Shaun Pierce | Patrick Rife | The Pixilated Podcast

hello and welcome to another episode of the Pixilated podcast I am your host Patrick Rife this is your first time tuning in welcome if you are a regular listener welcome back the Pixilated podcast is in season 3 right now this is I think episode 10 or 11 or 12 something around there and if you've been listening you know that we tend to jp back and forth between two types of content we do a lot of informational content where we're just talking about event engagement and tools and things you can do that are fun for your events and then the other side of it is we focus on interviews with other people in either the events ecosystem or in industries that are adjacent to the events ecosystem right so not shy about talking to an AI expert who's working in mid journey but also we mainly speak with a lot of folks that fall under the hashtag event professional and today is going to be no different I'm excited to to have a new guest on the Pixilated podcast we're gonna be learning about his company learning about kind of the evolution of it where it started maybe some of the highs and lows over the last three three to five years and and also where they are headed now so without further ado Sean Pierce welcome to the Pixilated podcast thank you Patrick I appreciate the inviting the opportunity definitely super thrilled to have you on here love that you're in Pittsburgh love that we're in Baltimore we can we can leave that for for later on but Sean before we get into kind of the back and forth why don't you go ahead and just share a little bit you've been at this for a long time so I I know that this is gonna be an awesome chat because you've got a lot of wisdom and you're also running your own thing and those two things can be very powerful when it gets into the back and forth but before we go there why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about your company about yourself and how you ended up here sure well Pierce Events we are an event planning production and management company so we work with a wide variety of clients corporate social and nonprofit or as you said we're based in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania but we do events all across the country we've been in business for 15 years now we're celebrating our 50th anniversary in 2023 so yeah so we do a wide wide variety of events these days the bulk of our business is kind of corporate focused we're still doing you know all different type of events but kind of coming post pandemic our focus has really been on working with a lot of companies and branding and marketing events and things of that nature yeah awesome that's great that's great well so you know I I see that you know you spent time as a field marketer before you you launched Pierce Events and I'm guessing that that some of your experience in that world LED to you deciding to create your company so if if you don't mind like will you give us a little bit of that kind of origin story sure I like I call that my 15 year training period before I was ready to you know kind of kind of launch our own thing and it it's funny because I never really set out with the goal of hey I'm going into events you know it's kind of that question what do you wanna be when you grow up I have no idea so I'll do this for now and that kind of lays out the path of life I guess but I I will tell you I have been very blessed throughout my life to be around incredible people and incredible moments and I think you don't really realize it at the time that they all influence every day after that so I at the age 18 right out of right out of high school I was working concert production we had a brand new outdoor venue that just opened right outside of Pittsburgh and I was fortunate to get involved with that so not only did I have a front row seat but I also had a backstage pass to a lot of that seeing you know staging and lighting and sound production and working with the union crew and food and beverage and security and all all those elements that that go into a to a live production and then right out of college I ended up with a dream job with Walt Disney Studios so I was doing field marketing for them and our responsibility was to come up with kind of publicity and PR events some marketing events for any touchstone Hollywood or Walt Disney picture that was coming out during those times so I think I Learned more in six months with with that company that a lot of people learn you know in years so and then from there I I also got involved in media so really by the age of 25 I guess you know I worked it already in television radio motion pictures and live concerts so it was really a good foundation and you know good environment to to learn a lot of that awesome so what was there a was maybe I won't call it an aha moment because I think frequently it's actually based around the need that you're finding in your work that isn't being met in one place what was the impetus for that transition to finally kind of step out and create Pierce you know I I worked for for different people for 15 years and within really within six months I lost my job my mother lost her job and my brother lost his job and we are all kind of in different fields but events had been at least a small part of all of what we were doing and this was right around late 2000 2000 2007 to going to 2008 so if you remember the economic conditions back then I had a lot of contacts made a lot of phone calls and you know the answer was hey we would love to hire you but you know it was just a time where people were losing jobs not getting jobs so you're really faced with the question do you wait for things to change or do you to try to make them change and I guess I've always had the back of my mind oh it would be cool to have your own company you know be your own boss do your own thing but that's a very scary proposition you know until you do it you know you know you're getting a paycheck every two weeks someone else is taking care of all the expenses and the assets and all that stuff so that's great taking on your own thing and starting your own business is a whole different prospect so quite honestly while I had toyed around with the idea it was it was pretty scary to got kind of go out on that limb but really the best time to do it was when you really have nothing to lose and that's that's kind of what we did so you know I I initially thought I was gonna be doing this on my own and then my brother jped in and we got other people that you know we're just willing to help which is great cause I didn't have money to pay anybody so you know we were all kind of figuring out figuring this out as as we move forward but that's kind of really where we started it and to be honest it probably took us a good two years to kind of feel like all right maybe this will work maybe we're you know starting to kind of find our our stride a little bit cause yeah there's a lot of foundational things that nobody ever thinks that from building websites and what is your communication and contracts and building and collects all that you know it's not the fun side of events but you've got to have that that foundation if you're gonna be successful and survive in this business so that that took a good you know probably two years to to to get that all straightened away yeah yeah that that's that's why I think that there's a lot that I that I'll ask about and in terms of the fundamentals of building a business because you're right there's so much that's under the hood that people just couldn't possibly imagine but also you've been you've been doing this for a while and you've been through some really challenging periods of time and you're still doing it and that that says a lot so I'd be curious like I would I what I don't want to do is I don't want to have this be a covid conversation because I'm really happy that we're past that but also at the same time you know you made it through and I know that you didn't make it through without with no challenges because that was definitely you know not the case like our we you know Pixilated was decimated that we're company today is kind of staggering in in a sense because you know like we were like bottom of the you know like we're super niche down right we're extra money in the budget bottom of the of the funnel and and even though we have we know we make our software and we make our hardware and we sell it in a few different ways but like all of those ways got canceled it just took a few like some of them were like on a four week lag you know like first it was like all of the university events and then it was all of the events then it was the people that like own our hardware and they use it you know like in their brewery for some kind of photo op or they use it in their own business that they were like oh we gotta pause our subscriptions because like we are not allowed to let customers into our brewery anymore so that being said what I would I would love to just hear a little bit about you know because they're all I think they're also businesses that were prepared and they actually handled it with with terrific Grace and and had strategy in place so what side of that did you did you guys fall on was it was it a huge knee jerk or was there enough was there a book that was big enough and people that trusted you enough that you were able to kind of like transition well in the beginning it was it was kind of a knee jerk thing you know I pride myself on kind of planning for every situation what if the power goes out what if there's a weather what if there's some type of emergency I never had on my bingo card a global pandemic so you know when really we were shut down for almost two years but looking back I also think there's some good things that came out of that because it gave me time to kind of step back and figure out what what we wanted to do to focus on some things that I just never had time for business and personal related but I think my view of things changed pretty drastically coming out of that so you know the big word I kept hearing was pivot everyone's got a pivot you gotta you gotta figure out how to do virtual events or whatever and I went okay maybe that's the answer and as I looked into it yeah I would get phone calls every day from someone else that had a platform or solution or whatever and I looked at it and everything I came away with was like it's it's good enough it's okay if you've got to do something this is kind of the only game in town but then I thought that's never been our company we've never been a good enough company so I couldn't find anything that I was gonna be very happy to go to a client say yes this is gonna be spectacular if you absolutely have to do something here it is but most of those conversations when we were honest with each other the same thing could be accomplished through a zoom call which really doesn't involve me if you can't set up a zoom call I'll be happy to help you but you're not coming to an event company to do that so you know we kind of we kind of roll the dice and do we just do things and try to talk clients into doing them because it's the only game in town or do we kind of stick to because the foundation of our company is bringing people together and that's really in person we've always had a virtual aspect of our events but it was more kind of a window into a live event we didn't do too many fully virtual platforms so we really kind of had to do some soul searching as to about what are we about and does that simply change because the you know the the conditions has changed so we're probably one of the few event companies that is still out there surviving that didn't do virtual events during the pandemic but like I said you know we kind of took a step back we were always in touch with our clients what we did find is a lot of that all those pieces kind of shuffle there are people that were in key positions that are no longer with companies you know there's a lot of people with real estate licenses out there that never had them before that used to be in events so all the pieces got it kind of moved around and it really when we came back it really has been like like starting over but I think we were true to our mission kind of our our our mission statement as a company and I think we were well positioned because the connections and the conversations we had during that whole period you know kind of talking to other event professional I was on an advisory board for a major hotel chain and we were I was talking with people not in a public way but just kind of about alright what conditions are you seeing across the country how are you addressing this and there were a lot of ideas that were pitched as great ideas at the time that I really didn't want to have anything to do with to be honest you know we talked about Covid testing on site I'm like okay but that begs the question what do we do what's the protocols what's the procedure of something so there was a lot there was a million unanswered questions so we decided to just kind of take a step back position ourselves to be you know ready to hit the ground running when that door started to open up a little bit and that's exactly what we did yeah that's interesting so you know I I I've often like kind of you know had the thought that you know the way things that opened back up was extremely knee jerk right the the whole experience of Covid was just this constant like full gas full break full gas full break right and then all of a sudden like the doors got flung open right and I think that a big part of why we've seen so much of the money and companies that were driven by that that that big capital and fusion that happened around like event and virtual event technology fail was that and I think we did it too you know like we built a virtual tool to you know we couldn't keep up with the big software companies like we just don't have that kind of budget but for us you know like it was it was a tool that functioned and it was great but if anything it was like PR for us to be able to keep ourselves relevant and continue to reach out to people and stay kind of top of mind but I think that we from the jp with our virtual tool we actually imagined and knew that it was a better tool for the live event space than it was for the virtual event space because ultimately it was all about you know like taking a photo with experience and putting it in in a browser and making it accessible by a QR code and it was something that we had been pitching for years prior to Covid with the vision of being like oh for like you know visit Dallas you know when they're when they're paying for their two page spread in Southwest Magazine like we could put QR code in the bottom right and it could be like a photo contest to win like a fly away trip to to Dallas right you put somebody in like a cowboy's outfit or you figure out other things about Dallas and like that's how we had always thought about it so all during the pandemic we're imagining this tool is like ah this will be its afterlife like right now it were indexing it is like a virtual photo booth but in the long run it's gonna be a shared photo gallery and it's gonna be this easy way to aggregate photos from a group of people around a specific experience but I think when push came to shove when the doors really finally did get flung open there had been so much we're open we're closed we're open we're closed we're closed that people were suspicious that things were really open and then when they were in fact open there was no time to change all of that marketing and business development collateral and messaging that you know you can't just turn it right like it takes months and months and months to slowly change the topical conversation so that way the people that are watching your brand understand okay like here's this tool and it kind of started out being relevant to this very specific ecosystem and now we're blooming it out and this is how it's gonna be relevant forever and I feel like a lot of us you know Pixilated in continued included is the word I'm looking for there like that was problematic right in in terms of being able to say this tool isn't just you know sandboxed over here in the virtual world like it has relevant things but all of that is based on education right and that that's keyword their education because we we actually had to you know you don't just flip a switch and events come back on it takes us a good 3 6 months before you know just of planning before actually physically at an event and a lot of what we had to do was kind of prove to our clients that we can go out there we can do safe events and that's what we spent a lot of time figuring out how do we do that and it was just kind of let's dip our toe in the water a little bit and it really depended on what part of the country you're into cause we saw very different conditions depending on on what state I I think our first event back was in which you wouldn't have thought there was even a pandemic going on there but then you know then you go into different cities and it's very different conditions so that it was kind of a slow ramp up of us kind of proving that yeah there's not you know we can mitigate risks and and do events like that but yeah you're right that the messaging and marketing and everything if you had been going in one direction all of a sudden needed to swing and they don't necessarily run parallel to each other yeah yeah so so I would imagine and please correct me if I'm wrong you know like obviously I'm making some assptions but I would imagine that now is your big and and public companies that are similar to yours whether they chose to entertain a virtual portfolio of products during that period of time or not at this point in time as things are opening back up there's this real need to be embracing event technology one because the events industry which you know typically is a little slow and taking on new new technology and new things they've been warmed so much right to being able to be much more open and much more able to kind of perceive opportunities to to really grow what they're doing but that being said now that has to be you know integrated into kind of the the you know the mischief makers that are there on site and doing it so I'm curious how are you seeing event technology change the way that you're needing to do business or or not well I I think right now we're trying to find the balance because I think event professionals clients and attendees are in three different areas of event technology we we may be slow but we also wanna know what the cutting edge thing is and a lot of times you know I I've gone to all the expos on oh here's here's the the the 10 things that you gotta have this year and if you had the 10 things from last year throw them out cause they're irrelevant that doesn't necessarily mean all of my clients are on that same page so I I'm very cautious about saying here's the latest and greatest and you know we need to use this now there's a bit of a learning curve so while while we may you know you may think we're slow there's clients out there that are much much slower and I also think there's a bit of a hesitancy because we are all sucked into that digital world virtual world and kind of forced into it for a while that what I found is there was really that that need for you know the face to face interactions and the desire for that so it's kind of balancing I I see technology as a tool and it's not a one size fit all fits all tool there are some great applications some great moments where it certainly works but you just kind of you gotta kind of find the balance between those things and for every situation I think it's different yeah yeah I don't think you're wrong so I I have a question for you which is you know there was a lot of capital flowed into kind of the event technology space over the last whatever five years give or take and a lot of that you know kept was building virtual event platforms and a lot of those feature wise and fulfillment wise weren't so different from one another right like there's a lot of iterations of virtual event platforms I'm curious what are you maybe wishing there had been more investment in is there like is there is there a gap there from a from a tool or from a technology standpoint that because again like I feel like so much of that capital got driven into just that that virtual vision with and I think that all of those companies thought to themselves this is going to continue it's gonna it's gonna be virtuous and as we start to like you know like we'll know is hybrid is coming and then we can do devil and tools and we can raise subsequent rounds to expand that offering and make sure that it's this more omni tool and I don't think that that's necessarily what happened so you know do you see opportunities that you know I hate to struggle I hate to call them missed opportunities but opportunities that could have been better realized I I do I you know obviously the technology comes first and a lot of people program that they're great at what they do but they're not part of the event world and then I think we tried to put the square peg in the run round hole by bringing in event people because all of a sudden this opportunity had opened up that really nobody saw coming and we tried to mash these two worlds together so you ended up with the floating avatars and the Lego looking jazz band in the corner and you know whatever backdrop you wanted we're partying on the moon or it just just because you can't do it doesn't mean you should do it you know what I mean so there's gotta be there's gotta balanced with technology and reality and the merging of those two worlds I you know I I I was never comfortable with kind of like the floating heads and conversations and people coming in and out and muting and it it's just this mishmash of stuff coming to other service it was it was a forced relationship so I I I think if we somehow can kind of take a step back and put a little more of I guess the han element in the technology and that gets real weird I know but I I I don't I don't like seeing those platforms kind of devoid of that does that make sense it does make sense yeah it absolutely does I think and you know I had I had another interview actually earlier today and our conversation ended up spinning around this this similar point which is it it it doesn't matter what is available if at the base of whatever is there isn't a genuine interaction with another person then it's almost valueless altogether it's the same reason why like AI is wonderful but it's only wonderful within the context of something real that's happening you know like like otherwise you know I'm even watching you know something I'm seeing pop up a lot in these photobooth groups is is operators wanting to create these AI photobooths and they're like they're doing it like they're out there and when I see them although there and you know like the user can can put in a prompt and I think one how hard it is for people to be creative in that like in that that flat spotlight of like what's a cool prompt to feed into this but like I wouldn't even know what to write in like I've been running a photo booth company like put put me in Malibu with like a my tire whatever like I would come up with the worst like most uninventive like command ever but more so like when you see the output of it like that's not what people want from their event photos I don't think it's it's the same way that you know the 3 60 spinner things or like the mirror stuff or all of it like it's all really fun from experiential perspective right when you talk about the the the the index of your experience that event right like a photo is it's it's not so transmutable as people tend to think that it is like there's something very specific about a static photo that like a GIF or a video that they don't answer in the same ways and I think that that's kind of true as well you know just you you you gotta have a real person there right and know that you're connected to them and I think that would event technology could and should excel it doing is making it easier to remember and capitalize off of those experiences that you had there right like it should be your like your caddy that is like all the tools that you need to help you be the best version of yourself in that moment and then maybe help you follow up with it after the fact but not help you show up as a different version of who you actually are well and there's an element out there I've seen that I just saw a it was a recording of a phone call from a company and it was an AI salesperson not not a han being but talking to a han being and this person didn't know they were talking to it and you know it's it's it's a marketing thing they got the sale it showed how this AI technology can talk to you know kind of do the closing but if it was me on the other end of the line I would have felt tricked if I knew that cause it sounded like a real conversation so we have to be real cautious I again I go back to the tool thing these are tools they can be used for the proper way but if you have people walking away feeling tricked or not knowing that they were kind of tricked I I think that's a that's a danger we we have to be aware of and we have a unique opportunity in the events world to bring people to people from all walks of life to bring people together for a shared experience I think that's a huge responsibility and I think anytime you know you can especially today where you can get people together for an incredible moment instead of arguing or bickering or you know all the craziness that girls around the world today you know I I think that's something that that we should be the safeguards of yeah yeah I I I I don't I don't disagree with you any one bit yeah well so I we're starting to get a little long here and I wanna respect your time but I do have if you don't if you can indulge me with one more kind of big big vision sure question given the change right you acknowledge it yourself that that when you guys you know like open back up that there was you know there was a ramp up period even get things going again but also there's just there's so much reorgan right there so much changing that needed to happen what are some of the the the changes that feel most profound to you as someone with such a you know a significant depth of experience kind of in the industry that are taking place now like what are those new things that you know I think we I think we bonded over like a Nick Barrelli AI you know like kind of like poking it Nick a little bit and I think Zenis is great and I think Nick is great and I think that he does that kind of stuff as well but you know like there's always the flashy new thing in the room right and a lot of times that like distracts us from like the qualitative or the quantitative stuff that's actually changing things so what are some things if any that you're seeing now that are noteworthy well I I'll tell you what I'm I'm much more cautious than I I used to be I think because a lot of what I've discovered is when somebody's telling you what they think is best for you it's usually what is best for them for you to do and if they're trying to sell you the future usually that's what they've got on the shelf for sale so you know I I look at that but there's events is constantly in a in a in this flux there's a lot of things changing but there's some basic elements that that don't so there are things I never thought I would have to worry about active shooters set situations you know testing on site there's so many things now that an event planner or production person has to kind of put on their list of things to check off that you know weren't there 10 15 years ago and there's things are always changing but we kind of have to figure out how to fit those puzzle pieces in what makes sense for our clients and you know kind of take a step back and not try to be chasing the the new shiny thing and I I used to do that when I when I first started the company you know I wanna connect with everyone and find out what what are the trends what's hot what's in without all that stuff and it's exhausting chasing some of that stuff I'm not saying don't be aware of that and I'm not saying that there isn't a place for you know for everything out there but I I go back to that word balance we've got to figure out how to kind of balance all these new things with old things there was someone that I I really respect in the the events circles who had brought up the the idea of maybe not even having printed material at at events and I understand where that comes from from you know ecological standpoint but we also need to realize that there's a whole part of the events industry that they rely on printing so before we shove that out the door at you know 100% we need to keep that in mind and maybe I'm just old fashioned but sometimes I kind of like it you know something tangible that I can I can touch even if it's just a kind of a goofy you know seminar schedule or pamphlet or fly or something so yeah I I think we need to balance the future with the present and throw a little bit of the past in there for that you know for a for an even mix yeah yeah fair enough those are those are great those are great points Sean well this has been this has been an awesome chat I'm really glad that we had the chance to to connect and and kind of you know I don't often get to speak to people that have been in the pilot seat for a really long time and I always find that it's a rich conversation because I've been out for a while myself and I know how challenging it can be and you know someone that's running their own organization with some longevity and they're responsible for the maker break side of it is you know we've got special stories between us that other people in the event world may not have because they could be you know working in roles where they're inside of a company doing a different thing so Sean before we go why don't you let everyone out there kind of just just know give them one let them know where to track you down and connect it you know if it's on LinkedIn we'll make sure to link to it in the in the show notes or bio but like where to connect a good reason to connect and anything else that you wanna share before we wrap up sure well our website is Pierce Events.net so Pierce events.net it's got all of our social links on there so I'm not gonna list all the social links we're at most of those social platforms we try to kind of mix up the content that we're sharing of course we're on LinkedIn as well so yeah be happy to to connect if you wanna see what we're doing or you know talk to us exchange ideas disagree with something I said I'm open to all of it so I I appreciate the conversation today Patrick absolutely well shown on behalf of all of our listeners and myself thank you so much for making time in your day to come on here and share some of your experiences with us my pleasure thanks again alright guys so that brings us to the conclusion of another excellent interview with another event professional I hope you all enjoyed it two requests before we wrap this up the first is if you haven't yet make sure that you subscribe wherever you listen to this interview whether you watch it on YouTube or you're listening through your favorite podcast channel when you hit subscribe it ensures that you get notified each time we publish a new episode and our whole goal is to make sure that you get this content that we're producing so make sure you hit the subscribe button and then secondly if you enjoyed this interview today or if you've enjoyed previous interviews that you've heard on the Pixilated podcast be sure to leave us a quick 5 star review a few extra words helps it the in increase the reach that the algorithms will will give to your review again our whole goal is to tell the stories of other people in the events ecosystem so that way we can all benefit from each other's learnings so that's it until next time this is the Pixilated podcast and I am Patrick Rife peace