I know you read about all the stories and you hear about all the stories where things were truly an overnight success, but in reality, you got a plan that this is going to take you 10 years to build it. If you've been to a Rock the Ruins concert, it's such a vibe. It's like you look around, where are we? Like, this is so cool. And we went from being really part-time operators to having to dig in when you have no more employees. We really had to dig in and lean into that business.
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My guest today is Scott Kraege and he is an Indianapolis entrepreneur, investor, and entertainment operator. He's focused on building community-driven experiences and scalable businesses. I'm so excited to dive into all the work the team at 45 is doing with the Vogue, Rock the Ruins, all the amazing venues across the city. And honestly, you guys do a lot of work with music just across the state of Indiana. We're going to get to that a little bit later in the show. Where I want to start is talking through your incredible entrepreneur entrepreneurship journey and all the amazing things that you have helped build over the years here in the city of Indianapolis.
Scott, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. You guys are have done a phenomenal job uh building a great brand and broadcasting all the great things that are happening in Indiana. So, I'm just happy to be here.
Well, we appreciate you making the long commute from where I'm assuming the office was like, you know, two parking lots away. It was a busy parking lot. Well, I mean, it was busy back in the fall when uh when the 811 crew threw the whole October Fest. That thing turns into a party. So fun. I hope I'm not splitting, but we're doing it again.
Oh, let's go. Come on. Bring it back. Um, but live music and entertainment is what you're up to today, but kind of your journey to get there started more in the tech and entrepreneurship space. You grew up here in Indianapolis. I mean, you talked about it, previous guest of the show, you and Ryan Hasbrook went to high school together.
Now having companies that are like again, a parking lot across from each other is pretty fun. What was your first dip into entrepreneurship? I um have a a great history of building businesses and building things with partners that I grew up with. Um I think if you can create something uh special with special people that you have been a part of your life for so long, it it it just makes the outcome of that u just just much greater. So, the first the first company I started was in 2000 with actually two three guys I went to high school with uh here in Indianapolis. Um we started a retail store that sold uh cellular devices.
We sold every carrier at the time and in about 3 months we figured that wasn't going to work out too hot. Uh so we changed the strategy up a little bit and we just started selling to businesses. We literally picked up the phone book and started calling friends and companies around town um trying to sling cell phones out of the back of our cars. That was the first business I started and that was in 1999. Wow. Since then, uh I started five different businesses.
Um like wait, let's go back to that a little bit. Cell phones out of the back. Like why would they need to buy cell phones from you? Like again, this is 1999. You couldn't just go into like the Verizon store and get a cell phone. Verizon store, Sprint stores, Nexel stores, singular.
These is dating myself. if I'm old. Um, there were stores popping up, but nobody came to you. And we thought that that would be a great hook. We thought that would be a great level of customer service that would build relationships that lasted much longer than a cell phone contract. Um, and and it did.
Um, you know, showing up at a company and saying, "We're your guys. You have a problem on Saturday. Call me. You don't have to worry about going to a store." That that really helped uh craft not just that business because that business had a good run for six or seven years. um and turned into a great little business.
It was Inc. 500 three years in a row. Uh built it from zero. Inc 500 which is for anyone that doesn't know that is a list of the 500 fastest growing privately held companies. Correct. So a lot of people now talk about the Inc.
5000 but Inc. 500 you're in the top percentage of that. That's incredible. Yeah. And then that business um the the winds of that business just changed. We had some really tough headwinds.
um you know it was it was it was just it just became very difficult for us um to continue growing at the scale we were. And right about that time we started building some software uh that would help companies manage connected devices better cuz we knew connected devices, we knew cell phones, we knew tablets were rolling out, we knew what the iPhone could potentially do to the market. Um and so we built a company called Moby after that. Um which that was like device management like software for that. So it system, you know, you have to remember who all has their business phone and their business tablet and their all their business devices managing that. Yeah.
Think about if you're a company um and we had some great great local companies with thousands tens of thousands of devices. And when you're managing tens of thousands of devices, that's tens of thousands of bills and tens of thousands of HR records. And the centralization and management of all those devices was a real problem back then. It still is for a lot of companies. Um, and we were just happy to build something. We had we had an incredible team, uh, incredible culture, incredible product, developers at the time.
Uh, we had grew that company to about 350 people before we sold it. Wow. Who ended up behind that? Uh, a private equity firm out of California bought it and merged it with another company. That company is called Tango. There's still quite a bit of people here in Indianapolis that work for Tango.
Yeah. So, I remember hearing about Moby turning into Tango, the whole nine yards there. And so I mean, how long did that take you to go from, you know, sling you and some high school buddies slinging cell phones out of the back of your trunk to exited tech entrepreneur? Yeah, it was an overnight success in about 18 years. Uh we started our first company that ran for 9 years and then in 2009 we started Moby and we sold that business in 2018. 18 years.
I mean, yeah. I feel like everyone today is like okay I can build this billion dollar business in two years or whatever AI is the future in which it is but like 18 years where in that 18-ear journey did you feel like you had accomplished something and you felt successful that's a really good question um let me let me answer the let me let me say something the first time because I I do a lot of investing early stage investing with founders founders with very early ideas pre-product pre-team pre- anything And I set the stage very early on in the conversation like this is a 10-year journey. You you know this, right? Like if you if we're going to start this and we're going to invest in you, I'm your partner for 10 years in this cuz to build something special, to build something great, which other people are going to think are great, is going to take you a really long time to do it. I know you read about all the stories and you hear about all the stories where things were truly an overnight success or in 6 months you built this incredible value, this incredible company, but in reality, you got a plan that this is going to take you 10 years to build it.
Yeah. Yeah. So to but to answer that question, I don't know if I've hit it yet. I mean, I'm I I still really love the journey of going from zero to one in something spec specifically. What I what I mean by that is taking an idea and putting people um putting great people um putting the energy, the hustle, the resources, everything behind it to create something special. And I still I still love that.
Where are you the most valuable in a company life cycle? I think right now my my day job both an entrepreneur but I also run a venture fund. Um we've invested in 15 startup early stage startup companies. And so for the last since really since 2000 I've been spending my time with young founders, young entrepreneurs trying to take something from maybe they've gone from 0 to one I'll use that analogy again. And they're trying just to go from one to two or one to eight. Uh, and I think I'm incredibly valuable and helpful to them in that journey.
Just being maybe it's a coach, a mentor, but really a full-time advocate and um resource for them. That's nothing new. A lot of people are exceptional at it. Um, I had those people, you know, during my journey, too, where I could text someone on a Sunday and say, "Hey, my VP just I got this weird sense. I don't know how to handle this." And they'd respond or they'd call or, "Hey, I got a term sheet.
How should I think about this?" Who was uh who were your biggest mentors as you were going through that 18-year run to get to an exit? First and foremost, when you start a company with three high school friends and you're 25 years old, your parents, right? Like my dad um is your dad an entrepreneur? No, my dad well kind of an entrepreneur. He's an attorney and a mediator uh who just retired.
Um but he did start the the mediation group uh here. So he is an entrepreneur and started his own firm. Yeah. And then um two of my high school friends um well all three of my high school friends their fathers were very engaged. Like when you when you have a problem and you're trying to grind through financial statement or you're trying to grind through a customer problem, you call the person that you know is going to answer every single time. So you can workshop it and you can work through it.
And for us it tended to be our dads or our our our very close friends that were also building things at the same time. But as it got later further down the road and these companies started to grow, your problems become more unique, your issues, they don't become bigger. They're still just issues. They're just different kinds of challenges. So, there were some people here in Indianapolis um you know, Eric Tobias, who I've still um uh is a great friend of mine. Scott Dorsey was someone um where you know we coached girls basketball together and I found myself during girls basketball practices and games asking him how I should manage uh my team and how I should think about our business.
Third quarter. What are we doing here Scott? Come on. We were getting killed. Anyways, yeah. There we go.
Is this the St. Bas Panthers? It was the St. Pas Panthers CIO. Come on CIO girls. Like you're getting hooped by IHM and you're like dude I got one ones on Monday.
I need some help here buddy. That never happened. Hey, we No, very serious. Yeah, let's go Panthers. Come on. U, I mean, that's incredible.
That is the thing I've heard a lot of from I actually get to sit down with Scott Dorsy uh at the Or Fellowship like annual gala the Mark and Karen Hill gala this summer and do like a live podcast with them and I'm super excited because so many of my previous guests have said even while they were going through everything it took to IPO and then their exit that they still poured into other entrepreneurs and friends around Indianapolis even when they have their own issues to deal with. Do you feel like like Indiana and Indianapolis as a whole just has that built into their DNA? Indianapolis, we as a culture, as a family, as a community, as a brand. Um although it seems very difficult, and it is very difficult, we make it easy to start something. And that's because doors are typically always open. I used to say all the time that office doors were always open.
I can't really say that anymore, but when we were growing our business, I could reach out to the CEO of Lily, having never met him, having never talked to him, and say, "Hey, I'm an entrepreneur. or I'm building something in my garage. Would you be willing to have a conversation with me or a quick conversation with me? Maybe the answer was no. And that's okay. But there's always an answer.
And it was like, hey, I can't do it. I can't make time, but here's somebody else that can do it. You know, Mike Smith was a CFO at Anthem, and anytime I had we got a term sheet or something very heavy that waited on us, I could text him and say, he'd be like, "Come down. Come down, meet with me, and we'll talk about it." Uh, Michael Browning was another one where, hey, we're grinding through this. Can you make time?
They always made time. And I feel like I hope that I I know that Eric's like that. I hope that Scott I know that Scott is still like that. I hope that I am like that where young entrepreneurs that want to just kick something or riff something for a little bit and and maybe get a nugget of guidance cuz it's probably not perfect all the time that I can give but I can give you enough to that you can take mine and you can take somebody else's and hopefully you can put a great plan together. Like I again I always compare it. I heard Sam Parr talk about entrepreneurship and it is like the greatest equivalent to Indianapolis and it's asking the question, you're driving down the street and you see someone with their thumb up on the side of the road.
Are you going to do you pull over and help someone that's hitchhiking? Largely like I'd say 95% of people are normal and sane and like say no. But if you see someone pushing their car trying to get it to a gas station, are you more likely to pull over and help them push? Yeah. And the answer like it skyrockets how many people are willing to push. It's great.
And that's like IND that's entrepreneurship in Indianapolis. Moby, we had to form a board. We took some we took some capital on and we had to form a board as a part of that capital, right? We never had a board of directors. Um so we build this board out and I asked Scott to be a part of it and he go this is when they were um they were scaling just they were on a rocket ship. Um they were at the time almost going public or close to going public and I knew he should not do that.
He should not be on our board. It was too much of a time commitment. He probably came to three board meetings a year for me and he wasn't on the board just to join, just to help, be a part of it. Read through all my materials. Like he he was amazing. And that story rings true throughout so many leaders of our community.
Incredible, man. And so the 18 the overnight 18-year success. You uh you guys get to an exit. You you know sell private equity. They get submerged. Did you have a little bit of an identity crisis?
It's like, hey, 18 years you've been building this thing, and then one day it's like, okay, now now what do I do? Yeah. And I I chose to not um continue with the company. Um my president and and co-founder Josh Garrett, he did he did stay on and that was a really tough decision for me to make, but it felt like the right one at the time. And yeah, you go from um you know, getting 100 emails a day and managing 350 people to on whatever day that was, December 12th, to the next day, you got you got nothing to do. you don't have access to the email anymore.
Luckily, luckily they did let me linger around the office for a while after that. But um I don't know if it's an identity crisis. I I looked at it as an opportunity. I mean, there's very few times in your life where you get to sit back and you don't have those hundred emails coming in and you get a chance to think and reflect and um start the ideation process of what's next. And that's that's always pretty cool. And isn't it cool?
I think about this largely when you're building a business that like this was something that you guys started, you know, out of a garage, the back of the trunk, you know, like getting into the space 18 years ago and then one day you can just like remove yourself and it still and it still goes. It still goes and sometimes better, you know, like isn't that wild to think about? It's really cool. It's really special that that's a testament to culture and team. Yeah. Right.
It has nothing to do with the individual. I I think I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and it's like so much of their fabric and their DNA is woven into their business and like a little bit of it is until you get I don't know where the mark is but it's like built on kind of their shoulders and then getting to the point where you can kind of remove that and it still stands and you're like wait whoa this thing has really come together like there let's go this is great. Uh yeah, back back you said something interesting the other day about somebody hitchhiking. My cousin moved here from um Madison, Wisconsin and lived here for a number of years and this rings true. She's been here she had been here for like a month and someone was asking I think my mom was asking her how what do you love about Indiana? She's like, "This is the first city I've ever been to where I will be driving around looking for a parking spot at the grocery store and someone will point at me and say, "My car is right here and I'm pulling out."
And I thought that was she I thought that was so funny. She's like, "This is this is just kind of this is a funky town." Dude, we had an ex Facebook employee who got into real estate, left their job at Facebook uh to come move here and, you know, get into the real estate business. And he said that um his wife like three separate times was so alarmed because someone tried to help her get her groceries like take them and and she thought they were trying to steal her groceries. Like no, it was just someone seeing her like their arms full and stuff and was like willing to help. And I'm like that's so crazy.
But uh 2018 comes around and you then exit Moby. Yeah. And it's time to start thinking about what comes next. And you kind of like take on two different kind of uh ventures, right? One being investing what you guys are doing with Ivy, correct? Yeah.
And then on the other side, you get involved with the live music scene, which I'm really excited to talk to talk into that. But like talk to me about getting Ivy going, investing into other founders, that whole piece. I've been a very light um rookie, junior varsity angel investor. Um you know, because what you do, right? You sell, you got to start writing checks, right? But we started that as our partnership group really in like 2008.
So almost 10 years before we sold. So had a ton of fun. And I knew that I wanted to continue invest and continue to help scale and and push entrepreneurs the right way. Um and was lucky enough after I took I took a little bit of time off, like a couple months off and realized quickly that that wasn't going to work. Um, so, um, I was lucky enough that I knew some folks over at the Heritage Group and I got involved, uh, in their venture program. Uh, and so I started doing that in fall of 2019 and investing in nons software, non tech, uh, nonsas was a stretch.
It was super fun. Over there, you're investing in things like roads, infrastructure, solvents, right? Like a lot of pavement. Yeah. like different like physical structures and compounds and stuff reactors. We're having someone from THG on uh later in the fall like maybe September time and it'll be I'm really excited.
I went over to their campus for the first time. Oh, maybe a week ago, a month ago, something like that. And it is a compound like the coolest new style office. It's like a little mini bluecollar Google. It's great. It's phenomenal.
I spent three years there. Um, we invested in 30 companies together, 30 startups. Uh, some were just ideas. Uh, some were real companies at the time that were scaling. And so that that was a ton of fun to spend a three-year sprint with them investing in hardc was not my background at all. So that was really fun.
Any any cool outcomes from those? Yeah, we still have a few very very cool companies that are growing. That's amazing. I love that. So you talk about uh the final piece I want to talk through the investing. Yeah.
You talk about being a mentor and helping any way you can these young aspiring entrepreneurs. When it comes to investment, how much of it is the idea and the slide deck and the market and that and how much of it is the person? My style of venture investing is different than the next venture fund that rolls in. It's very different from High Alpha. It's very different from Bart Ground Game and a few others around town. But I do always start with the principle that the people make the investment work at the end of the day.
And if I have call it five or six attributes that need to be true to make an investment, the first three or three or four are m usually founder driven or people driven. Like is this is this person going to run through walls for his employees and his family and me? Um is this somebody that believes in this idea more so than anybody else out there? Does this have the addressable market? Does this have a big enough market where he can build something great? Yeah, does.
Cool. Okay, that that checks a box, too. But the the biggest attributes and the biggest um reasons to make an investment are the people. Yeah. And how much of it is let's say again you say you're starting this partnership for 10 years. How often is it what they were pitching in the beginning preede investment year one is the same thing that gets built 10 years later.
Yeah, that's a good question. It's probably a 50/50. It's probably a coin flip. Like I feel like so much of it it's like yeah, this is the idea. I mean, think about 10 years ago. Okay, let's say 5 years ago.
Like, who would have known that AI ends up being what it is today? Like Amy Brown would have known, you know, Authentics would have known. Like, she was talking about this back in 2017, 2018, but she was one of the only people that I again I spoke to that was really in the like how to train your data and stuff, but it's like you never know what's going to come up. You really don't. At the end of the idea, I the idea is always going to live, but it's always a different version of it, right? There's a different chapter.
it it's always evolving. It's always transitioning and it's always growing along that journey. Yeah. And so you go from again you're in the tech space and then you spend three years hard tech investing which is again not the same thing. You're just kind of in this new space with the Heritage Group, but then you also get into the live music scene. Talk to me about how you guys end up becoming owners of the Vogue and starting 45.
One of my dear friends named Andrew Davis. Uh he and I bought um have bought three businesses together. The second business we purchased was the Vogue and we brought uh we reached out to Eric Tobias. So Eric Tobias and I went to high school together. Uh I think we met when we were 14 um maybe 15. Uh have known each other since then.
Uh have been lifelong friends. And there's a very fuzzy story that he and I were at a live show. But we were we were at a concert um in like 2005 maybeish and it was a dumpy little concert venue and we were there together. We said let's own a music venue. Let's build a music venue. We forgot about it.
But Andrew Davis found out that the Vogue was for sale. And was it just an independent venue before? It was just like one a person or someone had owned the Vogue. Great family owned it prior to us. They bought it in I believe 1976 and their family owned it from 1976 to 2019 when we acquired it. Wow.
Great run. For listeners that might not know cuz not everyone lives in Broadripple. Not all the listeners are familiar with this iconic venue right here. I would say can you give us a a brief fly over history of the Vogue? I can. Uh it's a very very special place.
Built in 1938 has not changed much. Um, but when it was originally built, it was built as a movie theater. Um, there's some old great old pictures uh from Broadripple that showed the marquee showed as a movie theater. It was one of the first uh it was definitely this the first movie theater in the state of Indiana with air conditioning. That was a big deal. Heyo.
That was a big deal. It operated uh this this is a great um very very unknown fact. So runs as a movie theater in 19 I believe is 1971 through 73 a very short stint maybe maybe 2 years it was a XX movie theater wait for 2 years the Vogue theater was a XX movie theater yes and it's always a really uncomfortable moment when I talk to somebody and they said I early '7s I went to a movie there I'm like oh no I got to get out of this conversation so then after that did you find any you find any like uh any vintage nothing no vintage films in there. Okay, respect. Um so uh and then in uh 19747576 uh is when it transitioned to a music venue. Um and it was a full like disco venue back then and the first live music act happened I believe in 1976.
Uh and since then that very small building that holds around 900 people has seen some iconic people on that stage. Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, the Ramones played there twice. The Ramones um recorded one of their shows and it's still one of like the Ramones toughest to find bootleg out there. Um it's had some incredible artists play there over the We're just we're just happy to be stewards of it right now. Yeah. I mean, it is I feel like there's a specific age group of people that like were going to their first set of concerts right around when it got really popular that just like I don't know just love the like have a a crazy passion for the Vogue even more than Deer Creek.
I know a lot of people have a lot of affinity up there, but again I I'll run into them and I say Broadripple like that's where you know our studio is and they're like, "Oh, I remember going to the greatest shows at the Vogue Theater." Like I remember, you know, again, whether it's the Ramones or whoever it might be, a lot of people have a lot of great experiences there. And so the opportunity came in 2019 for you guys. Like how what why was the previous family deciding to get out of it? What was the kind of the stage in 2019? He was retiring.
Um and he wanted to retire and it was a very um secretive is the wrong word, but it was a very quiet process. He didn't want to make it known that the Vogue was potentially for sale. He had a couple other folks that were very interested and they were not local. Uh and so we met with them. 2019, was it hard to operate an independent like singular venue? You talk about the rise of like Live Nation and Ticket Master and and it's not so much like cash at the door anymore.
Yes. We did not know that at the time. Uh you know, keep in mind I have no background in bars or music or anything like that. I'd bought we'd bought one business that we were operating. It was cash flow. I was doing great and then this business came available and I was kind of in between um not necessarily jobs at the time but I was up for doing something and I love live music and Eric's the same way and Andrew is the same way and we said we'll figure it out like we we'll we'll make this work and it we didn't realize the opportunity and the impact and the I should say the cultural impact that music and this version of the arts bring a small community like it's just it's just been truly special throughout that and it's it's been a lot of time.
I mean during that process we we opened it in 2019 or when we bought it we transitioned in March 2019 co hit uh March 2020 which we were really the first to shut down cuz there were no live music venues. We had a we had a band um right here just they went on stage they soundchecked they went to get a bite to eat came back and Live Nation pulled the show. Um everything shut down and we were shut down for I don't know 9 months or so where nothing happened. Unfortunately, had to let go of the stat. Like it was it was literally dark in a very dark time. Again, I think a lot of people fantasize that entrepreneurship is always like sunshine and unicorns and rainbows and stuff and you're like, but historically, you had hit winners, you know, like you were been doing a good job.
You had gotten a business to an exit. You're, you know, you're successful and then it's like you're a year into owning this new business and the world just throws the ultimate curveball. you're in live music and no one can be no one can be out and about and you then have to, you know, let people go. That's hard. We talk about this a lot, Andrew, Eric and I, when we bought it. So, we had a one year of where it was operating the way it should have been operating, right?
When we bought it, you buy something, you it should continue to operate whatever you're going to go buy, it should continue to operate at the same scale, the same performance, the same cadence and rhythm. And it did for exactly one year until March 13th or whatever day that was. And that required us, we were I used to call it a, you know, I'd love a it was a two medello night for me. I'd go in, go to a show, have two beers, and leave. And we could do that two or three times a week to see whoever was coming through. And we went from being really part-time operators to having to dig in when you have no more employees.
Um, and you've had to you've had to let everybody go or they've moved on. We really had to dig in and lean into that business in ways that we didn't expect to when we bought it. Well, and didn't you guys start doing stuff with Mandolin and like some live show like some like non not live shows but live stream shows? You kind of have to get creative a little bit, right? Had to get very creative. Uh we had a lot of private parties during that time.
We had my wife's uh birthday party there and we had a bunch of I mean cuz families would come and rent it um or folks would come use it to practice. We did do a couple live streams with Mandolin. That was really fun to do. It just it just we did a lot of we had the staff that we did keep. We did a you know painted some stuff and ripped some walls out. What was your first show back?
I think our first show back was a Latin DJ. Oh, hell yeah. But we didn't have enough staff. So Eric, Andrew, and I had to work it. And this is a funny story about Eric. I'm taking tickets and Eric is checking IDs and he's out there with his like IU quarter.
This is a Latin dance night. It's probably 2:00 in the morning cuz it doesn't get busy till 2:00. And I'm taking tickets and he's checking IDs. He's got his glasses. He's pulling down here, you know, cuz we we just didn't have enough staff. And he says he comes in and he goes, "Man, I'm turning a lot of people away.
Like there's some young people that are trying to get in here or two in the morning." I'm like, "That's tough." I you know they first of all they shouldn't be out at too and you know we're old guys and dads and something we're grump grumpy old guys and so we turn around he goes wait I told her not to come in how's she in here and somehow this woman had snuck in a back door or something like that I'm like Eric we are terrible at this job we need to turn this back over to the pros dude and imagine too it's like these successful tech guys like entrepreneur like computer typers are out there like somebody's taking tickets someone's checking out someone's already serving behind the bar and you're like that was a mess. What are we doing here? There was not enough staff. People weren't ready to come back to work.
But that community was ready to get down that night. That was a really fun night. And so somehow owning one singular music venue turns into you guys create a whole like production company. Is that what that promoter company? What do you call like what industry is 45? So we started two things during really during co.
Um the first one is we started 45. So that is the entity that uh is the basically the umbrella company that owns all other entities below it. But under that we also started a software company called open date. Yes. Yeah. Um and we started that business just to help replace and supplement the people that we had lost.
Um, we had one singular idea for that business, um, that we wrote on whiteboard and said, "Can we build software around this that will help our venue grow and get back to normal?" And that's turned into an incredible business now that Eric is the CEO and leads. Yeah. Um, 45 what's interesting in the world of music, and um, this wasn't our intent when we bought it, um, but we now have four venues that we that we manage and we control. Um, and if you're an artist or if you're developing talent in any way, you typically don't start out playing a 900 person venue like the Vogue, like you start in a coffee shop or you start in a garage or you start at a private party. Um, and then you go to maybe a 300 person room, 300 cap we call it, and then you move to a Vogue, which is 900 cap, and then you want to move to 2,000 or 2500 cap room.
You just have to go through that journey as an artist to continue to grow. And that's when we really started building Rock the Ruins. That's when we started building uh Turntable Out. Um that's when we started booking shows at the Toby, which is the venue inside the art museum inside Newfields. Uh that's when we put shows out at Broadripple Park. And so we've just been our team um I say we a lot but our team is is the team be behind the magic that has really built something very special that these artists talent buyers um agents say hey what's the next venue we can play at yours what are you thinking about next where you going that that that community that ecosystem of artists has really just helped us grow.
Yeah. Uh we had Jenny on back when she was with 45 talking about like the stairstep approach to you know you don't you kind of have to work your way up and there's still some gaps in Indie's market right of like what is it the like 7500 cap venue like you're not quite big enough for White River but you're too big for somewhere maybe like the Vogue and like filling those gaps in and you're not again then you're working your way up to the the RUF you know the the the whole big amphitheater for Cambridge. How did you guys go from though you have one venue, you have the Vogue, and then you decide to not only just like, you know, book out for other people, but create a series out of nothing. Yeah. Like Rack the Ruins is an old It's Holiday Park. It is literally like a It's the ruins of I don't Are they like flown in?
Like I What's the story behind the ruins? There's like an interesting story for sure. There's definitely an interesting story at the ruins that that the the Holiday Park is a very special place to me and my family too. My wife and I would take our four kids there and run around the park. Uh they've got incredible trail system. Having grown up here, I know it very very well.
Coming out of CO, it was really tough to book concerts. Like artists didn't really want to play, fans didn't want to go. And Wait, what? Really? Yeah. We really needed to figure out how to put on outdoor shows in a very safe environment.
And we reached out to the folks at the Holiday Park Foundation and said, "We need to like people got to get out. Like, we got to get back out and we got to we've got a staff. We've got a team here. We've got production um equipment. Like, let's get a national act in and let's just try one or two concerts out at Rock out at out at Holiday Park." And thankfully that foundation and that team over there said, "Yeah, let's give this a try.
Let's just do it for a few shows and see what happens." And sure enough, Eric and I uh and the entire team were out there painting um 8 by8 squares with straight paint on the ground to make sure that people had their pods where they, you know, they had to sit in and and Isn't that Is that the weirdest thing ever? Yeah. Like, you know, 50 years they're going to look back and see the photos from that and be like, "What in the world was going on here?" Those guys were clowns. But we had to do it.
8 by8 pods. So you'd buy a ticket and you would go and you could sit in your little pod and see a national act. You picked your pod and I think we sold like VIP pods. Like that was pretty funny. You got a little cooler in the side there. Like actually the the front I love this.
So going to the VIP tickets today. It's said you just get a fancy lawn chair. Yeah. Like the It's like it's a lawn chair. It's just a Yeah. It's great.
You get the private bathroom up there. It's spectacular. So you guys go to not the parks department to start, you go to the foundation that supports and kind of overseas holiday park. Yeah. And what's the initial pitch? Like one thing that I feel like sets Indiana and Indianapolis apart is that people are usually pretty receptive to crazy ideas.
Like you're not going to necessarily get told no, but you still have to figure out how to do it. So you go there, you pitch them this idea. We need to get people back out. Let's host a concert here. They say, "Sure." Like, how do you even start?
Like, how do you have to put that together? Luckily, we'd had a couple years under our belts at the Vogue to know how to put a show on. Yeah. Uh I think we'd put a concert on in the backyard in the parking lot back here. We'd put a couple other shows on with uh Indiana Sports Corp at that point. Like we we we had our team has the muscle to pull that off.
So, you had done shows outside of the four walls of the Vogue Theater? Yes. Okay. Okay. That that's good. That's very good.
Yeah. They weren't taking a flyer on us. They knew what we were capable of. Who' you book for show? It was a seven show run. I will say you typically get some like viby like bands that come through there.
Like I went to uh Hippo Campus last year. Was that two years ago? I think it was two years ago. Two years ago. I went to L King one year. Like you kind of get some some vibey kind of uh like those like middle tier national artists.
Yeah, that venue is a special place like in the trees amongst the ruins um at Holiday Park. It's a very very special vibe and special place to watch and listen to live music. And Eric, I'll say, runs all talent and that that's doing him a disservice. He knows talent. Him and our team, Ben, they know talent better than anybody. And they're just incredible at bringing folks in.
Everybody keeps telling me about this Ben guy. Like Ben has got an ear for up and cominging artists that are like that are going to, if not already, have blown up. He's great. And that's what Turntable's for. So Turntable is a 350 375 cap room. And if you look at that turntable schedule when when Ben sends a note out saying, "Hey Scott, you should check this band out."
That's a That's a do not miss. Really? I'll put I'll put you on that list. Wow. I Yeah, I need to I need to know who's coming across the street there cuz you also do really cool like listening sessions and stuff like you know you'll have people spinning vinyl or like doing really interesting things. So Turntable is the old uh comedy club crackers.
It's the Old Crackers that we converted into a front um vinyl listening room and then the main concert venue, the main area has a stage and it does seating. Um there's VIP. It'll hold about again like 350 37 people. It's a super cool venue. Um one of my buddies, Ian Ilig, he like play he and his band play a show there cuz you like they rent it out and like do their own thing. brings in all his like friends and family and hopefully some random spectators off the street and like put on a rock show and it's awesome.
Like it's a total you can sit in the back or you can stand in like kind of the GA space there. It's awesome. And so yeah, Ben's great. He's Ben Ben is Ben and Eric both have gotten really good. And Eric is so passionate about working with artists. He just he's he's great at it.
He loves it. Uh they've gotten to be just exceptional at booking all three of those venues, right? Cuz you got to book a 350, you got to book a 950, and then you got to book a 2500 at Rock the Room. That's Rock the Ruins is 2500. Like when it comes to pulling off a public private partnership like Rock the Ruins or like the concert series you did at Broadripple Park. Yeah.
What are the what are the hardest parts there? How do you get the city, the parks department, everyone to play ball and bring something like this to life? Cuz I think everyone has great ideas, but it's the execution and the agency that's hard to to make happen. So with any idea, you're going to run into friction. Yeah. you're going to people the the the first call that we made to put on a show at Holiday Park coming out of CO in 2021, they probably said no.
They should have said no on first call, right? Um but we were persistent and we probably showed up and either knocked on the door or tried to schedule a meeting or coffee. Um and so you really got to just work through that friction. Um and you're going to run into some people that are pretty abrasive and say no and pound their fist on the table and say you're interrupting us um the park. um your distraction. This is not what parks were built for.
Um but you just got to you just got to really if you're passionate about it and if you believe it can work and you have got a group of constituents in your corner that are fighting along with you then the collective the collective voice can can can power through. Yeah. Because I mean you are going to have no matter what the idea is whether it's concerts in the park or you know the kite flying association going out you're going to have people that are like ah no this is not what this is not what it should be. I don't like that because I don't like music or I don't like whatever it is. Yeah. And it's like being able to get a big enough like collection of buyin of like, hey, this is a good idea.
This is an incredible opportunity. It's like if you've been to a Rock the Ruins concert, it's such a vibe. Like you got people, you have the food vendors like kind of out in the back. You can grab a beer. You can put a blanket down and you're just like hanging and it's like you look around and it's like where are like this is so cool. It's so cool.
Well, thanks for saying that. Yeah. And that's like that is like legit. Uh I even from whether you sit up at the front and you're like, you know, totally there cuz you love the artist or you just throw a blanket down in the back and you have no idea who's playing. It's just like again a vibe. It's so so cool.
Those have been my favorite shows. Um and I if you ask me to recall all those names, but the shows where it's not they're not coming up on my Spotify and I'll just go cuz it's we're putting on a show over there and even just going for an hour and seeing which is easy. There there not many big National Touring Act concert venues where you can get in and out of in an hour. You can ride your bike to Holiday Park. You can park and walk a quarter mile and be in the venue and then walk out. You can't do that at at at big venues.
That creativity and being able to pull off stuff like that that continues to elevate Indianapolis, you know, like we do. Again, I love going out to Ruf. It's a It's awesome when a big national act comes through there, sells it, but it's like it is an investment. You're getting up there at the concert's at 7:00. You're getting up there at 4:00. You're like out the door at 4:00 and you're not getting back till midnight.
Except for there's like you can buy those special parking passes. Like I got it one time where it was like in the middle. I don't know how expensive it was, but it's like you're out so quickly and I'm like that is a cheat code for sure cuz otherwise it's like it takes it's a whole thing. Yeah. And you know every major city has their own version of RUF, right? I mean, Cincinnati, Columbus, they all have these these big 17,000 person venues.
No, no one else has a Rock the Ruins at Holiday Park. The The only other venue that has given me a similar vibe was for Final Four. Did you go down for Post Malone or any of those concerts? Incredible. In the American Legion Mall. Incredible.
So sick. Over the top. Amazing. Yeah, that that what they So, we've held some concerts uh at ALM American Legion Mall before and uh they they were great. They were wonderful, but that was over the top. I went down for Post Malone.
It's like a It's a Sunday night in Indianapolis. Free. And it's like I don't know how many people were there, like well over 10,000, you know? I don't even know what it fits, but like the way they had it set up, the only if there was just a slight grade to the American Legion Mall, it would be perfect. But it's like you have the sides filled up. Post Malone's going crazy.
Yeah. And think about that. That's not a concert venue. No. At all. Like 100%.
There's a grade at Rock the Ruins. It's a natural amphitheater with the trees. That is not built for to be a concert venue, but it makes for a spectacular concert venue. They turned ALM into a wonderful concert venue. Yeah. Which is really cool.
And it's like being creative and being able to pull off things like this continue to push us forward. And it's like how do you, you know, whether it's like the coffee shop raves or like whatever it's going on, how do you see some of these ideas and bring them to life? Yeah, this this is a funny story. So, I'm on the board of the Sports Corp and I've been for a number of years and um I get a call from one of their it may have been Ashley. She said, "Hey, Turner TNT is coming to town and they want to talk about concert venues in Indie." Uh because when the Final Four comes indie, Turner TNT puts on the the the the shows.
And I said, "Cool. we can go look at two or three different areas that that this might work. And I, you know, I showed them like a little small park in downtown uh that would be that would be a perfect fit for him. We talked about Holiday Park and they look at me, they're like, "This this this doesn't work. This doesn't work for a Post Malone." And I'm like, "Oh, no it no it doesn't."
And so then we went over to ALM, uh, American Legion Mall, and walked it. And we had just put on a couple shows at ALM, and they're kind of scratching their heads like, "You you you guys you put a show on here? what stage did you get? How big was the stage? What did it look like? How many people could you get in here?
And I go through all the the measurements with them and to go through that and they're kind of thinking about it and they're like, "Yeah, we could we could make this work." I had no idea when they said we could make this work. It would look like that, dude. Activations like you have the Coca-Cola house in the back. Like it was it was so cool. Um it reminded me Okay, so I love the American Legion Mall.
I love Holiday Park. The coolest venue I've ever been to. I went to um Tortuga in Fort Lauderdale, the country music festival right on the beach. Oh. So they like block off the beach. They have But this was what I loved.
On the beach. On the beach. You're standing in the sand. It It's pretty cool, right? And it's You think we could do that here in Indiana? Should we try?
Okay. Like White River Beach. I don't know how exactly yet, but this is what I want to set up. And I You're the man to help me make it happen. So I'm a country music guy. I love country music.
like and you guys bring in a lot of um maybe like the folk or the indie type country, but I'm like a like if it's on the radio, like that type of country, right? Or the old school stuff. But what I loved about this setup was it was like almost dueling pianos but over hours and it was the greatest sponsor activation I would ever I had ever seen. So they didn't have stages playing main acts at the same time. So imagine on your south end you'd have like you know your your C act and then your F act is playing like a DJ or someone is playing on the other stage and then you'd have your B act play after the DJ and so every time when you wanted to see your next favorite artist you had to walk through the center where all the sponsor activations are where your concessions where your the beer the this that and you and I like literally felt it. I could like see the pathways where I was being marketed at because I wanted to go from seeing the the C person on the marquee on the card to the B person and then back to the A person every time I'm walking back through and maybe I'm going a different way but I'm seeing new sponsors, new activations and I was like imagine that on like both ends of Broadripple Lav and it's like where's or maybe you put a turn in there but you have to go through the activations cuz typically it's like I feel like you go there and if you get up near the front you're not moving but you know that and you know 75 minutes your next favorite act is going to be scoop back through and it's just like it was awesome and it was one of those moments where I was walking through and I was like wow we're being sold to right now like somebody like really pitched this idea in a boardroom and it really came together and so I want to throw something like that where it's just like you get a bunch of local type sponsors it's brilliant um and we tried to do uh not something not to that scale but with with at Holiday Park can rock their own.
We do do a bunch of activations. What's more important to think about when you think about those activations and you think about the sponsorships is a really fun job to work at 45. Um, it's not my full-time job. Uh, it's not Eric's full-time job. There are many people that do make it their full-time job. And we have a vision for putting on great shows and bringing live music to the community.
We could not do that without sponsors. And that venue in Tortuga can't do it without their sponsors and without activations. It, you know, just putting a stage up and selling tickets that most of that money is going to the artist as it should. 100% of that that that should go to the artist, but there's so many expenses that go into putting these shows on. It's not a really great business model. So having sponsors and we've had some of the same sponsors over the years.
This year at Rock the Runes which is going to be super cool is we've got the Speed Stage uh that is brought to you by Indie Chamber. How cool is that? Speed baby. # Speed City. That's pretty sick. Yeah.
Uh Citizens Energy is the primary sponsor. And then we've got beat that. I got the I got the Citizens. This is actually Citizens and Chamber Water. Like it's their like joint venture. I did not plan that.
Just so everyone knows, are we are we do is that offered at Rock the Runes this year? Uh I don't know. Yeah, we got to talk to uh to Joe and Blaine. Hey guys. Um and then you know for six years in a row some of our stable sponsors where we can just send a quick email or text and say hey can you help us out this year the guys at Hope um Valleo Bowen Innovate Map um Heritage Group has been a great help for us. Zotch is always there.
We've just got a roster of just really good people that believe in the mission of music and the they have built incredible companies and incredible brands that are just willing to help out. Yeah. And I think that is the secret to it. If you can make it feel less like chachki cheap like okay we have sponsors like they're handing out you know whatever like go and hand out stuff. But when you can integrate your partners and integrate your sponsors into like an activation where it just like because you need that to pull off these these grand events to pull off these great things. You need the the sponsorship dollars.
And again, my my experience in Tortuga was one of the ones where I was just like, "Oh man, this is blown away." Like if I ever threw a a festival, it would be like you have to walk through the middle of all of like this village. Let's do it here in Broad. I'm game. Yeah, the like uh we're hosting like the Broadripple revival. Love it.
There it is. Come on. There it is. We just we just And you could even put different genres at each, you know, you could make it a whole vibe. Um it is really interesting. I mean, you guys have been staples of the Broadripple community and then you got to the point where you threw a concert series last year in the park.
How did that come to be? I love Broadripple. I mean, I grew up at 71st and Keystone here. Um Oh, no way. I rode my bike here when I was a kid and yeah. um probably snuck into a Vogue concert when I was you know you know before I was 21 and I just love it and Holiday Park is a very very special pace but we want to continue to grow and we want to bring music to where it's really easy and very convenient um for people to go to and I want them to see spaces that they haven't seen in a different light maybe and the Broadripple the back park at Broadripple is a pretty incredible venue it's on the river um I live in that neighborhood just north Okay.
Loved it. It was great. Was Could you walk? Oh, yeah. I'm two blocks two blocks like to the north. Not quite to Ravenswood.
Yeah. Also, don't look where I live, please. Um Um Yeah, that was special to bring it over to bring I think we did three or four shows over there last year. It was great. Um this year we decided to only host concerts at at at Rock the Ruins at Holiday Park. The foundation and the team over at Holiday Park make it really really easy for us uh to activate and get those spaces going.
So, but we're continuing to look at other opportunities and where else should we be going looking around county? Well, isn't there uh a broad master plan that like DBD whether it does include an amphitheater does not include an amphitheater? There's a lot of people, but like I mean if you've been there and if you could figure out a way to make it multi-purpose and like do shows right there against the river multi-purpose. Yeah, dude. It's a special place and it is a great field right now that is us utilized in really cool ways for a lot of sport activates but I think it's we're getting about 10% of it for me to like run through there on that trail like I hiccup it's awesome like it there's a ton do you know that was like originally like an amusement park and like the world's a huge inground like actually the state's first ingground swimming pool was there yeah and they activated the water like you could take rides and boat rides on the water back then um it was is a significant part of the experience.
You know, the most hidden music venue in this greater area. No, the White River Yacht Club, dude. You'll get the kayaks pulling up and tied out there. I kayaked. Maybe it was Fourth of July weekend like a year or two ago. They've got live music just ripping and I'm like, how do I become a member of the White River Yacht Club?
That place is no yachts. Like, there's definitely not any any pun pontoon yachts. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's crazy when you think about the future of live music in the state of Indiana. How does 45 continue to push the bar forward? What can we expect?
And what do you guys need help from the community on? Like obviously show up, buy tickets, do all that, but like are there ideas that you wish you could execute or you're hoping to work towards in the future? First off, it's such a small community of folks that put on live music that we're all champions and pushing and pulling for each other. I'm on uh the the even the new where the Ignite play is that Fishers Center. Yeah. Even them putting on concerts has been really fun to see.
They've put on some good they put on some good country shows. They put on turnback tubors. I was there opening night. Phenomenal. It was so good. Yeah.
Um, so we are in every smaller community outside of Marian County to see these venues pop up where they're doing live activations and live music shows is really special. Where do we need help and where do we want to see indie continually grow? I I live um here in Maring County. I live inside the loop. I love when Fisers gets great shows in turn tubors, but I want them in Indie. Yeah, I really want that next country act to come to Indie.
I I love Ruof. I love going out there, but I want some of these shows in Indie. So, I look to our ourselves, our team, our partners, the community to compete with that. It is it is competition that we have with other markets. And um I I look at Fisers in an incredible place, but folks in Fisers don't want to come down and rock the ruins for show, just like sometimes I don't want to go up there to Fischers for a show, depending on who it is. So, let's continue to compete and do better than every opportunity.
We've got some incredible spaces that we could activate. Yeah, I was going to say, what are a few of your dream spaces to activate for a concert in Indianapolis? Well, if I had the budget uh of a final four, ALM could be a very, very special place. Um, American Legion Mall. What they did down there was just crazy. Um, but I look at these small parks, small areas that I I love rock and ruins because it's you're just sitting in nature.
Forget about the music for a second and just to go out there and drop a blanket and either have a beer or take your kids and have some snacks and just sit for a couple hours is very therapeutic. But to do it with a national act on stage, that's pretty special. So, I look to those places. Um, and there's a ton of there's a ton of great parks um and places that could be activated. Josh Baker does a great job. Garfield Park is a very special place with an amphitheater that is super cool.
Um, can be could be could be amazing. Yeah. I'm like thinking of other like non-traditional spots you could activate that would be like really cool venues. Yeah. Like the bricks at Bottle Works like something through there. You could do something fun.
Yeah. It's really um what what we would like to do and what every promoter company would like to do is we need a couple more sheds. Meaning um a shed is just a lean that has the ability to turn on a music venue quickly. When we go to rock the ruins at Holiday Park or Broadway Park, we have to bring the stage in. We have to bring power. We have to bring everything in to that facility.
Does that stay all summer? No. So you take it down every weekend? Goes down every show. It's a beast. It's a beast.
And we just don't have Thank you. Um, we just don't have a lot of those venues that you can spin up multi-purpose venues like you were talking about. Like the venue at Broad Park when they when we get around to building that or when the the team gets around to building that, it should accommodate farmers markets. It should accommodate school events. It should accommodate a 5,000 person live music venue, too, that you can spin up. So, the infrastructure is a really big deal.
Yeah. cuz I mean they have that little pavilion there today and it's like you know you'll see sometimes people put little parties and stuff on out there and it's like well how could you build that to be like a hey this can turn into a stage like what they have at uh they call like the shell at like Rascaler like one of those in a corner where you know yeah absolutely that's super cool u I'm like thinking of other other like like I mean I just can just envision like either backs either backs towards like the new statue sculpture in the corner here or backs to the Monan like kind of down by Chipotle. Just like a whole vibe concert set up there would be so sick on Broadripple A. Let's do it. All right. Powers that be brva and love Broadripple and like there's like I think there's three orgs that are all like Broadripple adjacent organizations.
Let's make that happen. We'll just close the street. We can ask for forgiveness later. Yeah. Right. We'll just go I'll just move some cones.
It can't be that big of a deal, right? Um I love it. Well, we've got come to the end of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. So, this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at home isjart.
com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home? First off, family, right? I mean, my family's here. My kids have 20 cousins uh in the city, so we've got big family, my wife and I. Uh that that that's number one.
Um, so but but double click into that. That's for your people. That's your ecosystem, your community. But I love to call it home because it's easy. It's um I say I say easy in it's easy to navigate. I fly fish a lot.
I'm minutes away from getting a river, but I'm also minutes away from uh jumping in the car, maybe heading up to Wrigley Field to catch a Cub game. You're a season ticket holder, right? Since 1998. How many games would you make it to a year? I probably make it to 10 to 15 games a year. That's pretty good.
Yeah, it's pretty going from zero to one, you know, I I don't have too many skills, but for me as an entrepreneur, Indianapolis has made it really, really easy to build stuff. I lived in Chicago, you know, calling a city park and putting a concert venue in um that would last 6 years is is tough, really, really, really hard to do. But to get that done in here in Indianapolis, it wasn't necessarily easy, but it wasn't too difficult either. It just took a lot of great people and some courage and are willing to take a risk. So, Indianapolis has just been um just a it's a really really special place and Indiana is a special place. All driven by the community of people that are willing to lift you up.
Yeah. What was the first concert you ever attended? I like to answer the second concert that I ever attended cuz that was way better. But the first concert I ever attended was the Monkeys and Herman's Hermits at Market Square Arena. Over my head. I was probably eight.
You're too You're too young. Um, second concert was Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA tour at the Hooser Dome. That was a good one. That was pretty fire. Thanks to my dad who took me to Did you I was Did you make it over to Cleveland and he was just there? No.
This past weekend. Uh, still rocking and rolling, man. Like, that's a good question. What was your first concert? My first concert? Oh, dude.
I've never told this story on the pod, but go ahead. First concert, uh, I think it was the summer after my senior year of high school. So, a little I'm from rural northern Indiana. There wasn't any close live music venues. I won concerts to a Kenny Chzn concert at Ruof on the radio and I'm like, "Heck yeah, dude. Let's go."
We drive down and I'm We're in the parking lot. We Who's we? Me and my my hometown friends. So, we end up getting sick. I won concert. So, okay, whole story.
We're going to get the whole story here. So, my buddy and I, uh, he's a woodworker. I was in the shop like we were like, you know, building stuff and we heard like, "Hey, it's like 4:00 or whatever. we're going to be handing out tickets to the Kenny Chesn show this weekend on the radio. And so it would always be like movie trivia. And so I would pick up the phone and call and he would be googling the answer.
So when they answered I'd say, "Uh, is the answer?" It was Blazing Saddles, a movie neither one of us had ever seen, but it was like the main actor's birthday. And that was the answer. And I was like, "Is the answer Blazing Saddles?" And they're like, "You get it right." So then we picked up the phone the next day.
And so one two tickets the first day, one two tickets the next day doing the exact same thing. So now we have four tickets to the show. And we ended up buying we split took those four. Then we split two more tickets. So we had six tickets to like load up an SUV and head down there. Okay.
Electric, right? We're going to the show. It's amazing. Get there. We like, you know, again, we had just graduated high school. Crack a few beers in the parking lot.
I'm like the I'm like, we're from Bourbon, Indiana. Like it does. You can, you know, if you're out in like a space, you're not the cops aren't going to mess with you. Whatever. No. Handcuffed.
No, dude. Brutal. I get first concert ever. I get before we get in the door. We're in the parking lot. I'm like holding two beers.
Like one's not open, one's open. Handcuff. They're like, "You're not 21." I uh No. The whole story, dude. So, you have to call Do your parents have to come pick you up?
No. Luckily, they just issued me a ticket. They issued me a ticket for minor in possession of alcohol. Yeah. And I had to I had to drive back. My parents never actually This will be the first time that they know.
No, dude. I went So, like I I like drove back down here. I had to report for court and this was the best part, too. Uh it the beer of choice of the day was a hams. No. A ham special.
You got arrested drinking hams? Yeah. Not arrested. I just got uh I got a minor in possession of alcohol. I got cited and the the judge looks me in the eyes and says, "That's the most expensive hams you'll ever drink." And I was just like, "Add insult to injury."
First, I still went into the concert. I'd like to say I was still a good time. I was still fine. I still got to go into the concert. Did all your buddies get tickets, too? Everyone.
So, all No, just me. Only me. Everyone else, everyone else like dipped out and like got free. And I'm just sitting there. That's a crazy like I'm like, "Did you have to handcuff me?" Like, I'm not like I accept my fate.
It's okay. We're fine. Uh gives me a ticket. I go inside. We still vibe out. Have a great time.
And uh that was my first ever concert. That is a great story. Dad, mom, like there it is. Right. Sorry. Well, to the kids and my kids that may listen to this, we you should not be drinking right when you graduate high school.
No, do not do that. No, it's a bad idea. It It ends up That's like the summer that it always happens, too. It's like, and in that moment too, when you're 18, 19 years old, it's like, this is the end of the world. Like, I will never get a job. Like, I am I am now unemployable.
I was like, "Oh gosh." Like, I'm going to be sweeping the floors. It was It was brutal. Okay. What's your favorite concert you've ever been to? I saw Bottom of Air uh down uh in the Miro Theater um as part of his self-titled tour.
That was again one of those shows. I love going to a show where I kind of like the artist. I know them. They're not a super fan of them, but if I'm blown away them on on st I mean I was I was absolutely blown away. So that was that was a great show. And then some of my um most favorite concerts are one I've got four little four kids.
They're not little anymore. But like their first concert ever was Lumers. I took all four of them to it and that was really special. Yeah. So you know as I've gotten older the the what's special and what makes a concert great continues to evolve. Who's your dream act for Rock the Ruins?
Radio Hook. Oh, that was easy. Yeah, he was like, he pulled that out easy. That would be that would be special. I'd love to have Turnpike play just because I'm a super Turnpike fan and I think they would crush it there. Um I'd like to have Jason Isabel come play a three night set run there, which I think is maybe doable, but you know, um Radio Ed, if they ever again, that's that's a special one.
Is there someone you guys have booked at a show that just had you starruck? No, not really. I can go and talk to an artist and um you know chitchat with them about anything and I I really am never starruck if they want to talk we'll talk but there's nobody and we've and we've had some incredible artists come through. One of the best that I really just wanted to say hi to and shake his hand was George Clinton. Um and that was pretty that was pretty special where just he's a legend. Yeah.
And I I just feel like the way to keep getting invited into those rooms too is just be normal. Like don't be a fan like be a fan. you can like respect their work, but like don't be weird. I I just don't know. Like I'll be talking to somebody backstage and start chitchatting with them and I'll walk away and someone on the team will be like that was that was a lead singer or that was a guitarist you were just talked to. I'm like I have no idea.
Yeah. I leave it up to Eric. He knows he knows them all. And they probably like that too because it's like like I was talking um over the weekend we had uh an NFL player. they showed up at the tailgate and like uh he plays for the Bears and and I was like, "Oh, like this is probably like kind of hard because people know you." And he's like, "No, I'm not super wellknown here."
But he's like, "In Chicago, like I get mobbed by everyone like and it's like hard to have fun or hang out or like do that." And when people talk to you like a real person, it's probably pretty nice versus like, "Oh my gosh, can I get a picture for like the hundth time or whatever it is?" First world problems right there for sure. Uh, all right. Then we come to the final three questions where we uh get to learn a little bit more about what you love in Indiana. So, this is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about.
What is a hidden gem in Indiana? We have some incredible Latin Hispanic grocery stores throughout the city. Okay. Yeah. Drop into one and go to the butcher counter and get yourself some al pastor osado. like go to the butcher and get some of their pre-marinated meats for tacos and just go home, buy a few pounds of it and make just a grip of tacos for the kids.
Yeah. Where where do you where do you shop? There's one down at about 46 in Shadland that I'll go to quite a bit. That's a it's a big grocery store, but there's a couple. There's one up in um Castleton um up off Allisonville Road that's great. Um and there's a few more that that kind of fun.
Do you pull that out and people are going to be impressed? You know, like you toss some al pastor that's marinated on the grill. Oh, people love you. You buy three pounds, you should have bought six. Yeah, right. Okay, this next opportunity.
This is where we source new guests and learn about other people that are building cool things. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things. Scott Lingal is a very good friend of mine who is quietly building a very successful program that's called High School Hustle. Um, I don't know if you've had him on or talk about I had uh Jackson Nunnery, one of their like the guy who knocked a thousand doors last summer. Oh, the power. The kid.
Yes. He's phenomenal. He's a stud. Stud. A thousand. He knocked on a thousand doors.
It was He came on the podcast, did a whole episode. He's electric. There are so many really cool high school hustle that program generated for those students. I think they almost did a million dollars in sales last year of all their their their companies. Yeah. Revenue.
So cool. Like I think they have a kid they have a kid that's doing almost like 400k annually in like the lawn space. I'm like good for you. There are kids that are they're they're making 100 grand a summer and they can't drive. They're like having their employees pick them up. I I think it's just I think that's high school hustle is something to pay attention to.
The the next is um Lauren James. She's the executive director of the Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation which is a a group uh that I'm super passionate about. They put a fellowship together every single year. That's just she's she is incredible and has just done amazing things there. Yeah. I need to get Lauren on the podcast.
Uh we're friends. We So I was part of the or fellowship program and I feel like there's like a a 10% like 10% of people who finish or fellowship end up going through the MDLF at some point. Um okay, finally. This is what we're we're wrapping up with. Uh this is a bit of a new question. Okay.
So, when you think about all things Indiana, from concerts to companies to picnics to people, what is your favorite Indiana memory? Some of my best memories are bringing people to Indiana that have considered it a flyover state. Yeah. And experiencing Indiana. It doesn't have to be the Indy500. You could bring them here in a random weekend in August and you could take them to Rock the Ruins.
Uh you could take them to the Speedway Museum. You can show them the biggest and brightest things of Indianapolis or Indiana. or you can show them the nooks and crannies and all the hidden gems that talked about on here. But bringing somebody here for the first time to experience because no matter what you do, they're going to fall in love. And to know that they've fallen in love and they're leaving and going back wherever they're going is really really special. Yeah.
I think that would probably be cool with kids, too. like as you help your or kind of steward your kids along the exploration of a city or a state. Yeah. And it's like, you know, whether it go be their first trip to Long's Donuts or their their first trip to the 500 or a concert or whatever it might be, that has to be pretty fun. And then you kind of like, you know, people are saying hi or being very polite and then, you know, one day they grow up and they might leave and go somewhere else and they're like, "Wait a second." Like, yeah, not everywhere is like that.
Yeah. Like that's pretty cool. It's very cool. I love it, man. Uh, Scott, it's been a pleasure to hang out, to learn more about you, your crazy journey through slinging cell phones from the back of your trunk to spending 18 years building a company, selling a company, and now helping really develop and and build this fabric, this culture of live music in the state of Indiana, in the city of Indianapolis. Like you talked about it a little bit, but the impact that the Vogue Theater has, the impact that Rock the Ruins has.
Six seasons of Rock the Ruins is incredible. From an idea that that you guys probably had like, "Okay, we got to do something." And for this to be what it is today, having national touring acts playing in one of the coolest venues in Indiana. The work that you all do, I'm a huge fan from afar over here. Keep it up. If people want to learn more about you, if they want to learn more about 45, if they want to learn more about the shows you guys are putting on, how can they do that?
Yeah, first of all, go to 45's website. You can find out about all the shows we're putting on and all of our venues. Um, if they want to learn more about um 45, us, Eric, me, Andrew, just come pull us aside at the show. Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, keep up the good work. We'll see you out at the ruins and we'll talk soon.
This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
