He Turned $100 Into $10K of Bookings in One Day (No Employees)

In this interview, host Chris Koerner talks with Justin, the co‑founder of The Hall ATL, about how they turned a modest $100 ad spend into $10,000 of bookings in a single day without hiring employees. The conversation walks through every stage of building a part‑time event‑venue business: discovering a market need for small, private party spaces; leasing a 3,000‑sq‑ft former church in Stone Mountain, GA and spending $20‑30K on renovations; setting up a lean operational model with a $3,000 monthly rent and armed security coordinated with local police. Justin explains their tiered pricing (base $1K, mid $2.8K, all‑in $4K) and shares performance metrics—average $16K in monthly bookings, peaking at $22.5K. Marketing tactics are dissected: organic Instagram growth, a $100 Facebook/Instagram ad that produced $10K in bookings in one day, targeted direct‑mail to nearby apartment complexes, and a QR‑based “Instant Spotlight” system that captures guest photos and converts about 8% of uploads into bookings. They discuss competition, permits, and the importance of security. Justin highlights the appeal of nostalgia‑driven 80s/90s/2000s parties, positioning the venue as a safe, private alternative to nightclubs, especially for millennials who can’t host large gatherings at home. The hosts also touch on broader trends—post‑pandemic home‑stay statistics and the belief that AI will further drive people back to in‑person events. Finally, Justin shares how prospects can find The Hall ATL via thehallatl.com, a free ebook on Instagram, and daily Q&A, encouraging listeners to reach out.
Chapters
You spent $100 in Facebook ads and got $10,000 in bookings?
Yes.
That's amazing. It's an infinite money glitch.
Yeah. Our highest month has been $22,500.
Wow.
And then on average, we're right at like $16,000.
Do you have employees?
No, just my wife and I.
Really? Yeah. You still have a job?
Yeah.
No way.
I have 3 churches right now.
Really?
That are every Sunday.
Holy cow. That covers your rent.
Exactly. They had goat hanging from the ceiling and they were taking torches and cooking pieces of the goat.
Oh my gosh.
If someone really wanted to start this business,
on a budget, what's the least it would take?
You could do it for under $3,000.
So my guest today rented out an empty church in a strip mall parking lot, spent a little money cleaning it up, not as much as you might think, and today, just a year later, makes $16,000 a month, part-time, no employees, doing this on the weekend, renting it out to birthday parties, anniversaries, et cetera. Here's what I didn't expect. He spent $100 on Facebook ads that got him $10,000 worth of bookings in one day. He has 3 customers that pay him every single month, that cover all of his rent, and they never even throw a party. And then he has a QR code on the wall that turns every party into 4 more parties. It's a viral referral marketing loop. Oh, and one night he came back to check in on a party and found a goat hanging from the ceiling. If you have a wife that loves to host, she's gonna love this. Will people learn enough in this episode to know everything they need to know to start a profitable event venue?
I hope so. I think they will. I mean, it's not that difficult. It's, it's finding the space that works for you. It's not a lot of money involved once you find the space. space, and then it's finding the customers.
What first gave you the idea to start a venue?
So my wife and I would do lots of events, and for our kids— we have a 6 and 4-year-old—
okay,
and so we would do big birthday parties, and they do a fall party each year which has grown really big, where have some kind of large activity where it's decorating pumpkins or decorating hay, something large, and hayrides and that kind of stuff.
And you would rent out Other— we would actually—
we have a good-sized house and yard, so we would do all that in our, in our yard. And then for our second child, I said, you know what, we should do somewhere else. So I started looking for venues to have a baby shower.
Mm-hmm.
And my wife was with me and I went to a bunch and just was not satisfied. We ended up choosing one. And during that conversation and towards the tail end of COVID we said, you know what, we should do this because we also heard about people saying they couldn't book restaurants and other stuff, but you could book venues that had laxer laws, I guess, at that point, if you just brought your family to a venue. So we said we should look into that. And so we spent about 3 years just kind of playing with the idea and looking for venues, looking for a place that would work.
Yeah.
For us. And we were really close to signing leases on like 4 venues until we found the one we're at now. We thought we could do— and then after hosting her baby shower at that
venue,
at that venue, and the price I paid just for the venue—
What'd you pay?
I think I paid like $2,200.
Okay.
And, and I still had to come in and decorate with friends. That was—
For like an afternoon?
Yeah, it was, it was a Sunday from like 11 to 6 PM, and we probably weren't even there to 6. And so it was a brunch, so I hired a chef. So on top of the $2,200, I probably spent another $2,000 to $3,000 on everything else. And you're like, wow, we could have done a better job, we thought. And no slight to them, but it wasn't, it wasn't a huge venue.
What type of venue?
Um, it was in a strip mall and was probably about 1,200 square feet. Like this, like a narrow—
Like a retail—
Like a re— yeah, like a retail space. And it was pretty narrow, and I think we hosted 60 people. And then we said, you know what, we could do this for the price I paid. I was like, we could definitely do this.
I mean, I used to rent 1,200-square-foot retail spaces for my iPhone repair store, and you're looking at like $2,000 to $4,000 a month.
Yeah.
So you're thinking, wow, they just made their whole payment in one afternoon.
Exactly. Exactly. From just our booking.
Yeah.
And so we started looking around, and the one thing that did say— make one of the things that made me say we can do this. Then we just intentionally started shopping venues, taking a tour, sitting with them. And I would go into all these places and they would say, all right, what date do we want? And they'd say, you know, I want October 10th. They said, come on back to the office. And they dust off their desk and they have the large—
Old school.
File calendars, which he's like going through and say, okay, yep, I got you on the 12th. We have that available. I'm gonna write— I'm gonna take my yellow highlighter.
Yeah.
And when you book it, I'll come back with my red highlighter.
Most low-tech ever.
Yeah. And so I said to my wife, I've been a technical PM for a lot and I've got an interest in technology anyway. I was like, this could be so much easier than, than they make it. And, and why is no one doing it? this way.
Yeah.
And so that really got the gears turning. And then we found a place.
Okay.
Essentially,
what types of places did you start shopping for?
Retail, standalone. What I tell people now, if anybody's interested, don't fall in love with the property. You can have the most beautiful property that has horrible parking.
And so it's all about parking.
Yeah, it's a lot about parking. Because, um, there's some spaces that were in downtown Atlanta that were beautiful. And we were wondering why the rent was so cheap. But it's because that it may be 2,000, 3,000 square feet, good size, but you can't park there. Yeah. So that, and speaking to landlords, a lot of landlords did not want event venues, maybe
because of the parking or
just the
liability. A bunch of
people, liability, people. I was surprised it was so many spaces that we liked that they came back, said, well, sorry, you want to do— because they'd ask for your business plan or what you're going to do. And they would say, sorry, we, we, we nice to meet you, but we can't, we can't do event. space in here. So, you know, we continued to shop and we eventually found one. It was in a retail plaza, but it was a church.
Oh, interesting.
And
standalone? No, no, standalone, I guess, in a retail.
Yeah.
Okay.
And it was a church. And
how many square feet?
Uh, 3,000.
Okay. And they were moving?
Yeah. So what happened is they, they were building a convenience store Across the street.
The owner had to choose.
Yeah, owner had to choose.
Yeah.
And he chose to— chose the convenience store. So we just happened to be peeking in the window. Someone from church was inside working, came out and said, hey, would you like to take a look around? And she literally gave us a tour. We told her what we were doing. She's like, oh, I'm gonna put in a word for you to the owner. She's like, unfortunately, we have to go, but we found a new venue. So, so we're good. And that ended up being $3,000.
3,000. And it's perfect because it's basically already an event venue.
Yeah,
it's not— it's different types of events.
Different types of events. So it still took a lot of work. They had carpet inside, things that weren't, you know, suitable for weekly events.
What city was this in?
Uh, Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Oh, I know where the big Stone Mountain—
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right next to—
I used to go there every summer.
Okay, yeah. And the venue that we went into, or the The plaza was pretty much empty when we took it.
Oh, that's— which is usually not a good sign.
No. Lots of parking, 170 spots, I believe.
Wow. There's gonna be less parking once there are more tenants.
Yes. So we had to submit a business plan and give a full detail to the owners of the building. And they said, wow, this is really good. And so we signed the lease, but lo and behold to us, they started targeting other event places or event venues because they thought that was a good thing to bring into their—
wait, but
Plaza,
you had already signed the lease.
We had signed the lease. Nothing was in our lease that said you could not have another event venue.
Was that a regret?
Yes. So at one point in time, at the end of 2024, there was 5 venues.
And what?
Yeah,
in the same shopping center.
Same shopping center. So they had moved in 4 others besides us.
And none of them had non-competes in their lease?
No.
That's crazy that not one of them was like, not one. Hey.
Yeah. And so it was weird. We would see people moving in. Hey, what are you— what are you guys doing? And we had one occasion where they're like, we don't want to tell you. And we realized because they were— thought they were in competition with us. But there's no one there now. It's just us. So we've outlasted all of them.
What month in 2024 did you launch?
So we signed our lease like August.
Okay, so 2 years ago.
Yeah.
And then when were you open?
November of 2025.
Wow. It took that long?
Took that long.
So you have to pay rent that whole time.
We had about 6 months free rent.
Okay.
So we negotiated a pretty good deal. We went into it thinking that we could do the reconstruction a little bit faster than we did. And that's our, that's our biggest regret. And being cheap. Well, not even cheap, just what we could afford. I did most of it myself.
Yeah.
So nights and weekends, I still was working a regular 9 to 5. So nights and weekends, I'd be in there changing ceilings. We put up a new entry wall, we changed the bathroom, Do
you have
skills in this? Yes, sir. Have— I can follow. I could follow. Yeah, I could follow good direction. So YouTube University.
Let me be clear. So like you've been open less than a year, right? Yes. We'll get to your numbers in a minute. But the only thing you were working on is we like doing events. Seems like they make a lot of money. Seems like they're old school and we can be— we can have better technology. That's kind of what you're working with. You still don't kind of know. You're kind of hoping, praying if we build this, they will come. Is that right?
That is. And when we started putting very little marketing, but a little bit of marketing out there just to see and test.
Hey, if you're liking this episode, we spent a lot of time on it. Please just hit subscribe and it would mean the world.
We, our official grand opening was, um, November of 2025, but we did some events. We maybe did 10 events that prior year and we learned from each of those. And some of those weren't even profitable. Like we gave somebody a full, wedding and reception for $3,500.
Yeah.
And I still see them posting the pictures saying the most amazing wedding ever. And we— and so we learned from that. That helped us gear our pricing structure to what it is now.
How did you have 10 events before you were done?
Because it just— it wasn't perfect, but it was suitable. Like once we had new tile floors in, once the bathrooms were done, once the walls were painted, we made— we didn't have an entry wall. But it was good enough.
Yeah.
And we would shop and we would shop it to people saying we didn't shop it enough, but we shopped it a little bit. We said, hey, we're— come take a tour. We're not 100%, but this is what you get.
The price isn't 100% either.
And this is why you're getting such a great price. So we did, we did about 10 of those events and we were probably— we could have probably did 50 of those events, but we were scared to take them. And both of us are slight perfectionist. And eventually, once we got to November, like, look, we, we have to do— we can't— we're losing—
rip the Band-Aid off.
Yeah, we're losing so much money because we're paying rent in this empty building, essentially.
What was your rent?
$3,000.
$3,000 a month. Okay. Which is not bad. I mean, no, no, $10 a foot.
Yeah. Yeah.
Now, where did you find these 10 customers?
Instagram, essentially posting organically, just posting organically. And they came to us, no paid marketing or paid media.
Is this on a new Instagram page for the venue or your page or Your wife?
New for the, for the venue.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do you guys have experience with Instagram, like organic content?
Just my own, but I started converting people over to the new page.
Yeah,
as well.
Okay, so you start a brand new Instagram page.
Yeah.
And you're just doing like vertical videos, like, here's our venue, or we're doing like build in public, like, watch me build this event venue.
A little bit of both. So what I learned from my studio 10 years ago that we were the best kept secret and no one knew about us because I didn't want to share it until I thought it was perfect.
And it's— that's out of like insecurity.
Yeah.
Fear, right? Which is not a good place to make decisions from.
No, it's horrible. And even though we did a better job, we didn't do the best job. But it was a lot of— and I started realizing videos of us pulling up carpet or my kids in there with paintbrushes outperformed all the other It's real. Still outperform other stuff that we do today where we pay people to do stuff. So yeah, so we realized that, you know, we're building— this is like, we started with us, the key signing. And it was also none of our friends knew, I don't think, and our parents knew. We had been kind of working on this in secret. So Erewhon found out at the same time. They're like, well, you guys acquired a space. So then, but they knew us as always throwing parties, but they're like, oh, that's great. So those organic things is what helped. So we'd have people and then we didn't have, we didn't have pricing. I think when the first person reached out to us, they're like, hey, so how much is it? Yeah, exactly.
I'm surprised you reached out so soon.
Yeah. So, you know, we should have doubled down on that.
Yeah.
And we should have said, look, we'll rent you the unfinished venue.
Yeah.
And that would have paid for— in hindsight, that would have paid for— and we could have moved faster.
Yeah.
But, you know,
is it safe to say that you posting about the venue in this neighborhood Kind of grew the market. Like there were people that were going to have events anyway, but they were probably going to do it at a friend's house or something. And when they saw your post, it kind of pushed them over the edge.
Yeah.
You know what? Maybe we should just get a place. Is that accurate?
I think so.
Grow the market by posting.
Yeah. Because one thing, even with paid promotion, I've said, look, we should be superstars in our neighborhood. There's 7,000 single-family homes within 3 miles of our venue. So like all of our paid needs, everybody they need to— my goal is when I'm pumping gas, people say, hey, Justin, do you own the— do you own the hall? And that's what we really targeted because a lot of people still come to us like, hey, I never knew you were here. We get that every day. So now those other venues are gone.
All of them?
All those other venues are gone.
You plus 4 or you plus 5?
Us plus 4. So there was
5 in like the first 3 months.
Yep. But, you know, it wasn't It, for whatever reason, that didn't bother me. Like I still said, we're going to run our own race. And also I would talk to those venues. They would be like, yeah, I don't do Facebook. Like, that's not— it's word of mouth. Justin,
was it mostly like existing venue businesses moving there or was it people like you starting from scratch?
People like me starting from scratch.
That's crazy. There would be that much. Yeah, that many people starting.
Yeah. It took 6 months just to get our fire code inspection and so and get our occupancy. And it was some miscommunication. We were told we didn't need an entertainment license because we weren't serving food and people were actually renting from us. It really did require entertainment license. So I took good notes. I wasn't trying to get anybody in trouble. I was able to direct them to who told me didn't. And that person actually admitted, so, you know, I was— that was my second day on the job. I didn't know we didn't need this. But that one not needing that sent us back 4 months because then the clock restarts.
$12,000.
On everything. Yeah. So it was very expensive. But I started going down there and saying, hey, can I speak to the commissioner? Started bringing muffins. And I just— to the point where like one of the commissioners like, hey, let me just drive over there with you now and see if I can get somebody. Because I was like, I'll just— I was like, you guys are costing me thousands of dollars a month. So yeah, I need to— you need to know my name.
Yeah.
And eventually that got it through and I have a good relationship with them now.
How did all of those competitors survive? Like, did they have to break their lease or—
Sure, they broke their lease to leave, but They also, a lot of them I know for a fact didn't, weren't doing the right paperwork stuff, which to me was always vital. I don't think they were good operators. They were all stuck on word of mouth. And so the owner had a thing. He's like, it's great you guys can all work together because if somebody's busy, they send business the other way. And I was like, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way.
Don't even talk to me.
Yeah. So, but I would go into them and then eventually they started coming to us and like, wow, your place looks nothing like ours. And the other ones, they just painted the walls, they did nothing. Cement floor, paint the walls. You know, we're big on tech, so we have screens on the outside of the building, screens inside. We have a 10 by 16 LED wall in the main hall. So they would come to us and realize we weren't running the same race.
Yeah.
Either.
So you said from the time you signed the lease, the time you opened, you could have had up to 50 Customers, events, if you wanted. That's all from just organic?
That was all from organic.
Did you have anything like going viral or was it just the right people viewing your content? I
think it was the right people, you know, and engagement. We tried to engage, you know, engagement, the right people, um, the right engagement, and people just didn't, just didn't know we existed. And then once we hit November and did say, look, we're not done, we still wanted a wall and some other things, but we said we got to go. So we did a full scale, then we ramped up the paid social, and then we were, we were doing tours 6 days a week.
Wow. From paid ads?
From paid ads, yeah.
Facebook and Instagram?
Yeah, Facebook and Instagram.
What were your ads like? What did they look like?
At first they were just stagnant pictures of a post because we were running specials. Like, we have a gold package that comes with a lot of decor. That package is now, I think we sell it for $2,800, which is still a great deal
for one day,
for a 6-hour block.
Okay.
We were doing that for $1,000.
Okay.
And I think I booked like 10 of them in a day.
Whoa.
Because it was such a great price.
But still profitable for—
still profitable. Still, we need the cash. So it works.
So $10,000 in a day in bookings. Obviously, it's going to take 5 to 10 days for all of those to be used. But how much in ad spend would it cost to get 10 like that.
That was less than $100 in ad spend.
Yeah. So spent $100 in Facebook ads and got $10,000 in bookings.
Yes.
That's wild.
Yeah.
Were you like geofencing the ads to only show to people in that area?
We— and what we found we did wrong is we were actually all of Atlanta. We were doing 22 miles out of us to catch Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Marietta.
We were trying to get to— Atlanta's right there. Yeah, why not? But Since you've learned—
Now we've learned just focus on our zip, our immediate 5 to 7 miles.
5 to 7. That's the sweet spot.
Yeah, that's the sweet spot.
Okay. Do you live in Stone Mountain?
I do.
So you're like a local?
Yeah, I live about my— I'm 4 minutes away from the vet.
Okay. Okay. How much did it cost you to build it out?
It was in the $20,000 range.
That's it?
Yeah. $20,000 to $30,000. Like, like almost $30,000.
I'm shocked. I thought you were gonna say $100,000 at least.
No, like $30,000.
3,000 square feet. Tell me what all you did. So you painted it?
Painted it, new floors.
Ripped out the old floor, put in—
Floors are the most expensive thing.
Tile?
Yeah, LVT.
Okay.
Like luxury vinyl tile.
Okay.
Yeah, redid the bathrooms, tile in all the bathrooms, LED screen cameras, security system, created a prep kitchen. We can't cook on premise. Well, we have commercial warmers that you could slide your trays in, commercial warmers, added sinks to that prep area, and like stainless steel countertops, that kind of thing.
If you were able to cook on premise, do you think you'd make more money? Or is it not that—
I don't know. But my— the difference in insurance you pay when—
Fire hazard.
Fire. Yeah, because it's like a restaurant at that point. I don't think for the difference I'd pay in insurance, I don't think it would value—
Juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But we do get asked that a lot. But we tell people, if you know, most caterers just bring their hot trays anyway,
right?
And we have the commercial warmers, stick them in, keeps them to temperature warmer that you needed. And then we— I built a big chafing cart buffet that lights from below.
Oh, cool.
People drop their trays in there. And those are also— I built the DJ booth, I built the chafing table, I built the bar. Those videos were great. You know, come with me as I go to Home Depot and build, build a— build a DJ. Those were great organic videos. All of those, I don't want to say viral, but all those did very well.
Yeah.
Building stuff for the space.
If you were to list out like the top 5 types of events you have, what would be number 1 through 5?
One would be birthday parties.
What age?
We do a lot of that 50 through 70.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I think that's just because of our area too. It seems to be we get older clientele and I'm happy to have that because, um, they
have money.
Yeah, they have money. And I don't know if I really want to do too many 21-year-old birthday parties either. Um, just for the liability. Yeah, just for the liability and stuff. So, but yeah, we do a lot of like that 50 to 70 seems to be the sweet spot.
And they're doing like 50-year birthday parties, 60-year, like 50, 55. Okay.
And with some of our now mail, our direct mail marketing, we're able to pull birthdays because it has the driver's license information. We pull it. So I target—
EDDM? Every Door Direct Mail?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I— so now I target 3 months out to that milestone birthday. So if you turn 55 in January, I'm going to start hitting you now so I can touch you 3 times before your birthday.
Do you have any numbers on what the return on investment is on the direct mail on that strategy?
On that strategy? Not yet. I just started doing it.
But it works.
But I've We've been getting people to come in. So it works.
30, 50 cents per postcard?
Yeah. Yeah. It's like 50.
And you know exactly who you're sending it to.
Exactly. And it's just the thing is you have to touch them though, 3 times. That's where it starts getting a little—
People send one and they check a box and they're like, why didn't I get results? It doesn't work.
It doesn't work. Yeah.
You just send one.
And so I think now what we're going to do too is we're starting to design our own birthday cards, the Hall, and we're going to— now we're going to send those For the 3-month-out people.
Yeah.
Say, hey, we're just catching you early. Happy birthday.
Yeah.
Hope to see you at the hall. And so we have been getting people like, hey, I got this. I live in the neighborhood right behind you. Didn't know you were here. And I passed by this every day. I didn't know what the hall meant when I saw the sign. So that's been a great strategy.
So what is a birthday worth to you? Give me a breakdown of like an average birthday revenue and profit, and then like a birthday with upsells revenue and profit.
So Our average intake is about $1,800 per party.
6 hours?
6 hours. And I—
Why 6?
We're juggling between 6 and 8, but I like 6 because when people say 6 is not enough time for me to come in and decorate, I say, well, great. That's why you need to step up to one of our packages where we can do the decor.
What about a 6-hour party with upsells? What, what does that run?
So our basic package is our blank canvas, which is just $1,000.
Okay.
And so that's just tables and chairs.
In addition to the $1,800?
No, I'm saying our average— our average party is $1,800.
Okay.
But our base price—
okay, that's as cheap as it can—
that's as cheap as it can be.
Okay.
And so what we find is upsells will be the screens. So that's the biggest upsell. If you get just a blank canvas package, most people come in and they want the screens on because usually we're running something or running a slideshow and saying, this is what your party could look like. They want linen, tablecloths, napkins, chargers, tablescapes for the actual table, balloons, that kind of thing. We try to move people towards the package. So if you do a $2,800 package or a $4,000 package, you're going to get all that. You just have to show up with your food.
Yeah.
And we've really even been working with some of our caterers that are on our preferred vendors list to see how can we have food packages even? Because what we find the biggest thing, people don't want to think about it. They want to show up and party.
Yeah.
And we want them to. We want it. We're selling convenience.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's— we're not selling the space, we're selling convenience. And so
do you find you get customers from people that come to events?
You know what I'm saying? We do. And I market to them.
It's like inbound, like it's like a, it's like a built-in viral marketing.
So one thing we haven't discussed, part of one of my favorite tools in the venue is we use a thing called Instant Spotlight. From a small company called Astarte that started working with us 2 years ago. Right now we're the only company or venue in Georgia with this, but on our LED wall, we have a thing that we call Instant Spotlight with the hall. So on the outside, when you walk into our building, there's 40-inch screens on each pillar. When you walk in, there's a QR code on those. There's ones on the tables, one in there. And we tell your guests, look, your party starts outside.
They
scan the QR code. So throughout the night, every time they say happy birthday, Aunt Sarah, or they do a video or they take a selfie, those pictures show up all throughout the building and people go crazy over that. People love being able to take a selfie and it show up and then the party—
Capturing that data.
Yes. So they have to, you know, of course, their phone number, email. And so that all goes into my funnel system. And then also If you did 40 pictures, if you took 40 pictures throughout the night, I'm assuming you had a good time. And so that helps me market to those people.
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Our Google is all automated. So, hey, did you have a good, good time? We would love that when— so we send everybody the gallery at the end of the night. So if they took 200 pictures, everybody that took a picture is going to get all 200 and said, hey, it looks like you had a great time at Aunt Sarah's birthday. If you did, we'd love for you to give the hall 5 stars. They give 5 stars, shows up on Google. If they give less than 4, I actually— it comes back to me in email and I can address it. But The biggest part is that's the largest funnel I have now. So if your party has 120 people and 60 of them take photos, that's now information I can use.
Yeah.
As my lead. And
do you have any math on of those 60 people, how many will book their own event?
So right now my latest numbers is about 8% of those people have, have booked stuff. No, I think we could get it higher.
So if you have 120 people at an event, half of them upload pictures, 8% of those end up booking an event.
That's what we've had. So 8% with that, that's like an infinite
money
glitch. Like 4 people. Yeah. From each thing. So that's, that's been great. And I think we can even get that number higher with, with the—
That's amazing.
Yeah.
It's just, it's just, it's an infinite money glitch.
Yeah. We've, we've loved it and it's a value add. It is an upcharge to get that.
I was going to ask. So you're charging them to get marketed to? Yeah.
Those upcharges. But if you get one of our packages, we throw it in.
Sure.
But if you just get the blank, we upcharge you for the screens.
Okay.
And also the birthday girl or birthday person, we say, hey, what's your Cash App? And they— or Zelle or Venmo or whatever, they give it to us. And so as they upload pictures and you put in your information, upload picture, when you hit submit your pictures, also a tab that says, hey, you want to tip the birthday girl?
Yeah.
So if they tip the birthday girl $10, then across the screen it says, Aunt Jessica just tipped Sarah $20.
Oh, wow.
So then it gets everybody else to say— everybody else say, oh, well, Sarah tipped $20.
That is brilliant.
to do $30. And, and of course, the guest of honor loves that feature.
Yeah.
But even if you weren't going to take a picture, it still gets you to log into the system to try to tip the, the birthday person.
How expensive does a 6-hour event get if you sell them everything you've got?
For just the party would be $4,000.
Okay,
that's everything we got. Now, there would be some possible upcharges, but at that point, we've given you everything. Yeah, you're just showing up with food.
And what's your profit on like a $4,000 event versus a $1,000 event?
So on a $1,000, it's essentially whatever my marketing went into to maybe get that person. It would vary, but essentially that's almost all profit because they're going to tell me where they want the tables and I'm there, you know.
Do you set up the tables yourself?
I do. If they say we want 4 on each side, we want a dance floor in the middle, then I'll do that.
How do they get in? You just have like a key code?
Oh, I'm there. I'm there. So we're still working on that, but I'm there for every event. I like being there to touch in the beginning and then come back at the end because we have a checklist to say, look, can't do this, can't burn candles, can't do this. I need you to sign this. Then I need to come back and assure that they—
No holes in the drywall.
No holes in drywall, no TVs ripped off the screen, you know.
Yeah.
All the weird things that could happen. We say no burning of anything open. We had an event. I left. I came back an hour into the event to make sure it's going good. This was in the early days. It was either a lamb or a goat. hanging from the ceiling, like, and they were taking torches and cooking pieces of the goat.
It's like a cultural thing.
Yeah, it was a cultural thing. And I was like, what are you guys doing? You can't— hey, for A's, no open flame.
Was it like skinned and gutted? It was like it was ready to prepare to
eat. Yeah, it was ready to prepare to eat. It was skinned and gutted. They had all of our— all the guts in just a regular one of our rolling trash cans with no bag in it.
Oh,
and they knocked over the trash can on their way out the door.
On purpose?
No, on accident. But I had blood in my tile on the front out. So that was— that's the worst experience. So—
They apologize? Like—
Not really. They're like, oh, we didn't know we could do this. And so—
I didn't know I could hang a goat from your ceiling and knock its guts everywhere and try to roast it.
Yeah. And so, yeah, so there's a couple deposits we've had to keep, which is massive. People have spilled like Lemonade, stuff like that, which is the worst. And then the floor is super sticky. So we've had to keep deposits, but like the goat stuff. And we realize, and now it's cultural because we do— the area we live in has a strong Ethiopian, Somalian, Eritrean, just East African population. So now I've had to say, look, I know this is a thing.
Yeah.
Because I've talked to other event venues and they've told me the same exact thing. And we were comparing pictures and they're like, oh yeah, I had a guy hang a cow. And so I had to say, look, you can't do this. Sorry, I'm not trying. And, you know, I try to do it with baby gloves because, you know, not every— respectful, got to be respectful. And I don't want them to just assume that I think every Ethiopian family's got to hang a cow.
Right.
But we've had to add it to our contract. So
that's a no-win situation. Yeah. If you say it, you could offend them. If you don't say it, you might have a dead goat.
So, well, now I say it in the contract. And so please read over your contract. And if you haven't read over that and I see it, then I can come do it.
Yeah. How much is the deposit?
$350.
For everyone?
For everyone.
So like with the goat incident, you kept the deposit there?
Yeah.
And did they understand it?
They did.
You probably don't want to keep deposits.
No, I don't.
Leaves a bad taste.
Yeah, I don't. I don't at all. I try to—
yes, I made $350.
I try to do everything to not. Yeah, because then I'm losing, probably losing a customer. And we've found with our, our, especially we have a large Mexican population south of us. We have a large East African population, but I found my East African populations, like from one bridal shower we've done, we've booked like 10 events from that same community. I have some marketing that solely is Somalian marketing.
Interesting.
I have some marketing that's solely Ethiopian.
Facebook ads?
Yeah. Yeah. And even through flyers and things that we hand out, Instagram does a lot better with our Younger crowds, people selling, celebrating the 25th, 30th, and weddings. Weddings do great on Instagram.
Okay, so your percentage profit is about the same on a $4,000 versus $1,000 event because your cost is like the overhead. You got your power bill, your internet, your utilities, $3,000 a month rent. You've already paid for all the chairs and tables upfront, so you need to acquire the customer. Let's say it costs $100.
Yeah.
What are your costs in a $4,000 event?
So in the $4,000, we offer step and repeats. So, you know, the large banners, you ever see like a premiere of a movie and the stars or celebrities are standing in front of like a large vinyl sign that has advertisement stuff? So we do step and repeats because sometimes they want their name or birthday girl, those things. So that, that costs money. They also get standees, like standing cutouts. They want like 6-foot cardboard cutouts of themselves. Those are big up sales, balloons.
So your percentage profit is higher on the $1,000 event?
Yes.
Because they're just using tables and chairs that you bought years ago. Yes. So $4,000, how much profit you make on a $4,000 event?
About $3,200.
Wow. Better than I would have thought.
Yeah.
Okay, so 70%.
Yeah.
And then 90-ish percent on a $1,000 event?
About 90-ish. Yeah.
And then ranges from 90 to 70 anywhere between $1,000 and $4,000?
Yeah.
Okay.
And we also now we're targeting weddings.
Okay.
So our wedding package is $7,000.
Wow.
So we've done 2 of those.
Okay.
And we still feel like we're a great price for— for— for—
And that's 6 hours.
Yeah. Now weddings, all complete day because it's so much legwork goes into it. You can't—
yeah.
Get the day.
Are you trying to do 2 events a day? Like, is that a full day?
That's my goal. We don't do a lot of that. We try to.
Okay.
Now we have the weddings. That was, of course, our whole day. And now we acquired the space next door to us.
Oh, you rented it
last month?
How many square feet is that?
That's only 1,100, 1,300.
So you're 4,300 now square feet?
Yes.
Wow. How many can you comfortably fit in 4,300?
So with tables and chairs, we only use one at a time. So with tables and chairs in our 43— at our 30— our 3,000 square foot. Yeah, we try to keep it to 120. We could sometimes do 150, but if you want 150, that means you can't get a dance floor.
Okay.
It just depends on your event. So people that have a large, like a repast, like a memorial service, they're not dancing there. So you could do a lot more tables. Yeah, seats. But if it's a graduation or a birthday party, try to keep to 120-ish because we can leave the middle open for your dance floor and still have adequate room. And we don't want to put 10 people at a table because one thing I track is when there's more people at our table, our reviews are not as good and people have as good of a time.
Interesting.
Because they feel like they're squished. Squished.
Yeah.
So when you do 8 at a table, that seems to be the sweet spot.
Okay.
So I try to, try to stay there.
So we're talking like 25 square feet per person, give or take?
Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
And so then in the new space, if you're doing tables and chairs, we try to keep it to 60. But when we've done weddings, the beauty of now is doing that is we could do 100, 120, like theater style, just in the chairs and still aisle. for the bride. But now with the new weddings, we haven't started marketing that yet. So I'm interested to see. I think that's going to really be a great uptick going into this year.
With the 1,300 square feet next door, is the hope to just do bigger events or 2 at once?
2 at once. That's the event right now.
Double your capacity?
Yes. Because right now I am— I'm booked through January on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays in the big space. So I hate that I'm always turning away.
You can't come up on prices or something?
So we're like, we got to move them to, to the new— now the new space unfortunately is not as small. So it's more intimate parties, but it looks different. It's completely marble, marble walls, marble floors, big chandeliers.
So is it hard to fill Monday through Thursday?
I'm trying. So we've been doing a lot of trying to get corporate events, trying to get those and giving them a really reduced rate. We've had some parties because our blank canvas special Monday through Thursday is $450. And that's enticed a lot of people to come in and say, you know what, maybe I should just have a Thursday night party instead, especially if it's leading into a holiday or holiday weekend or something.
Yeah,
a lot of— I've been giving away networking events to like the Chamber of Commerce and people like that. Say, come have your network event. I'll even throw in— I'll even throw in a case of wine or something.
Yeah.
And giving them that space to just to say, this is what you can do on a Thursday.
Yeah.
So we're trying to grow that.
Okay. All right. I asked you earlier your top 5 events. Birthday's number 1. What's 2 through 4?
Oh, birthday's number 1. 2, baby showers. 3, repasses and like a memorial, like after a funeral where everybody goes. A wake? It's like a wake.
Okay.
But wakes normally before the funeral.
Okay.
Repasses normally after.
I don't think I've ever heard of a repass in my life.
Yeah, maybe that's a South Southern thing, but yeah, yeah. So the repasses.
Okay.
4, would be anniversaries. 5 is kind of a weird one. The most calls I get from my marketing out of any other party, which some of you want to guess, is church space.
Okay,
so church events,
huh?
Can we host a revival or something like that?
Do they want to do it like every week or just—
So I have 3, I have 3 churches right now that are every Sunday.
Holy cow.
So that, that's— I get more calls, phone calls on churches than I get on any other thing.
Wow.
And that's also made me led that maybe there's a business in it. Maybe there's a business into just having an open space. Only churches.
Make it look like a church.
Make it—
yeah, kind of generic. What hours do they meet on Sunday and how much do you charge?
So I have a church that is from 8:30 to 12.
Okay.
I normally do 3 hours, but I've given them a little bit extra time. So 8:30 to 12, then I have 12:30 to 3:30.
Okay.
So I have 2 essentially 9 to 12s, then I have one 12 to 3 or 12:30 to 3. I'm trying to fill it another one to get 4.
So you have 2 meeting at the same time?
Yeah, in the 2 different spaces.
And what do you charge all 3 of them?
So we have 2 church prices. One is $1,000 and one is $1,500. And I think all 3 of those are currently on the $1,000 a month.
They meet every—
But they meet every Sunday.
Okay. Yeah. So
every Sunday
that covers your rent.
Exactly. So the goal is to get more churches and we've offered them upgraded package where I'll bring in PTZ cameras, pan, tilt, tilt cameras. I'll train somebody, show them how to livestream. Because
more
donations for them. Yes, I show them like because I've been showing them, look, if you guys want to grow because we had one church in here that grew big enough to go get their own space.
Yeah.
So now we've moved in the other 3. And so I advertise both packages, your regular, and then there's like $1,800 a month package. where I'll train somebody how to, how to livestream.
Yeah.
And one-click YouTube, one-click Facebook. Because right now some of them do livestream with someone holding a phone and I showed them the difference of, look, you could do this, this, and it's maybe just not in their budget at the moment. But look, when you're ready to go in, I'll move cameras in here. I'll help you guys do it because— but yeah, I get more calls on churches and I turn away more churches because that, you know, you only got— yeah, you only got 4 slots.
So yeah, I'm surprised they, they all need that much time.
Yeah, I'm surprised too. I don't— well, I've seen a lot of them do like they'll bring food and they'll have lunch afterwards together. They'll do stuff like that. The largest congregation right now only has, I think, 40 people. The other ones are 15 to 20 and they're growing.
Yeah,
each week. That's why I try to sell them on live streaming because live streaming will help you grow and marketing. They need, they need help with marketing, but that's a whole different business. Yeah. I only got so many hours, but But the wheels are turning there because I think literally you have a building that was a church or looks like a church because the churches also pay sometimes a couple, like $150 to come in on a Wednesday and either they want to meet with some members or have a Bible study and they really would like Thursday.
Wednesdays could be great.
Yeah, I try to sell them on Wednesday. Sometimes they want Thursday or Friday night. I have events. I can't do that. But that's why I think maybe there's something to this other business.
Yeah,
it's just a church building. church space.
Interesting.
And then you have 6 churches that rotates, but they also have access to the week to meet up because the pastors of both have said, I really just need an office for Monday. And sometimes I'll be like, look, I'm already working in here today. If you, you want to come in for 2 hours, that's fine.
Yeah,
but I really can't make a habit of that. So that's why that's a whole different business. I need more time. But I think there's something to that too. Yeah, because that's That's literally— I get more calls on that than any other, any other thing. And my ads on ChurchSpace will outperform everything else.
Really?
Yeah, the organic ads on ChurchSpace.
Just posting organically?
Yeah, about ChurchSpace being open. That outperforms everything else.
Man, man, it makes me want to go rent a church and then rent it out again. Yeah, like there's a lot of churches for rent. Yeah, or for sale. Okay, so church is number 5. Any other kind of random events that you have that would be like 6 through 10?
Fashion shows. We started doing those. We did a fashion show that was great. I know I'm friends with a really popular designer in Atlanta, and I asked her, I was like, hey, I really want to do fashion shows. I won't— I'm not gonna charge you.
You post about on Instagram?
Yeah, did, did. I built out runways. And so since that, I, I'm— I've done like 3 other fashion shows.
Wow.
That was in May.
Okay.
We've done 3 since then and I get that and I think I have one in November too. So,
wow,
those have been good. And it's up. It's up. I think I did 2 packages. I did a $2,000 package with just a runway and you do everything yourself. And then I did a $3,000. I'll bring the lighting, everything else. And so it's been a mixture of those 2.
I mean, it's all about surface area. Like the more types of events you do, the more you open up your market.
Yeah.
And it's a finite amount of space and time. So the more eyeballs you have on your space, the more you can charge.
Yeah.
Do you have employees?
No, just my wife and I.
Really? You still have a job?
Yeah.
No way.
Yeah.
All right. So you've been open less than a year. Let's talk numbers. Since November when you opened, what have your monthly revenue and profit numbers been?
So my lowest month since November, which I think was November, we did $11,000.
Your first month ever was your worst month. You did $11,000 revenue?
Yes. $11,000 revenue.
Profit?
Not so much on that month because we put it all back into the building. And then our highest month has been $22,500.
Wow.
And then on average, I think I did the average a little while ago. We were right at like $16,000, like $15,900.
In profit?
No, in revenue.
Oh, that's been— oh, geez.
Okay. Revenue.
And what's your average profit on a $16,000 month?
Would be about $8,000.
Wow. Yeah. So 50% net profit margins.
Yeah.
But if you have a $25,000 month, Like your margins just go up.
Yeah,
because your costs are fixed. Costs of no employees, which would be a variable cost. Your overhead is fixed. Your utilities are basically fixed, right?
Yeah. So the only thing that's gone up is our rent. So now we're at $4,500 rent. We're about to— if we acquire that mill space, that will take us to $5,500 a month in rent. But the upside is now that we're marketing, the other side literally just opened 3 weeks ago.
Yeah.
So now we're marketing that, like all those dates I turned away from the rest of this year, if I can even get 30% of those into the new space first, we were going to charge less because it's a little bit smaller, but we found it with as nice as it is and then the same amount of work has to go into decorating those things. So we're going to keep the— actually keep the price point the same.
Okay.
But if I could fill those dates in there and have double capacity, we should easily be at— we should easily— yeah, we should be at $30,000, $35,000 revenue.
Hey, if you have an interesting business that made a lot of money in a short period of time, go to tkoyes.com, fill out the form, and we'll have you right here in this chair. What does your insurance cost?
It's like $2,400, $2,500 a year. It's not horrible.
Nothing. Nothing.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you pay your monthly rent in like one or two events.
Yeah. The goal is I want to pay it with churches. That's, that's what I'm trying to do is pay it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because they pay on the first.
And they're low maintenance, I would imagine.
Yeah, they're pretty—
Drinking and—
No.
So you're working 40 hours a week at your job?
Yeah.
And you're doing this in the evenings and a lot of work on the weekends?
Yeah.
You enjoy it?
Oh, I enjoy it. Yeah.
You like being around people? I mean, you were a DJ, so—
Yeah, I like the people. I like, I like the business stuff on it.
Do you have any bearing on how much competition you have compared to any given event rental business anywhere? Like, is it extra competitive in Stone Mountain? Or—
That's, you know, I don't know outside of our area. It's right now, there are 3 other on our street on Rockbridge Road. There's 3 others.
Wow.
But they're different though. The one that— there's one that's extremely nice, beautiful place. The woman that runs it, she's been in the wedding industry for 40 years. And she's great. And her inside of her place, I can't touch it. It's just immaculate.
Yeah.
But unfortunately, she's had 2 or 3 occasions where she's double booked somebody. And so she's called me like, hey, I double booked this person and their party's tomorrow. Can I get them there? I'll, I'll do it. That's great. Last week she had one. They came over. People were frantic. Our weddings— I couldn't help them because I'm booked up now.
Yeah.
So, but I think unfortunately for her, she's— her weddings are beautiful. Some of the best in the state. But her stuff is on a notebook. She's right. That's how she's double booking because she's writing down dates. She
forgot to highlight.
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's our advantage. And even the other ones, the one that's further down, the woman's been in the business 20 years.
Yeah,
they're great at what they do, but they're doing no paid social. One doesn't even have a website. One has a, one has a Facebook page that has stuff that was posted. Last post was 6 years ago.
Crazy.
So when I was going into the business, I made a detailed list of everybody. Did they have Facebook? Did they have websites? And then I went, took a tour and saw all the things we could do better.
Yeah.
And we're killing them just on the fact that our social's there, our presence there.
Yeah.
We're trying not to make those mistakes. And it's also, it's a lot of work to write down. Another thing, we've had several tours because people said, hey, I booked a tour with them. No one showed up. I called them. They said, oh, I'm at the dentist. I can be there in 2 hours. And so they come to us because, you know, it's all through either they book it or we book it. It's all through GoHighLevel.
Your close rate on tours is probably stupid.
Yeah. Yeah. You got to get
them by the time they get there. I mean, you probably close 70, 80% of those.
I think we close about 70%. Yeah, about 70%. We have— I don't know what the issue is. We only, only about 60, about 50% of the tours show. That number has gone down. It was much higher.
That's surprising.
That's surprising. Yes.
One big unlock for me is probably stupid simple to you is just the fact that most of these event rental places are just renting the space. Like, yeah, because I'm thinking like, oh, this is half a million dollars to get started here. You got to own a building, buy a building. Like, you and most of your competitors are just renting a space.
Just renting the space.
Sometimes standalone, usually in a retail Center. Yeah.
Crazy. And it's not— I think our space looks beautiful inside, but it's not— it wasn't like $100,000.
Yeah. What did you spend on like tables and chairs? Like you spent $30-ish grand on the build-out. What about all the stuff that you have?
Maybe $5,000. Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist. That's your best friend. So when I find, you know, the regular Lifetime round tables or what, yeah, $120 in Sam's or something, I try to get them on Facebook Marketplace for $30. So
a lot of those off-white plastic ones. Yep.
Yep.
So you have the 6-foot ones too?
Yep, we have those. So yeah, so just the tables. The chairs are the most expensive.
Chairs like that?
I don't have any like that. I have the clear safari chairs.
Oh,
they're acrylic.
Okay,
they look really nice. They're clear. They're a little bit delicate. I've probably had 20 broken this last year.
Okay,
but they're like $75 a chair.
Okay,
so that— they're expensive. So you could easily spend $10,000 just on chairs.
But you've spent like $5,000 total on all of your tables and chairs?
Yep. And the most expensive thing was the initial 100 chairs I bought was like $3,000.
Okay. And then what about TVs and all that?
We have 65 inches. 9 of them are all attached on a grid. So it makes the one, the one screen.
That's cool. So if someone really wanted to start this business on a budget, what's the least it would take?
I think you could do it for under $3,000. I think you could. I think you could—
what about getting the first month's rent deposit?
Okay, so maybe $6,000. Okay. I would say find a rent. We wanted 6 months, we got 4 months of free rent.
Okay.
But the free rent saved our lives because we were able to put all we were going to be paying into rent into, into the space. And we looked at many properties, some of them said no, absolutely no free rent. And I knew we need to build this out. I knew, um, we couldn't do it. I, I have another friend in the business that Started around the same time. He took an SBA loan for like $50 grand and was open 7 days after he did his lease. And he had a build-out too. Like, he—
How's he doing?
He's doing great.
Where's he at?
He is in Virginia.
Okay.
And his prices are more than mine because there's no competition for him.
When did your friend in Virginia open compared to you?
They opened like a month or two before us.
Okay.
Grand opening.
And how has it gone for them?
It's been amazing. Their price point is Like double our price point.
Wow.
And they're just as busy as us. They're booking into 2028 at this point.
So you charge $1,000 for bare bones. What are they charging for that?
It's like a little over $3,000 for bare bones.
Holy crap.
And then their prices go way up from there. They have $7,000, $8,000 events.
And that's in Chesapeake, Virginia?
Yeah.
Are they doing like more weddings, more birthdays? How do their— how does their event mix?
You know, I don't know. I see lots of birthdays. I saw a big wedding there last week, but I believe a majority of it is Like birthdays.
Okay.
Baby showers. I think it's the full mix.
Okay. That's crazy. There's so much demand.
But yeah, but, and they've had people drive 2 hours just to do an event there.
Wow.
Like me, I've realized in our marketing, I'm not even trying to market to Atlanta really, because there's so many there.
Yeah.
And we do get people that come in, you know, for maybe we've sold them on a wedding package.
Yeah.
Um, that are coming from somewhere else, but You know, the competition is so close locally. I'm just trying to get that competition.
Yeah. So you might be in a more competitive area.
I think we are. Yeah, I think we are.
And it sounds like it's 4 in the same place, 2 down the street in Stone Mountain, Georgia, of all places.
So I think—
I'm thinking of DFW and I'm like, when was the last time I drove by an event venue? Certainly they're not in strip malls.
Really? Oh, because I drive by them every day all over metro Atlanta.
Yeah, it's a business that I never think about. Yeah, my wife would be good at this because she loves hosting.
That's my wife too. We make a good team, but my wife wants absolutely nothing to do with the tech stuff.
Yeah.
Or the other stuff. She just wants to meet with the people and come up with great ideas. She loves— that's the best part of her day is sitting down and saying, look, you told me— like, she has them fill out a questionnaire and says, look, you told me your favorite colors are yellow and this and that, and you want this, and you're having a baby. And then she shows them, and then she'll text me, say, hey, can you create something for the screens because they're there?
Yeah.
So then we'll, you know, we try to— when we're bringing people in for tours, we kind of know what they're doing. So I'm already selling them. I'm already having— if I can, especially if I can find a picture of them online, I already got pictures of them on the screens and the other stuff. So it's an easy sell when they walk in the building. But my wife loves that part of saying, well, I can— and showing the proof like, look, I can make this room look completely different. It's just open canvas.
Yeah.
I can make it look however you want it to look or however your vision is.
Anything else that people should know before starting this business? Like something that people need to know?
Yeah. Like, don't fall in love with the building. Fall in love with what the inside can do for you. And you got to have parking.
Okay, so what you can do inside, parking. What else?
Parking, your county bylaws. Can you have—
can you have an entity for that?
You can use ChatGPT. Yeah. Can you have event spaces? Some counties don't allow them, or some counties say you can have them, but you have to get a liquor license. And most people don't know how very expensive a liquor license can be or how difficult it can be. So knowing those things, because I'd hate to see anybody like sign a lease and then— because landlord don't care. Yeah, but you sign a lease and then go into the property and realize you can't build it out or do what you want.
What do you think about using like a buying or renting a big nice home as an event space?
I think there's something to that. We've, we've talked about that, especially as a big yard. The one thing we can't do that People see us online and see the pictures inside. They're like, hey, how does the courtyard— how's the outside look? And I'm like, sorry,
parking lot.
It's a parking lot. Yeah, I don't got one. But I think the house, and especially zoned for commercial and a big yard, I think that's great for weddings.
Yeah.
And then you can have onsite— you could have an Airbnb, you have so many things.
Oh, yeah.
If I were to do it again, or when I do it again, I think we'll lean more towards something like that. But I think a house is great. And also, I think I see people doing like Going to a local VFW and saying, hey, can I either use your basement or use your hall for— can I prepay for 2 weekends? And then you try to sell those weekends to somebody else and test the concept.
Without a long-term lease.
Yeah, without a long-term lease. And then, but you got— the thing is, like ours, everybody that walks in our door says, I did not think it was gonna look like this when I walked in. And if you do that with the VFW or whatever, you— that's what you have to sell on.
Yeah,
people can't— they have to be transformed.
Yeah. Yeah.
When they walk in and their pictures, their pictures have to look great on Instagram. Every, every place needs to be photographable in your building, your lounge, your bathrooms. We spend a lot of money in the bathrooms and we see so many pictures on Instagram in our bathrooms.
Yeah.
Because just we have great lighting and those things. So that's, you know, selling point.
I saw this stat on Twitter recently that talked about how much time we're spending at home compared to like in the '80s and '90s. And it is like shocking. So it was like from like 2008 to 2020, it was like slowly climbing up. It was like 12% of our time at home, 13%, 15%. And then 2020 went to 60%, obviously.
Yeah.
But then since then it's been like dropping, but very slowly. So like 57%, 54%. We're still like, way, way, way higher than we were years ago. We're not going out anymore, but it's reversing, right? So I truly believe like the more AI takes hold, the more that trend keeps reversing. Like events like this are going to be way more popular in 5, 10 years even than they are today.
Oh yeah, I think so.
We need human connection.
Yeah. Yeah. And we market to people want to do parties and I think we're at a great price point for our location. When I market to apartment complexes, That's where we do great because you maybe can't host even 20 people in your apartment, but you still want to have a birthday party. And I know for Atlanta, being a previous DJ, being a DJ before, the nightlife scene is not— is nowhere in this country is what it used to be.
Yeah.
I think our age group had the— got the peak, the peak of that.
Yeah.
But it's, it's dwindling. But if you can create that feel on your own in a safe environment, because I don't think we mentioned before, we have secure— we do have security and armed security, and we work with the local police department. People feel safe inside. But I think if you can recreate that, because we have so many '80s and '90s and 2000s parties, and people are trying to make it look like a club they went to in 2005. People love that. So I, I really think that's on the rise because you don't have to go to a nightclub or lounge to recreate that nostalgia feeling from a '90s party or early 2000s party.
Right.
Yeah.
Where can people find you?
So they can find us at The Hall ATL on all things social, thehallatl.com. My wife and I get a lot of questions about this, so we kind of devised a little free ebook that you can download straight from our Instagram, and that's The Hall ATL.
Okay.
And yeah, we're there and, and we take questions every day. I just want to help people. So anybody that wants to do this—
Yeah, just connected your last name, Hall.
Yeah, it worked out for— yeah.
Okay.
Yeah,
I'm sure that was intentional.
Very. Okay,
Justin, this has been amazing.
It's been awesome. Thank you.
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