Episode Transcription: 

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roxo media house
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welcome back to fortitude everyone jw wilson Brinton payne you are amidst the cap text bank studio thank you cap text
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bank mike thomas one president uh we’re blessed to have you guys in our loop we’re thankful for your support
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and we couldn’t do this without you Brinton today sitting between us we got a cool guy
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he’s i call him a friend would you call us a friend absolutely we got to know you both of us are just one of us
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still feeling it out matt homan president in gm of dickies
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arena thank you for being here matt thanks for having me excited to be here yeah thank you for being here this guy lives in a very cool space in a van we
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get yes we get to see his work outside the arena down by the river yes down by the river yes so matt uh before we get
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into what why you’re here i mean the just the genesis of why you’re here but where are you from and how did you how
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did you grow up well i grew up in uh from originally philadelphia pennsylvania um grew up there
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uh going to lots of events with my dad my dad worked for ticketmaster for a long time so kind of grew up in the
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event industry a little bit uh which was which was pretty cool you got to see all the stuff but you know really fell in
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love with everything behind the scenes and that was something that was really important to me uh after growing up there i went to
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university of south carolina so at gamecock jane cox yeah we’re going to be a good football team this year i have a good feeling about us
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um you know and um you know that’s a little bit of the quick history right
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okay so paint the picture so philadelphia 76ers games like what
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was going on at the philly arenas like around that time die hard philadelphia flyers and 76ers okay um you know grew
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up yeah i actually ball boyed for the sixers uh during the dr j charles barkley years oh uh what does that look
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like those guys are written uh familiar yeah um only by
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pictorial type of deal does that mean with the ball boy he’s like you’re out there handing it to him and then you put him back on that rack
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with the wheels and yeah yeah did that did that and then you’d also get to you know sweep the floor when sweat would
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drip or something like that what a joy i remember one time i had i had pretty bad asthma as a kid growing up and you were
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still smoking inside the arena at the spectrum and i was having like a bad thing and i was and and uh they had to
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call me out the ref had to double whistle me out to come you know wipe up some sweat from moses malone and i’m up
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there looking at him like oh my gosh look how big that guy is yeah were you uh in an asthma attack at
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that moment i was you know just i was needing some inhalers and stuff yes
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dr j probably played while he was smoking right now so and then with your dad being a ticket
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master like what error we talking about for not only sporting events but kind of concerts and stuff like that at that
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time oh so i mean you know growing up in the you know late 80s early 90s obviously graduated from uh high school
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in you know 95 um you know got to see a lot of great things and my first job was actually working at the spectrum uh is
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as a ticket seller and i was there um i was there for actually when robert um
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when paige and plant got into a fist fight backstage no kidding yeah yeah you can just hear about it like nobody was
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really back there i was kind of back there and didn’t see it and just saw the security rush together and separate
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everyone and it was kind of you know what just happened but you know were you working like the will call
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window up there i was actually working guest services so when people came in complaining about their seats because it was too high or you know they broke
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their leg and can’t fit in the seats and things like that i was the relocation person okay best complaint yeah yeah he
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shows up and and says what like i took the acid too early man like i could not sit here like i mean he saw that but
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back in that day it was more dealing with duplicate tickets oh yeah because i had a little bit more of a vast ticket
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background i could kind of i was a little bit more experienced with that i could say hey this person’s got fake tickets they’re out yeah imagine doing
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that at a time at a dead concert back in 90s together because i know a guy who did
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take the acid too early ended that had the fake ticket and went in and they’re like you’re not going in this show man
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and you just had to go out in the parking lot and hang out you know for the rest of the time best concert as a kid through all this experience
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well i mean i’m a die-hard springsteen fan so it was probably the first concert i ever saw live with springsteen yeah in
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83 so um you know that’s one of my favorites that’s definitely one of my
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favorites uh pearl jam um pearl jam at the at the wells fargo center was
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definitely a great one as well there’s a lot of them i’ve seen so many good shows um i remember going to my first dead
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concert actually at the spectrum and um you know and the crowd just starts going nuts and you know i’m in
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high school and like you know i’m a freshman in high school and i look around i go the guy like what just happened they’re like oh they haven’t
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played unbroken chain and you know 22 years 400 some shows and i’m like yeah
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okay yeah for sure this is good yeah what’s really fun about the dead shows is how the family dynamic like where
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you’ll look over and there’ll be a father and son and brother all passed out together you know during the second
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set you know just completely comatose and you know it’s just it’s like the most dysfunctional thing going i used to
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have a cousin that lived in cincinnati and the only time we would see him when the dead came to town yeah
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because he’d get tickets from my dad and he’d stay in our house and shower well that’s like my uncle was a huge deadhead too it’s like every like one it’s like
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every bad seed in the family that starts the fights during christmas is all together for a concert right like it’s
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all those people i love the dead man i’m just i’m beautiful great grilled cheese outside yeah
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for sure all right how did you what brought you to fort worth so i was running the wells fargo center and
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this opportunity came that they were building this arena in fort worth texas
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and at the time of my career you know i was happy you know i was doing my dream job which was running the wells fargo
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center which i thought was the pinnacle of my career you know run the nhl nba town you know building that i grew up
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going to uh you know was something that was special to me but i fell in love with this concept of this not-for-profit opportunity that was
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going to run the facility and not evenly that just a you know a not-for-profit that was going to open with little debt
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and then you know all the dollars that this not-for-profit can make the only thing we could do with those dollars is
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reinvest them back into the facility i mean that was like mind-boggling at the time it’s like wow there’s someone
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can do that um because you know i was working you know comcast wasn’t overseeing the wells fargo center at the
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time and you know it was it was just getting to a point where comcast is like okay find three percent more find four
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percent more and the only way to do that in our industry is because we don’t create the events you know we try to go
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solicit them and bring them in but i can’t create i can’t make the who go on tour right yeah and so well we talked
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about that real quick that dynamic like um if i’m a band i come to you
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many people don’t understand that relationship everyone thinks that you pay me to come to you but do i pay to
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use your like how does that work yeah no no that’s a great question so i am actually in the rental business the majority of the time okay now i get
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involved with promoters and do what we call co-pros and things like that where we co-promote it together but for the
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most of the events that we do you know we’re in the rental business and we rent the building out to like a live nation
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or an aeg who are the two largest concert promoters in the world or in outback concerts and they bring in the
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artists they’ll have a tour with that artist and they’ll bring they’ll route the tour they had an artist and then they’ll bring them into our facility and
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just rent to use the facility okay but obviously the key is you want those events to do well because you don’t just
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want to bring in you know an act that’s going to only sell 2 000 seats and see that promoter lose their lose their butt
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right because that doesn’t make money for for anyone yeah and then that’s going to be a detraction to the event so
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you want to help market and solicit and help bring those people in the other thing is that the more they come in the
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more they eat the more they drink the more they spend that’s where we tend to make our money well and those things are
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built to the better they sound right like you get only 2 000 people in a you know 150 or whatever the 40 000 arena
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it’s bad that that sound is bouncing off the wall it’s just not good you know yeah it’s terrible so i mean you want
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that full house and there’s there’s nothing like walking into a full arena right but even if at a not full arena
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you know the way that we built dickies arena is that you know we have a curtaining system in our upper level and even if it’s a lower bowl show you know
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like you want that energy and that vibe and the band wants it too because they don’t want to be embarrassed out there
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sure now in the build of that thing it’s kind of a i mean it is a very unique build like
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the way that they’ve done the circular dome with zero truss rods going across
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maybe you can speak to that and then the weight capacity because the bands like that too right yeah absolutely so two
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things is one is when we were when the design i came in on the front end of the construction phase but a lot of the the
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design was done right i came in and was able to make some operational changes which we can talk about later but you
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know the dome was there to really duplicate what the rest of the campus looked like so we didn’t want to build a
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glass building in the cultural district there we want something that fit well into you know the rest of the district
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and that’s why you see that dome which really looks like the will rogers dome and the cupola that really looks like that and the towers that you have up
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there as well so really fits all together within the rest of the campus which is really important
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weight is something that is you know what rigging weight is what you’re asking about that’s the second part of the question i mean that’s something
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that was really important to us when i came in here i think we were able to handle 150 000 pounds and we bumped that up to
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over 250 000 pounds because you don’t want to ever get into a place where you’re saying hey you know we can’t we
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can’t weigh this or we can’t do this show because that weight or something like that yeah like radiohead brings all
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these tvs like this back in the day and and you can imagine that it’s like no i want all my gear in a real tight space
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like a really intimate space like i want that vibe that it’s not as hard to sell out but i want all this magic stuff
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happening too yeah one of the cool things coming up which we was the first time for us is we’re actually upcoming
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we’re going to do pbr world finals we’re going to load out pbr and do paul mccartney right and then we’re going um
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load paul mccartney out and do pbr well as as a part of this what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna keep some of pbr’s uh
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equipment up some lighting stuff and we could fly it all the way up to the ceiling so it’ll be at 125 feet off the
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ground so it’s not going to be noticeable but we’re actually going to carry about 185 000 pounds in the
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building at one time which will be our first time doing that so we’ll bring paul mccartney’s rig in which is about 145 000 pounds and then uh 40 000 pounds
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of pbr will still be up there in the ceiling as well but you won’t ever see it is that weight or light what’s the
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significance it’s like the weight of the speakers yeah it’s speakers lighting lighting speakers lighting trucks not
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really speakers for pbr but for mccartney it will be it’s lighting truss and mccartney’s lane trusts are going to be very you know it’s going to be before
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we get shot can we backtrack just a bit before we tell to tell your story surely when you get to fort worth they’re built
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they’re starting to build uh dickies you you met a man named ed bass i guess ed
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in the in the board is kind of who you answer to ultimately as as the gm uh
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what is your first meeting like with this man and how how’s relationship with him now well i interviewed with ed bass
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so uh this is about seven years ago now so before we even broke ground on the building um you know about 77 years ago
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i came into fort worth for a meeting with a group of people ed bass was one of them uh and we had a great meeting
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and uh we just talked and we had a great conversation about events and concerts and sporting
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events and your problems with nhl and nba facilities and um you know it was it
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was just it evolved it was just us having a great conversation um you know
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what mr bass has done for dickies arena to build this you know it’s it’s something that
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i’ve never seen before it’s uh something that i offer the uh the most respect in the world for that man he’s done a great
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job building this facility and setting it up for long-term success um you know fast forward to where we are
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now yes he’s the chairman of of the board that i report to i have a board um the board of directors that that we have
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and it’s fascinating it’s great um i love learning from him i love listening to
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him he’s always got a great opinion and perspective on things and he’s taught me so much since i’ve been here so um yeah
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my respect for mr bass is just it’s through the roof you know he’s done so much for this building for this
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community for me personally that um you know it’s it’s it’s it’s an amazing thing and his gift to fort worth of what
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he’s done by you know doing all this and putting it together and handing it to the city on a silver platter and saying to him
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was just you don’t see any other community in the country so you you survived covet obviously uh
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which was obviously difficult in the industry you’re in but how are i know things are back to normal relatively
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speaking you’re booking some incredible shows stat wise how how does dickies
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measure up to compare work to where you want it to be where you thought it’d be rest in the world and maybe weave in that non-profit that we began on and
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then and and like with all that accolades to mr best to you know bring that into you yeah sure so um
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you know it was great when we started you know in 2019 november of 19 when we opened i mean things were going well you
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know we’re still this young building you know people weren’t sure if fort worth and dallas were the same market and when
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i say that i really mean american airlines center in us they weren’t sure if we were the same market or different markets so it was hey these guys are
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doing well they’re selling tickets and blah blah blah it’s going great covet hit in march shut everything down
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um you know one of the best things i’ve done in ever in most proud things of my career is that i didn’t furlough or lay
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anyone off and that was that was pretty special to me we were fortunate to receive ppp loans
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uh because of our nonprofit status so that was neat and then as we kick
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back in you know things kept going and going and then we start putting shows on sale and you know shows are just selling
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really well and right now you know i think there’s there’s we’re definitely probably the
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hottest entertainment market in the united states in my opinion and that’s because the people of fort worth are supporting this facility and
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coming to shows you know we still haven’t had that one show that plays fort worth and dallas back to back but
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it’s coming it’s going to happen this year yeah it’s going to happen can you say uh or no i can’t say but
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it’s a guess uh you could guess is it leads up i’m getting back together finally it’s not no no they are not well
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they’re missing a guy well he’s while he’s wondering what’s what’s the economic impact of dickies arena for fort worth so the neighbor he’s got to
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be a canadian justin no he was just here so uh you know the economic that’s a
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tough number to say to say you know you have to get someone to come in and show what it does but i could say that in
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each of our fiscal years we’re into our third fiscal year we’ve made a profit we’re proud of that we’re proud that
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we’ve made a profit right you know we’re putting those monies back those dollars back in the facility even this year we’re going to put two and a half
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million dollars back into the facility so and what kind of stuff you know we’re upgrading you know some maintenance some
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upgrades to some of our tv displays that we have in there some um bigger bars for
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sure yes yeah only for rodeo time right next question some more office space
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because we didn’t have much office space when we did that so we that was a little thing that we needed uh if you recall on
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top of the garage we on the chevrolet garage we have that preview center that we use we’re transforming that into a
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training center for all of our staff you know if you’re watching fresher air circulating in some of the men’s rooms
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just i mean just the rodeo those are the nicest restrooms i’ve ever seen yeah that’s better than the world rogers
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yes exactly you don’t get that crud as you walk out of dickie’s arena things are amazing yeah i mean the level
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of detail in that facility is just it’s just incredible i mean everywhere you look you can find something and be like
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wow someone put a lot of time effort and thought into that yes and 99.9 of the time it was mr bass let’s do this
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comparison because tonight over in dallas or cold play is playing
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at the cotton bowl and that place i think there’s some walkways there that it’s like you’re a
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circus act i mean those catwalks up above it’s crazy someone’s going to get really hurt i mean it’s just night and
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day i went to the cotton bowl for the winter classic and i swore i’d never go to the cotton bowl again for an event yeah and
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then i went back for the rolling stones but it’s scary i mean the the the infrastructure of that is just it’s
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truly you look up and you’re like wow that’s a big crack between a pylon and a you know yeah you saw the stones
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in the in the cotton ball in that lighting storm yeah that had to be fantastic yeah we were down on the floor you know i took my kids my kids were
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like we’re going to see who i said you’re going to see the rolling stones and you’ll thank me later in life you know no phones allowed just watching
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yeah you’re going to watch the rolling stones yeah okay well there’s this thing called the fort stock show and rodeo you
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might have heard of it uh tell us how what how that involved i mean obviously this is you’re one of your babies
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what what’s going on with that and dickies well another person i have the utmost respect for is brad barnes the
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president general manager of the fort worth stock show rodeo and i call him a dear friend to be honest with you and um really you know that evolved some
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time ago really probably six years ago when i first got here of he and i just kind of deciding how to put this all
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together and you know what we concluded was that you know we were best to go out to market with
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everything together for us to be one and similar and you know they’re the anchor tenant of our facility we’re not out
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there looking to find another you know a minor league basketball team or a miner league hockey team it doesn’t make sense
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for us they’re our anchor tenant which every building in my opinion needs an anchor tenant and that’s the fort worth
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stock show and rodeo and for me on the entertainment side selfishly what a better time to have them than you know
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beginning of january into the first week’s effects the slowest of tour times right for these bands exactly so for me
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it’s like a perfect world right it gives me the opportunity to book the rest of the year but the stock show is a huge
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part of dickie’s arena and a huge part of the reason we’re successful right now um and that goes back to you know their
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pr you know our together our premium seating packages that we put together for all of our suite holders our club
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box our club seat holders rodeo box holders loge box holders you know in our sponsors and brad and i really put that
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whole concept together and put it out there and it was something it was something that i don’t think many other markets could duplicate because you
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can’t you’ll in other markets you’ll get a true tenant who doesn’t have the same goals as you
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and you’re just gonna you’re gonna fight the whole time right well and kudos to you for coming in from out of town and
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seeing how other models had tried in a different and probably a totally different event right the rodeo i mean
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which i don’t think maybe philadelphia’s got a really big rodeo presence but it seems like you’re able to bring all that
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experience that you have into something like this and then find a common ground to make it
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really good in my interview they asked me have you ever been to a rodeo and i said i’ve seen a pbr once yeah well
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that’s not a rodeo yeah yeah i go well you know it’s an event i’m used to running events so i have confidence that
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i can sure obviously the rodeo is wildly successful here are there anything at the rodeo that’s not that needs
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improvement i mean this is kind of a loaded question but is there anything any challenges that you’re trying to overcome in that regard well i mean i
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think from you know from the 2020 rodeo obviously to the 2022 rodeo we’ve made some vast improvements i think our
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in-seat service the food and beverage portion got a lot better um i think that
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overall our service improved from where we were in 2020 you know our north club which is our avion club our dining area
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that got a lot better staffing got a lot more used to it and was ready for that run yeah and i think we did an
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incredible job this year the downside is the labor market right now the part-time labor market when we
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opened this facility you know we had over i had over you know 1300 part-time
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staff right now i’m hovering around 900 part-time staff and for any given night
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at a full event including the rodeo we have probably over 600 part-time staff work in the facility holy cow so you’re
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always looking for a part-time help always all the time and whether it be in food and beverage operations
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um you know security ushers ticket takers you know box office staff cleaning you know it just goes on and on
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and on could we like work uh like uh the floor like security i mean you get to see the show why
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wouldn’t you either be on the floor and you’d let all those people in like you like to be let in right i’ve
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recently put my son to work there and he’s been doing it and he’s been doing some ticket scanning and going like that
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yeah you know it’s funny during uh eric church you know in our whatever we post on instagram afterwards you can see the
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back of his head he’s like that’s the back of my head it’s awesome so yeah yeah you know but it’s good you know but
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yeah we’re trying to find anyone right not anyone but obviously trying to find staff right now is is is definitely our
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biggest challenge yeah what’s the partnership with the city of fort worth look like in regards to dickies well you
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know the city of the city at the end of the day owns the facility we have a 70-year lease to manage it 70-year lease
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to manage it but you know they’re they’re they own it they check in on us
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they have two mem two people uh from city council that are on our board one c council member and the c manager david
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cook are also on our board um so it’s it’s together we’re always working together
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on things they’re you know the whole concept of us being that not for profit though is to take the red tape out of it
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yeah i don’t need to go through you know you know procurement when we want to go buy chairs right you know and i don’t
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need so that’s the reason for this non-profit is to get that red tape out of it and run it like a for-profit
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business where because you know every couple years you know every five ten years we’re gonna have to dump uh you
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know lots of money into that facility you know on a five-year basis you could be looking at dumping to anywhere from 10 to 15 million dollars you know to
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keep that facility up to its you know current state did they look at will rogers and that not happening as the
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model of what they’re going to change is that where that came from or i mean and i’m not trying to be like rude about
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that it’s just you know will rogers got old right yeah and i think so yeah i think that was part of the reason that
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mr bask wanted that new facility is because will rogers was so tired um and
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it wasn’t maintained you know to the level it probably should have yeah you know once you get that thing 25 years
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down the road and it hasn’t been maintained it’s tough to get back those 25 years yeah and get it back up to a standard so
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you know will rogers is great for what it is right and it’s a great equestrian event equestrian home to lots of different
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events you know but they also wanted there was time for something else and you know there’s time for that sports
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and entertainment and concerts fort worth was big enough yep and you know you know again kudos to mr bass for the
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vision to bring that all together yeah so you bring in some incredible things like ncaa basketball march madness
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gymnast usa gymnastics concerts obviously the rodeo uh is for people who don’t understand
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how that works who is the person is it you do you have a team that’s go out and finding these people and bringing them
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and showing them why they should do this and bringing them in is there a talent scout of sorts how does that work it’s kind of me you know it’s just you know i
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i take the um i take the booking myself i do it all i fi you know i hold it close to my heart you know it’s
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something that i enjoy something that i’m still able to do and with my current role um you know so i’m out there going
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after these events we actually announced if you may recall we announced winning the ncaa gymnastics and the ncaa men’s
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basketball tournament the day we broke ground on the arena right i mean that was the day we announced it you know fortunately that bidding cycle with the
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ncaa and you have to know what the ncaa bidding cycle is and what that looks like that bidding cycle with the ncaa
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was for 20 2020 2021 2022 well the ncaa as a whole is never going to give you
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that those dates in 2020 the year you open just in case construction’s not there blah blah blah they don’t want to
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do that and thankfully they didn’t give it to us in 21 or else we would have missed out on that because of covid so we were
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fortunate that we got it in 22. so that was something that was that kind of we got lucky with but no i’m in charge of
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those you know i went after those the american athletic conference men’s basketball tournament we brought that in
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um you know i and then now we work with uh visit fort worth and the fort worth sports commission jason sands about
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bringing in lots of different events you know credit to them they brought in usa wrestling during covid when usa
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wrestling was supposed to be at uh penn state um to host the their championship and they couldn’t do it which was their
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olympic trials because of covid because of pennsylvania laws um at the time you
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know they brought it to us and you know kudos to them for bringing those out there to us there’s this other thing in
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texas called the event trust fund which i don’t know if you’re aware of or not but it’s these incentive dollars that
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the state gives you basically on the sales tax you know back to the event holder or the host that helped you that
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helped entice them to bring events to texas it’s great for the state of texas it’s great for venues to go after these
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things and it helps it helps secure some of them as well so you’re talking about even though it’s a like a real strike
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force capacity there’s just some red tape associated with some of that i got to think that you’re negotiating this
25:07
stuff with these promotions guys who are the slickest guys around and are the best negotiators ever
25:14
how i mean is that a stressful time because they’re bringing something to you you’re wanting to get something then the negotiations begin then you’re like
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can i fit it and then can i make it you know can i can i make these num like that’s got to be like a shot clock going
25:27
can i make it work in this time frame yeah there’s a lot of quick decisions that you have to make throughout that you know but but
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it’s education and it’s volume really more than anything else it’s you know you’re not sitting there saying well i
25:39
don’t know if i want to do you know i don’t know if i want to do james taylor because maybe justin
25:44
bieber’s going out on tour you know i know you’re justin bieber yes but you don’t sit there and make those questions
25:49
you know it’s more about the volume of events and concerts once they start learning that that’s the market they
25:54
want to play there’s a little wiggle room that they’ll find and if you don’t have friday available maybe they’ll say okay thursday or saturday yeah you know
26:01
even though they were routed with you maybe they’ll change it a little bit so you have to work that process as well
26:06
which is a process to work but it’s about being flexible it’s about you know it’s about
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not being greedy towards events and making sure that everyone can make money and move on down the road is there like
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a promotion like a like concerts news magazine like an industry mag where you can get some of the like kind of the
26:25
yeah what’s going on polestar is a great resource that i use a lot that’ll give you touring um history
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um you know it’s weird right now in the touring models because everything’s selling different than it was
26:37
pre-covered yeah you know like we’re extremely hot market right now pre-covered you know the northwest was
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pretty hot and it’s kind of you know skimmed down a little bit right now which is do the artists like here
26:49
because of why everybody else does central country huge airport easy to get in and out of
26:56
sends weather not not really you know they’re looking at more you know where can they make the most money you know
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that’s important to the artist or to the you know to also the promoter yeah you know where are they going to sell the
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most tickets uh but they also want the great experience and the great fan experience too and i think our fan
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experience we offer is is second to none yeah and and and so that’s something they look to you know it’s been reported
27:19
that george you know george strait obviously is coming back uh it’s been reported to us that that he really likes
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our venue and um you know he he really loved it and fell in love with our venue and you know
27:30
i think that’s one of the reasons is bringing him back yeah yeah let’s talk about that for instance so this is a
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second trip to dickies um a guy like george strait you’re reaching out to his agent i believe how does that go like
27:41
hey i’m matt obviously you have a connection i’m looking to book george is it that simple and they say these are
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the dates we can avoid we can give you and then you negotiate the price and it’s done well that one was unique you know our
27:53
first time that we did it you know it was more like that and i was friends with his manager and agent and uh talked
27:58
to him about it i’ve known him a long time a good friend of mine not george but his imagination who’s his agent uh
28:03
well the gentleman we deal with is louis messina out of out of austin and uh louie’s been in the industry for a long
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time and i call him a dear friend and he is a you know he’s one of the guys i come hang out i go sit on his bus with
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him for a little bit and you know chat and you know and it’s a great experience but um
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you know george was one of those people that yeah we when we opened i called louie and i said louie it makes sense i need george to be
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you know one of the first shows yeah and at the time he had a vegas residency and vegas wasn’t sure if they were going to
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let him do it but louie agreed and you know was really excited about it and george had a great show and you know and
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did great numbers the fans loved it you know and even george on stage said i’ll be back yeah and uh here we go you know
28:46
you know post covet he’s coming back and hopefully this isn’t his last time great job by the way i was lucky enough i think it was eight years ago in san
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antonio to be at george strait’s last concert ever obviously that’s not the case but it was it was sad i was
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crying cowboy rides away my kids were asleep in my lap they couldn’t make it but obviously he wasn’t done at the time
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he’s still going strong this is kind of amazing and it’s even more amazing that he loves dickies i love that he says
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that to you and it’s it’s really encouraging luckily i’m going to be at the concert and i can’t freaking wait but last touring show was in san antonio
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that was his last touring challenge that’s the that’s the difference when he just opened the austin the moody center
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in austin just this past uh this past weekend i think what do you think it is about our fan experience like i mean
29:27
obviously people here are very nice and stuff we don’t want to repeat the cup incident at starplex when guns and roses
29:33
play uh in our defense axel did not come out for a significant amount of time but
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what is what is it about like this in fort worth well i think it’s about you know the intimacy you have of that facility
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you know it’s 13 000 seats for george strait you know it’s intimate it’s tight it sounds good you know you got to
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remember he’s using our house sound system he’s not bringing in any you know supplemental sound for the arena he brings in some supplemental sound for
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the floor and that’s about it so that’s a significant cost for him well yeah but he’s not worried about that i don’t
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think as much it’s just more about like it’s first class that’s the way that it should be and and again
30:11
it’s more of a partnership with with them to bring those shows in here you know it’s something that we look forward
30:17
to and that we’re excited about does he have a guarantee matt you could tell us he does have a guarantee okay good good
30:22
he gets it all i guarantee that’s right and you know and but you know you hear you do hear
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some grumblings right now about ticket prices but you know you look at george strait and in a 13 000 seat venue and in fort worth
30:36
texas like what you would presume would be the guy’s home practically you know it’s it so it makes sense you know and
30:42
and there yes it doesn’t appeal to everyone but it does appeal to a market that is
30:48
still paying for those tickets worst negotiation of an artist you ever had worse than a good like where you took it
30:54
where you were like i need you bad and i just can’t believe i’m giving you all this for this
30:59
well yeah i don’t i don’t know that’s worse but paul mccartney is probably you know this paul mccartney show is
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probably a break-even show for us he is a billionaire for a reason well not just for that though because you know my deal
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with pbr is i’m paying for all the changeover costs to get out of pbr and then bring pbr
31:16
back in so what are you doing with the dirt on the floor no no we’re going to take all the dirt out we’re going to take all the dirt out you know i’m going
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to clean the building get it ready so i mean so for deals it’s prob that’s probably my worst deal
31:29
you know um but we’re doing paul mccartney in fort worth you got to do what you got to do and you know what
31:35
it’s good for it’s good for our suite holders it’s good for our club seat holders it’s good for our sponsors you
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know it shows that you know fort worth is the market to play and committed clearly
31:45
right and like i gotta i gotta imagine that in the industry it’s like you know what those guys will work with
31:51
you they moved all this dirt out of an arena and then back in the next day where does that dirt go by the way for the small period of time so we’re in
31:57
your bed we some parking lots you know around the
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south of the garage that we’re going to you know just export it out there and then bring it back in so
32:07
carter coming to do a little bmx uh expo over there you know you know just to give you an idea about fort worth the
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market you know and you know it’s sad that i bring this up but i will you know we went on sale with the judds and how
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devastating to hear about the loss of her but but we went on sale with the judds the same week that garth brooks
32:25
went on sale and sold out att stadium and we sold out the judge and on the sell on the opening day oh wow think
32:31
about that yeah yeah i mean the hot the probably the biggest country music
32:37
artist and you know next to george strait of course louie in case you listen to this um in the world you know
32:42
goes on sale and we sell out the judds that same week yeah wow that’s pretty
32:48
amazing and telling of how much fort worth is supporting this facility in my mind it’s incredible hardest artists to
32:54
deal with from a personality standpoint i guess you wouldn’t want to say that because you then kanye seriously seriously
33:00
it’s not surprising but yeah he does bring a tremendous crowd kanye we were in a room like this and kanye brought in
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a lattice roof over top of him in a locker room so he could feel like he was at home
33:13
are you kidding me it sounds like you Brinton a little bit no reminds me of yourself this is my accoutrement
33:18
that is that yeah all right let’s switch gears for a second panther city lacrosse we are huge fans we’ve been to many many
33:25
uh events of their many of their games that speaking of moving dirt how to putting that situation together it
33:31
sounds like a nightmare but you guys have made it work how is panther city doing in your eyes you know i think they’re doing well i think they had a
33:37
good start for the first season i think you know greg bibb who uh who i have a lot of respect for for bringing this in
33:42
and putting it all together understands that this is the build you know obviously you know lacrosse is not the
33:48
founding sport of texas but it’s growing right and i think i think if panther city i think it’s going to take two or
33:55
three years but i think they’re going to grow and i think they’re going to do better next year and i think they’ll do better the year after that i think the
34:00
youth lacrosse market is really hot in texas and it’s getting hotter and i think panther city in my opinion needs
34:07
to yeah it has to focus on that as as to build to build their franchise is it hard it’s a great sport right is it hard
34:14
to do with the rodeo because of like the scheduling like because it kind of overlaps that so as we started talking
34:20
about this you know years ago i said look here’s the blackout period and i talked to the league and i know the commissioner of the league very well i
34:25
said here’s going to be the black outdates do the rodeo and it’s going to be basically you know christmas until the first or second weekend of february
34:31
just depends on the year he said i think we can still make that work and i said look if we can make that work then i want to keep moving forward
34:37
you know i would almost argue that it was nice to come back to you know like you started in christmas and you’re kind
34:43
of ramped up and then they go play the away games or whatnot and then you’re like oh it’s coming back we got another game because
34:49
i do think you get we had season tickets and you get not burned out but you know that’s a lot to ask going to every single game kind
34:56
of thing so yeah but but it’s the right amount of games too right i mean it’s you know nine home games
35:01
it’s not it’s not 40 games right you’re not feeling over committed and so you can spread it out you’re not doing you
35:07
know in the minor league hockey model it just doesn’t work when there’s that friday saturday sunday you know home
35:12
series it’s like come on that that’s a lot who’s gonna dedicate their whole weekend to go into that you can’t you know so
35:18
so i really greg and i talked and we really thought this lacrosse was the right fit for the right amount of you
35:24
know events and games at the facility yeah any future sports coming that we don’t already have uh you know i think
35:30
we’ve got some not that we don’t already have well i take that back we’re gonna we’ve announced that this august we’re
35:35
gonna have an esports event here uh the rocket league world championships which your kids probably know what that is oh
35:41
yeah uh so rocket league will be here for their world championships in august i think that’s pretty cool and then we’re going to continue doing college
35:46
basketball games i think we got some really good games on tap that i can’t announce but i’m sure you two would be
35:52
at one of them so um which will be a great game uh first what we think is you know obviously tcu will be a part of
35:59
that and tcu you know should be a top 20 team next year well it was just i went i was lucky enough to get asked and go um
36:05
to one of those basketball games the ncaa you’re like on a wednesday or thursday
36:10
afternoon the place is packed and i think about like this wouldn’t have happened without this
36:16
like you think about how many fans came from north carolina like all these other places filled up our hotel
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rooms are out eating in our restaurants like there’s cities that haven’t even woken up yet you know from all of this
36:29
stuff and here we have the benefit of something like this in the middle of a weekday you know i mean it’s just a this
36:34
is a cool thing it was amazing and i mean look at that we’re so great at the draw that we had with the number one
36:39
seeds here and just the games we had were incredible i mean and just you saw the fans love it there they were there
36:46
all day you know for both sessions on on the thursday um it was just it was incredible to be we almost did we did a
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hair under a million dollars in food and beverage for that weekend for that thursday and saturday so i mean it was
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great i would like to see globetrotters if i could put them in yeah you should uh i don’t like going over to
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dallas for it i like the globetrotters at dickies arena yeah we have them there good good good they’re there every year
37:09
usually in march or april time frame we’ll get you down there yeah matt what’s a typical day in your life look like
37:15
every day is different that’s that’s the thing that i fell in love with this industry is because it’s never the same thing twice you know i’ll be working
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with our food and beverage team our marketing team booking the building finance operations parking you know it’s always
37:29
talking about you know our upcoming events making sure we’re planned making sure we’re ready and and booking the
37:34
building so i’m trying to call agents and talk to agents and promoters about what we’re doing how things are selling
37:40
you know we sold out recently you know one another great win for us recently was the new addition concert it was our
37:46
first r b concert that we did in the building it sold out grossed over a million dollars so immediately as soon as that’s over i
37:52
go on the phone with every other you know every other promoter saying hey did you see our first r b show we did a
37:57
million bucks for new additions sold out every ticket blah blah blah you know we announced and we’ll be announcing
38:03
another r b show here coming up real soon um you know and then so it builds
38:08
off that you know the one thing we haven’t done yet that i’m still that i’m working on very hard is you know to get
38:13
a good latin show i really want a good latin show i think it’s going to happen it’s going to happen soon we had a you know a boxing
38:20
event which you know brought a lot of the latin community but i want a latin concert and i think we’ll get one here in the next couple months to be honest
38:26
with you who’s somebody in that regard that you’d be looking at to do well i mean there’s you know there’s great ones out there you know there’s whether it be
38:33
a banda ms or something like that but you know someone that really that’s the the take some our speedway is doing a
38:39
deal with them for the uh their big race card yeah chris christian no doll you
38:44
know there’s there’s a lot of them like that they can sell lots of tickets right there so it’s something that i’m
38:49
actively talking to i’m talking to the um latin promoters i just had a great conversation with them the other day
38:54
last week actually and now you know they’re looking and you know asking me for availability and starting to work out a deal basically nice
39:01
uh don’t look at your phone now but how many friends hit you up for tickets for events you put on
39:07
uh you know a good amount you could probably make friends fast in a town yeah yeah a good amount a good amount
39:13
that yeah i get a lot of requests um but you know that’s it’s also part of the business of what i do you know very
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fortunate that a lot of my friends actually support the facility and buy club seats for you know for our which
39:24
really supports the facility and then gives them that first array of refusal when concerts come so i have a lot of
39:30
i’m very fortunate to be here very fortunate to be a part of this and to grow to where it is that’s the best day
39:35
at uh the best concert at the uh at dickies for you personally new addition man they play candy girl
39:42
i mean straight was great you know the opening concert we did was was awesome with
39:48
jason isabelle there and steve miller band you know that was fun just because we finally
39:53
got to kick the tires uh straight was greater clapton was great um
40:00
yeah i see i can see where it gets difficult for sure it does it’s it’s it gets tough it’s like picking your favorite kid you can’t do it right yeah
40:06
i mean but yeah but you certainly have the ones that you look forward to and you get excited for church was a great show i’m not a huge eric church fan but
40:13
i mean the guy can entertain and he put on a show it was funny they were telling us the story afterwards that as he’s
40:21
driving to the arena he and his wife were right in the set list and one to put the tribute to this texas artist
40:26
they played the pat green song and yeah those other songs and uh he just came up with it right there and he’s like i’m
40:32
trying to learn the lyrics as he’s going along doing it yeah reminding himself how to play it and he was able to do it
40:37
and pull it off yeah oh yeah yeah and he played for like three hours you go as deep as looking like setlist.fm
40:42
like to see what these guys are doing or no you i do yeah yeah but i’m because you’re a fan too yeah well also yeah i’m
40:49
a fan you know in in but you got to have some pride in like what they did at your arena yeah yeah
40:54
you know and you want to see if it’s the same set list if it’s going to change do they mix it up you know there’s some artists they’ll they’ll go toward a tour
41:01
and just play the same exact set list over and over again yeah you know there’s reasons for that why the artists do that but um but then there’s also
41:08
ones that just mix it up and change it all and throw it all out and say hey let’s write out the set list and go okay
41:13
nightmare scenario like worst day on the job like like uh
41:18
hot dog water doesn’t get changed or i don’t know what you you know the example is it gets worse than that yeah i mean
41:24
traffic flow is probably for me like when traffic because no one gets more mad except for when they have traffic
41:30
problems so traffic flow is probably one of my biggest nightmares and pet peeves
41:36
traffic flow and cleanliness of the facility but cleanliness we can control right like we can go in before the door say hey it’s not clean enough we need to
41:42
clean up again and keep going traffic flow you’re on the mercy of a lot of the police officers and we have to hire all
41:49
those police officers for on the average event we probably spend over you know probably close to 12 to 15
41:56
grand on police officers for traffic flow for a full house concert yeah i mean that’s a lot of money for traffic flow but again you have bad traffic
42:03
experiences no one will want to come back like when you go to cotton bowl you don’t want to go back yeah yeah but you
42:09
know so you want to make sure that it’s good so we’re changing we’ve changed our traffic patterns we’ve got better with
42:14
it we think we have good systems in it not everyone’s always happy our goal is to try to clear those lots on a full
42:21
full concert between 30 to 40 minutes so are we good with places to stay around there and stuff i don’t even know what
42:27
the time frame between victory or like after american winning victory park are we on path for that or what’s your
42:34
thoughts there i think we’re getting closer you know i think i think with the new crescent that’s going to open up down there on west 7th that’s going to
42:40
be wonderful i’m really excited for that project you know um jonathan morris did a great with his little hotel drive
42:47
which is great you know it’s very unique it’s very boutiquey it but it’s a great facility to have you know there’s rumors
42:53
of marriott looking at another facility around our neighborhood as well but i think with the crescent and the
42:58
marriott you know i think that’s going to help really improve those destinations and hopefully turn out on a
43:03
lot of the stuff i mean if you can walk to a venue or you can just quick uber it’s just like it’s so much nicer even
43:10
though here it’s really i mean it’s nice well heck you can see new edition or george strait in your home in 12 minutes
43:16
that’s that in itself is is magical for sure yeah i’ve been home and you’ve done an amazing job kudos to you keep it up
43:22
we’re very happy to call you a friend we love what you do for a living before we go we always ask our guests
43:28
this significant question family aside no wedding no kids what’s the best day of your whole life
43:37
i i think easily said right now was the day i took the job here to come to dickie’s arena i think yeah
43:43
they don’t even listen mr pass doesn’t listen i think it was you know it’s just it’s
43:48
the perfect setup in the perfect scenario in the perfect town and the opportunity was there and um you know i
43:54
saw it mr bass did see it and i was excited about it you seem like you’re springsteen here yeah so you can answer next time yeah
44:01
see you next time you can answer that no yes he’s gonna answer he’ll come you seem like i really love what you do so that’s that is
44:10
thank you guys appreciate it great job [Music]