This is the downbeat one, all right. So here in a second,
we'll talk to the guys, the CEO of the company that's creating the Sunset
Amphitheater in McKinny. Now, we did the story last week, and uh,
it's a big, you know, two hundred and twenty million dollar open
air venue that they're opening in McKenny. And there's a lot of things that
we discussed about it last week, and we'll get into it with the CEO
of that company, JW. Roth, a minute ago. One of those
things I think that really stood out to us was a twenty thousand person capacity,
you know, amphitheater, but also the idea of how do you keep
a place like that cool in the hot Texas summer. But before we get
there, guys, so there's a guy by the name of Julio Ferrari.
I've reached out to him on Facebook and on Instagram. No message back,
but you know, he might be busy because he has a pet macall parrot.
It's a fifteen year old brightly feathered Catalina macaw parrot, beautiful color plumage.
You know, if you get him on the phone, he's probably he's
probably Julio, it's red it maybe it's red blue. Healthier relationship before it
begins green yellow. I've seen it on the TV behind you quite a bit
this morning. The fifteen year old macaw parrot is named Samba. Samba flew
the coope Sunday afternoon while at a photo shoot at Louisville Lake. A big
gust of wind blue ND scared him and he said, I wasn't fast enough
to run after him. He just flew. So for hours he was trying
to get him back, he said, until nine thirty pm, and then
we went to sleep. And he says he was shooing off the hawks until
he went to sleep. So there was a parrot at the base of this
tree, and he left a flashlight to mark his place. He left water
and a note for those waters looking by. The note read, my macaw
flew up this tree. If you can help, please call. On Monday
morning, Ferrari returned to that tree and Samba was there. So he's squawking
and going, huh get me ah, I'm here a right rah. Are
you reading a transcript of what the U said? Uh? No. Several
visitors did stop by to help. He said the call I heard. Wasn't
your typical bird, though it was a little different, is what another person
who walked by I said. It sounded way different than a bird because it's
a parrot. It's different than a normal bird. But he sat. I
kind of walked up to it. I noticed it was a macaw stuck up
in the tree. He's in distress. He's stuck up there. He's trying
for help, almost like a person. I'm concerned for him. So that
thing is still up there. The goal yesterday was to get him to fly
to a smaller tree so they could get him. But his wing is clipped,
so he can't fly long distances. He's gonna he can only fly about
one hundred yards. So they had a Lewisville Fire Department fire truck there yesterday
and they're just palms, and he kept flying away to do he was a
bird. They're trying to get him in the bucket of the truck and he
kept flying away. This says in the article. On Monday evening, Samba
was attacked by several hawks, but he survived a fighting spirit. So Julio
or Julio, we're going with Julio. No one says Julio Julio Julie lit
Leo. Okay, Juvee Ferrari, Julie g Ferrari, Well, was there
a G. He's not g g U I l I o oh yeah see
yeah, okay, you're not an idiot. Yeah no, not right now.
Both things can be true. But he said, this is the third
day. They've got construction company trying to get it, and they still have
not get that. He's been scared by fireworks. I mean there's that was
in the past. He got He had stuck in a tree in twenty twelve
as well for three days. So he's back at it, and Yulio Ferrari
is like, I want my bird back, and it's on the news and
they still can't get it because every time they get goose to it he freaks
out. And free Spirit is a bird. Yeah, incredible, it's a
beautiful parrot. When you see it on the TV, it's nuts. I'll
point it pointed out to you. This is I will make fun of this
because I know what it is like to have lost a bird that you have
truly loved. What happened I have loved or you have loved because you said
you have loved. I have a bird currently, and you do is I
have a MCAU named dirty Dirty Wayne, and I appreciate it if that's the
last we ever mentioned it or talk about it on this show. I've been
to your house a number of times that I've never seen all of them looking
and going, yeah, it was rifling through your sock drawers. Appreciate if
that's the last that is ever mentioned on the show. And I don't you
Wayne sounds like a terribly named cocktail. Dirty Wayne. Ask Christina if I
have a bird named dirty Wayne, and I'd appreciate it. Once again,
if that's the last this has ever talked to him, Probably name there he
is? There's there's coming out a joke stroke because he got excited because the
bird showed up on TV. The rush of emotions. I freaked out.
Oh this idiot's just sitting in the tree. Come down, Googlio, peanut
butter, look at it. No, his name is Samba. Gulio's the
person he sees his dad Samba. No, Samba is the bird. Goodio's
the owner. Come get your peanut butter. Okay, now he's never gonna
come on the show. Goolo, the bird's not coming on the show.
I mean you could at all look at him. Look at him. Actually
we have some mutual friends with him, Mike. So okay, we do
we do? Is your Guestston or No? Yes? Joining us now in
the Freak Hotline. It is the CEO of the company Notes Live who is
building the Sunset Amphitheater and McKenny. We did the story a little bit last
week. It is the CEO again of Notes Live. J w Roth.
Good morning, j w how you doing? Good morning? Thanks for having
me, Thanks for doing this. First of all, the boy, when
the Lord was handing out names for CEOs, you got one of the good
ones because jw Roth just sounds like a big wheeler. Well, I don't
know about that, but we're gonna try to build a big amphitheater. I
know that. Nice hell there they are. Yeah, So McKenny as the
destination here. Obviously a lot of big venues here in DFW, whether it
be Dicky's Arena, American Airlines, No, SECI's pavilion. You know the
trick now, I'm not even mentioning what's all going on in Arlington? What
made you want to choose McKenny as a location and to shoot that big for
a twenty thousand person Amphitheater. Well, first, you know, we have
a site sort of selection process that we go through that starts with sort of
the competitive advantage that we would have in a market, and in that market
for outdoor sort of premium venues, we felt like ours would fit. You
know, we are very premium, maybe even over the top venue, So
in that particular market, we just don't think we have the competition there for
our particular style of venue. Number one, number two. It's one of
the busiest intersections in the country and we like the visibility of that of that
location. But first and foremost, I would say that the leadership in the
City of McKinney has just been They've just been phenomenal. So, you know,
in terms of when you start to build one of these, you know
the process, it's entitlement process, and it's dc work with the economic development
councils, and you know, if you don't have good leadership in the in
the municipality that you're going to your you're screwed from the from the beginning.
So anyway, in our particular case, we're very happy to belding there and
we're excited about it. We'll get we'll get a shovel in the ground sometime
this fall. Yeah, it also takes a pretty extensive and inefficient leadership group
from from your company as well, Notes Live, Inc. Because look,
man, number one, you've got to you got to select a city or
an area and then you kind of settle on this one seventy five, which,
as you said, is a very busy intersection. It's a very highly
visible intersection from the renderings that I've seen on the Dallas Morning News. It's
very visible from the freeway, and the drawings of course look spectacular. But
as far as your team, you've got to find that location and then you've
got to deal with the city. I mean, how many people do you
have working on one specific project at any given time. We have about forty
folks that are assigned to a specific project. Bob Mudd, who is is
our president and chief operating officer at Notes, he oversees all our developments.
We're just finishing one here in Colorado, which we believe will win win most
of the awards this next year. It will be the most luxurious amphitheater ever
built in history, and it opens here in about eight weeks or so.
Will be finished but Bob has overseen that project with about twenty folks here here
in Colorado. It's an AEG project. We're also building in the Tulsa market
in Broken Arrow that's a Live Nation is our is our partner there. That's
a twelve five hundred seater and in that particular market, we have about thirty
four people that are assigned to that project. Here in McKinny, it'll be
a little bit bigger than that, simply because the entitlement team will be bigger.
We don't have that many people on the project right this second, because
we're early in the in the project. We have eight people on the project
in McKinny that will take us through entitlement, and they are mainly our architects,
our engineers. But then later on down the road we'll get our you
know, naming rights folks involved, and our marketing folks involved, and and
all of that kind of thing. But right now it's schematics. We're getting
ready to launch a massive campaign in Dallas, in the Dallas wort Worth market
here. I believe it's the fifth of April when we start selling all of
our fire pits. So you know, one of the things that we do
in all of our markets, is we we build fire pit suits into all
of our venues. In this particular one, the will be two hundred and
ninety five firepit sweeps and those will be those will go on the market.
I believe it's April the fifth CEO of Notes Live Incorporated, J. W.
Roth, who is bringing the Sunset Amphitheater to McKinney, Texas. It
seems like if largely, if not all, of your projects are geared towards
live music. Was this something that was born of a passion of yours for
live music or was this a conduit to a means to be a successful businessman?
You know, it's interesting I get asked that all the time. You
know, I did not grow up in the hospitality and entertainment business. I
have just been a live music fan my entire life. I'm actually the founder
of Roth Premium Foods. Roth is one of the largest prepared food manufacturers in
the US. So, you know, I think we serviced every grocery store
in America every day. But about six years ago or so, I sat
down with my family and our partners and I said, you know, I've
been here at Roth for a long, long time. And I'm at the
point in my life where I could go chase something that I love. And
I watched what the NFL had done in building their venues and elevating the fan
experience in new venues, and I just looked across the music scene and it
just hadn't happened. And so I took the opportunity at that time six years
ago. I took twenty of our my top people out of out of Roth
and we took a year, we transitioned, and we built notes loot.
Even the whole purpose of not Slide was to chase my passion and that is
the that is to build venues that are that are artists and fan centric.
In other words, it's their their venues that are that are elevated. The
experience is elevated, the ambiance is elevated. And that's what I did.
I built two small ones, one in Colorado, one in the northern Atlanta
market of Gainsville. This is sort of test the philosophy that people would gravitate
toward a more elevated venue, and we were right. So we started with
the one here in Colorado that were just finishing. It's been a two and
a half year projects ninety million dollars and it's phenomenal. And that's just led
us to the other ones that are doing so. To answer the question,
it is, it is born one hundred percent out of passion. But it's
built with a team that you know built Rock Pram New Foods. All right,
So Bob Mudd's in charge of this thing. When you made mud,
the mud the man in charge of this mission, you know it's going premium.
Look, we saw the rend We love them. They're always fun.
I love all renderings. But the thing that caught our eye in our ear
is what I consider to be what air conditioned turf. Is that the dumb
or easiest way to say it, because ampitheat is hot when you're out of
the lawn, it can be miserable at a lot of these spots, tell
me what's going on? Are we blowing air through the grass? Is it
fake grass? Oh? Here's what we're doing. It's super cool. So
it's called hydrochill. Hydrochill technology. I just built it into my venue here
in Colorado. And what it is. Picture these small beads. They're a
little bit smaller than a marble, a little bit bigger than a Beabie.
And you know how you watch a baseball game and before the game, a
lot of times you'll see it and have big fire hose out there wetting the
turf. Exactly what we all do here. We'll put cold water onto the
turf. The turf absorbs the absorbs the water into these beads and these beads
will then take on the cold and hold that cold for five hours, so
the turf will bring it'll bring the turf down to seventy degrees the hydrochill technology.
We're also building a roof system on this one, very similar to the
one that we're building in Tulsa that moves the air. So we will move
the air and bring the temperature down about twenty degrees from whatever that whatever the
outdoor temperature is at the time. So you know, when you deal with
markets like Dallas Fort Worth, whether it have to be your number one concern
and so you know, we have built this so that we can create the
uh create the environment that's necessary to enjoy this concert. Okay, So moving
into the DFW market, it's going to be very competitive and albeit yes,
a great passion for the arts, for music, for a great artist experience,
for a great fan experience, but ultimately your goal is to be a
profitable business. And do you do you have any concern when it comes to
the game of booking, because what we've seen a lot of times when venues,
newer venues pop up down here, they will over pay for artists to
to wu them to play their venue. But ultimately there kind of comes a
point of of diminishing returns, so where you've kind of got to go back
to the market value of what these artists are generally paid to so so they
have other options and you've got to make money too. Do you do you
see that as being a concern starting out the business and and is that something
that you kind of budget for to Look, look, we're gonna outbid Dicky's
arena, We're gonna outbid uh dose Eki's pavilion and get these artists to to
you know, beef up our roster for the first six months to year of
our existence. But at some point if you're losing money, that's not sustainable.
Do you find that to be a concern now or has that been a
concern in the past. Yeah? There, I mean, when you when
you start to build a business, that's the first thing, you're got to
kind of it's got to work on paper first. And so we are very
comfortable with where we're at in the business model in that in that market.
At the end of the day, it's about putting great artists on the stage,
and right artists on the stage will result in butts in seats right so
and butts in seats pay per tickets. They they they buy beer, they
buy parking, they they do all the things that it takes to drive the
revenue to make a profitable business. On the other hand, you have to
you have to be careful in how you book your artists and how you run
the promotion side of your business. We are not the operator of our venues.
We are partners with the operator and our venue. So in Denver,
for example, here in Colorado, we are partners with AEG, and AEG
operates the venue from both a booking standpoint and operation standpoint. Tulsa, we
are partners with Live Nation. Live Nation is our operating partner. We are
the owner of that of that owner operator partnership. So in Dallas, in
McKinney, we have not made that decision yet. We are we are working
through all of the agreements that we currently have with our partners, and at
the end of the day, over the course of the next nine or so
months, we will we will on that's our partner down there, as you
know, the you know sort of the leading leading promotion organizations and those operators
are key to a profitable, profitable venue. So we will not book this
ourselves. We will book this in conjunction with a with a partner that is
you know, has their hand and finger on the pulse of the routes and
the artist. If you look at Sunset Amphitheater in Colorado Springs, for example,
all those tickets are up for sale for this summer and you can see
how they have sold. And we've sold out about every show that we've put
up, twenty two of them so far for the summer. We'll put up
another ten here in the next few weeks and it'll be a profitable it'll be
a profitable summer truck. Hey, JW, thank you for your time.
We appreciate what we following the developments and the news about Sunset Amphitheater coming to
a McKinney very soon. Can't wait to go check it out. Thanks a
Millien guide ye Man bye bye j W. Mike, what this thing looks
cool? Yeah, it looks amazing, he explained. The marbles. He
explained, that's interesting, cooling magic marbles. How are they not doing that
to high school football fields that are expensive, like the expensive high school football
fields that play on those the the beats, they don't need to cool.
You're not laying around on a leisurely afternoon on the high school field, Kevin.
You're playing sports. You don't need to You don't need cooling marbles there.
I think it would helps, though, help? What help? Who
I see someone who recovers a fumble and gets a couple of people on top
of them. It gets Kevin, Okay, you said off? Yes he's
off? Did I yeah? When you made your you're ce or whatever your
president? Okay, His lying is coming back because he immediately went to the
defense tactic of did I you said? That's about fifteen minutes after he said
that he has a bird that near and dear to him, said, if
you didn't bring up dirty Wayne ever again on this show, do not talk
about my parents. So the hall's good, the hallways anywhere. Look,
I was lost in the interview. I'm excited about this new venue notes live.
That's why I have no recollect it's actually the sunset empathy the company notes.
I know, I like the companies with chat innnings on the board of
directors. That he's the CEO of Wroth Foods. Dude, I didn't know
he had someone quite so powerful. That's probably the richest guy we've ever had.
No like that. Dude. If he doesn't already could own one of
the big sports teams. He might look the what's his name? I'm serious,
it's is the bill he's getting back on and ask for some money.
He's not a bill, but it's a J. W Roth's like one hundred
and twenty million J w Roth. He's got to be worth more than that.
If he's Wroth Foods, that's jd Roth. J d Roth. No,
jw Roth, j w Roth. You get him with boy, that's
the CEO name calculator. It really is up there, I mean, isn't
it. Yes, jw Raw, you know you're rich before you Yeah,
yeah, you were. You're wheeling and dealing. If you're a JD.
W Row, they're they're doing pretty good, I would imagine. So you
have his email, Kevin, we all know this was just a trick for
you to get tickets down the road. It was a hundred. I would
never operate that way. You always operate that way how currently, that's why
I trying to get the guy who's missing the parrot on, because he's going
to get me tickets to his art gallery. No, that's just to cover
up for all of your other all of your other inequities. I would not
waste time covering up things. I don't think we're in really a good enough
place to just mail it in and do stuff like that. Just doesn't waste
time covering up things. We can't just sit in here and make stinkies and
get tens. Well there was a time, though, wasn't there. Guys?
We have to try great job, good booking. There's a lot of
information and I did know that. You know, they just look, they
build the buildings, they own the buildings, and whatever happens in the buildings
is run by probably it probably will be ag. It seems like they're the
leader in the clubhouse for any of these things that come up. But hear
what goes into the decisions behind building a massive concert venue in McKinney in our
area. Yes, that's interesting. Yeah, it's a little bit of business
speak. But guess what, listener, maybe you should come up to the
level that we guys like me and j w Roth are at instead of being
confused by this stuff. And if all you took from that is how they're
going to cool the yard to the lawn, fine, that's fine. That's
still good information. But trying to get your head right. Don't act like
up here, like you're on the same level as jw Roth. You set
over there during that entire interview looked like you were rolling a booger. You
were given the throat slash sign about five minutes into it to go to break.
I did pull out the air hand guns. Jesus, I cocked their
finger gun and set it on the table. But I do that and earned
a lot of interviews in my defense. Just when callers call in cock the
finger gun and just sit on the table and stare at you, guys,
just know that when you send tw to make you laugh while you're asking a
question, just know that when you send in a talkback, pretty much three
seconds into it, he's had enough airshot. You pulled the finger gun,
just set down. Okay, that one. Tiger Wood's note Tyron Smith has
left his lasting statement for DFW and your talkbacks from the iHeartRadio Up next on
I Have One Freak