to work from a time standpoint, but also from a budget standpoint. I just did a show in lovely New York City and let's just say at one of these convention centers where the load in seemed to take forever and having a motivated team and the right number of people absolutely impact that. But sometimes you can't speed up, how do I say, the crew, you know, based on the location. Sometimes they are designated to operate at speed. Tom, what are your thoughts? Well, as early as possible, absolutely. But, but finding a situation that's coming into reality now is, you know, locking in gear. I've never run across this situation before where coming up, coming to, to find out that there's nothing left on the shelf. You know, we need, you know, we are now putting a show together on available gear. What is, you know, and like I said, even cross rental world is, it has its challenges. So this, so locking in the show as early and locking in the vendors as early as possible, just to guarantee you have the gear for the show is that, that's a huge recommendation is as the earliest we can lock in the vendors, it'll only help. And I would agree, I would agree with that a hundred percent. And my thoughts are that the producer side of life need to be more flexible. And also they need to be more proactive with their clients because yes, I think all my TD friends are in the same boat that we're trying to forecast 2023 and look at what shows are coming our way and look what vendors we want to use. And yeah, I have potential shows in February and March that I am scared because clients have not 100% signed off on budget. And I can't tell my LNG team that this show is confirmed and it's February and March where three years ago, that really wasn't a worry. Now it's a worry. Now, like I'm telling Mike, I'm telling the clients that I'm working for is you need to make a decision by this date or the show could be in jeopardy. It's interesting. You guys bring up this, this demand supply thing. And I, it would be my perspective that there is more demand for what we do as far as gear providers than there is supply. And when there is an imbalance, what you're describing, it becomes, you know, sometimes people are having to turn down jobs because they don't have capacity. And, you know, there's a difference between people that own gear and LMG is a big gear owner versus people that are brokers that are just going to the, you know, cross rental wholesale vendors. And, and sometimes they think they locked it in and then all of a sudden they get there and the gear may not be available. So, so your, your advice for producers is obviously the sooner you can lock in, it obviously will guarantee you a better outcome. What do you think is the greatest opportunity we as an industry and technical directors and producers and teams on site can do right now to improve the shows? You know, is there things that we can do? And based on the fact that maybe what you mentioned earlier, the hotels don't have the facilities and we're working within a parameter of rules that we may or may not have control over. The rules are set forth, whether it's the production guidelines of the facility or the theater or whatever. So what can we do to a preemptive strike to have better onsite experiences, Mark Allen? Well, I think one of the things which for me works is communicate, you know, communicate across the board with producers that can get to the end client. Because if you're not, if you're not communicating, communicating what you're finding, because for the most part, the TDs are back to normal. You know, we're loading in a show, we're getting the show up and running. And then we're backstage working on the next one where a producer might be working on one show. You just gave our secret away, man. A producer may be working on one show that's two months away or so that the TDs who are working are busier than ever. So we're experiencing, we're finding the experience on site to be the challenge. And when you can communicate that people let them know that, hey, you're going to pay more. Our runway may be shorter. We're going to have some turbulence. All these things are going to happen. You need to be prepared. You need to have a 10 or 15 percent stockpile of cash because we might, the budget might go out of whack for whatever reason. And maybe it won't, but you need to be prepared for it because things are going to happen. Tom, your thoughts? Oh, exactly. That is being as prepared. And of course, that always comes down into dollars and cents, you know, is having having money available. And making everyone aware of what the situations are. You know, just as Mark said, communication is key. So do you think if a client, a producer says to you, I want to cut corners and I'm going to do this to save money on a budget, but that gives them exposure for maybe some bad things to have. It's almost like building a house and not having a contingency fund for material cost changes or any, oh, by the ways. Do you think that's not in a producer's best interest? Well, you mean in terms of the relationship with the TD and the producer? I mean, that is our job is to make the producer as aware of every situation as we possibly can. We rarely hear what's being relayed directly to the client, but we don't need to. As long as we're making our producers aware of what, you know, we're here to support the producers in their communication with the clients. And that's as long as we are doing that and making them aware of every situation, all the good ones and any challenges, then we are doing our job. You know, that's what we're doing. So, Jeff, same question, but I'm going to rephrase it a little bit. So if a producer asks you for something, what you think is a little bit unreasonable, do you push back and say, look, you're penny pound foolish? You know, you might not this may not be a good financial decision, but I'm just giving you the downside. Yes, that's exactly what I would say is penny wise, pound foolish. However, and then here are your options. And this is where I think one of the biggest, you know, and it kind of goes back to maybe part of the communication thing is that we as a team, you realize we're doing this as a team, right? That we have to be flexible. If eight out of our 40 riggers shows up, then we all have to then get together as a team and not only communicate that, but realize, you know, how is this going to affect everything down the line? But, yeah, absolutely. I think that penny wise, pound foolish. However, here's some other ideas is typically the way it should be. Got it. OK, so we're getting ready to have a 23 at the end of our, you know, dates. So take me to the future, Mark Allen, and tell me what will 23 be like? I'm an avid watcher of CNBC, and I just just to know what the trends of the world are going to be. And someone said there could be a recession. I know people have to plan these events well in advance to get the space. And so predict the future. What will the world look like in 23 in our industry? I think it's going to be busier than ever. I think that, you know, for all of us that are, you know, not to say I'm at the top of my game, but there's lucky enough to work in the events business and work on some of the larger shows that they're all coming and they're all happening. And, you know, we're all going to deal with all the shortages. We're aware of labor, gear, people, time, management, hotels, all that's going to come into play more and more. And I do think that a 23 is going to be a big year. And the one thing that we haven't discussed and we should maybe touch on it briefly is it's not only the supply and demand of the vendors like LMG. It's actually the people who make the gear. Yamaha, Dante. Sure. All the companies producing the equipment that you can go by to put in your rental inventory. They're having major shortages, too. So you can't even really some companies can't grow their inventory, though they want to. They can't even grow their inventory to make the shows even better because that's also a problem. OK, Tom Spital, take me into the 2023. It's only like two months away. But what's the world going to look like? Is it going to be a good world or a bad world? Or what are you thinking? It's going to be a good world. You know, everyone's going to be busy and all that. I think the biggest challenge of adding to the supply and all of that is the transportation of the gear. That is a huge element that we're we have zero control of. We don't really have any good answers at this point to how how we do affordable trucking. And that is something I it is a big element right now. But I unfortunately think that's going to be only getting larger. So we'll have the big we'll have all the shows. Everyone's going to be busy. But I think our biggest challenge is still getting from point A to point B with all of our gear. So I'm hoping there is some good solution that none of us have thought of yet. But that that will fix that that problem. I would like the what do you call it? A mind reader who can just move it from. And how do you unload it? I think that would be amazing. I think the setup and strike crews would be thrilled, especially not to have one of those massive pushes from the ballroom to the dock. That's only a mile. I mean, nothing like a mile push to build some character. Jeff, would you please take me into 23? Tell me what I should be looking forward to. Well, I don't know. I may be a bit more skeptical. I just last week had two shows in the first quarter cancel completely, which shows that I've done annually for quite a while. I think that the talk of recession has a little bit of people, little people, little spooked across the board. I think a lot of the bigger companies earnings aren't quite where they need to be. So there will be cuts next year. But I think there's going to be opportunity for more smaller versions of events coming up. I think it might be less bigger stuff. One thing I've noticed this year, I thought coming out of COVID, you know, in the pandemic, that people would be much more excited to get together. You know, shows that in the past were 35,000 attendees, you know, we cracked maybe 22,000 this year. There's, you know, I haven't heard back about some of the other bigger ones. I know there's a big one coming up in Vegas in November. I'm curious to see how that turnout is. But all the shows that I've done post pandemic, I have still not quite hit the amount of attendees. So I'm hoping that people are getting excited in 2023 to get back. I think that we will always be doing the hybrid version of it. But I'm hoping that more and more people want to get together and see the benefit of it. And the collaboration side of things and how fun it is to actually get out of the house and out of the office on a work trip once in a while. Hey, there's nothing like all of us being in the room together. And, you know, that's an irreplaceable feeling. You don't get that on one of those virtual platforms. But it's true. But the younger generation and all that fun, especially in the tech sector, don't see it that way for whatever reason. And that's all the shows that I do on the tech side of stuff have yet to hit capacity across the board. But, you know, it's interesting on Teams, a Zoom, a WebEx call or any other platform. It's very hard to get super excited. But if you're in a room around 10,000 other excited people, especially for a product reveal or a corporation that's doing some kind of major announcement, that enthusiasm can be infectious. So I want to ask this question. You mentioned, Jeff, this hybrid thing. Do you think a hybrid thing is still going to be real popular throughout 23? I don't know if it's going to be popular as much as it's going to be the new standard. Every single show, I think just about everyone I've done in the last eight months has had some sort of a remote feed or a remote person coming into the room. I think that there's always going to be that digital side of it from here on out. It kind of goes back to my thinking on some people just don't want to get together. They'd rather, you know, stay at home and watch the show versus fly to, you know, Dallas or wherever their event is. So I think it's going to be a new standard. If it's not going to be a real-time thing, it's going to be a record it and get it posted up for people to watch. Or it's going to be a real-time integration with a platform somewhere. Tom, what do you think? Hybrid, is this here to stay? Are we going to be doing it in 23, most shows? No, I agree that it'll be part, just be a standard part of the package. Last, what, five, five, six events I've done, we've had a hybrid element and not use it. It was provided as a safety net, if you will. It is just a confidence, you know, something that we were able to offer to the client. If at the last minute they have a speaker, presenter who was not able or, you know, patient who was not able to make it on site. We have this absolutely tried and true method of bringing them on site. But we have the systems in place and we just, you know, haven't used them on all the events. But I think having some type of streaming element on every show will just be part of the standard. I don't think companies are going to force people to go to events, right? It's going to be a, you know, especially because of the pandemic. I don't know that the legal departments will let them say you have to go to this city. Because soon as someone says I'm not comfortable going, which rightfully they should be. But that wasn't the thinking, you know, four years ago, right? We didn't have these type of problems four years ago with remote audiences. We still did some, but not to the same vein. Mark Allen, would you opine on this last question I had? Is the hybrid going to be a thing? Is it going to stick around? Are we going to have it? I do. And fortunate for any of us that were lucky enough to do fully virtual shows on whatever platform, Zoom, WebEx, V call, whatever. We all did it pretty well for a long time and the clients have gotten used to it. So to attach that to a show isn't a huge budget hit necessarily. It could be as simple as one robotic wide shot of the stage and an audio feed going to a meeting. And that's nickels and dimes compared to a budget. Or it could be we've got a five camera carbonite package already that's throwing an encoder on it and sending it someplace. So it's not a whole lot of money. Again, the hotel side for internet is a problem for the money side. But I do think it's here to stay. And every show that I'm a part of moving forward, it's one of the top line things I tell the client is we're going to put a broadcast component in here in its smallest form so you already have those numbers. Because someone's going to ask for it. You mentioned the hotel internet. Yeah, the hotel internet is just overpriced. $10,000 for a dedicated 20 minute line. The call was on just before this. That was our discussion. That is just simply unreasonable. Well, guys, I am so appreciative that you all are able to join me today. I have to do one more thing. I have to shamelessly plug my new book. My book came out about a week and a half ago. It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. It's on Kindle. It's on Apple. It's called The Show Must Go On, The Art of Leading Through a Crisis. God knows our industry had a crisis. And we're all smarter because of it. And all my revenue from my book sales goes to St. Jude's Research Hospital. So for anyone who's listening, you can go to Amazon and you can grab one of those. And you're doing some good for St. Jude's. I want to thank Mark, Tom, and Jeff. You all are consummate professionals. I look forward to seeing you in a cold, dark ballroom somewhere. How exciting it's going to be when we're unloading a truck. And hopefully we don't have a mile push. And thank you so much for joining us. And I look forward to a terrific 2023 coming on. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Thank you so much, everybody. Great job. Thanks. Thanks, Les. Thank you.