diablo54
New Contributor
Rewind to 1976 in Arizona, where Albert Leffler, Peter Gadwa, Gordon Gunn & Charles H Hamby Jr. get together and found Ticketmaster a ticket sales and distribution company.
Fast forward to 2011 and the company now owned by Live Nation, the US largest event promotion company sells over 140 million tickets with a revenue of over 8 billion.
----
Rewind again to 1996, where I am a freshman in college and with 5 other friends we start promoting "Carnaval" parties, a huge national celebration in Bolivia, each making ~5K USD each in only 5 days.
My passion for promoting events is born. The carnaval parties continue for 9 years that we would promote during my summer vacations.
In the meantime, I've managed to live in Chile attending some college, live in Japan (where I was first exposed to Electronic Dance Music - EDM, more on this later) New Zealand finishing college, then back to Bolivia where I worked for McCann Erickson as Account Director for brands such as Coca-Cola, BSA, Unilever and others.
After a year of McCann and completely convinced that I don't want to be an employee but run my own company, I quit, create my own event promotion company and promote my first concert in 2003. The artist is Argentine folk singer Horacio Guarany. Result: 3K loss.
I continue to pursuit my event promotion business and mange to convince a group of friends to invest in a concert for the argentine-mexican duet "Sin Bandera". Result: 15K loss.
Next event: Cuban artist Pablo Milanes in 2004. Result: Breakeven.
Then 2004, would prove to be the bottom of the well. While promoting an event with Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros, I manage to sell roughly 800 tickets in a venue that fits 12,000. Result: Loss of everything I have, including my mother's retirement money.
Soon after this, completely broke, I get hired by a friend in Chicago that is setting up a real estate firm that caters to MBA students working in marketing and business development. Unable to get a working visa from the US, I am relocated with the firm to Argentina. While in Buenos Aires I attend Creamfields, one of the world's largest EDM festivals in the world with a crowd of 60,000.
A month later, I quit and head back to Bolivia. Still with debt looming from the Prisioneros concert, I reactivate my production company and start promoting EDM parties.
First party features Miami based DJ Lazardi and Venezuelan Djane Meg. I continue to promote the parties which quickly results in creating a great relationship with local club owner S.E. (named omitted intentionally).
Next events: 4 Strings from the Netherlands, DJ Dan, Above & Beyond, Ferry Corsten...
Success continues and S.E and I decide to build a new club... Soundbar (name inspired from Soundbar Chicago). The club leaves me ~6K per month in profit which allows me to buy back a piece of land owned by my father and allows me to fund the development of a future software (described below).
Event promotion continues and after the last 4 successful EDM events, and 3 years of emails and proving my track record, US booking agency AM Only offers the opportunity to promote Tiesto, the worlds most known DJ. I get support from the local beer company who decides to hire me for the production of their event Bock Blue Nights 2009 featuring Tiesto.
One of Tiesto requirements for promoting the show was to declare the online ticket company would handle sales. The problem: There was no such company in Bolivia.
After researching for local IT firms to develop the software and program and finding none, I decide to go with a firm in Uruguay (the South American India in terms of software dev).
todoTix (translates into All Tickets) is born.
Fist show: Russian Ballet (2000 tickets sold)
Second show: The Doors in concert (5000 tickets sold)
Third show: Shakira in Concert (35000 tickets sold)
So where I am today:
Shows continue... event promotion continues... Soundbar continues... the land I had repurchased is now the setting for a 42 unit condo building preconstrucion... YTD ticket sales is over 120,000....
Am I in the Fastlane? Not even close... but I certainly think I am on the right track.
My .02: If I managed to create what I've created in Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America, with all the red tape you could ever imagine, with the lowest per capita income in the region... you can create your path to wealth regardless of where you are or live or how much money you have to invest.
My FL objective: Sell ~300,000 tickets per year... make a net profit of USD 1 per ticket and then sell the company for a lump sum to either Ticketmaster (operations in Mexico, Brazil and Chile) or to Tickettek (Operations in Ecuador, Peru, Argentina).
Fast forward to 2011 and the company now owned by Live Nation, the US largest event promotion company sells over 140 million tickets with a revenue of over 8 billion.
----
Rewind again to 1996, where I am a freshman in college and with 5 other friends we start promoting "Carnaval" parties, a huge national celebration in Bolivia, each making ~5K USD each in only 5 days.
My passion for promoting events is born. The carnaval parties continue for 9 years that we would promote during my summer vacations.
In the meantime, I've managed to live in Chile attending some college, live in Japan (where I was first exposed to Electronic Dance Music - EDM, more on this later) New Zealand finishing college, then back to Bolivia where I worked for McCann Erickson as Account Director for brands such as Coca-Cola, BSA, Unilever and others.
After a year of McCann and completely convinced that I don't want to be an employee but run my own company, I quit, create my own event promotion company and promote my first concert in 2003. The artist is Argentine folk singer Horacio Guarany. Result: 3K loss.
I continue to pursuit my event promotion business and mange to convince a group of friends to invest in a concert for the argentine-mexican duet "Sin Bandera". Result: 15K loss.
Next event: Cuban artist Pablo Milanes in 2004. Result: Breakeven.
Then 2004, would prove to be the bottom of the well. While promoting an event with Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros, I manage to sell roughly 800 tickets in a venue that fits 12,000. Result: Loss of everything I have, including my mother's retirement money.
Soon after this, completely broke, I get hired by a friend in Chicago that is setting up a real estate firm that caters to MBA students working in marketing and business development. Unable to get a working visa from the US, I am relocated with the firm to Argentina. While in Buenos Aires I attend Creamfields, one of the world's largest EDM festivals in the world with a crowd of 60,000.
A month later, I quit and head back to Bolivia. Still with debt looming from the Prisioneros concert, I reactivate my production company and start promoting EDM parties.
First party features Miami based DJ Lazardi and Venezuelan Djane Meg. I continue to promote the parties which quickly results in creating a great relationship with local club owner S.E. (named omitted intentionally).
Next events: 4 Strings from the Netherlands, DJ Dan, Above & Beyond, Ferry Corsten...
Success continues and S.E and I decide to build a new club... Soundbar (name inspired from Soundbar Chicago). The club leaves me ~6K per month in profit which allows me to buy back a piece of land owned by my father and allows me to fund the development of a future software (described below).
Event promotion continues and after the last 4 successful EDM events, and 3 years of emails and proving my track record, US booking agency AM Only offers the opportunity to promote Tiesto, the worlds most known DJ. I get support from the local beer company who decides to hire me for the production of their event Bock Blue Nights 2009 featuring Tiesto.
One of Tiesto requirements for promoting the show was to declare the online ticket company would handle sales. The problem: There was no such company in Bolivia.
After researching for local IT firms to develop the software and program and finding none, I decide to go with a firm in Uruguay (the South American India in terms of software dev).
todoTix (translates into All Tickets) is born.
Fist show: Russian Ballet (2000 tickets sold)
Second show: The Doors in concert (5000 tickets sold)
Third show: Shakira in Concert (35000 tickets sold)
So where I am today:
Shows continue... event promotion continues... Soundbar continues... the land I had repurchased is now the setting for a 42 unit condo building preconstrucion... YTD ticket sales is over 120,000....
Am I in the Fastlane? Not even close... but I certainly think I am on the right track.
My .02: If I managed to create what I've created in Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America, with all the red tape you could ever imagine, with the lowest per capita income in the region... you can create your path to wealth regardless of where you are or live or how much money you have to invest.
My FL objective: Sell ~300,000 tickets per year... make a net profit of USD 1 per ticket and then sell the company for a lump sum to either Ticketmaster (operations in Mexico, Brazil and Chile) or to Tickettek (Operations in Ecuador, Peru, Argentina).
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