Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Licensing Your Way to Millions w/ Jason Egan EP 35

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

The Power Move Episode 35Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. This Week:Jason Egan the creator of Fright Dome and the "Saw Experience" the #1 rated escape attraction in the world discusses his journey and how he got some of the largest movie brands ever to allow him. to use and profit from their intellectual property. With Jason Egan, Chris Connell and Colt Amidan

from the art of the deal to keeping it real live from the simply vegas studios it's the power move with john gafford back again back again back again sitting to the left colt the scourge of carpathia Amadon Might be the best one yeah Scourge of Carpathia I like it yeah I mean it's a strong nickname for you as always Chris Connell Esquire

How are you sir? I am your host John Gafford and we do have a special guest with us today Special guest Yep and thank you for having me I appreciate it This is awesome here this is amazing I was not expecting this. Dude, this is not a low-end podcast. No, this is top of the line.

This is serious business right here. We used to do this in the bathroom. Yeah, I used to be in the bathroom. At one point, it was in the back of Colt's car. That was a little suspect. I'm in the wrong business. I scare people for a living. That's it. I see these posh offices and stuff like that. I'm like, where did I go wrong? Guys, we have got an unbelievable show for you today.

We're going to talk about a lot of cool stuff. Primarily, this is going to be a master class in licensing is how I like to look at this. Because Jason, who's our guest today, and I'll let him tell what he does, has pulled off one of the best licensing deals that I've seen. And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say licensing, it's where you take something that is a massively valuable commodity, a company, a brand, an intellectual property, and you basically say, hi, this is who I am. I would like to be able to use this for my own bidding. And Jason has done

this masterfully. We're going to talk about that in a second. But before we get to what you do, Jason. Before we get to what he does. Before we get to what he does. What is the Scourge of Carpathia? The Scourge of Carpathia? I think Jason might be able to tell us. Jason probably knows what this is. In fact, I do believe you have a painting.

I have a Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2. The Scourge of Carpathia, yes. It doesn't look anything like Vigo, but I mean. You haven't seen me on my rough days. But yeah, Vigo. I think it is. But I think there's a couple things we've got to talk about before we talk about this.

Because first of all, this is going to come out on Wednesday. So by now, I might be all wood. But I will say this. I have never felt worse for an individual NFL football player than I did for Josh Allen on Sunday. Oh, my goodness. That was just absolutely gut-wrenching. It was such good football that Sean Payton quit today.

Yeah. Well, we were going to talk about that, too. Never mind. Yeah, Sean's like, let's look at my quarterback options for next year. That just shows you can't get your emotions up until things are over, especially in business, right? Like, people get all excited, oh, my paycheck, whatever, and it's going. And then deal falls apart.

Same thing. Those guys, you saw people in the crowd crying, hugging. Oh. Did you see the stat? I knew it wasn't over. Did you see the stat that this pretty impressive stat? It took 13 seconds to do that last drive for 14 seconds to run one play. It was 14 seconds.

Isn't that wild? That's a wild stat. I thought you were going to say, do we feel bad for anybody other than me? My stocks have killed me the last two days. That was the shortest recession in the history of sessions yesterday. The Dow drops 1,000 points and it's back positive by the end of the day. I bought the dip. He bought the dip.

I bought one more share of wins. Yeah, now I'm at two shares of wins. Two shares of wins is what you got? Two shares of wins. You know, did anybody see the hot mic thing with Biden yesterday? Did anybody see that? Oh, yeah. Where he leans out and calls the guy a stupid son of a bitch on a hot mic.

The Fox. Yeah, the Fox. Peter Doocy. Yeah, Peter Doocy. But then he called him later. Did you hear that, though, after the fact Biden did call Peter Doocy and said, you know, kind of apologized. Yeah, he said, I didn't mean to say you were a stupid son of a bitch on a hot mic. I would have. I would have doubled down. If I was the president, yeah, he yelled something.

I think you're ugly, too. Not only are you a stupid son of a bitch, you're an ignorant bastard, too. You're ugly. Yeah, you're ugly, too. I mean, here's the thing. You know, every time Trump got on somebody, you know, you know via twitter whatever else he was a super bad guy are we just going now at this point that joe biden's like your cranky old grandpa that like you know he's gonna say inappropriate stuff at the dinner table just letting it go i have i think mentally we just cut these guys off at 55 i don't need

any more fucking guys over 65 running this country i just don't know it's really thing nuclear war affects them a lot less than me. I know. I know. It's right there. From an actuarial point of view. Yeah, it is. Because I have kids that are, you know. No, he's right there to just telling people to get off the lawn. Did you see that?

Right in the middle of the press conference. Russia keeps saying they want to nuke us. Nevada. Nevada? Yeah. What do we do, Russia? Area 51. It's been out there a couple, for the last two weeks.

Khabib lives here, I assume. Yeah, that's true. Khabib lives here. Yeah, they're not. Yeah, they want to go after the aliens. I don't know why. How awesome would it be? We should go try to get into Area 51 one day.

How far off of the licensing trade? Just go off the rails. No, we're getting there. We're getting there. We're on aliens. Aliens. Aliens Jones. It's a property I would want. These are the important things we have to get to before we get to that stuff.

Speaking of aliens, I watched a Tom Hanks movie the other day. Oh, my God. And it made me hate him more. It was Mr. Rogers movie. I'm like, this guy's not really. You hated him after the Mr. Rogers movie? I can't believe they licensed his name to that movie. Do you like Mr. Rogers or do you hate Mr. Rogers?

I liked him until now. Now I hate him for no reason other than Tom. What about Bob Ross? Bob Ross. I love him, but if Tom Hanks played him, I'd probably hate him. What about Tom Hanks and the Burbs or Big? No, he hates him. Across the board.

He sees him. Unreasonably. Yeah, let's clear this up, Jason. No, he hates them. Across the board. He sees them. Unreasonably. Yeah, let's, okay, let's clear this up, Jason. Cole is a pod person. Let's go ahead and sum that up right now. He's a pod. And everything that is normal with everybody else is kind of the polar opposite with him,

and it's just what he does. What else do you hate, Cole? There was something else that you hated that literally blew my mind in half. Oh, Star Wars, I've never seen it. Oh, really? I've never seen it, ever. Not one.

Somebody sent me a thing like surprisingly like oh look at this actor surprising people i'm like i don't get it who's that actor never seen star wars guy i don't know who he goes he goes on this show he goes you know how dumb they are in star wars the guy's dressed in black and they call him darth vader not dark vader yeah went on for 10 minutes about dark vader name. Are you more like a rom-com guy? I like Spaceballs. Watch that like a week ago. Speaking of people that don't know what the hell is going on,

I don't know if you saw this. What I call a hard segue there. Did you see that Neil Young has threatened Spotify saying, if you don't get rid of Joe Rog rogan you can't have my catalog on there that's stupid who's got a bed how long do you think that's gonna take before spotify just hits delete on neil young i think me and like 40 other people would be the only ones mad about it i threw out my decades cds i think oh jeez yeah i don't even know yeah when's the last time you went for a when's the last time you reached for a Neil Young? All the time. Really?

Love Neil Young. I think he is just. The needle in the damage done. And. Name some songs. I gotta tell you. I can't think of it. This segment is not going the way that I thought it would. And for the look of Jason's face.

Ohio old man, needle in the damage done. Yeah. For the turnstiles, one of the best songs. I'm going full Tom Hanks on this. I hate it. I hate it. Tom Hanks. I'm going Hanks on it. Neil Young? Full Tom Hanks on it.anks on it he's not even that young like your bad opinion he's not even no i can't

i can't take no young and i'll tell you why i hate him even worse is when eddie vetter decided to morph into him that i hate him worse for that than just for being him it was excellent no respects no no it's dreadful terrible Terrible. Neil Young. Neil Young, Crazy Horse? Yeah. Terrible. All of it. Garbage. Horrible. Couldn't name a song. Horrible. But it just shows you,

know your cards before you start negotiating cards like that. Because who are you going to get rid of? The number one Spotify person or Neil Young? The number one podcast person, period. Who isn't even young. People need to get off Joe Rogan's dick, though. Like, they really need to either listen to him and shut up, or, you know what I mean,

or just have no opinion about him. The numbers don't lie, though, is the problem. But the problem... If you listen to him and shut up or you know what i mean or just have no opinion about the numbers don't lie though but the problem listen to him and you disagree with them point out what you disagree with don't just i hate joe rogan because i heard that he took horse medicine one time it's such an irrational backlash against joe rogan who oftentimes is very interesting guests very balanced he doesn't say crazy right-wing and people think he's this guy without listening to him that's the problem that It's because CNN and all them portray him that way and make his filter him to look green on his stuff. Did you see that? Yeah.

Original video. No. Do you think you could go be an Olympian? We got three weeks Olympics. I feel like you could want to winter. Yeah. Well, why don't we talk now since you've brought Jason into the conversation, conversation don't ask colt what he thinks a biathlon is oh gosh my neighbor's got plenty of not what you think it is cold i don't think it's what you think it is the pole vault is not part

anyway moving on jason so let's talk about you man so so for those of you who don't know jason let's start with just what do you own here in town? Here in Las Vegas, what do you own that is so interesting? So long story short, I came to town about 2002. Started a haunted house, just a generic haunted house. I'd always loved doing haunted houses as I was a kid. And growing up, I'd build haunted houses out of couch cushions in my backyard, in my backyard, whatever it took, you know, to make a haunted house. So I did one, you know, when I was going to college at University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

And that became successful. But good old Lincoln, Nebraska wasn't big enough for me. So I kind of, I love Lincoln. Don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful city. But I wanted something big. So I looked at all the cities that didn't have any competition that I could actually come into and compete with. And Vegas was such a new, young city still at the time you know 20 years ago and i'm like you know

what you know i'm gonna come to vegas and try this there's only these haunted houses in these parking lots in like smith's parking lot you know in trailers i'm like i can compete with this so i did 2002 i started haunted house it was successful at the time mandalay resort group aka circus circus approached me and they're like hey you know we have this big property so they came to you you didn't go to me they left this lady where were you where so where were your house where were the haunted houses you were doing they parking lot ones like that no no i i rented an old abandoned ballroom that had this murder in on highland drive that was allegedly haunted so i put in this 10 000 square foot old abandoned

ballroom and the lady, marketing lady at Circus Circus, Pam Torres came in and she, she gave her business card to my mom working the ticket booth at the time. Cause I wanted my, I wanted, it was all cash back then. You want, you know, you got to trust. Cause I mean, you could be walking out 20, 30, $40,000 in a night, you know? So, you know, she hands the business card and luckily I called and Circus Circus rearranged a meeting. I went in there. They were intimidated as hell at my age because I was like 22 years old

or something like that at the time. Well, let's back up a little bit. How much money were you making in Lincoln, Nebraska? Lincoln, Nebraska. When you started this, like your first real haunted house. Probably. So real haunted house, I was 19, 20. 19?

19, 20. You were doing other stuff too, though, right? Oh, 20. 19? 19, 20. You were in other stuff too, though, right? Oh, yeah. Rattles. Oh, God, yeah. I started a party planning service when I was in high school. And that's really how I learned that Halloween would actually pay because I was dressing up as costume characters to go to kids' birthday parties. And then one day a parent comes to me and they're like, hey, my son's got an October birthday.

You know, can you do anything? You know, we'd like to set up a haunted house in the backyard. And I already had been a big collector of Halloween shit. And, you know, in the first place I had, you know, I had saved up from Spencer Gibbs, bought all these props, this, that, and the other. So I'm like, you know, Hey, what's your budget? And they're like, you know, my normal party was $49.

And then I had an upscale party. It was like $89. So when I got the $89 a party, I was ecstatic. So the lady's like, you know, my budget's 400. And I bought shit. And I'm like $400. And I'm like, shit. And I'm like, $400? And I was like, you know, I was in high school. $400, you know, 20-something years ago.

This is big dollars. Yeah. So I'm like, this is awesome. And so I'm like, heck yes. So we did the party. It turned out great. The next day, I swear, half the parents from that party called me. And I'm like, oh, shit.

What did I do to their kid? Did I scare him to death? And they're like, we got to have a Halloween party. We got to have a haunted house party. It's not my kid's birthday, but we got to have you have a haunted house party. I thought you were going to say touchy the clowns. No, no, no.

Feely the magician. No, back in Nebraska, we don't get much of that. But yeah, so all the parents called. They're like, you know, this is great. And that month in October, I had one of the most successful months I had ever had because I was booking out all these $400 or $500 parties, and I was in shock, and I was making thousands of dollars that month.

And my mom had always said, you know, become an attorney. Become an attorney. You've got to become an attorney. And I was actually going to go in that direction, but now my mom's probably like, God, that was a smart move. You're doing better than most of your attorneys. Maybe not the great Chris Connell. Connell Law for all you ladies. Maybe not that good, but I'm doing pretty good. I don't have a smart move. You're doing better than most of your attorneys. Maybe not the great Chris Connell. Connell Law for all you ladies.

Maybe not that good, but I'm doing pretty good. I don't have a Bentley yet, but we're doing all right. So I came out to Vegas, got the business card, met with Circus Circus. They were intimidated as hell because I was young. We put on a hell of an event, and it just grew and grew and grew over 15 years. And I was starting to do other projects and such i mean the event was just doing amazing but then 2017 happens and that that route 91 festival shooting happens that thing happened on october 1st my event opened on september 29th crushed the

event crushed the event crushed mgm don't know why MGM necessarily sold, but allegedly they sold to Phil Ruffin because they needed to free up some cash. And Circus Circus was a good asset for Phil Ruffin, and they did not renew my contract, or we couldn't reach terms. So that was the end of that. So did they stop doing Fright Dome?

They don't do that anymore? They can't do Fright Dome because I own Fright Dome. Because you own Fright Dome. I own the intellectual property Fright Dome. So even back then, I was smart. Yeah, you had licensed it. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was smart with that and I, I locked it all down. So will there ever be another Fright Dome? Probably. Are we backed up to holy hell on projects? Absolutely. So we've got it in the queue right now. Yeah. Slow down, Jason.

Here's the thing. I figured you only live once and you know what I mean? And I'm getting older now. I want to do absolutely everything I possibly can while I'm on this earth, you know, to put my stamp and say, I actually did something. You know what I mean? I did something here. You know, I created, you know, arguably one of the best Halloween events in the world for 15 years. And, you know, moving on to IP, you know, now that I was this, was this before like

Halloween horror nights and stuff at universal was the same time, same time, same time. And I remember universal calling me because that was in 2009. I got the rights to Saw. So I teamed up with Lionsgate. They also had the rights to Saw to do a Haunted House on Saw. They called me and they're like, how the hell did you get the rights to do that, Jason? We were doing that. And then they changed from that point on.

They changed all the radius clauses now. So that would never happen again to where they were doing it and I was doing it. And I was beating them on all the rankings and USA Today and stuff every year anyway because we were scarier than Universal Studios. I mean, they put on a beautiful event. But it's for kids. Yeah, we were scarier. And that's what we really prided ourselves on.

And we really did an amazing job with the actors because your Halloween event is only as good as your worst actor. You can create the coolest sets in the world, but if you've got a bunch of shitty actors, you've got nothing. So, yeah, we teamed up with them. We lost that after Phil Ruffin took over and phil's a great guy you know i actually met with him he came through on our events you know what was the reason first off i don't think people realize to get your to go from an abandoned warehouse to an mgm property is insane insane

so people in vegas outside Vegas, don't comprehend that to get anything in Las Vegas. I tell people all the time to place anything in a hotel is the hardest thing you will do on this earth of real estate. So for them to come and reach out to you, you must have created an amazing brand at that. And I mean, what were the terms that they, they just want a gross percentage of what you brought in? Did they make you lease it? Like, that's an impressive thing that I don't think people are really, really. Tell us the terms. How much money did you make on that? You don't have to tell me, but I got to deal with the IRS. I get sponsored by $1. You are right. And, uh, you know, people, when they meet with me, you know,

I can beat out big companies any day of the week because they see my passion in these projects. They see that we go to the next level. They see how amazing we do. I mean, I'll beat out some of the biggest and best companies out there, you know, with my little old tiny team. And, you know, we will we will blow the doors off any event that we do. And that's what they saw. They saw the amount of effort that we put into our little warehouse event, the ballroom event. Like, oh my God, this is amazing. We come into Vegas and we just do this killer haunted house. What did you make on the ballroom event the first year?

Oh, I think it was $250,000, $275,000. Not much. Not much. Not much. That's net or gross? That was gross back then, but it wasn't much to put on. But Fright Dome over the years made millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, but it also cost, as anybody knows, millions upon millions to run as well.

But the event was great. I mean, if I would have been as restricted as I was, if some of the old folks that were running the Adventure Dome weren't as tight- as a tight ass over there and, you know, would have listened to me, we could have changed the ticket price. Cause it, well, for one, the ticket price was too low. We were selling out every night. I think our average ticket price was like 37, $38. You know, my average ticket price at, you know, an escape room right now is over 50. So it's like, I was getting 600 houses, scare zones, rides, double loop, roller coasters, all this stuff. So it's like, yeah, our pricing was off. We could have grossed an extra million, million and a half dollars by just adjusting the price.

Yeah, $69.95. Knowing the elasticity of demand, right? Yeah. Knowing that these little $20,000 escape room builds are getting $45, I mean, it's insane. Dude, not only that, but look at Bruno mars is clocking down like 650 bucks a night just to see him play thank you very much for a seat i appreciate that don't bring it down how do you do that how do you go and cancel 24 hours no not how's that man come on people flying across the world dollars to go watch go watch this lady sing. Hang on.

Not everybody. But here's my question. What do you do if you're the secondary purchaser that bought the tickets for like $10,000 on the secondary market? And you're really going to go back to the person who sold them to you and be like, I need a refund? They're not going to do that. I mean, I don't know. Who knows what happened. That was a bad thing.

It was bad. And I don't like that she was making people go out, not to get political or anything like that, but I don't like she was going out and making people get tested. So she was going to crowd up our testing sites, thousands and thousands of people, because they had to be vaxxed and a test and a negative test. I mean, Adele's great. She's amazing at what she does.

But let's be real. Don't come into our town and clog up our testing sites when people that really need to go get tested need to get there. They don't want to wait four hours. I can argue with that one. She's no Emile Young. She is no Emile Young. No Emile Young. need to go get tested need to get there they don't want to wait four hours i can argue with that one do you have um do you have issues with people like punching your actors well not dead serious because like i won't go to them because i would punch somebody at the fright dome at the other one maybe that was an issue but not in these new attractions okay so very rarely but it's happened

right it happens but we when you take their weapons away at the beginning with metal detectors and you're in a dark environment and you don't know where necessarily you are in the middle of a haunted house, it's not smart to do. So it happens, but it happens very rarely because we put all these preventative measures in place to prevent that from happening. We just don't allow them to do that.

And they know they're about to lose their, at, at the time, $38 ticket, you know, but should have been 69. Should have been. Should have been. Absolutely would have been 69, but... There's no touching either. No, there's... No, but I'm just saying,

people jump out to natural reaction. I got punched three months ago at Saw, you know, because the labor crisis was so intense. I mean, so bad. I mean, we'll do whatever it takes, so I do not have to close down any of my interactions. You're like, I'm in labor crisis was so intense. I mean, so bad. I mean, we'll do whatever it takes. So I do not have to close down any of my, you're like,

I'm in there. I'm open. I dressed up as the pig and I literally got punched by a guest. I went in too close to scare him, punched, but it wasn't, it didn't hurt. But I mean,

I think I might've caught it. I might, I damn, I took a punch pretty well. I'm like, this dude was huge. And I'm like, I'm really proud of myself.

I was scared, man. I was scared. It was fine. He reacted. I reacted i'm not gonna do anything i wasn't hurt it is what it is did you hold character did you squeal when he punched you or did you like a pro it's cool you know but no actually i was on the phone with chris i'm like hey you know i got an injury here you know what can we do you know the owner. Damn it. It happens, but it probably happens in other people's places a lot more than that. All right, so back to Circus Circus.

You're undercutting yourself, but you're still doing amazingly well. Phil Ruffin comes in, says, you know, thanks, but no thanks. We're not continuing this. It wasn't him that said it. Phil's a great guy. We met after the fact. Phil would probably have us back there. It was MGM, and it was the head

of uh circus circus who didn't want to put the deal in place because they knew the property was for sale so mgm killed the deal they didn't want anything yeah they killed yeah they killed the deal before it could even go because they want the balance sheet as clean as humanly possible to trade yeah if phil would have known phil probably would have said no yeah i want this as a part of the deal but phil didn't even know what it existed but i gotta believe it's circus circus i mean how much revenue does that generate for the damn casino it's had to be it's gotta be they would never tell me they would never i'm like you know i'm like you know i see the hotel numbers are going up the occupancy rates are going up i'm like i'm like how can we quantify the gambling yeah how could any month be busier

than that but that going on in there no it, it was. For some reason, October's through the roof, guys. For some reason. Circus, circus. Oh, my God. And I didn't see any. You know, there was a deal. I didn't make a great deal back then. You know what I mean? Now I would know.

I didn't see any of the food and beverage, the alcohol sales and stuff like that. You know, so I would make a completely different deal. I'm a totally different person now than I was, you know, 20 years ago. Now I'm a better negotiator than this guy sitting next to me. You know, so. Do you have. Pretty mean. Do you have. He's a pretty mean guy you have, do you have any interest in going

back? Oh, absolutely. Cause like my kids are always like, Oh, I wish fright dorm was not there, but absolutely. But it's not saying, you know, it's married to that location. You know, the right location comes around. We will do something. It's not hard to put in rides. It's all about encompassing and having a whole night of terror. You know, your haunted houses, your scare zones, your rides that can be done on another property and doing it right i've had so many people try to come in and you know they don't have my motivation they don't know how to do it and they just fail miserably and we have people literally every day approaches about doing something but dude i'll give you a billion dollar idea right now horror edc there it is there you go do it do a tear edc at the dance

the racetrack the racetrack it's good weather because it's october it's not a million degrees throw some djs out there with some scare stuff and the rides and you're good people pasquale yeah we'll do it you know he's a great guy he's great puts on an amazing event too but uh you know that's now i've learned you know what I didn't know 20 years ago or 15 years ago is the art of saying no on certain projects now too. So, you know, I was just taking upon projects, you know, I'm like, Oh, that sounds really cool. What did you say yes to you? I did a project in Hong Kong on a mountaintop on top of a shopping mall. That was quite the project to do. And you know what I mean? It was, it was at the, yeah, Victoria peak in Hong Kong, Hong Kong on top of the Galleria Mall.

And, you know, it was a fun project, but, you know, you get your typical investors or whatever it was. It was like, you know, we want to do 500 houses. Oh, let's cut the budget. Now let's do 400 houses. Oh, let's cut the budget. Let's do 300 houses. Now let's go to 200 houses. But you still want to charge the same ticket price.

So they crushed, you know, they didn't do it. You know, they didn't put on a good event because, you know, the public wasn't happy about what they got. You know, you can't charge the same dollar amount, you know, $50 and tell everybody it's going to be 500 houses, but then they're like, oh, now there's two. But I wouldn't have taken that project on, even though it was neat to go to Hong Kong, but I was on the plane every other week. Yeah. It was nice in there. Singapore airlines with the suite and everything. That's cool. That was my quiet time.

But I wouldn't have taken that. And I get requests every day. I got a pumpkin patch request yesterday and stuff. I just, it's not, you know, it's what's the Paula Abdul song? Two steps forward, three steps back. I don't, you know, I've done these things. I've put myself on the map. I've broken every record possible.

You know, I don't need to take on a project. I just't just vegas projects we're all over the world i've done stuff in new york i've consulted for universal studios bush gardens you know you know we've done you know stuff everywhere you know it's and it's been a great journey but now like i said with with the ip projects that we're doing you know with working with saw and with working with blair witch and we've got three others in the making which i can't say but well let's talk about that so you transition out of for for lack of better phrase just because they transitioned out of you yeah exactly selling your load selling your location and so you're like okay what am i going to do now i need something that you probably want to control more 100 that is not just open one month out of the year and is more controllable.

And they don't have to tear down. Yes. They don't have to tear it down because there's nothing worse than putting that up and then having to tear it down. I mean, that's upsetting. You've just created something amazing and 19 days down the road, you're tearing it down. So walk me through that process of thinking you want to do this to getting it open. You mean Saw? Yeah, because that's the first one, yes.

So Saw is the first IP after Fright Jump. So, yeah, because that's the first one yes so saw is the first ip after fright dump so yeah so saw it was the first one we we approached and i had already worked with landscape back in 2009 because we did a saw themed haunted house in 2009 so how did you how did that how did that meaning come about how did you approach that and like you guys had said it's not easy those they you don't find studio executives email addresses on the web they're non-existent and they have layers of assistance in place to prevent the average joe from calling them so at the time i got this movie oh my god no no it's godfather space okay yeah it's exactly you know that's what they don't want

you know but they're great people don't get me wrong now we talk to lionsgate literally every single day but uh you know so we approached them in 2009 me wrong. Now we talk to Lionsgate literally every single day, but you know, so we approached them in 2009. Yeah. We used, we went to our radio station partner, Kent Broadcasting, Will Kemp, I think owns a law firm here in town. Yeah. So he owns a Kent Broadcasting. So they had an end, they were doing a special with Saul the year prior to promote the movie. And I'm like, Hey, you know, can you, you have any kind of end?

They went through the marketing department, then they got us through the location-based entertainment department and we got a meeting and then they, so let's, well, let's, let's look, cause you're brushing over, you brushed over that pretty quick. And I, and I think that's a key piece of information for anybody that wants to license IP. Cause I think a lot of people just tend to bang their head against the closed door without looking for somebody like, oh, here's the guy that washes the windows that looks through the windows right at the meet where they sit every single day.

Let me talk to that guy and see if he can get me around on the window washing unit. I'll tell you a quick, quick, quick story real quick. My buddy became friends with Warren Buffett. Stays at his house in Omaha when we go to Berkshire Hathaway every year. When he was the richest man on earth. Started off because he adopted a dog

from his security guard that he met at Dick's Barbecue or something in Omaha. Really? He literally became friends with the security guard. The security guard had a dog, and then one of his people, and the dogs lived there. And so Buffett's wife, you know, when you meet someone through dogs, you're friends immediately. Dude.

You can't always call up Warren Buffett. Sometimes you've got to make friends. You've got to find – yeah, you've got to – this is where, like, your network is your net worth, right? Because just like you said, I mean, there's nothing harder. I've worked in the Hollywood, L.A. scene for a little bit. There's nothing harder to get through to those people. They have gatekeepers after gatekeepers after gatekeepers.

Literally, three assistants. Same with MGM, yeah. WME, you know, a great company now, Endeavor. Yeah, Endeavor. You know, literally, they'll have three assistants. One agent will have three assistants before you even get to the agent. I mean, that's how hard it is to get to them. Gatekeeper, gatekeeper, gatekeeper.

But, yeah, you mentioned that. You know, it's hard. It was, I think where people fail as you, you, you mentioned that, you know, it's hard. It was, I think where people fail with it too is when we go in and present something to the studio, we give it 110%. And I don't know where I learned this from, but I want to go into that meeting knowing that I gave it our all, that we showed everything we possibly could put the best presentation possible ever. We could put together versus some people coming in with a word doc and sitting on their word document sitting on their desk and thinking that's actually going

to work it's not going to work you know and that's why you know you got to put your best foot forward because then at least we knew we did everything we could that you know to attempt to get that job and uh you know if they say no we know we did our best well i think also when you're dealing with intellectual property of somebody that is on of something a franchise like saw they've got to believe that you're going to treat it as well or better than they would you've got to show them a vision that they're going to look at and say man this is just an exceptional opportunity and these guys have proven themselves to do this and i think also i would say the reason that you got the opportunity was because you proved that you could run with the ball in that arena before you just grabbed.

Like if you just come off the street and said, I got this great idea. I want to do a haunted house with Saw. They would have been like, who are you? No. But you were like, I'm the haunted house guy. I think I can take both of our brands to the next level by combining them. And again, showing up to that meeting with a pitch deck that's like, wow. Wow. I'm assuming you had art and everything done on this thing absolutely and

that's what people don't understand too like uh one of our current studio projects which i can't say what it is but uh you know sometimes it can cost us 30 40 50 000 before we even get the job yeah and that's what people don't get and they're like oh my god you did all these renderings 3d models all this stuff it's like yeah of we did. Cause it's worth it because you know, our batting average is damn good. He knows what these projects are. Batting average is really, really good. And you know, we're friends with multiple, multiple studios now. And you know, we can get them on the phone now. And what, what used to be hard back in 2009, now it's like, okay, yeah. You want to call Sony? Absolutely. Let's call Sony and see what they got.

You know what I mean? So that that's, that's what's what it is but again we go in and i'm shocked with some of the other promoters all over the world big big bad promoters and amazing promoters and producers and i'm like you want to show you want me to show the studio this like what what is this like literally they've done this in like the the clip art program and and I'm like, this is going to be this. Saw, and it's the guy. Yeah, it's the guy. I can send you a full-blown 3D walkthrough of what this is going to be before we even get the deal. And that's what you have to do.

Well, let's talk more about that when we come back from the break. We'll be back with Jason from just everything, the Saw escape rooms, the whole nine yards. I'm going to get some of the new projects out of them. Probably not. I'll be back in a minute. Hey, it's

John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we have, things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at the John Gafford.

I'm here. Give me a shout back from the break again, joined today. Luckily is Jason from the saws escape room, Blair, which escape rooms here in town talking about licensing IP and just the incredible business that he has kind of manufactured out of, uh,

out of scaring people. It's kind of like, uh, you know, God cold. If you could get paid every time you would got home five minutes late. I mean, life would be good.

Cause I know you're terrified. I got a great idea for you. Um, you can't steal from me right now, but do one of nothing but Mexican women with chanclas and make people walk through it. Just dodge it around. You got dodge,

chancla. The whole thing is the whole premise is this is your Mexican wife and you're 20 minutes late. That's the whole escape room. And she texted you five minutes before. Yeah, she did. I'm telling you. Just a chancla.

Just a chancla. That's it. I guarantee you'd make money on that. You would. So we're back today. We're talking to Jason about intellectual property, licensing this stuff, because he has been able to license some of the biggest brands in the industry of horror are his partners now. I mean, major studios are his partners. And he is able to profit very successfully and share profits with these major brands. And if you're kind of wondering how to get

a foot started there, this is a great conversation to listen to if you're ever thinking about, man, how do I get something to start it like that? So to recap what we talked about the first part of the episode was, I think the biggest hinge point key was build some credibility in whatever angle you want to go, whatever business you want to build. And you can't just start from zero and get these deals. You've got to build some credibility in the arena you're dealing with. And then, B, don't just necessarily bang your head against the closed door. Look for that side door, man. Look for somebody who's got a connection to these people any way you can get into them.

Because I think just like you, once you start making a little bit of money for one of these guys, they kind of talk. Absolutely. It's a very small world in what we call location-based entertainment department. And you're right. I mean, we've worked with, after it started with Saw, went to My Bloody Valentine. We worked with the late George Romero. We worked with Halloween. We worked with The Collector, The Collection five nights at freddy's when it was at its peak that crazy video game yeah i'm well aware of my son all about it so we were you did it you did a haunted house

with five nights at freddy's the only one that they've ever licensed at fright dome so i'm the only one that they ever licensed their brand to to do a live attraction so we work with them and so many amazing ones over the years and uh you know texas chainsaw massacre they're dear friends of mine over there amazing i mean so like such a weird thing to say yeah so so yeah they made me a skin lamp it's that kind of relationship well actually yeah yeah we do i do have a severed arm lamp and that's made out of human skin in the in the in the face not real of course but uh yeah it's made out of human skin in the face. Not real, of course, but yeah, it's quite the office at my house.

I have an office at my house and then an office at work too. There's a YouTube video of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's absolutely. Of your office? Maybe props from half their things. By now, people are probably trying to figure out. So I want to get this out of the way.

So if people want to connect with you, how do they find you? What's the gram? What's the handle? So it's at at what am i at at jason egan fright so yeah it at jason egan fright on instagram i don't have twitter you know we're at us at saw escape room and at escape blair witch as well too so those are the two that we have out there right now where where's the blair which where is that right next to saw is it the same place you're amortized the cost you're emptying out in the same retail you know so and now we're building a a pizza place called sliced pizza which is a whore themed pizza place because you know

that that's a thing too you know we have when you get people on your property you can get them to spend more if you give them you know good good value and you know they're showing up 40 minutes earlier you're gonna buy a slice of pizza they're gonna play a game you know i think nothing proves that more than what is it the pawn shop guys in there oh god they're geniuses yeah they've got those people just trapped down there oh god yeah they're you know and absolutely they're selling food in line and everything else the auditorium used to empty out and do a overhang bar on in planet hollywood the gourd i remember yes theatorium. They're not a good example, though. Those poor guys only lasted 10 months.

I can tell you 10 reasons why they didn't. I went through it on opening night. It was a rough go of it. They picked a little argument with me at the beginning. They're like, oh, what do you think about it? The news had me on talking about the competition. Like, oh, what do you think about your new fierce competition? And I'm like, competition?

I'm like, they're a 10,000-square-foot exhibit versus my 250,000-square-foot exhibit, you know, on the third floor of a Walgreens building with no parking. I'm like, this is not competition. Come on, Eli. You know, before you license your name, think. Come on. He's a smart guy.

You know what I mean? Yeah, again, that's the answer. He should have said no on that one. You know, he should have learned that. I would have taught him to say no. Like, it's not worth the money. They probably gave him six figures, you know that's the answer. He should have said no on that one. He should have learned that. I would have taught him to say no. It's not worth the money. They probably gave him six figures, the license name. And I love that philosophy too.

Sometimes, kids, the best thing you can say to a business deal is no. The best deals I've ever done, they're the ones that I said no to sometimes. You guys are in the real estate business. My grandfather used to tell me, don't fall in love with bricks and mortar. Some of these people fall in love with these deals i'm like it's just not the right deal let's let's just wait a little bit one of the studio deals we're working on right now took two full years of negotiating and i'm sure a lot of people in my camp are like he's jason's i'll talk he's not going to get that deal and then when i get it they're like

oh my god we didn't think you're going to get this i'm like yeah i stayed persistent people just don't get it you know sometimes people think that you know they mean these that's a great question is there a deal that's gotten away is there one that you wanted you didn't get not yet that's just dead no i'm not gonna say anything's going now what's the who's the what's the one that got away jason what hasn't't gotten away yet. It hasn't gotten away yet. There's some golden gooses you're still grinding out there? Oh, yeah. There's some great.

White whale. Yeah. The white whale. The Leviathan. It will take time. It will take time, and we'll remember this conversation, but there's one of the most iconic horror movie characters of all time that we've been discussing with their family about doing a deal.

Tom Hanks. He's still alive. Thank God. Yeah. You did a Tom Hanks one. God, he'd be the worst. He'd be so scared.

He'd be the worst. It would be actual Tom Hanks coming, be like, surprise, can I take a photo? Like he does. Everybody getting married on the beach, just wants to ruin their fricking throw his picture.

Like, is that really tom angster like we can't get him to go home guys i'm sorry we've tried for last year he sleeps in the back looks like john travolta yeah but no our our batting average has been really really good because you know a we go into the deals that we really do want you know um but our batting average has been stellar it really has you know we put you know and now you know, you know, but our batting average has been stellar. It really has, you know, we put, you know, and now, you know, versus, you know, back maybe 15 years ago, I'd only work on one project at a time. I don't put eggs in one basket. I'll be working on 10 things right now. I mean,

Chris knows I'm just go, go, go, go, go seven days a week, you know, and he's probably shocked. I'm like, Hey, you know, now we need a 60,000 square foot property for this. I need a 5,000 square foot property for this. And he's like, Oh my God. You see a lot of people seeing what you're doing and try and jump in now into the industry. Absolutely. I've seen family members that, you know, they don't talk to attempt to ride my coattails and they think it's so easy. And I've seen them fail miserably. I mean,

just absolute failures at this stuff. And it's because they don't get what the formula is and they're missing a very, very important piece of the puzzle. And that important, important piece of the puzzle is me. They don't, they don't know how to do it. Fire safety regulation.

Oh God. Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They don't know it.

There's so much stuff that goes into it. And then, you know, and I don't want to, you know, rain on everyone's parade, but the stuff's expensive now, you know what I mean?

What I could have done for a hundred grand, you know, years ago, you know, is now, you know, rain on everyone's parade, but the stuff's expensive now. You know what I mean? What I could have done for a hundred grand, you know, years ago, you know, is now, you know, millions of dollars. So, I mean, our escape rooms are, you know, well into the millions of dollars now. I mean, they're, but again, you know, we, you know, build it, they will come, you know, how it goes with our scapegoats. But now you build it, you work your ass off and hope they show up and they do. Well, let's talk about that for a second, because people hear escape room and they're thinking the little joint in the strip mall down the street from them. Exactly.

That's the bad perception. If you haven't, like I've been to your place. We went there pretty close to when it opened for my wife's birthday. It's changed a lot. I haven't been there. We'll have to come back then. But I'll tell you this, you know, without giving, first of all, Google this, look it up, look up the saw escape room. It is unbelievable. It's like being projected into the movie um you know my only question about it was some smart people smart people because the first the first room just

that i won't talk about what it is but that first area yeah i i think i think you guys almost threw us out just for being dumb after the first time. I felt that was coming anyway. Yeah, it's changed a lot. And we're constantly, I have a team that literally is just changing out puzzles all the time. We're dark on Mondays and Tuesdays and they're continually doing that. But you're exactly right. You bring up a good point because I hate calling an escape room.

It's really an escape experience. It's truly a person of attraction. I mean, Saw is 13 rooms. Seven of them you have to escape. And it's truly an experience. It's an hour, hour and 15 minutes long. Blair Witch is like an hour and seven minutes long on average. I mean, these are big attractions. And, you know, you can't just build a Saw experience and have it one or two rooms.

They have all these movies that you have to encompass. Yeah. And so it's impossible. But, I mean, it felt real. I'm sure when you went through, you truly felt like you're in an old meatpacking. Oh yeah, no,

no, it was awesome. And all that was built by us. Yeah. It was an, it was a blank canvas when we went in there and you know, that that's the key is making people feel immersed. And the movies even have it easier than we do because they have camera magic.

They can hide things. They can hide the ceiling. They can hide the ground. They can hide all this stuff. You're in there 360 degrees. So we have to do it on a lower budget than a movie you know it has to do it and you know everybody's looking all around they're feeling the things they're smelling you know all that stuff so it's uh you know you have to be smart with it you have to be a good builder but we have an amazing team of builders now no i think that was

the i think that's the coolest thing about your deal like like you pull up to you know an escape room and it says like you know escape whatever oh it's okay your deal. Like you pull up to an escape room and it says like, you know, escape whatever. It's whatever. Like you pull up to this place, it doesn't say anything about where you are. Even the throwaway stuff is well done. Yeah, you're completely just immersed in this.

Even the stuff that's just window dressing, literally window dressing is well done. Oh, yeah. We have our facade next door, not even in the same building, but we did a full city butcher facade. So if you're looking in the windows, it seems real when you got the fake butcher counter and everything else. It's just a little things that blow people's minds. And what a lot of people did don't realize this, how important, you know, you mentioned Instagram

and stuff like that are people, they say half the reason a person goes out is to get those photos, you know, that they can post on their social media and stuff like that so we want to be able to give them amazing things to look at we're continually changing our attractions to allow them to take more photos and and post that stuff how long how long has saw been open for how long has it been over four years now four years and it's still just booming yeah you guys are still just every numbers are going up at 2021 was our best year ever i mean it was through the roof. I mean, unbelievable. What's your percentage from locals to tours? About 80% tourist right now. Really? Yeah. 80% tourist. And which is great.

And that's what I want because you know, we're, you know, Vegas sees 47 million tourists a year. Yeah. And you know, I love the locals to come down to, you know, you know, that that's great. And that keeps us busy as well. And we try to offer things like through Costco and stuff like like that for our local crowds get bigger discounts but uh yeah that's that's what's great too vegas has you know a revolving right yeah how are you marketing the tours um digital advertising primarily and then we've got a couple mobile board trucks on the road sometimes we're running normal uh normal billboards as well too uh in during october we'll

run a little bit of radio you know it just depends but uh primarily digital digital is truly where our audience is and we have an amazing you know commercial for both saw and blair witch and maybe look at blair which is commercial i mean it's it'll blow your mind i mean it was done by a full-blown film studio you know i mean it it's like no other escape commercial girl from halloween yes she's a star she she's the star of the commercial and she directed it for me, Danielle Harris. Yeah. She's a,

yeah. So again, these are the little things that you have to do to set yourself aside because, you know, do you want to go to the escape room called the dungeon in that strip mall that you talked about? Or do you want to spend $10 more and go to a brand that you trust?

Like saw, you know, the, the multi-billion dollar franchise, you know, that's, that's blown people's minds for nearly 20 years. What percent, if you had to guess, I know you don't bring a P&L with you and I don't want to get into it, but we try to teach as much business as we can here when we do this.

So what percentage of your sales would you say you dedicate back to marketing to drive future sales? So let me do some math in my head real quick here. I would say our marketing budget right now is right around 10%, 10% of our monthly grosses, right where I was at. I think that's, I think that's a minimum number to continue to drive sales.

I wouldn't suggest that to everybody. We own an ad agency as well too. So we see a lot better rates than a lot of people. So we're buying billboards, what's called preemptible, which is space available, but we never get bumped off of them. So we get really,

really good deals on billboards. We, you know, do all of our own digital advertising in house. You know, let's talk about, let's talk about that because that's now you're seeing. So you're,

so you're vertically integrating in places where you're spending money, which is near and dear to my heart. I'm a huge proponent of the vertical integration we do everything we do so we're saving a fortune so you know whatever you know if we spend i'm just throwing out numbers here if we spend ten thousand dollars on marketing the average job would rub just spend 25 to achieve the same yeah you know where where else are you vertical integrated in your business where else so building you know so we So we've hired in-house builders, sculptors, animatronic builders, graphic designers. We have a creative team that's by far one of the best creative teams.

So I've hired people. I hired one of Lionsgate's former creative directors, Justin Yu. So what I'm doing right now is because we're scaling so fast, I'm creating the dream team is truly what we're doing. So I hired one of Disney's former creative directors in the imaginary out of Orlando. Um, we hired station casinos, former executive vice president of marketing. So I know to, to expand at the rate that I want to expand that I have to come up with, you know, truly, like I said, I call them the dream team and that's going to be the way that we're going to be able to expand fast. I don't want to

build one attraction a year right now. I want to do three attractions a year. I know now what I didn't know 15, 20 years ago. In order to do that, you have to bring on some pretty badass team members. You've got to pay them a few bucks. And that's what we're doing. So we're bringing that in-house. Like I said, we do all of our own buying in-house. Right now, Vegas is the only market right now that you're just here?

That's it? Or are you anywhere else? No, no. We're looking in Texas right now as well, too. So, yeah, we're looking in Austin and Dallas, Texas as well. Are your current licensing giving you first shots at those markets? I can't necessarily say the current ones, but we're working on some other ones. You know, Saw and the people at Lionsgate are amazing.

If there was only a horror movie that was based in Texas, you could do it there. What would it be? If there only was. The Dallas Daggers. If you know a Tom Hanks film, you're from the nation of Texas. Skull's like, cast away the haunted house. Oh, God.

Can you imagine that? And just put people in the experience and say, we'll pay you a million bucks if we can make it. We're just going to lock you in here long enough until you start talking to a volleyball. That's going to be the end of it. Cold's worst nightmare. I mean, that's what's important, though,

and that's what keeps our budgets down. So let's say Chris goes and contacts a company like ThinkWell and says, hey, I want to build the Saw Escape experience. They're going to come up with a price because he's doing nothing in-house. They're going to come up with a price, and it'll be $10 million to $12 million. Or if you go to me, I'm going to bring in less than $3 million because we're doing our own sculpting. We're doing our own dressing of the billy puppet.

We're doing our own animations. We're doing our own graphics. We're doing our own set. We're doing all that ourselves and not getting it marked up 10 times. So we've definitely been able to take advantage of that, you know, bringing so much stuff in house. Now I definitely know when we can't do something in house, you know what I mean? We have some, we have some third party animation builders that are absolutely amazing.

Some of the best in the world. And we know, you know, they might charge us X amount of thousands of dollars for an animation. We might not be able to beat that price because they do it every single day. At scale. So yeah, yeah, we, we get that. And we're, we're smart enough to make that decision, you know, on our own, or I've made plenty of those mistakes where I price because they do it every single day at scale so yeah yeah we we get that and we're smart enough to make that decision you know on our own or i've made plenty of those mistakes where i think we can do it cheaper and you know what makes what makes a good a good market for you as you look at these other markets and you want to grow what makes a good market uh tourism for one thing you know we were looking at the tourist markets you know the convention market

you know and uh you know location is not as important you know location the convention market, you know, and, uh, you know, location is not as important, you know, location within that market is not as important as it used to be because I say, see a few things changed us and that would be digital marketing. So now, you know, I can get, and you know, there's the same cell phone as Circus Life can get to, you know, because we have a bad-ass digital team. And then also now, you know, if this was 10 years ago and you told me to create Saw, I wouldn't have done it because at the current location, because it have a badass digital team. And then also now, if this was 10 years ago and you told me to create Saw, I wouldn't have done it at the current location because it's a couple minutes off the strip.

It's not in a hotel. But now with Uber and Lyft, they've changed the market forever. I mean, forever. With the touch of a button, you can get a car in five minutes or less to pick you up and take you at a fair price where you want to go and pick them up it's the greatest thing ever now you can

get uh you know as you would call in new york a black car you know to come get stuff like that you know you can get a you know get a beautiful limit you can do everything i mean i think they have like uber flight in new york you know as well helicopter helicopter does in some of these markets you're looking at does like actors unions and those sorts of things play effect in those thoughts probably would you go to la would you do it in la i i would definitely do it in la but uh you know what would scare me the most is you know i think in nevada we only got shut down you know for a two-month period when there's this whole pandemic so again not getting political,

not taking sides. I'm looking at markets that I know because I'm still a small company. I couldn't get shut down for a year. That's not, that would just crush you. It just destroyed me. And you know, I do appreciate, you know, that Sisolak only shut us down for a certain amount of time, you know, and I couldn't do so while I will definitely do something in California, you know, when everything's cleared up and stuff, but it's an expensive market. You know, you can come, I can come out of town and buy a billboard in this market for $2,000 for a period. And that same billboard in LA is going to be astronomical. You know what I mean? So everything is more expensive there. So that's, that also scares me as well. So what about, what about like Orlando? Too many kids or is that Orlando is a great market. I love, love Orlando and you, but you do,

you are competing with Disney and universal studios and stuff like that. So definitely, you know, we were definitely looking at Orlando as well. I love Orlando. I love visiting there and they didn't shut down. So maybe they should have at times. I don't know, but I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. I don't know. But, the guy that greenlights projects into Universal CityWalk there is one of my best friends. So I'll be your window washer into that, my friend. We'll talk later. There we go. There we go.

Definitely. But Orlando's a great market to get the right thing in Orlando. And the good thing is, like we mentioned, I think Colt mentioned it, you know, the price, you know, of the Bruno Mars and stuff like that. All that's done. I love when that happens. Thank you, Adele, for charging $1,000 for your ticket. Because you know what that makes people feel? That my ticket was very, very cheap.

It was affordable. And affordable. And, you know, seeing my $50, $60, $70 tickets, they're like, oh, that wasn't even the fee for Adele. That wasn't even the fee for Bruno Mars. And they're great performers. And if they can command that, great. Keep commanding it. Keep going higher because I'm just going to see more people.

I'm going to keep selling out. He just came back to something you said earlier. It was a good point. You've got to be feeling good about yourself. I mean, you've got to be feeling straight. I mean, it's like a walk-off home run for you. It wasn't the Star Wars or Tom Hanks.

That is a walk-off for you, my friend. That's amazing. I'll throw an egg every once in a while. It's so true, though. I mean, it really is. The ticketing fee, the ticket master is charging for some of his shows is more than my entire ticket. It just makes little old Jason Egan make that much more money.

And that's it. They come to me and they think, you know, because think about a bachelor party. You know what I mean? People, middle-class Americaica could come to vegas to throw a bachelor party they have no idea what that's about to cost them at a night club right oh god or a strip club don't get me wrong one of my best friends owns a strip club you saw me in his seats the other day yes i did yes i did yeah the strip clubs obviously do very well because he's right next to your seats you know i don't know what's what's funny what's funny is we were always kind of wondering because because the crowd changes quite a bit through there and i was always like and i was kind of always like there's

something gotta be this has got to be something something's gotta interesting it's gotta be it's gotta be a strip club at some point and then the little accountant lady was nice enough to be like yeah well here's the palomino it's like yeah okay and yeah, we're here at the Palomino. I was like, yeah, okay. And not only is the Palomino, that's one of the most iconic licenses in Nevada. It is. In the country. Because you can't get it. That's it.

No, you're not getting that license. So, yeah, Adam's one of my dearest friends. Colt frequents the place next door. That's his spot. Chica's Bonita. That's right. Chica's Bonita. That's what I recognize.

I was like, that other white guy. I know. The other white guy. Chica's Bonita. The other white guy. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I, no, I, and I think, you know, with your market, you do have to be in a tourist market, right? Because you're, you're putting so much money into your events and stuff that, and they're year round, that you couldn't do that in a stationary market, do you think? Or like in Boise, Idaho, or do you think, you know, is it too costly that you'd have to redo it every like two years to get people back in there? There's a hybrid model. You bring up a great point, another great point besides the Tom Hanks um you know that you two for two you're going out for drinks after that palomino

so you bring up a good point there too so then what you create is a touring model so we are of course working on touring models so let's say we go into minneapolis and we want to sit down for 120 days and basically suck that market dry for everything we possibly can and then we don't tour back you know we don't go back there for a couple years until we change the show or put a different show in place so we don't want to leave out those markets but uh you know they're going to cap at a certain percentage and yeah you know so that's what we would do you know let's just bring it back in the freakling brothers like dirty trailers yeah absolutely no death trap but it's gonna be something that like goes into mall of america you know or something that has some space that's desperate to get entertainment in there because they're all dying very quick

death all these malls have you been to a mall lately dude it's it's brutal there's plenty of space very soon i just i'm telling i'm telling you i'm telling mall lately dude it's it's brutal there's plenty of space very soon i just i'm telling i'm telling you i'm telling you here's here's here's my here's my other three my million dollar idea for the day you ready a 3d printing equipment that can turn an empty k-mart into mini storage you figure that out oh wow you're booming that's what they do that's it take that somebody take that i'm not going to take that and roll it i'm not all the k-marts in utah are indoors storage by you. You do that.

You know, I want to back up a little bit because every time we have a successful entrepreneur on the show here, we always, I always like to go back because it seems like everybody has kind of the same thing. So at what age was your first money making gig? What were you hustling as a kid that made money? The boring gig was probably when I was like 14 years old and we were doing mowing lawns, shoveling snow and stuff like that. But you were hustling. But no, and we got commercial accounts back then too. So I wasn't messing around back then.

And so, yeah, we were doing that. I learned early on when I started making that money and then you can buy what you want to buy and not have to think of the store. Like look at the menu, what can I order? What can I not order? You know, what can I afford? I don't want that feeling. I didn't like that feeling. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't need to be driving a Bentley like Chris here, but you know, I, I still, I enjoy, you know, if I like this new pinball machine that comes out and now I can just say,

Hey, text my supplier. Hey, I want that new Elvira machine. Can you send it to me and not even blink an eye. These things are nice. And I got that feeling early on and i knew that i didn't want to have to you know and i had throughout my career you know it broke a couple times you know and i don't like that feeling any either so nobody does yeah i knew right then that i i wanted to work hard and you know make my own money and i was gonna you know i was going to be the person who decides how much money i make and you know we've done like i said we've done very well very very well and we continue like i said once we if we sit down have another conversation a few months you're gonna your mind's gonna be blown and what

we are creating right now i mean it's it's so cool and that's that's what i like and i like increasing the size of my team you know taking care of my team we've got such a cool team and for them to be able to do some of the people that were with me for Fright Dome to do this year round now is exciting, you know,

because people, it's, I don't want to call it a cult, but it kind of is a cult, the horror community. Like love, when you love horror, I mean,

my whole office is, is literally like horror collectibles and stuff like that. Star Wars people. Yeah, one of my, one of my guys. What would you know

about Star Wars people? I don't know, they're incredibly Jason. I mean Jason good thing don't talk to the guests like that Colt what's wrong with you one of my guys

has a Ghostbusters room in his house I mean so people really get into this stuff and you know look at yes we're working

on some friendly projects as well now but look what's breaking the records you know on television Chucky I think broke all sci-fi records on TV. Stranger Things on Netflix, blowing the doors off everything.

All these horror shows are just blowing up right now. Some of these franchises, Saw is a billion-dollar franchise now at the box office. That's unheard of. People love horror they love the the that safe scare you know and going in there something oddly human about the just being on the precipice and seeing it it's been through all cultures all all communities through different ages right people love the public execution yeah like it's just there's something about fear that feeds you know we didn't talk about how do we not talk about

this how do we how are we saving this for literally 57 minutes and into the end of the production i'm like i'm a connell like we gotta tell stories i'm at connell's house saturday night we go to tool and after i had left my car to south we get the uber back to his house and uh we had a couple pops in us whatever and connell looks at me and goes we need to have an experience i was like what's that he goes i have in my office a spider a dried tarantula in a can edible for human consumption is that what that if you want to have an interest he goes he goes if you want to have an interesting experience, how would you want to get?

How would you want to get? And what was my response, Connell? Get the spider. Did you guys eat it? Yes. You ate it? We ate the tarantula, yes we did. But you won't eat that mojada loca? No, that's a good point. I would rather eat a tarantula than that weird

wet meat and my local. I'm throwing out. You want some good Mexican food. That is absolutely true. Absolutely true. But Jason, I got one more question. You're braving me in spite. I know.

I got one more question for you, which is this. And your answer may be a little different than most because also you're very high functioning, but with what you do, your hours are probably a little different. Absolutely. So what's your morning like? How do you stay motivated? How do you, how do you, how do you continue to press? Well, there's no off button. So it's seven days a week. And I was hoping for Christmas off, but I even got bugged on Christmas, but that's, that's part of being a business owner, you know, and that's the part of the give and take, you know, in my hours aren't

40 hours a week, but, uh, I'm not a morning person. I hate mornings. You know, I absolutely hate it. And, you know, that's why that's hence the business that we're in, you know, and my hours aren't 40 hours a week, but, uh, I'm not a morning person. I hate mornings. You know, I absolutely hate it. And, you know, that's why that's hence the business that we're in, you know, we're in the nighttime scaring business and stuff like that. But, uh, yeah, I'll sleep in until nine, nine 30, something like that. I'm not the seven o'clock guy, but, uh, you know, I, I usually, like I said, we, I check my emails and, uh, you know, go through everything that we need to go through. And, and, and now a lot of it's delegating a ton of stuff to our team. You know, I used to do a ton of this stuff myself, and now I am focused primarily on new business development. So that's, that's primarily what I'm doing every day. You know, whether that's talking to studios,

whether that's talking to some of our producing partners, you know, out of New York and stuff, you know, it's all about new business development for me. And I'm, I'm really, yeah, it's all, and it's changed a lot too with the zoom calls and stuff, but, uh, you know, it's all about new business development for me and i'm i'm really yeah it's all and it's changed a lot too with the zoom calls and stuff but uh you know it's really allowed me to get things done quicker you know i love one thing the pandemic did do that i did enjoy is you know a meeting you know from a meeting typically if i have to go to a meeting and go meet with someone you're burning an hour in the car i'm burning an hour in the car I'm burning the time getting ready for it and everything else in a zoom call. I can get the same damn thing done for the most part, you know,

with a studio and in a fraction of the time. So I'm able to be much more effective in, in, you know, getting deals. And if, you know, we have an amazing operations team in place now that operates attractions.

I barely have to touch that stuff unless we're hot heavy in the pandemic and everybody's got coronavirus and I can't, you know, I i gotta go dress up as a pig but uh it's only once so far but yeah i get punched by the big old guest but um yeah so i'm focusing 100 on development all day every day i love that and then you know colt colt punched a pig in the side too but it was a palmetto that's a different story you know a weird place swear god you want to hear a thing so i have all the like original like creators of facebook in right down and they're driving their car they do their rally right they're thinking i go got a fun experience for you like where we're going i'm like are we going to eat a spider

no worse i go we're going somewhere where you guys can't drive your car like you're not taking your ferraris and lamborghinis mclaren's to that part of town so we go this girl looks like yogi bear i swear to god i've never seen somebody or bear no bear not bear like the most amazing that place is amazing. We will go there one night, me and Jason. Are you talking about Chico's Bonita? Yes, it was amazing. I've never seen such a crazy body type, and it was amazing. The views of cold amity do not reflect.

I've only been in there a couple times. I usually tell Adam, like I said, my good friend that owns those places, and I'm like i'm like i want to go see chicas bonitas i want to see what's going on over there it's like why it's really nice over here i just want to see you know i got it it's an experience yeah it's an experience you gotta go to let's just see that business is it's amazing that's a whole other bit i can't believe how you know, everyone needs a sexual oriented business. SOB business. I mean, it's just unbelievable,

you know, how much money they make. Yeah. Well, Jason, man, thank you so much for coming and joining us, man.

It was, it was a fascinating conversation. You know, dude, it's a, you want to level up with whatever you're doing to the stratosphere. I mean, licensing a billion dollar entity is the way to do it.

Absolutely. And, and look, man, and and and this is a cat from lincoln nebraska that uh you know grew up hustling muscle you know mowing lawns and throwing on kids birthday parties and has now gone to this familiar is that theme yeah it's always everybody comes in just it was hustling as a kid always i mean you have to you have to and you know some things just take time you have to be patient you have to be patient keep breaking down the door keep knocking on that door and uh you know i mean i always like listening to tony robbins as well too i mean a lot of stuff makes a lot of sense you know what i mean and one of the most important things is that that 90 second rule of his you know 90 seconds of frustration or whatever it is you know don't get upset at

anything more than 90 seconds. Just move on and continue and stay positive with it. Don't get upset if someone tells you no the first time. I mean, I can't tell you how many times the studio has told me no, like three, four times, five times. And literally, I've got the emails, no, no, no, no, no. And I keep going at them, going at them, going on. I'm like, hey, has anything changed? How about now?

And then, oh, yeah's let's do it eventually or when they see the press release and they see we've dominated the press you know with with blair witch and stuff like that they're like oh yeah yeah yeah maybe we can chat now where are we at with that deal i'm like you declined it remember we are yeah that's where we were but let's do it i'm still pounding sand like you asked me to last time we talked but i'm still ready to do the deal i still want to do it and that happens a lot you just got to be a stay persistent, positive, motivated,

and, uh, you know, surround yourself with good people right there. That's a power move. All right, guys. As we always do,

as we always say, man, if you, uh, if you like us, make sure you like subscribe, tell a friend. And if you hated us,

tell two, because it doesn't matter if they're talking good or bad about you. What is it? What's the title? As long as they're talking about as long as they're talking about you see you next time guys hey it's John Gafford if you want to catch up more and see what we're doing you can always go to

thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we've things we talked about on the show as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live and if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at the John Gafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.