The Marquee Show with Keith “K.C.” KoKoruz – E125

Welcome everybody to the wedding songs podcast. I am Matt Campbell. Have you ever thought about attending a conference? Well, today I have not.

Well, there you go today. To help me along with this topic is Keith from Marquee Entertainment and Hospitality Conference. And Keith Christopher Entertainment Group from the Chicago area. Welcome to the show. K.C.. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve never been to a conference before, so I just started throwing my own.

No, I am a product of 30 years of conferences, which I believe has really helped me with my career, is one of the reasons that I started a conference because I want to help other people with their careers too. let’s backtrack a little bit because I know you’ve been in the wedding industry for many, many, many, many years.

Memorable Wedding Moment

Can you just share a memorable or heartwarming wedding moment? it’s a little bit of both, but at first, it’s a shocker. So I worked for this family forever. I did all the nice Irish family, which, you know, everyone loves. That means once you get in with a brother or one of them, they’re going to have 17 brothers cause they’re Irish Catholic and that’s the way that goes so big families.

So I’m doing this family’s third wedding and three songs into the dancing. One of the mothers of the bride’s coworkers. Drops of a heart attack just Three songs into the night. I have the foresight to, when it happens, shut off the music, and immediately ask if there was anyone trained with medical training.

And there was a police officer there and there was a nurse. They immediately started doing CPR. We were at a really nice resort. And so they were on top of it. And I kicked everybody else out of the ballroom. I literally said, and if you’re not with medical training, I’m going to ask you to leave the ballroom right now and let, the professionals do what they have to do.

And really what I was doing was I didn’t want there to be a big circle of people watching, the whole voyeuristic thing that we do out of curiosity or narcissism whatever reason we sometimes were drawn to that. But at the same point in time, I didn’t want anyone to witness someone passing away three songs into a wedding day.

So the paramedics come. There’s only like 10 people in the room. I happen to be one of them. And they’re pretty much like, he’s gone to a better place. And that was that. I turned to the paramedics and I said, I need a humongous favor. And they go, what’s that? I go, I need you to tell everyone on the way out the door.

He’s going to be fine. And they’re like, what? And I go, think about this. We were three songs into dancing. And if they find out he passes, this wedding is over. It’s going to go from a wedding to a funeral instantly. I said I need you to go with me on that. And they go, we understand that a problem.

So they didn’t put a sheet on him or anything. They took him. They had the IV and everything that they had started to do, they took him out and. Sure enough, what ends up happening is they lie to everyone and they come in and everyone walks in the room Totally like, we cleaned up the area where they had been working on them and everything. I knew that the father of the bride Was a man of religion and he goes, what are we going to do?

I said, I think we need to deal with the white elephant in the room and that is we have to acknowledge what happened and realize that we were just proven life is very precious and This tonight is a celebration and if there’s ever a reason to celebrate it could be because We can be taken out in a minute.

Just like today. So what ended up happening is I essentially, addressed the room and I said, okay, how many times have you seen that before, and everyone kind of smirked? And I said if nothing else this proves how precious life really is and I said so to start the evening off once again I’d like to call up the father of the bride.

Mr. Matt Campbell comes up and He says, we’d like to take a moment just to say a quick prayer for the person in his family And the DJ is 100 percent right We want you to celebrate and everything else. He hands it back to me. And I said, folks, again, this is a celebration of Jane and John Doe, and let’s not forget that.

 I’m going to start things off nice and slow and easy. Bring out that special, someone squeeze him or her a little bit tighter because you just never know what life has done from there. The dance floor explodes. I think people just, it’s kind of like when you almost get into an accident when you’re driving and all of a sudden you’re like the perfect driver all over again.

Cause, oh my God, I got to start paying attention more. It was the same thing. It was overcorrected. The place went crazy. We went into an hour of overtime because things got pushed back and the venue wanted to do everything they could to make it great. And, So then this was the best part of it.

So, the event goes great. Everything’s cool. What was funny is one of my DJ assistants, was his first time working with the boss. Okay. And everyone’s like, K.C. Is easy to work with, you just have to do what he says. And he’s totally. He was shocked when this thing happened.

He’s like, we’re going to pack up. Aren’t we? I’m like, no, no, no, don’t don’t even think that way yet. We turn around, we kick it into full gear. Two of us. He’s like, you’re a God. He goes, you got everyone dancing. And so we still joke. I’m still friends with him to this day. And he jokes that I’m the best DJ he’s ever seen with a room with a dead guy in it.

And so now Artie goes, great. A month or two later. Hi, good afternoon. Can I help you? They’re like, yeah, we were at a wedding. And the DJ was unbelievable, and something really weird happened at the wedding. And I go, oh, you were at the wedding where the guy died. And they’re like, yeah, how’d you know?

I’m like, ’cause there’s not a lot of weird things that happen at weddings, where people like would do that silence. And so, they’re like, we figured if you could get that room dancing, and get going crazy, we know you can get my son’s wedding, my nephew’s wedding. So that was my single biggest referral from one specific event.

I think that I’ve gotten more from that than from wedding shows that I’ve attended for three days or whatever. It was crazy, but yeah, it was, the, , Shannon family. I still remember him to this day and I have a very distinctive voice on the microphone. And so even then I’ll have people who will come up to me and go.

You were the DJ at the Shannon wedding, weren’t you? And I go, yeah, they’re like, I go, how’d you know that? They’re like, we were guests there and we recognize your voice on a microphone. So I have my own little cult there. That’s been very good to me. Well, it just proves how spontaneous DJs have to be.

Even I DJ at a wedding where there was a little stage where I was at the grandmother came up. Fell down, broke her leg, and had to call the ambulance, and just like you, the show must go on. But it was very clear she was going to be okay.

And people felt bad. But I mean, you see someone drop and I’ve had that happen three times, but this was the one where. He was gone. I guess most memorable and at the same point in time, I forgot the second half of your question, but it turned out to be a wonderful evening, for everyone, but you know, one small portion of a family. Let’s brighten up the mood a little bit.

Who is K.C. KoKoruz

Why don’t you just introduce yourself to our listeners? My name is Keith Christopher, KoKoruz, and my nickname’s K.C.

 bottom line is I’m just a hardworking serial entrepreneur that, I’m knee-deep in the event space. I own multiple small businesses that work within that space. DJing is the first. I started in my fraternity house in college and fell in love with it and eventually dropped out of college because my major, wasn’t what I loved doing.

I loved entertaining and my parents were super supportive. Also, probably because I was making so much money DJing I was making more money. Deejaying than my friends that were coming out of college, going to the entry-level corporate positions. I get enterprise, rent a car or all state or what have you that when we would compare salaries, although I didn’t have benefits, I was making far more money than them, just in what we charged.

And so my folks were like, okay. And if you’ve been to Marquee, my mom is still there. She’s 76 years old. Everyone knows Mama K and. She works registration and schmoozes with everybody and other than maybe Big Daddy gives out more hugs, than anybody else at the show. So, I live in the city, my office is in the suburbs and I enjoy working like a crazy man.

Marquee is kind of my hobby, which seems crazy, but it’s not how I make my living, and that’s okay because I enjoy it. It’s definitely well appreciated in the DJ industry and, everybody in the entertainment industry for sure.

The Marquee Show 2024 Deets

Let’s get to the details. When and where is the Marquee Show? Marquee Show is the last week of June right outside of O’Hare airport, which is, technically Rosemont, Illinois, which is right in the city of Chicago. So if you’re flying in, you’ll fly into Rosemont and then the hotel has a complimentary shuttle service, so you don’t have to pay for an Uber cab or anything.

You’ll get off the plane, grab your baggage, and go to the terminal to jump on a Complimentary shuttle bus, which is about 6 minutes away from the hotel. I mean, it’s super, super close. It’s not walkable, but it’s literally like a 6-minute ride. and then everything is pretty much at the hotel or the entertainment district right behind it, which is.

Walkable to go to and clearly you can stagger home and still make it back. Okay. Because you go out the back of our park going a lot into the parking lot of the entertainment district where all of our evening parties will be held. So again, no Uber, no cabs, no. Convincing someone to give you a ride or having to worry about that, like you have to do in Vegas and other towns hosting events.

So it’s super close. It’s 1 of the reasons that we picked this new hotel. We have room for 75 exhibitors, 10 by 10 spaces as well as 5, 20 by 20 islands. And then I think we have half a dozen demo rooms downstairs. we have 3 tracks of education happening. 1 of them is a business track, which talks about sales, marketing, SEO, Google ads, email everything. And that’s open to not only just D. J. S. Even though we started as a D. J. show, we changed it to entertainment hospitality. Because if you’re watching this and you’re catering. Executive or a limo company or anyone trusts me when I tell you this shows as much education as any conference.

You could possibly go to. and then we have a DJ track and in that track, we talk about. Programming, mixing, technology, emceeing, scratching, DMX protocol, programming, setting up line array. If you’re a gearhead or you’re a true, call it, I don’t use the word professional, but, if you’re an enthusiast and you believe that you need to know everything there is to know about deejaying the business will come, then come to that track.

If that’s where your passion is, we have 3 solid days of people like DJ Qbert’s giving scratching lessons. He’s a former DMC world champion. Mike Walter’s doing an MC workshop. DJ Hapa is talking about, VR technology in the DJ world. And, DJ, Cova is coming in and talking about editing.

He’s doing a social media panel just specifically geared toward DJs. we’ve got our 40th anniversary of house music, panel coming up. We have so much stuff. And then we have our sponsored workshops where, for example, James from Curator. Curator is one of the most popular software in the industry, and he is going to be doing a seminar on Deep Dive, it’s a masterclass, so out of a ten-chapter book, you may understand five chapters of what it is.

He’s going to show you the newer technology, green screen, all of the stuff that it can do, and you’ll be like, holy cow, I didn’t know it did that. So there’s a lot of sponsors doing that. There are a couple of CRM companies talking about. How to automate things and how to make your life easier and go from there.

There are 60 seminars in total in our show. It’s shopped full of education. Our exhibit floor has everyone you could ever think of, exhibiting. and we’re still working on more people. And then we also have, evening parties. So it’s going to be a great three days. It really is. For the three tracks, you mentioned business, you mentioned DJ, what was the third one?

The sponsor tracks. Sponsor tracks, okay. And the sponsor tracks are all complimentary. You don’t have to buy an education pass. You can go through those. Those are open to literally every attendee there is. Whereas the other two tracks, you have to have an education pass or a full pass. The big differences between those two passes are one comes with lunch included from the hotel, and then you get priority seating in the front of the room. so there are some perks to doing that. And it seems like most of the out-of-towners will do that. And most of the local people know how to jot out for lunch real fast and grab something, or they know where to Uber eat from and, an order in and such.

But there are 2 restaurants in the hotel as well. So if you choose not to do the more expensive, the 2 passes, you can certainly eat it. Murray brothers, which is the Murray brothers as in Bill Murray, Caddyshack. So it’s a Caddyshack-themed restaurant, which is kind of cool. And then there’s a thing called on the fly, which has, It’s kind of like a counter grab and go, and you can order burgers. I’ll bring it to you and stuff. So there’s a lot of options. And then the hotel bar opens, I think you’re like three o’clock that has food options too. got it all planned out pretty much.

Ideal Attendee

Let’s get into the hard-hitting questions then. Who is your ideal attendee? truthfully, I believe even the less dedicated attendees, you go to a show for two reasons, any conference, I don’t care if you’re a plumber or a podcaster or a politician, you go there. Number one to learn how to make more money.

And number two, you go there to see if some people or things can make your life easier instead of working 80 hours a week. Can I use the CRM and it’ll automate emails and send stuff out? So I don’t have to do it manually anymore. I don’t have to pay someone to call or what have you.

So it’ll make your life easier. CRM is a perfect example. The minute you have one of your staff booked, you send them a confirmation. They click on it. Yes, I’m working that June 3rd. And when I call up Matt and go, okay, your wedding this weekend, he goes, I don’t have a wedding with you. Yeah, you do.

And you even confirmed it on July 25th of last year. The bottom line is there are tons of tools there. I think people go for those two reasons. Now, my ideal. Is people who are really serious about growing their business or growing their profession. there are convention towns like yours, Vegas, which is a huge draw.

But sometimes I think the draw of Vegas is a distraction from the conference because we’ve been to Wedding MBA, we’ve been to MEX and PBX, and there are thousands of people there. But you go into some of the seminar rooms and you’re like, where is everybody? It’s the first seminar of the day, and they’re still out, they’re still tired from partying the night before.

And I get it. And I’ve been there, and I’ve been one of those people. But I’m looking for people who are probably more on the serious side. they’re frustrated or they’ve plateaued and they’re looking for the next way to increase their business, whatever that might be. So whether it’s something that Alan Berg’s going to teach him or Shannon Tarrant or Mike Walter or whomever.

And I would even add to that. It has to be people who are willing to implement the things that they’re going to learn there, right? Because then they’re the ones that are going to be your testimonials. I’ve always said, I only need one tip to double my business.

Get That One Tip

If I can get that one tip, that’s plenty. And sometimes you’re reminded of things that you used to do. Mm-hmm. that sometimes even technology takes you away from it. I’ll give you a perfect example. I was on a Zoom call with David Tutera during Covid. And we were talking about this, that, and the other thing.

And he was saying, you know, one of the things he was reminded of was handwritten notes. At first, I’m like, what are you talking about? He said he showed an example. He got a note from one of his vendors that the note just said, thinking of you. And it was a note saying David and Joey, I know that we’re all shut down, but that doesn’t stop the fact that we’ve always loved you guys and appreciated you and your referrals and your business.

And we can’t wait to get back to work and just want to make sure you guys are okay. He said that person was his number three vendor go-to. And that card now made him their number one. And I think it’s true, even with some of the CRMs, like we have it automated to say, thank you. And here’s our survey.

It’s kind of like Uber Eats does the same thing as Grubhub, and it doesn’t feel the same as having a handwritten one. And years ago, I used to send my DJs to the weddings with a three-ring binder. And in the binder, there was a thank you card. And I told them that you have to about three-quarters of the way through the night, write a thank you note to put into the envelope container, where the guest envelopes were.

And I said I want you to write something personal about the wedding. It could be, your best man’s toast was hilarious. I hope you guys have a great time in Tahiti and love to see future weddings. And then you put your card in there, signed it. And that was that. What was interesting was we got so many more thank you notes from our wedding couples.

And I used to say, God, we just don’t get them like we used to, man, we must suck. But no, these clients are all, reviewing us on the knot and everything, but we’re just not getting those handwritten thank-you notes. And it was just technology changed. And so we wound up going back to sending personal thank you notes, especially even business to business, Jane Doe refers you don’t you shoot her an email or text saying hey, just talk to Matt and he said great You drop them a quick little note, handwritten people really really go.

Wow. This was nice. So it’s just something unique and different, and it’s been around forever. And sometimes seminars and things like that remind you of things that you used to do. And you’re like, Oh yeah, I don’t do it that way anymore. And why? Cause I was convinced that technology was the way to do it.

Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. And people will take the easy way out. And I’m guilty of it. You’re guilty of it. We all are. I love it. Just take that personal time just to reach out to those people. He might not even be a note, just an actual message. That’s something that we don’t do.

First-timers or Never Attended a Conference

What would you tell a wedding DJ who has never attended an industry conference? Enroll in barber school. No. no, I would say, bring a notepad or make sure that you have your notes pad available on your iPhone. If you have an iPhone, I do everything on my notepad on my iPhone. And wear comfortable clothes and free your mind and just be open-minded. You might sit through a terrible seminar at some shows, of course, never at the marquee show, but at other shows, no, but there are things you’ll connect with people you’ll connect with and just be open-minded.

I’m going to tell you, come with an open mind, bring a lot of business cards, and be prepared to Openly say hello and schmooze people in the hallway. Don’t go there and sit quietly like you’re in church. Be fun be gregarious. Have a good time and go from there Yeah, I think that’s a great tip for first-timers as well. Yeah and for anybody to be honest with you even if you’ve been to ten of them if you go there with an open mind and Don’t go with your arms crossed going.

What am I gonna learn? What’s Matt gonna teach me? Well, you’d be surprised. I’ve been to conferences before thinking this has nothing to do with my business and pulling away some valuable tips out of it. Right.

A Conference from a Producer’s Perspective

What would attendees be surprised to know about conference show producers? We’re idiots now. I can’t speak for anyone else. Certain shows you can tell are very, very driven based on the show floor. Okay? Their show floor is significantly bigger than mine. Their whole focus is to get as many vendors through the door as possible with the idea that. If they’ve created Disneyland, let’s say for the parking lot, paving, and striping business.

And you can go there and talk to 15 guys that sell yellow paint and find the perfect striping. That’s great. That’s where their focus is and their focus is specifically about making the biggest exhibit floor possible. Mine. In my opinion, it’s truly about education. I think that if you give someone the tools and they’re open-minded to using them, and I know this from me, I walked into DJ Times in 1992, saw John Rozz speak for the first time and it was like, oh my God.

And I was 20, nothing years old at the time. And the industry was nothing and there was no internet and there was no YouTube and there weren’t even bulletin boards. There wasn’t even the internet in 1992, really. And I just remember seeing John Rozz had vans with his name on them and uniforms with his name on them.

And I was doing frat parties and, just breaking into weddings and such. And I was like, Holy cow, this guy’s a genius and I learned from him and then I couldn’t wait for the following year. I remember getting married in 93 and Getting on a plane to go to LA for the next show I had never even been on a plane before So my first thing was to go to a conference and I remember talking to my wife every night saying….

Oh my god Oh my god. Oh my god, I learned this and I learned this and I can’t wait to do this and all of it and You And I think that shows have value and it’s, it’s like going to a concert when you immerse yourself 100 percent for three solid days about having breakfast with people that do what you do, having coffee, bumping into them in the hallways, even turning to the guy to the left going, that’s a pretty cool idea, don’t you think?

And they’ll go, no, that idea sucks. Here’s the way you do it. And you’re like, Oh, all of a sudden you’re think tanking with the guy and brainstorming. And you’re like, Holy cow, the guy on stage is ideas like a seven, but now with the Chrome hubcaps and everything else, now it’s a 10.

And again, part of it’s all personal and the in your style and you go to a DJ show and some guys will tell you, it’s all about mixing and programming and others will say, it’s, it’s all about creating moments on the microphone. And some people go, Oh, you have to record the bride and groom loving each other.

And Play it and others, and again, there’s no right way or wrong way. It’s just what fits for you. But the good part is you go to a show, you’re given a ton of ideas, and then you decide what you want to do, it’s like a buffet. You take what’s yours, what fits you, and you go from there. I think exactly that. The first conference I attended was, I think, the 1998 Mobile Beat.

Okay. And you don’t even know what’s possible until you do some of these shows, especially coming from small-town America. Right. You can exponentially grow your business just by the ideas that are thrown around, I think. Oh, and the reality is, Anthony Robbins has said multiple times, that less than 5 percent of Americans who don’t have education required as part of their job, only 5 percent will attend a show.

Okay. Or a conference or continued education. So if you just show up, okay, like Woody Allen said, 85 percent of life sometimes is just showing up. If you show up and pay attention, you’re already ahead of 95 percent of your direct competition. So what are we talking about? You have to get on a plane, fly to Chicago, put yourself up.

Let’s say it’s two grand. All right. You learn how to get one wedding from it. You know, when you do a DJ and photo booth, you can easily make your money back. It’s a matter of if you can afford it, it really should be a matter of if you can afford not to, and I’m not talking about my show. I’m talking about any show.

Every show has got their peaks and valleys, including mine. but. You find a show that you identify with, maybe it’s closer to you, or maybe you want to go to a show further away from you because all of your competition will be at the show closest to you because it’s convenient. But the fact of the matter is, you’re never going to tell me that education is not a great tool.

And it’s different than a podcast because let’s face it is as dynamic and amazing as I am, as your guest, some people are going to pause and then get distracted, letting their dog out or what have you. And they may never, ever come to the end of this podcast, but when you’re at a show, you are submerged in it 24/7 and it’s like going to a camper and that. It’s a different environment.

Marketing a DJ Company

Do you have any advice for DJs on how to effectively market themselves and their services to wedding clients? I know that you’ve had a lot of experience, booking the speakers and listening to all the topics and marketing is your specialty.

Marketing is my passion. I think my specialty truthfully is showing up and that’s where I won’t say I’m the best DJ in the world, but I’m at the office every day by nine o’clock. You call or email me, you’re going to get an email back a lot faster than some people that have got full-time jobs or what have you.

From a customer service point of view, I think we excel that way. my advice, number one is you have to start looking at your brand If your target is weddings, again, do you have a nice, clean, wholesome brand that says, I’m going to do a fun, beautiful, elegant job for you on your wedding?

If you’re looking like a club DJ and it’s booming entertainment and you’ve got two big subwoofers as the two O’s in your booming name. It might be cool if you’re a high school DJ or, or doing car shows, but. Will a bride go, grandma’s going to hate this guy or my parents are going to hate this guy.

So you need to think about who your client is at the same point in time. I don’t think you should pigeonhole yourself where it shows you with a bride and groom on everything like you only do weddings, but I think that a super clean logo is the place to start and then work your brand from there as far as what your website looks like, what it covers, what it encapsulates.

And then. If I was an independent DJ, I would probably invest in two things. One, I would try like crazy to get in the door with maybe four well-respected venues that I want to work at, that have the type of clientele that I like to go after and really become their best friends. I mean, constantly, even if it’s just dropping off little goodies, candies, cards, constantly just being a very nice person, because truthfully, a country club is going to recommend you over the next guy, even if he’s better, if they like you better, if you’re nicer to their staff, if you respect their rules and don’t scratch up their walls and, you help them, move the table into place or you make their life easier.

They’re going to refer you because of that reason. Okay. so I would do that and then I would probably do the largest bridal show. In my area, and then use the list to hunt with. you know, how many jobs you want to do, you know, where you want to work, and you can go through the zip codes, the wedding dates, and you can decide, okay, I want to work.

This guy is right in my neighborhood they have a wedding date that I have wide open. And so some people just shotgun it or sadly, they just pass out flyers and they’re done. Others shotgun it and they put it into a MailChimp or constant contact. They spit it out and that’s it.

If I were an independent or a much smaller boutique company, I would be going through that list and very strategically emailing them saying, hi, this is Campbell Entertainment and Photography Services. We’d love to chat with you about your wedding day. We’ve already checked based on having met you at the wedding show dot, dot, dot, and, and kind of going from there.

I think those two things alone, along with doing a great job regularly and staying current on your social media. You should be able to book yourself 50 times a year and what you charge is up to you. I can’t stand that debate. Very good now. That’s great tips.

The Future of the Conference

Our last hard-hitting question is what are your hopes for the future of the conference and its impact on the industry? listen, I would love to get to the point where we’re as big as Wedding MBA or DJ Expo, and the way that we’re getting that audience is because we have the best education.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. My first show had 80 people at it and, I’m hoping to have 1500 at this next conference, and that’s 7 years in the making and making it through a pandemic and going from that point of view. I’m trying to consistently keep my conference unique and different.

One thing I’m also proud of is you’ll see a lot of presenters at other conferences that you saw at my conference first. And that’s something that I’m super proud of. Shannon Terran just told me she was asked to speak at another DJ conference, next year. And again, she had never spoken at a DJ conference before mine.

I brought in Chris Washburn before he had the national acclaim that he has earned as a great presenter. Same thing, Troy Adams, he applied the right way through our application process and we talked on the phone, and in talking with him, I was able to pre-qualify him that he would be a good fit.

And now he’s on the national team. Wedding NBA and he’s at, DJ Expo and he’s speaking in Midwest DJs live or did by the time this posts or what have you. But the fact of the matter is I take great pride in finding great talent and I try to be on the pulse of what’s going on in the industry.

I don’t hit it every time. I’ve had some clunkers. I had a Dana Solomon who’s going to be one of our hosts this year. She gave an unbelievable, well-thought-out, beautiful smart, presentation on cruise ship DJs. And what I found out when she had very few people in the room was that. People might be curious, but they don’t want to spend their time at a conference listening to someone talk about something they’re just curious about.

So I had that with sports DJs. The one that still boggles my mind to this day is a good friend of mine. Harry Legg, is a voiceover and I knew him when I worked with him at KISS FM. This guy’s got a voice like nobody else, unbelievable production. He did the voiceover for, Keith Urban’s concert last year.

He was the voice of NBC Sports Radio up until they changed format during the pandemic and such. And, he put it all out there. This is how you do it. This is how you can get on Fiverr if you want to be, working a lot in everything. I thought, my God, this will be great.

But Matt Campbell would rather, and I’m using your name only, You’d rather go to your karaoke show for 200 a night than work in the afternoon doing voiceovers, in your studio, your little bedroom or office, or whatever, and make the same amount of money and be home on a Wednesday night.

Again, I don’t judge. I just was shocked that the whole room wasn’t packed. So, some are hits, some are misses, and that’s that. So, we’ll see. I’m trying to provide the best education possible. Well, and I think you have to take chances sometimes, too. It’s not being spoken in any other show, you think it would fit.

Well, I’ve always said that I want to create a show that I would want to tend to as a 30-year veteran in the business. And if it’s interesting to me, the newer guys are going to be drinking from the fire hose, like there’s no tomorrow. As I just told you earlier, I thought last year’s show was amazing.

I got nothing but hugs and kisses from people and thank yous. And yet I just found out that one guy thought it was a total waste of time. and maybe it’s him. It was, I don’t know. And he attends a lot of shows and I have no anger. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but it is what it is.

It just proves that you care. That’s all I try. I try really hard. So is there something we missed today that you want to share? I just think that in life you’re either growing or dying and it’s a choice. There’s a reason that the most successful people in the world read a book a week or continue going to education.

They’re driven by education. the most successful people like Tiger Woods have a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach, people who want to succeed, surround themselves with more successful people, they say, you want to be a great golfer, be the worst of the foursome. Because it’ll force you to play up to their potential. and it’s that old adage.

If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you need to get into a new room. And for me, it’s the same thing. I’m always striving to learn and be curious and creative. I was on The Internet last night with Alibaba, a vendor, they’re going back and forth because I have this idea that I thought their technology would be able to do where I wanted to essentially at a high school event, hang all of these cool things in the ceiling and then make the ceiling come alive.

Almost like something you’d see in an amusement park and unfortunately, their technology doesn’t allow it But all I kept thinking was how cool would this be I ran it past a bunch of people and they were like That would be awesome, but you’re nuts and I’m like, I’ve been told that before but again, creativity and genius are One step away from madness and insanity.

 That reminds me of the projections that they can do nowadays, even if they’re doing them in Vegas where they’re putting all of these things on the buildings. It’s all the video mapping. Yeah. Yeah. It’s an unbelievable. Oh, sure. Oh, I just posted the marquee show group. They have a 3D video wall that they debuted at, I think, NAB. I mean, the panels actually come out and in. I mean, it’s, it’s mind-scrambling.

Attend the Marquee Show and Connect with K.C.

So where can listeners connect with you and follow along and learn more about your show and about your company? The easiest way would just be marqueeshow.com or Google marquee show on any social media platform. our Facebook marquee show community group page is probably our most active. And I’m super proud of the fact that we can talk about industry-related things there without it becoming a big argument or a big match so it’s, it’s a good positive place to be.

You can ask questions, and get great sources from different people. I’m always posting in there trying to keep the conversation about our industry going all the time. that’s probably the best way or marqueeshow.com. And it’s got all my contact info on there. And if anyone knows me, they know that I’m a phone caller, a text message, or an email away from helping anybody.

 I love it. Just in case listeners are driving, it’s M A R Q U E E is marqueeshow.com. Don’t don’t don’t. Don’t don’t Don’t do it while you’re driving. Okay? At least wait till you get to a stoplight. And then you’ll be alerted by the fact that the light’s turned because someone behind you will be honking.

Yes. So. But yeah, June 24th through the 28th in Chicago. Love it. Well, thanks K.C. For being on the show. I really appreciate it. Stay tuned for next week with another interview with a wedding professional and make sure you give us a five-star review on your favorite platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

Thanks for listening and have a great day.