Noob School - Episode 101: The Success of the Peace Center with Megan Riegel

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

On today's episode of Noob School, we're joined by none other than Megan Riegel - President of the Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville South Carolina. Megan takes us through her very interesting career, leading up to her tenure at the Peace Center, recounting its' history, and explaining how she and her team has developed it into what it is today, as well as some exciting new things to come. Check out what the Noob School website has to offer: https://SchoolForNoobs.com I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

All right, welcome back to the Noob School. Today I've got a very good friend, Megan Regal, who's the longtime president of the Peace Center. Peace Center has brought so much art and joy and people and visitors to Greenville over the years. It's been amazing. And for almost all those years, it's been Megan in charge of the darn thing. So I've got Megan here today, and we're going to go through kind of her process for how she ended up getting a job like that and how she's managed to build on Peace Center over all these years and make it through COVID and everything else. So Megan, welcome aboard.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I know you're busy. You probably have a show tonight, don't you? Not tonight. Last night we had a show. What was last night's show? Last night was Ballet Hispanico.

Okay. So did have a good crowd? We did have a good crowd. Dance is always a challenge, but it was a great crowd, a nice, diverse crowd, a lot of new faces. Yeah. Well, I did some little bit of sales coaching work for one of Megan's sales teams over there. And I was like a kid in a candy shop at first because, you know, all these different people come in and they're walking through the place and all these famous people. And I eventually figured out this happens like every night, every year. So you probably get used to it. You do. You do. It's just another night in the theater.

Yeah. Right. They load up over here, they load out over here. And yeah, that's very cool. Well, let's back up to the beginning. The one thing I don't remember, or maybe I never asked you, is where exactly you grew up? I grew up in a little town called Jackson, Ohio. Jackson, Ohio. All of 6,000 people in the southeast part of the state.

Jackson, Ohio. And so what was that like for you in Jackson? How did that little town leave? lead to leading a big theater like this? Well, I think one of the things when you think of little towns and growing up there tends to be a lot of family. So there was a lot of family, a lot of first cousins, a lot of hanging out with kinfolk. Small town, you're talking pancake suppers, bean dinners, chili suppers, all of those things.

I mean, it was a small town life. But there was also a life rich in music. I mean, there were a lot of people, and I mean, yeah, they're on the front porch playing the banjo. the guitar, the spoons, you know, whatever. But there was a richness to the music there as well. But it was a wonderful way to grow up. You know, there was one high school that also included the middle school. And everybody knew everybody else, and you didn't really step out of line because if you did, everybody would know about it.

Either that or you learned to be very discreet. Right. But no, I grew up having horses and riding horses and swimming and doing all the things that small town girls do. That's cool. That's so cool. I didn't know that. So I know from there you went to a big, not that big of school, but pretty big school in Dallas, SMU, right? Right.

First went to undergraduate school at Ohio University. And I was going to be a dentist. But, you know, I ended up in the school. in the theater program and yeah make talk about that switch that's a that's a whole other story but did an internship at the old globe theater in San Diego and after that took a couple years off before I went to graduate school and then went to Southern Methodist which was fabulous because they had a dual degree program where you could get an MBA and an MA and the MA was in arts administration

and it was a brand new program I was in the first year there were they took 10 students. Yeah. And eight of us graduated, but it was very small, very intense. And the perfect stepping stone that I was looking for. Perfect. So important question, a lot of the nobs that watched this podcast, you know, they'd like to know what they want to do.

And they don't quite know how to figure that out. It sounds like you knew, certainly by the time you went and got your master's, that you wanted to manage something like a peace center. I did. I did. And the thing about getting the MBA was, if that didn't pan out, I had a backup plan. So, you know, again, sometimes when you come, a lot of who we are today was framed up by where we came from, right? So we grew up in modest circumstances.

I was watching your podcast with Graham Howe the other day. And, you know, I think the word victim, right? You was like you talked about, you know, people who were victims versus that mentality versus the other mentality. And interestingly enough, at a very young age, like I'm really talking third grade, it was like, you know what? I was sensing there were people who were victims of their circumstance around. I was like, yeah, I don't want that. And I think that was the seeds of becoming a control freak that I am today. But it was a big, it was really more about how do you take control of your life?

how do you, you know, not everything is planned out. There's like so much, but having that vision for what it could be. And I loved the theater. I fell in love with theater in high school, you know, was part of a community, started a community theater, worked with an outdoor drama, then, you know, did this thing in graduate school. And I remember sitting at a class or, you know, It's sort of one of those kicking off the year, theater program things,

and the head of the theater school is talking, and I'm thinking to myself, I could do that job. So it was always one of those things, like, I could do that. You know, I want to do that. But you are absolutely right. Once you figure it out, it's really easy. It's not that hard is it. It's really easy.

The hard part is figuring it out. Yeah, I agree with you. I totally agree. It's still is going to require work, and you've got to get in the, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, if SMU wouldn't have worked out, it could have been another path. If the piece shouldn't have worked out, it could have been another place. Once you knew what you wanted to do. Exactly.

Yeah. And sometimes you just have to lean into the path that's being presented. You know, I think, well, you know, the name of game, all of it is being able to flex and turn and being able to pivot. And not falling apart when it doesn't go the way you had planned it. because it's usually not going to go exactly the way you've planned it. So it's like seeing the big picture, I think is what it boils down to. Yeah, and I think if you have that North Star, like if you say, like your North Star might have been love of theater in the arts.

And you said, well, I want to be, you know, a president of a facility or a peace center kind of place. And I said, well, that's not going to work. So, well, I'm going to manage a roving troop or I'm going to make, it could be some other piece of it. But it wasn't managing a textile mill. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the interesting thing was I actually started out thinking I wanted to be in producing theater. And I worked in the producing theater for a while. And I went, oh, yeah. No. No, this isn't for me. And then I went into fundraising, which, you know, because this fundraising consulting at this time, it's a little old man, said to me, you know, if you're a good fundraiser, you'll always have a job.

And that was like music to my ears, right? Because I needed that security and that stability. Oh, that's funny. And then that led to this world. And what we do is that perfect blend. So the product is there. The arts are there. The joy is there. But you're blending it with the business piece, which I absolutely adore the business piece of what we do.

Well, I think you told me this before, but I can't remember. When you got out of SMU with that degree, what was your first job? So again, you talk about kind of pathways. My last semester of school, I did an internship at the Dallas Theater Center. And there was a gentleman at the time who was the general manager there. And, you know, I mean, they had me stuffing envelopes. Let's be real. And I was like, okay, I will come and do this if I get an hour a week with you with the general manager.

So I would go in, sit with that general manager. I had my questions prepared, and it was the best education I had. SMU, this was great because this was boots on the ground. Well, the next thing you know, I was in his board meetings, taking minutes for him and all that. Well, and the next thing you know, he's like, well, he's accepted a job at the Cleveland Playhouse. And he said, I'm going to go run the Cleveland Playhouse. Will you come and basically be my operations manager? And I'm like, yes, I absolutely will.

And being from Ohio, that was even better. So, yeah, that's how it started out. And then over the years, our paths crossed back and forth. And ultimately, he's the reason I'm in Greenville. Because I was, you know, Cleveland, then Philadelphia, then New York City. And I had a child. And she was a year old. I lived 17 miles out of the city.

I lived in Montclair, New Jersey. and was commuting every day. And one day, it took me three and a half hours to go 17 miles. And again, I have a baby. And I was like, yeah, I can't do this. So I picked up the phone, called this gentleman, and said, you know what, I'm going to start looking. If you hear of anything, let me know.

And he says, well, I know something in Greenville, South Carolina. And a couple weeks later, I was down here, offered the job on the spot. A month later, I was living here, and that was 29 years ago. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And I don't remember. How long since it opened?

It opened in 90, and I got here in 94. Okay. Okay. You know, the very first band was a jazz band. Was it really? Yeah. Which one? Well, it was local guys, Dwayne Malfus and some other guys, and they were opening for, you know what it was?

It was like the night before the grand opening, and it was like benefact. They had a local jazz band come on, then a bunch of people came and talked. Boy, talk about visionaries. Talk about a group of people that had never done this before that figured out how to make it happen. And they absolutely, you know, the catalyst for growth in Greenville, South Carolina was amazing. And they did almost everything right. No, seriously, in terms of building the theater. I mean, the architects, Craig Golden Davis had never built a theater before.

It was their first theater. Theaters. And other than, I would say, a lobby that was undersized from the get-go, they made some really good decisions. They did their homework. At the end of the day, they did a lot of homework, and they got it right. Well, it was amazing. Those were some wonderful city leaders that, you know, some work for the city, some worked for themselves.

They just altogether were trying to do something good for the city, the Freeman's and watches and all those people. I was trying to find that poem that Keller Freeman wrote that I love so much. I was going to give it to you about. She wrote an article and it said, Art is a party. Everyone's invited to attend.

Oh, I love that. I would love to see that. And it was kind of saying that everyone can come to the Peace Center and you can dress however you want to and you can enjoy it the way you want to. It's not a highfalutin thing. Well, you know, that is really, it's beautiful. So we do such eclectic programming, right?

And, you know, we have people that are passionate about Broadway. They're not going to miss a Broadway show. And we have other people who are like, yeah, I don't ever want to see a Broadway show. And then we have people who love jazz or we have people who love dance. And what I get so tickled with is that I would say when I first got here, the audience was more homogenous. Today, it is anything but.

And I can stand in that lobby today, and I won't know a soul. And that's exciting, right? And in the old days, you would know, but it was, we did less, there was less volume in terms of what we did in terms of programs. And a lot of the same people came again and again and again. And, you know, we just have, you know, it's just incredible when you think of the number of people that are coming through. there in any given year. Well, of all the shows you've had there that you've been around, what's the favorite one so far?

Oh, my gosh. And this is going to be, this will be an ongoing theme with us, because my daughter will tell you this. It's like, I don't do favorites. I have, I do, I have one favorite. I have a favorite child, and that's Alexandra. And that's because she's my only child. And, but I love it.

You know, it's like your kids. You love them all. I would say, I think back to Harry Belafonte. I think back to Ray Charles. I think back to Johnny Cash. Those were some great. And I get so excited when I think of the legends that were there. Robin Williams, people that are no longer with us that played the Peace Center.

George Carlin. I saw George and I saw Robin. And Robin comes out with, let's just say, the Gamecock, Carl. And he was right, I guess it was like 2008 or 2009, because it was like the economy was just, you know, bad way. And he made us all laugh for a little while. Yeah. He is so funny because he was, you know, he's so high energy on the stage.

When you meet him off stage, he's almost zen-like. He was so calm. And I had a, my daughter was with me at the time. We went backstage. And he was so sweet and thoughtful to her, you know, asked her thoughtful questions. And he had spent the day, I was having lunch with his manager, and he spent the day walking up and down the streets of Greenville. You know, just the ball cap on, you know, just kind of laying low. And but that's great because they come back with observations, right?

These comedians. And then they tailor a bit of their, a bit of their evening to the specific town. Yeah. That probably be my favorite, but also love Tom Seguura when he came. That was a couple years ago. Yeah. He was great. But there had just been so many of them. Yeah.

Yeah. It's quite something. We are in getting ready to get a new Steinway D piano. And thanks to a very generous donor. And we are giving our, this particular Steinway, to the Fine Arts Center. And I was telling the Popat, who's the director there, I was asking him if he wanted it.

And he said, yeah, I said, think of the people who have played that piano. And, you know, Diana Crawl, John Legend. I mean, you know, the list goes on and on and on. And, you know, it really caught his attention when I said that. And I was like, yeah, this is a very special and beautiful piece of equipment.

Well, I think I remember you telling me there was some special Dolly Parton story where you had to negotiate directly with Dolly. Well, you didn't. You negotiated with her agent, but it was a lot of negotiation. Let me tell you that. And so Dolly was always on my bucket list. And to the point where I don't do this very often, I mean, clearly couldn't do this very often, but we outbid the well or whoever the promoters were with the well trying to get that show. And I was just like, I'd known the agent for a long time. I'm like, come on, we can do this. Just tell me, tell me what it is, get this deal done. And it was wild because, you know, it was like we've never paid that kind of money for anyone. And we only have 2,000 seats.

So you have to do the, you know, everything is basic mathematics. Yes. Right? So, okay, what's break even? And, you know, we had to put some $500 tickets out there. And I maybe lost one night's sleep, but the next day it was sold out. So, you know, it was good. She had a big guarantee out there.

We had, oh, it was massive. But I'm so glad we did it and people loved it. And yeah, so those things. And now, sadly, we're starting to see more of those guarantees kind of come through. We were looking at one for another artist coming up and we're like, what? Can we get Taylor Swift? No, I don't think her guarantee will allow that. Unless we could maybe take the six acres and, you know, tear everything down

and just build something new, right? Gosh. Is this the wildest phenomenon you've ever seen? It is. It's insane. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think it's insane. She's bigger than Elvis, bigger than, I mean, in terms of sale,

bigger than Elvis, bigger than Elton, bigger than... Yep. So my daughter is a Swifty. Oh, is she really? She's like 27 or 28 or something, and just nuts about this. It's been to many concerts. And we were talking,

she said, what do you think about, Taylor Swift and I said well I was trying to try and figure it that I said well I'm very very proud of her and she's got she's got business business acumen and clearly hardworking and people love her she takes care of her fans and then this is my made my mistake I said you know however you know you know some guy like Jacob Collier I would think is you know certainly a much better musician I thought she was going to scratch my eyes out yeah everyone's I have to stop talking. Just stop.

Now, do you know Jacob Collier? I don't. I should. You should look at him. He's a relatively young English guy who's just crushing it. I've just watched him on YouTube, but he can play every instrument he can sing. And he would get the whole piece center like doing some singing where this side's doing this and this side's doing this.

And we'll have to, maybe we'll look at it afterwards. He'll be able to have time. He's very cool guy, Jacob Collier. I think, you know, some of the best, most talented musicians are never going to be ones that draw these huge audiences. Right. Although YouTube does help. You know, think about it. Yeah. A lot of people have been discovered through YouTube. I know. I know. I've got no excuses.

Well, let me ask you this. So to run, we're trying to, you know, the sales noobs are saying, so what does Megan do sales-wise? What is selling oriented in your shows? Certainly selling these agents to come to Greenville as part of it, selling your patrons, your people who are patrons of the Peace Center and then selling people to come to the shows, right? Are there any other entities, employees, I guess? Well, I think, sure. I mean, you know, one of the things that when I think of the Peace Center,

I think, what are we trying to do here? We are trying to give patrons a great experience, right? And when you think of the Peace Center, nobody has to buy a ticket to the Peace Center, right? We have to have banking services. We have to have insurance. We have to have health insurance. There are things in our lives.

We have to have utilities. But nobody has to have the Peace Center, you know, to get through their day-to-day life. Or do they? Maybe their soul has to be. at the Peace Center when you think about it, right? It adds such joy and adds to the quality of life and everything. So one of the things is we just really want the patron to be happy.

And that goes back to diverse programming. Other people we want to be happy, and this kind of connects with sales, right? So what we put on our stages and the experience attracts people for sales. We want the artists to be happy. We want to give them an amazing experience. backstage. In fact, during COVID, we renovated our piece concert hall backstage to the tune about a million and a half. And it's nice. It was like kind of an afterthought before. I mean, like, you would like to live in our green room. It's that nice. So anyway, but the whole intent

was they come in, they come off the road, you know, they've been someplace else the night before, they're going someplace else the next. Let's give them a great place. And let's make them a great place. And let's sure the staff is fabulous and taking care of their needs and all of that good stuff. So we focus on that. The agents, they're basically selling to us, right? Because they want, you know, their commission. But if we really want an artist, then we're selling to them, right? A lot of people and think of what we do and they say, oh, yeah, they just go and they say,

I want this artist and this artist, and that's not the way it works, right? At the end of the day, it's got to be an artist that's out on tour, an artist that's coming through the southeast, you know, that makes sense. We have to have the venue open the night there available. I can't tell you how many times we've had calls about an artist, and they're like, I've got one night for you. It's Wednesday, you know, December 10th or whatever. And it's like, you know, we've got a nutcracker in there. And you can't bump your nutcracker for, you know, Bob Dylan or whoever to come in that one night. So there are many things that have to come to place, but sometimes we're selling the agents, mostly the agents are selling us.

And then, let's face it, we do a lot of events. We do, you know, weddings, we do corporate events, we do all that. That's also a pillar that you need to focus on sales with as well. So we're selling to donors. In so many respects we are. You know, we have 4,000 households that are donor households. and very high renewal rate, about 74, 75% of them renew each year, which is pretty amazing. But we also keep growing each year in terms of annual funding.

And when you think of donors and what they're doing in terms of building the original Peace Center, endowing the original Peace Center, doing the renovation in 2009 to 2012, and what we're doing now, it's kind of amazing. What this community has said, we love the Peace Center, we want it, it's important, it's part of our identity. Well, I agree. I think you're really good at sales. You're so good that no one even knows you're selling. That's how good you are.

But yeah, you have a lot of different entities to sell to. And I think that, you know, the patrons is probably like a really important part because they're going to be probably some of your best customers and everything else. So, you know, we think about the Peace Center, we think about this wonderful 2,000-seat theater right in the middle of Greenville, but you also have the Gunner Center, which is 400 seats? 400 seats, yes. And you have the amphitheater, which is right on the river, which has lots of events going on, but you're about to have a lot more. Right, right. And so let's talk about that. I mean, the whole, from the Gunner Center all the way down to the bridge, there's three or four or five.

things that you're building out right now, right? Tell us about that. Well, I'm going to first start with saying something that Hayne Hipp said to me years back. He said, if money were no object, what would you do? What would your vision be for the Peace Center? And it started in baby steps in terms of expanding the lobby, creating a patron lounge, you know, creating a plaza, creating an outdoor stage. So that was first one. But that is a question that's a an important question to ask, not just once in your lifetime, but multiple times in your lifetime. So this last time around was like, okay, I'm not going to be here forever. So what is it that, you know, I'd like to see accomplished? And, you know, so I've had a lot of this in the back

of my mind for a long time. But we brought the board together and we did a strategic planning session, full day. And, you know, it was kind of a guided. We had an outside facility. but it was kind of like working them towards, does any of this make sense? So it was fully vetted, you know, this idea of more music venues, et cetera. And what happens through that process is, first of all, your ideas are validated,

but they get vetted and they get fine-tuned and you get a lot of questions. They pose a lot of things that you really need to be thinking about. So that was part of the process. that so we did that with our executive committee and then the full board it was when we had a much larger board of like 40 some people the full board approved it I think in December of 2019 well do you remember what happened started brewing in 2020 right yeah like that pandemic so in 2000 we all tried to forget this so so I think it was in March of 2020 that we shut down but we had this plan and this vision. And when we kind of got through the, like, reaction of COVID and the

fact that it was going to shut us down, and I knew, I mean, when Lynn Harton came to my office, usually I meet him someplace where I go to his office, he came to my office to talk to me about the pandemic. I am like literally sitting there, arms crossed. And I'm like, I'm not shutting up. I'm like, we shut down. We can't open. It's going to be impossible. It's going to be impossible to open this. It's easy to shut down. It's impossible to open back up. Well, sure enough, you know, not like I had a choice. Like I could control that, right? So we shut down, you know, I kind of gather myself. And once you get through the initial panic of what we do and people, all the people, which is the most traumatic part of everything, it was okay,

you know what we can't do. We know what we can't do, which is we can't have concerts in the concert hall. We can't do the country theater. What can't we do? And that's when we started picking back that strategic plan back up, starting the planning, working with the architects in terms of framing that out, you know, okay, what would the coach factory look like? What would the mockingbird look like? Renovating the backstage, installing a new sound system in the concert hall. And those were all the things that we were doing during COVID, plus trying to, you know,

do little baby concerts in Genevieve's where, you know, it could be very controlled space. Right, which I love. I mean, I mean, different groups were affected differently by COVID. And, you know, some people, if you ran a liquor store or a warehouse, there's no impact at all, right? In fact, they didn't ever know. Liquor stores did very well during COVID. But the Peace Center, if no, if you can't have anyone to come to a show, I was very proud of the way you handle it. Because you just had to do what you had to do, and you used the time to make.

the place better. Right. And it was crazy coming back out, like, because we opened as soon as we could and we have the card. And I'm just like, oh, so many decisions, so much information. And we're just like, okay, we're just going to make a decision and we're going to run with it. And so we were, having people show their backs cards. We were not requiring them to wear masks. And, you know, it was like, there's no way you're going to get people to sit for two and a half hours with a mask on, you know. So, so we had a lot of haters and a lot of fussers. And all I could do was say, yeah, I get it. I understand.

I don't blame you. You know, we'll see you when we can, when you don't have to show your wax card anymore. But it was just one way to get it triggered back. And then the worst thing happened, like maybe six weeks after we opened up, the worst Broadway show that we could have presented in the world was in the pipeline,

which was Oklahoma, like this popular rendition, not traditional Oklahoma, but Oklahoma that every, it was like the worst week of my life. Sorry, I missed it. It was, oh, yeah, you'd still be talking about it if you'd seen it.

Trust me. Okay, okay. Well, you made it through and you came out stronger. We did. Which is kind of, you know, that's kind of what we all want to do with any type of challenge in life. It's just deal with it. What can we do? And move on.

So I think that's pretty cool. So one of the things is this expansion, you know, working down the street where you're going to have a different, you've got a 2,000 cedar, you've got a, 400-seat theater, amphitheater, and you're going to have several other venues, like rock and roll, jazz, I hope's one of the jazz. Oh, of course. Yeah. Tell us about those.

Sure. So there are going to be two main music venues. One will be called the Mockingbird, which, you know, I've only had one person push back on that name, and now I'm like questioning myself, is that the right name? It is like, so I love the Bluebird Cafe, right, Nashville. So it's my take on the Bluebird Cafe and some mockingbird. Anyway, that's where that comes from.

And it's about a 250-cap room, but it's a listening room. So you're going to be able to sit there with your cocktail table, you know, your cocktail table chairs, you're going to be able to have your drink, have a light bite to eat,

and listen to great music. And the thing is, it's such a small venue that, you know, for the most part, occasionally we will, have these big-name stars because you've got to make your, math work, right?

But what we can guarantee is it would be high quality programming. Yeah. And I think people are going to experience it in this, there'll be a cool bar. The bar is going to be beautiful. And you know, what I love is like you're looking at the stage and the artists actually have their back to like sort of glass. We were putting a little glass in the brick wall so that not only can people cross on the Main Street Bridge see what's going on.

the audience can see beyond the artist too. So it'll be this great intimate space. The acoustics will be wonderful. I mean, we're working with Jaffe Holden on that. And I think you'll see everything from jazz to the songwriters to, I think you can see comedy in there. So I think it's, again, what are these intimate audiences? I am hoping that when these Broadway shows come through,

that all those guys, a lot of those guys have cabaret acts that they would come in and do a late night thing where they come in and do an hour after they, because they're all wired after the show. They're not ready to go home and go to bed. They are jazz. And so, you know, give them a place to come and show us what they have.

So I think we'd have fun programming that. And the Fine Arts Center, we adore them and we adore giving their kids a platform. their jazz students, particularly a platform. Always sold out. Right, right. And the other thing that we've played with a little bit in Genevieve's even more is, you know, even like classical music in an unusual setting is really amazing.

And it moves you in a way. It just gives you a different experience. So anyway, we're going to have a blast with that. And then the Coach Factory, which is, so I don't know whether people know the history of that. but that's supposedly the oldest commercial building in Greenville, South Carolina. When the Peace Center opened, they actually opened that as a restaurant, and the Peace Center ran that restaurant called the Coach Factory for, I don't know how many years. But when I got there in 94, honestly, every single board member was talking about meeting.

They were talking about the $100,000 a year they were losing on the restaurant. And so as time went on, I came in as a fundraiser originally in general manager, and then 1997 became the CEO. But I was kind of like, why? Like, we're in the entertainment business, and we know how to do that. Why are we trying to run a restaurant? So that's when we rented it out for the first time.

Anyway, long story short, lease was up. We let all the leases on the property go up. In the early days, we needed those leases on the different properties because we needed the income from the leases it was safe, right? As we got healthier as an organization, and think about this, when I got there,

we were about a $4 million annual operating budget. This year we were $34 million annual operating budget. So the growth has been tremendous, but it was like, let's let these leases come up and let's use these buildings for mission-oriented purposes. So the coach factory is going to be a flat floor space. It'll be about the size of the Orange Peel in Asheville, about 1,150 cap.

We were going to go through three floors. We decided we're just going to go through two. And I think it'll be really interesting to see how that goes. Of course, we've got more competition, right? So with True Line coming on board, their venue is going to be 1,700. And, you know, the reality is we're going to have to figure it out, right? Yeah. I think Michael Grozier is great.

I think he's got a great concept, a great. idea, a great location. And, you know, we're going to work together as well as we possibly can, as well as competitors do. But I think there's enough differentiation between what he's doing and what we are doing that it'll work, that it'll be just fine. Yeah, I bet it will. Yeah.

He'll take some time. Yeah, I bet it will. I mean, I see something downtown now since, you know, I live down there and talked a lot of people coming through town. and more and more people are coming to Greenville, not for any specific event. They just come and figure, I'll figure out what's going on

while I'm here and go to it. Maybe something at the Peace Center, maybe something somewhere else, which is exactly how I think of a Nashville or even in New York. I don't ever say I'm going to New York for this. I'll just say I'm going, and then pick from the menu.

I like that. And I think that's what's going to happen here. And I think more people, the more music we have, and you and I talked about this last time, we talked about making Greenville like legit music city. Absolutely.

I mean, think about, you know, the more we get, the more bands will know about it, the more people will come. And, you know, I've got the busker situation down. That's my job. I love that, though. We've got 75 paying buskers

now. They're all pretty good. I love that. I think, so you know how people put a spin on things and what they say, and they say things sometimes that are sticky? and sometimes they're sticky negative as opposed to sticky positive.

And you and I've talked about this too. But for the longest time, the sticky negative out there was like Greenville's not a music town. And I'm like, people, look around you. Really? I mean, look at the well. First of all, city proper is 70,000 people.

Roughly 70,000 people, right? Now, yeah, the MSA is larger. Your county's at half a million. But Greenville proper is not very big. but you've got an arena that's successful. You've got a performing arts center that's successful. You've got, I don't want to get off on the theater world and all that, but you've got plenty of arts in the community.

You've got 20 minutes away in Simpsonville, an outdoor amph theater that's successful. And then now what's so beautiful is that every brewery, bar, whatever, they've got live musicians. So how do we say it's not a music city? You know, you've got an orchestra that's been around for, what, 75 years? You've got the jazz group here in Greenville. You're a collective. Jazz collective, thank you.

There is a lot going on. So you have to peel that back and say, what are they really saying? And one of the things they were saying is there's no flat floor space. right, even though they didn't really know that's what they were saying, well, you don't have an orange peel. Yeah. Well, you're going to have two now. You're going to have a big one and a little one.

Well, I agree. I think it's amazing. I mean, before the Peace Center there was zero, right? And that was it 91. That kind of put the beginning of the campfire, you know, to kind of get things going. And now it's spread up the street and down the street. And I think it's just, I think hopefully it'll just keep. filling in with more little spots.

It's kind of like the restaurant business when you think about it. Yeah. Like when I remember when I was interviewing to come down here and I called my husband at the time and said, you know, the only thing I'm not sure where we'll get a good bagel. So, but you know, the restaurant world has grown like topsy here. Right. So, but no, I think it's going to be good and healthy and At the end of the day, consumers tell you what they want.

And you have to just listen to them. And sometimes you want to give them something that you think they'll really like if they give it a chance. That's always hard, right? And we have some of that because I will tell you from a programming point of view, what I never want to give up, which nobody else is going to do, by the way. If we don't do it, nobody will do it. I don't want to give up the dance. I don't want to give up some of, you know,

It's of Perlman or Renee Fleming. I don't want to give up some of, you know, great jazz musicians. Again, those aren't big sellers. We, we, we, we, we, it makes us a richer community to have those things. So part of it is we just have to figure out how to get bodies and seats on those.

And it's not nearly as easy. when you put Theo lawn on sale, and it's gone in a couple of days. Yeah. Yeah. The old font. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, you're doing a great job with the whole thing and, you know, your experience and it just keeps making it better and better, which is, I'm sure, what you want to do every year.

Interesting that you say that, because that's what I think it is about. And my guys, you know, get tired of hearing me say that. I'm like, okay, if the bar is here tomorrow, it's going to be here. And then we're going to reach it. be here. So it's a matter of just making it better with each new day. Yeah. Right? I agree. I agree. Okay, a couple of questions. We'll finish up. You've just done. You've been remarkable. This has been great. All right. Let's start with your favorite book. Oh, goodness. Okay. So if you think of business books, I read this a long time ago, and it just tickled me because it was Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I, the first, Elizabeth I first, CEO. Okay. It's actually a pretty cool book, which you go back in history, and you look at what this woman did as a leader of a country. And, you know, it's just kind of a good management read. And I think it spoke to me particularly as a woman. One is grit. Grit, yeah.

Love that book. Honestly, you know, whether you're dealing with personal things or business things, you know, having some grit is going to get you through a lot. I really love that book. I have a tendency to give my copies of books to people and that I never replaced them. That one I gave and I never got that back. I don't even like amassing the books.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to go back and read. Oh, here, yeah, I know. It's like here you need to read this, right? There are a couple that I'm sorry that I did give away. I'll keep this one. But I adore grit. And then one that really kind of speaks to

not business is the untethered soul. And that's another one that I have given away and need to replace because it speaks to you on a lot of different levels. I'll check that one out. And then you might not be able to answer this because of your job, but favorite band? So I think of favorite musicians, right? So I have to say Amy Winehouse is one of my favorite musicians of all the time.

Okay. I also adore Leon Bridges and John Legend. So if I were say, and then I can get into the Chris Stapletons of the world. I mean, like, I'm all over the place when it comes to music. You love it. Because I do. I love it very much. How about favorite word?

Oh, I don't think I can say that on there. Okay. It's four letters. Rhymes with duck. Okay, got it. But seriously. And that probably, like, anybody who knows me will say, yeah, she says that a lot. But I think excellence.

Okay. And then is there anything special you want to promote today? You know, it's always going to be Peace Center, right? At the end of the day, it's going to be, give yourself a night off, breathe and joy. Yeah. Just take, be in the moment. Feed your soul. Feed your soul.

Yeah. I love that. Well, Megan, this has been outstanding. I love talking to you. anytime but normally I don't get to sit with you this long and just ask you a bunch of questions so I got to learn some new stuff today so thank you very much thank you I appreciate being invited and it's always fun to sit with you all right thank you anyway thank you very much