Learn How A Full Event Production Company Handled Growth, Pause and the Challenges of Coming Back

How does an event company handle the challenge of a forced moment of pause? Lindsay Schwartz of M2EventsGroup and Tyler Scott of Music Matters Productions discuss with Karl Barham and Rico Figliolini the challenges they faced, investments made and the next level of growth during these times.

Related links:
facebook.com/Musicmattersprod/
instagram.com/musicmattersprod/
linkedin.com/company/music-matters-productions

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[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:01:15] – About Lindsay and Tyler
[00:04:38] – What Music Matters Does
[00:08:48] – Getting Into the Business
[00:10:17] – Dealing with the Pandemic
[00:13:56] – Going Virtual
[00:15:37] – Communicating with Customers
[00:18:03] – What XR Is
[00:24:11] – Using Technology for the Future
[00:29:40] – Growing the Team
[00:32:05] – Closing

“Most likely, we all start at that grunt level where we’re just pushing stuff around, but you learn. Every day you learn. You make a mistake, you learn some more. And everything just builds and builds. So it’s show up, introduce yourself, and be on time. You know, as long as you’re on time and you work hard, I’d love to keep hiring you every day.”

Tyler Scott

Podcast Transctip

[00:00:30] Karl: Welcome to the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts that help you improve your business. Today I’m excited to have as guest speakers today, Lindsey Schwartz, who is part of the M2 Events Group and Tyler Scott from Music Matters. Two great leaders in the entertainment space that’ll be talking about some of the local stuff going on with event production, innovations in the arts and entertainment industry, that’s happening right here in Peachtree Corners. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors, and my co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets Digital Marketing and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine. Rico, how are you doing today?

[00:01:13] Rico: Good Karl. Doing excellent.

[00:01:15] Karl: Well, we’ve been so excited that as the pandemic has been going through its evolution, we see live events coming back. We see movies are being produced again. And one of the companies that’s right at the top of that and at the leading edge is located right here in Peachtree Corners. And we’re excited to have a couple of folks to talk a little bit about Music Matters Productions and some of the innovative ways they help their customers create live events throughout the country and give a new experience to people that enjoy live entertainment. Our guest today is Lindsay Schwartz. She is the director of marketing for M2 Events Group, which is a combination of three different companies that together helps serve customers in different verticals, including Directions AV and Big Picture which is based out of San Francisco. But the group here, Music Matters is led by the general manager Tyler Scott, who’s located right here in Peachtree Corners and runs that group. And I’d love for them to take a moment to introduce themselves To everybody. Lindsay, why don’t we start with you?

[00:02:23] Lindsay: Sure. Thanks, Karl. So my name is Lindsay Schwartz, like he mentioned. And I graduated from the university of Georgia with my degree in marketing. And from there took my career into the event planning space. From there I moved on to creative agencies as a brand strategist, and I really, really love working with brands and helping them put together the strategy that is the best to help tell their story and that sort of thing. I was lucky enough to find Music Matters last year. Right before the pandemic started, they were searching for someone to come in and take the reins with the marketing. And then just recently as we have begun to shift a little bit and reorganize, I recently was promoted to the director of marketing for the three groups under M2 Events Groups. So, I’m local to Peachtree Corners. I’m right here, we call Peachtree Corners home.

[00:03:27] Karl: Excellent. Welcome neighbor.

[00:03:29] Lindsay: Thanks.

[00:03:30] Karl: Tyler?

[00:03:31] Tyler: Yeah. Thanks Karl, thanks Rico. My name is Tyler Scott. I’m the general manager here at Music Matters. I got my start in DeKalb county at a performing arts high school and started doing sound and stage managing at DeKalb School of the Arts. After that kind of just got in to doing audio and production managing .Toured for 10, 11 years with various different artists, various scales. Learned a lot along the way. KInd of spent some time at the Fox Theater as a production manager there. And then actually I was contracting for a little while, met Aaron Soriero, the owner of Music Matters. And this was in 2017. So he had really just taken off in the production company. At the time he also owned a music store as well. But I kind of took off and jumped on board early on and have seen it grow every year since. I mean, with the pandemic last year, it was a little difficult, but coming out of that now. And yeah, just worked my way up and here I am.

[00:04:24] Karl: That’s fabulous, I’m glad. Are you based here locally as well?

[00:04:28] Tyler: Yeah, so I live in Brookhaven, born and raised actually off of Gladney road in Tucker, so not too far away. But yeah, Atlanta has always been home for me, no matter where I’ve gone.

[00:04:38] Karl: Well, It’s so exciting what’s happened over the last 15, 20 years in Atlanta when it comes to entertainment, video production, all of the soundstages and production facilities. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what Music Matters Productions does. How would you describe it to someone?

[00:04:56] Tyler: I describe it as a full service audio, video, lighting, staging production company. Basically if you have an event idea, if you want to do something we can help you out. We love to be on the creative end of it. We love to be on the design end of it. Love it when clients just come to us and say, Hey, we want to have an event, we want to have this festival. We don’t really know what it’s gonna look like exactly, but can you partner with us? And we’ll do that start to finish. We provide the labor. We provide the trucking, logistics, all the onsite gear. From anything, as large as we do a couple of festivals in Jersey. We do Shaky Knees and Shaky Beats and jazz fests. And then we also do some installs at some theaters and all that kind of stuff. But basically we provide what, gives the audience that like moment of wonder in front of an artist, in front of a meeting, whatever it looks like. So that’s how I would describe it. I’m sure Lindsay probably has a little bit of a different approach as the marketing person.

[00:05:54] Lindsay: If you’ve been to an event in the Atlanta area, whether that’d be a concert or a meeting, a festival, anything like that, there’s a chance that we’ve had our hand in at least a piece of that. And beyond what Tyler said, we’ve got a team of industry leading professionals who have countless years of experience in the industry. Most of them have been on tour with artists in their specific discipline. You know, audio, LED, lighting, et cetera. So our guys and girls are the best in the business and they really bring a whole nother level to our production capabilities and the creativity. It’s endless. I’m in all of them every day. And as a music lover myself, to know that these guys have had a hand in some of my favorite shows that I’ve ever been to is really exciting.

[00:06:48] Rico: So anyone that’s been to a concert, if you strip away all the lighting, all the lasers, all the visuals and just have the band. Is that the experience you want? You want the experience of everything that the sound, the visual, all that stuff that you guys put together. It’s really what people want I think, right?

[00:07:06] Lindsay: Exactly.

[00:07:06] Karl: Especially for the ticket prices that they pay at some of these festivals. It’s amazing what it takes. And a lot of them move around, they have to set up quick, they have to break down quick and they need experts that really know what they’re doing to make that happen. You mentioned a couple examples. What are some of the interesting types of work you guys have done? Festivals, movies, other things. Anything that people might recognize?

[00:07:33] Lindsay: Yeah, we’ve been on tour actually with a few different artists. I don’t know if you know who Jill Scott is. We were actually on her world tour a couple of years ago. Went all over the place with her. We have been on tour with the Revivalists. They were just actually recently playing in Brookhaven a couple weeks ago. And beyond that we did Travis Scott’s set at Music Midtown a few years ago. That was really cool. You name an artist, we’ve worked with them. Santana, Bruce Springsteen, everybody.

[00:08:06] Rico: I think Taylor swift was mentioned on your website, also. The Shaky Knees is a big festival here in Atlanta for people that don’t know. I mean, four or five stages. Do you handle all that as well?

[00:08:17] Tyler: Yeah, we do. We’ve recently also gotten into the staging business as well. Which was not always in our wheelhouse. So yeah, we actually do start ground up. You show up, it’s just a grassy field and we do everything from ground up. Shaky is four stages. We do another festival up in New Jersey that’s four stages. We do a couple of things in Florida, Chastain, Ameris.

[00:08:38] Lindsay: Tabernacle.

[00:08:39] Tyler: Tabernacle. If you’ve been to a concert in Atlanta, for sure. And most likely any event, we really have touched it somehow. It’s pretty great.

[00:08:48] Karl: I’m curious of how folks, this isn’t a traditional path or career that a lot of people get into. You mentioned you went to school here locally in DeKalb. How do people get in? What are some of the skillsets? How do people get into this type of work

[00:09:03] Tyler: Hard work, you know, showing up on time. IT’s funny, we consider ourselves a production company. Obviously we have production equipment, but it’s really the people that make the difference for us. And I think that started with our owner, Aaron. He meets people, he can tell how they work, and he likes to bring them on board very quickly. And that’s it. I mean, We had one woman by the name of Savannah who, she started out as an intern. And she worked her way up to being our video lead on all of these festivals. I mean, she just worked hard. She showed up on time. She just did her job. And that’s the mindset for us. So what I would say is you reach out to your local production company. You reach out to the stagehands companies, and just say, hey I’m here to work. Most likely, we all start at that grunt level where we’re just pushing stuff around, but you learn. Every day you learn. You make a mistake, you learn some more. And everything just builds and builds. So it’s show up, introduce yourself, and be on time. You know, as long as you’re on time and you work hard, I’d love to keep hiring you every day.

[00:10:02] Rico: Isn’t that interesting. The on time factor hit four times in the conversation.

[00:10:07] Tyler: I know. I’m a logistics guy, it’s a thing.

[00:10:10] Lindsay: It’s been on his mind lately, I think.

[00:10:13] Rico: If you’re late, who’s going to plug that in?

[00:10:17] Karl: Nobody wants to rush, especially when there’s thousands of people waiting. You don’t have a lot of room for error in some of these things from the experience. Well, I’m curious in your industry, 2020 came around and it’s a once in a lifetime event. The pandemic that shut down a lot of events. All events around the world. I’m curious, when you started hearing about that with all the stuff you were doing, what went through your mind and then what were some of the things that you had to deal with initially? When the pandemic started?

[00:10:51] Tyler: I actually remember hearing it a little bit. Aaron and I were discussing it because of Directions AV, which is the other company that we are a part of and work with. They are more corporate base, which is a longer term forecasting. We do primarily, we do a lot of rock and roll, we do a lot of music industry stuff, which is always last minute or pretty short term. Corporate plans years out or six months out. So they were starting to get cancellations in the corporate side of things. Like not having people come to conferences. And so they just gave us the heads up Hey, you might want to be aware that this could happen. And so we had conversations about what that looks like. Did we think some festivals would stay on? Some wouldn’t? And I guess it was, I want to say it was maybe Coachella was the first one that got really like everyone in the music industry took notice when that canceled. Or postponed, I should say. Everything postponed which was the verbiage. And so I think for me, We started just looking at what does this look like? And really our whole year, just slowly but surely. And then within about, I don’t know, two weeks’ span everything the rest of the year just went away.

[00:11:57] Karl: Yeah. I remember in February, Mardi Gras happened. The Mardi Gras went forward at that time. I don’t know, most people knew nothing still. I mean, it was out there if you really paid attention but by South by Southwest, which I think is in the March timeframe. That’s when the NBA, that started hitting and then things started shutting down and were postponing throughout that.

[00:12:23] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. And we, our first approach was okay. We just tried to look at what was the timeframe we saw this being and how can we sustain ourselves through it? And so we did just some initial, how can we cut costs? Stop paying for some of our week or monthly payments that are, you know, truck tracking and anything we could do to like start trimming our overhead down and thinking, okay, let’s ride this out. And then, just shortly after South by Southwest, and all that, it just went down. And we really had to go into initially a very hibernate mode, but I’m grateful to say that, like Aaron and I sat in our office, the two of us were sitting here just going, how can we A, put our people back to work, and how can we get events of any sort back out there to people. Because for me, seeing music live even remotely live on a live stream is just, something’s amazing and special about that. Having an event, being able to host a comedy show, things like that. All those things were just, people were craving it. And we wanted to figure out a way to really come out of that, like slow hibernation period and know how to deliver that for anybody that needed it. We did a lot of things at our own cost, just to do them because we wanted to give back. I even had my trucks running around with some charity organizations doing some things like delivering masks and things like that. We were just doing everything we could to just keep forward momentum. We noticed at that point there was either a fight or flight. You either shut down completely, or you really said, what can we do to move forward?

[00:13:56] Rico: DId you find that you guys started solving that or did you find people coming to you and say Tyler, can you do a virtual thing? Everyone’s moving to zoom, we’re on zoom right now, but everyone was moving to that. And there were companies, actually, that were building out a virtual worlds too, to do conferences and stuff. Twitch went wild. There was a bunch of things that just took off all of a sudden. So did you find people coming to you with ideas or did you, how did that work?

[00:14:23] Tyler: I guess a little bit of both. We work, and I think I alluded to it before, we work with a lot of really creative people that we have on our staff and that are part of our organization. And several of them had these ideas, just again, kind of leveraging relationships we had with other artists that we had worked with before. There was a band called P-Groove, Perpetual Groove, that we used to send out gear and an audio and a lighting guy out on all their tours. And the guy who’s in charge of them was like, Hey, this will be a great idea. And he’s one of our guys and he’s like, let’s do this. We have a bunch of LED product just sitting in a warehouse. Let’s do a big 360 degree circle and put a band in the middle and live stream a concert. And it was amazing to see everybody’s faces light up, as soon as the downbeat hit. And even though it was virtual, you could just see the joy it was giving people. And that really like pushed us forward and said, what else can we do? And that’s when Aaron took a deep dive into XR, this kind of virtual world that we’re able to create in a very small footprint studio. And we’re able to really create massive worlds out of it. I think it earlier we were talking about the Mandalorian, and the idea that you can create a whole world in a very small square. In our warehouse in Peachtree Corners we could create a whole galaxy.

[00:15:37] Karl: Lindsay I’m curious, I remember when this hit, Rico and I were talking about the podcast, we were doing them live. And I remember we went through about 30 days of figuring out technology, what platform, what to do, how to do it. But then also the messaging, everybody was calling and asking what to do. And there was a lot of that going on. How did you attack talking with your clients or customers, figuring out strategies to pivot what Music Matters does for their customers?

[00:16:09] Lindsay: A really interesting time to join the team at Music Matters, two weeks before the pandemic hit. It presented a really unique challenge as it did for everybody. But luckily we have some great leadership within our company and I was given all the confidence in the world that, you know what? We’re going to make it through this and we’re going to keep moving forward. So let’s keep the messaging upbeat. Let’s keep it all light and positive and try to give people just like a glimpse into our world and make them remember why they love live events. And keep us relevant top of mind so that when everything started to come back everyone was like, oh yeah, they’re still rocking and rolling. And then, when that initial pivot happened, around summertime last year, that was very exciting to finally get some new content to put out there to the world. It was easy to market something as cool as the in-the-round space that we created, that 360. And for a while there that little space was popping off. We had artists coming in to film music videos or segments for talk shows. We had a few concerts filming there, so it sold itself. People were craving a unique new experience and how to take content to the next level for their viewers and their fans. So as long as we could keep the messaging flowing, keep the content coming from our end, once people knew about it they were hooked. And it’s been the same thing with the XR. We find that once people know about it and know about the capabilities and know that it’s right here, they’re sold. It was definitely an interesting year to market, so to speak, market an industry that was pretty much at full stop.

[00:18:03] Karl: I want to ask a question, you mentioned the term XR, so I know most people know what virtual reality is. Can you share a little bit of what’s XR? And how is that different than what people might think of as VR virtual reality?

[00:18:18] Lindsay: So XR stands for extended reality. Using a system called the Unreal Engine, our team is able to build out virtual worlds in real time. They render in real time and the person filming, so the actor, the performer, the presenter, they can interact with the world as if they were really there. Tyler mentioned it can be created in a relatively small space and you would never know it. Because, if the performer moves over to this side, the camera tracks, the system tracks and it just extends the world around. It’s a big piece of film and television production right now. And it’s really been a great pivot for our team. And it’s been an exciting new challenge, I think for everyone. Tyler, what else?

[00:19:12] Tyler: Yeah no, I mean, I would echo everything you said. I’ve always tried to figure out how to describe it. It’s really hard to describe without seeing it. If you go to our Instagrams and you can see all the stories that we have of it. But, it’s as if you dropped whatever your subject is, your person, your bus, your product, whatever you’re trying to sell. You drop it in the middle of a 3D world. And even though you’re not physically in that world, the camera does reproduce in real time that you were there. So if you’re at the Grand Canyon, you can be standing in our studio at the Grand Canyon. And if we pan around you it’s as if we were walking around you at the Grand Canyon, you see all 360 degrees of it.

[00:19:56] Rico: Are you guys familiar with the Illuminarium that’s in Atlanta now?

[00:20:01] Tyler: Yes.

[00:20:01] Rico: Obviously, I don’t think that’s similar, but the idea is a 360 experiential effect, right?

[00:20:08] Tyler: Yep.

[00:20:09] Karl: I think also like at Disney. I think Disney is one of the pioneers in creating these worlds, but it’s spaces that people could interact with as well. But basically you’re able to take that and deliver it to your clients that couldn’t access the resources of large Disney studios, and do it for commercial applications, music and entertainment, those types of environments. I love how technology is pushing us forward to give different options. I think you would agree nothing replaces the live experience, the energy of that. But there are people that sometimes can’t get to the live experience and for artists and entertainers to be able to deliver, through a different medium, that kind of energy is fascinating.

[00:20:56] Tyler: We’ve started marketing it as well to our corporate clients that are discussing the idea of using it on stage with their keynote speakers and having them like you’re in the room watching someone speak, but then your projection screen on the side is showing this person onsite at their warehouse, talking about whatever. You know, like you can really move people. Wherever you want and it’s just a game changer. And not only on a production level, movies, but really how people are trying to impact even live events now that we’re coming out of this. How to utilize it in a live event setting as well, which is pretty cool.

[00:21:33] Rico: I think anyone that’s been to a convention, everyone’s trying to do something different, but it’s usually all the same stuff. But this would really, like you said, be a game changer. I think people would just end up in Vegas at any of these conventions, if this was on site. Yeah, I think I like that. And you know, they’ll never forget it.

[00:21:51] Tyler: Yeah exactly.

[00:21:52] Karl: And live, there’s always been a challenge of doing live performances for an audience at the same time you’re trying to do something for TV. I know I’m not an expert in it, but I feel like the two different production things that are happening to make that happen. But I remember they’re independent. I don’t know that this existed in a big way. But the versus series that they’d have two artists of similar genres, and they’d go back and forth. And it started off in the pandemic as simple, they might be playing some of their best hits and then some would be performing. But you could imagine expanding that to two sets where they’re doing their performances, where in the past, that’d be difficult to get their schedules aligned and doing that. And even if you recorded it, it’s a concert recording versus, the renderings that could create a video by video type experience for each song. The sky’s the limit of what you can do.

[00:22:52] Lindsay: Yeah. So if you have ever seen the Kelly Clarkson talk show, that’s the technology that she uses with a lot of her guests. She’ll be sitting down in a chair, having an interview with someone who’s seemingly right across from her in another chair and they’re not. They’re in a studio somewhere else. We’ve actually been working with a couple of different TV production companies who are pitching some of these different talk show environments and stuff like that because this is becoming such an important part of that side of the industry too. I guess the one I’m really thinking of is, wait, did I say Kelly Clarkson? I meant Drew Barrymore. I mixed my girls up. I just told you the whole story wrong. Drew Barrymore, her show films in XR. The one that I’m really thinking of and you can look it up on YouTube is when she’s interviewing Tom Green and they look like they are just sitting right across from each other, talking to each other. And they’re not, they’re both in an XR studio on opposite sides of the country. So that’s a good example if anybody wants to see what that technology can do in that kind of setting.

[00:24:11] Karl: So can I probe in some of the businesses implications of that for your business and for the future? The pandemic probably accelerated the need for this coming together. And I love the urgency that it drove for people to stop asking, what if? Let’s just do it. And so technology’s catching up, they’re putting together, there’s probably companies coming into this. Where do you see the future of this going generally and specifically for your company? How can you use this to really grow your company and help more of your clients?

[00:24:46] Tyler: So we see it going into, and especially now with having some of the Delta variant adjusting capacities of events and things like that. We really see it moving forward into this very hybrid growth model where people are going to be doing both live events and XR technology, all in the same space. And for us, the live events and events in general have been a very steady industry through the history. Even in dark years, of recession years, people still wanted to go out and do things. And last year was really the first year the industry as a whole, took a look at itself and went, what can we do to prevent all of us from losing work in the future? And so moving in that direction of digital and growth, just virtual things. And I would say for us, we’re thinking about, okay, what does that look like? Does that look like creating a new studio space? Right now we have a small studio space in the back of our building that shares some space with some of our warehouse stuff. So it becomes a logistical thing. So for us growth wise, to see some continuity and an ability to continue to produce higher and higher level content and product, we could see a future space that’s separate. And I would say along those lines, I mean, Lindsay, I don’t know if you have anything you want to add to that.

[00:26:04] Lindsay: Yeah. The fact is that people are craving content more and more. We’re in a very content heavy world right now. And as the younger gen, I’ve never said this out loud, as the younger generations start to become adults and start to make decisions about what they’re doing, what they’re purchasing, where they’re going, that sort of thing. So much of that is driven by content. And we’re seeing so many of our artists clients and entertainment clients starting to really embrace that side of their business. The fact that their content has to be really good and it has to be really high quality. Otherwise it’s going to get overlooked and they’re going to become irrelevant. So it’s just the shifting nature of how people are absorbing entertainment and all of that as well.

[00:27:01] Rico: Looking at a generation that is going through YouTube, Twitch. I mean, yeah. Virtual experience, my son has a Quest 2 VR and he’s up there three hours out of the day and he limits himself, I don’t limit him. So he’s in different worlds, he’s doing the same virtual type of stuff to a degree. And that’s all they’re going to get more and more. And that’s not going to change.

[00:27:22] Lindsay: We’re seeing that demand for interaction between the artists and entertainers and their fans. That’s a necessity now. They’ve got to be able to interact virtually because that’s how people are interacting now.

[00:27:38] Tyler: We’ve also seen a lot of growth in like you mentioned video games, the video game industry as a whole. And we were actually able to do some partnerships with some companies where we did actual virtual music festivals. I say virtual because there was no fans, but we were in. We had three stages set up in a warehouse in Southwest Atlanta and they had drone shots going in and out, and the lead gamers, they got the people who are really good at the game had their own control of camera work. And this really interactive environment where they had artists on stage and they could choose what stage they were watching and all sorts of stuff. And I think things like that, like just that outside the box thinking, which was really pushed forward by the fact that we had to think about something. I think as an industry as a whole and especially, I know for Music Matters, we’ve been like, so go since we started. Growth next year, get more festivals, more venues. Yeah, everything just grows, which is great. But the pause of the pandemic actually gave us the opportunity to look at ourselves and go, how can we do what we do better? And how could we deliver a better product to our clients? And I think that in a way it was a good opportunity for us to learn. And so we’re growing out of that now and able to see the fruits of that kind of really just how do we move forward? Kind of thing.

[00:28:57] Rico: You know, that’s amazing. I think most companies are like that, they’re doing the work and that’s all they’re doing. And they don’t take a weekend retreat. They don’t stop. They don’t look. This forced everyone to sort of revisit what they were doing. You revisited costs that you felt, maybe there were costs even that you saw that, why are we doing this? Type of costs. And that may continue on, those cost savings maybe. But you have Dream Hat coming to Atlanta. Atlanta is so full of stuff like this. 5G enabled technology. You’re at the cusp of really moving forward so fast in the next few years on these things, I don’t know how you’re going to keep up with it.

[00:29:37] Tyler: I guess that’s my challenge.

[00:29:40] Karl: I could see one in, is there a collision that happens when live entertainment comes back full force? And you’re having to meet pent up demand where everyone’s stuffing more into a fixed schedule and you’ve wet the appetite for this new digital future. So they’re going to want that. It sounds like you may have a growth challenge finding people to scale spaces. I hear there’s a few malls that might have some vacancies near Amazon that could be filled in with some XR related studio space and others for expansion. How did your team come out of this? What’s the state today? How are people feeling? What’s that like?

[00:30:23] Tyler: Yeah, we’re super excited about moving forward as soon as we started seeing the progression of events slowly coming back. So last June, July, we started doing parking lot concerts. And so we were able to start again, getting live music going again, getting people and contractors, working, getting gear out on the road. And so really starting then we started to see this like excitement and building again of what’s coming out. And we definitely, as I mentioned the pause and readdressing our needs and where we’re going. This last few months has been incredibly exciting to be a part of our company. And we’re back to full staff. We’ve hired additionally. We are really forecasting and looking ahead and going, you know, like you said we do have this crossroads. Where we have all these events that didn’t happen for a year and a half are all trying to squeeze into about an 8 to 10 week period. That’s just the live events on themselves. That’s not including the XR. That’s not including corporate. we have definitely grown out of this. We have acquired more trucks, more trailers, more labor. Everything is growing and everybody’s just excited to see this movement forward. And I’m certainly super excited. It’s a challenge, you know? last year or two years ago, I would say like the busiest week, maybe we had eight tractor trailers on the road, something like that. This year, we have a couple of weeks in October where we have 16 on the road. So we’ve doubled and just trying to move forward logistically on that has really been an exciting part of my role the last couple of months. And then I know just as a company as a whole with our growth opportunities in the corporate sector, the XR sector, it’s just been bananas. It’s been crazy, but it’s been great. We’re so excited.

[00:32:05] Karl: I tell you it’s exciting times. I know this pandemic it’s going to get into our rear view mirror at some point. Despite Delta and all these others, I think we’re going to figure all that out. And what ways can people learn more about what you’re doing and do you have events or anything coming up that people could learn more about what you do or even partake in some of the concerts that you guys help put on?

[00:32:29] Lindsay: Yeah. So all of our social media, we’re super active, very communicative that way. You can find us on Instagram @MusicMattersProd . So MusicMattersPROD same thing on Facebook. We really try to keep everybody informed about what’s going on for partnering with a promoter locally will promote their events, that sort of thing as well. And our website MMP-atl.com constantly updating with newsworthy things. New content, new images. It’s exciting because we’re in such a cool, for me as the marketing manager, I have the greatest content to work with because we are in such a visual, obviously audio kind of thing, but we’re in a very visual industry as well. It’s fun to get new content and get it out there to everybody.

[00:33:27] Karl: Well, I want to thank you, Lindsay Schwartz and Tyler Scott with Music Matters Production. One of the innovative companies here in Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett county, and in the Metro Atlanta area, that’s helping bring smiles to people’s faces. Getting people out back to concerts and even extending them into a virtual reality and bringing content to more people using technologies in some of their studio space and some of the technology they’re able to deploy. So really excited for sharing some of your insights and sharing your experience through this past year and sharing where the industry is going when it comes to live events, virtual events, and some of the great things that are going on here locally in Peachtree Corners. So definitely want to thank you for being our guests today. Really appreciate it.

[00:34:17] Lindsay: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having us. And one more thing I forgot to mention. Probably in November around the time all the fall events taper off, we will most likely be doing a studio open house at our shop for the XR studio. We’ll announce that on Instagram, it may be an RSVP kind of thing where we want to know if you’re coming. But it’ll probably be a pretty fun little peel behind the onion, sneak peek into the studio. Really give people a good idea of the capabilities there with all the upgrades coming to the studio space. So be on the lookout for that in November.

[00:34:55] Karl: We’ll absolutely do that. Really appreciate it. To close out we’d like to thank Atlanta Tech Park for being part of hosting the Capitalist Sage Podcast, whether we’re virtual or in person. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors. Me and my team are here to talk and learn and share with local business owners when they’re ready to exit their business, we help with sales. When someone’s looking to invest in a business and acquire a business, we help with that as well. You can reach out to us on our website, www.tworld.com/AtlantaPeachtree, or reach out to Karl Barham. I’m on LinkedIn or you can reach me at KBarham@tworld.com. Rico, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got going on and another great issue of the magazine just came out, so great job again.

[00:35:46] Rico: Yeah, Peachtree Corner Magazine we just hit last week, I think. So we had really some great features. The cover story was about two child actors. Actually their parents are friends of mine. They’ve been in, I can’t even say some of the stuff that they’re actually going to be in. That’s coming out. 10 and 12, they’re just young kids starting out in the industry. So there’s that story, there’s a bunch of other great stories I think, features, I feel in that. So you can find Peachtree Corners Magazine in probably 80 to a hundred locations in Peachtree Corners. Go online, you can search Peachtree Corners Magazine or go to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com. You’ll find that there. As far as me, Rico Figliolini, just look me on LinkedIn. I’m a creative director, publisher, podcaster, social media junkie, political junkie. I love to talk shops. So, if you need my work, just let me know and just reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me. But this is great. Tyler, Lindsay, I am waiting for that invite for November, because I want to be out there. I love that stuff.

[00:36:48] Lindsay: I’ll send it to you first.

[00:36:50] Rico: Thank you. It’s an industry I would love to be working in. Unfortunately I never got there. Yeah, I’d love to see what you guys got Thank you.

[00:36:58] Karl: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Capitalist Sage podcast. Look forward to talking with more great businesses here locally and folks to help share a little bit about their experiences running and owning businesses locally. Take care everyone. Thanks.