00:00:06
Mitch Low, welcome to my podcast. Oh, mate, thanks for having me. It's great
00:00:10
to have you here. It's on a Sunday morning as well, so um you're a concert
00:00:14
promoter, so I'm guessing Saturday night, this is what I imagine Saturday night looked for you. Some some
00:00:18
ketamine, some MD, maybe two hours sleep, and then you're here. Spot on. 10 years ago. 10. Yeah. Um, unfortunat last
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night for me was uh was was even harder than that. It was uh I I had my 9month old baby waking up a few times
00:00:33
throughout the night, but um I'm in the middle of 75 hard, so I'm not doing
00:00:36
anything unusual partywise at the moment. So, all right. You did 75 Hard last year as well. Yeah. Why are you
00:00:41
doing it again? I decided once a year is is what I will be doing from now on. Um,
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I'm all or nothing sort of guy. So, it's, you know, summer was wild and I
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just looked forward to getting back to Yeah. Bit of health and fitness. So, every year. Are you pissing all the
00:00:58
time? Yeah. That's funny. That's I always tell people that's the hardest part is trying
00:01:03
to drink three and a half lers of water every day. It's so much water. Yes. So,
00:01:07
75 hard 75day challenge. Um, you drink heaps of water, read 10 pages of some sort of self-help book, two workouts a
00:01:15
day. One of them has to be outside. Yeah. Um what else is there? Have you done it? No. Okay. You know a lot about
00:01:20
it. Yeah. It's um that's it. I swapped the reading for learning Turkish cuz my
00:01:24
wife's Turkish and I want my baby to to be bilingual. So um so I'm learning
00:01:28
Turkish every day. And yeah, it's basically the water, the workout, learning something. Um there's phase
00:01:34
two, which I should be doing, is it's like cold shower, manifestation, all visualization, all that. But I'm sort of
00:01:40
I'm just repeating phase one every year. I think that's enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:44
I know it's a lot. And um if if you And you need some sort of diet as well. And
00:01:49
also no alcohol or anything. Yeah. Sorry. Alcohol. And if you if you if you slip up at any stage, you're supposed to
00:01:55
reset and go back to day zero. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So I'm And I'm want to
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make sure that I that I nail it. So I'm Yeah, I'm I'm I'm all in, but I've only
00:02:05
got 18 days left. Oh, you're crushing it. Who's Who's counting? Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:09
Wow. Um Okay. So, who is Mitch Low and what is your company Aiology? Uh I am primarily yeah m in the music
00:02:18
promotions game. So I'd um call myself a promoter but trying to be many other
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things I guess these days. Uh over the last 15 years it's sort of progressed
00:02:25
into lots of companies and offshoots of of music. Um and more recently a restaurant and um done a tech company
00:02:34
and I've done uh yeah just it's mate I'm just I'm I'm all over the show. So, I
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guess I'm just an entrepreneur that's um trying to make the most out of life at
00:02:44
at this stage and um yeah, recently become a family man, had a baby and just enjoying the the new challenges, you
00:02:51
know, that we go through every day. Yeah, you fit a lot in E. You get a lot done. Like, if I asked you to like run
00:02:56
through the 30 companies you've got, would you be able to name them? No, no.
00:03:01
Oh, no. No, not like it's so many. I'm not I'm not that good. But no, it's um yeah, I do I do
00:03:08
fit a lot in. Um I still trying to figure out figure out how, but it's just it's just all go all go every day. And
00:03:16
um I I try to do things I enjoy, you know? So it's not um yeah, every day fitting a lot in but but loving what I
00:03:23
do. So if you're passionate about it, it's um yeah, I know it's cliche, but it
00:03:27
it doesn't really feel like work. I'm just always on. Yeah. Well, yeah. There's that saying, if you if you enjoy
00:03:32
what you do, you never work a day in your life. Exactly. Um, yeah, I'm excited to like unpack the the Mitchell
00:03:38
story and sort of deconstruct your success and try and get a peek inside that brain. Um, but I think it's worth
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mentioning you're um in a group of people that have like messaged me about coming on the podcast. Um, which I find
00:03:50
super inspiring. When I when I first started the podcast and that happened um I found it really weird. I thought, oh,
00:03:56
you know, that's uh, you know, it was quite confrontational. The more I think
00:04:00
about it, I realize it's that's a me problem and that's a tall poppy thing.
00:04:03
Yeah. So now when someone messages me like you did about coming on, I um I find it super inspiring. I appreciate
00:04:09
that. Yeah. Why did you aren't you busy enough? Yeah. No. No. It's interesting
00:04:12
that that you say that because the the flip side of that is is someone like myself feeling like, am I worthy of
00:04:18
being on a podcast? You know, so you've always got this imposter syndrome where
00:04:21
like, have I achieved enough to have a conversation with someone like you that's done so much? So, it's sort of
00:04:26
it's it's ironic that people sit with these feelings, but the reality is like
00:04:30
we all want to connect, you know, and we've all got something valuable to say.
00:04:33
So, I guess I got I only got to a point in the last year and you can see if you go back on my socials, I was I was never
00:04:39
faced a camera. Like people knew aiology. People didn't know that I owned it. Um and I just made this decision
00:04:44
that I I'm comfortable enough or confident enough now to be a brand to be a part of my brand. Um, and you know
00:04:52
that comes with its its pros and cons as as you would know being, you know, a person that is sort of more face to
00:04:57
camera. But it's I just made the decision that I want to link with good people when the worst case scenario, you
00:05:03
know, worst case scenario is I just look like an idiot on on a podcast. But best
00:05:06
case scenario is I inspire some other people to take the chances that I took, you know, dropping out of school and and
00:05:13
starting companies and saying yes to too many things and just give another side of it, you know, like and and just show
00:05:20
that if you fail enough times, you can succeed. So hopefully um that's the direction it takes. Well, full full
00:05:26
respect. Full respect. And another thing that's worth mentioning um you've done
00:05:29
this uh Michaela Blight uh double gold medalist, you know, New Zealand rugby sevens legend. She did this as well. you
00:05:36
you sent me like a detailed list of like bullet points about potential things that we could we could cover. Um which
00:05:42
is awesome as well. It's great. Um I you we've got a mutual friend uh Mitch
00:05:48
James. Um I I messaged him yesterday to say you were coming on the podcast and he sent me back like a two-minute long
00:05:53
voice note. Um he he he calls you goat low. He does. Yeah. The greatest of all time. Um I won't play you the whole
00:06:00
voice note, but the um I'll paraphrase it. Uh he doesn't see limitations or
00:06:04
boundaries and he loves to do the impossible. Oh, that's a lot nicer than I was expecting. No, no, he did he did
00:06:11
say something about you guys um you running a muck in Sydney and taking doors off a hotel room or something.
00:06:16
Look, look, there's there's there's a few stories there. Uh but no, look, he's
00:06:21
what he's one of my best mates. We've got a his last ever show coming up.
00:06:24
There's a lot there's a long history there which is which is incredible because um cuz we partnered up and you
00:06:29
know built his career together and we just became absolute best mates inseparable and he went off on another
00:06:34
journey and um and now we've come back together eight years later to do his last ever show and see him off in the
00:06:41
music game. So, it's it's actually like super emotional ending. Um, and but he's
00:06:46
just still throughout all of the drama and everything we've been through, he's
00:06:50
still just my best mate. And so, he's um I call him Goat James. And that's yeah,
00:06:55
goat logo goat James. And we just we just took on the world. We were just young out of control, you know,
00:07:02
20-year-old, well, mid20. Well, he's younger than me, but you know, we were just um we were just out there trying to
00:07:06
achieve the impossible. And he he always had the same vision that I did. And was it was it you that linked him up
00:07:13
with Ed Sheeran to be the opening act for Ed Sheeran on his New Zealand shows? Yeah, it was like it was a series of
00:07:19
events, but um but effectively we we partnered with someone in Australia that then did the Ed Sheeran shows and that
00:07:25
that sort of got him that that supporting slot. um mind-blowing meeting Ed Sheeran and going on that tour that
00:07:31
you know that for me was like a really pivotal like wow like what we're doing
00:07:36
is actually you know it's before that you know doing doing lots of club shows
00:07:39
and bringing international artists but being in the presence of Ed who's borderline number one in the world for
00:07:45
for so long that was um that was a huge achievement for us. Yeah. Was it just one of those moments where you realize
00:07:51
okay there's levels to the game and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and that doesn't
00:07:54
mean that, you know, I'm not at that level. I'm not touring those acts that
00:07:58
are selling out three stadiums, but um just to even be a part of it was is more than enough for me. And you know, that's
00:08:05
a memory that I I could retire on that memory. Well, you you I mean, you've you're no slouch yourself. Like you've
00:08:10
brought some impressive people to New Zealand. And we we'll get into that later. But um first of all, it's a real
00:08:15
simple question and a yes or no answer. Did you smoke weed with Snoop? No, sadly
00:08:20
not. That was the goal cuz I reckon even if you're if you're a non-smoker, you
00:08:26
you wouldn't pass up that opportunity. It's iconic. No, no, it was honestly it
00:08:30
was just tough to get any time with Snoop. Like we we just met him. He said thanks and um but trust me that was that
00:08:37
was on the bucket list. Um so I live just around the corner from the the studio we're in at the moment.
00:08:42
I've I've got an apartment that overlooks Victoria Park. There was a big
00:08:46
concert that you put on there at the beginning of um 2025, a guy called Fischer, and I'm showing my age here. I
00:08:51
I I had no idea. I had no idea who he was. Um but I could see the week leading up to the concert um the the temporary
00:08:58
effect fences because it's not a traditional concert venue. The temporary fences being erected around the outside
00:09:02
like a over a kilometer worth of fences and then portaloos coming in, temporary bars, marquees, everything. Then the
00:09:09
show was on and then 3 hours later it was all it was all done. And it looked like a tremendous amount of work for a
00:09:14
like a very very short quick fix event. Yeah. Um so yeah, what are the inner workings of of a show like that? So you
00:09:21
start with the artist. Start with the artist and you know taking Fisher as an example. We were on his team's case
00:09:28
since 2018. So that's almost you know six plus years of until we actually delivered it. So, uh, yeah, start with
00:09:36
the artist, eventually get the deal done, get the terms right, and then, uh, for us it was about taking an artist
00:09:41
that he had been here, but never since he had blown up. So, it was taking this iconic artist and putting him into like
00:09:46
an iconic venue. Uh, and we were the first to ever get Victoria Park and get the consent to do a a actual festival
00:09:53
there, which was the first one was called Plane Sailing, but basically we've got the consent to do it one show
00:09:58
there a year. And um so I think when you marry things up like when you take an act like Fischer and you put them into a
00:10:04
venue that's that iconic in in the sense that it's like the Central Park of
00:10:09
Oakland and nothing much happens there music-wise. Um it just was a perfect recipe. The right dates, beautiful
00:10:16
weather, like everything just Yeah, that was a that was a magic show that one. Oh, it was incredible. Um I watched it
00:10:22
from my my balcony and I could see people coming and then leaving and it was all very orderly. Um, and it was
00:10:27
wonderful, but it just seemed like such a insane amount of work for an event that only went for a few hours. So, so
00:10:33
you lock in Fisher, so he he gets a flat fee regardless of how many tickets get sold. How does that work? No, a lot of
00:10:39
um Yeah. So, not many people understand how this works. But on on a smaller scale artist, you've got just what's
00:10:43
called a guarantee. So, it's just a flat fee. Whatever happens happens. Uh, when
00:10:46
you get to the bigger artist, there's either a bonus structure or it's called
00:10:50
a versus deal, which could be 80 20 80 20 80% to the artist, 20% to promoter. Um, as the artist gets progressively
00:10:57
bigger, they can start demanding things like 9010s and when you get to Edge Sharon's level, I'm sure you could do
00:11:02
982s if you wanted to. So, because it's guaranteed sellout. So, um, the structures are they're forever changing.
00:11:08
Um, but effectively, yeah, for that one, it was it was structured based on the sales and our goal was to do 20,000
00:11:15
tickets and and we smashed that. So, um, yeah, very like just just a win a win for everyone involved, you know, which
00:11:22
is not always the case when it comes to to promoting. How do you know if you're
00:11:26
going to make make money on it? Like, do do you is is it like sort of gut and just like cross your fingers and hope?
00:11:32
Like, is it afterwards that you tally all the invoices and stuff and you work out if you've made a profit or a loss or
00:11:37
Yeah, I mean, very detailed forecasting and 15 years of doing it, you get a little a little better, I guess. But um
00:11:42
I've always I've always said it's calculated gambling and and anyone that
00:11:46
says it's not. Any promoter that thinks they've got a bulletproof solution would
00:11:50
be lying because it's um you can look at the data all you want. So we take the
00:11:54
stats, you know, we know how many listeners the artist has in a city. We know how many Tik Tok fans or followers
00:11:58
or Instagram follow. We know all the stats, but sometimes you get artists that have all the stats that flop. You
00:12:03
know, no one no one wants to see them live. I've seen that happen tons of times. And um so there is a level of
00:12:09
this gut feeling where we just knew that Fisher hasn't been here in that long.
00:12:14
We're going to put him in that venue on that day and this is going to work. Like
00:12:16
it's it's and we were just all in. Um and a show like that is even even for a
00:12:21
large company, a show like that can be make or break. So, there is there's still an element of gambling there, you
00:12:26
know, because it's uh we're just I mean, you do the math on, you know, of if
00:12:31
you're 3,000 tickets short at 200 bucks a ticket versus 5,000 tickets over, like
00:12:36
the variables are just crazy. Um, but honestly, with Fisher, we were just all in. Um, we we just had a really good
00:12:43
feeling about it. The we knew the break even that the only thing you know from the start is we need 18,000 tickets,
00:12:49
let's try get 23 or we need 10, let's try get 15. That's what you know.
00:12:54
God, it's not for the faint, eh? No. No. But but are you at a point now where um
00:12:58
your company aiology is like so big that you you know one one failed show is not
00:13:03
going to you know bankrupt you or [ __ ] the company? Yeah. Yeah. I mean to to a certain degree it because it has
00:13:08
before. I've lost everything five or six times. So it's not um but no we're at a
00:13:14
point now where we wouldn't take a risk of a scale that would completely liquidate the business, you know, which
00:13:19
you've seen with some festivals. So, we're always um and I don't operate the
00:13:24
same way I used to because I've got a family now and you know, so I'm a little
00:13:28
I'm still crazy. Um I'm risk prone, but at the same time, I've just got to be a
00:13:33
little smarter now. So, we Yeah, we make we make smarter decisions, I guess. Yeah. Let's talk about that for a
00:13:39
second. Yeah. So, you're you're a dad now. You got a daughter called Ka who's
00:13:43
eight months, nine months. Nine months. Yeah. What was um what was that birth experience like? What was that? Was it
00:13:48
Were you there? Was it a profound? Oh, I was I was I was in there. Yeah, it was um it was everything. I mean, not it was
00:13:56
completely different to the movies, right? So, I'm glad we did like we we did antiatal and we like it's not like,
00:14:02
"Oh, your water's broken." And you rush out there, but um it was more like, you
00:14:06
know, as I was making dinner, water breaks, call the midwife. Oh, okay. We should probably get you in in the next
00:14:11
24 hours. Oh, just casual as you know, like because they've done it so many times. Um but you know that yeah our our
00:14:18
journey was was relatively standard in the sense that we um you know water broke went to the hospital and then it
00:14:24
was 14 hours I think of of labor which is you know long but not I've heard I've
00:14:31
heard of much uh wilder stories and yeah and then eventually you go through just
00:14:37
the most intense the most intense 14 hours of my life. Um, and then this man, this baby comes out and it's just the
00:14:44
most crazy feel. That's just the one thing I miss. Like if anyone's when I
00:14:49
hear of like my friends having kids and stuff like it's almost you forget all
00:14:54
the wild chaos around it and it's just that that feeling of when your child is
00:14:59
born is like yeah it was it was mind-blowing. Um, which I think's the only reason why we'd Yeah, we're already
00:15:07
talking about having another one, which is like it's kind of I I don't know how
00:15:11
that h it's like you're wired to forget what we you know, you forget what you
00:15:14
went through. The trauma. The trauma. It's It's incredible that you can forget
00:15:18
that, but has it has it changed you in any way? Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's um I mean obviously it's
00:15:26
changed the day-to-day life you know and in the sense of um how you know my movements and um and and trying to be
00:15:33
there for my daughter and I want to be a really present dad you know which when you're running companies and you're
00:15:38
trying to stay fit and you're trying to fit all these things in your day but
00:15:41
also be present um that's that's an ongoing challenge and something that I
00:15:45
enjoy the challenge of it um but also it's changed it's it's just another
00:15:49
reason to live you sort of forget you forget what you know I can't remember what I was doing before. It's going like
00:15:56
where where did this time come from? And and now when I'm building things and if
00:16:00
I if I'm developing a property or I'm getting us like a you know trying to get
00:16:03
us a holiday home or something, it's all with Kaire in mind. It's it's crazy
00:16:08
because she's going to get all the benefits of everything that we're setting up. It's just another re it's
00:16:12
just motivated me to do um to do more which on one hand I thought we were going to have this baby and I was going
00:16:19
to pull back on everything. I actually I actually intended on selling out of as much stuff as I could and just keeping
00:16:25
sort of like a few things on the side and it was man had this baby and I was like I got like a a new wind you know I
00:16:32
felt like a fresh entrepreneur again like ready to take on take on more so yeah I mean life changing is 100%. I
00:16:40
mean, what about you? And you you're married, eh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the um what's the meat kit? How
00:16:44
long have you guys been together? We got married December 202. So, yeah, two and
00:16:50
a half years of marriage. Been together for closer to six. Uh so, still yeah, still relatively fresh. How did you
00:16:58
meet? Um we originally met because Ael had a ticketing business. Um, and that would
00:17:08
have been, you know, 10 years ago, we just ran into each other as like she was pitching for my ticketing. Um, and then
00:17:14
never saw each other again. Um, and both of us had, you know, both of us were in
00:17:19
sort of long-term relationships. She was in America. I was, uh, I'd been living
00:17:24
in Sydney, but I was back in NZ at this point. And I just decided, yeah, we I just decided to reach out one day. She
00:17:32
had won, you know, she was winning all these awards, and I was like, who is this? I I because we followed each
00:17:37
other's journey, right? Because it's crazy. You meet once and then you're
00:17:39
linked on Instagram for life. LinkedIn. Um LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. Um and I just remember watching Aelle just so you know
00:17:46
just those god, oh man, New Zealander of the year, this this and this and like um
00:17:52
I was just so impressed by her. I mean obviously she's insanely beautiful, but
00:17:56
it was I was so impressed with like what she was achieving and and uh I don't
00:18:00
know. One day I just I was like, "Mom, do you think this is someone?" I
00:18:03
remember pulling her up on Instagram and saying to my mom, "Do you think this is
00:18:06
someone I should talk to?" And and she's like, "You know, absolutely." And then I
00:18:10
set up a fake business meeting. Um, so because that's why I started this tech
00:18:14
company. So I I I reached out to Ael knowing that she had done ticketing. I said, "Hey, can I can we have a coffee
00:18:19
when you're next in New Zealand?" And um and chat about what it's like to start a
00:18:24
tech company. You know, the craziest part about that meeting is, um, she laughs about this all the time, is like
00:18:30
I I got the vibe that she knew that it was a bit of like, oh, they was flirting, you know, but she turned up
00:18:36
and I ordered a glass of red wine and she and I don't even drink wine and she
00:18:40
ordered a coffee and then it was just a semi-awward me sitting there with this red wine trying to turn it into a date.
00:18:47
Um, not a Yeah. Not a vibe at all. But some somehow I managed to pull it back. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Yeah.
00:18:54
Cuz I wondered how the dynamic of that relationship worked like cuz you're a
00:18:57
you know an all gas no breaks sort of guy but it sounds like she's sort of cut
00:19:02
from the same cloth as well. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly that was the part of that conversation with mom was man we both
00:19:08
live such busy lives. Do you reckon this could ever could ever work? And it was more a case of just give it a chance,
00:19:12
you know, and and obviously I didn't know much about Aelle outside of her success in her businesses and whatnot,
00:19:20
but um from the moment we linked, you know, she's just such a warm, kind person, you know? So, it was straight
00:19:27
away, I mean, what more could you want? I was like, this is this is going to work regardless of how busy each other
00:19:32
are. And um and it did. it it was that was never still now we've both got our
00:19:40
individual projects but also we've got a lot that we work on together there's so
00:19:44
much overlap um and there's so much throughout our day where we're doing
00:19:48
things together you know as opposed to separately um so I think that's I don't
00:19:52
know if that's part of the solution but it's we're very I'm helping her with her
00:19:56
companies she's always giving me advice on mine that's that's that's how a
00:20:00
partnership you know should be how how long was it before you laughed about the red wine incident
00:20:05
Oh, it's so embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Um Oh, within within the second or
00:20:11
third date because we we hit it on the So, that happened and how's this for backing it up with an even worse
00:20:18
situation. Well, could could have been catastrophic, but it worked out on the So, then we linked up again like a fake
00:20:24
second business meeting where we're sort of, you know, bit more bit more uh flirting going on. Um, but the third the
00:20:30
third time we linked up, I said, "Hey, I'm going to take you to a bushf, which
00:20:33
is this party that I ran out in 24-hour parties out in the bush. You get you get
00:20:37
texts on the day, the location, and you just and so as comes from this corporate
00:20:42
background, and 3 days later, I've got her in like fishnet stockings out in this out in the middle of the W cut
00:20:49
like, and I just I just knew it was make or break. Either she's going to absolutely love this. It's going to be
00:20:54
the best experience of her life because she's never done this. she's never
00:20:57
partied. She's never been out with a promoter, you know, or um or she's going
00:21:02
to absolutely hate it and just think that my friends are nuts because you're
00:21:05
all just dressed up partying for 24 hours. Um and yeah, just man, thank God that it was it was the uh the first
00:21:11
option there. So, she just ended up having the best night of her life and from that point, literally inseparable.
00:21:17
I introduced her as my wife that night and then um I think a week later was lockdown. She came down to Toadonger and
00:21:24
was stuck. Wow. You think that wasn't tactical but it was it stuck with me. Yeah. It's funny. Lockdown a lot of
00:21:31
people seem to have that experience where and it's like it's going to make
00:21:34
or break the relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, you mentioned your mom before too. That sounds like a nice
00:21:39
relationship with your with your mom like her being your your wing woman. Yeah. In a way. Yeah. So let's go let's
00:21:45
go back and talk about your upbringing. So yeah. Are you from Toadonga? No, no, no. I'm actually South African. So um
00:21:51
moved from my parents, you know, the classic, they just wanted a better life for us. They saw what was happening in
00:21:56
South Africa at the time. Um so I was 9 years old. Moved to Oakland. Um yeah, I'd say my upbringing would, you know,
00:22:04
very much Howick East Oakland upbringing, you know. Um and yeah, from from there went over the ditch and lived
00:22:13
in Sydney for five years. And um cut a long story short, eventually um ended up back in in the mount when I when I left
00:22:20
Sydney cuz Bayreams ended up taking off in New Zealand and I had to move back. So um yeah, I'm I'm a South African Kiwi
00:22:28
Australian, right? And um must have been good values in your household because I've heard you say like your your
00:22:34
favorite word so like your north star is integrity. Yeah. Is that is that from your
00:22:39
upbringing? Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I'm always um you know, super proud of my family and
00:22:46
and super proud of, you know, where I'm from and uh yeah, I mean, mom's always
00:22:51
instilled that in us, you know, but uh yeah, I I don't know. I don't know why
00:22:55
that was such a big thing for me. Like, I just I just remember get getting into the music industry and there was, you
00:23:01
know, a few wild things that happened at the start in terms of just realizing how
00:23:06
people operate in this game. you know, it's very it's very, you know, cutthroat
00:23:11
and it's very like walk on top of others, you know, or push them down to I don't know. I I just remember going, if
00:23:17
I'm going to do this and I'm going to get into the music game, I I I want to
00:23:21
operate with integrity and um and see see if I can do it another way, you know, and sort of just bring something
00:23:27
different to the to the keeping in mind that was like the underground like night
00:23:32
clubbing scene that I was in back then. It wasn't these sort of like the big pop
00:23:35
concerts, but um yeah, it was just I just remember that being a huge thing for me, you know, I guess. Yeah, all
00:23:43
family influence, friends influence. Like I guess I was surrounded by good people and um yeah, still still got the
00:23:49
same, you know, very proudly I still have the same friend group from when I was 12 now. So, it's kind of like it's
00:23:54
just such a good such a good group of us and yeah, it speaks volumes and um integrity is a great word, but you know,
00:24:00
when the stakes get higher and you know, money becomes involved like I'd imagine
00:24:04
it's hard to stick to that sometimes. Oh, yeah. 100%. But that's especially
00:24:08
when everyone when not everyone around you, but other people around you aren't
00:24:11
playing, you know, the same playbook. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I think
00:24:14
it's um that's why I think integrity is such an incredible term or word or or
00:24:18
goal because it's it's extremely hard to always to always operate with 100%
00:24:23
integrity, right? We're all going to made tons of mistakes. But I think just
00:24:27
having it like you said is that north star. Like what a cool what a cool goal, you know, like what's it's like a word
00:24:33
that for me just encompasses everything that that as humans we we should strive to be. It's it doesn't mean, you know, I
00:24:40
wouldn't say that I've got 100% integrity. I say that I try I try my best, but the fact that it, you know, it
00:24:46
just reminds me to work with honesty and and often in this game, you're faced
00:24:50
you're faced with a a choice a lot of the time. And sometimes there's an easy
00:24:53
path and I can make the money and I can, you know, and sometimes there's a harder
00:24:57
path and my go-to always now will be the harder path. Um, you know, even it's a
00:25:04
longer road, but you know, the reward's greater at the end. Yeah. And you can
00:25:07
sleep better at night. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so you told your parents when you were 14 that you wanted to work for yourself.
00:25:12
What did you think that was going to be? Did you have an idea? No, I didn't have
00:25:17
an idea of what it would be. I mean, I was, you know, buying $2 BB guns and selling them for $7 on TradeMe, and I
00:25:24
was just, you know, little I get that a little bit from my from my dad. Um, and so always sort of just hustling. Um, so
00:25:31
I didn't know I didn't know what it would be. I just knew that I would somehow find a business. And the funny
00:25:37
thing is it was it was never about anything. I guess there's an element of like always wanting to prove people
00:25:44
wrong and I was always the naughty kid in school and you know there's you want
00:25:47
to even you even want to prove your family wrong you know because I come from quite a um you know I take a lot of
00:25:53
risk. Well my mom's a from banking like she's she's the opposite of that. So
00:25:57
like it's all I'm going to take these risks and I'm going to prove everyone
00:26:00
wrong. Um but yeah, I guess um for me it wasn't about what I did. It was I just
00:26:07
remember looking at people that had their own businesses that had the freedom to travel and all I ever wanted
00:26:13
was to travel. Like we from a family of four boys and we didn't we didn't get to
00:26:18
go on overseas holidays and stuff when we were younger and um not not hard done by but like I just remember looking at
00:26:24
travel as the that was like the goal. if I could travel, if I could just I don't
00:26:30
didn't want to have $100 million. I just wanted enough money where I could travel
00:26:34
freely and all I did thankfully found promoting because all I did for 10 years was literally just I was on planes on $7
00:26:43
standby flights because I was on my you know I couldn't afford travel but I found ways where I was I was going to
00:26:49
festivals overseas and I you know my my friend who worked for the airline was giving me these standby travel flights.
00:26:55
you'd sit there and wait, see if you're going to get on the flight. Um, and that
00:26:58
was my life for 10 years. I got to see the world. I got to experience other festivals and I got to bring some of
00:27:03
those ideas back to NZ. And I've heard you say in other podcasts that you've um
00:27:07
you've got ADHD or ADHD traits. Have Have you been diagnosed or? Uh, no. We um we did some pre-marriage counseling.
00:27:15
Um, and yeah, this it's funny because this was only this only four maybe four
00:27:20
years ago. Um, and we did this like intensive three-day, you know, we just we we just wanted to do this course and
00:27:27
just be um the best, you know, husband and wife that we could be. So, it was a very intensive, you know, 8 hours a day
00:27:34
for 3 days vibe. And um I was just I was just rambling on about something and this, you know, and the um she's a fully
00:27:42
registered trained, you know, psychologist or counselor or whatever it was, but she um yeah, she's like, "Can I
00:27:48
she's like, "Can I stop you there?" you know, and and because I was trying to
00:27:50
work out why my brain's just so all over the place and why there's so many tabs
00:27:55
open all the time and and she was a my parents thought I had ADHD when I was a kid, etc., etc. She was the first person
00:28:02
that said, "Hey, like I just want you to know like you've got ADHD and these are
00:28:06
these are the traits and um and I went from there to that was the first thing that happened." And then around that
00:28:12
same time, I was in this uh group chat with the people that I work with. Um so aiology runs 150 shows a year and
00:28:20
there's five of us that work on it. Okay. And um they somehow the topic popped up and and I was like, man, how
00:28:29
are we like, you know, well done, guys. How are we achieving all this stuff? And
00:28:32
they're like, oh, you know, that we've all got ADHD, right? So, so four of
00:28:35
them, four of them out of the five, me being the fifth. Um they're like, yeah,
00:28:40
and I mean 100% like you should take this test. And I ended up just I I remember just spent I spent one night
00:28:44
just doing all these tests and scoring like 19 out of 21, you know, on and just being like, whoa. So if I the word had
00:28:51
been thrown around, but I'd never genuinely cared enough to actually look at it and and then when I yes did all
00:28:59
those tests, accepted that it was a possibility, you know. Um I did actually sign up for the it takes like a year
00:29:07
plus to get diagnosed in New Zealand and I you know I sort of put my name on the
00:29:10
list and everything but um yeah I sort of that that was the moment where I was like okay well now what if I look at
00:29:16
some of the ways to to manage this and I started like implementing some of these
00:29:21
you know strategies to like manage my life and it's been 10 times better ever
00:29:26
since. No, no medication or anything, but just but just, you know, small structural ways of like um when you've
00:29:33
got a lot on, just being able to, you know, just sort of understand it all a little bit better and slow down. Yeah, I
00:29:41
think there's um I mean, the the testing's never been better. So, there's
00:29:44
a better understanding about it, but um this is how it was when I was at school and probably the same for you. Like, it
00:29:48
was generally like just disruptive kids in class, usually boys. That's they were
00:29:53
the ADHD kids, the random kids. Um but yeah there's never been a greater understanding but you um yeah you were
00:29:59
no good at school e like there was one term that you like wagged at 80 classes. Yeah. Were you just what did did it just
00:30:06
that sort of style of learning just not gel with you or Yeah. Yeah. It it was I mean I'm still not huge on the schooling
00:30:14
system. Right. So um is it not set up for people like you? No. No. Well, it's
00:30:18
it's I mean it's factually not because you you see the results of um a lot of I
00:30:24
mean if you just take my friend circle for example, most of the ones that are running really successful businesses and
00:30:30
you know that are super entrepreneurial and super more sort of um extroverted um not that that plays a
00:30:38
part but like they yeah those are all those are all my mates that dropped out when they were 15 you know from school
00:30:44
or the ones that were always in trouble always um yeah who who just didn't fit
00:30:48
into the system. And I guess I was just one of those that was every every school
00:30:52
report is, you know, Mitch has so much potential, but if he just, you know, he's so distracted or he's like um Yeah.
00:31:01
And I like I was relatively naughty, but not not intentionally, you know. It was
00:31:07
kind of like I don't even know. I just What's sort of naughty? I was like, no,
00:31:12
exact No, exactly that. like instead of going to like a science class, I'm out
00:31:16
drifting my car during during lunchtime. Like it's just that's just who we were.
00:31:21
That that's that's just Yeah. It's um Yeah. You want to do what's going to
00:31:24
spin your wheels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No pun intended. So Yeah. And and look, I still
00:31:30
it was one of those weird ones where I still had like awesome relationships with the teachers and um you know, I'm
00:31:35
I'm almost certain they knew that I was signing my my parents signatures every
00:31:39
time. And um uh you know it was yeah it was funny when my mom found about you knowund and something letters that I'd
00:31:46
forged. Um but um no it was yeah look I was just loud and distracted but I I knew I think I knew what I wanted and
00:31:53
that that's the part that really got me at school. It's like I I knew I don't
00:31:57
need to be learning this to achieve what I want to achieve, you know, and I think
00:32:02
there's still elements of truth to that now. Yeah. I I don't know if the New
00:32:06
Zealand I mean I'm sure there there are some really super inspiring teachers out
00:32:09
there that that are doing a great job, but I think for the most part the New Zealand school system is not set up for
00:32:13
dreamers and big thinkers. I had sir do you know Sir Peter Beck, you know, Rocket Lab? Yeah. Yeah. I had him on the
00:32:19
podcast earlier this year and he he told me about a parent teacher interview when
00:32:22
he was like 14 or 15 and um the the teacher said to his parents, "Oh, Peter
00:32:27
thinks he's going to send rockets into space. He's very smart, but we need to
00:32:29
manage his expectations. Maybe maybe he could get a job at the aluminium smelter." Um and he and he said his his
00:32:35
parents they were just silent on the way home and then his dad was like well [ __ ]
00:32:38
them. Oh which is really cool. I get goosebumps just telling the story. I love it. I love it. Billionaire like
00:32:44
he's um yeah we've got this amazing the space company. It's incredible. Oh it is
00:32:48
amazing. And there's so many stories like that and that's that's why I guess
00:32:51
it's um yeah that's why I truly still believe that that there's an issue in
00:32:57
today's society with with the whole schooling system as well. You know it's
00:33:00
not just when I was at school but I mean I think it's been there forever. So you had a couple of jobs. You worked
00:33:05
in um the butchery at Wworth and Amazon Surf and Skate. Yeah. Skate and then um then a design course at Polytech which
00:33:13
you loved. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I mean that the example of um I guess which backs up what I'm saying is you know struggled at
00:33:21
school wagging every you know wagging periods trying to get out of there. Um and then uh I I mean I I got just enough
00:33:28
qualification to get early acceptance into this design school. So instead of doing seventh form, I was straight into
00:33:34
um um nold design college. And so from going from being that kid, you know, this naughty distracted kid that wags
00:33:41
every period to then I got 100% attendance at um my design school the entire year, never missed a day. In
00:33:47
fact, I turned up two hours early every day. Um mainly because I needed to get a
00:33:50
ride with my mom into town. But um but it was just the stark contrast of you take me out of that setting and put me
00:33:57
somewhere where I just wanted to be a designer, you know? I just I was just obsessed with graphic design is a
00:34:03
creative outlet, you know. So, it was um I guess it was it was almost in a way proving to myself that I could be what I
00:34:11
was telling this, you know, sort of saying that I that I could do this and and went off and did it. So, half the
00:34:18
time I'm probably just trying to prove to myself that I can do things. But I
00:34:21
think that's an ADHD thing as well, isn't it? You can hyperfixate on something that you're really into. Yeah.
00:34:26
Yeah. Yeah. And and then you um so you're 18 and you launched a clothing line called how do you say it? How do
00:34:31
you ASAP? ASAP. A ye sap. ASAP. Um and is this sort of the beginning of Mitch the promoter? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is.
00:34:39
So um yeah, so the you know the butchery job was just in school when I was 15 to,
00:34:44
you know, earn 30 bucks a week and put gas in my car. And then um and then that second job at Amazon was sort of you
00:34:52
know straight after studying design going into Amazon and um and then creating I mean getting obsessed with
00:35:01
clothes whilst I'm there creating a clothing label um which is ASAP and uh realizing that it actually takes money
00:35:09
to run a business and just sort of struggling like just the the real real hustle of having no money but trying to
00:35:17
um run a you know print some shirts and then try facilitate getting them into like I was friends with the guys at
00:35:24
Bordertown and they sort of at least I had a bit of an outlet there trying to sell online trying to do it all myself
00:35:30
um and effectively realizing that it's very hard to do business that was my like shock entrance into the business
00:35:36
world um and but the one amazing thing that came from that like many people who accidentally fall into business or
00:35:44
certain companies um was that I threw a launch party for the brand because that's all I could think of that doesn't
00:35:52
cost me money. I just got my friends to sell $10 tickets to their mates. So, um so I knew the one thing I did have was a
00:35:59
network of good friends. And so, you know, if I ask you to sell I just said if you sell 10 tickets to your mate at
00:36:05
10 bucks each, you get a free ticket. And um you know that's if if I had 20 mates doing that you know and sort of
00:36:13
create this little snowball effect and you know and when you're young it's
00:36:16
quite easy to get people to a party that becomes very hard later on but uh so yeah cut a long story short this launch
00:36:23
party man imagine me as a kid that's just had no money losing money you know
00:36:28
18 losing money on clothing and I throw this launch party and there's 600 people
00:36:32
there on K Road and I and it was just just a bender really. Like I just, you know, 5:00 a.m. just stumbling out of
00:36:40
there and um maybe the party must have cost me two grand cuz I ended up with like four grand profit and I was like
00:36:48
this is the dream. Like I just had the best night of my life and I woke up with four grand. I don't even think I'd ever
00:36:53
had four grand before. Um I had a $600 car. So um that was that was the beginning of being a promoter. Was that
00:37:00
like a like an aha moment? 100%. 100%. That was I mean it was again it's probably far-fetched to think that you
00:37:09
can make money on this party you know in my head what if I can do that next weekend if I can do that the weekend
00:37:14
after. So yeah but I knew that it was what I wanted to do. Um if you think about what I do and you know the way
00:37:22
that my brain works it's you I I need to run a business where it's consistently
00:37:27
like project based and just leading on to the next thing. So, you know, we talked about Fisher. It's it's it's book
00:37:34
the act, put all this work into it, deliver it, and then it's done. It's
00:37:38
gone. You never like then all it's just a memory. It's just it's just, you know,
00:37:40
but then you're on to the next thing. And so, you're constantly chasing the
00:37:43
dragon. You're chasing this high of like what's the next thing? And and it works
00:37:47
perfectly for me. Like, it's just I think I was just designed to be a music promoter because it's just I love the
00:37:54
chase. Yeah. Because there's no there's no blueprint for that. E there's no
00:37:58
course, you know. There's no I mean I suppose you could get a job at Live Nation or like Frontier Touring
00:38:05
or something and learn the ropes, but it's not something that anyone sort of
00:38:08
thinks to do as a career path, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting because
00:38:12
that's um one of the most common messages I get and I and I I try to reply to any, you know, any young person
00:38:21
at school that's going to go get out there and they're like, "What's the
00:38:23
process? What what what should I do? Should I go to uni?" And you know, it's
00:38:28
like the last thing I say is go study event management at UD. You know, right now, get together a group of friends and
00:38:35
throw a party at some pub down the road the same way that I did and get your mates to sell $10 tickets and sell it
00:38:41
out and continue to try to do that. And you will learn along the way what works and what didn't. You know, like that I
00:38:49
had a hundred shows that didn't work. Um, but eventually you click on to what
00:38:53
does. Yeah. You're getting new reps in, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so was this
00:38:57
the birth of aiology? It was. It was, but not in the not in the sense that you know it now, but it
00:39:03
was u it was the birth of an under 18 sort of event business. So I was doing um Splurge music festival and uh and
00:39:10
that's because it it operated on the system of getting reps to sell tickets.
00:39:14
Um so so I I realized there was a real opportunity there which is getting school kids to sell tickets to school
00:39:20
kids and eventually you know it's 15 16 17 year olds. um very intense intense
00:39:27
way to get into it because you require a lot of event management and and security
00:39:31
and and in terms of when you're looking at patrons that are under 18, you know,
00:39:35
but but it was yeah, so yeah, single swim really and um and and just built built that up until it was operating
00:39:43
around New Zealand in a few spots, you know. So there was at one point there was Splurge Levven, which is where
00:39:48
you're from, isn't it? Yeah, I was born in there. There we go. Really? I I once
00:39:52
that's how that's how wide I was trying to So, there was Yeah. Toonga, Oakland,
00:39:55
Wellington, Christ Church. We sort of got around. Um, but that was a great way for me to it was a great entry into the
00:40:02
scene because if you can break that market and then eventually, you know, I'm I'm 18, 19, 20. I wanted to start
00:40:07
doing proper club nights. That was the birth of aiology then when we started doing those club nights. You've been
00:40:13
doing this a long time now, eh? It's like half your life you've been doing
00:40:15
this. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. Um, and your biggest success story, I'd say,
00:40:19
is probably Bay Dreams. That's what you're best known for. Would you say?
00:40:23
Would you say? Would that be fair to say? I think it ted on me. Uh, look, it's it it was I would say it's the
00:40:30
biggest success story in terms of the way that it unfolded. It's not um, you
00:40:35
know, it's I don't know. It's a it's an interesting relationship I have with
00:40:38
Bayreams now because of just everything that unfolded and the you know, the this
00:40:43
the breakup and everything that happened with it. But the it is something I'll
00:40:47
always look back on. And the reason I'll never remove this tattoo is because it
00:40:51
it was a pivotal moment where I stepped up from just doing like some smaller headline shows to like hey let's have a
00:40:57
crack at a full festival. So I yeah absolutely adore like just the I mean for a brand in two years to become the
00:41:05
biggest festival in New Zealand was was unheard of. I think it still holds the still holds the record for the
00:41:10
trajectory and and stuff that in the way that it happened. Um because it's it's
00:41:14
iconic like the reputation it's you know it's up there with like rhythm and vines
00:41:17
or the big day outs or you know insert name here like it's it's one of those
00:41:21
sort of things but you you weren't there for the first one were you in India?
00:41:24
Yeah. So you put you're putting on a festival and you're not even there. How
00:41:27
does that work? Oh look that cuz that was a that man that that happened so fast. So that was in I think it was like
00:41:35
August or September that we decided we're going to give Bayreams a crack. By
00:41:41
October it was launched. It only had two months until the 2nd of January when it
00:41:45
was, you know, we only had two months to promote it or just over and I had already locked in my cousin's wedding in
00:41:50
India at that point. So part of the condition was like keen as to do this. I'll give it my all. It was to city
00:41:57
council and stuff wanting us to put Bayreams together because of remember the chaos that it used to be near on the
00:42:03
street and the beach and so anyway, so I was like I'll I'll give this my all.
00:42:07
I'll market you know the [ __ ] out of it. But um unfortunately I'm going to be in
00:42:11
India. So, uh, so yeah, it was the crazy, man. Such a fond memory is like I'm riding a camel trying to get 3G
00:42:19
service holding my phone up because the gates had opened and all I wanted was for my event manager to just say like
00:42:26
it's all good cuz you just anxiety, you're not there, right? So, you don't
00:42:30
know what's happening. It's pouring down with rain. Um, and I remember just
00:42:34
calling just please tell me it's please tell me it's all good. Yeah. So, I was I
00:42:38
was Camelback. So where are things at with Bay Dreams now? Is it still your baby? Yeah. Yeah. So what were you
00:42:45
talking about before the split and stuff? Uh so yeah, we'll see how deep we can get into this but um but yeah,
00:42:52
effectively four years ago um I split with my partner that I started it with. Um so there was some you know heavy
00:42:58
allegations and and basically we just I just went the complete opposite direction and that ended up being this a
00:43:06
monster monster fallout. took, you know, a year of a year of accountants and lawyers and just absolute just not
00:43:13
something I would ever want anyone to go through. Um, but uh, yeah, it's we we
00:43:18
ended Was it was it just a case of, you know, you think you know someone and then, you know, you're on this integrity
00:43:24
path and they're potentially not? Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. Um and it's yeah
00:43:30
you sort of question everything after that but it was it we were we were definitely on different paths two
00:43:36
different people um and there were elements that actually that's what created you know success in some ways.
00:43:43
Um but it but it was definitely a case of of thinking yeah or or being manipulated
00:43:49
or or or yeah it's really hard to it's hard to know exactly um what happened but I
00:43:57
reflect on that a lot but it's um but we're definitely two completely different people. Um and then I started
00:44:02
you know people start to question you when you're attached to someone like that. So the the the fallout the fallout
00:44:08
was um was pretty big but we yeah I basically just put did everything I could to work through it in the best way
00:44:17
that I could you know so um we got out the other end of that and that's why it's this weird you know we ended up
00:44:24
with the brand um and I got a new partner and you know so things were positive in that regard but also it's
00:44:30
always it's always sort of tainted now. Yeah tainted is the right word. tainted
00:44:35
um but also uh you know it also left us quite motivated to bring it back um and it's I
00:44:42
mean it's just had a year off so that's why it's sort of strange timing because
00:44:45
we did Fisher replaced Bay Dreams the year just gone so um we're yeah we're
00:44:50
looking at it for this upcoming summer but there's another massive act that's
00:44:54
going to replace the sort of Fisher model and I guess I guess we're in a position now where we're almost
00:45:00
wondering have we just found a new model because that was our most successful ful
00:45:03
summer we've ever had. And uh I don't want to I don't want to get so attached
00:45:07
to brands that it actually ends up you can sort of again like I was saying when chase a dragon it's like especially with
00:45:14
me getting fixated on something you can you can end up in dangerous territory unless you are willing to be a bit
00:45:21
flexible you know find ways. Um, so some something like that, like a a split in a business partnership, which
00:45:28
by all account sounds like it was pretty sort of nasty, like Yeah. How long does
00:45:33
it take to get over that? Do you ever get over it? Have you got trust issues now to a degree?
00:45:39
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you you develop a pretty you develop a pretty thick skin. I think the I think there's an emotional
00:45:46
part of it that you'll never you'll never get over, right? It was being being dragged into it and then starting
00:45:53
to question yourself, you know, man like like genuinely believing like I'm in
00:45:57
this to do the right thing and now now look at me. I'm having to pitch in front
00:46:01
of a boardroom and explain to people that I'm not him, you know, and and and
00:46:05
that's a really hard place for someone like me that likes to pretend like I don't care what people think but heavily
00:46:12
care what you know like it's everyone does. Yeah. You know, everyone likes to
00:46:14
say that. Um and and so I was like, man, just just that that reputational damage.
00:46:21
Um but I Yeah, it's it's like to give you an example. I mean, we're 3 and 1/2 years into this and, you
00:46:30
know, he's sent an email out from an anonymous email of photos of me saying things in group chats or like photos of,
00:46:39
you know, Mitch is doing drugs and and like and sent it out to every council and police member in New Zealand, you
00:46:45
know, and and this is only like 3 months ago. So, you're still dealing you're
00:46:51
sort of like over one part, but there's still this this hangover. there's still
00:46:54
this hangover there and and there's there's some there's something new all
00:46:58
the time. Um but then I've always been such a firm believer that karma takes
00:47:02
care of itself, you know. So I've it's kind of I don't know action over action
00:47:05
over words. I mean, you know, obviously I sent an email out saying this is this is this is my ex- business partner and
00:47:12
and it's defamatory and whatnot, but but also how nice is it to just wait and
00:47:17
then you just look at the collapse of JuicyFest now and all and it's I just knew that it would take care of itself
00:47:23
and um yeah, it's uh yeah, it's it's been an interesting journey. Yeah, the
00:47:30
um the guy we're talking about, there was a photo on Instagram a couple of weeks ago of him um I think in Dubai or
00:47:35
somewhere with the tape brothers. You see what I'm like the story literally writes itself. I I there's nothing I
00:47:41
could do to make that situation any worse. It's already But it seems like you're two completely like polar
00:47:48
opposites in terms of on terms of people and I suppose that's what you're saying
00:47:51
before like that can work from a creative friction sort of perspective. M um but yeah, did you not see that side
00:47:59
of him? Uh so master master manipulator I I would say and I'm not I I don't mean
00:48:07
that from a perspective of like an an excuse, but it's when you deal with someone that's uh say say there there's
00:48:17
definitely a side of them and there's that there is that bad side and then you've like with anyone, right? They're
00:48:22
always going to show you they're going to put their best foot forward, especially when you're getting into a
00:48:25
partnership. And that whole process was him calling me up going, "I've changed.
00:48:30
I want to be a better man. I'm a family man now. Let's like, you know, he
00:48:34
already had the bit of a reputation before that." Um, and I am a sucker for
00:48:39
people that want to that want to be better and want to do good, you know? Like I I'm I just I see the good in
00:48:45
people. And it's that's how we got into business. I man if you want to if you
00:48:49
want to change and you want to do this let's do this you know like let's
00:48:52
everyone deserves a second chance sort of vibe um and and I guess that's for a
00:48:58
few years there was a huge element of that it would it would um often almost confiding in me to you know it's almost
00:49:07
it was it almost felt like I was doing a good service in terms of um you know in
00:49:12
terms of sitting down with someone and and them asking my advice and what would you do and Um, so there was, it's not
00:49:19
that I didn't understand there was a side of him, but completely blindsided by the depth of it and the and sort of
00:49:27
what unfolded, you know, like just m Yeah. mind-blowing because 99% of that stuff is I mean it's it's in private,
00:49:37
right? Like you don't know the allegations and stuff that that that came out were um were were Yeah.
00:49:46
And and it was and it was also at the same time really hard to get out of a business relationship because in in NZ
00:49:52
that the just the law around it is is quite intense, you know, and and we had to take a you can't just tell someone,
00:49:58
hey, I don't want to be in business with you anymore and walk out. You got you
00:50:01
have 15 companies that have to be legally separated, which means effectively we had to we had to buy him
00:50:06
out. So imagine the process of buying someone out at a multiple that they're
00:50:10
deciding. It's a lot of untangling. It it was it was a year of untangling. Um but still
00:50:17
the best thing I ever did and um and and our businesses have, you know, since since then have it's been a journey.
00:50:24
Yeah. Well, there's the you know, you talked about karma before and like the
00:50:28
the truth and things generally always comes out, doesn't it? Or cream rises to
00:50:32
the top. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever saying you want to use. Yeah. Um Yeah. But the the
00:50:37
the emotional toll that that must have taken on you personally though must have been massive. It is. It is it is
00:50:43
massive. For sure. For sure. Um and it's it's uh it doesn't just affect you
00:50:51
as well, right? it affects it's to see the sort of flow on effect of it is you
00:50:57
know like my wife having to support me through that or um the it's just it's
00:51:04
hard for anyone to deal with despite the fact that I was you know obviously trying to press on and like run these
00:51:09
companies and actually try from a business perspective but it's yeah I just think the emotional toll and the
00:51:15
way that it makes you act around people and the way that it changes you as a person is um yeah I'd say That's the
00:51:22
hardest part. Is that the biggest adversity you've been through? Yeah. H Well, there's
00:51:29
It's in the top 10. Oh, no. No. It's No, it is it is it is the biggest It's the
00:51:33
biggest emotionally. I mean, I'm sure I'm sure you know the story of um of
00:51:37
almost dying in Bali and and that's like there's different types of adversity and
00:51:41
um I love how I'm a UFC nut and um Alexander Vulcanowski said the other day that adversity is a privilege and and
00:51:48
that stuck with me because it's if I look at all of these situations, they're
00:51:52
they're all really different, but they've all unfolded really well for me
00:51:57
in the end. But that's because you have to treat adversity as as an opportunity
00:52:01
to genuinely get better. I didn't, you know, when that whole thing unfolded,
00:52:06
didn't didn't go fake it and tick some boxes. Like genuinely had to just go do
00:52:11
some work and figure out for myself, you know, like you got to look inward in it.
00:52:16
Um, and that was the hardest part because you start questioning yourself and um but yeah, it's there's been a lot
00:52:22
of adversity in in in different ways and um yeah. Yeah, there's there's there's been
00:52:27
a few times that I've been in the media for the wrong reasons and and a few times that I've been in it for the
00:52:32
right, but it's I don't know. You you get a pretty um thick skin on one hand
00:52:37
as well to Yeah. One of those one of those media things. Um I I wasn't aware
00:52:41
of this until I um started googling you uh in preparation for this podcast, but the blackface thing um I I felt a bit
00:52:48
sorry for you with this. So you were like 18 years old maybe. Yeah. And um you and four other mates um are dressed
00:52:55
up as the Jackson 5. Yeah. Um and and this came out maybe 5 years ago. Yeah. So you're 18 at
00:53:04
the time when it happened, 30 when it came out. Um now we all know now that Blackface is is bad and and it's um it's
00:53:11
racist and we shouldn't do it. Um but at at the time when you did it, I don't
00:53:15
think there was that sort of like awareness and I don't believe there was any malicious intent. Um, I I've even
00:53:20
done it myself once. Like I when I was at at the Edge, we were doing a a p uh like a party for I think it was bar 101
00:53:27
or something in Hamilton and it was like a like a pop star party and I I dressed
00:53:31
up as Willam um for this like for this sanctioned event. Um and I'm saying that
00:53:37
because that was peak black eyed peas but at the time like no one flagged it. No one from uh media works promotions
00:53:44
department, no one from this bar, uh no one at the party. Um, so obviously now like I'd be mortified if there was a
00:53:51
photo of it that surfaced because um, it would really bite me in the ass in a bad
00:53:55
way. Um, but this would have been about the same time you were doing the the Jackson 5 thing. Yeah. And it seems it
00:54:00
it seems kind of unfair. I don't know like to to to rake someone over the coals for something when they
00:54:06
were completely naive and I suppose ignorant to it at the time. Yeah. Yeah. I I was that was probably the
00:54:13
first ma that was the first major bit of adversity that I'd ever dealt with in
00:54:18
terms of the media and I was heartbroken because before that I was like oh the guy that did Bay dreams and and all of a
00:54:23
sudden you're just the blackface guy you know and um and it it was dark because
00:54:28
again like you start questioning yourself cuz I'm looking back at it and it was it was my profile cover photo for
00:54:35
you know two years or whatever and and that's hundreds of people thought it was
00:54:39
great and and um and then And I'm going on the flip side like I I cuz I I didn't
00:54:44
understand it. But again, like go away, do the work. Like 99% of people that have an issue with it don't actually
00:54:49
know why. But I I I wanted to actually go away and and heavily research and understand why why I did was wrong
00:54:58
because it was literally I was so taken back and the way that that unfolded was two promoters that had an issue with me
00:55:05
surfaced it to to have a go. Right. So, so I'm sitting there just trying to be
00:55:09
so defensive as I naturally am. Um, and and yeah, again, like credit to to my wife and just helping me through that
00:55:18
and and helping me see that I was at the end of the day, I was completely in the
00:55:23
wrong regardless of regardless of the timing or understanding it. It's just um
00:55:29
so look, I just issued an apology and um that taught me a lot as well. That taught me a lot to just take
00:55:35
accountability and just, you know, some sometimes all you want to do is get your
00:55:38
guard up and go, well, you don't know that it was a dress up com like like you
00:55:42
don't know that. Yeah. Try and add context. Yeah. But there was um Yeah. The the old uh USA President Ronald
00:55:48
Reagan, he um had a saying like explaining is losing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're honestly and and and it has paid
00:55:54
off for me big time and I'm not good at it and I'm getting better. But sometimes
00:55:58
take accountability and just apologize, learn, and move on. And and you again incredible part of that is you actually
00:56:09
I actually ended up building stronger relation. So the the the people's objective was to take me down. The
00:56:15
outcome of it was that I built stronger relationships with people in media that I've personally apologized to and um and
00:56:22
public publicly apologized and people go you're just human you know and and so
00:56:27
the outcome with the fallout with my business partner the blackface the situation in Bali all these situations
00:56:34
that if if you treat it as a as a as an opportunity to get better and um it's
00:56:39
it's always always worked out. So I'm I'm a glass half full sort of guy when
00:56:43
it comes to that now. At the time I was burying my head in a pillow just you know crying. So it's um Yeah. Yeah. I
00:56:51
bet. I bet. I I um I can't imagine the toll it that it took on your mental health at the time. Yeah. Yeah. It was
00:57:00
It was pretty heavy. It was It was definitely pretty heavy. The the the barley thing you you you've
00:57:07
um alluded to a couple of times. I've heard this on a couple of podcasts. So
00:57:09
you what what was it in a in a nutshell? Basically, you um you had to leave Bali
00:57:15
in disguise like you could have been thrown in a Balanese jail or or beaten up or Yeah, that was a just a crazy
00:57:24
series of events which is um and I we'd be here for two hours if I tell this
00:57:29
properly, but and everyone knows the story now, but it but effectively yeah, just corruption try to run a festival
00:57:35
and the corruption just it it took me to the point where I was basically hiding on an island and and escaped on a on a
00:57:41
jetboat and I I paid off the wrong people and um and I was I was in the news and um for nothing other than just
00:57:48
wanting to put on a party for people and and people had flown in from around the
00:57:52
world and I just felt this immense pressure to make it happen and I ended up paying people to paid paid the
00:57:59
military to defend against the police. Eventually the Navy came and arrested the guy I was working with. I I escaped
00:58:05
on a jetboat and uh and got caught and detained and eventually deported. Um, so, wow. Are you allowed back in Bali?
00:58:13
No, I know. Funny funny funny story there is, um, I I thought that I'd So, they basically said you're blacklisted
00:58:22
for life, but then when I Googled it, it's it was a normally it's a 5year
00:58:25
blacklist. So, 5 years later, I tried to go back. Trust me, why would you tried to go back for my friend's wedding and
00:58:31
um, I got off the plane and she swiped my passport and her face went white. You know, this is 5 and a half years later
00:58:37
or something. And then they just detained me in a room instantly. And I just went this I just this is it. Like
00:58:42
they've been waiting for me to come back here and now they're going to put me in
00:58:45
prison because because they didn't they wanted to get me in prison the first
00:58:49
time. Um and they just put me Yeah. I had two choices. It was prison or it was get back on the same literally back onto
00:58:56
the plane in the same seat that I was in. Flew back to New Zealand. Um, and it turns out that I was blacklisted with
00:59:02
like rapists and murderers and it's the highest level of that's why she was like
00:59:07
she went ghosted and probably thought that I was killed somebody or something. So, um, yeah. And then the other day my
00:59:14
business partner who's over there, he he go he goes, "Hey, I've met someone that
00:59:18
I think can wipe your blacklist." You know, so he goes, "It's going to cost
00:59:22
four grand us." I went, "That's ironic. It's the same amount of money I paid the
00:59:25
last person." You know, it's just this I can't even explain the level of
00:59:29
corruption there. But so, but was it all a misunderstanding or did you didn't do
00:59:34
anything wrong? No, no, we did. Oh, man. It's like got the visas, we had the
00:59:39
right venue. They just they invented a they invented this permit to start getting money out of us. And what
00:59:44
started as five grand, 10 grand, eventually we' paid, you know, thou tens of thousands of US dollars to people,
00:59:52
including high level cops, including the main person that was supposed to say yes. Get around the boardroom table,
00:59:58
paid him the money, sign the form, and he just goes, "I don't know what you're
01:00:00
talking about." And just the process starts again. You got to pay them more
01:00:03
money. Wow. Just a corrupt system. Yeah. Um there's there's a book I really like
01:00:08
called Extreme Ownership and uh it's by this um guy Jo Willink and it's basically in any situation you figure
01:00:14
out like what you did wrong or what part of the blame you can take in it with something like the barley thing like
01:00:20
what like what can you take from that personally and do better with Yeah. And we were just talking, you know, I was
01:00:27
saying that my what I again with that Northstar being um integrity, it's like,
01:00:32
well, I should just be trying to take accountability, right? And trying to trying to figure out what part I played
01:00:37
in that, but it's I guess it goes back to that I I probably never should have
01:00:43
jumped at that opportunity that someone presented me. It was it was another promoter that presented me with that
01:00:47
opportunity to go to Bali and run a show, but I did no due diligence. I did absolutely zero. I just said yes and
01:00:54
flew on the plane, you know, and so so I need to learn something around the decisions that I'm making and how, you
01:01:01
know, and actually putting a little bit more thought into them. So, um, so, but outside of that, I felt like we ticked
01:01:07
all the boxes. I felt like we were just trying to do the right thing and throw this party and then just got absolutely
01:01:13
swindled. Wow. Costly lesson. A lesson. A lesson nonetheless. I came back with N. That was one of the times
01:01:22
that I came. You're talking about shows that can completely completely end your
01:01:26
business. That was I came back with zero dollars and had to restart aiology after
01:01:30
that. Wow. Yeah. Six occasions where you've lost everything, right? Um what's
01:01:35
the most money you've lost on an event and the most money you've made on an
01:01:38
event? Uh, most money I've lost on one show would be close to if if you're including like a brand
01:01:51
that was like a couple shows, you know, probably 1.4 million, one and a half million maybe. Um, definitely 7 800
01:01:58
grand on like one headline show a few times. Um, you know, in the last sort of 10 years. Um, I won't say which acts
01:02:05
because then it makes them look bad, but but there's been situations. This is
01:02:08
this is again my problem with jumping into things too early. But I've booked
01:02:12
acts that I think are huge that because I grew up on them and I've brought them
01:02:15
to New Zealand and lost 700 grand, you know, and you're just sitting there going that was an expensive party and an
01:02:21
expensive lesson for my friend. So are you aware that that you've lost before
01:02:25
the event goes ahead? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the craziest thing. You still got to Yeah. still put a smile on
01:02:30
your face and make sure that it's still and you still got to make sure say you've reduced the venue like you know
01:02:36
that example I was giving before brought an act planned on doing 15,000 people outdoors ended up doing 6,000 people
01:02:42
indoors everyone else had an amazing time you had an intimate experience with an with this band or and you know you
01:02:48
got to sit there you know the days leading in that you're either losing half a million or a full million and
01:02:53
then you just go wondering which end of the spectrum it is um and And to be clear, at that we didn't have that money
01:03:03
to lose. You know, we're talking about being a business. Um that that was one
01:03:06
of those bad decisions where like it remortgage the house, which I've also done a few times. Is is this just the
01:03:13
the cycle of the the nature of the beast, the cycle of this sort of business that you know you're going to
01:03:18
win two and then lose one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it's that um if you compare
01:03:24
it to poker, you know, you're never going to win a 100% of the time, but you
01:03:27
get better. you get better at this calculated gambling situation and um you know we're we're at a point where some
01:03:33
of our brands like Audiology. Um, so Audiology does use it's more specifically electronic music, but we've
01:03:40
got that niche and we sell out 95% of the shows and it's just it's this awesome little beast. And then trademark
01:03:46
mother the business does more the the larger festivals. And so there I guess we're lucky to be at a point now where
01:03:53
we're winning more than we're losing. But it's yeah, you you will never ever
01:03:57
get them all and neither does Live Nation and how many times do they bring artists over that flop or cancel the
01:04:03
second Spark Arena show? It's all good. It's just that's just how it is. Like even the pros can't can't
01:04:08
get this right. And when everything goes really well, like how much can you make
01:04:11
on an event? Like say the Fisher gig that we've talked about. Um Yeah. Like how much would the company make on that?
01:04:17
Um well there Yeah, there was two shows. Um you can I mean not not that gig specifically, but you can make a million
01:04:26
you can lose a million dollars on a show that size or make a million dollars on a
01:04:29
show. And that's that's the variance. Yeah. So when you're talking 30,000
01:04:33
people like Bayreams, um we've we've had a Bayreams that's lost a million dollars
01:04:37
and we've had a Bay Dreams that's made a million dollars. So um I would say
01:04:41
that's the spectrum when you get to 30 20 to 30,000 people. Amazing. Yeah. Oh,
01:04:46
let's um talk about some of the artists that you've um brought to New Zealand
01:04:50
and um if there's a story to go along with them, maybe you can share it. Um some some of these um I've listened
01:04:57
to so many podcasts that you've been on, so um that's amazing. I think I've
01:05:01
listened to every podcast you've done, so I know there's a story for some of
01:05:03
them. We'll start with Omi. Do you remember Omi? The I'd say he's a one hit wonder. Maybe
01:05:10
1.5. He had a a song called Cheerleader and another one called Hula Hoop. I don't even know the other one. So that
01:05:15
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good on him. Um that was Yeah. Yeah. So that's that was
01:05:21
prior to us having um So So now there's software, right, that can really break
01:05:26
down the stats. So, I could I can tell you how many, like I was saying, listeners. Um, I can tell you the
01:05:31
engagement level that you have. So, if you're if you're bringing over an artist
01:05:34
that doesn't have huge streams, but they're huge on Tik Tok, you can look at
01:05:37
what's their engagement in Tik Tok in Oakuckland during this period. So that
01:05:41
so it's a little bit we're we're just so data driven now as a nation you know it
01:05:46
was you know worldwide but it's back then you would a song would OMI had a number one song on the radio and so we
01:05:54
just went book him now like book him before this like before it's impossible
01:05:58
to book him and um yeah I oh man I just talking about this one openly like I genuinely think we announced it and sold
01:06:06
seven tickets and can you imagine us just like I thought we were home run sellout, you
01:06:14
know. I was like I was like I'm like yes this is um yeah just full confidence gut
01:06:20
feeling that is gut feeling doesn't always pay completely wrong. Oh poor Omie. Um what about tea pain? T I've got
01:06:28
a funny history with Tain because um I sort of yeah in not in the very very early days but in you know early I don't
01:06:37
know maybe 2014 or something. So brought brought him out here um and we had some
01:06:43
we were doing a lot of sort of old school R&B and hip-hop at the time a brand I've got called talk later and
01:06:48
yeah brought him out here and had a really successful like couple of shows and he blew everyone's mind and he
01:06:56
because it was one of the first times that people realize he's not just autotune like he he actually can sing he
01:07:01
actually can dance he's a weapon performer um super successful run couldn't couldn't wait to get him back
01:07:07
next time we bring him back. He He basically decides he wants to be a DJ and he wouldn't perform live, but our
01:07:16
contract had him for live. And he it was it was wild because he he basically turns up and he goes, "I'm just going to
01:07:23
DJ." We said, "If you do that, like which he did." He says, "No, I'm going
01:07:27
to DJ. I'm not going to sing live." And people in Christ Church people were
01:07:30
throwing [ __ ] on stage and like um and you know again as a promoter like that that's like worst case scenario because
01:07:38
people are like people aren't enjoying the show. It's not about the money at
01:07:42
that point. the reputation and you know and then and and they're complaining and
01:07:46
he ended up putting up videos saying like who are these promoters like where you know I'm he's like I I'm DJing and
01:07:53
like basically just calling us out when you know but the promoter is always wrong in that sense because the artist
01:08:00
is always the artist is almost like the customer is always right you know because they've got a louder voice and
01:08:06
what am I going to do post a Instagram shot of the contract like probably could but so anyway we
01:08:12
I think I think like that show was so bad that the next day he agreed to do half DJ half live at the next and so
01:08:18
sort of like DJing but like a bit of singing. He sort of just got through I don't know sort of why did he not want
01:08:24
to do a show? No, he's just artist just changed like the he he he just felt like
01:08:30
he hadn't been it was called a DJ live set but it was literally just DJ without
01:08:35
the live. I mean, he was there physically, but um but anyway um ended up um taking him in Christ Church to the
01:08:44
strip club afterwards. And I just thought this is one of those like, oh yeah, aha moments, you know, where I'm
01:08:50
like, okay, I've got tea paint in a strip club right now. It's 3:00 in the
01:08:54
morning. Um and we walked in and I swear, no word of a lie, I'm in love with the strippers playing as we as we
01:09:01
roll in. Like couldn't have been any and this was not planned. And so so like
01:09:05
these girls are dancing and he rips out his phone and he's just filming and you
01:09:11
know I'm in love with the stripper and uh and this big bouncer comes over and
01:09:15
he goes put your phone away man you know and Tain's like you know eventually I
01:09:21
was like yeah just just you put it away puts his phone away and he pulls it out again he starts filming and this
01:09:25
bouncer's just like told you to put that phone away man and um and he just goes
01:09:30
he goes you're allowed to play my content and I'm not allowed to get your
01:09:34
accountant and start it and starts arguing with this bouncer to the bouncer just starts walking us out cuz it starts
01:09:41
to get quite heated. Tang goes outside, kicks this car and it and you know with everyone starting to like but yeah it
01:09:48
was I was just sitting there going you know it's like what is life e cuz you know I grew up listening to this
01:09:55
guy and now I'm like with him kicking cars and it just it was just there's
01:09:58
been plenty of moments like that but that one's classic. Oh that's such a
01:10:01
cool story. Do you Yeah. Do you typically have much to do to do with the artist or is it just a case by case?
01:10:07
Yeah, I I I mean I try I try my best because I think my objective is to make sure that they like love New Zealand.
01:10:12
I'll probably go a little bit extra in terms of the hosting and these days it's
01:10:16
taking them to play golf, but it's it's always been whatever you want, you know,
01:10:20
take you to show you around, you know, let's just go a hickey. Let's let's
01:10:24
there's always extra activities outside of the show days. Um, what I can say
01:10:29
though is it's not very prominent in terms of um, hip-hop. It's, you know,
01:10:35
sort of a lot of the electronic DJs, they love it, you know, and really good relationships like friends that would
01:10:40
come to my house and and uh, and just do cool cool [ __ ] but and yeah, it's it's
01:10:46
a lot harder with the the big American guys, I'd say, as much as you try. Yeah.
01:10:50
What about Brian Adams? You brought Brian Adams to New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. That was an incredible
01:10:57
one because that um growing up in in South Africa, I'm sure I'm sure it's the
01:11:01
same in New Zealand, but he was an icon, you know, like we grew up listening to every album, you know, dad was playing
01:11:07
it all the time. dad was singing it all the time singing, you know, Brian Adams and and so that was one of those um
01:11:14
still to this day top three, you know, acts that I've ever brought over because
01:11:18
it just hit an entirely different, you know, just an an emotional, you know, pulled an emotional string where it's
01:11:25
introducing my parents to Brian Adams like Oh, no way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was all and that's all I thought about
01:11:30
when I when I toured him. We did massive like massive crazy plays at vineyards and we sold lots of tickets but nothing
01:11:37
beats that feeling of like so it's putting on something that my family actually you know wanted to come to and
01:11:43
and you know they came to Snoop Dog and stuff but it's Brian Adams is is Brian
01:11:48
Adams you know that was uh yeah that was beautiful. Um Cardi B do you have anything to do with her? Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:56
Yeah. Uh crazy. Taking her to Nelson was was mind-blowing because you know an act
01:12:02
that that was the year that she blew up. Um taking her to Nelson and just it was
01:12:08
just again sometimes you just you step back and you it's almost like laughable,
01:12:13
you know, some of the things that we were doing because yeah um huge American artist. She's actually super shy and
01:12:21
super quiet in real life. I remember being really like taken back, you know, meeting her and asking her to sign some
01:12:27
shoes and just when she's just outlandish personality on social media. A lot of them are like that, by the way.
01:12:34
But, um, I'm sure you've you've met you've met tons, but I just remember
01:12:37
going, "This is a stark contrast to who I thought you were going to be." Well,
01:12:40
everyone's just human, eh, and there's, I suppose, a persona. Yeah. Yeah. What
01:12:44
did you get your shoes signed for? Do you Are you a memorabilia guy? Uh, I am. I am. I'm not. I'm pretty bad with
01:12:50
remembering it all. So, normally it's Yeah. whatever posters we can find. But
01:12:53
uh yeah, we just had this thing going where we would get custom printed Converse shoes. So, you know, had like a
01:12:58
full like mural on the side of her and then she signed one side and it's in my
01:13:03
studio. Oh, how good. Yeah. You got a studio at home, eh? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. What do you do in the studio? Not what I
01:13:10
should be doing. It's um uh when I again offshoot of a company but ended up starting like more of a management
01:13:16
agency company for for artists because I just felt inspired to like help Kiwi artists. I felt like a bit of my duty
01:13:23
really, you know, running all the festivals but then it's now we need to give them a platform and so um so signed
01:13:28
a bunch of artists and said here's a studio you know use it whenever you need
01:13:32
record and and we did do some recording but it honestly this that studio's only
01:13:37
turned into my office. It's my dayto-day. Yeah. It's turned into an office. Set up to be a studio, but not
01:13:43
much music goes down in it. Oh, good. Um, it' be a great place to put your daughter when she starts teething. Just
01:13:50
put her in the soundproof booth and just leave her there. That's right. Now, um,
01:13:54
what about Oh, wiggles. You bought the Wiggles uh to NZ. Yeah. Another another one of those emotional decisions. Um, I
01:14:02
say how so that was before your daughter was born, eh? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was
01:14:06
Ker events. I set up the business for her. I knew I'd hand it to her at some
01:14:09
point. Um, so yeah. So, brought the Wiggles here, turned it, you know, the cool part about that was turning it into
01:14:16
like a a rave or just giving it like a twist of what I do. You know, it wasn't
01:14:20
a traditional Wiggles show. It was crazy. The parents enjoyed it as much as the kids, I think. Um, but yeah, again,
01:14:27
that's like Brian Adams for me. It was I get all my family into one room, my
01:14:31
nieces and nephews. They just lined up there and I bring the Wiggles in. I mean, it's like I don't even care how
01:14:37
much money I lost on that show. Oh, yeah. That was Oh, no. Yeah. Well, because we went over on the production.
01:14:43
We went over on everything and but I didn't it just wasn't about that for me.
01:14:46
It was again that's that's why I call that one an emotional decision. And um
01:14:50
it was it was awesome. Would not change a thing. How how can you how can you enjoy a show when you know you've lost
01:14:55
money on it? Like aren't aren't you standing there with a sour taste in your
01:14:58
mouth? No, I think it I think you sadly um Hey, mate. I think you sort of get I don't know if you I don't want to say
01:15:06
you get used to it but um you just know the es and flows of the business. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And you know that
01:15:11
there'll be some losses. You know there'll be some wins. Uh but I think again if if it lost money but I mean to
01:15:19
have that experience with my family it it just it sort of just gets to a point where it's a little irrelevant you know
01:15:24
like you know 10 years ago would have cared because I wouldn't have been able
01:15:27
to go to you know run a show the week after. But yeah, that one was I can't explain the the look on my nieces and
01:15:35
nephew's faces when the Wiggles walked into a room. People might say, "Oh,
01:15:39
that's priceless." But actually, it's not. It's a couple hundred thousand.
01:15:41
Yeah, I can tell you exactly how much that cost. What I can tell you is you're
01:15:45
better off buying the meet and greet package instead of trying to run your own show. Um, have you always had like a
01:15:51
real healthy relationship with failure? Failure. Failure gets a really um there's so much negative connotations
01:15:59
with it. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people are fear fearful of it. E I know I have
01:16:03
been through my life. Yeah. I'm trying to re, you know, sort of re redefine what failure means because it's a
01:16:08
stepping stone to success. There we go. There we go. Yeah. And it's and anyone
01:16:13
that's successful talks about failure a lot. You know, it's the irony. It's just
01:16:16
that the differences we push through or the differences I perseverance always beats failure. So it's it I developed a
01:16:24
yeah I'd say I had a good relationship with it in the sense that um failure on
01:16:30
one hand failure wasn't an option on the other hand it was through failure that I
01:16:34
knew I would find success. So I just always it was okay that certain brands didn't work. I didn't care that. Um,
01:16:40
don't get me wrong, when the the clothing line and stuff, I was just gutted like in in the early days, but as
01:16:46
you start to as you start to grow and start to find success, you actually care less about the things that don't work.
01:16:53
Um, even even right now, failure almost excites me now because it's, you know,
01:16:58
15 years of of running things. It's it's what can I learn from it? The reason I'm
01:17:03
taking on a restaurant right now is because I've got a huge chance of failure. like it's it's it's not even an
01:17:08
industry that I'm in. It's a very difficult industry to be in. Every single person I spoke to told me not to
01:17:13
do it. Excites me even more, you know? It's um what's the worst case? I have a
01:17:18
restaurant that doesn't work. It's Yeah. I think people just need to get
01:17:24
over that fear of failure. It'll be it it'll help them tfold to just take
01:17:28
chances. Well, it can be crippling, can't it? 100%. Yeah. Um Oh, what about CO? How was CO for you? Fantastic. No,
01:17:37
that was it was crazy thing. So co this is why I started branching out my companies because when co hit so
01:17:44
everything I had built to that point so so built up the music events festivals and shows then started buying the
01:17:50
fencing the portaloos the sound system started buying things connected to music okay co hit every single thing didn't
01:17:58
exist and so um so I it was and the crazy thing is my wife owned a ticketing business so the two of
01:18:07
us are sitting there locked down together with no companies. This is going this is going to be a this is
01:18:13
going to be make or break. Um and and look it the strange thing with co is it did end up being okay for us because I
01:18:22
don't know if you remember that red light orange light system but there was there were moments in there where when
01:18:26
it went orange we could run outdoor events and we were just smashing these outdoor events in these gaps. um much to
01:18:34
the despise of of a lot of the older population because they were calling them super spreaders.
01:18:40
Andre that's a phrase I haven't heard in years. Remember the super spreaders
01:18:44
events? Oh, it was cuz our DJs were the ones coming over doing two weeks quarantine and then playing shows.
01:18:51
Have you ever considered um you quitting or pivoting? Like if things ever got really tough that you've actually
01:18:57
contemplated it? Never never quitting. I've definitely considered selling or trying to do other
01:19:06
things, which I do every, you know, every week regardless. So, um, yeah, I I used to say no. Now I'm more open to I
01:19:16
sort of just like to take every day as it comes because the opportunities I don't know what's around
01:19:22
the corner. if you know if if there's a huge partnership, if there's the
01:19:25
opportunity to go overseas or or I just like to stay I like to sort of keep the options open and be a bit spontaneous
01:19:32
with that. But no, I've never I would I would never I would never quit. Have you
01:19:37
always been a resilient guy or do you think it's been sort of like a muscle that's been built over the years?
01:19:43
Uh yeah, I yeah, resilience is a 100% that's just a trait that's been there.
01:19:48
Yeah. M I don't even know where I get that from to be honest. But it was it was just again it was just there was no
01:19:54
option apart from making this work. And if you and if you're that heavily invested, it will always work. I've
01:20:01
never seen a scenario where it where it doesn't. It's just how many times are
01:20:04
you going to fail before before you eventually get there? Yeah. Um yeah. Are you much of a goal set? Like do you have
01:20:11
like five year goals, 10 year goals or do you just sort of like take opportunities as they come and Yeah,
01:20:17
take opportunities. um as they come. I I I've moved away from uh my email signature used to actually just be
01:20:25
opportunist and um and then I realized there's sort of some negative connotation to that. But I I I try set
01:20:34
I'll try to set goals sort of two or three years um and try and not go too much further than that from a business
01:20:41
perspective. I think it's amazing like now for me the goals I would set are more lifestyle driven. They're not
01:20:49
business driven if you know what I mean. Like just I've only just got into health
01:20:53
and um I know you you know got big into running. It's I was extremely unhealthy
01:20:58
because all I did was work up until 18 months ago and then now I prioritize my health, my family and then business. So
01:21:03
it's so now I'm it's those are the goals. So when I you know where do I
01:21:08
want to be in five years? Well, I want to be an extremely active, healthy dad, you know, and then sort of like and I
01:21:14
want to be traveling and I well then cool. How do how does my what reverse engineer that? How is my business going
01:21:20
to fit into that? And if I have to sell some companies, then I'll do it. If I
01:21:23
have to those are the things that we sort of discuss as you know with I discuss with my wife. Yeah. You one one
01:21:29
big thing I've got from doing this podcast for three years now is um you just you can't take your good health for
01:21:33
granted. Eh, absolutely not. You've got to like pro protect that with everything
01:21:38
you've got. Have you seen the the Avichi Doco? I haven't yet, mate. Yeah, he was
01:21:42
exactly the same. Like just hyperfixate on work and his people would come and give him food and he he just wouldn't
01:21:47
eat it because it'd just be like zoned in on what he was doing. He ended up being incredibly unhealthy. Really?
01:21:52
Okay. Well, that I'm definitely going to watch that. But it's that reminds me a
01:21:55
lot of honestly I would work so consistently. I don't like the term work hard, but I was just working so
01:22:03
consistently and non-stop that I could easily forget to eat. Like that was there'd be days where all I'd have is a
01:22:08
coffee and it'd be 3:00 p.m. and I go, "Oh [ __ ] like I should probably eat
01:22:12
something, you know." But um those are the those are the big changes that have
01:22:16
happened for me in the last honestly only in the last 18 months. Um it's yeah, you start you start to learn that
01:22:23
it's just so much more important. But also it makes you the irony is when you
01:22:28
take time to so to to work out or drink water or eat well you actually are more productive and you have more of an
01:22:36
output. So that that interests me because it's how do you fit more in your day. Well the irony is that you want to
01:22:43
actually when you're working you want to be in a deep work state you know and if
01:22:45
you can that's how I sort of break down my day. I'm focusing on a lot of things,
01:22:49
but I can I've worked out how to really hone in on something for an hour. Pull
01:22:55
out and go into the next thing and break it up. Do you have like a strict morning
01:22:59
routine or anything? No, I'm not one of those like a herman. Oh, I'm sort of I'm
01:23:04
almost jealous of some of those things that I, you know, I I I just if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you got
01:23:10
to wake up at 4:00 a.m., ice bath at 4:15, and win the morning, win the day. And it's like, and I always I'm go [ __ ]
01:23:17
I'm the opposite. And I actually feel quite guilty at times cuz I'm I I only
01:23:21
wake up early now because of Ka. Prior to that, I would work late at night and then and wake up late. Um so look, it's
01:23:29
slowly changing, but I I don't think I'll ever be one of those 4:00 a.m. 5
01:23:33
a.m. people. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. Never say never. Never say never.
01:23:37
Um are you doing some work with Israel Adisa? Yeah. What's going on there? Is
01:23:42
this top secret or can you No, no, I can fully talk about it. I mean, apart from
01:23:46
the the lineup, that's a never- ending never- ending debacle, but um so we uh
01:23:51
yeah, being South African and um and also being a massive UFC fan. Uh yeah, I sort of just had the opportunity to to
01:23:59
pitch to um to David and Izzy, the brothers, and uh they got their family involved and they liked what they heard,
01:24:06
which is basically I was like New Zealand needs a cultural festival that celebrates, you know, African music and
01:24:13
and if you look at the growth of um of Afrobeat music, monstrous, right? Like my FM 30% of their playlist now is
01:24:20
Afrobee. And I could see the trend and and I said, "Well, if I'm going to do
01:24:24
this, I'm going to partner with the right person." and Izzy's big into music
01:24:27
and dance. So, we ended up forming this partnership which is um which has been awesome and we sort of just we've teased
01:24:33
the project and then when we got deep into booking the lineup, we realized how extremely uh difficult it is to get some
01:24:39
of these artists and we're just in the final stages now. Um so, yeah, the we've
01:24:45
told people it's launching in October. At the moment, it's still it's still all
01:24:48
go like it should be. We should be announcing it in four weeks. There's a lot of balls in the air, eh? A
01:24:55
lot of balls. Lot of balls. Is it So you're you're you're planning you're
01:24:59
you're talking and doing deals now for shows that will come to New Zealand. How
01:25:03
far in the future? Uh we are five years in the future, four years in the future.
01:25:07
No, no, it's always it's always about a year. Um so so right now we're heavily
01:25:12
booked up till April next year. So like Aiologyy's almost got shows every weekend until April next year. The
01:25:20
biggest stuff is normally a year in advance. to say if we book Snoop or someone like that now, it'll be for this
01:25:26
time next year or late or quarter 4 next year. Um, so it's not it's never three
01:25:32
or four or five years because of the way that music works. It's like they're normally touring
01:25:38
around something an anniversary of an album or a new release or you know so you can't four years from now they can't
01:25:45
tell me how the value of fisher right now they can tell me you know so it's yeah it's never that far in advance but
01:25:52
wow we try on did you buy 36 acres of land like around Oakland somewhere did I I think I heard this on a podcast did
01:25:59
you amazing what's amazing I don't I just don't even remember saying that I
01:26:04
feel like you know you know, you know some things. I I go go pretty deep with the research. Yeah. 36 acres of land.
01:26:09
Whereabouts? It's like in rural Oakland somewhere. Yeah. It's in in a place
01:26:12
called Aka um which is by 10 minutes from Pukakoi. Um that story's Yeah, that's quite funny. It was it was an
01:26:21
opportunity to buy some land that we wanted to develop for events because, you know, we were talking about how
01:26:27
events you spend all this time, you roll in for one day and you pack out. I wanted some land that we could slowly
01:26:33
chip away at and 20 years from now it'll be an amazing festival site. You know,
01:26:37
the the way that the reason Tomorrowland and stuff is so impressive is they own the land and they're consistently adding
01:26:43
to it and building and changing and um and also I became quite obsessed with just development of land and property
01:26:49
and um so yeah, so we we own the land. Um we to be honest up until this point we've so we've started the consent for
01:26:58
events but mainly focused on there was two old like uh hoarder homes on it that we basically bowled down and rebuilt. Um
01:27:07
so it's been a it's been a slow process but the idea there is that we eventually
01:27:10
have a venue a large scale festival venue. Amazing. So it'll it'll be like what
01:27:18
what are you thinking? Is it sort of up in the air like or are you thinking like
01:27:20
your own sort of coachella or tomorrowland or will you like rent it out to other promoters or Yeah, I think
01:27:26
it'll be that perfect balance of um just so when you get consents they normally
01:27:30
uh for a certain it's for a certain capacity over a certain amount of time. So quite common for that would be five
01:27:35
large scale events o annually and there's a whole process of getting all that signed off and one lady's got
01:27:41
horses next door and she can say no and but anyway eventually you get there and and of those five I might use two of
01:27:47
them and then the other three we could you know anyone it's about having it's
01:27:52
an option for like the likes of lab or 660 or it's like large acts can play there which is quite rare because at the
01:27:59
moment we've got western springs or a stadium um so I we just sort of saw an
01:28:04
opportunity there to have something that's not too far from the city, but also it's stunning. It's like on the,
01:28:10
you know, the Wat River runs past it and it's flat and it's surrounded by trees
01:28:13
and um yeah, I I really do hope it turns into something. It hasn't been a huge
01:28:18
priority for me lately, but um like that's the beauty of land. It's for me
01:28:24
that's probably a 20-year project. Wow, that seems like a significant investment. How much is 36 acres? Not in
01:28:30
terms of price, but in terms of like what can you compare it to? Is it like Western Springs or Eden Park? Um what is
01:28:36
it? How much is 36? Yeah, I won't get the exact calculation but it's um but
01:28:41
for example the the it's sort of broken down into site that we thought could be
01:28:45
used for parking, camping and then the actual event site itself and the the actual sort of event site. So to fit
01:28:52
20,000 people on you effectively would like two rugby fields. Um so that's that's about three rugby fields that we
01:28:58
have on in that area there. Wow. Um, and then there's a lot of earthworks and
01:29:02
stuff that needs to happen to get the parking, but it's um, yeah, I would say
01:29:06
it it's probably horrendously incorrect, but I would say it looks looks like
01:29:10
about seven rugby fields, I guess. Wow. Jeez, that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. New
01:29:17
Zealand needs big thinkers like that like you people that are going to get [ __ ] done. Do you How do you What's your
01:29:23
relationship like with tall puppy syndrome? What are your thoughts on that? Um, I have you encountered a fair
01:29:28
bit of that. Oh, hugely, hugely. You know, that's when we talk about adversity. I mean, that's most of those
01:29:34
scenarios that I've that I've ended up in have been from competitors or people
01:29:39
that that want to push you down regardless of what you do. And and I don't know, it's just it's rooted in
01:29:43
jealousy. Always. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I don't people say it's I don't know how
01:29:47
it's they say it's a New Zealand thing and I'm not sure because I don't know
01:29:51
all the other cultures. I mean, I obviously I didn't I didn't feel it in
01:29:55
Australia, but I but I wasn't I was still living in the New Zealand scene. Um, so look, I know I know it's heavily
01:30:02
talked about in NZ and I've definitely experienced it in New Zealand and I just
01:30:05
assumed it was a worldwide thing, you know, because it's naturally people just
01:30:10
want to pull you down thinking that that's their way to the top and it's so
01:30:16
I've just had crazy situations where people have emailed out things about me
01:30:21
or like just general just lies or I don't know. It's look, it's just not for
01:30:26
me. Um, I've got I work with amazing people that I guess you start to keep your circle a little bit smaller and and
01:30:35
deal with people that actually want to see you succeed. And my objective is just support
01:30:40
everyone because it makes sense like when you support people and they support you back. I mean it's just it's it's to
01:30:46
me it's so simple. I don't understand. Yeah. Um, one one thing I can tell you
01:30:50
for free winners never indulge in tall puppy syndrome. Like you're never going
01:30:55
to see someone like a Dan Carter or a Richie Mccor going online slagging someone else off. Like they're not
01:31:00
because they're busy doing doing their own thing and celebrating other people
01:31:03
as well. Yeah. It's um it's a losers mentality. Yeah. And it's so icky and
01:31:07
it's so gross. Yeah. Yeah. It's a scarcity mindset thing. E cuz it's like,
01:31:11
oh, if Mitch is doing this, it means I can't do it. But it's like there's
01:31:14
plenty of room at the table. Exactly. Exactly. No, you've hit the nail on the
01:31:17
head. I mean, winners focus on winning, but it's um I've never Yeah. I've never
01:31:21
encountered a situation ever in in my journey where someone doing the same thing as us or at the same level has,
01:31:29
you know, has said a negative thing or done well, sorry, they say negative things, but I've never seen someone take
01:31:36
action in a tall poppy way if they're if they're operating at a high level, which
01:31:39
is effectively what you said. Um, what's one piece of advice you'd give someone
01:31:43
wanting to start their own thing, not necessarily in promotion, but just like an entrepreneurialship journey? the
01:31:50
journey. I I just I would say initially just that at at the start it's about obviously taking that that risk
01:32:02
and having again going back to what we said about failure. But if if you're prepared to fail as a worst case and you
01:32:10
know that worst worst worst case you know you're back at square one and you got to start again. And if you can just
01:32:15
wrap your head around, if you can get in in the mind frame of understanding that
01:32:20
that's all it is, that's all it is. It doesn't matter. People will say what
01:32:23
they like and they can think what they like, but all you're doing is learning
01:32:27
and and creating another opportunity for yourself to have another crack. Then I believe we would see so many more
01:32:34
entrepreneurs. we'd see so many more people doing what they genuinely want to
01:32:39
do, you know, as opposed to just being pushed into being pushed into the sort of, you know, whether it's university or
01:32:45
or in whatever. I mean, yeah, I I just want to see people do what they're what
01:32:52
they're truly um passionate about. But that but that starts with being brave
01:32:56
and bold enough to take that that first step. Yeah. Yeah. And if you if you're
01:33:00
going to entertain the worst case scenario, you're also obliged to entertain the best case scenario. Like
01:33:05
what if it all goes right? Yeah. You know, what if it what if it, you know, exceeds my expectations? Exactly.
01:33:10
Because they're both equal possibilities, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping people focus on the only the
01:33:15
negative. Yeah. Um, what does success look like to you today? And has it changed over time? Oh, it has changed
01:33:22
drastically. I mean, success for me at the start was the ability to travel, right? So it was I'm I'm stoked that it
01:33:30
was never primarily money. I I mean I do I do remember having a figure in mind as
01:33:35
you know as a as a teenager the dream of being a millionaire. Um but it was never
01:33:40
primarily that my I wanted the ability to have or the flexibility to be able to travel right and see the world right. So
01:33:47
so once that sort of started to happen um you know you start to look at things like family and um success for me now is
01:33:58
the freedom not to travel as such but the freedom to do to still be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it.
01:34:07
Um but but with balance in mind and and prioritizing the things that are important which though I think those
01:34:14
take you a little while to learn. um like you know a teenager that just wants to travel the world and get drunk and
01:34:22
see everything you know versus versus now it's like okay are the things that I'm doing do
01:34:29
they have a positive impact mainly on like the close people around me first and foremost you know which that that's
01:34:35
a challenge every day you know am I am I taking on things that I'm proud of that
01:34:39
will allow me to spend more time with my family and enjoy life or or am I just doing things for the sake of trying to
01:34:45
be you know cool or trying to be the guy and trying to it's um and and that's
01:34:50
that's always a battle. But that yeah, success for me now is finding is working
01:34:54
every day to find that that balance. Yeah. Less less um less ego driven maybe than what it was uh in your 20s. Yeah.
01:35:01
Um do you think about legacy at all? Is that something you think about like Yeah. What what sort of legacy would you
01:35:07
like to leave behind? Um, legacy is I think the concept I I mean I love the idea of legacy more than
01:35:16
I you know more than any anything else in the sense that um what I want to achieve I I want to have like a lasting
01:35:24
impression and I hope that it inspires other people to do the same. Um, but then on the flip side of that, legacy to
01:35:30
me is it's such an interesting concept because people aren't going to remember
01:35:34
me regardless in three generations, you know, like it's kind of almost it's
01:35:37
almost ego driven to assume that I can leave a legacy that's going to have this
01:35:42
massive lasting I mean most people don't know their great-grandparents name and
01:35:47
that's how quickly you can lose sight of you know takes a few generations and and
01:35:52
so I guess I'm more of a now I'm more of a now person. I mean that I I'm
01:35:58
obviously everything's for Ka and my future kids and the way that I'm setting
01:36:01
them up. I'm going to give them all the things that I never had. That is beautiful to me. I've already I feel
01:36:06
like I've already achieved that. Um, but yeah, it's it's I'm not I'm not going to
01:36:11
ever I just don't want to do things ego driven where it's, oh, my name's going
01:36:14
to be I'm the promoter that they're going to remember forever. Because honestly, like the coolest thing about
01:36:20
doing what I do is realizing that people only really give a [ __ ] for a very short
01:36:25
period of time and then they forget. They care when they're stuck outside and
01:36:28
they're trying to get into my show. Then I've heaps of friends, you know, then
01:36:31
it's like then you're the absolute man for 4 hours. But outside of that, my
01:36:36
real friends don't give a [ __ ] They don't like they don't we just laugh
01:36:39
about it. They I still they still mock me and we you know we just act like we're schoolmates. You need that. That's
01:36:44
a healthy relationship. Yeah. Does your um Yeah. What does your phone look like on the like the day of a concert or the
01:36:50
week of a concert? Is it amazing who comes out of the woodwork? It is crazy. There's it's it's an unwritten um it's
01:36:58
it's been a joke for so long that you know like uh even my wife you know who
01:37:03
sees what I do every day like it's I show her like hey have a look at this you know there'll be like 150 me 150
01:37:09
messages but my favorite one there's always this opening line that again it's
01:37:15
become this joke where it'll be like hey man and cuz you know you can only see
01:37:19
the first line hey man know we haven't spoken in a while or like hey long No,
01:37:24
long time no see. And oh, these are and I I don't know if it maybe it's that
01:37:29
ADHD thing, but I have to open every message and respond because if there's a
01:37:33
if cuz that's what I do every day, right? I I probably average 200 emails and 50 phone calls like it's but I but I
01:37:41
love like ticking those things off is what keep that's what gives keeps me calm. It's the like if they build up
01:37:48
then I'm just going to be stressing, right? So, it's kind of like the worst
01:37:52
part is I'll get these messages and then I actually I actually action them all,
01:37:56
you know, like if it's sort of like I sometimes I'll say, "Hey, like I'm busy,
01:38:00
like I can't help." But 90% of the time I'll actually help almost everyone. And
01:38:05
my wife gives me so much [ __ ] for it cuz it's like, "Hey man, long time no see."
01:38:11
Like, "What do you what do you mean? You had Oh, hey, I noticed it's sold out
01:38:14
online. Like, is there any way I'm happy to pay, but is there a way that you can
01:38:18
That's my technique." Yeah, I'm happy to pay. It's like, no, if you were happy to
01:38:21
pay, you would have paid. It's It's so good. Oh god. Oh well. Um, now that we've
01:38:28
connected, I uh you can add me to that list. I'll be that guy. No, actually I
01:38:31
hardly ever leave the house. I um the last couple of weekends I've been watching um Stage Coach and Coachella on
01:38:37
YouTube. Why Why would they do that? Why would they have that on YouTube? Why they live stream it? Yeah. Why? Why? Uh
01:38:44
yeah, there's no payw wall or anything. I just wonder what the what the business
01:38:47
thinking behind that would be. Yeah. Yeah. We I mean we've live streamed a few things and we we find it difficult
01:38:52
because artists often is there's a lot of roadblocks but um with something like
01:38:57
Coachella I mean the reach is just astronomic right. So I guess their thought process outside of the
01:39:02
sponsorship direct cash that they're getting um yeah their thought process I
01:39:06
imagine would be that if this is broadcast to the world it's almost like free marketing and then the next year
01:39:11
sells out instantly again. It makes it cool to be there. M um we've broadcast
01:39:16
some things in the past like I said um it's never a monetary thing. It's always
01:39:21
with the objective to reach the wider audience. Um yeah and I think it does it it builds that FOMO because now you know
01:39:28
the tickets early tickets go on sale straight after that live stream and everyone's in there because they don't
01:39:32
want to miss it. And um I don't know watching it at home on my Samsung Frame
01:39:37
TV with beers that didn't cost me $11 US. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. And I
01:39:43
can imagine that's millions of dollars to make that stream work because it's
01:39:46
very it's a high-end so good highend stream. Um, what are your biggest fears?
01:39:55
Um, outside of heights, um, now I'm t I'm tackling that one. But uh um my biggest fear I would say is
01:40:08
not achieving sort of or or not living up to my potential um would be would probably be the main thing you know and
01:40:18
and it's probably why I take on um a lot of things and you know I wish I could
01:40:26
I'll step it down a notch at some point but um but no I don't know I think I've
01:40:29
just got this the fear is is that I just feel like we can do so much on this earth and I feel like I want to give so
01:40:38
much and I just don't want to be I don't want to be 70 or 80 years old and just
01:40:43
go man I should have done that and that's that that fear of not wanting to look back and say I should have done
01:40:50
that. That's probably why I'm trying to do everything. Yeah. Oh, I think that
01:40:53
would be one of the worst things e like um yeah dying with regrets. Yeah. And it
01:40:58
is be terrible. And that is I mean I I'm big I'm it doesn't take you long to
01:41:04
they've done a lot of research on that. They've asked people on their deathbed
01:41:06
like what you know and and it's always the same thing. It's always I should
01:41:10
have done this I should have done that and it's and it's not necessarily
01:41:13
business. That's the beautiful thing like 90% of the time it's like I wish I
01:41:16
spent more time with this person or you know and it's those are the thing I'm
01:41:20
constantly man you you I want to look back and just actually know that I was a present dad.
01:41:25
That's like one of the hardest one of the hardest battles. It's easier to
01:41:29
start a company. What's your inner voice like? Are you you quite quite kind to yourself
01:41:37
or I mean you're very very driven. Like do you fogg yourself or you quite kind to yourself?
01:41:44
Uh I think I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I think I'm somewhere in the
01:41:47
middle. I'll um it's a constant it's a constant battle. Um in terms of you know again like some of the
01:41:55
things we we spoke about and that I've been through. It's that it you start to
01:42:00
I think everyone's got doubt, right? To some degree, even the most confident of
01:42:04
people. And even though I've been doing this long, I've still got those same
01:42:07
doubts just in in different areas, you know? So, you're constantly questioning,
01:42:11
you know, am I good enough? Am I good enough to speak like this on this podcast? You know, am I am I am I truly
01:42:20
am I are my actions representing what I say? Like, am I actually a good person? Am I actually doing good things? So, I'm
01:42:27
I guess I'm consistently always questioning myself and but I don't have an issue with that because it just keeps
01:42:31
me, you know, it keeps it's always at the forefront of my mind of just wanting
01:42:37
reverting back to that just like I just want to be having a positive impact. Um but yeah, my brain's just doesn't
01:42:48
stop. So, I guess Do you sleep all right? I actually do sleep all right, which is strange, right? cuz um yeah, I
01:42:54
I I fall asleep fine. Um I can operate on not much sleep as well. You know, I had 5 hours last night and I feel all
01:43:02
right. Um so, but yeah, I've had no issue, you know, even if my my brain races up until a point where I've like
01:43:11
ticked off what I need to and then I can and then I can relax. So often I'm doing
01:43:15
the last thing I do before bed, which most people would hate, is just make sure that everything's ticked off, do my
01:43:21
Turkish, make sure that crypto hasn't lost heaps of money, and then, you know,
01:43:24
just No, just control the controllables. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, just make sure
01:43:29
my emails are ticked off and that I have a little bit of an understanding of the
01:43:32
next day. Just look at my calendar. Just feel It's just ironic that I have to do work
01:43:37
in order to actually relax or get the work done to have a sense of peace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When was the last time
01:43:43
you cried? Uh, I cry a little bit to be honest. Um, do you What do you What do you cry
01:43:49
about? Like gratitude tears or um No, no. I mean, I'm Oh, man. the tears are always um I don't know
01:44:02
even even if it's something in a relationship you know or like trying to you know if it's if I'm apologizing or
01:44:10
um I tear up quite easily actually which it's quite um yeah but I mean in terms
01:44:15
of like full-blown breakdown you know like just when I've had people close to me pass
01:44:21
away which is which has sadly been you know for someone of my age it's been a
01:44:26
has been a fair few um luckily Yeah, not not any um close family members, but yeah, I've had just just really close
01:44:35
friends and stuff that have had really unfortunate situations and um yeah, it just Yeah, you've been
01:44:41
impacted uh by suicide, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah, massively. Massively. So yeah, my um 2019 my best mate who was
01:44:52
living with me at the time um who I was I was sort of trying to help through his
01:44:55
struggles. He he had um BPD which is I don't know if you know borderline borderline personality disorder. Yeah.
01:45:01
And um uh yeah, I was just trying to be there for him. And again, massive massive learning curve when you're just
01:45:09
trying to be there for someone that you're trying to help them see the world
01:45:13
in a different light. And um and yeah, I mean the the the short version of that eventually he just lost his battle after
01:45:20
about a year and a half that he was living with me. And um yeah, just I'd never experienced like death in that way
01:45:29
before. I'd never had someone that close to me pass away. Um he was living with
01:45:34
you at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he was in Oakuckland prior, but I said, "Hey, come down to Toadonger and like
01:45:40
Yeah. basically let's just um tackle tackle one day at a time, you know, and
01:45:45
um and so the the cool thing um his name is Cullen. We called him Tastain. But the the great thing with him was he
01:45:54
loved music and the event. So it was it was always uh it was always looking forward to the
01:46:01
next you know the next thing. Um and and those were normally it could be a bush or it could be you know certain show
01:46:08
that we were doing. Um, and that sort of kept him, yeah, it was one of the few things that just kept him positive about
01:46:13
life, you know, was always talking about the it gave me like a real sense of, wow, what I'm doing does have a positive
01:46:20
impact because it's um you can see it. Yeah. You see it in people like him where where like being at an event is
01:46:28
just the time where they're truly happy. You know, even if it's only for four or
01:46:32
five hours, there's the anticipation leading up to it, leading up to a concert. the same way it leads up to
01:46:37
someone's going on holiday like that feeling and then you have the moment and
01:46:41
then that moment's hopefully enough to you know we launch something soon after
01:46:45
that. So yeah that was uh uh yeah that was one of the times that I that I cried for a long long time.
01:46:55
Yeah the the same year 2019 I I lost um a good friend as well. He he had bipolar, but no, nobody knew like he
01:47:02
kept it hidden from everyone. And then he um it happened real suddenly like and he took his life in a real violent
01:47:08
emphatic way. Like there was there was going to be no other outcome other than um taking his own life. And um that sent
01:47:15
me on a bit of a journey, you know, like looking into my own mental health cuz I
01:47:18
thought if [ __ ] this guy was the life of the party, if it could happen to him,
01:47:21
then you know, it could happen to me as well. And that's got me thinking about
01:47:26
my own mental health. Incredible. Yeah. that this the story is the same because before that I almost had that mentality
01:47:33
of like of it was that toughen up classic New Zealand mentality, you know, where like friends would tell me, you
01:47:38
know, if you're depressed, it's like, well, just do cool [ __ ] Like go go go
01:47:42
be happy. Like it's crazy. And I and I never understood depression. And so my
01:47:46
my journey or my understanding of that is is truly like I've flipped 180. I flipped 180 after the the journey with
01:47:55
tasting with with Tastain and seeing seeing him be extremely happy one day and waking up just wanting to kill
01:48:03
himself the next day. Like just watch watching that roller coaster and actually understanding that people can
01:48:07
be wired differently and it's not like that's not a hey man go cheer up scenario. This was like it was it was
01:48:14
dark at times. Um and so yeah that the again every it was a very very dark period but the what came out of that was
01:48:26
me having a deeper appreciation and understanding for people going through mental health and uh which which led to
01:48:31
us in his honor creating um bring people dancing that's why it's BPD is the
01:48:36
acronym for borderline pipola borderline personality disorder um so yeah that that set me off on this other journey
01:48:44
with events which has been Yeah. Are you Are you at peace that you did everything
01:48:49
you could for your mate? Yeah. Yeah, I am. I questioned that for a while whether I whether I was like it was
01:48:56
almost and I don't know what it was like for your mate, but Oh, sorry. You know,
01:49:00
your yours came as a massive surprise whereas this scenario was him telling us, I'm going to take my life. I'm never
01:49:06
going to see my 30th birthday. Like it's almost in some ways you're like I mean
01:49:12
how do you sit there and listen to one of your best mates tell you that like I'm going to do this? And there were
01:49:19
number of times where he'd tried it and and um I had to get him out of a car
01:49:24
like where he tried to gas himself and you know drive up to a just crazy crazy [ __ ] But it's um yeah it's almost
01:49:31
harder um in some ways that he was so open. I was I was so actively trying to to help
01:49:39
him and he's so openly saying that this is what I want and it was the o he felt
01:49:44
like it was the only way that he could be at peace and there is this small part of you and a lot of people don't want to
01:49:50
admit it but there's there's still this part of you where like you almost start
01:49:54
to believe them in the end you're like I just can't see you go through any more
01:49:57
pain dude this is like so when it when it eventually happened you it was like a level of there's just relief relief yeah
01:50:08
It's rough. Yeah, I suppose there's there's um there's there's probably more
01:50:12
than two types, but yeah, there's your your mate who um was yeah, making it very clear clear about how he was
01:50:18
feeling. And then there's my mate who was very very secretive about it and nobody knew. But I think both of them
01:50:22
come with like a a degree of like sort of guilt to the people left behind. Like you do you do question you what you
01:50:29
could have done differently for a different outcome. Definitely. It's tough though. Eough.
01:50:34
Um, say it's your funeral. Um, you're an old man, you die. Um, your your family and friends are
01:50:42
there. What three words would you like them to use to describe you? Integrity. Yeah, that would be that that that would
01:50:51
be the dream, I think. Um yeah, I think I I want to be remembered as um fun's the right word, but
01:51:04
I you know I Yeah, I guess if they I mean integrity covers a lot of things as we discussed,
01:51:11
but even if they just said that I was just an honest man um that was family first that um was fun to be around uh
01:51:21
like that that would be far more than enough. Um, you know, and and I it's yeah, sort of just weird because I
01:51:28
couldn't I just don't imagine a scenario where they're talking I don't care about
01:51:32
the things that I've achieved, you know, it's sort of like it's not even attached
01:51:34
to music, but if they say that I you know, if they say that I operated with honesty and stuff, then that would be
01:51:40
huge. It's how you make people feel. Hey. Um, yeah, you used the phrase reverse engineer before and that's what
01:51:47
I like about that question because I think if if it's something that you can
01:51:49
think about, like three words that people would you'd like people to describe you once you're gone, then you
01:51:54
can start acting that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So true. Yeah. And are you proud of yourself? I am. I am. I am. I think
01:52:03
there's um I think it's healthy to be proud of what you've achieved. I don't I don't
01:52:10
look back on what we've done enough. um uh growth mindset, eh? Yeah. Yeah. Very
01:52:16
very much 1% of where I need to be all the time, you know, and which keeps you humble and it's, you know, on one hand
01:52:23
people, oh amazing, you've achieved all this. What's it like to stand there?
01:52:25
It's like, oh, it's just nothing compared to what I would love to be able
01:52:29
to do, you know? So, it's um Yeah. I Are you good at celebrating the wins along
01:52:35
the way? Is it a work on? I think it's I think it's a I think it's a work on. Um, no. I
01:52:42
think look, we I don't think I don't do enough reflection. I think celebrating the wins
01:52:49
is like being at the event is there's no greater way. You're if you're at Fisher,
01:52:53
you're standing on stage, you're looking at everyone and and it's and you've
01:52:56
pulled off the event. There is no I can't even imagine a better way to celebrate it than the success of the
01:53:01
event itself. That that's the unique thing about events is they are they are
01:53:05
a celebration when you're there. Um but it's yeah it's funny how just naturally
01:53:10
you're just always always looking ahead and I and I wish um yeah I wish I did do
01:53:16
more more reflection but um yeah I'm super proud of what we've achieved and
01:53:21
I'm yeah um very but I'm always more excited for the things we haven't
01:53:26
achieved. That's it's good though if you got something to like look forward to that
01:53:32
that you know that reason to get out of bed in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, what you just I don't know. I
01:53:37
would just Maybe that's another fear. I would hate to feel like I've achieved
01:53:41
it. I would hate to feel like I've achieved it all. That's Well, I've had
01:53:44
um Anna Moberry on the podcast. You know, she's one of the Zuru founders now. She set up a new company called
01:53:48
Zeal. And I I said to her, like, so she's a billionaire, sold out of Zuru, got a billion dollars. I'm like, why why
01:53:54
did you set up another company? like why don't you just go on a couple of boards
01:53:56
or go on the board of trustees for your kids school and she she described um I wonder if you agree with this like she
01:54:02
said um uh like Zuru was a mountain that she climbed and there's many more mountains that she wants to climb. Yes,
01:54:09
100%. 100%. And that's what we goes back to that flexibility I want to keep is I
01:54:16
don't want to get fixated on yes I've been heavily involved in music and a
01:54:20
promoter is what I would have to identify as primarily but I don't want that to be what defines me and and if if
01:54:27
you look back from you know I I want to achieve things in other areas and but I don't mind for me it's not about the the
01:54:35
category or the industry it's it's about the objective you know and if the
01:54:40
objective is impacting people positively, then it doesn't have to be music. I don't I might just get
01:54:45
absolutely fixated on sport or it might be golf. Like at this stage, it's probably going to be golf. If I start
01:54:52
running golf events, I'd be stoked, you know, but um yeah, I just think in life
01:54:57
we got to stay open. Hey, well Mitch Low, this has been great. Um yeah, it's been like a couple
01:55:04
of hours. Um and the impression I've got is that um yeah, you're a man of
01:55:07
integrity. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Oh, no. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and
01:55:13
I'm really excited to see what the uh what the future brings and what you do.
01:55:17
So, I think the country needs big thinkers like you. Oh, I appreciate that. Thanks so much for having me, man.
01:55:21
This is awesome. Appreciate it, bro. I appreciate it. Cheers.