2023 EMG Year in Review

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is EMG podcast. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Well, it's about that time of the year again, boys, for the EMG year in review podcast. [00:00:28] Speaker A: We are back. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Bit of an upgrade from last year's setting, I would say. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Listen, I'm taking that personally. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Your basement's lovely, but we had no elbow room. We had no elbow room. And we have finally moved into our new digs. If you've been following the EMG story. [00:00:42] Speaker C: You know that I just posted about it. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Wait, what do you mean? [00:00:44] Speaker B: What do you mean? [00:00:45] Speaker C: That's why I was on my phone when it started. [00:00:46] Speaker B: We've been here for six. [00:00:48] Speaker D: No, no. [00:00:48] Speaker C: Just now. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Did you post that we were here? [00:00:51] Speaker B: We don't know. [00:00:51] Speaker A: For the. Yeah, okay. [00:00:54] Speaker D: Okay. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Just in case people were wondering, I wasn't being following. Yeah, sorry, Mike, I cut you off. [00:00:57] Speaker B: We are down a member as Bry Festa is at home with a sick little guy. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But another year has come and gone, and it's been another year of tremendous growth for the company. Here I have some EMG by the numbers. I did not share this with the two of you, so we're going to get. [00:01:14] Speaker A: I saw it in the note. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Son of a. Anyway, we'll get some live reaction because I know, Tom, you did not see this. [00:01:21] Speaker C: No. And this is scary that you put this together. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, here we go. So EMG by the numbers. 1500 events this year. Now, I know you always say, oh, I exaggerate. As of this morning, it was 1481. So I'm taking some liberties you're allowed to round up. I'm rounding up the 19 events to 1500 events. [00:01:37] Speaker A: What was it last year? It was 1046. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Jesus Christ. That's a lot more. It is a lot more. 1500 events, 485 total venues. [00:01:48] Speaker D: Jeez. [00:01:48] Speaker B: 485 total venues. [00:01:50] Speaker A: In how many states? [00:01:51] Speaker B: In 13 states. Now, I did the states by memory, so it could be. Maybe I'm missing one or two, but it's definitely 13. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Now, if we're going to ask a geography question, don't ask me, because remember we went over there. [00:02:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:02:02] Speaker B: No, you're not. [00:02:02] Speaker A: I don't know where my states are. [00:02:04] Speaker C: Last year was like nine, I think that's up a couple. [00:02:05] Speaker B: That's up a couple. Also up the number of djs that we have up to 20. Last year we were at 15, so that's up five. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Up five djs. Good math, 28 new event staff hires this year. Nice. We have 244 active weekly musicians. [00:02:23] Speaker D: Wow. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Which is a lot of musical players there. We have two new bands or groups that joined us this year. We'll talk about them here in a little bit. We have three new office staff, including actually a fourth that kind of came and went at the start of the year. They weren't with us. They came mid year and then they moved on. So three and a half, we'll call it new office staff. They were in and it was Caesar. Caesar was in and out. [00:02:48] Speaker C: Mike Math. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Mike Math. And here's a new one this year, the EMG celebrity list. Now, last year we had Mike Tyson, Logan Paul, Hillary Clinton. [00:02:57] Speaker D: Right. [00:02:57] Speaker B: This year we added Brian Cranston. No reaction from the peanut gallery. [00:03:02] Speaker D: No. [00:03:03] Speaker A: I'm waiting for his consiglieri, Aaron Paul. There we go. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Breaking Bad, Breaking Bad. General David Petraeus, who was the head of the CIA and also the operation of the. [00:03:12] Speaker A: I'm watching Narco. So. [00:03:16] Speaker B: My favorite, Bill Nye, the science guy. They all enjoyed EMG events this year. And what a year it was. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. This year I have it like BC and ad, all that type of stuff. This is pre office or pre headquarters? Post headquarters. Because August 1 was kind of like the half year for us. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. I don't want to skip over our thing going on here, but it seems like it was two years in one. [00:03:48] Speaker C: The last three years have felt like two years in one. [00:03:51] Speaker A: That's the opposite, though. It seems like it's more and you're thinking that it's less in more time. [00:03:58] Speaker C: Okay, I don't know what Mike. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Back to the future episode. We start in January, as we always do with the EMG holiday party. And this year we have some lovely visuals. [00:04:06] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Johnny on the snap. You have to go. [00:04:08] Speaker B: There we go. So we started this year. We really blew it out. So much so that we didn't want to do it again this year. Yes. This holiday party took years off of our life. [00:04:18] Speaker C: Tell them why. What would we do the next day? [00:04:21] Speaker B: That was brutal. Every year our holiday parties have gotten bigger and better and more elaborate, and we use it as a great way. We don't often all get to be in the same place at the same time. [00:04:33] Speaker D: Right. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Because we're all working different events. So the holiday party is really nice. So this year we really blew it out. And we brought, as you see if you're watching the video here of the podcast, we brought in our video wall and a stage and every light that we owned. And we had our bands play and our djs, and it was nuts. And then the next morning at like 730. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Correct. [00:04:53] Speaker B: There were two bridal shows. No, there was a bridal show and something else. We had a couple of things going on, right? [00:04:59] Speaker C: I remember the bridal show. I don't know. [00:05:01] Speaker A: I think there was only one. [00:05:02] Speaker C: I think it was just, it was breaking. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Was breakdown. [00:05:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I know what happened. We had a breakdown what happened the night before. But we took pity on our staff, right? Like, oh, they have the holiday party the night before. So the three of us went to the bridal show not realizing we also had a holiday party the night before. [00:05:18] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:05:18] Speaker A: And I had to go get the van at the Echo Lake and then meet y'all at old millennial. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's false. [00:05:25] Speaker C: I met you at the right. [00:05:26] Speaker D: That's right. [00:05:26] Speaker A: You did help. [00:05:27] Speaker B: It was pretty brutal. It was pretty brutal. And that was the holiday party. The busy year continued kind of in the Monday to Friday. We were all working remote again, as you know, because we were a little homeless without an office. And so our next big outing was the Met game that we go to every year. And it was pretty cool this year. We all ended up down on the field. Here comes my snap, Johnny. [00:05:51] Speaker A: Nice. [00:05:52] Speaker B: That was really good. Which was cool. We made some really cool connections, actually. The head of the Mets account services, season ticket accounts, season ticket accounts, whatever, actually became an EMG groom this year. And so we pulled some strings and we got everybody down on the field, which was definitely, as a lifelong Met fan, very cool for me. But, Tommy, I want to ask you how this event went for you, because going on the field was not the only string that we pulled. [00:06:19] Speaker C: I'm still very angry about this because I know you're going to pull up some content. [00:06:22] Speaker B: No, I wouldn't have any content. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, this was my idea, by the way. [00:06:30] Speaker C: One of us got to choose to shoot the canon, this t shirt launcher thing. So provide some color, check in the wind. You try to shoot it into the big Apple, try to aim it. And I totally missed. And now this was a big, it was a big lead up because everybody that knows me, I'm really, really competitive. And I was so angry. I was so angry that I missed, and I had to go up and face the entire group that I knew were just going to rag on me as soon as I got. [00:06:56] Speaker B: It wasn't only our group, it was the 28,000 other people that were. [00:06:58] Speaker C: And here's the kicker. I'm not even a Mets fan. [00:07:01] Speaker A: And guess what, dude? I'm the one who volunteered you. I said, tom needs to be guy. [00:07:06] Speaker C: Why, though? Why was it the irony of it. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Or was it. [00:07:09] Speaker C: Did I just give us the best chance of getting it in? [00:07:11] Speaker A: I thought you were going to give us the best chance to win. [00:07:14] Speaker D: Same. [00:07:14] Speaker C: Yeah, clearly not. [00:07:15] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:07:15] Speaker B: I would have been too nervous. [00:07:18] Speaker A: I did think that you rushed a little bit. I thought you could wait. [00:07:20] Speaker C: And everyone, the announcer was. She was like, okay, go three. [00:07:24] Speaker A: That's her point. Because they only have a two and. [00:07:25] Speaker B: A half minute commercial between innings. Back down on the field, I would. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Have given another 5 seconds and really lined it up. But you were so close. You had the right arc. Most people don't, and they're short. You were just to the right. [00:07:37] Speaker C: It was a windy night. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:40] Speaker B: You embarrassed us. [00:07:41] Speaker C: I know. [00:07:42] Speaker B: And that rolled us right into the hope lodge bash. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, this was our third year doing it. [00:07:50] Speaker B: Third or fourth, but again, it was at Tribeca rooftop. This is our partner in the American Cancer society. It's a huge gala fundraising event for the hope lodge. But Mike, this year we used it really as Gramercy's coming out party. Right. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Early in the year. [00:08:05] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:06] Speaker B: On this podcast last year, we were talking about how they were a new group to our stable and this was really their first year out in the field. [00:08:12] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:12] Speaker A: And this group was put together because of the high demand for our first hybrid band, neon Transit. And this band just was composed and is composed of great musicians, great dj. And the after party was normally sponsored, co sponsored by the NHL, which we'll talk about in a little bit. And us. And then this year we were the sole sponsor of the after party. [00:08:38] Speaker B: No, this is our second year as sole sponsor of the after party. Yeah, this is year two. [00:08:42] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:08:42] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Because neon did it the year before. [00:08:44] Speaker D: Right. [00:08:45] Speaker B: And then as we see here, we were with the chief sponsor. [00:08:49] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker A: And we got really great feedback. They were very interactive. I mean, you got some just amazing musicians here. And everybody from every walk of life was at this party. So it's really hard to kind of read the room as with no information. But I thought that we had a great time. It was a lot of fun. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a thing that we do. I believe, Tommy, they're changing the events a little bit this year, but this year. [00:09:16] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:09:17] Speaker C: Every couple of years they try to change the venue. So next year it's actually going to be somewhere else. I don't know if it's ironed out yet, but they are going to change the venue. [00:09:25] Speaker A: They are changing it. [00:09:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:09:26] Speaker C: But essentially they do a whole dinner. [00:09:29] Speaker D: Right. [00:09:30] Speaker C: The gala. People come in, they hobnob for like a cocktail hour type setting. And then they come in, donors speak, they usually have a guest honoree, whether it be some type of celebrity figure that they bring in to mc the event, and then afterwards they do the after party to kind of allow everybody to let loose. This year is going to be a little bit different, though, because they're going to go back to a silent auction type of format for the after party. So we're actually providing them one of our jazz groups, so not as high energy. We're going to give them, like, a cool, swanky, classy vibe just to provide some background stuff as people can bid on some really great prizes. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I wonder who the musical guest is going to be, because last year was that woman from Broadway, from Hamilton, whose. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Name is escaping me, and then the. [00:10:15] Speaker A: Year before that, she was from rent and then from a couple other shows. She was incredible, too. [00:10:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:10:20] Speaker B: And this type of event has become something that we've become more familiar with as our corporate division continues to expand. And this year was a market year for corporate growth. We more than doubled in size, really, than what we did and added some incredible companies to our resume and our roster. And so from Hyatt to thank you for the snap. I appreciate that. [00:10:45] Speaker A: That was a no look. That was a no look. [00:10:46] Speaker B: That was a no look. [00:10:46] Speaker D: Snap. No. [00:10:47] Speaker A: Don't do anything. But that was good. [00:10:48] Speaker B: That was good. Hyatt to Toyota, Neiman Marcus, the Comcast corporation. We did ten events for them down. [00:10:57] Speaker A: In Philadelphia in a matter of ten days. [00:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was something crazy. Mike alluded to it before the NHL officially joined our roster as a client, where we produced their holiday party this year for 300 plus guests. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Was it like last week or something? [00:11:12] Speaker B: It's about a week and a half ago, yeah. And probably one of the cooler ones is Brunello Cuccinelli, a very high end fashion designer. They became a client earlier this year with one event, and that turned into two events, which turned into, at this point, like 15, counting. And one of the really cool moments on the corporate side of things this year was we had a day about a month ago where we had the same event running in Bruno Cuncineli stores nationwide simultaneously. So we had an event in New York on Madison Avenue, one in Chicago, and one in Beverly Hills, all happening at the same time. And it was for the launch of their, I think, of their winter collection, and we had an in store musician, and it was just a really cool thing. So corporate continues to grow and expand, which is just really something that I know the three of us are very proud of. [00:12:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:12:02] Speaker A: And I think last year the growth was on the client side, but mostly on the internal side with the production equipment. This year the growth happened on both ends where we now more than doubled the amount of clients that we had. But we also now more than doubled our corporate. [00:12:18] Speaker B: So the part of some of the new hires. Yeah, I just kind of lumped them together. [00:12:22] Speaker A: I mean, we had an entire day. I mean, our producers back there, Kevin and Johnny and the tech team ran a training day that took, I don't know, what was it, like six or 7 hours or 8 hours or something like that. Training, I don't know, 20 people that do both the weddings and also the corporate stuff. You walked in and they're talking about logic and live streaming and av and video walls and it's like, what happened? It was less than a year and all of a sudden it expanded even more. And I feel like it's a broken record with corporate growth and corporate growth, but it's just like this year in particular, I'm telling you, it felt like two separate years because that first half of the year is when we really started doing that with the client side, which forced us to continue to train and keep that quality assurance. I just thought it was great. That's actually a proud moment for me. [00:13:06] Speaker C: Well, you know, what was really cool that I'd like to see. I mean, I always kind of focus on the internal too. I'd like to highlight that. Is that what came really clear to us when Johnny ran that training session was the appetite for wanting to learn that stuff from our staff. Right. But we put out the feelers of like, who's interested in this? And the response was incredible. Hence why we had 20 plus people that were in that training. [00:13:30] Speaker B: People want to rub elbows with Bill Nye, the science guy. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. But it's definitely a cool world to be a part of and it definitely balances out and keeps things interesting. With our wedding work, we have had to adapt this year, probably more so than any year, to how do you use your Monday through Thursday to prep for the weekend, but also have Monday through Thursday work going on? There was a week where we had an event for blinds to go and then another big real estate client in the city. And they were happening like, one was happening at like seven in the morning, the other was like at nine. And we had to set up the night before and there was moving parts and getting ready for the weekend. So another year of really growth and learning, I'd say, for the team, and how to balance all of that. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Well, just to interject one more time, too. And how does this affect our couples that are listening to us, that are getting married? [00:14:17] Speaker D: Right. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Because a lot of the corporate stuff doesn't really affect them. And I'm sure they're happy that we're continuing to grow. It's a good thing. But the better that we're getting on that av production side, on the corporate means that it's transferring. Right to your wedding. Right. I can use an example of, if you have intelligent lighting for your wedding, which are the moving headlights, that we're actually getting spotlit right now. They are continually tweaking it specifically for corporate, which then affects our weddings to have better production on that sense. So it is affecting you in a really great way. And I'm very happy with where this trajectory is going, because it's an interchangeable progression from our corporate side that's now moving into the wedding side as well. [00:14:57] Speaker C: That's a good point. [00:14:58] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:14:59] Speaker B: This year also saw the birth of some new groups that we talked about before, but just kind of last year we had said, hey, the new groups last year were electric boulevard and Bowery brass. And this was really both of their first years out in the field. And electric boulevard in particular. Johnny, get ready for the snap. Really burst onto the scene. And they have been lighting it up. They have been amazing. And their clients are absolutely loving them. And they have just been a natural fit with us here. Nothing but positive and good things. And one thing I am personally looking forward to is my brother Steven's wedding happening in just about a month and a half here, where electric boulevard will be playing. So I get to just be a guest and sit back and enjoy them in a non business sense. And I'm really looking forward to that. [00:15:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:15:45] Speaker A: But, you know, it's always business. [00:15:46] Speaker B: It's always business. [00:15:48] Speaker C: Mike doesn't sit back and relax. I don't know if you've put that together yet. He can't do that. [00:15:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:15:53] Speaker A: You do have a problem. I do. [00:15:54] Speaker B: The other group, of course, Bowery Bress, lighting it up in the horn world. [00:16:00] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:16:03] Speaker A: It has turned into a really cool thing. It continues to evolve as we continue to arrange things for this particular group. You have three horns, sax, trumpet, trombone. And we're continuing musically to make it better. I've had a couple of conversations just within the past month of how we could start arranging these things to make it logistically more elevated for our clients, too. Been having conversations with Caleb and Tristan. So this has been a really cool thing. I love this group. [00:16:33] Speaker B: They sound great, and the complexity of their horn charts and parts. [00:16:37] Speaker D: Right. [00:16:37] Speaker B: That's what makes them what we call a tier two hybrid. We figured, hey, that can translate very easily to strings. And that is the first of our new groups this year in the queen's Electric. [00:16:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we shot them in March. [00:16:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Which essentially is the same concept as Bowery brass, only on electric violin. [00:16:54] Speaker D: Right. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Which two violins? [00:16:55] Speaker B: Two violins. It's definitely a very unique sound. Really cool look, and has been a cool add on, definitely for our couples with their djs, as we continue to really elevate. And not elevate. That's the wrong word. Evolve is what I was looking for. What it means to be a band dj hybrid. [00:17:15] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:17:16] Speaker C: Might I say they have the best logo in the company, too. [00:17:19] Speaker D: Yeah. Thank you. [00:17:20] Speaker A: That one was worked hard. [00:17:20] Speaker D: Thank you. [00:17:21] Speaker A: You worked hard on that one. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Mike's Photoshop skills have also revolved this. [00:17:24] Speaker B: Year, and our hybrid groups, that is definitely our specialty. [00:17:31] Speaker D: Right. [00:17:31] Speaker B: That is what we've leaned hard into this year. And groups like neon were so popular that it brought Gramercy, and it didn't take long for Gramercy to book up 70 or 80 weddings, and so we had to make a third of that type of hybrid and entered stage left. Riverside. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah, Riverside. I don't want to be biased or anything, but I think this is the favorite group that we put together. [00:17:56] Speaker B: You hear that, Yonko and Caesar? [00:17:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:17:58] Speaker A: You hear that? [00:17:58] Speaker B: Mike's picking sides, but Riverside is kind of the Ven diagram where neon and Gramercy meet. [00:18:03] Speaker D: Right? [00:18:03] Speaker B: So Gramercy has a guitar, neon has a sax, and Riverside has both. And so it's a real nice middle ground. Another four piece tier two hybrid they have officially. I mean, all of these players and musicians have been with us for many years, but collectively, as a group, they've been together now for two months. [00:18:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:18:21] Speaker C: How many bookings do they have? [00:18:23] Speaker B: Oh, my God, over ten already. But we just put them up available for booking not even a month ago. Right? [00:18:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny. Listen, Yonko and Caesar, they wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the success of the other two groups. So I just want to make that very clear. But what I will say is, it brought back another thing that I was thinking about as we were prepping for the podcast. Two players in this band are Grammy nominated players. Matt, Wayne, and John and I, as. [00:18:54] Speaker B: One of the organizers of this group was the 1990 911 year old part of the bowling championship team. In Socrates, New York. So they're tomato, tomato. Yeah. Grammy, a little bowling thing. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Now they were just nominated. [00:19:12] Speaker B: They didn't win anything. [00:19:13] Speaker A: Well, I won and it's so funny. I'm going through, and prior to EMG, I was a freelancer, did a lot of theater work and a lot of my friends that now work for EMG, there's like so many of them that are now on Broadway. We only had a few musicians. It's well over 15 musicians that are consistently playing on Broadway. One of our other percussion players that has found out on Christmas, he now has the show to Sweeney Todd, which is Sondheim's show that's on Broadway right now, is now one of the main subs, playing three to four times a week on the. I'm just so proud of the type of musicians that we have, which is why we're leaning so hard into the hybrids. [00:19:53] Speaker D: Right. [00:19:54] Speaker A: We have great bands, Cityscape, electric boulevard. And with these hybrids, you now have access to Broadway, SNL. I don't know if anybody told you this, but we have two musicians that are now playing with Usher at the Super Bowl. [00:20:10] Speaker B: I did not know. [00:20:11] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:20:11] Speaker A: Who is. [00:20:12] Speaker C: Can they get us tickets? [00:20:14] Speaker A: Can they get us. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Nobody won the bowling title, though. That's all. [00:20:19] Speaker C: I mean, I'll just go for the halftime show. [00:20:21] Speaker A: A couple of string players, the ones that, you know, Gabe Valley that actually going to be playing with Usher. Wow. Got the call. [00:20:28] Speaker C: I love Usher. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. I can't wait for that Super bowl. He's so good. And so it's that type of entertainer you're going to be getting. And I think that everybody should have access to these musicians. And if you have a dj and you haven't had musicians added in, you better do it. It's going to make a massive difference. So, yeah, it's so cool. I love it. [00:20:44] Speaker B: Now to Mike's point, the back half of the year was really categorized with just headquarter move in. [00:20:51] Speaker D: Right. [00:20:52] Speaker B: So we were getting ready to move in here to our new space and I existed. I think I can speak collectively when I say it took years off of all of our lives. [00:21:01] Speaker C: It was exhausting. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Move in day was the beginning of August, right? [00:21:04] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Because I got it back from vacation the day before, refreshed, ready to go for the second half of the year, just came back, had a great time in Mexico. And then all of a sudden, August 1, wham. [00:21:16] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:21:17] Speaker B: And it was a whole lot of unboxing and moving and setting up and this particular room. Right. Our experience center was probably I had the least to do with setting this up and it was probably the most challenging for our team. A lot of hours in here, a lot of problems with how do we hang very heavy things from the ceiling and bringing in engineers and stuff. And it was a really good team effort to move in here. But the summer, the end of the summer was really categorized by all hands on deck building and moving and doing all these fun things here. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we got in mid September to really finalize everything. But I think it took about two months specifically for this room, which we're still tweaking. I mean, last week they were just doing a video shoot here and fine tweaking our PTZ cameras that we have. [00:22:11] Speaker B: Fine tweaking. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Fine tweaking, fine tuning trademark that, fine tweaking. [00:22:15] Speaker C: I like it. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Fine tweaking. That's what we do here. [00:22:17] Speaker A: Semantics. And it was very dangerous, I would say. We were on lifts 26ft up in the air, I think, or something like that. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Osha compliant. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Of course, I can't speak to that. I can't confirm nor deny. I'm glad all the boxes are gone. [00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah, seriously. [00:22:33] Speaker B: It's funny for those watching on the video podcast, we're watching EMG on the move here. [00:22:38] Speaker A: I'm getting anxiety. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Just move in day and looking at how empty and what a disaster this place was and the finished product which, well, we're going to walk into the experience center here in a second, so I'll keep talking. So you kind of get a sense obviously you're looking at us here now, this is what it looked like. I mean it was just a straight up empty black void. Right. [00:22:59] Speaker A: I remember when they put, so they put the desk together immediately and I'm like, was that the best thing? Because we kind of needed to move that like a thousand times. But I love the front of house desk. [00:23:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I was so anxious about nicking that thing because we had some nice furniture that we picked out. If you come here in person eventually in our lobby in the experience center, we have some nice things around the office. And to your point, those were put together ahead of time and still maneuvering around those things. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah, moving them. [00:23:29] Speaker D: Oh, man. [00:23:29] Speaker B: We moved that couch in the back about twelve times between rooms just to. [00:23:32] Speaker C: But for me, this was my personal highlight that professionally, I think it took so long to get in here. It was a labor of love. [00:23:42] Speaker D: Right. [00:23:43] Speaker C: We wanted to get into this room specifically because we all had this vision. We knew what this specific room could do, both internally for creating content and just have a home for our musicians, but also for our clients. And then being in person every day, getting to see everybody. Right. That was a big win. Also because we had been remote for probably close to, I don't know, year and a half. [00:24:06] Speaker B: I see years for. This year was the first year in three years I had to actually dress myself same. I started wearing pants again. 2023 was the year of the pants. [00:24:17] Speaker A: I was wearing joggers. I can't freeball it like that. [00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah, but it's still all right. [00:24:24] Speaker A: You're judging me. When you were freeballing it for the. [00:24:26] Speaker B: First half of the year, only one of us said it, though. You know what I mean? [00:24:30] Speaker A: But they knew what you were saying. [00:24:32] Speaker B: And then, of course, you could see the finished product. Here we had a very executive interior decorator. I call her mom for short. She did a pretty bang up job. Everybody's office looks great. And it really did all come together because it took us so long to move in, though we quickly realized that our warehouse wasn't big enough. And so that led to. If you followed EMG on the move, that led to our decision to expand further. [00:25:05] Speaker A: We should do an honorary on the move video, man. How funny would that be? [00:25:10] Speaker B: Wait, there's more. [00:25:11] Speaker A: We ended with to one of Johnny's, like, reverse, like, hey, we're back. [00:25:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker A: So we're looking at the back of the wall of the experience center, which is going to be part of our new warehouse, which then comes in as a big l. But we're going to go from end to end. Pine street and our parking lot. We quickly realized, like Mike said, we did not have enough room. And what's so funny about this is that we've been talking about the hq now for a little over two years, right? And what started out as just. I think it was, what, it was like 1200 sqft or something like that, or. No, it was 2200 sqft. Something along those lines, which was bigger than the previous one, which had a warehouse that was only 750. Right. Which wasn't big enough. Thank God. It took longer. Then we expanded that, which now isn't big enough, which we're now expanding. Hopefully, that is the end of it. There's a more building to expand. Yeah, this is it. We have to make this work. [00:26:08] Speaker B: It's going to end at 8000 sqft, is going to be the EMG HQ here. And a large portion of that space is dedicated toward hosting and bringing our clients back. [00:26:18] Speaker D: Yes. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Big time. Big time. This is one of my favorite things, Tom. [00:26:23] Speaker B: I gave Tommy the. So now expand on that and he just stayed silent, which was great. [00:26:27] Speaker C: I'll be honest with you, I didn't hear what you said. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Our events have returned this year, right? So we are now hosting new client nights where you sign with us and you come in for a night of drinks and entertainment. We're hosting EMG night outs again, which had been not seen since before the pandemic. So an opportunity for people to come into this space and hear our bands and our hybrid offerings. And it's just been nice to remember that we actually have real live clients and not just people on the other side of a Zoom screen. [00:26:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Who probably also are not wearing pants. [00:27:01] Speaker A: The in person meetings started up again, and that's what I really loved. A lot of us, a lot of you are listening in the Facebook group, or if you haven't booked a meeting with us yet, I highly suggest instead of doing a Zoom one, which is great, I mean, the zoom ones kind of feel like you're in person, but come see us. It's a really cool thing. I'll offer you some water, maybe a coffee, if Nikki has a good pot going on. And if it's an evening one, maybe a glass of wine. Who knows, right? Because now we have a liquor cabinet now. And the in person stuff, I think, is one of the things that I'm looking forward to this year. But I'm going to just keep it at that because you haven't asked the question yet. But the experience center being almost like that lounge space that people kind of walk into, that grand thing is really cool. The lights are off. You got the intelligent lighting on. You have the video walls on. We're continually to tweak those events as well, which I really love because our first client event has been significantly different than our third one. [00:28:00] Speaker C: Well, yeah, of course. [00:28:01] Speaker A: We're having one next week, right? On Wednesday. [00:28:03] Speaker B: We're loaded for that one. [00:28:05] Speaker D: I know. [00:28:05] Speaker B: We got like, the word's out people coming. [00:28:07] Speaker A: The word is out, baby. [00:28:10] Speaker C: Always fine tweaking, every part of the business. Fine tweaking, fine tweaking. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Fine tuning. [00:28:15] Speaker B: Now, it wasn't all business this year. We had some interesting stuff on the personal front. I moved into a house. I bought a house in March, which Mike helped me actually purchase from Mexico. On the phone, you worked out my numbers with me, which was lovely. [00:28:30] Speaker A: I was on the phone with the mortgage broker. Did I tell you that I was negotiating the terms for Mike in Cabo? Which probably. I don't want to say anything, but it was probably illegal. [00:28:41] Speaker B: I had EMG meetings. And the thing was moving very quickly with the house, so he knew our mortgage guys. You just talked to him and got it done, which was great. Last year, we had announced a couple of little bambins coming in. So in February, it started with Festa's son, Enzo, who came in, and he's just been. Poor little guy. Sick right now. [00:28:58] Speaker A: The official Gerber baby. [00:29:00] Speaker B: He looks just like the Gerber baby. [00:29:01] Speaker C: He's a unit, too. [00:29:02] Speaker A: See his legs? He's quad Barkley right there. [00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah, he is big. He's got a little illness right now, so Brian's at home taking care of him in the spring. Johnny Dive, the man always behind the camera. Right now, his beautiful daughter Liana joined us, who I will give the best eye award to. She's got the best beautiful eyes. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Are they Johnny's eyes or G's eyes? [00:29:24] Speaker B: Oh, this kid is 1000% Johnny. [00:29:27] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:29:27] Speaker B: You look at her and go, was her mother even involved in the process? [00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you usually don't say it like that. It's usually the opposite. [00:29:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:29:35] Speaker B: And then, of course, in August, Tommy, your little guy, joined us. [00:29:40] Speaker C: Little, little Tommy. [00:29:41] Speaker A: And he's currently giving gondola rides at the Venetian in Vegas. [00:29:43] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:29:43] Speaker B: If you'd like to make sure you tip well. This picture is great. Johnny Bones announced that he is having another baby with his wife. They are due in this February. [00:29:55] Speaker D: Yes. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Late January, I think. [00:29:56] Speaker B: Late January, early February. He's coming. And I have some news that my wife and I are expecting, too. This is the first announcement of that little baby. We don't know really what it is yet, so it'll be human, and that's a start. Tune in next year to find out. We're very excited. So it's been a good year of personal growth as well. [00:30:17] Speaker A: And I expanded my house. [00:30:19] Speaker C: That's right. Mike did a whole renovation on the. [00:30:21] Speaker B: House, which we all lived through with him. [00:30:24] Speaker A: What do you mean? [00:30:25] Speaker B: No, we were here for it. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:30:28] Speaker C: The daily update. [00:30:29] Speaker B: The daily Update. [00:30:29] Speaker A: Well, Natalie wanted pictures, so I was giving her pictures every day. [00:30:33] Speaker C: We didn't have pictures. Submit that to the production team. [00:30:36] Speaker A: No, it's not even worth it. [00:30:37] Speaker B: As we wrap up the year in review here, what are you both looking forward to in 2024? [00:30:43] Speaker C: You want to go first? [00:30:44] Speaker D: No, you go. [00:30:45] Speaker C: Okay. What I say before, you asked me this before the show, and I forgot. No. So can I divulge the exciting news? [00:30:54] Speaker B: Of course. [00:30:54] Speaker C: Okay. Well, I know we talk about growth on the podcast a lot, and again, 2024 is going to undertake some what we hope is good growth. We are expanding to the Chicago market with our live musician arm. So we are going to start staffing and booking events out in Chicago and the surrounding area. So EMG Chicago coming at you. [00:31:18] Speaker A: I can't wait. Yeah, Chicago like Tommy boy. [00:31:22] Speaker C: I'll float it to you, too, because it's something we had talked about right ahead of time if we were to ever expand out of know, the immediate area. You have New York City, you have Boston, you have Philadelphia. Those are kind of like the major cities around us. But why the midwest? That was mostly like your brainchild. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, for a couple of different reasons. [00:31:44] Speaker C: And just to say, I want to preface that by we had kind of thought about other areas outside of the immediate area. [00:31:51] Speaker D: Right. [00:31:51] Speaker C: There was like some California, some Texas, some Midwest. [00:31:55] Speaker B: It seemed like a natural fit. We did, I don't know, two or three events there this year. We have a network of musicians already that we know either through our connections or were EMG musicians that moved to Chicago. So we trust some of the people on the ground. There seems to be interest in terms of the market. It's a favorable place for us to. Very similar laws to New Jersey, so we're comfortable with it. And we already have, like we had mentioned before, some of our corporate clients that we know can use us in Chicago. So it's a good, like, we have some built in work already that we can then expand off of. [00:32:31] Speaker A: And the interest on the musician side has been overwhelming. We receive three to five auditions a day from Chicago. [00:32:40] Speaker B: One of the things that we always worried about was, can we open up EMG Iowa? [00:32:44] Speaker D: Right? [00:32:45] Speaker B: And the answer was no, because you can't source the same great talent. [00:32:49] Speaker A: Right? [00:32:49] Speaker B: That's our product. We always talk about EMG as a talent product. You can't get the same players in Des Moines, Iowa, as you can in Manhattan. But Chicago, you can get some really decent players. So that was another really important reason why. And I think we just all had the bug, right? I mean, we got a taste of it this year with the corporate work that we did nationally, and we're excited to see what happens. And I hope on this episode next year, we're talking about what a great year of growth and the next market is. Fill in the blanks. We shall see. [00:33:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I also think it's easy to travel, too. I mean, we've talked about destination events for quite some time now, and the appetite for that has not been overwhelming for us in terms of very far away. [00:33:32] Speaker D: Right. [00:33:33] Speaker C: Like the exotic islands or Europe or the things of that nature. Chicago is pretty easy to get to. So even if we had to put some boots on the ground, and actually, I anticipate that we're going to have to travel there a little bit, go two hour flight or whatever, it's pretty easy to get. [00:33:48] Speaker A: Whatever keeps the United Status to that premier thing. Yeah, we got to keep whatever does that. Got to keep doing that. Was that your answer? [00:33:58] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:58] Speaker A: Oh, cool. I'm mostly looking forward to the continued internal growth. Not necessarily what anybody sees unless they're on an event, but what our team has been able to do with the new space that they weren't able to do prior with our warehouse in Little Falls. Our remote type of working. [00:34:20] Speaker D: Right. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Because granted, I would say 80% of us were remote, but the other 20% of our team were not. And they were working in a very, very small space. And you can tell there was tension to get out of there, and it wasn't tension between people. [00:34:36] Speaker D: Right. [00:34:36] Speaker A: But they were stepping all over each other. Not physically, but. And what has been happening, particularly in the last, I would say, six weeks, eight weeks of the fine tweaking, as we put it this year. Hashtag. And with all of our enhancements, our production, our musicians, the way that we're doing our hybrids, our videos now, all that type of stuff, the things that are working behind the scenes is what I'm definitely looking forward to most. Because now the conversation is very organic. It's happening more often. We're bouncing ideas off of each other. It's exactly why we wanted to move in here. It makes working from home also a little bit better now. [00:35:18] Speaker D: Right? [00:35:19] Speaker A: We're not getting stir crazy anymore. We all enjoy coming here. We're all within 20 minutes of the space. But it's the internal organic growth that we're doing behind the scenes. And the mantra that I'm going to be using is grinding in silence this year. [00:35:39] Speaker B: I like this. Grinding in silence. [00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah, grind the grind right in silence. And I think that, for me, is going to be the biggest thing I'm looking forward to with this. And what are you looking forward to? [00:35:50] Speaker B: I'm also looking forward to Chicago and seeing what we can do there professionally. [00:35:54] Speaker A: Can't take that as answer, though. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Okay, well, then I'll go with a personal answer. It's an easy one. [00:35:58] Speaker A: My baby. [00:35:58] Speaker B: My baby's coming in June, and I'm right smack dab in the middle of wedding season, so that'll be fun. But I'm looking forward to that on the personal side, which should be good. [00:36:09] Speaker A: We have a couple more questions that we're doing right. [00:36:11] Speaker B: No, that's it, Mike. [00:36:13] Speaker D: That's it. [00:36:13] Speaker A: What are you most proud of this year? [00:36:16] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:36:18] Speaker B: Probably watching how our team interacts with each other again. We missed that because we weren't together. We're all working from home and everything can be Kumbaya when you're all little squares in the Brady bunch Zoom screen. But bringing it back together and seeing that our team and our people actually enjoy each other and sit down for lunch every day, and that brings me a great, proud moment. [00:36:42] Speaker C: Tom. Personally, I've kept a human alive for four months, so that's good. [00:36:47] Speaker A: My man. [00:36:48] Speaker C: Dude, what am I most proud of? Yeah, definitely the hq years ago. I mean, I've been at this for like ten years, maybe. I told myself when I first started, and I posted about this not too long ago, I don't know if you guys saw it. I told myself that I would have quote unquote made it when my name went on a building. And that happened this year, right? Like, we have this big, beautiful. I love our sign. [00:37:20] Speaker B: Took years, my life, that sign. Yeah, for sure. [00:37:22] Speaker C: It took a while to get that up, too. But at night it looks stunning, right? It's front facing, it's street lines. It's gorgeous. Of course, that's not the case, right? Like, the destinations, it's always about the path and the journey. And of course we're still working, right? We're not at the end of the journey yet. But that was kind of a surreal moment to me. That was number one and number two, when this room was done. I don't know if Johnny knows this, but I really had nothing to do with this room other than, like, I knew it needed to be put together in terms of the actual tactical. [00:37:54] Speaker A: For the sake of both of you, I'm very happy for. [00:37:57] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:58] Speaker C: The only contribution that I had to this room was that I pissed Johnny off when I said that trust right over there needed to be black and not silver. And now it's, you know. Anyway. But when this room was completely done, I came here one morning and I just stood on the stage and the lights were on. I don't even know if anybody was in here, but I just started, like, tearing up. I just had to let it out. [00:38:17] Speaker A: And I was looking at you on the ring camera. [00:38:19] Speaker C: That was really cool. So if we have that on recording somewhere, Johnny, you could totally blackmail me one day. [00:38:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:38:26] Speaker A: I'm not going to take your answer, because that goes without saying. We're very proud of the space, I'm proud of the team and the growth of that team that has been because of the space itself. Right. The team is now better for it. EMG is better for it, which means our clients are better for it, because it's always been pushing the limits. It's been crazy what's been happening here, what we're cooking up, what we continue to cook up. And now the space has an engineer, which we never thought of. That wasn't in our business plan when we were thinking about a new hire. [00:39:06] Speaker D: Right. [00:39:06] Speaker A: The new hire was something different, but we're always adapting, and the three of us are now starting to relinquish key areas of the business to our team. Particularly, I'll speak for myself, is all the mixing and mastering and stuff that's going on publicly. Part of what helped our growth in the last four years was the way that our videos were shot. [00:39:32] Speaker D: Right. [00:39:32] Speaker A: And the way that they sounded. I think it's a huge difference than any other company. And to relinquish some of those responsibilities, it was a little frightening for me, but we're now better for it because I think it's amazing. I thought the new videos that we shot here just a month and a half ago or a month ago are just absolutely wonderful. The visuals and people stepping up. [00:39:59] Speaker D: Right. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Because Johnny was sick that day, and Kevin did a really great job of making sure that it still looked. Know you want to get a good cry. I love that. What do you mean? [00:40:09] Speaker B: Tommy had a good cry on the stage. You want to capture yours on the podcast? [00:40:13] Speaker C: You can look at my video for inspiration if you need to. [00:40:15] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:15] Speaker B: So I'm going to try to find that on the ring, and we're going to put it into this video. [00:40:18] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Does it next year? [00:40:20] Speaker C: Next year. [00:40:23] Speaker B: End the year in review with you standing like this on the stage, which is a sad cry. Oh, man. Well, things. [00:40:31] Speaker C: More white pants for Mike, maybe. I'm looking forward to that, too. [00:40:34] Speaker B: That wraps up 2023 EMG year in. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Review, which was sponsored by the White Shoe club. [00:40:39] Speaker B: The white shoe club. We will see you all here in 2024. Have a happy, happy New Year. We are excited. We hope that you'll come visit us, and as we always say, stay. Stay tuned. Bye.