J.W. Roth, CEO of Venu Holding Corporation, discusses the company's IPO and plans to redefine live music entertainment with their fan founded, fan-owned model.
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00:00Celebrating its IPO here today, live entertainment and hospitality company Venue ringing the
00:20bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
00:22Front and center there was Venue chairman and CEO, J.W. Roth.
00:26You saw your performance, sir.
00:28What'd you think?
00:29It was awesome.
00:30I mean, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, it's what a business guy dreams about,
00:34right?
00:35I mean, ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange, doesn't get any better than that.
00:38If I'd have told you that 30 years ago, you'd have said what?
00:41You're drunk.
00:42I'm not, but, you know, you wouldn't have been wrong on a lot of occasions.
00:46All right, so you say Venue puts the fans at the center of everything you do.
00:52It's the fans who have been so frustrated by the experience of the last couple of years
00:56because of Ticketmaster and the fees and the hours we spend online looking for tickets.
01:03How difficult is that for an operator like yourself to know that process?
01:08It's a process.
01:09It's a frustrating piece.
01:10Our business focuses on the fan experience, on the ambiance.
01:14Think about this.
01:16If you look at live music and you look at amphitheaters across the U.S., most are old.
01:21They're in disrepair.
01:23The average amphitheater in the United States is 40 years old.
01:25Many of them are 50, 60 years old.
01:28And so they were built back in the day before rideshare, for example.
01:32They were built before elevated food and beverage.
01:35The bathrooms are a half a mile away.
01:37I mean, if you look at sort of the experience of that and then you compare it to, look at
01:43today's football stadiums, what Jerry Jones did with the Dallas Cowboys or George Steinbrenner
01:47did here in New York with the Yankees.
01:49I mean, they built stadiums where the fan and the fan experience was priority number
01:56one.
01:57And so what we do at Venue is we build venues like they build stadiums where the fan and
02:03the experience and the ambiance is number one.
02:06Think about this.
02:07You can go see the Eagles anywhere, right?
02:09You can see the Eagles in some dump, or you can go and see the Eagles in a venue venue
02:15like the Ford Amphitheater in Colorado.
02:18And it's the difference between it's night and day watching your favorite artist in a
02:24suite like you're in your backyard versus in a frustrating venue.
02:30For those that haven't been to a venue like the Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs,
02:34how does it differ from the typical experience?
02:38How is it like your backyard that you just referenced?
02:40So when I decided to build this company, I kind of used my own backyard as a starting
02:46spot.
02:47I've been a music fan my entire life.
02:48So in my backyard, I built, I think the world's largest fire pit holds 50 people can sit around
02:54my fire pit.
02:55I have a bandstand in my backyard and you can watch, you can watch and listen to great
03:00music.
03:01So when I decided to build these venues, I started with fire pits.
03:05I built 92 fire pits throughout my venue in Colorado.
03:10Most every band, Ryan Tedder was interesting.
03:12One Republic opened it up, three sold out shows in a row and he stood there and he said,
03:16I feel like I'm in Dubai because he's standing on the stage and the whole thing is on fire.
03:23In Dallas, Texas, the great city of McKinney, I'm just building right there right now, the
03:27largest fully seated amphitheater in the world.
03:31And it's 295 massive fire pits throughout the venue.
03:36So we start with that.
03:37That creates ambiance and awesome ambiance.
03:39How does that mix with the booze at concerts?
03:41That would worry him a little bit.
03:42That's why we have security everywhere, but that's what we do.
03:45And speaking of booze, we have cocktail service, direct cocktail service to every single suite.
03:50Food, elevated food service to every single suite.
03:54Every seat in the entire venue is wider and deeper than any other seat found in music.
04:00When you say suite, people think of those way up high behind glass doors at some of
04:06the stadiums.
04:08Yours are different.
04:09How?
04:10They're front and center.
04:11They're lower.
04:12And instead of a big suite that's enclosed, these are outside suites that hold eight to
04:18ten people.
04:19You sit around a gas-powered fire pit, which is unbelievable, in great big comfortable
04:25chairs and you are front and center to that artist.
04:29And then I sprinkle those throughout the three sections of the venue to create the ambiance.
04:36So no mosh pit, per se?
04:38No mosh pit.
04:39No mosh pit.
04:40You're in Texas and there you're partnered with Hall of Fame quarterback, Dallas Cowboys
04:43legend Troy Aikman, my personal favorite broadcaster in the business.
04:47What does he bring to the table beyond name recognition?
04:50Troy's just a great guy, number one.
04:51Number two, he's got a great beer.
04:53So Troy decided to come out and build, everything that Troy does is better for you, right?
05:00He's a health nut.
05:02He is focused on well-being.
05:05And so he created a company called 8.
05:08I'm a shareholder and investor in 8.
05:11Troy is an investor and shareholder at Venue.
05:13But then we went beyond that.
05:14We put a partnership together where I build clubs inside of our venues and we built the
05:19Aikman Club.
05:20And inside the Aikman Club, very similar to, unfortunately, I shouldn't even say this on
05:25TV, but I'm a Rockies fan.
05:27I go to lots of Rockies games where we're terrible.
05:31But we have a great stadium, we have a great ballpark, and we've got great clubs inside
05:37of our ballpark.
05:38So I wanted to create a club experience where people could come, they could have a great
05:42meal, they could hang out with their friends and do all of this kind of stuff before and
05:46after the show.
05:47So to increase dwell time at our concerts.
05:51So I partnered up with Troy and we built the Aikman Clubs.
05:54Aikman Clubs are the highest, most premium way you can ever go see a concert.
06:00You come, you have a great meal, you mingle with your friends, go to the bar, and then
06:04go sit in the best seats in the house.
06:07And Troy is the powered by sponsor in every venue, powered by eight.
06:13We are both long-suffering Colorado Rockies fans.
06:16You say the company is fan-founded, explain the investment side of this.
06:23How is it fan-owned?
06:24So when we first started, obviously I couldn't sell my concept to investors because my concept
06:30was a little crazy.
06:31So I financed it myself and I am a music fan from the bottom of my feet to the top
06:35of my head.
06:36So fan-founded is how that started.
06:40My ultimate goal, and I put it right in my mission statement, that ultimately I wanted
06:44to be fan-owned.
06:45Well, the only way I could be fan-owned is to become public, right?
06:48So that fans could buy and sell and own our company.
06:51Very much like the idea that Green Bay Packers had when they decided on their ownership.
06:57So at the end of the day, my dream and my goal was to get onto the New York Stock Exchange
07:02so that fans could actually own the company.
07:06We had a founder and CEO here recently of a place called Cosm, which you may or may
07:10not know of.
07:11They have transformed basically the sports bar, live entertainment experience.
07:17Are others following you?
07:19Are your type of suite-based venues the future of concerts?
07:23I think they are.
07:25Right now, you know, our partnerships are with promoters and with sort of the big guys
07:31in the space.
07:32AEG is my partner in Colorado Springs.
07:36But we partner with other promoters, Live Nation and Anschutz Group to promote our venues.
07:44So at the end of the day, my job is to go build premium venues and then my partner's
07:49jobs are to operate them.
07:50Right now, we do not have competition in our space.
07:54Interesting.
07:55Many of our viewers out there are frustrated with the price of concerts.
07:58Now, a lot of that is because Taylor Swift drove them to astronomical prices.
08:03But I just spent four hours online trying to get Gracie Abrams tickets paid hundreds
08:07of dollars.
08:08Is that something that we can fix or is it just a simple supply and demand?
08:11I think it's a little of both.
08:14One, there is processes that we are putting in place now with VIP sites and with exchange
08:22sites which will make it far easier to buy and sell concert tickets.
08:28But at the end of the day, the actual price of the ticket, supply and demand, right?
08:32So tickets get bought up, somebody decides they want to sell their ticket, somebody wants
08:37to buy that ticket, very much like the stock market that we're sitting right here.
08:42You know, the exchange happens and the buyer pays what the seller.
08:47You know how that works.
08:48Yes, I do.
08:50I would assume Taylor Swift is not coming to the Ford Amphitheater just quite yet.
08:54One dream act that you could book, who is it today?
08:57If I could book anybody in the world, it would be Bob Seger.
08:59Bob Seger is not going to tour, I don't think, again.
09:02But he's always been my favorite artist.
09:04And to have the Silver Bullet Band come to one of my venues, that would be about as great
09:10as it gets.
09:11Number two would be the Eagles.
09:13They won't come to the Ford.
09:14Ford's a little bit too small.
09:15But my venue in McKinney, Don Henley, if you're listening, you live right down the
09:19street.
09:20There's no reason why I couldn't hoodwink you into coming up and playing.
09:24I saw you guys at the Sphere here a couple of weeks ago, you did an awesome job.
09:29Don Henley, Bob Seger, if you're listening, come on down, give JW a call.
09:34It is venue, he is the chairman and CEO, JW Roth, good to have you here, sir.
09:39It's great to be here.
09:40Thanks a million.
09:41I appreciate it.