EMT #60 with Dave Brown - 35 Years in Live Events: Lessons, Systems & Industry Evolution

What keeps someone passionate about live events after 35 years in the industry?

In this episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox, Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito sit down with industry veteran Dave Brown for a candid conversation about career growth, exhibit systems, problem-solving, and the evolution of experiential marketing.

What began as a discussion about modular exhibits quickly turned into a broader conversation about adaptability, creativity, and why live events continue attracting people who thrive on challenge and change.

• Why live events are built for problem-solvers and fast thinkers
• Dave Brown’s unexpected entry into the exhibit industry in 1991
• The importance of curiosity, communication, and asking questions
• How exhibit “systems” evolved from portable displays into sophisticated build materials
• Why the line between modular and custom exhibits has become increasingly blurred
• How brands prioritize flexibility, sustainability, transportation, and outcomes over construction methods
• The growth of outdoor activations and experiential marketing beyond the trade show floor
• Why innovation in live events always starts with solving customer problems

This episode is a thoughtful look at how the live events industry continues evolving while still being driven by the same core principles: creativity, adaptability, relationships, and problem-solving.

Watch or listen to the full episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox with Chris Dunn, Dana Esposito and Dave Brown.

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Transcript

0:00:01

Hey, hello, and welcome. 

0:00:02

This is Chris Dunn. I am with Blue Hive Exhibits, and this is the Event Marketers Toolbox. Thank you so much for joining us. I got a couple of friends with me today, and we are going to have a great conversation. So everybody knows Dana. Dana is part of the Blue Hive team. 

0:00:17

I'm going to kick it over to her, and then she's going to introduce our guest. 

0:00:19

Hey, Dana. 

0:00:20

How are you? 

0:00:20

Hey, Chris. Hey, everybody. So I am the EVP of Strategy at Blue Hive. I've been in the exhibit industry for about 30 years, and I'm very excited to have Dana Dave Brown with us today, someone we've known for a very long time in this small industry, very incestuous. We all know each other. So Dave, why don't you introduce yourself to everyone? 

0:00:41

Sure. I'm Dave Brown. I have landed in this industry in 1991, so I'm coming up in my 35th year. I've done a variety of things within live events, working on the client side, the supply side, exhibit houses, technology, exploration, and currently with a labor company. I've I got into this space by accident and have really loved it. And it's turned into a very, very interesting career. 

0:01:13

So I appreciate you having me on today. 

0:01:17

Excellent. 

0:01:17

You blink and three and a half decades later, you're like, I'm still here. Oh, my God. The lyric says 10 years got behind you. Well, yeah, that turned into 30. And then some. 

0:01:28

Well, we got we got over 100 years of experience at this point. So. We're going to bring some good stuff to the table. Before we jump into the meat and potatoes of our conversation, real quick, our sponsors here that make this happen or make it possible for us to make this happen, Blue Live Exhibits. Dana and I are employed by this wonderful group. It's a 21 -year -old creative group. 

0:01:53

We have locations in Boston. And I'm actually in Vegas right now. So we've got a location out here as well, because this is the mecca of all things live events and trade shows. We're creative, and we employ a white club service that I think is hard to duplicate. So there's a lot of great companies out there, but our differentiator, I believe, is really our people, our creativity, and how well we take care of our clients. 

0:02:18

We have clients that have been with us for literally decades. In addition, we also are sponsored by Fistbump. Fistbump is the organization, the agency that's putting this event on. They help us with the heavy lift that is the podcast and the live show. And they kind of do all the hard stuff. And we just kind of show up and yammer and babble. 

0:02:39

And they capture the content. They help us create thought leadership little snippets and use it as marketing. And it's just a great group. They do the hard stuff. And we never would have got this off the ground if it weren't for Fist Bump. So thank you to the team. 

0:02:52

Thank you for Juana, who is running the board right now. And super excited to welcome Dave. As he has mentioned, he's been in the business a long time. He's somebody that I have been friends with for a long time. And I made a transition at one point in my career. And one of the first people I reached out to was Dave Brown, because I was like, hey, you've done this before. 

0:03:13

You were a system guy, and you went to a custom place. So you brought some, you know, some real insights to the table. And I'm excited to just kind of peel back the onion and talk a little bit about some of those stops. We've got a little bit of an agenda put together with regards to questions, but I think a free form conversation about like, you know, what is 35 years in an industry kind of look like? I feel like that would be somewhat interesting for some folks out there who are either, you know, have spent some time or maybe they're newer, you know, to our industry. 

0:03:45

Yep. I've reflected on this quite a bit as to how did I get here, why am I still here, why did I leave? towards this space and then stay in this space? And a couple of things really stand out to me is live events is a gross generality. If you like to troubleshoot, this is a wonderful space to be in because you're constantly facing large and small problems and problems sometimes that are exacerbated for no reason. Just people get excited and concerned. 

0:04:24

The show's got to go on. And oh, my God, what are we going to do? But if you like that ability to be pressed with what is a perceived problem and you have to make decisions quickly, this is really is just an outstanding place to work. And that's what I you know, I tend to tell everybody that I meet that is with six months or less in this space. If you get to six months, it's kind of like joining the mafia, and this is going to be your ongoing career. You might have a few jobs, but that's it. 

0:04:52

If you want predictability and a consistent day, day over day, this is not a place for you to work. You're not going to be intellectually challenged in a variety of ways. So if you want to be challenged, and I don't know how else to say it, but troubleshoot, and that's always really, really, really gravitated. I've gravitated towards it because you hear people's problems and then maybe you can hear patterns that come from several people and then that becomes the spirit of creativity of how to change products and services. So I recognize that a point, there's three things that I love to do. Product development, product and service development, marketing and sales. 

0:05:37

You listen to people, they tell you what their problems are, you come up with a potential solution to fix it, you think about it from a marketing standpoint of how do you message it, package it, distribute it, and then you go out and sell it. And then you start the process all over again of what did you have right, what did you have wrong, how did you help customers where maybe it was a miss, and then go back and start all over again. And live events, it's a constant that that process is always in play because there's always a drive to do things differently, show differently, and then there's the economics of the world. Of how do you do these things in context of of of the economics that you're faced with? 

0:06:21

So, you know you I think you worded it really eloquently I was gonna say, you know shit goes sideways in our world all the time. And how do you handle it? Do you panic and run and hide in the corner or do you like okay? This sucks that it happened and now we got to figure it out how we're gonna do that. I think I'm glad you identified that, because I find that in myself. I love the fact that every day is different. 

0:06:45

We're challenged. 

0:06:47

I would be so bored if things weren't always different. I couldn't do the same thing every day. My brain would be torturous, actually. So for people out there who live in that kind of a brain, it really does help feed. I have to feed my brain all the time. bad things happen. 

0:07:03

So it's great for that type of a personality or like if you'd like to problem -solve, if you like to communicate, if you like a challenge. Kind of like like an EMT, like a nurse, like the emergency room but minus actually the blood and guts. I mean that's what I was thinking. I was like well I mean I suppose you might need a band -aid now and then. 

0:07:25

I'm not really performing surgery but we can prepare us if we are. 

0:07:31

There's a hole in my arm, and I'm going to need to fix it. Dave, do us a favor. So officially, I think we've titled this episode 60. It's pretty exciting that we're here. We're well on our way to 100 here on the toolbox. And we're super excited to kind of have Dave on. 

0:07:47

Officially, we're going to talk a little bit about kind of systems and evolution of exhibit types and so forth. But Dave's story is so interesting. And I know from talking to a lot of folks who are listeners and viewers of our show, people come to us sometimes with a bunch of years of experience, and they're looking for that little bit one little nugget kind of thing. And quite honestly, I think there's a lot of folks out there. who maybe are newer to our industry and are looking for anything they can find. How do I learn at a faster pace? 

0:08:18

How do I ingest all of this information? And again, here we are, three of us, over 100 years of combined experience. We've seen a lot of things. We've done a lot of stuff. And Dave, you've had a really interesting career. I was kind of hoping that you might be able to walk us through. 

0:08:36

You mentioned you kind of fell into it by accident. you've been a kind of vendor partner, you've been a brand side, you've worked at exhibit houses, you've worked at, you kind of left the industry proper per se during COVID and found this technology play that, that you could sell back into the exhibit world. So walk us through, you know, your stops along the way. I know you've worked for a lot of companies that, that people who have been around for a while will recognize the names. So feel free to kind of, you know, tell a little bit of story about, about each one of those groups and, and, And let's kind of walk through the, you know, the, the Dave Brown experience and see what we can extract from that. 

0:09:16

Yeah. Thanks. Well, the, my first job was absolutely dumb luck, dumb luck, uh, summer of 1991. The plan was to follow the Grateful Dead for the summer and put off life and decisions until after that was over with. So it was, you know, Coleman cooler and grill in hand, uh, selling grilled cheese and seeing the country. My father was a college professor and he gave me advice when I was going off to college of like, slow your roll, slow down, do not try to race through college, take your time, volunteer, write for the paper, road trip, do things. 

0:09:57

This is a perfect time for you to grow up and still get an education. So exiting, you know, my father was like, Yeah, you're going on to grad school, right? Like, no, I'm not going on to grad school. Yeah, my college roommate, Phil Barta, we were, we were, we were gonna, we were gonna follow the dead for the summer. And but he got a great job offer and had to take that job. And suddenly it was Oh, I got to get a job too. 

0:10:25

And there's lots of family pressure. My girlfriend at the time, my wife now was pressure, find a job, find a job. And I interviewed with the company that I understood they did some sort of production work and they built things and they had like a showroom of example exhibits and I really didn't understand it, but they offered me a job. And the job was to sell, to be a sales rep in the morning and work in the warehouse in the afternoon. And that turned out to be a brilliant stroke of luck. because I was able to then sort of see how the sausage was made in the afternoon when I was working in the warehouse. 

0:11:05

So how to package things. Such an education. Yeah, unloading a truck and Advanced Designs was the name of the company and it was very systems oriented that they represented five or six display manufacturers, Nomadic, Apex, ChannelCore, a number, unfortunately, a few that aren't with us anymore. And those lessons that I learned by building, doing, loading really helped me in the morning when I was selling. So when customers would ask, hey, it's just I'm the one who's going to be setting this up, or it's so -and -so from my company needs to go and set this up. 

0:11:46

I could start taking those things into context of, OK, you're not going to want to do this or this. You're going to really need to stay with lightweight. And I sold an exhibit my first week. And it was great because I had no idea what I was doing. And I remember being asked like, okay, well, what are the terms and conditions? I don't know. 

0:12:06

What are you talking about? What are terms and conditions? The exhibits FOB where? FOB somewhere. I don't know. That was not in the training, the weeks and weeks of advanced training that you got from your exhibit company? 

0:12:24

There's really no manual. I was an English major and a journalism minor, so this meant nothing to me. But, you know, hard work and then asking lots of questions. So probably my greatest tip and the greatest thing that I have learned through the course of my career is when in doubt, ask questions. Whenever you find yourself like, I'd like to ask this, ask it, ask it. Because more often than not, people will give you a detailed answer and they will try to help you out and help fill in the blanks. 

0:12:56

So, Let me interrupt for one second if I could because I think my start was somewhat similar into systems and I did work in the warehouse actually for three months before I started selling. I think what amazing lessons and you know, I would imagine you as the young Dave Brown talking to somebody who has got their bullshit sensor really high like fricking salespeople, they're going to try to sell me stuff. But here's this young kid who's like, listen, I'm building this stuff. in the back and in the afternoons and I'm talking to you in the morning. here's the thing, this is really easy to set up and it's going to work great for you. And you were probably, you had no agenda. 

0:13:41

Um, you had no ulterior motive other than be like, I just built one of these things. It's pretty easy. I think it's going to work great for you. And people will probably like, wow, this is refreshing. Maybe this kid doesn't know everything and that's okay because he's got a really honest answer. And that makes you a good salesperson. 

0:13:57

Yeah. And I was so naive. I was not money motivated. I, I, I was paid. but that really wasn't a driver. So I, you know, I recall instances of making recommendations, again, thinking in systems where not recommending the most expensive or the middle expensive recommending might have been the least expensive. 

0:14:18

And people would people that people would recognize like, wait a second, you actually just gave me a real piece of advice. You're not just trying to make money. And that's, that stuck with me. Uh, moving forward, it's thinking about what does your customer need? And keep in mind, they're the one who writes your paycheck. So, giving sound advice is always the right thing to do. 

0:14:44

So, I think it was probably seven or eight months, I held those two roles and it was husband and wife who owned the company. They bought another company in St. Louis and asked me if I would move to St. Louis and take over and run that operation for them. So I'm 22 years old at this point, and I was smart enough to recognize this had nothing to do with me. What it had to do with was I was the most transferable person in the company. I could break a lease, be gone the next day, didn't have to worry about taking kids out of school, selling a house, any of those things. So it was a wonderful opportunity. 

0:15:26

And Bob Schaefer was very gracious in his offer, but I knew what was going on. I was the easy one to move about. And he gave me a couple of pieces of advice about management and dealing with people, and then told me, hey, the company's losing a lot of money, so you've got to sell it into the black. And if you don't, there's no job here for you. So this is what you're going to do. You know, suddenly I'm now managing seven, eight people selling portable displays. 

0:15:58

So we were focused on selling 10 by 10 up into small islands. And I realized how you need to make relationships with custom houses at that point, when you do need unique, one of a kind built items, we were not capable of doing that, but there were needs that customers had. So I started developing the opinions about the ecosystem. or how do I become friends with my competitors in my market? Because there's times I need things built and we can't do it, but they can. So like MASH displays was a great relationship that we stuck up. 

0:16:33

So some of these are, there's trends that have stuck with me ever since. I've always been a believer in you build, build out a big ecosystem. And that includes making friends with your competitors and having understandings of what their capabilities are and getting to know them as humans. So, but Back up, so Exhibit Gallery was the name of this second company. I was now the general manager managing, I don't know, seven or eight people. It was a humbling experience because I realized not only was I the youngest person in the company, there were people there that had children that were older than me. 

0:17:08

And I needed everyone in the company more than they needed me. I was young and willing to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And that's about all I had going for me. you know, and the curiosity, everyone else, they had greater understandings and skill sets of whether it was design, whether it was fabrication, having been on the client side. So I had to get comfortable very quickly speaking to the people that I was managing and acknowledging that I needed them more than they needed me. And what wound up happening is an interesting form of trust was built and I realized that as I would put myself out in front of people and show my weaknesses and where I was curious to learn, the kindness in people comes out and everyone at Exhibit Gallery went out of their way to try to help make me successful. We did turn the company around. 

0:18:05

We did turn it into a successful organization. And it led to probably me joining Optima Graphics where I spent 22 to 23 years. So Optima was focused on exhibit houses and agencies, but it was really primarily focused on exhibit houses. So now this is my first foray into dealing with resellers. and understanding that I could bring a product or solution that you may or may not want for an opportunity and recognizing the concept of we can win but lose. And that took me a bit to wrap my brain around. 

0:18:48

So, you know, Chris, back in the day, I could have come and made a recommendation to you of, oh, you have a client that wants to do X, Y, Z. Here is this portable product or a graphic treatment that this is going to be the right solution. If you then adapted that, presented it to your client, that was a win for me. Now it was not necessarily a financial win, but you took my solution and you promoted it. You might not have gotten the project and therefore you lost and in turn I lost. but it was a great opportunity to recognize again, the dependence of, of how you need others and how you need to listen to what their challenges and problems are. So, I mean, I take a lot of pride in what we did, the team did at my tenure at Optima because we were very, very customer focused. 

0:19:37

and always wanted to know what your problems are, what your challenges are, because if I could get you talking, I could then hear this from 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 30 people and modify the business to be able to work towards your needs better. So within that time period, we explored multiple different types of print technology, got into fabric printing in 2002, 10 foot printing in 2003. So that was very early on in the dye sublimation days. And then we had a very strong focus on the systems market. So we wanted to be able to make the graphic treatments for whatever portable system that was needed in the marketplace. And that led to evolution where we started to design and create some of our own products or collaborate with other manufacturing companies in the industry to create new solutions to where we would find gaps. 

0:20:40

So during that period of time, I probably held a couple of different roles, but the focus always remained the same. How are we bringing new print? products, features, materials to market? How are we bringing different products and services to market? All to how do we benefit our customer? And that all the customer I learned from Jim Hoffman, it was one of my key mentors, one of the founders of Optima. 

0:21:04

Every decision you make truly needs to have your customer involved. And if it doesn't, you might be talking about the wrong stuff, or you're going to make decisions that are too self -centered and aren't going to really benefit your business in the long haul. And then you start to see your business sort of erode. So many, so many lessons there. 

0:21:25

Like you, you know, your advice for sales people, right? If you're selling or really anybody in business is like, you got to have that, that infinite game or super long -term approach, right? The be willing to, to lose, to win kind of thing. Like maybe I got to walk away from a project because I'm not the right fit. Um, or like you said, I'm going to recommend the product that's going to make me the least amount of money, but it's going to, it's going to drive the relationship that I'm building with this client, uh, to a place of trust quicker. Yeah. 

0:21:55

Because the relationship itself, The relationship is ultimately the most important. So I can think of numerous times in my career where I was trained, again, by Jim and Dave Hoffman, and then have done this with others. There's times we have to make recommendations to our customers to go use somebody else's product or service, because that's actually in their best interest. And people do not forget that when you really look out for their best interest versus just selling. While I was at Optima, I had a couple little side trips along the way. I worked for Exhibit Group Giltspur for a two -year period right around the time of 9 -11, which sort of led to my departure from the company. 

0:22:37

But at the time, it was the largest exhibit house, custom exhibit builder in the world. I joined in a VP role in one of the offices in the Phoenix office that also manufactured portable modular displays. So they wanted me to come and try to help build the team, the sales team, and build the process, as well as tap into the things I had done portable modular -wise to run that portion of the business. 9 -11, we don't need to relive, but that sort of modified a number of our career plans in the moment. And being the youngest person in my role in that company, I quickly found like, oh, I better volunteer for everything to stay employed and wound up hitting a point where I did return to Optima. And then another sidebar, I worked for a custom exhibit house and I went from sales and marketing side to operations. 

0:23:33

So it's been the first time I had any sort of operational experience since very, very early in my career and found that I loved it. there's operations is problem solving constantly, whether it's the build materials, you know, design wants to be able to get a certain look or feature. How are you now going to do that in terms of lighting or fit finish? And really, really, really enjoyed that. And Chris, you made mention to in the pandemic era, I was at Optima. Optima had been acquired by that point. 

0:24:10

Taylor Corporation was the parent company that purchased Optima. Taylor actually pulled me out of Optima, made me a corporate employee, and I held a role for about a year and a half, which was, I was a problem solver. I had some fancy title that escapes me at this point, but it was to support the enterprise salespeople in the organization, because Taylor consisted at the time of about 95 operating units. And so the enterprise sales team might come and say, we're working on a project for Bank of America and we need 6 million stickers two days from now. And it was my role to figure out how do we do that within the portfolio? So again, it was from a troubleshooting and problem solving. 

0:24:52

It was wonderful, but I had this epiphany moment of, you know, if I can order an Uber or a Lyft, and I can see the car coming on my phone, why is it so difficult to be able to find trade show assets at live events or specifically at shows? And thought there's got to be a way to GPS chip our assets. Found a company by the name of Tide that that was their business. was a platform to track and monitor the health of assets. And so I joined the company to say, hey, let's look at the world of live events and help people understand where their product is going, how it gets there, what happens if it's damaged, so on and so forth. 

0:25:38

It was a really, really interesting experience. And I think it's still a ripe opportunity within this industry, because some of those core problems, they still exist today. 

0:25:48

You really brought that tool into the industry. I remember when you were there because many companies use that now. 

0:25:56

Yes. We're one of them. I'd like to think I was a bit of a trendsetter. Honestly, I think I was. I feel like you are. You're a trendsetter. 

0:26:04

It was too early for the idea. It's still super sound. But the greatest problem that many companies faced was how did they operationalize the tracking mechanism and option they had? And that hung a lot of companies up to say, we don't know what to do. We're not going to do this. Oh, yeah. 

0:26:21

Hey, I want to I want to just kind of circle back to, you know, some of the things that I'm that I'm pulling out of your your experiences. And just, again, especially for folks who were earlier in their career, the idea of leaving a company to go somewhere else and then being able to come back, that says a lot about how you left. Right. You didn't burn bridges. You didn't frickin drop bombs or, you know, blow the whole frickin thing up. You left, obviously, in in a way that You're like, listen, I need to go try this. 

0:26:51

I need to do something different. But you and I, Jim, in the ownership of Optima, we're good, man. And what happened to you and the fact that you came back or they brought you back, that speaks a lot to just who you are as a person and obviously how you handled what could have been a situation where people are like, well, screw it. I'm never going to see them again. But that's short -term thinking. 

0:27:17

So did you have the thought of like, This is just how I treat people and I'm never going to leave a burn a bridge or where I don't need to. 

0:27:26

Yeah, it's interesting. I haven't thought about this in a long time, but I do remember wanting to do the right thing, not wanting to leave my coworkers in the lurch. Jim Hoffman was extremely disappointed that I was resigning. And but we quickly had a conversation of this is going to be complicated to do a transition. And we each felt that the traditional two week transition cycle was, you know, was poppycock. There's no way we were going to effectively transfer relationship information, projects in hand, da da da da. 

0:28:03

So I think we, I left it to him. I'll stay as long as you want, but I'm leaving. And we reached an agreement that I think I stayed eight weeks and we probably waited two, three, four weeks before we announced this, that I was going to be leaving. And the idea was I wanted everything buttoned up just as much as he did for when I walked out the door. And so he quickly got over his disappointment and it turned to, well, wait a second, you're going to work at this company now. Is there any option or opportunity for us to pick up some business there? 

0:28:39

And I mean, that was a conversation. It happened and we're like, let's see, let me get settled and we'll see where it goes. So what stood out to me and thank you for helping me to remember this, was two weeks just didn't really make sense. It wasn't going to be good for either of us. It takes a week just to kind of like get over the shock and now what do we do? 

0:29:02

And before you know it, the person's out the door and hopefully you've left a good relationship that you can call them. So my advice to people that are transitioning out of a company to another is, think about what happens if this doesn't work out the way you think it's going to. And this is a small niche space and your personal brand has to remain intact. I can't say that these thoughts really went through my mind too much other than I do recall wanting to do the right thing. And I returned to the company Simply, I called Jim and explained this is what's going on in my personal life. My kids are little, I've been gone for six months, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

0:29:47

And just said, do you know anybody that's looking? I just want to start the process. And he was like, hey, if you're willing to come back, we'll hire you in a second. I'm like, okay. So that groundwork of how do I leave and feel comfortable that you guys can run without me and that the company was comfortable as best it could be, made it a very easy discussion later. And this is probably is really good advice, not to necessarily, if you're thinking about ever wanting to have a plan B to return to that company, but to keep those people in your network and maintain a healthy relationship. 

0:30:25

I think we could all think about some individuals that we know in the industry that exited in fast, motion and maybe didn't even give the traditional two weeks. Well, they burn the relationships and our debt to that company they were at. And it's too small of a space to do that. So I think probably just Chris, other thought that comes to mind is, you know, in some of the movements that probably had an impact on me of how do I maintain the relationships going forward such that I could be sitting with both parties, my new employer, my old employer at the same table and everybody can be cordial and we can talk life and we can talk work and, you know, not being the pariah who who left us, because we've all we've all experienced those situations and seeing where people have burned a bridge. And it was negative for them from multiple perspectives. 

0:31:25

Oh, yeah. I'm also wondering now that you've also you've got some ops chops, as it were, like, did you guys in retrospect, thinking back to what you did with Jim in those eight weeks, did you learn some things and maybe operationalize some or systemize some things that maybe there was like, wow, there's a lot of shit in Dave's head. We can't have that. We've got to have a situation that if somebody gets hurt or leaves quickly or you know, or worse or whatever, like we can't lose the whole company. So we need more information and repository. We got to put systems in place, like probably some good things that came from that in addition to just opening up a door at a group in Gillsburg. 

0:32:05

And, you know, I think as an industry, one of the charming things about the space is everybody is willing to run through brick walls. And that's sort of the euphoria, the intoxication of let's get this done. Let's go to the wall. Let's make this happen. But sometimes you don't necessarily stop and think about, you know, are there any procedures there that we could have maybe we should have paid more attention to to prevent people from hurting themselves? You know, when I arrived at at 2020 exhibits, the St. Louis location, 

0:32:39

was where I was working, and realizing just in the shop, I saw some things that just concerned me of, you know, some of the chemicals that we use sitting in open containers or what have you, and quickly pulled members of the shop together to say, that concerns me. You know, like, what happens if that spills? Or what happens if You know, one of our kids is here someday and doesn't realize that that Gatorade bottle of clear liquid inside it is not Gatorade. So let's step back. And what can we do to make sure that we're safe? So we put in some procedures of lock in, tag in, tag out of all of the chemicals. 

0:33:18

Let's look at what are we doing with courting? Are we running electrical lines and airlines from the ceiling rather than the floor to make sure that we had a healthy and safe work environment? So it's probably operationally One of the byproducts of some of the front end of the house work they've done is the back end is how can we be efficient, safe, and everybody goes home with all their fingers and toes today and comes back to do it all over again tomorrow and still maintain that willingness to run through the brick wall and get things done. We learn from unexpected you know, times sometimes. So yeah, the, you know, what I'm doing right now for a living. So I'm working for on location. 

0:34:03

I'm in the labor part of the, the industry. And I got to be honest, when I first started having conversations with my lead, Michael Mulvery, I was not really all that interested. Um, it was like, yeah, the setting up and taking down, uh, okay. Uh, and then had a friend in the industry sort of hold up a mirror to me and said, you're looking about this all wrong. You're not thinking about what they're actually asking you to do. You're not thinking about they're asking you to learn the space and figure out how do. 

0:34:35

you build the sales team differently? Do you merchandise market differently? And then once that sort of clicked in my mind of, I was thinking about some of the literal setting up and taking down. And at my age was like, I don't know if I want to be turning bolts and stuff anymore. You know, my knees are getting. They're not actually asking you to do the labor, Dave. 

0:34:57

Yeah, they weren't. They weren't. And once, thank you Gina Madonna for holding that mirror up, but once it was done, I was like, wait a second, there's a whole lot here that I don't really understand. Yes, I can intellectually explain and I can use it in a sentence, but I've never lived, feel it, and I don't really understand all of the nuances. And understanding the nuances, when you do, those are the best levers to be able to pull and push within your business. Because they can be some of the most meaningful ways that you benefit customers. 

0:35:29

So the past, I guess, nine months has been my best attempt at learning nuances. And shout out to all my coworkers who are really, really good at humoring me. and answering the umpteen thousand questions that I run at them of like, well, why did you do this? And why did you do that? Why would we do this in that scenario? Why did you call the customer 15 minutes after that happened in this scenario? But in this scenario, you waited 30 minutes. 

0:36:01

And there's explanations to all of those things. Oh, I'm really, really enjoying the fact here is overlapping in a similar area. that the core nuances are really quite different than what you're doing in designing and fabricating an exhibit, you know, the upfront brainpower. 

0:36:26

And so your position now as Director of Sales and Marketing, similar title to what you've had in the past, but it's a whole different opportunity. And one of the things that I think is kind of neat and interesting, you and I were having a conversation a couple of weeks ago about your new gig here, and you've landed at this new brand, and you're kind of developing. So On Location Inc, right? Yep. or is an acronym for it. 

0:36:55

And you're kind of, you seized an opportunity, something that they probably never saw or thought about. Like, how do we market this company that's been around for a long time? Hey, we're really good at labor and we're really good at what we do. But then comes this newcomer, somebody who knows the industry and knows the landscape as a whole, but doesn't know this segment. And you show up and you start asking all of these questions, which again, some are good questions, some are dumb. And that's okay. 

0:37:20

because you got to understand. And then you're thinking about everything from a different lens. And I got to imagine that the folks on the inside are like, shit, I never thought about looking at our business like that. Or I never thought about developing a brand persona and changing the way that we think about how we make it more memorable to our potential consumers out there that might choose to use our services. 

0:37:43

Yeah, it's ironic. Michael and I were speaking this morning about a project that we're working on. And we sort of went back to what I'm going to call the negotiation phase, or when we were going through the wooing phase prior to me joining the company. And in writing, I recognized several times it said OLI. And I always love to ask people, what does that acronym stand for? Because just as a personal kind of kick, I find it funny how often people can't tell you what the acronym stands for, but they can perfectly explain what it means. 

0:38:18

So he told me what it was. It was on Location Inc. And once I joined the company, it was like, wait, does everybody in the company do, is that how we refer to the company? And I was like, oh, no, that's just, we're just shortening it in writing. And I thought, well, you know, is that how FedEx and UPS went from Federal Express and United Parcel Service of just sort of the market taking their big name and consolidating it down? 

0:38:46

And to me, it felt like that's something to lean into. And then there's a bunch of ramifications that start to play off of that. A couple of things I won't say now, because we're knee deep in sort of figuring out a couple branding elements. But again, I'll give the team credit, because I was able to start asking, and everybody was open to anything I asked. Like, well, why is it OLI here? And why is it On Location Inc here? 

0:39:17

And, oh, well, because I just shortened it. Okay. Let's do that because I bet you that's what our customers would easily do because it's a bigger mouthful to say right and then if just there's probably two services that I saw we were doing it stood out right away of You know time cards is one. I won't go too deep into it But I asked the question do we do that for all of our customers and the answer was oh, no, we don't No, this is a, you know, unique scenario for these reasons, so on and so forth. I'm like, how's it going? Oh, it's really, really well. 

0:39:56

You know, they like it so on and so forth. I'm like, why don't we just do that for everybody then? And kudos to the ops team. Their response to me was, you know, actually would make our lives easier if we did this for everyone. And it was, that was not an answer I was expecting. You know, I hadn't really worked with the ops leaders and I was expecting a little bit of resistance to change. 

0:40:19

And getting the exact opposite, that was a really reassuring moment of like, all right, I like the people that I'm working with. 

0:40:27

And your ability to probably put yourself in your customer's shoes a little easier than they can, right? Dana, you've been with us for three years. I've been Blue Hive 21 years. I see things. I don't know what I don't know about the outside world because I'm so used to doing things the way that we've, and granted we are changing, you know, how we, how we operate, but by and large, I haven't seen the outside looking in right but you come in new lens. I love the idea of like whatever this time card situation I can picture as if I'm putting myself and my customers like I can better understand why my labor is what it is, you know, and like, here's, I got a bill at the end like well that's a little bit more than I expected. 

0:41:14

But because you've kind of kept track along the way, we're able to say, you know, freight arrived a little bit late. There was a couldn't we couldn't get a fork truck. You know, there's things outside of our control. We had guys on the clock we couldn't get to set up or electrical was wrong. So we had to wait to put the floor down, you know, and you document these things and you're able to kind of tell your client not a story of like bullshit. But like, here's the reality of how things went. 

0:41:39

We estimate 30 hours, we're at 42. We're gonna try to make it up on the backside. But I just wanted to let you know that these things happen along the way. Mr. And Mrs. Customer and we, we do the best we can to manage the situation, but anything's out of our control. So but here's a clear, transparent picture of what's transpired on the show floor during the setup. In my mind, picturing as a customer, I would appreciate that. 

0:42:02

Yeah, yeah, but I've noticed so so Dave has moved around within our industry, but at different types of companies like with different products, different services, and I've known him since Optima. So was that the first one? No, the first one was the other one. So your second one. And even though he's changed different companies and learned things along the way, every company he's then worked at, like once he goes there, he's like, Oh, I'm going to go to Optima. 

0:42:30

And he's there for a year or two, and he sees what they're doing, see how they want things done, see what the process is, because he's also from the outside, right? It's easier for him to see the things that maybe make things more complicated. He could easier connect the dots and find an efficiency. Like he's saying, well, I understand that we do it this way, but why don't we do it this way? Does it cause another problem or it actually be better in the long run? My brain does that too. 

0:42:59

I've been at four different companies. but they've all been an exhibit house, like where we're designing and building exhibits. So my brain lives there too, where I want to know, I want to become like really good at the way they want things done, but then my brain's also going, you know, I've been exposed to this other way of doing things. It doesn't mean we need to do it that way, but is there a nugget in there that we can improve ourselves? Like, cause I'm always looking to grow the company that I'm working at. grow the company, grow the clients, like a client advocate brain, right? 

0:43:32

I'm an employee advocate brain, like, is this something that someone that works here needs to be exposed to so they can grow their own, you know, talent knowledge base, their skill set? Is there something an employee does that they're really good at that they don't realize they're really good at that we need to, you know, take advantage for both them and us? Or is it something they need to be shim up a little bit that's just going to propel them forward? So I think a lot of times in our industry, we're really able to help, you know, take a company and move it forward. And at the end of the day, every time we do that is protecting the people that work at those companies, their future, and what they're to do for our clients too. 

0:44:12

We're able to help move our clients forward, but humans don't always like change, right? part of it is because like, well, we've always done it this way. Why do it different? Or just the fact that they're like, I'm already busy enough. I don't need to do something different. So like Dave, and you've probably been exposed to this too, is like when you recognize we could or should do something a little different. 

0:44:31

You do it in small bites. You do it at a pace that that company can absorb because every company is different. You know, the energy of the company and how they process things and people, all humans are different. So, but I do find it fun to find those little things because I do realize, like, I think up close, really detailed, and then like 10 ,000 feet, I recognize if we do A and B, we're going to get to C. And if we can get to C, we can do it. So, I do love seeing not just the companies grow, but the people grow. because then we're able to help clients even more. 

0:45:07

And it's, it's pretty cool. Like it's a, it's a selfish indulgence that I like because I love seeing what clients have access to now. And I love seeing employees feeling like, you know, Dan, we did that. Like I did that. 

0:45:25

It's interesting. And some of the design and build side, you might see it completed in the shop, but you never actually see it out in the wild, you know, I think one of the things I always try to pay attention to as I'm talking to customers is the story that they're telling me is what they do, what is proactive that they go after, and what is reactive. And I'll use an example of doing work outdoors. So you very well could have in a portfolio of, here's a project that we did, at the Oshkosh experimental air show and really ride, you know, we do all this outdoor work, but sometimes you had to ask deeper questions. And then what you would find out is, oh yeah, we did that because so -and -so asked us if we could, and we did. 

0:46:22

Versus the company that you're in is recognizing you know, there's a lot more opportunity to do things that are not necessarily inside, i . e. a trade show venue, a convention center, but there is opportunity to go to these other types of venues and which is outdoors. So there's been times where I've really used that as a very distinct filter with people of talk to me about the event work that you do. Do you do things outdoors? And the people that pick up on that are like, oh, yeah, you know, this is what we do in terms of and they'll go to event work or activation. 

0:47:02

And we'll go down that pathway. Others that start saying, well, there was this one time it's OK, you did this reactively and then try to be polite to say, have you thought about trying to be more proactive about that? Because there's definitely what I'll say is a I'll call it a trend, but it's probably has been sitting there for ages and ages, is brands that are trying to get the word out, sell their products, activate messaging, so on and so forth, there's a degree of, they could care less as to where exactly they're communicating their message. You know, their face -to -face message, it could be in a parking lot, in a park, at a university field, you know, anywhere. So of honing in on Who are the people that have expanded? In my opinion, my personal experience is those that have sort of embraced outdoors and said, hey, we'll run with scissors there. 

0:47:58

It's been a really expansive community. for their businesses because it opens up marketing work, face -to -face work that is not just on the trade show floor. 

0:48:11

It was my conversation last week with Bethany Murphy, who's a 25 -year amazing event manager. you know, marketer, visionary on on the brand side. And she was talking about, like, not every event is created equal. There's there events manage to to impact different parts of the funnel, right? There's top of funnel stuff like a trade show where you just people are coming in and you're and you're putting people into the pipeline. And then there's bottom of the funnel type of events, which are curated roundtable dinner with 15 of your key customer or key prospects sitting with customers. 

0:48:46

So the idea of thinking about Every every type of event out there has a different job. It's not all it's not all equal right so and the same type of thing I think is consistent with what you're saying is like don't just think about. Do you do events? Yeah, we do trade shows. Well, you're right. Like brands are thinking about all sorts of other activities, uh, outdoor activations and, and, um, owned events, festival sponsorships, things of that nature. 

0:49:12

And they all do different things in that brand journey that ultimately the end of the day, the ROI is let's, you know, get a deal signed kind of thing. 

0:49:20

Yep. 

0:49:21

Yep. Um, Dave, we've got about 10 minutes left. Um, you, actually skipped over one of your stops, which I, which I want to circle back on. And I think it's perfect. It's a, it's perfect. It's a perfect segue, because we entered the conversation, honestly, wanting to talk a little bit more about exhibit systems and so forth. 

0:49:38

You kind of grew up in that world. I spent 10 something years, you know, in the system world before I jumped to, to over to full custom here at Blue Hive. But you were, you were a key member at Bee Matrix for a period of time in between time and on location. Bee Matrix, as many folks who are going to listen to this know, was the originator really of kind of the metal frame whole system, right? European measurements, everything's a meter wide, two and a half meters tall. 

0:50:06

I started working with Larhoven back in the days when I lived in Colorado in the mid 90s, and then you know, Robert was able to bring Bmatrix, you know, from Europe and into the marketplace. And that system was always a system I was very comfortable with. 

0:50:21

Yeah. 

0:50:22

The blend of of of what custom and modular mean these days is very gray and muddy. But talk to us a little bit about your your stint, I guess, at Bmatrix, maybe what your what your system your early system brain thought about landing at a place like Bmatrix, how they think of themselves. 

0:50:44

I don't know. 

0:50:44

I think it's actually a great, I'm glad you skipped over that because I think it's a great way to kind of tie our conversation together and put a nice end cap on it. 

0:50:52

Yep. Yep. So if I go back to the early nineties, mid nineties, the systems world sort of It was created and there were a number of manufacturers and you had these very loyal dealership networks. And I think about the auto industry of somebody might have associated themselves with I'm GM or I'm Audi, and they, there was this loyalty. and sort of little ecosystem that was built within that. Over time, some of those distribution networks started to erode, but some of the really key and important foundations were already sort of impregnated to a lot of us that have been in the industry for quite a time. 

0:51:36

Portables were really looking to solve needs. In my opinion, a lot of it was for smaller businesses, smaller spaces, they were newer in their exhibit journey that wanted to take some credible backdrop. be able to go assemble and put it up themselves. So whether it was, you know, you think of like the radius pole and panel system, that was very straightforward. It was holes that panels notched into and you put fabric on it and you could Velcro graphics. But it was that start of a little bit of the do -it -yourselfer And, you know, if you got into a system and you've got to say to a 20 by 20 or a 30 by 30, you started to hit a space of like, this is not meant, you know, the easy transportation and up and down, you know, the expression snap was a system that I was involved with at Optima. 

0:52:27

And it was really geared around what is the one thing that everybody wants to do as soon as an event ends? Leave. You want to get the hell out. And the more complicated the structure is, the bigger the challenge it is. So it was, here's this thing, geodesic frame that can go, the graphics were already attached. We just satisfied a massive need of people. 

0:52:49

Well, in my opinion, systems have started, have really evolved and D -matrix and some of their competitors have really been embraced, not so much as a system, but as a build material. You know, if the skeleton used to be made out of wood or extruded aluminum, it was box frame panels, which, you know, that was the standard build mode of custom houses for ages and ages and ages. B -Matrix is an example that came in to say you can get that exact same functionality with a much longer use schedule. and a much more sustainable approach to the overall market. And honestly, nobody cares what's behind the graphics. So that skeleton, we don't really care what it looks like, we care does it function. 

0:53:43

So systems now, I look as much more as, as build materials. And there really is, there's no bounds and there's nothing containing the size of the space or the size of the project that systems or, or portable components are used in. It's long gone are the days of this is just a tabletop or a 10 by 10 display. I think if you look at some of the. portable modular awards or XSYS awards. 

0:54:13

It's pretty fascinating to look at just looking at the sheer aesthetics of what does something look for the outside. You can't tell what's underneath. You can't really tell how it's built. And I think it's a compliment to the innovation and design side of the system manufacturers of putting themselves in the position of a customer of How can we make the build as simple and easy as possible and still give the designers the functionality to create from scratch? I can think back into the early 2000s of some of the auto exhibit houses that manufactured auto exhibits. There was extreme resistance, extreme resistance to anything that was deemed a system because that buyer did not wanna see any seams. 

0:55:01

They wanted a custom fabricated structure and the supply side played right into that. That's what we're going to give you. Well, those days are gone. Now it's, no, we need the flexibility, the transport, the aesthetic look, the functionality of electrical and AV, so on and so forth to get us this unique end result and sort of how you build it. I always think there's a challenge in some regards Many companies, such as yourself, will provide rental inventories and can create a unique exhibit that will never be replicated and never duplicated again. And it's been done all out of components. 

0:55:40

That creates a discussion to say with your customers, are you talking about a CapEx expenditure? Or are you talking about a non -CapEx expenditure? Oh, non -CapEx. Great. And immediately that told Dana, the designer, okay, here is a pathway that we're going down. So if I bring it back to systems, I think it's interesting how the use and discussion is far past the functionality of what this piece does or how this connector works. 

0:56:14

It's sort of the end result. 

0:56:17

We're able to be much more strategic and solve so many more of their problems beyond, I need a demo in a tower. It's a much more intellectual, intelligent conversation, problem -solving. 

0:56:29

And frankly, our clients don't give a shit. They don't care. You're going to build a B -matrix at Alievision or Nexus? No. none of that brand stuff means anything to them. It means something to us. 

0:56:41

I know I can get better support from one company, or maybe they've got a product, or a use case, or a piece that will kind of fix the problem that we're trying to fix. 

0:56:52

Because we're a custom house, we're able to do both. We have clients who do all rental, they'll do all custom, or they'll do a hybrid. So there's really nothing that we can't do. because we can take advantage of all the great engineering that over the past, you know, years that have happened with systems. 

0:57:09

And I would I'd like to think and I'm sure you'll agree with this is, you know, your carpenters, your fabricators are able to spend their time on more challenging build fabrications than I'm just making a rectangle out of out of plywood. 

0:57:30

Absolutely, because we have very talented and you know, in this industry, if you are a carpenter in this industry, you tend to be a very talented individual. So making rectangles all day is boring, as I'll get out to them. So they love that the rectangle panels can be systems, and they get to really dig in and do the interesting things that feed their brains, or the really custom stuff that we can come up with. 

0:57:56

Yep. And they become great at figuring out how to integrate these parts and pieces as well, which I think goes back to give people meaningful work that challenges them, and you'll keep them engaged for a long, long time. So the idea of building with multiple systems or these parts and pieces, now we've engaged their brains. And well, how do you take a B -matrix panel and marry it to this custom piece in a light box where it's going to intersect in a way? Can you figure that out? 

0:58:26

Yeah, I look forward to the day because I think fabric in a lot of ways has become a build material as well. You know, it's typically is printed. So it gets the aesthetic attention, but it's really is a build material. It's cladding in a lot of ways. I look forward to the day of as LEDs. become more pliable, flexible, and think about taking fabric and you combine where you had fabric that was really LED fabric. 

0:58:56

And now you're designing with that build material. And that becomes your visual material at the same time. I'm convinced it's going to happen. It's happened maybe a little bit slower than I thought it was going to. 

0:59:10

And some of my ad friends in the industry are probably not like, ah, we have so many lead skin tiles, don't say things like that. 

0:59:17

But I do think that's where evolution is coming. So systems are going to just continue to evolve. And I do find it very interesting. It is much is becoming much, much, much, much harder. look at something and say, that was constructed using a system or predominantly using a system. There were times earlier in our careers where you could take one glance and like, yep, I know what that is. 

0:59:42

It's a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is what it's good for. I kind of like that it exists, but I really like that the possibilities for the design community are just much greater because it puts out a better product. for the brand, and that just helps the overall industry of wanting to continue to exhibit and write our paychecks. Right, exactly. 

1:00:08

Hey, Chris, we've hit time. 

1:00:14

Yes. Hopefully that doesn't mean we're about to blow up. No, I think it meant that the rum service was coming into my room. 

1:00:22

Ah, we're good. We can keep this in or we can edit it out, I don't know. Yeah. Yes, we have hit time and really appreciate it. Yeah. What I'd like to know, Dave is, you know, as we kind of wrap this up, I think this has been a great conversation. 

1:00:38

There's a lot of nuggets in here, certainly for, again, people from all kind of walks of the event in trade show life, whether they're, you know, new to the industry or been around for quite a while. But is there anything that you want to kind of circle back, put a pin in and really kind of, you know, Kind of point to and say if you do nothing else and you ignore all the other stuff like make sure boom that right there That's the deal. 

1:01:01

It probably there's two things that come to mind and they're they're intertwined one. I I I stated Don't hesitate to ask questions. Let your curiosity Come out no matter, you know If you feel like you're talking to a client and you're starting to ask personal questions, what have you don't worry? don't worry engage engage because people do like to talk about themselves, but curious, be curious, be curious, and ask. It will always help you and help you be intellectually stimulated. 

1:01:35

And then I think probably the other thing that comes to mind is We've made various references in your whole, you know, this podcast is predicated in a way on the community that, you know, and the people that, you know, maybe through one, two, three, four degrees of separation is put yourself out there, go introduce yourself to people at different events that you're at and build out your network. And please look to do it in a meaningful fashion, not just superficial. I find it enjoyable to learn things about people and then share, but as you learn and you build your network, you just become way much, much, much more powerful to ultimately help your clients. And it's tough. Not a lot of people really, you know, I'm I consider myself an extrovert, but go into a room, a crowded room where there's a lot of people that I don't know. I don't necessarily find it comfortable to put myself out there and go meet people for the first time. 

1:02:40

But I know it's always the right thing to do from a personal standpoint and a professional standpoint. 

1:02:46

Oh, right. And when you enter into those situations, not not thinking like, what? what can I gain from this as opposed to showing up and how can I how can I add to this? How can I help? How can I give? And I think when you when you enter with that type of a mentality, really, your long term gain will always be more positive, because when you show up as a giver, people just kind of want to give back. 

1:03:11

It's a natural, it's a natural kind of equation. 

1:03:14

As I've gotten older, one of my favorite things to do at at events is to find opportunities to connect people. Sometimes you just get a feeling of like, huh, that one and that one, they do similar things. Like, man, they kind of think alike. I don't know if they know each other. Let's introduce and maybe pose a topic and then walk away. More often than not, it always turns out very positively. 

1:03:38

It will wind up helping the general ecosystem. 

1:03:43

Awesome. Well, Dave, this has been a great conversation. Really appreciate you coming on. I know we entered with, you know, some talking points that we didn't get to, but I feel like this was just a great, you know, kind of ability to look back at a Not to say that you're done, right? Like a life well lived, but you've done along the way and you had a lot to share. And I'm happy that we were able to kind of have those conversations and see right there where you can reach Dave on LinkedIn and reach out to him. 

1:04:11

He's just a good, a good dude, always willing to kind of help people and mentor and take people under his wing and knowledge to the situation. So thank you for being being that person. 

1:04:23

Yeah, thank you. Thank you both for having me. This is this is enjoyable. And I liked it. Chris, this started from a freeform conversation, I don't know, a month and a half ago. And I'm I'm I'm I'm glad it came to fruition. 

1:04:37

You know, we didn't get a chance to talk about things learned from following the dead, although I know we touched on it. And one other thing that I was talking to a few people here at the show about is you you swam the English channel like you've done some shit that's frickin cool. 

1:04:51

And yeah, this is episode two. 

1:04:52

We got a circle back in those things. 

1:04:55

Right. I can go on a whole roll of things. I learned from the dead and there's a lot. And most of it's all very positive. 

1:05:05

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. Well, Dave, thanks for joining us. Dana, thanks as always for being with us. Juana, great job on the board. 

1:05:11

Appreciate it. And look forward to seeing you. it up with everybody out there. And happy eventing. Enjoy the rest of your week. Yes, happy eventing. 

1:05:20

Cheers, everybody. Bye -bye. Thank you. Cheers.