Digital Social Hour - He Gets Backstage At Any Concert | Eric Fuller Digital Social Hour #91

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Eric Fuller talks about going backstage to nearly every music festival and concert and also the worries about the drug crisis going on in America.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That kids are doing now that just scares the crap out of me. You know, when I grew up and kids played with say we're smoking cigarettes and smuggling beers or maybe getting some, you know, to smoke. I mean, now, you know, people are taking stuff and they're just dead

what's the most expensive ticket you've seen sold super bowl tickets always 50k 50k yeah well no you could see a million dollars for a suite what Welcome to the Digital Social Hour. I'm your host, Sean Kelly. I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis. What up, what up? And our guest today, Eric Fuller. Hey, everybody. What's going on? What's up, Mr. Fuller? How you doing? I'm doing good. Thank you for asking yourself. I'm good, man. Can't complain. Can't complain at all.

So give people a little story of your journey. Well, my journey is long because I'm old, which is helpful. Are you old? I am 62 years old. You're not 62. I promise you. 62 years old. I thought you was 32.

Oh, now you're a liar. Your name for the rest of the day is going to be the black-hatted liar. You're probably a Mets fan wearing the Yankees cap. That's what's going on. I like the Mets colors better. I ain't going to lie to you. Steve Cohen's your new best friend. I'll put in a call for you.

Thanks. So my journey's long. I did all the classic stuff. I went to school and graduate school and worked serious jobs and then decided to have some fun. So I got involved in live entertainment and got mixed up with crazy people like you all, which has just been an experience and a half for me.

Is that how you're backstage at every music festival, Coachella, UDC, and all that? I think I'm backstage at every music festival because I'm a curiosity. Nobody expects a guy like me to be jumping up and down on the stage with, you know, Jamie XX in Miami or, you know, with the Chili Peppers or Griffin in the Gulf Coast of Alabama. Right. But I love it. I want to be in the mix all the time. It's just fun.

So what's the secret to getting into these exclusive events? I've seen you get in every event we've been to. You just walk up, skip the line. What's the secret sauce? Well, I worked hard and people know me. So he owns a venue. Don't be giving that away, man. I'm going to get a million phone calls. No, you know, I've done the work. Right. So like in any business, when people get to know you because you have a good reputation, I have a lot of published magazine stories, a lot of podcasts that are out there. People know what I do and they want me to come and look at what they do. And maybe there's some affinity.

Maybe I can do something to help them or there's a reason that they want me to see what they're doing. And just naturally with that comes, you know, invitations to stuff. And then the other secret, and I'll teach it to you later, is you just have to be a little bit cool. Just a little. Not too much. You need something unique about you, right?

Yeah. I mean, and I'm a curiosity. I mean, nobody my age is doing the kind of stuff I'm doing. I did five festival weekends, 15 days on festival fields in the last six weeks in three states. And it's just because, you know, I'm fascinated by the craft of art. And culturally, when I look at things, I look at culture. I look at culture in a new city. I look at the food in the restaurants.

Where do people drink at the bars? What music are they listening to? I go look at their art museums, and then I want to see what performance they're about because that tells you what your community looks like better than reading a guidebook and just driving around on a bus where they point out the Eiffel tower for enough time to take a picture and keep moving, you know,

you'd like to stay young, like in, in a sense being involved in standing and know and having fun still. Well, it's the weirdest thing in the world. If you allow it is you actually kind of stay the same inside. I mean, the calendar changes, the mirror starts to lie, right? You look at it and go, what's my dad doing in that mirror, man? But, but you're in your head, you know, unless you trap yourself, you feel kind of the same. You're like, this is exciting. There's people here to talk to. There's sound and light and energy. And if that's

attractive, which for most people it is, then you're just part of the crowd. And I talk about this all the time in my writing and in the podcasts I do. When you go to a live event, particularly a live music event, you have what I call the collective cathartic experience of a crowd. And that's where you take a group of 100 or 1,000 or 25,000 people that don't know each other at all, but that are sharing the same actual experience in real time, and they're bonding. You're becoming one uniform group of people that are experiencing something through your eyes and ears together. And I think that's just the most fantastic thing that can happen to somebody. And there's a lot of money in these music festivals, right? There's a lot of money in some music festivals. Music festivals are very different depending on the size. You make money in a music festival in a couple of ways. You sell tickets.

You sell alcohol, a lot of money in selling alcohol. You sell food. You sell merchandise. And then when you sell tickets, and this is really what's getting complicated, you have to figure out what are your levels of VIP access. Because in the world that we have now, we have a class of people that are so rich that they'll pay anything to have the top experience. And at a festival, that might mean that it's a special tent with, you know, fancy food and unlimited top shelf alcohol

and a special place where you can hang out with you and 20 of your best friends on top of a structure. That's like a cabana. There's a row of cabanas with a good view. And then the next level down might be an area that doesn't have a private cabana and doesn't have the fancy food or the alcohol, but you're still in a private space if you want it. You could be anywhere else, but you can hide from it. And in a huge festival where there's 15,000, 20,000 people in a hot field, you may want the ability to pull back. Next level down from that might be just a VIP space where

they dug a couple of swimming pools that are two feet deep. So you can sit around the pool in a bathing suit and jump in it if it's hot outside. And then whatever's left over they sell as ga and and the spread might be 10x between the lowest price ticket to just get in and see the show and the highest price ticket is that the reason why beyonce tickets are 4 000 each well her tickets aren't 4 000 each so that's a lie um there there's a very small number of beyonce tickets that we're selling at two thousand dollars or more on the primary market some of those got flipped out to the secondary market where it's it's just a yeah but it's a profit well it's not necessarily profit it's sort of a testing of the market okay right what's what happens is you put a tour out

with Beyonce she hasn't toured in seven years. She's got arenas that seat between 14,000 and 19,000 people. Which are going to be sold out. Which are going to be sold out. But Beyonce and Jay-Z, you know, they're not afraid to get paid. So maybe what you do is you sell 15,000 tickets out of the gate at scaled prices, you know, very high in the front and not too bad in the back, so you don't make all the fans upset. And then you keep some really good ones back. And as it gets closer to the date, you try it out. You might say, here's two seats that are in the second row. They're 2000 each.

Here's two other seats in the second row. They're 2,500 each. If they sell, maybe you try two more at 3000 and you're just kind of fooling around with it to see how much you can get what's the most expensive ticket you've seen sold super bowl tickets always 50k 50k yeah well no you could see a million dollars for a suite what yeah you could pay a mil for that well but it might have 20 tickets okay Okay. Right? Still, that's like 40K each. Well, but it's because it's corporate money, right? It's not coming out of your back pocket or mine. It's some giant corporation that wants to take their very best clients to what's sort of the national obsession, the most important single event of the year. And it's around tax time, too.

Well, end of the year. Well, it's in February. Oh, yeah. And it's around tax time, too. Well, end of the year. Well, it's in February. Oh, yeah. So April. Spending expense, marketing. Well, but it's an expense for the next year's April, right? Yeah. Because you're always paying in a calendar year.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I had to learn about taxes, too. That's kind of important. I'll talk to you about taxes later, man. If you don't understand taxes, you're throwing away half your money right out of the gate. No, I'm just saying, I mean, it's still that event is still tax deductible is what I'm saying overall. Just because you've spent that much on a corporate event, you get the deductible tax.

Actually, the tax code now, I believe the tax code now does not allow you to deduct tickets anymore as a taxable deduction, but probably everything else they do, bringing in the people on a private jet and some other hotels. Yeah, you would think the marketing aspect, I mean, you're spending a million dollars on a suite. Well, the government has funny rules, and probably not for this podcast. Yeah, we won't give financial advice here. Check with your local tax advisors.

Don't listen to people on podcasts about taxes. And then how did you get involved with Forbes? I was working with Forbes on some stories where they would call me as somebody that had experience in the live entertainment industry. And after helping them with a number of stories, I said, hey, you know, I actually really know this space. How about I write some of these and they said well let's see and you know we're 150 stories in now so i i believe i've passed the audition yeah i think so far it's hard auditioning a little bit kind of well it's hard though because when you write sort of the same thing over and over and over you have to think of different ways to write it right

you know you don't you don't want to just like have a plug and play, you have to think of different ways to write it. You don't want to just have a plug-and-play story. You have to find the little nugget of what makes each story individually interesting, very much like what we're doing here. You're trying to figure out, you know, you've had three people in your podcast booth today, and each of us, I'm sure, is very, very different. And you have to sort of figure out what the what the highlight is that you're trying to pull out of each person right right so you've obviously made a ton of money had a lot of success you could retire right now

if you wanted to so what keeps you going oh you know i'll work forever i i mean i i you if you stop working you die you 100% you die. Your brain turns off. And the other thing is that your job becomes your vacation. You know, I mean, go take four weeks someplace with nothing to do and tell me what you're trying to do after two weeks. If you're like any of us. Yeah, you're trying. You're like, give me anything.

I've got to do something you give me four days i'm looking like ready to go yeah i don't want to be here anymore yeah vacations are tricky because yeah four or five days in you kind of want to go home it depends on the mindset it's most people go on vacation for escape for guys like us a vacation is an option but it's like what are we going to be doing on the vacation you kind of do it for whoever you're with yeah i find myself working when i'm on vacation to be doing on the vacation? You kind of do it for whoever you're with. Yeah. I find myself working when I'm on vacation, to be honest. Yeah. Because working's fun.

Working is fun. Hold on a second. I'm going to sneeze. Oh, that was a cool little quiet sneeze. Well, there may be another one coming. But anyway. Yeah, no, I don't ever want to not work. Gotcha.

Because, you know, it's turning the wheels in your head. And for me, that's the fun. It's the figuring stuff out. It's I know this is impossible, but it can't be that impossible. Let's find a path through it. And as long as you do that, I mean, as long as this keeps working, you know, you're young. But turn it over to Vanna White and Wheel of Fortune and you've got about a month left. So you don't believe in retirement?

No, no, no. Because a lot of people kind of look forward to that. They kind of teach you that you work till 60, retire. It depends on what program you're in. Right. It depends on what program you're in. He's not in that program. And back in his time, that was the program is to retire at 60, right?

Well, I think that's not the case. I think the difference is this. There's a lot of people that work jobs that it's just the same thing every day. You know, you're a school teacher and you teach math to sixth graders. And every year you do the same job that you did the year before. The kids are different, but math didn't change. And after you've done it 35 times, you probably have had enough trying to explain how to solve this kind of a problem. And, and, and there's no growth in it. There's no challenge in it. It's just auto repeat. And so I can see where you put your time in. And the idea is once I've done my 30 years that my pension kicks in, then I'm free to do what I want to do. And, and maybe you go out

and do a little side hustle business or you go travel the world or whatever it is you have the freedom to do now play with your grandchildren. And I understand that, or, you know, you work the line at the the Purdue Chicken Factory pulling, you know, skin off or you worked for a motor company, you know, putting bolts on on on wheels. And there's just not a lot of growth in that. So I see those kind of people stuck. And if I were one of those, I'd be I'd be looking for bell, like a kid looking for the summer vacation, you know, to start, you'd be like, get me out. Right. But you know, when you have the freedom to do what we do, which is I want to work, but I want to work at things that keep me stimulated, intellectually interested, then it's, it's never like it's a job. It's, it's just play. Right. So how do you deal with stress with work? Oh, I don't really stress. I mean, like in anything, once you have enough experience, you recognize that that stress is like a rocking chair.

You know, I mean, it just doesn't actually ever go anywhere. And what it does is it impedes your ability to solve a problem because your brain is firing, your cortisone is up, you're just all like this, and you need to calm yourself back down. And so I've really worked hard at being able to de-stress. And then sometimes stuff comes at you really, really fast. Somebody does something that's a betrayal. Somebody comes in from the outside and screws up something that you laid the groundwork for, and you're angry for, you just have to push it down and just get back to solving the problem. Every problem is solvable.

Some things take more time. Some things take more money. Some things take more persuasion. But the absent death, most things can be negotiated. What about family life? Like what was that like growing up? Because you had success at a really young age. Well, I came out of a really good family.

So I have I'm lucky. Both my parents are alive still. Oh, wow. They are. They're still alive. They have you. They were young. Not that young. So they're in their genetics. still. Oh, wow. They are? They're still alive. Did they have you when they were young? Not that young.

Wow. They were in their 80s. Good genetics. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My grandparents, my grandmother lived to 101. Whoa. My great-grandfather lived to like 103.

Dang. So, yeah, I figure I've got another 50 years to go. Yeah. You kind of lived to like 113. I'll take it. Yeah. I'll take it. Anything over 110, I consider winning.

That's crazy. Yeah. If you could live forever, would you do it? I don't know what that would mean. I mean, if I could live forever and, you know. What kind of body, though? Yeah, that's the point. So the body you're in right now, would you?

Oh, hell yeah. Okay. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'll keep going. Sure, why not? But not like the shriveled up, like, uh. No, I don't want to be like getting, you know, wheeled up on a cart. Yeah, I'll keep going. Sure, why not? But not like the shriveled up, like, uh. No, I don't want to be like getting, you know, wheeled up on a cart. Yeah, no.

There's no fun in that. Wow, you're the first guest that said they would. Interesting. I wouldn't. I don't want to live forever. Yeah. Why not? I don't know.

What does forever mean? Well, what are you trading for? What am I trading for? Yeah, trading for. Trading for? Yeah, I mean, what do you think for what am i trading for yeah trading for i'm trading for yeah i mean what do you think happens when you're not living anymore um i don't know i just feel like you know you want to do your time here and just you know that's your time what's up well that's practical but it's not yeah i mean you know if i had the choices just like i would i want to live with live whatever my forever is.

So forever for some people is 80s. Forever to some people is 110. Forever to some people is 70. But whatever my forever is, I want to fulfill that forever. Well, I'm with you. I think that as long as your brain is functioning and your body is somewhat cooperative, then it's all good. The second that that starts to melt, then you're just a prisoner of your chair. And, and I think that's where it gets difficult. Agreed. Right. What do you think that, you know, growing older is some of the things that you realize, is there any regret

or do you feel like in our generation and younger, what are some of the things that you look like, man, you're going to regret that when you're older? Trust me. When I look back at your generation, I think every generation figures stuff out in their own way. I do worry about the way that the newest generations have to face some of the damage that the older generations have done. You're seeing massive climate disruption, and that's going to become worse over the next 50 years and all the consequences of the irresponsibility of the way we've taken care of the earth so far. But I also look at stuff that kids are doing now

that just scares the crap out of me. The casual use of the stuff that'll just you know when i grew up and kids played with say we're smoking cigarettes and smuggling beers or maybe getting some you know to smoke but i mean now you know people are taking stuff and they're just dead that's that's a problem what do you what do you think caused that problem because it came what like 80s 90s what drugs the no i don't know when it came very recently it just kind of showed up i saw this much for you like it just what does it do to you i'm not sure i this is so scary to me i don't really know here's what i can

tell you what it does to you what it does to you is it impairs your respiratory system and so if you have just a little bit too much it knocks you out and it slows your breathing and if it slows your breathing enough you don't wake back up you're just dead so you go very peacefully but you're gone and that's narcan which is the the drug that the the u.s is finally or the the antidote that the u.s has finally legalized over the counter basically removes that block on your respiratory system and you can start breathing again assuming that somebody's awake to give it to you uh yeah i saw edc had a tent just full of that yeah oh EDC had a tent full of it? yeah because a lot of people take

drugs I guess at the festival well and there's a lot of things now that are coming up that look like they're one thing but they're not you know there's a lot of pills that come across the border that look like they're you know some sort of a drug not f of, of drug, not, but

in fact it's, it's infused with because that's the way they hook people and create more demand, but there's no regulation on how much, how strong the batches vary. And, and that's why you're seeing this, this incredible epidemic. Do you think this problem is fixable or are we too far in there's nothing that we've been able to do so far to slow uh as long as i've known um i don't know how you fix this other than uh education and diversion and i'm not trying to be too political we're going that way pretty quickly. But we have a system in this country where we're the only first world country on the planet that doesn't believe we should provide health care. We argue against health care.

And we don't really have a functioning mental health system. So we handle all these problems with policing, and policing doesn't solve the kind of problems that start. You need diversion programs and you need counselors and you need some alternatives so that when someone's in trouble that isn't backed by lots of family money to get in a program, they can still get in a program and maybe get help to figure out alternate paths but in in the absence of that they're they're dead i mean it's not if it's when that's scary especially if you're having kids you know growing up teenagers and stuff scary to think about yeah super because i mean the there's a like a huge huge epidemic of uses in general. It's like at an all-time high right now.

And I don't even know if the education would work because we had D.A.R.E. growing up. Did you guys have D.A.R.E.? Yeah. And that was like a joke. Like we made fun of it, to be honest. Because what is D.A.R.E.? Well, but D.A.R.E. was a program that was, you know, like a slogan program. You know, you have to move away from the divisiveness that we have as a country where everybody's trying to figure out why the other guy's dumb, stupid, mean, evil,

and move back to sort of being, you know, a single group of people united to, to be part of a community. And only when you have community, can you influence, influence behavior. Right now we have tribalism, right? So if I don't like what you're doing, our, our news media, our politics now tell me to go out and, you know, say you're terrible and, and kids pick this up. They watch it. You don't learn about love. You don't learn about community. You don't learn about seeing somebody in trouble and helping them. You just walk by and kick them. No, or you film them.

Yeah. Yeah, you don't help them. You record them bleeding to death. Yeah. Right. That's the new help. Right. Yeah.

So, okay. Well, this is the most unfun podcast I've ever been on. So, heavens, man. I don't even know what you've been talking about the rest of the day. But what are you doing over here? Let's end on a happy note. What's bringing you happiness right now in your life? All the new friends I'm making.

Really, I just go around and I go to things that are fun to do and I meet cool people. And I'm in the time in my life where I have the ability the ability and the time to, to make new friends and explore those relationships. And the thing that I've learned, if you want to take one thing away from what happens when you get to be my age, everybody has a story if you just ask them. And the other thing is almost everybody has a joke if you let them tell it, you know, so don't be shy, go talk to somebody you've never talked to and, and actually talk to them. Listen. And you'll find out that most people are really wonderful. I mean, there's some folks you'll just never be able to help. But most people are wonderful. And once you learn that, it's a whole different world you move through. Right. Because any place you go, you're welcome. And anything that you want to do, somebody wants to help you do it. Yeah. Right. Powerful. Last question. Is happiness a choice? I think it's a choice to not be happy. I think that you make it. Some people make a choice that they're just they just don't want to put out the energy. Because you have to put out the energy.

If you want to have a friend, you have to be a friend. Yep. Right? You can't just sit home and wait for the phone to ring. You have to give it and take it. You have to stand up for your friends, you know? I get calls all the time. I have this issue or question, whatever.

I'm there. Whatever you need from me. Right? And vice versa. But if you're just, like, you know, plugged in in front of Netflix for 17 hours a day. Right. You don't me. Right. And vice versa. But if you're just like, you know, plugged in in front of Netflix for 17 hours a day, you don't exist. Right. So I think that it requires just that little push to get out and be part of your community. Right. But once you start that, once you gain some momentum, just let it build. Wise words right there. Any closing comments, Eric?

No, I just love what you guys are doing. You know, what you're doing is really what I'm talking about. You're bringing in new people. You're talking to them. You're trying to understand their essence. You're trying to share with other people what the world looks like, in this case, through my eyes. And, boy, you put me through the ringer.

I'll get you later for that. And by doing that, you set an example that you know if the three of us can have this conversation that went all the way from how come you're at a music festival to how do you fix the problem can you be happy and we did it in like 22 minutes i mean mean, I mean, anybody can do it. Right. You can talk to anybody about anything if you talk to them with respect and if you're respectful enough to listen to what they say to you. That's the key. Listening. A lot of people need to work on that. Listening.

Yeah. That's the key. Wayne, thank you guys for tuning in and watching the Digital Soul Shower. Thanks for tuning in, guys. I'll see you next time. Peace.