Noob School - Episode 67: Something BIG is Coming to Greenville with Mike Grozier

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Mike Grozier, founder and CEO of Trueline Brands, joins us on this episode of Noob School, speaking with John about many interesting topics. From falling in love with the service industry, to the huge success of House of Blues, to something very exciting coming soon to Greenville South Carolina, you don't want to miss this. Tune in for great advice on finding your dream career path, and much more! 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

New School Hey everybody, welcome back to Noob School. John Sterling here. Today I've got a new friend, Mike Grozier. Mike is a relatively new friend. How long have you been friends now? Maybe a little over a year. About a year.

Yeah. That's good. That's good. Well, Mike, I'm happy to have Mike as a friend. Mike's doing something really cool. He's got a very, very cool career. And for those of you, the Nob Schoolers, they're thinking about what to do. Mike's another one of those people who figured out early on,

what he loved and he jumped all over it. He's been doing it, you know, his whole life. And I think a lot of us probably trade places with him once you hear what he's been up to. Be careful what you wish for. I know, I know. I'm sure there was some, you know, some early morning calls. But so Mike grew up in Philly, right?

Yeah, Philly in New Jersey, yeah. And he played football. Yep. Yep. And what was that like growing up in Philly? You know, I think like anybody, when you first grow up, you have no idea that there's more of a world out there. And there's a lot of ways to grow up. But I grew up in a big family.

I'm the oldest of five boys. So it was a, we're all a bunch of goofy jocks running into walls and wrestling and fighting with each other. And we all played sports. And so it was all great in the summertime. My mother would be running around, you know, five boys on five different teams. My gosh. You know, you'd just come home and there'd be a pot of hot dogs on the stove. Feed yourself.

Did you have a van? No, station wagon. Of course. You know, that was the thing back then. There was no van back then. Yes. A panel van. And so, you're the oldest.

Did any of them actually try to whip you? Well, that's a great question. My youngest brother, he is actually, like, he's not the tallest, but he was physically you know, the biggest. So I just remember coming home from college. I was 22. Best shape in my life. Maybe 20.

And he was probably, he would have been like 15 or 16. And he whipped my ass. Did he really? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So.

You were sure you were walking in like no one's messing with me. Exactly. Yeah. Next thing I know, I'm in a, you know, I'm in a half Nelson and he's got some fireman's carry thing going on. And, you know, I learned a valuable lesson that day. What was it? Pick your spots.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's really, there's no, there's no winner in a fight either. No. I mean, it's hard to actually get a clean win in. You're going to get hurt a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. And were you playing football at Villanova as you play? I was going to walk on, and then I walked down one of the hallways and a guy who became a friend of mine, Howie Long. Was in one of the dorm rooms with another guy who was even bigger than he was. And I looked at these guys and I was a lineman. And I thought, there's no way. You know, this is a bad idea. Take your spot moment, you know, right?

Howie was like not to do it. He was a prototypical NFL Wyman. He just looked like one, right? I mean, he's got a central casting. Yeah. Six-five, six-six. Yep. Big shoulders.

Yep. Square hips. Yeah. Big square hips. Yeah. Yeah, he's a great guy. He became a great friend. But his story is amazing too.

I mean, he showed up at campus at about 215 pounds. You know, he kind of grew up in a foster environment. and getting three square meals a day, his body just absorbed 40 pounds overnight. So he went from 215 to 255 just in summer school. It's from eating. Just from eating, getting fed, you know. Interesting. Yeah.

He's our first investor in the project. Is he? He got to write a check. Okay. Okay. And so what did you major in at Villanova? I ended up getting a degree in communication. Communication.

Okay. Yep. And while you were there, didn't you get some exposure? to service business, or did you know? Yeah, yeah. I think even in college or even in high school, I started working in restaurants. Okay.

And then restaurants became restaurants and bars, you know, and then running a couple bars. So I definitely got the bug early on. Yeah. You know, even as a kid, my parents would entertain a lot. So I would be like 12 years old and I'd be behind the bar, you know,

making drinks, you know, very strong drinks, as I remember. Yeah. But, yeah, so I just enjoyed entertaining. people, enjoyed people having a good time in the environment that I was in and doing whatever I could to make that enjoyable. So that kind of leads to the point of you found that thing you liked really before even college. You like working in the service business, working for a restaurant or a bar or whatever, you know, making people happy, you know, creating a party, you know, whatever

it is. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay. And so when you got out, it made sense. It made sense. for you to go to work for the best place you could in that field, right? Yeah, I don't know that I was that smart in the moment, to be honest with you. It's a good story, though. It's a good story, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, as we'll talk, I mean, probably four of the six jobs I've had in my career never existed before me. I was the first guy in them.

But at the time, I went to New York. I was trying to be an actor at the time. That was one of the core classes in the communications degree. and I thought, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I was up for Woody on Cheers and a couple of things. I didn't get them, but I had a girlfriend that pointed me to the Hard Rock Cafe, which had only been open four or five months at that point,

and suggested I go get a job there to be another starving actor, you know, and I walked in, and I just loved the place. It was a value-based business, you know, rock-and-roll memorabilia became a big part of it. You know, I think for people who weren't around then, rock world memorabilia didn't even really exist. It was whatever t-shirt you had at home or this idea that you could see your hero's guitar on a wall was just not possible. There was no way unless you went to the show.

So whether it was Prince's Purple Rain Jacket or Eddie Van Halen's guitar from Jump, you know, it was really cool back in those days. And it was a business with a message, you know, love all serve all. I thought it was a really kind of inspired idea. And that was something that always had touched my soul too. Just being part of something that was bigger than yourself. Some people find that in religion. I seem to find it in entertainment, I think. But anyway, so being part of something bigger than yourself

and trying to contribute at the same time was really inspiring to me. So acting would have been plan A if it worked. Very low probability, but you tried that. Tried that, yep. And so you went back to something that you knew and you liked. Yep. And the hard rock was a good match. And so you flourished there, you got to know the owner, right?

Yes, Isaac Tigrant. Isaac Tigrant. And you became, what happened? Did you become like a manager of the place? Yeah, I worked my way up into management, the senior management. You know, I ran all the different departments. So, you know, I spent plenty of time in the kitchen, plenty of time. I've washed plenty of dishes, busts plenty of tables, you know.

This is made the music, you know, that people heard. I was in charge of the music for years. So love to rock the house. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. How many tunes did you have to choose from? Oh, geez.

Thousands and thousands. Thousands and thousands. How do you narrow that down for a playlist? Well, you know, you try to create a mood. I would try to create a mood and a pace. Okay. Like, you know, Tuesday lunch is different than Saturday night at 11 o'clock. Yeah.

You know, so I think, you know, you could be more thoughtful and down tempo, you know, when the business called for it. But when it was time to hump, you know, you had to have, you know, you had to have a fast-paced tune. Yeah. And I never liked to have too great a transition. I think, you know, in the nightclub business I learned over the years, you know, you like to build it up and then bring it down. But in a restaurant business, build it up. build it up and keep it up, you know, and keep that pace going. So the kitchen and the servers, the host stand, everybody is, you know, just moving. People eating faster. Yes, and we turn it up too.

You know, that was the other thing we learned in those days. People tended to linger less if if you turned it up. The Hard Rock was such a phenomenon in those days. Yeah, people want to come in, right? Oh, check it out. We'd have a line all the way down 57th Street, a full restaurant, full bars, then we'd have a line of people who were under age who wanted to eat there and then also people wanted to buy merchandise so we were running three lines at the front turning every chair in the restaurant

17 times a day you know we were talking about it earlier you know most restaurants are thrilled if you can get three four turns out of your building in a day so 17 is just unheard of that is everybody wanted to get in there

that's crazy yeah and it was a great it was a great era too because it was the beginning of MTV which was right around the corner. So we hosted the first MTV Awards party. Is downtown Julie Brown there? She came. Yeah, no, she was there in the very beginning.

Yeah, yeah. I remember her. She was fantastic. Yeah, she was good. Yeah. The good DJ. Yeah. So how long did you run that place?

So I worked my way up there and then I went to Dallas as a senior manager. To open up a new one? Open up a new one. Okay. And then Isaac sold the company. he decided it was time for him to get out. And I went to work for a nightclub company. And so I was running nightclubs for about three years.

And then he started up the House of Blues and hired me as the GM and director of training. Nice. Yeah. Nice. So that started in Boston and Harvard Square. That was the first one? Very first one.

Okay. A little tiny house. You know, it was only 28 feet wide. Yeah. And we had a capacity of about 300 people upstairs. In the beginning of House of Blues, He wanted everything blue. Glasses were blue.

Food, you know, even Boston clam chowder. We put some blue dye in there. You know, Bangkok Thai sticks, blue. Yeah. You know, salt and pepper shakers, blue, glassware, blue. Yeah. And over time, we started to realize, okay, some things don't look good blue, you know. Come on, boss.

Yeah. We can't keep doing that. Yeah. But from there, we raised $36 million. And then we opened New Orleans. We opened Los Angeles. Had a lease in Chicago, bought a building in New York, and we were kind of off to the races. Wow.

And so New Orleans is where you met our local hero, a rock hero, Edwin McCain, right? Yes. Yes. He played the room multiple times in New Orleans. We had a great sold-out showboard that I started down there, you know, because after about three or four years, it was amazing. Artists had already been through there. Yeah. The first four years, we had, you know, Bob Dylan played three, three shows.

Our Clapton did four shows, Johnny Cash, B-52s. It was like a who's who. And I started to realize, you know, for the artists that were coming in to know that this stage was special. You know, so, you know, over the time, over the course of time, we had hundreds of artists, Elton John, Prince, all kinds of people played their room. Springsteen. So anyway, so it was a big deal to put Edwin's name up on the wall. And every time he'd come back and sell it out, we put another chicken scratch next to it. Nice.

Yeah, so that's pretty cool. So take a little sideways question here. I mean, you're working your way up, the coolest, you know, between House of Blues and everything else you're doing. What are some of the sales things that you're doing? Who are you having to sell to? and what's working for you as you hire people and raise money and all the different ways you have to use your sales skills

to do this job? I think the first thing is you've got to know your product. I think anybody in the sales business, you can't sell what you don't understand. So for me, it was always really important to have that overarching, what are we trying to do here? Who are we? Yeah.

You know, I'm a big believer in sort of an aspirational vision. We may be here. but our goal is to get here. So what is this? What don't we have right now that we want to have in the future? And so a combination of planning and talking about it, and learning as you go as you talk about it. I think selling to me is also sort of an evolution.

You start to find things in your product that maybe you think it's this, but other people find value in that. And so how do you bridge these two things, right? How do I make sure I still stay true to the product I believe in? And at the same time, make sure it's evolving in ways so that different people can find their own way into that product too. Okay. And then obviously people tried to sell you at every turn.

They're trying to sell you their everything, supplies, their booze, their bands. What were some of the good and bad traits you saw in those salespeople? You know, you see people come in sort of with an entitled attitude. You know, I kind of learned, and it's not the same way now, but, you know, when I was coming up, it was Bud, Miller, and then Coors showed up on the scene. Yeah, right? And so I was running a club in New Jersey at one point, and we were a Miller Lighthouse, and we were selling more Miller Light in the 600-cap nightclub

than anybody that either wasn't a stadium or wasn't an arena of some sort. So I'll just never forget that the Coors Light guy came in and said, oh, no, people will buy more beer because our beer is not as full as the other. I was like, all right, that doesn't make any sense to me, you know? But, you know, I learned also from a, maybe it's a reverse selling, but, you know, having one person with their nose against the glass trying to get in, you know, makes you more valuable to the two people that you let in, you know. And I do think that, you know, whether you're selling or buying, you've got to be, you've got to be a good partner. You know, if you're not a good partner to the products you're buying and then promoting, you know, then what are you doing? And then vice versa, if you're buying this guy's product, then he's not helping you sell his product.

Right. Why are you buying his product? Right. You know, because we're in a business that nobody leaves because they don't have your product. Yeah. If your products, O'Dul's or Guinness or Tito's, very rarely, if you can't have one of those three, are you going to go, I'm out of here. I'll take this one instead, yeah. Yeah.

That's true. That's true. Yeah. I think the first time you realize you're not essential is the first time you really get hungry. Well, I love that, that you want to be a partner, a good partner on both sides of the equation. Yeah. Both sides of the equation. Because, you know, if you're not helping the other side, at some point they're not going to help you.

They're not going to really be a long-term good partner. So that's a good thing to remember. It's just a, you know, it's not a zero-sum game. It's a long-term partnership, help each other kind of thing. Yeah, grow the pie. Yeah, grow the pie. Yeah, okay. All right, so you're building up House of Blues, and how long did that go?

You know, we started raising money right away. We started with about $7 million, I think. You know, that was Isaac Tiger's last $4 million. I think Dan Aykroyd had two or three million dollars in, and then there was a who's who of people that. that chipped in. George went from cheers. Arrowsmith guys came on board.

Wow. And then, you know, the local doctor and somebody else. Yeah. So it was, but that was to get us started, you know, at the time that was to build out Boston. We were hoping to keep New Orleans going. So there was a lot of moments where, you know, we're just, oh my God, is this ever going to get funded, you know.

But we ultimately did, you know, and then that. turbocharged and finished New Orleans that started Los Angeles. And I think, you know, the combination of the timing of the three really put us on the map. You know, and then Isaac didn't believe in marketing, but he did believe in PR. And so, you know, any interesting thing that happened, you know, became part of our story. Yeah. And the fact that we were a cultural and value-based business also, I think, was part of the story, you know, at the end of the day. And we're representing Southern culture.

We're representing African-American contribution to our music. art, you know, as a society. So there's plenty of things to talk about. Yeah. You know, plenty of ways to find something sticky for somebody. Yeah. You know? So you all built that up until I'll decide to sell it, which was when?

Yeah. So Isaac got tossed out of his own company. Somewhere around year five. He sounded like a real character. Oh, he's the best. Yeah. He's my hero. I love it.

Yeah. But he came from money but had no money. made a fortune, lost a fortune, made another fortune, lost a fortune. Money was never his motivation. But I would tell you, though, he did more with money.

Part of the proceeds from Hard Rock, he walked away, when Hard Rock sold, it sold for like $65 million, his half of the Hard Rock, and this is in 19, I think it was about 1988, and he probably, $18 million into a hospital, an open heart free hospital in the poorest, most rural place in India.

And they today still do more surgeries than any of our three biggest hospitals combined. Just amazing. I mean, that was 18 million to that. Four million to ARC, which was an environmental agency. He was on the couch, but his last four million. And then his some buddies, Pat Lyons, who's a big nightclub guy in Boston, big restaurant tour as well, Dan Akroyd. And this other guy, Larry Bolzerian, came and said, you know, we want to do a Blues Brothers concept after Hard Rock. And Isaac didn't want to do it at the time and went to his Swami and said, you know, I've done this.

Why? And Swami told him that was high school, this is college. So then what was going to be the BB Blues bar evolved into House of Blues. And then it got all the depth of what the House of Blues brand represented underneath it. That's cool. Yeah. And so what year was that that y'all sold it? Well, so he was out.

This would have been, I don't know, about 16 years ago now. So 2006, 2005. To Live Nation? Sold it to Live Nation. Crazy multiple. And you went to work there. I went to work for Live Nation. kind of continue to work my way up.

Okay. You know, with House of Blues, you know, I was a GM in Boston, then we made New Orleans a training store, so we located there. You know, I've been a sales guy all my career, you know, I'm big on growing business, big on growing people, and trying to find ways to make things matter. Yeah. You know, I mentioned something about Tuesday earlier, but I want Tuesday lunch to matter as much as Saturday tonight. Yeah. It's never going to from a revenue standpoint.

Yeah. But it can from the quality of your product. It can from the quality of your service. Right. And if you're going to be great, you can't be great one or two days a week. You're either great or you're not. Right. You know, and so that was the aspiration.

Yeah. But so important to us. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Yeah, I love that idea about, you know, if Tuesday's not great, you can't make, can't magically just say, okay, now we're going to do our, we're going to really make it good on Saturday.

Right. You've got to be one way all the time. All the time. I love it. I love it. So Live Nation is a big old entertainment company based in L.A., right? Yep. International company.

International. Probably an $18 billion company now. And you all own theaters and convention centers? No convention centers, but clubs, theaters, comedy clubs, you know, big buildings. buildings, 5,000, 6,000 capacity. And then we promote, you know, globally the biggest artists in the world. Okay. And do they sell tickets like Ticketmaster?

Yeah, yeah. We merged with Ticketmaster. I shouldn't say we because I'm not there anymore. Right. But, yeah, the company merged with Ticketmaster somewhere around 2010. Okay, okay. And you left Live Nation. I was going to get to that, but you left Live Nation, I mean, not that long ago.

just a couple years, right? Yeah, just a little over a year ago. Yeah. For Greenville. I know. That's what I was getting to. After all this, this guy who lives in Beverly Hills, he wants to put a badass venue right here in Greenville.

I think this is one of the most amazing markets, one of the most amazing towns that I've been in. I've had the good fortune of running clubs and theaters all around the country in all the major markets and even some of the small markets. And, you know, this town just blows me away. The consistent improvement and growth, the fact that, you know, you have the Peace Center and Bonsacour and, and I think the Peace Center folks are going to do some live entertainment or another venture as well. But I think this town is just screaming for it. And we looked at it for a live nation. And at the time, You know, Live Nation had some positions in Columbia and Myrtle Beach and I think Savannah.

And so there was this thought that maybe Greenville was too much. But from my perspective, being in this market and just seeing where it's going. And I think I said this to you once before, but to be here in August, and I've been in this market for two August now, and to see how busy the weekends are, this is probably the only city that I can think of in the country that isn't either by a lake or by the ocean that is busy in August. And this town is just rolling right along. So I think between what Knox has done and what the city leaders have done and the city politics, it just blows me away.

So I became a believer and a devotee of Greenville. And I asked if the company didn't want to do it, I said, can I do it? And they said, yeah, if you want to do it, go ahead. So that began my journey here and raising money and designing this club and getting excited about coming to Greenville. Absolutely. So, yeah, so he's been out at headquarters out in Beverly Hills or wherever. I know that's where you live, but wherever they're based out in L.A. And found this place on your Live Nation tour.

And now you're going to do it on your own with partners. So tell us about the venue and how it's going and what's going. it'll be like? Yeah, so a couple things. I think it's a multi, multi-use facility. You know, we've designed a 1700 capacity music hall with a wraparound balcony and seats in the middle. And then we have a small room for about 400 people with a VIP club that kind of sits in between. We have a great patio outside and a lobby on the club itself. So, you know, we see this thing being open 320 nights a year

the outside open at least five days a week we want to be a great special event place whether it's weddings or corporate entertainment big part of making a venue successful is finding ways to keep the lights on and do business

and so between creating content putting local musicians to work grabbing touring talent you know we want to we want to give the artistic community a lot to, we want to utilize it a lot and give them a lot of opportunity

to practice their craft, get paid for it, and hopefully grow the whole music scene in town. Yeah. We're going to lead into art. That was the other thing I meant to say, I apologize. That's okay. But coming out of House of Blues and Folk Art and just seeing the power of art

and creativity as a whole and wanting to do something similar, you know, we're kind of leaning into street art and whether it's the banksies of the world and the Shepard Ferries to local artists here in town. Yeah. You know, we want to have a statement. We want to have a point of view.

We also want to rotate a lot of art. We're setting up, you know, some easels backstage for any artists that, you know, who are visual artists at well to give them an opportunity to, you know, to, to create, you know, and whether we help them sell it or it becomes part of our collection, you know, we just, we want to let creative people create. Cool.

And I just believe in leaning in and believing in the artists and helping the artists be artists. So this venue will be, I mean, we know the Peace Center is 2,000 seats and they're all like seats. What will yours be? 1,700 in the big room, but it'll be a big G. floor. So we'll have about 250 seats. Okay. And then about 1,500 people standing. Okay. So it's more of that kind of place.

Yeah. And I think, you know, that lends it to more to a greater variety of artists and music, I think, you know. People want to, yeah, people want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's cool. And you're in the, as I

understand it, you're kind of in the final stages of raising money and getting plans approved and all that. Yep. We hope to be under construction in another 60 days. And then from there, it'll take somewhere between 14 and 18 months to get open. So we're going to be aiming for Dave Chappelle opening night just for you. Yes. And, of course, you'll have to maybe be the opening act and give a little saxophone serenade.

I can do that. I can do that. That would be pretty cool. And I'm sure Dave will break the smoking ordinance when he comes out on stage. He has to. Yes, just come out burning. I will not confirm nor deny. Well, we'll let him get away with that.

That would be so cool. Listen, I'm excited to get into know you and learning your story and kind of how sales plays into it. I have a feeling that you, you know, you've had to do a lot of selling in your life to open things up and raise money and hire people and get people to move and get acts to come and all the different stuff you have to. It's all selling. Yeah. And I'm sure people. like Edmund would attest that, you know, it's an honest sale where you're going to be a good partner kind of long term with these folks. You have to be, I think.

Yeah. You know, we were talking about it before this and just, you know, I think it's all about doing good business. And good business to me is not trying to squeeze the last ounce out of the turnip. Right. It's really about doing the right thing today, with the idea that this right thing is also going to be important tomorrow next week. week next year. You know, I think if you're not growing, you're dying, right? So, you know, to me, it's always about pushing the boundaries.

I think, I don't know if we talked about this the last time, but I've always found that, you know, my style and what I look for in my people is this idea that you're in a bubble, and the bubble can either compress to you or you can be like Michelangelo's, or actually even the interpretation with the guy of the guitar playing, you know, but to be really great, you have to push your bubble all the time. You can't let the bubble compress you. You have to strive to find a bigger purpose, try to be greater than you are today,

which hopefully was greater than you were yesterday. But you have to push your boundaries. You have to figure out where the end is. For me, I've always felt like I'm chasing the big bang. I'm right behind the bang, you know, and I'm just trying to keep up, you know. Yeah. I think that's a good place to be.

I don't think I'll ever be completely satisfied. Yeah. Always got this thing you're working on trying to get done. That's good. So, Mike, what's your favorite word? I think Inspired is one. Okay. I like inspired.

There's something else. I meant to hold on to it because it came up conversation earlier. Now I lost it. That's all right. I like inspired though. I'll stick with that. That's good. Yeah. I think, yeah. I think you probably found that at the House of Blues way back when. Oh, yeah. First time, you know.

Yeah. Well, even at the Hard Rock. The Hard Rock started it. That's what I mean. Yeah. You were like, hey, I like this. Yeah. I can be an ambassador of this. Yeah. You know, I can feel good. I can feel confident about what I'm talking about, what I'm selling. Yeah. You know, and sometimes selling sounds like a bad word. Right. It's not a bad word. Right.

There are plenty of... We call it partnering maybe. Yeah. Partnering. Growing, you know? Because, I mean, you can't sell if you don't have a buyer. Yeah. Right?

Or somebody who's going to embrace the product. So it's really kind of... It's more. Yeah. It's interesting. We talk about a doctor a lot. When people ask me about sales, I'm like, you walk in, they give you a flu pleasantries, they ask you some questions, and they prescribe a solution.

I mean, that's selling. Yeah. I mean, that's selling. But they don't ever say a doctor's on. salesman. Yeah. You know, so maybe we should call it partnering.

You know, we're all looking for partnerships. I think so. It's a better word. Yeah, I think fulfilling partnerships, right? Like somehow, you know,

I'm going to provide something to you that you find value and in return you're going to compensate or share some level of value. Yeah. If there was no money, if it was all like barter, that would make the world

a more interesting place. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to raise 200 chickens. 200 chickens. Put me down for two. Put me down for two. Okay. I think I know the answer to this, but this is the last question is just about promoting.

If you want to promote anything, is there anything that our viewers that see this can do in relation to what you're working on, like anyone they can contact, if they want to help or invest or anything? Yeah. I mean, my email, I can give that out. Sure. It's Michael Grozier, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, Grozier, G-R-O-Z-Z-N-Z-Z-ZBRA-I-E-R, the number 17 at g-mail.com. Okay, perfect. So if you want to contact Mike about anything, use that email, and you can't figure it out.

Contact us at Noob School. We'll get it to you. I've got a question for you. Yeah, sure. I mean, you're a saxophone player. You know, you're an artist. I want to do, unless you tell me this is crazy, but I'd like to do like one night of Shakespeare,

just do monologue, allow local actors to perform on stage two. Spoken word, maybe Shakespeare, maybe something else. I just think the performance in general, I think people want to be entertained. And I think there's just so many different types of artists out there that if given a chance could flourish. Yeah. You know?

Or at least get better at their craft. Well, I mean, particularly, you know, with the venue you're going to have and the different options, I think if you could give people, if you could try a bunch of different stuff. Yeah. You could say, we're going to have the, let's say, the local, the street musicians night. Yeah. You know, where they can come out and all have a turn and we'll see how they do. And we're going to have the local Shakespeare troop come do their thing, maybe an improv thing.

Because the improv group in Greenville, which is. I've gone to their training before. They perform in a room that literally seats about, you know, 14 people. So tiny. If we could give them a bigger venue and watch them work, they're very good. Well, flying in today. There was an orchestra at the airport doing holiday songs, Christmas songs. And they were amazing.

And it was probably 20 violins, three cellos, you know, four, some other stringed instrument. But it was all stringed instruments. It was fabulous. It sounded great. And I just think about even bands like that, where else can they play? Right. Why can't they play in a club or a venue? We think of it more as a venue than it.

Yeah, I would love it. I think it would be great. You know, let's just say randomly there's a night. Maybe it's like it's Monday night, you know, the slowest night of the week. And that's when there's always we're trying something different, bringing in locals and do different things. Maybe it's an art show. So I think it would be wonderful. And if it's not, you just don't do it anymore, right?

I think you might have to be our house band leader. You've got it. I'm in. I agree. Well, thank you for being here today. And thanks for another piece of pie or piece of the puzzle for Greenville. So we appreciate that. And we're glad you picked Greenville and we all want to help you.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I feel that already. All right. Thank you, Mike. All right. Thank you, John. Appreciate it.

All right.