Francois Baptiste of 3Deep tells you how to party like a rockstar

Dex: 0:11

Hey, welcome to another episode of In The Black. This is your boy Dex. And I kind of want to start this episode off a little differently, like I've done before. I feel like I'm getting pretty good responses from that, but, yeah, for today's guest. If you've been to any hip hop shows, probably in the last 25, I'll even say 30 years, there's a good chance that you ran across our particular guests. So for more than 25 years, our guests has been working to represent the best at progressive culture. That is concerts, nightclubs, comedy, and fashion has to offer as the founder of 3Deep Productions. This entrepreneur produced weekly club nights, concerts and special events for hip hop enthusiasts. Now 3Deep's ethos is to always provide the best possible experience for their patrons. Creating a special Haven and breeding ground for hip hop in Denver. Beginning at the university of Colorado. That's in Boulder. Go buffs Francois Baptist exp that's right. Francois Baptist has expanded his enterprise to include the longest running hip hop night in Denver at Club Vinyl. That's Reggae On The Roof, and he also owns the NBA All Star Weekend in 2005 with a total of six sold out events. Man. I bet everybody was there except me . So Baptiste has also had extensive experience in the music industry between all of this experience with promoting for the House of Blues, AEG concerts. You also ran the beat source department over at Bport look at that. You've also hosted a nightly show on Ks 1 0 7. He is constantly looking to innovate and improve the community around them through his biggest passion, progressive culture, again, concerts, nightclubs, comedy, and television. Welcome to the show Francois. How are you

Francois Baptiste: 2:16

Man. Thank you for having me. This was a pleasure.

Dex: 2:19

dude? Before we got on, we had briefly spoken about how, we ran in like a lot of pretty similar circles. We both went to CU. We both know, can we call him a co-founder?

Francois Baptiste: 2:34

Sure. Well, it, it it's progressive, but yes.

Dex: 2:38

Yeah,

Francois Baptiste: 2:38

We're all the same, same crew.

Dex: 2:40

yeah, man. And then, the guy that suggested that I reach out to you TuWayne shout out TuWayne. He, uh,

Francois Baptiste: 2:46

yep.

Dex: 2:47

yeah. Yeah, man, just, Denver is small man, but it is, it is special, dude. It is really, really special, but, um,

Francois Baptiste: 2:55

were saying, like you were saying, everybody's connected in some way or another just sometimes you gotta sit down and connect the dots. So that's how we go back. You go back, just connect the dots. We know, we know somebody in the same circle.

Dex: 3:08

Yeah. And actually at the very end of this, I got a surprise confession for you, but we're gonna get to that at the end, cuz I don't want you to be like, no, man, I can't do this this anymore, but you know, I'm, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna preface

Francois Baptiste: 3:21

make sure you don't incriminate yourself and send your yourself to jail with some kind.

Dex: 3:26

it's a little late for that. My lawyer said that I could probably explain it and get away and just call entertainment, but you know, we'll work it out. We'll work it out. So tell me about your business 3Deep Productions.

Francois Baptiste: 3:40

Well, 3Deep Productions was built out of the necessity to have the hip hop culture at the forefront and bring things to Colorado that. I felt, and my crew felt that we weren't getting at that time. So, like you said, 3Deep Productions was created at CU Boulder in the nineties and, that's the golden year of hip hop. So, we really wanted to. Get some of the national, artists we wanted to have, you know, weekly, weekly spots to go and socialize. You know, just the basics back then. And so it was just kind of created out of, Hey, what are we doing this weekend? Ah, we couldn't find what we like, so let's just create it ourselves. So that's how in a nutshell, 3Deep, uh, 3Deep Productions was created.

Dex: 4:31

Yeah, necessity is the mother of all invention man, that, um, but you started off with parties, Keggers things like.

Francois Baptiste: 4:41

Yeah. I mean, it was just the natural progression was that we are doing house parties and keggers, I mean, at the very beginning of 3Deep Productions, it was like, you know, your typical house party and, and, you know, and then it kind of moved to a couple nightclubs in Boulder and then it kind of moved to the warehouse. So there was a natural progression. And at some point, we were just kind of. You know what we could pro let's see how far we can take this. And this is what I love. I, I loved working, you know, kind of the nightlife scene then. And, the, the transition was when we started working with the Fox Theater in Boulder and, they started, having us promote some the shows and bring them in. And that's kind of where 3Deep Productions changed from just kind of party crew to concert promotions.

Dex: 5:32

Yeah. So it started off with somebody probably followed you out of the store when you were buying solo cups. And they were like, yeah, this guy knows where it's going. Let's follow him.

Francois Baptiste: 5:41

Yo that's crazy.

Dex: 5:43

Why that happened to you?

Francois Baptiste: 5:44

re that's literally how it happened. Like literally, because just a quick note, it was like, so from eh, 91 to like 90 fourish, we were just doing straight. You know, parties and clubs in, in Boulder. And then we started working with the Fox Theater and bringing like all the great acts back in the nineties, you know, with The Roots, The Fugees, Naughty By Nature Outcast, oh, at the Fox theater by, by the way, which only holds what 525 people. So it's crazy that those acts played there. And then, so I kind of had a little bit of a downtime, so I was working at a record store in Boulder. And, a friend of mine at that point that was booking the, the Boulder Theater brought in the vice president of Universal Concerts at that time. And we just kicked it off, talking about hip hop. I sold him a jacket and then literally like, I don't know, three months later I kept getting, this is funny. My pager kept going off with his 9, 9 1 code. you see how you see I'm dating myself a little bit, nine one one nine one, call, call this number. So I call this number and they're like, Hey, Jason Miller wants you to, come and bring your resume. If you'd be interested in being assistant talent buyer at. Universal concerts at that point, which would gradually move to, House of Blues concerts. And that was literally, that's how it happened. That's how I kind of got into the corporate world of, of the music business. It's weird.

Dex: 7:14

that is crazy, man. Um,

Francois Baptiste: 7:16

That true story.

Dex: 7:17

I'm gonna interject myself in on this one a little bit, but, um,

Francois Baptiste: 7:21

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Dex: 7:22

I once dated a girl whose mom was the M and M girl for the House of Blues

Francois Baptiste: 7:27

Really.

Dex: 7:29

yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 7:30

That's hilarious.

Dex: 7:31

Yeah. I'm not gonna shout out. I don't think she likes me anymore, but uh, Yeah. Small world, real small world, man. So. House of Blues finally got some real talent in the, talent buying

Francois Baptiste: 7:44

a little bit.

Dex: 7:45

Yeah. So what, what happens after that? When you decide to just kind of do your own thing or.

Francois Baptiste: 7:52

No. At that, at that time, I was kind of, uh, it was at that time, the, the, the larger crew from CU had kind of dwindled down to just two of us. It was just myself and Alvin Le McCabe at that point. So, a lot of the CU guys Al originally started group, Marcus Johnson, Whitney Lanier, Malik Duncan, Damon Hagens, and Shaw Christie. They all. Went and did their own thing, which was completely fine. I mean, that's just, you know, when you get out of college, you kind of, some people just gotta get a job, you know what I'm saying? So, but I, but, but, but I, I, I, I felt like this was my calling. And so obviously I went to go work in the corporate structure. And, during that corporate structure, I really learned the business of the music, music industry. And at the same time, I continue to do myself and Alvin continue to do, 3Deep Production club nights. And so it was kind of a, a wild time in the two thousands because I was doing a lot of different things. So during that time, just to, you know, make long story short was doing House of Blues concerts, full time. That was my nine to five. Doing 3Deep Productions after that, which was kind of another nine to five after doing all these clubs. And then at that time I was also doing, uh, the Ks 1 0 7 5 mix tape show with Kingdom and DJ Chonze. And that was the first radio show, on. Ks 1 0 7 5 to where we got to play, whatever music we wanted to play.

Dex: 9:14

Yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 9:14

it was what was a 10 to 10 to midnight on Sunday nights. Yeah. And so it was just a good time. So yeah, we, we covered a lot of bases during that time.

Dex: 9:24

bro. One of your, one of your shows was my very first show. I don't know if you remember God, I can't remember what year it was. I was 19 at the time. So, but it was a show. It was, it was in fact it was the very first show that Xhibit had to where Saddat didn't make it.

Francois Baptiste: 9:41

Yep.

Dex: 9:42

That was my very, very first concert Xhibit was cool. I didn't want to take a picture or anything with him or, you know, you know, ride his jock or nothing, but I thought he, I thought he was like super cool, pretty like, uh, pretty down fellow, you know, just pretty mild, pretty humble.

Francois Baptiste: 9:58

I'm trying to think which one when that, that was because the true story was we actually, from what I, what they tell me, what Xhibit tells me to this day is that when he came with The Alkaholiks, I think that one time that they played the Fox theater. That was actually her first show, uh, tour date. So that was his first time performing out of LA at if I remember correctly. But yeah, when, Xhibit played in, in Colorado, he was, he was fairly new and just about to blow up

Dex: 10:24

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he just dropped Paparazzi at the time,

Francois Baptiste: 10:28

yep. Yep.

Dex: 10:30

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's a cool guy. So shout out to him and shout out to him,

Francois Baptiste: 10:34

Yeah, definitely the X.

Dex: 10:35

Yeah, let's definitely get more into this. So went to kegers house of blues. But you did that at a very early time. Like really before the internet kind of blew. What tell me. Yeah, you gotta tell some of these listeners, cuz I know some are very, are young. Tell me about like promoting back then versus promoting now. Cause you had like Street teams, things like that. Getting out hustling.

Francois Baptiste: 10:59

Yeah. I mean, everything was kind of self-contained back in the day, you know? Obviously much different from today, but I mean, you had to go do everything. Coming out of the late nineties into two thousands, it was kind of like a Master P uh, Jay-Z Rockefeller Bad Boy era. They were kind of all preaching. Like, you know, you gotta be independent, you gotta own your business. So that's kind of how we thought. So basically we made our own flyers. Most of the time got 'em printed and then you had to go cast those jokers. And posters. So basically what we do is you kind of have, if you had to identify the places where people would go back in the day, then you had to go to each business and say, Hey, could I put flyers in here? You had to make sure they're visible. You gotta hang posters up with tape. And then you kind of, it was like a paper route. Basically you'd go like maybe Monday or Tuesday, put your flyers in. And then by Thursday for the weekend, you'd go back to your routes. Then double check them, see who had the flyer, who didn't. And that was kind of really what you did. And then sometimes like in Denver, you'd have to kind structure. How to get across town that with time it would take, so you could hit multiple let outs and pass out flyers to each person or put 'em on the cars or both. And so just think about, just think about the craziest, weather you can think of blizzard snow, you know, 20, 10 degrees outside, and we're out there passing out flyers and the ice and snow and all that stuff. So everything was kind of. You had to be self sufficient back in the day. So if you were a promoter back in the day, that man, you really wanted to be a promoter and you'd have to work for it.

Dex: 12:48

Yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 12:48

it was crazy.

Dex: 12:49

So what were your, what were your costs like back then? You know, cuz you had to print all that stuff out yourself.

Francois Baptiste: 12:56

Well, that was the hustle because back then that they weren't really, the only people that were doing full color flyers was the, the rave kids. That was like the underground rave kits where they do like three or four foldouts, you know, half a sheet of paper. They were like, you know, crazy maps. Well, hip hop, wasn't doing that.

Dex: 13:16

no, no, it wasn't.

Francois Baptiste: 13:19

so basically the hustle was really to find somebody at a Kinkos back in the day and trade them tickets and go print that stuff yourself. True story was, I can't remember his name. I think his name was Chris, but huge reggae fan in Boulder, Colorado. He worked the night shift at, Kinko's so we'd go in there late at night. We trade him reggae tickets at the Fox theater and he just said, Hey, I still gotta do my job. You guys just do whatever you want to do. So we go back in there, we design the, the flyers on the computers. Then we go to the machines and print them ourselves, cut them the whole thing. And this was. We'd get there probably at midnight. We'd do that till, you know, we'd probably do all our work till about three, four o'clock in the morning, then go back home, sleep for an hour or two and then go to school. So our costs were pretty, very, very low because we just couldn't afford full color flyers until. Kinko started do had a full color, print machine. So we kind of taught ourselves how to use that. So they weren't, they weren't glossy back then. They were like cardboard stock, color flies, but we thought we were balling because, Hey, we were the only ones that had color flyers on card stock, at least. So, you know, that was kind of a game changer for us, but yeah, it was, it was a hustle back in the day, you know, printing flyers were expensive.

Dex: 14:43

Yeah. Yeah, they, they were expensive. And it's funny that you brought out like the rave, flyers, cuz those were, those are pretty artful to be quite honest with you, man. They were

Francois Baptiste: 14:53

they were very co very complicated, very you're like you said, very artsy. They had themes and you know, they, they were doing it back in the day.

Dex: 15:04

Yeah. I mean,

Francois Baptiste: 15:05

back in the day.

Dex: 15:06

they're also charging like 50 bucks a ticket, so, you know yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 15:09

Yeah. Yeah. They, but they were making money when you have, you know, five to 10,000 kids back in the day, show up for a rave

Dex: 15:15

yeah, yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 15:16

and you, you really, you made, you made some good money.

Dex: 15:19

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, besides, you know, coming up with the. the posters and the flyers and stuff. How does like a normal split work with, let's say a hiphop artist, a venue, and then yourself.

Francois Baptiste: 15:34

It just there there's a lot of ways you can structure a deal, you know, more on the club nights, smart lights. It's a flat guarantee.

Dex: 15:41

uh,

Francois Baptiste: 15:42

And so they just say, let's just say, example, artist X, Y, Z, wants to come in. You just give 'em a guarantee. So that means you give them $10,000 and that will cover their flights, hotels, and whatever they're gonna paid in a fee there's other, their other way to do the deal is, you know, when usually artists on tour, you still pay them a guarantee, but then you also give them a percentage of the net after expense.

Dex: 16:09

Mm.

Francois Baptiste: 16:09

So it, there's just, just different ways to, to do it depending on what artists you're dealing with in, in what scenario. But there's always a way to structure it, to, you know, make some money.

Dex: 16:21

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So do you end up having to coordinate with other promoters? You know, let's say somebody, has you have the Fox, somebody has the lizard lounge or something up the street, you know, do you get artist a. You know, come to the lizard lounge on Friday, and then let's say there's the Fox on Saturday. Do you guys cross

Francois Baptiste: 16:41

It depends on what, who the artist is. It's, it's very rare that an artist will play the multiple, venues in the same market. So there's usually has to be some space between the market. So basically you may get, Like when artist may play a small venue in Denver and then another small venue as a Fox theater or something in Boulder, which would make sense. You know, you just kind of look at the numbers and say like a lot of people now look at Spotify and be like, okay, where are my listeners listening from? And so you look at the chart to say, Hey, so you wanna play, you know, a market that you're gonna. Sell the most tickets at, but you know, sometimes depending on the artists, they just wanna play one market. So they play Denver and that's it. Some artists will come in and play, Colorado Springs in Denver and Boulder and Fort Collins. And depending on what they are, you know, it just depends on the act. If it's a college, if the artist feels like it's a college act, it's playing all the college markets, you

Dex: 17:43

Okay.

Francois Baptiste: 17:44

It just depends.

Dex: 17:45

Okay. Okay. But you talked about, Spotify and I wanted to touch on this earlier. What, what are the, you know, besides street teams, what other things do you do for marketing that you do now that you didn't do before?

Francois Baptiste: 18:00

Well, thank God for social media, because the wear and tear in your body, on your car, casting out flyers is a thing of the past. And so, you know, basically now the way to touch. Thousands of people is press send. So, you know, you use all your, all your basic, social media, you know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, email blast still, you know, we, so sometimes we still use actual flyers, you know? But it's now it's just about how you defeat the algorithms. Like how do you. Get as much, view views on your, your post versus having to pay for 'em, you know, cause everything the way Instagram and Facebook especially is they want you to pay for anything you're marketing that you're gonna make money off of. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a little bit complicated and it's a little bit pricey sometimes, but having that, that spending money versus being out in the streets in the cold.

Dex: 19:01

Mm.

Francois Baptiste: 19:02

take that any day.

Dex: 19:04

Oh, yeah. yeah, man. I know about those Denver winters.

Francois Baptiste: 19:07

Yeah.

Dex: 19:08

What about, promoting with, let's say an artist, you know, you get somebody big. Do you, do you guys promote at the exact same time, or do you try and coordinate your posts for, you know, anybody that's going to go to your particular socials? They're gonna, they're probably gonna be automatically from the Denver area or, you know, somewhere in Colorado where. Someone let's say a bigger act, they'll be bringing in their own people. For instance. Do you coordinate with them as far as posting and promotions?

Francois Baptiste: 19:38

Well, usually these days, especially for concerts, if you're doing a launch or announcement, usually it's a nationwide. Announcement. So basically an artist let's like, say for example, Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick Kendrick Lamar is gonna go on a national tour. So he has his agent, his music agent coordinate everything. So his agent will, you know, send out an email to all the promoters that are gonna be booking the tour and saying, Hey, we're announcing on this day that we're announcing on Tuesday, that tickets go on sale Friday. here is a general AdMat. So basically what an AdMat is, is the artwork. And so your marketing department in your company will take the general artwork and put all the necessary information for that market. So it's a Kendrick Lamar, you know, October, whatever at ball arena, da, da duck, and then everybody releases at the same time nationwide.

Dex: 20:41

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. So AdMat is basically advertising.

Francois Baptiste: 20:48

Yes, it's, it's all the assets that you will be putting out into the universe, for your specific market. So basically what Kendrick Lamars would do would put out, uh, Kendrick Lamar, world tour, here's all the tour dates and they, he put it on his social media, like, all the dates in, in, cities that he'll be playing. And so the average consumer would be like, oh, let me see if my city's on it. So they look at it, look at it and say, oh, he's playing here. So basically with, you know, the consumer would do a, go look at Ticketmaster AEG or AXS, tickets and figure out when, they can purchase tickets for their specific city.

Dex: 21:27

Okay. okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So

Francois Baptiste: 21:30

a, it's a coordinated attack.

Dex: 21:32

yeah, I mean, you would hope so, you know, but I guess these things, these processes have been in place for like 50, 60 years

Francois Baptiste: 21:39

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they've gotten better over the years. It was different. It was a little bit different in different times, but they've always been pretty much the same way with the tour announcements and concert announcements.

Dex: 21:51

yeah, so let's say, you know, I, I, I was a. You know, junior promoter, I wanted to start doing this myself. How do I find the artists that are willing to tour this way and put that whole thing together? Get the venue, get the dates like what's the process. Which one is the first thing that I start with?

Francois Baptiste: 22:11

Well, the first thing you wanna do is you just want to know the business. You need to understand the business and how it works, and you definitely wanna have the money. And then the thing about it is, is you want to have a venue and you wanna know what your venue costs to rent it out. So if you don't own it, that means you have to rent it out. and you have to build that into your budget of like, okay, not only do, do I need to make the artist guarantee back, but here's my other additional expenses. So there's a lot of different ways today that you can find artist bookings, you can always go to their IG or Twitter and it'll say management contact here, contact there. But most. Promoters go through pole star, pole star is kind of the industry, go to, to find out who's managing who's the agent for a specific, artist. And if you're starting out, it's gonna be somewhat of a fight. Not necessarily fight, but you just gotta know. Who you can book and where, you know, and because your reputation's everything in this business. So basically there's the big guys that you're kind of competing with. You have AEG and you have Live Nation and for Denver, they own and control a good majority of the venues and they have the history and relationship with a lot of these artists. They usually get the artist when they're on tour, which is somewhat considered cheaper. So basically if you're a new promoter and you want to book artist X, Y, Z, you are gonna have to fly them in. So it's gonna be, it's called a one off. So it's gonna be more expensive.

Dex: 23:57

Okay. But if you get 'em in town, you might as well book them in the Springs, Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins.

Francois Baptiste: 24:05

Well, if they're on tour, Um, they're probably gonna play for the big guys.

Dex: 24:13

Okay. I mean, that's, I'm talking about like the smaller artists and because, I mean,

Francois Baptiste: 24:18

yeah. I mean, I mean, it's doable. Don't get me wrong. It's doable. You just, you just gotta get out there and, you know, to, you know, if you're trying to get your FA your feet wet, you probably gotta get them when they're not on tour. You gotta, you know, fly 'em out and get the trust of the agent and your business because the agent wants to make sure that their artist is safe. They get paid, that their rider is taken care of. And the venue that you have 'em in is good. You know, they wanna make sure that it's not a hole in the wall type place, they wanna make sure the sound is good, that the staff there was good. Everything on the route I was taken care of. So there's a, it's a lot of different pieces to, to promote these days just because you gotta make sure that, the artist is taken care of.

Dex: 25:05

Yeah. So there's a lot of variables, a lot of moving parts all at one time, you

Francois Baptiste: 25:09

Yes, absolutely.

Dex: 25:13

how do you determine pricing or is that just sort of prewritten as for certain venues or for certain people or?

Francois Baptiste: 25:20

Well, the thing about it is, is that, you know, you, you look at the capacity of the venue that you may be booking. If not, or you look at the artist that you're booking and you wanna figure out, okay, usually the artist dictates the price. So you're gonna call the artist and they're gonna be like, Hey, you're gonna be like, Hey, I wanna book you how much they're gonna tell you, you know, whatever they want. That's that's what artists do. You know, the agent be like, Hey, I. 10 grand. I want 50 grand. And as a promoter, you gotta decide like, Hey, is he worth 50 grand to play? And if he's 50 grand, where can I, you know, go into a venue, pay the rent for the place, pay the guarantee for the artist, and then gotta decide what the ticket a price is going to. That's gonna be, to break even and make you some money. So there's a lot of variables when you go into it, you know, a lot of people. Say a book, artist, XYZ. I, I love them. They're my favorite artist. I'm gonna sell out most promoters, young promoters and new promoters always kind of go into like, this is gonna sell out. This is gonna sell out. You know,

Dex: 26:30

Yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 26:31

it's not that easy. It's not that easy.

Dex: 26:33

Yeah. I can't imagine it being easy, you know, even getting 50% capacity. Can't be easy. So then you.

Francois Baptiste: 26:41

know, a lot go.

Dex: 26:43

No, no. I was gonna ask then, do you like negotiate, liquor sales or door or anything like that with the venue or

Francois Baptiste: 26:49

I mean, you can negotiate, but usually it's a door basis. Like, you know, you, it's very rare that you get a part of the bar for any show unless you own it, you know? That's and, you know, just to, to kind of be clear too, that's what promoters did years ago? You had to have the real estate in this day and age in order to make money because making money just off ticket sales is usually not always a win. A lot of times people break even or lose money. You know, they, if you make, if you, if you make money off of concerts, that's like you, you charge the right price. The artist was hot. Maybe the venue gave you a deal, but you know, if you own the venue, you can still take. A loss, a small loss, and you could still probably, you know, come out on top because your bar did exceptionally well. So that's kind of where promoters are this day. It's about the real estate. Most promoters companies own their own facilities. They don't rent the, the venues cause that's another additional cost that, you know, adds to what you have to cover in your ticket price.

Dex: 28:04

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. So that kind of leads me to my next question. What are, what are some of the things that people wouldn't normally expect? Like they, you know, everybody thinks about like ticket costs and getting their artists in and all this other stuff. What is something. They don't expect at all that they are gonna end up having to deal with.

Francois Baptiste: 28:27

I mean, weather is, is the, is the perfect one, especially in Colorado, you know, like you, you could have promoted your ass off. You felt like you crossed your T's and dotted your I's and then, you know, come show day, there's a blizzard or there's a rain. And it's like, oh shit. You know, it cancels the show. It could be, a lot of different things. The artists get sick. It could be that you ain't selling tickets. You know, it, that you put all this money in, you promoted your ass off. You feel like you did everything you need to do. And he's just not selling tickets. The artist that he, she is not selling the tickets. You thought they.

Dex: 29:02

Uh, yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 29:04

yeah, so there's, there's a little bit of everything.

Dex: 29:07

All right. Well, now let's get into the legal component of it because you mentioned, you briefly mentioned riders, but tell people about riders and all the different things that they can expect.

Francois Baptiste: 29:19

Well, is writers is, is separate from the contract. Well, it's part of the contract. Let me, let me clarify that. But the contract is a legal document that you sign and it's kind of like. A roadmap to what you need to do at the end of the show to get there. And it's kind of like if you, if the promoter and agent or artist can't decide, it's like you go to the contract to solve the issue. But most of the time, a lot of people, you know, artists, uh, artists, promoters and agents want to solve the problem without getting into legal side, cuz that's expensive,

Dex: 29:58

Yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 29:59

but. You gotta know the, the legal mumble jumble to really make sure you don't screw yourself. Cause if you've never read a concert before, I mean a contract before they are crazy, it's like reading a foreign language, you know, it's like you get this contract and you look over it and you think, you know what it is. And you know, it's, it's complicated. It's really complicated. So you gotta know what you're doing first and foremost. The rider. Also is part of the contract and the rider indicates what the artist is gonna need technically and hospitality wise. So basically the rider will say, Hey, I need X amount of mics. I need, how many CDJs? I might need some back line. I might need a drum kit. Hospitality might be like, I need, you know, 10 bottles of ACE of Spades. I need a, you know, a cheese platter. You need to go through those things because at the end of the day, those add up as well, and those are required to have. So if you didn't read your rider and the artist says, I want, you know, 15 bottles of ACE of spades, and then the show comes and he's like, well, where's my 15 up bottles, Ace Of, Spades. You're legally supposed to have that stuff. Unless you negotiated it before and said, Hey, you know, what do you really need? 15 H bottles, a space. How about. That's what we're gonna cover. Okay. You know, and, and it's just, it's it's you just gotta be, you need to have somebody that does production to know what they're looking at to try to make sure your costs don't aren't exuberant, you know, going into the show.

Dex: 31:41

All right. Well that that's gonna make me skip questions. A little bit. Artist personalities. How do you deal with their personalities? Their agent personalities. The venues, all of those different variables.

Francois Baptiste: 31:58

I mean, you know, you gotta be levelheaded and you gotta. Be a problem solver solution solution solutions, you know, will be, will, will there be times that you need to fire off and flash on somebody and tell 'em to go kick rocks? Of course, but you really want to make sure that going into the show, you have the communication with the tour manager, have the communication with the agent and make sure that, you know, there's nothing, no surprises day of show. Cause that's what the problem is. So, If most things are worked out before the show, then you won't have as many problems, but you know, you, this is a concert business. You know, anything that can go wrong can go wrong. So you just gotta be prepared to figure out, you know, how to solve a problem. If you know, during sound, check, the mixer goes out some shit, you have a backup mixer. There does somebody, you know, that lives close can bring you a mixer. I mean, it's just a lot of different things, but. If you're somebody that's, you know, hyper, you know, uh, has anxiety problems or stress or hypertension, or, you know, fucking pacemaker in your, in your in your chest. I'd probably say you wouldn't do it. Because, like I said, I I've seen a lot of crazy shit and it's just like, all right, take a deep breath. Let's figure this out. How do we solve?

Dex: 33:18

Yeah. Yeah. Small fires, a lot of small fires.

Francois Baptiste: 33:22

Uh, it could be small fires. It could be big fires. It could be both at the same time, you know, it could be a complete crumble of the foundation. I've seen it all.

Dex: 33:33

well, now that you've seen it all, you gotta tell me about a crazy story. Whatever your craziest story is, dude, keep it. This isn't a family friendly show. So you can say whatever you want.

Francois Baptiste: 33:45

I mean, I think the craziest thing I seen was not even in hip hop, it was a rock show. So it was Lenny Kravitz. He was playing at, um, Fiddler's green and fi Fiddler green has a hard curfew of 11 o'clock. So that means at 11 oh o'clock 10 59. The music shuts off. Boom. No questions asked no nothing. And it's all this stuff is. Communicated before they even arrived to the show, you know, it's in their contract, their agent communicated, Hey, you know, just heads up.

You have a hard curfew at 11: 34:21

00 PM. So usually the tour managers will be like, okay, we're gonna be off the stage by 10 30, whatever Lenny Kravitz is on fire out. He has a song, a fly away

Dex: 34:35

Oh, yeah.

Francois Baptiste: 34:35

for some reason, for some reason he's plays it like at, I don't. 10 48 and he's on stage Fidler's greens path and he's just singing away, fly away. And literally at that poor fly away power goes down, cut off his microphone and we're just sitting there like, holy shit, they just cut off Lenny K fucking microphone. Holy shit. And it was, it was like, Madness because there's nothing you can do it automatically shuts down lights come up whole thing. And I think his man, his tour manager is freaking like level 10, fucking volcanic eruption backstage. And people are like, there's nothing we can do, bro. You knew what time it is. I know, we know that's his, his, his song, but that's just what it is. I mean, things like that happen. It's it's, it's just crazy. But yeah, that was, that was a wild time. Wild, wild.

Dex: 35:33

and in, in, in case I need to sum that up for anybody always go to show who's over at Red Rocks because they don't cut it off. So that's not Def tones there.

Francois Baptiste: 35:44

most, most people have curfew. Most venues have curfews. Most people, most people adhere to the cutoff time. Like we don't wanna get cut off, you know, cause usually a lot of these times, if you go later, there's like a $10,000 fine or something like you can do that, like at Red rocks, but. It looks green because it's in the neighborhood. It's a hard cutoff. Like no, if ands or bust, because that's, you can get sound violation like that.

Dex: 36:12

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a hard situation, especially for an artist. , you know, you don't wanna lose your

Francois Baptiste: 36:20

crazy. Shit happens.

Dex: 36:21

Yeah, it is pretty crazy, but I mean, I guess that is what it is. You gotta tell me about this white show and how I could never, ever get invited to it.

Francois Baptiste: 36:31

Man, you can come to the white party anytime it's year 19. I'm not even trying to hear this right now. All, you know, it's been 19 years since we did it. It's actually probably like 20, 21, but because of COVID, It's 19, but yeah, it, it was something that started years ago. Very small, kind of on the whims. We started with a former Denver Bronco, Al Wilson. He wanted to do it. Oh, no, actually it was, Clint Portis that started with us. And, um, and uh, after that we just kind of kept doing it, just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's just like kind of the premier party for Denver. Towards the end of the summer. So, you know, next year's 20, this year's 19 2Chains is hosting it at the stampede and, um, you know, it's tickets are on fire. So if you're coming, come on, man.

Dex: 37:29

Man. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it, but you're gonna have to drink one for me.

Francois Baptiste: 37:34

I'm good at that. I'll definitely drink two for you. How's that?

Dex: 37:36

I'll take it. I'll take it Well, um, I wanted to ask you, you know, on the business side of things, how do you stay organized? Cuz I can't imagine you just putting on one at a time. I'm sure you have like a month or two just sort of scheduled out.

Francois Baptiste: 37:53

Yeah, definitely. I mean, the white party starts in May the concept and the idea is what we wanna do, but with it, like with any concerts too, I mean, they're usually decide months in advance. I mean, Maybe two, three months before the show plays because you have to get the AdMats and you gotta get all, you know, your ducks in a row. So it's, it's just really about being organized. Like you said, you have to figure out how to, you know, make sure you put everything you can in, your calendar, make sure any side notes are in your reminders on your phone. It's kind of like, the way I look at it is like, remember when you were in high school or elementary school, your, your mom, dad would say, Hey, before you go out and play, you gotta do your homework. It's the same way before you, you know, kick up your feet on the couch or whatever, be like, all right, let me see what I need to do today. Okay. I need to do X, Y, Z. All right. I got it. Let me, let me get this going here. So yeah, you get organization is, is, uh, a must. If you're gonna be good at.

Dex: 38:58

Are there any particular apps that you use or suggest to people.

Francois Baptiste: 39:05

Nah, you know, I'm just really a note person. So I write myself a gazillion notes, um, remind reminders in my phone. Um, you know, I'll, I'll put notes on notes to let me know what I'm doing two days from now. So like today is Friday. So if I have a meeting on Friday, I'd have a reminder on Sunday. Don't forget meeting. Uh, on Monday or calls. So, you know, everybody has their own method of, of keeping it organized me. I just like to talk to myself a lot.

Dex: 39:37

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Francois Baptiste: 39:39

you know, just, just things I can, you know, look back at or, you know, if I have something, but I like to have things pop up on my phone, like, Hey, you got this tomorrow. Hey, you got that tomorrow. So I'm a calendar kind of.

Dex: 39:53

yeah. Yeah. Hey, you know, whatever system works, man, just put a system in place is what I tell people,

Francois Baptiste: 39:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Dex: 39:59

to go. That's definitely the best way to go. Well, I guess it's time for your surprise. Uh,

Francois Baptiste: 40:05

I'm ready. I'm

Dex: 40:06

alright. I hope you're sitting down for this one. Do you have a younger brother?

Francois Baptiste: 40:11

Do I? Yeah.

Dex: 40:12

do. Okay. There were a couple times I got into your show because somebody said that I look like your younger brother and

Francois Baptiste: 40:20

believe it, you know, was that in Boulder

Dex: 40:22

yeah, it was a couple times in Boulder. And then once in Denver I didn't stop him. I was just like fucking free show. I'm broke anyway. So

Francois Baptiste: 40:30

bro? I think I remember like I was up front at the Fox theater one time. And they were like, yeah, they were like, yeah, your brother's on stage. And I was like, what? And this, at this time, my brother was still living in New Mexico and was like, what the fuck?

Dex: 40:46

I wasn't

Francois Baptiste: 40:46

I was like, my brother's not here. And I just started laughing. I just played it off because I, like whoever said that is a brilliant ingenious and just probably deserves to be on the show. And I, I don't even think I went to go see who it was or anything like that. I was just like all, if he's not causing problems, let him stay.

Dex: 41:02

Bro. I, I can tell you whatever show it was. It was a good show. Cause I I've never been to a bad show there to be honest with you. But yeah, man, I just had to confess my sin. You know, I, I got into a

Francois Baptiste: 41:13

I, I ju I, I do remember that. I do remember that.

Dex: 41:18

so, you know, my apologies. I'm hoping I can make it up to you with this, uh, podcast and everything.

Francois Baptiste: 41:24

it's all good. No harm, no foul. Right?

Dex: 41:27

I, I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Well, um, last thing I wanted to ask you is what is the best way people can get ahold of you? Social medias, things like that.

Francois Baptiste: 41:35

Yeah. I mean, just reach out sometimes, you know, gimme a little bit of time to get back to you. Yeah, probably like Instagram just way I try to keep, like I said, I try to keep things organized. So if you hit me on one thing, stay on that thing. Don't hit me for multiple, Social media accounts, cuz it, it kind of comes off like spam, but like, you know, you, if you need something and I'm, I'm here to help and guide people. And I, and I love to give advice to people, whether it be new promoters or artists or whatever. Um, I'm not, I'm not managing anybody. I'm just letting everybody know now. So don't call me about, Hey, will you manage me? No, but I will give you. Some con some ideas on what I think you need to do in this market and any kind of concert promoting information. Yeah. Reach out. I'd definitely get you. If I can help you out. I'd love to pass down the knowledge.

Dex: 42:23

That is what's up, man? That is what's up. I, uh, I'm gonna keep all that information in the show notes for the show. So, you know, everybody check 'em out 3d, uh, 3d.com or do net I'm sorry, 3d.net.

Francois Baptiste: 42:37

3d product. Yeah. No 3d productions.com.

Dex: 42:39

Dot com. Okay. Yeah. So definitely reach out to him there. You know, that white show is gonna be as crazy as any other year. I already know it.

Francois Baptiste: 42:47

Yeah. If anybody wants to know anything about the white party, go to a white party, Denver. Wait, is it white party? denver.com. Yeah. whitepartydenver.com. And, um, that will have all the information about the two chains hosting the white party. If you can make it, man, come on down, man. Don't be a scaredy cat. Come on.

Dex: 43:06

man. I mean, I'd have to, uh, I'd have to, uh, pack up everything that I'm doing here. Put my kids, uh, you know, leave my kids with my wife and then go have fun. And I don't think that's ever gonna happen. So

Francois Baptiste: 43:18

You can't you can't, you can't, you can't make an excuse. Huh?

Dex: 43:20

now man, I, I love being married, so I'm gonna keep it that way.

Francois Baptiste: 43:23

all right. I feel you. Yeah. Don't, don't do that.

Dex: 43:26

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, for everybody out there listening, you can find everything in the show notes. I'm gonna keep trying to bring more black representation by through business owners, entrepreneurs, hustlers. They're gonna show you how they do it, so you can do it your way. You know, from a man Francois I am your boy D if you wanna support the show, the best way to do is to share this out with a friend. Otherwise we will see you on the next episode. Thanks again. Francois.

Francois Baptiste: 43:54

Anytime, man. I appreciate. Thanks for having me.