Crafting Memorable Live Experiences | Dawn Farrow

Hey creative, are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now. It's time for profit.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Montclair, California. Sounds like a lovely place. No idea where it is, but thank you for listening. Joining me today, Don Farrow of OnSale.live. Dawn, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Don't you just love her accent? We were discussing in the green room about me being an Anglophile. I was raised on Monty Python and Doctor Who. It was on our public television here in the States, but that's what I watched. I'm truly a demented person for it too. Anyway, Dawn, tell us about Onsale.live. Help me, please.

It's a wonderful introduction to, uh, to, to, yeah, the English sensibility and our humor, at least. So I enjoy that very much. Um, well, what can I tell you about onsale.live? We are a business working in the experience economy. The business is actually quite a new one that I set up earlier this year, but it comes with a backdrop of 20 years working in experiences Um, so I originally— wait for it— was trained as a performer, as a dancer, and now I run major experience, live experiences, and I run huge marketing campaigns for events like Friends or Squid Game. And when I'm not doing that, I run this incredible community called Onsale, which, uh, has a confex and various different networking events and we are talking to global marketers about how to be part of the experience economy, how to better market your experiences in the experience economy, and ultimately back to the point of today, how to make more profit.

Wow, there is a lot to unpack on there. I want to start by clarifying you don't dance at these events, correct?

No. This is— let's put a full stop there.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So how did you get into— okay, how did you get into events?

So I spent many years training as a professional performer. That's why I moved to London. And whilst I was in London, I also did a business degree. When I began working in London, I was working for producers, so I worked for Clear Channel, which I appreciate, um, is globally a huge company. And within Clear Channel, I worked in the producer's office, so I was working on musicals like Cats and Starlight Express, and we were touring them across, across the UK. That's how I then made my way into marketing. I built a very successful marketing agency and then have continued building my profile within experiences.

So do you still have the marketing agency separate, or is this the evolution of—

Yes. So Onsale is absolutely the evolution of my marketing agency, which, you know, sometimes we talk about having a little luck in business. I actually closed it just 10 days before the pandemic.

You knew something. You knew what was going on. This is a conspiracy now, Dawn. What did you know and when did you know it?

I did, you know, someone in my office did have a really bad cough, but not enough, not enough for us to really suspect anything.

Wow, that is lucky, especially in that space, because that space turned off for 2 years.

Immediately. I mean, even before lockdown, it was the first thing that our then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, do not go to any theaters. It, like, it was the first thing. Sport was still okay. Yeah. Um, but don't—

it was really hard for the players to play with masks on. It was just, you know, hard to breathe. Um, so, okay, so what did you do during the pandemic?

Right, so I was in a lucky position that having built a very successful marketing agency, I had extremely good contacts. And I think what is one of the most exciting things about the space that I work in is how entrepreneurial, um, my clients and producers are. And when I say they pivoted, they pivoted. And in that pivot, the great news was that they still needed great marketing and people able to really think about how to reach those audiences in those circumstances. So in many ways, the answer is I kept doing what I was doing. But on the flip side, what I actually did was go for the ride with some amazing entrepreneurs over that period.

And I'm assuming that that greatly influenced your current iteration.

Great. Yes, that's exactly it. Because what I've really— what I realized over a period of years is that we have an incredible workforce across the experience economy. And particularly for me, because I have, you know, most interest in marketing, comms, sales, an incredible amount of talent that is not always brilliantly supported. Often lacking in resource and investment, and all of whom work so hard that they never spend time on their own training and their own, um, you know, if you, if you were to ask a marketer in my industry, how, how would you find 5 new ways to sell more tickets, they would creatively come up with things. But what they wouldn't be able to do is say, ah, well, I would look to the attractions industry where they this, and then I would take that idea and then I would bring it back and then I would implement that and I would create iterations of it. And Onsale Live does exactly that. And so every year in May, the whole global experience economy of marketers come together and is exactly what we learn from one another.

Now, is that— that's a stupid question, but is it a live event?

It's our live event. So what happens every May is that, well, this May it will be 250 with 50 speakers. We all get together in King's Cross. We have a whole building that we take over, and we have several different zones, including a main stage and networking. But crucially, we also have career and well-being zones, and we gift free one-to-one coaching. Because in a world that demands a huge amount of us as a, as a workforce generally, I think what I have seen is not enough investment in in wellbeing and how to almost be like the athlete in your craft and what we need to do to really look after ourselves.

So, okay, this is brilliant. See, I used a good British word there. This is brilliant. I am a, I'm kind of fascinated by the whole live event because I think about how much money when you talk about global or even national, you know, events. I think if you go back maybe 30 years ago, it was, it was primarily trade shows, right? Like, so people, people in an industry would show up and share all kinds of things and display all kinds of things and sell all kinds of things. It was kind of like a live marketplace, right? But it has evolved. But what I'm shocked at is how much money those events made. Like Sheldon Adelson, you know, with the big consumer trade show, you know, made millions and then ended up creating the Venetian and like that was the nexus of his wealth was the convention business, right? Do you see a return? And then it evolved and like, you know, there still are those things, but do you see people can still make that kind of money in those live events?

My short answer is yes. My more detailed response is perhaps more detailed to say that the experience economy in the UK is valued at $134 billion, just in this small island. We are projected globally to have an experience economy that is worth in 2028, more than $20 trillion. The numbers are extraordinary. Now, what I see are major investors coming into the market. So we used to have quite a— not rough and ready, but certainly a little bit more spit and sawdust. Spit and somebody's dust. What's the phrase?

I don't know.

This is— spit and sawdust.

There we go.

Okay.

Not familiar with that. That one, but I like the analogy.

So, and we would get a lot of what we call angel investors, so individuals who, you know, had some money and they thought it would be maybe sometimes quite glamorous to invest in maybe the theatre or the arts or an element of the experience economy. Our theatres particularly were independently owned by a couple of, you know, a couple of individuals, but, you know, not big businesses, but certainly what has happened over the 20 years I've been doing it is an explosion in investment, an explosion in major players within different parts of the experience economy. And you only have to look at the data around the Sphere in Vegas, for example, to begin to understand the scale, the scale of the experience economy right now. I mean, it's truly exciting, but also You know, we, there is money to be made and there is huge money to be lost.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Well, yeah, I don't think the Sphere's made money yet, although I heard they were building another one in Dubai. I don't know if that actually is happening. Do you know?

I don't know if it's happening. It's a good question. I certainly know that there were discussions around building one in the, in the UK, which didn't go ahead.

I, yeah, I was following it just because the CFO, they kept cycling through CFOs. And, uh, I'm like, that's never a good sign because when, when your finance guy is not on board, uh, then that means you've got trouble anyway. Um, okay, so there's money to be made. Is there an application beyond the large-scale event? So going to something like yours, OnSale.live, is there Is there a way to make money in these spaces? Either— I'll back up a second. We wanted to have a live event this year, and we failed miserably. And it was a grand vision and spent a lot of money on it and didn't sell a ticket, and we pulled the plug on it. I still believe in the idea of what I had envisioned for creative entrepreneurs, a workshop experience. But what I came to realize, well, this is my suspicion, is I was trying to create a community where a community didn't already exist. And it, you know, it seems that a lot of this stuff happens organically as opposed to like directed. Do you have any thoughts on that? Help me assuage my pain.

Firstly, I'd say it's extremely relatable. You know, I think I have put many things I've come up with many ideas that have not worked, and the joy of that is the ability to take action and not keep pursuing something. Um, what I would— what I have come to realize about On Sale Live and the community that I've built is that I could only do this now. There has been changes in, in economic circumstances that have created, has created a pool of pressure that has never been experienced before in my area of business. And with that immense pressure comes a huge amount of people seeking answers. So we are no longer in a marketplace where you put something on sale and it just sells itself. And I only know that because that's what I do for part of my week, you know, when I'm working on a live experience for a client. So I was able to take my literal day-to-day experience and call, you know, and actually I called a few friends and colleagues in the industry and said, this is what's happening to, like, do you also feel like that? Like, where do you sit on it? And they said, yes. Now, I also, when I was talking about the concept of Onsale Live, spoke with many people I look up to in the industry who were really clear with me and said, people will not come and share. And that's because we used to be in this pool where I'm not going to give you any information. So attractions don't speak to location-based entertainment, location-based entertainment didn't speak to theatre, theatre doesn't speak to immersive dining experiences, but it is so hard selling tickets now. And building live experience brands or brands where you need to purchase a ticket, that what I have seen is that people are desperate to come together. But I could only identify that now at this, in this economic moment and with this level of experience behind me.

Let me rephrase that and see if I understood you. There's a shift in in the people that would attend your live event where they now have a need that they know about. Is that an accurate restatement?

I think that's very fair. There is a pain point that even if it did exist before has taken a period of time to acknowledge.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I was rereading Extreme Revenue Growth by Victor Ching. He was a Silicon Valley investor, advisor, investor, investor. Okay. But, you know, he talks about fundamentals for revenue growth and it seems so pedantic when you read it, but it's like, no, that, that it's simple. It's not easy. And, and the, and the, the first aspect is that there is a customer. That has a need and they know about it. Right. Yeah. And so, so oftentimes I think as entrepreneurs, we see the need way before the customer sees the need. Yeah. And until they see the need, you can't sell them because they don't perceive it. They don't understand it. And if you're trying to sell them on the need before you sell them on your solution, you're, you're way, way behind the power curve there. I think, you know, what I see, not specifically in your industry, but like generally, I think technology and the— we're more connected than we ever have been in human history, but we are more alone than we ever have been in human in history, right? These two things at the same time. And I think that's one of the macro trends that's driving what you're talking about, because there's a, there's an overall lack of trust of who can I, who can I actually engage with and not get screwed and can actually deliver. But there's also just like this need for human connection beyond social media or Zoom meetings.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's why we see some of our— I mean, uh, the— a great example, Claude AI obviously lives on our computers. All of a sudden they are creating a live experiential version of their brand so you can enter the world, you can go buy a coffee, you can hang out with people, you can create human connection. It's exactly what you're describing, 100%. And of course, when it comes to selling a live ticket for a live experience, you're totally right about trust. And it's why, um, it's why we see in, say, traditional West End theatre that the, the more long-standing, uh, potentially more trustworthy, or there's a sense of inbuilt trust in the brand, those musicals will always sell their tickets first. And what happens in our market is we also have this incredible explosion of live experience content. So an immersive experience, an immersive gameplay experience, a dine-in-the-dark experience. I mean, there has never been more opportunities and ways to spend your money if you're seeking a live event.

Yeah. And that, I, you know, Perry Marshall, I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's an author and marketer here in the States. Actually, he does some events over in Ireland, but anyway, that's not the UK. Anyway, he talks about like he uses live concerts to show the example because like you, you, you can't as an artist make money in streaming anymore unless you're like uber, uber successful, right? The, the, the, the, the technology has shifted that it's very hard to make money making music, right? But then you shift to, and it's cheap for the consumer. Right. Um, but it's, you shift that and go to the other extreme where the live event where, you know, U2 sells out at the Sphere and, you know, uh, who was the, who was the gig that they did like 5 shows in a row, but they were all different anyway. Uh, it was some group. I'll think of it in a second.

Was it Backstreet Boys?

No, at the Sphere. It was, it was a, it was a— I'll think of it anyway. Anyway, but, but the point was that these, these, these artists can make millions doing the live events that they couldn't. Now, obviously, they've got to be popular enough to draw the crowd. But the point was that they can charge so much more for a live event than the, you know, selling an album, so to speak.

That's, that's exactly it. And, and the fundamentals of live experience are about community. And so that principle for our major bands and artists is— you're totally right. And it translates exactly right down to the bottom of the funnel. And of course, we need to have the investment at the— at that end of the scale so that they're absolutely you know, still touring venues, and these venues are getting investment so that then the community that are buying the tickets are having a great time. They create connection with the artist on sale so that next time they see that artist, it's the next scale-up of venue. And that's, that's what you have to create.

Do you, you think this scales down then? So you don't have to sell out the Sphere, you, you can do a smaller venue in Bristol, right?

Yeah, you can absolutely. There are major challenges, not least the cost to market those experiences. And of course, you know, the cost to hire venues, the overheads are extraordinary. But I would, in a world where, as you rightly have pointed out, for music in particular, you know, streaming alone isn't going to, you know, pay rent. And so these artists are are having to find other ways. Now, somebody listening to this is probably screaming at it, saying, but we don't make any money touring to these venues either. And I absolutely know that, you know, we have artists that go to Edinburgh Festival every year. It's a perfect example of there's nobody really making money, not in Edinburgh Festival, but the opportunity to make money is that now you have your piece of content, you have the product that you can then look to sell in different markets in different ways.

Because that's, I mean, yeah, they're wanting the old school vinyl or they're wanting the concession, you know, t-shirts, hoodies, whatever. Like, and, and, you know, I don't know if you guys do this, but there's at your live events, there's, there's the, um, there's the premium package where there's an extra experience and a more intimate experience that you can always upsell.

Like, that's— oh, I mean, the money to be made on upsells is extraordinary. And I would say not just for those most well-known artists, I would say in any strategy, really important now to be thinking about what is my premium experience. And I would always err on the side of caution. Don't call it VIP. Unless it is truly VIP, but certainly call it premium. Like, what can you do to just make someone's experience just that tiny bit more? Um, I was looking at some data yesterday on the increase of Prosecco upsells on a particular experience, and we're up 100% week on week. And we're sat here talking in November, and I know that we're up 100% week on week because were coming into the festive season. And if I didn't have that Prosecco as an upsell, we just wouldn't be selling it.

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Okay, so I want to pivot, talk more about your business. So what is it like, okay, I have this idea for a live event and it was going to be a workshop and it was going to be 50 people. It was a national event. You know, in other words, we were marketing nationally. Is that something, the type of thing that you would work with?

Um, so as a consultant, yes, absolutely. So I have producers that come to me with exactly that. This is my project, this is my vision, uh, but I'm a producer, I've got the vision. What I'm not is a marketer, and that's exactly it. So I have Netflix come to me and say, via a producer in London, we're bringing Squid Game: The Experience to London. Could you direct the campaign? And that's exactly what I do. I build the teams. I look at, you know, how we're going to ticket it. What are the ticket prices? How are we— what are our upsells? And then, and then I build the campaign with a team. And take it to market.

So your ideal target customer is much— I mean, it sounds like it's a bigger business or a bigger production or a bigger budget than something like ours, which I think we were at like a $50,000 budget. That's what we were working with.

Got it. So for me personally, yes, but what I would say is that within the network, so there are now more than 500 people in this network of marketers that I have within Onsale, and there are people working, there are freelancers, there are in-house teams, there are agencies, and they're working with budgets, you know, that size and smaller depending on the, you know, the producing team and who's approached them to work on it.

And is this team global?

I would say of the followers in the community that I have, it's predominantly UK. But there are absolutely quite a lot of Americans because I often work with brands from across America. But also across Europe as well because obviously, that's very close to home.

So let me ask you this. Okay, this model works. In the UK. Could you bring OnSale.live to the US?

We absolutely could bring it to the US. What we are doing at the moment is building the brand to have global appeal. And in 2026, we already have quite a large contingency of producers and marketers coming over from Europe And then my goal absolutely is to start bringing in more global content. And if we can bring that into London in the short term, my ambition would be absolutely to be to explore other markets that have a similar footprint to London in terms of appetite and growth in the experience economy.

So is the reason you wouldn't expand to the US that the community is not yet there? Or, or so it's kind of a, it's really kind of a business strategy question to you. Like, what, what, what is the reason why? What, what needs to happen first before you can move out of the UK?

Um, the global community needs to be bigger, and there's also a lot of trade examples where actually, rather than growing small events globally and having multiple locations, what they actually do is create one much larger one annually and everybody flies into it. And so I don't yet know, in terms of the business, uh, growth, which way I may choose to take it.

Got it. How do you, uh, well, no, here is my original question. Is Rory Sutherland going to be at your event in April?

Um, Rory Sutherland is at everybody's event, and so with kindness won't be at mine.

That's funny. Okay, now I'm not gonna ask— no, well, okay, so I, I read his book a couple of years ago. I don't remember who recommended lended it to me. And then I had noticed that there are a lot of YouTube Shorts and Reels showing up. So is he just doing more now or is it he's just promoting himself more now?

I actually don't, I mean, I don't know is the short answer to that, but he is an incredibly well-known face in the marketing and advertising world.

Okay.

But what I would also say is that my market is very much the experience economy. And whilst Rory is, I mean, clearly extraordinarily intelligent man and would be able to talk about all subjects, I have more interest in booking people directly from within this experience economy.

That makes sense. Okay, so who are some of the highlights? Of the speakers.

Yes. So who are some of the highlights? So we have a lady called Professor Catherine Loveday. She is a neuropsychologist and she speaks about customer behavior patterns and how you can use nostalgia in your campaigns to drive interest and convert ticket sales. We also have a series, of course, we can't have a conference without talking about AI. But really importantly, particularly in my industry, because the discussion about AI is quite a hard one because we deal with a lot of creative, but from a marketing perspective, we're talking a lot about how to make it work in order to actually make you have a better and easier day. So actually just the practical sides of using AI. We're also going to be talking about success across Europe and how promoters across Europe are doing things maybe slightly differently to the way that, uh, we're doing it in London. And that, of course, you know, it's really important that we learn from one another. And then we have a series of case studies, and we have a piece around workforce, and then full circle back to free coaching. And if you're not into free coaching, what we have is a different kind of therapy which ends, uh, with a glass of fizz at the end of the day.

It's the best kind of therapy, although I prefer bourbon. But, you know, Scotch if, if you're in the UK. I know that, uh, I don't know, do you guys drink bourbon over there? I mean, do you? I mean, it's a quintessential American thing, but I didn't know if it was popular there.

Yeah. Oh yeah, Americana. Oh, we love it.

There's a mutual admiration society there somewhere. That's fascinating. Okay. So when you work with these clients, how do you determine your pricing? Is there any productization to what you do or is it all custom scope of work?

That's a really great question.

I know. That's why I asked it.

Yeah. Well, and it's fascinating for me because depending on which business books we read, of course, this is all about creating value and that the price doesn't mean anything because as long as we get the benefits and the value across, people will pay anything. But I, I would counter that by saying that we are living in very different economic times in an extraordinarily busy market. And when you're working with live experiences, you're very rarely working with a single ticket price. What you're actually working with is tiered pricing, often maybe 4 tiers, but maybe even with those 4 tiers, you have peak and off-peak. Peak, um, and then we might want to overlay some dynamic pricing so that we can really maximize on certain days because we know we're going to lose on other days. And so the actual, uh, balance of that and the maths of it is extremely complicated, and I as a marketer would work really closely with the producing and finance teams to really get that right. Um, the other reason I work really hard with them on that and work closely with them is because that often will— the figures that we come up with that will often inform how much marketing budget we get. Because of course, this is all about how do we generate the income? Therefore, what are our, you know, then what are our overheads? And marketing is very much seen as an overhead in my industry, as opposed to the investment it really is.

Okay, so, so how does that drive what you charge your customers for your service? I may have mis— I may have miscommunicated the question. So there's two good questions back to back.

Yeah, um, how I charge— I charge a bit like an agency would. I, I charge a retained fee for a delivery of service, and then I go out to market and find other people to support the strategy that I'm building and depending on how they operate. So PR teams here are generally on a flat fee per month, but a digital agency are probably taking a commission based on the advertising that they're running.

Perfect. Yeah, there's another book. I don't remember the author's name. I can see his face. Confessions of a Pricing Man.

Right.

It was a German, German guy developed the pricing consulting industry, like in the '70s. Have you read this book?

No, I haven't.

It's, it's, it's, it's very dry. It's not, it's completely unlike Rory's book Alchemy. It, but it's specifically on pricing and how human behavior is affected with different scenarios. And some of his stuff is dated because it's an older book, but the concepts are fascinating to me. I find pricing fascinating because it's about human behavior and I find that fascinating.

So I, well, and I agree. And I actually came off a call today. We're talking, we are effectively 2 weeks out from Black Friday and I'm fascinated about consumer behavior. At this point, given that we have taught our consumers to wait, wait, wait, wait, because you've got offers coming up. And so it's a really, it's a really interesting time of year, I think, because on the one hand you're looking at sales and going, oh, why am I selling fewer tickets? Or, you know, but, but you're also setting up Black Friday offers and you know that you're going to have this morning Why would they buy it? Why would they buy? Exactly. And also, why would you therefore spend more money to try and get them to buy?

Yes. Yes. Yes. I think it's also interesting, the adaptive behavior. Like I was having this conversation with an SEO marketer yesterday on the show and it's like, he was talking about, uh, how AI has changed the SEO landscape and, and, and how they approach it. But the, the, the thing is, is once you think you— it's, it's always a moving target because it, it, it's not like you put something out there and people don't react to it, whether it's technology or marketing. Like, you know, as, as soon as you change, the people react and change to it. So it's not like you can have this strict formula of, okay, this worked in the past, so let's do it again because they adapt.

Absolutely. And I always question, I'm getting served some adverts at the moment by someone hugely successful in marketing and advertising terms who claims to have, you know, So to come up with the answer to sell your product in 7 easy steps or whatever it might be. And I just think, I just call politely bullshit on that because exactly to your point, it is always changing. Now, and in a sense that keeps me in a job, but it is also why what I do is extraordinarily hard because you have to acknowledge that it's going to change. Be ready for change, but also have a plan in place for the future anyway, and then pivot as soon as you need to.

Yes. And I agree with you. I've said this on the show many times. I call it, at least in the area where I am, which is the United States, and it is small business, is the crackhead energy. That is around marketing. And marketers that I talk to, they're like, are you calling us crackheads? No, no, no, no, no. The businesses are the crackheads, right? And they don't understand marketing. They're pitched constantly for services around marketing. And they're like the crackhead, which they're looking for that quick high, that quick fix. And that might be, visits to the website. It might be some conversion metric. Like they're looking for something to say, I got that dopamine fix from the crack. But what they don't understand is that's not a long-term solution, right? The basics of marketing have, you know, modern marketing have not changed in 75 years. I mean, it's target customer, it's messaging, it's channels. Like, there's nothing else to it. And I'm not a marketing expert, but like, but to the point is just because the principles haven't changed doesn't mean the execution has not radically changed and will continue to change and is unpredictable by nature because you're dealing with humans.

Absolutely. Absolutely. As we would say, there's nowt as queer as folk.

Oh, I like that. Don, I'm very curious how to find out how to attend Onsale.live if listeners want to, or if I want to.

Great. So you would go to literally Onsale.live and you will find out, you'll find all the information there. If you would like to, you would also be able to sign up and you can receive free marketing tips every week. We also have free webinars. So sign up to the newsletter because we give away a lot for free because this is all about building resource, building networks, building learning. And if you would like to learn more about me, then you would go to Dawn—

Well, that was my next question. Oh, you didn't let me ask the question. And if I wanted to work with you, Dawn? All right. Now you can say it.

So I'm so pleased you asked. Um, you would go to dawnfarrow.com.

Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, and I don't understand why you wouldn't, shoot us a message and let us know what you'd like to hear, and we'll get rid of Dawn. Until next time, ta-ta for now.