hollywood billionaire

Chapter 306 Go to the scene (Part )

The Sahara in Han Yi's mouth is naturally not the one in Africa.

In Las Vegas, when people mention the Sahara, they only refer to one place.

That is the four-star casino hotel, SAHARA Las Vegas, located at the northernmost end of the Las Vegas Strip. It officially opened in 1952 and has a history of 64 years.

From 1952 to 2011, the hotel operated under the official name "Sahara Las Vegas." On May 2011, 5, due to unsustainable business conditions, the new owner of the Sahara Hotel, SBE Entertainment Group, closed it for renovations. In 16, it debuted again as the SLS Hotel.

SLS is a five-star high-end brand under the Marriott Hotel Group. SBE Entertainment Group hopes to attract mid-to-high-end customers from the Southern California region through SLS's modern and fashionable brand image. But the history of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas is too long. Whether it is local residents or tourists, it is difficult to erase from their minds that "this land belongs to the Sahara, and the Sahara is a four-star hotel." impression.

Therefore, in the three years since its opening, SLS Las Vegas has never made a profit. In order to reverse the decline, SBE Entertainment Group once again made a big gamble and introduced W Hotel, another high-end brand of Marriott, and handed over the tallest tower on the south side to W's first Las Vegas branch.

But even the two brands combined could not save the project. Last quarter, SLS Las Vegas’ total revenue was US$3360 million, with accommodation business revenue of US$1230 million, catering business revenue of US$1360 million, and casino business revenue of only US$990 million. This resulted in SBE Entertainment Group's net loss on this project of US$2016 million in the second quarter of 3870, bringing the total loss to US$1.227 million in the past year.

According to the normal development trajectory, in 2018, SBE Entertainment Group, which is running out of ammunition and food, and has lost confidence, will package the land and sell it to Meruelo, who is helmed by Cuban-American tycoon Alex Meruelo. After realizing the reality, the latter chose to terminate the management contract with Marriott Hotel Group, and then changed its name back to "Sahara Las Vegas", repositioning itself as a four-star hotel that is cheap, convenient and cost-effective. Middle and low-end casino tourists.

Therefore, Han Yi, who was reborn in 2023, made a mistake - he didn't remember that this hotel was still called SLS and W, but using the old name of Sahara to refer to it was in line with the expectations of Las Vegas residents for half a century. Habit.

So, why didn't he just check into the Wynn suite he had booked when he got off the plane, but instead drove 1.2 miles north to this hotel to get to work?

Because the project team of the Mad City Music Festival has set up its temporary office headquarters and the residence of the executive team here.

The former is at SLS Hotel and the latter is at W Hotel.

There are three main reasons why we chose this location as our office space.

First, the Sahara Hotel is one of the closest hotels to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, where the festival is held. This open-air venue, currently owned and managed by MGM Group, borders three star-rated hotels managed by three groups. The first is MGM's own Circus Circus, located at the southwest end of the site. The second one is the Hilton Grand Vacations Club, which was built and financed by the Hilton Hotel Group after purchasing its own land. It is located directly south of the site. The last room is on the east side of the venue, separated by the Sahara from Las Vegas Boulevard.

Across the sidewalk is the event venue. Placing the office headquarters and employee dormitories here will not only save a lot of commuting costs, but also extremely effectively improve work efficiency and the speed of handling emergencies. After all, everyone is in the tower opposite the venue. If you open the curtains, you can see the stage being built. If you have any questions, you don't need to call. The intercom can solve all problems.

Second, in terms of comprehensive evaluation of cost performance, Sahara is also the most suitable one for Han Site. As early as three and a half months ago, the day after the ticketing went online, Han Live CEO Jacqueline Berto personally rushed to Las Vegas to choose an office location for the team. The first thing to be excluded is Circus Circus. The facilities of this hotel are too old. Moreover, because the hotel itself is positioned as a family vacation destination, few business organizations will choose to hold meetings here, so there are many places here that can be used. The rooms used for temporary offices, including a grand banquet hall that can accommodate 600 people, two conference rooms for 180-200 people, and a salon with a size of about 140 people, all exude a musty smell of disrepair.

The facilities at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club on the same land are much better maintained, but Jacqueline is still not satisfied. Because, as you can tell from the name alone, this is a pure resort hotel. How pure? There is no gambling license, and there is not even a casino in the hotel. It can only meet the residential needs of tourists, and naturally it will not build ancillary facilities such as conference rooms.

The East Tower is on the 38th floor and the North Tower is on the 28th floor. The two towers combined have only two meeting spaces that can be used by the Han Site team - the 462-square-foot Redwood Room, and the 336-square-foot Oak Room. Combined, That’s about the size of an average two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood.

Not to mention the office, if you put Han's on-site team in, you can directly make canned human sardines.

After seeing the disappointing venue conditions of the first two hotels, Jacqueline Berto was surprised by the conference and office supporting facilities of the Sahara Hotel. The total area of ​​this hotel is less than half that of Circus Circus, but it has built the Congo Room, Sunroom, Studio Room, Clyde Room, George Room, Louis Room, Albert Room, Marcel Room, and King Power Room. There are ten types of conference venues including the Goldot Hall, with a total of 23 rooms. From a small conference room for 16 people to a large banquet hall for 743 people, everything is available. One has to wonder whether Milton Player has an entire Israeli shadow government team here.

After two years of careful renovation, the SLS facility, which was reopened in 2013, is in excellent condition and almost all of the equipment placed in the venue is brand-new hardware with no trace of use. Meeting rooms of the same type are placed side by side in a collection, separated by retractable curtain walls. If you want to increase the area, just open the curtain wall. The execution team of Han Site can flexibly choose the size of the office space to use based on the on-site staffing configuration.

The most critical thing is that the huge losses over the years have made SLS Hotels very eager for important customers like Hansian who spend a lot of money, rent for a long time and have a high demand for rooms. In order to attract the Mad City team to stay, SLS Hotel offered a super discount of an average of US$118 per room, including tax only and excluding resort management fees, and also promised to rent conference space to Han on-site at 70% of the market price.

In the end, Jacqueline Berto booked 24 single rooms, 30 double rooms and 5 suites here on behalf of Hanscene. At the same time, Hansidian also obtained the right to use the studio conference hall that can accommodate 7200 people working at the same time for two weeks at a price of US$110 per day. This fee includes not only venue rental fees, office equipment usage fees and cleaning fees, but also lunch and dinner vouchers provided by SLS Hotel.

Adding up the room, venue and meal fees, the executive team spent only US$19.6 to stay in Las Vegas for two weeks, which is quite a bargain for a super large music festival of this scale. .

Third, after listening to Jacqueline Berto's report on the general situation of the SLS Hotel, Han Yi, who had the idea to acquire the Circus Circus Hotel, also became interested in this adjacent four-star resort.

Wouldn’t it be better if they could be acquired together and connected through the Las Vegas Festival Celebration Venue to form a super-large park similar to the Venetian at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip? ?

Therefore, Han Yi decided to use this music festival as an opportunity to first reach a cooperation with SBE Entertainment Group and conduct an on-site inspection of the Sahara Hotel to pave the way for the subsequent grand plan to be launched in Sin City.

As a result, the executive team of Han Live took the lead in stationing at the hotel on October 10, and the support teams of Han Music, Han Distribution and Renyu Management arrived one after another around the 17th. Coupled with the temporary staff hired for this music festival, a small army of 25 people transformed the Alexandra Conference Space, which contains four studio conference rooms on the second floor of the SLS Hotel, into A fierce battlefield with loud killing sounds.

Pushing open the door of the conference room, Han Yi instantly thought of two comparable scenes.

The trading floor in "The Wolf of Wall Street" and, at this moment, the campaign headquarters of two presidential candidates.

Jacqueline Berto has planned the office space in an orderly manner. To the north of Studio III, which is closest to the main entrance, sits the artist executive team of the music festival, including five junior employees of Hanzian who are responsible for artist contracts, artist team liaison and schedule coordination. Two An assistant manager who was transferred from human management to help complete the specific implementation of the artist's itinerary, a liaison representative from the music festival transportation team, a liaison representative from the artist security team, and the manager of Han's live artist purchasing department, Blair - Schumann and Adam Cohen.

"Mr. Han!"

Seeing Han Yi walking into the conference hall with Zhao Youzhen, Blair Shuman, who was closest to the door, reacted first, stood up with the phone under his shoulder, and waved to the boss.

Han Live, and even the entire Han Music system, does not advocate the pedantic superior-subordinate relationship, but Blair is a newcomer to the workplace less than two years after graduating from Syracuse University. So far, his entire career has been in the traditional Live Nation Midwest. After spending time in the regional office, I am still not used to the atmosphere here on the West Coast.

As for why she could become a manager with only two years of work experience, it was mainly because the five junior employees under the department, or assistant managers as they were called by their official titles, all graduated this year and were complete rookies.

There is no way, middle and high-level managers can spend a lot of money to poach employees, but for fresh graduates entering the workplace, the two industry giants Live Nation and AEG Live are still much better options than the newly established Han Music. In order to supplement manpower, Hanshi can only relax its standards and recruit graduates who have no internship experience in related industries or even majors that have nothing to do with the music industry to join the company.

Artist procurement sounds simple. It seems that the job content from morning to night is just to book artists for a certain performance. But in fact, the tasks required by this position are much more complex and arduous. They not only need to pay attention to the artist's performance ability and market appeal, but also consider the artist's fit with the specific project, the artist's schedule, and budget constraints. Artist buyers must be proficient in negotiation skills to obtain the best artist resources at a reasonable cost. Additionally, this position requires forward thinking and the ability to anticipate changes in market trends and audience preferences to stay ahead in a highly competitive market. They need to pay close attention to the development trends in various art fields such as music, drama, dance, etc., in order to promptly adjust Han Live's competitive strategy in terms of artist lineup. They also need to evaluate in real time whether the artist's popularity is enough to support box office sales, and follow up with marketing The departments worked closely together to launch a series of precise and powerful promotional activities to increase consumer activity.

When the show is going on, they are basically the second tour manager, who needs to track and manage the artists at all times to ensure that they complete the show smoothly. Even after the show ends, their work isn't over. Artist purchasing managers are solely responsible for handling subsequent administrative matters, such as artist settlement, evaluating performance performance, and collecting feedback to adjust and optimize future projects.

Performance, in the final analysis, is a business activity with artists as the core resource, and the work of artist procurement is carried out around this core resource. Within Han Live, the artist purchasing department is one of the most important branches, and the workload of the two managers is second to none in the company. Take Blaire Schumann as an example. She is responsible for three projects including Mad City, Lil Yachty joint tour and Dua Lipa's solo tour. Although she is in Las Vegas, she has to worry about Los Angeles, Atlanta and... Things in London are so busy that it is common to work overtime on weekends and have 24-hour global standby.

The reason why they are arranged at the entrance is not because Jacqueline Berto treats them differently, but because these people have to enter and exit the office area at any time and rush to the scene or hotel to contact the artist team. It is most convenient for them to sit at the door. It also least disturbs the work of other people in the team.

"Blair, Adam." Han Yichao smiled and nodded to the two managers of the artist purchasing department, motioning them and the assistant managers next to them who stood up to sit back down, "how are we doing?"

"Pretty good."

"Good boss."

"Are you still used to the food?" Han Yi greeted the employees, "I specifically asked them to replace the buffet with vouchers, so that you have more choices."

"Very good, boss, I can't ask for more." Adam pointed to the floor under his feet and smiled, "There is a Chinese restaurant in the casino on the first floor. You can try it when you are free later. Their Xiaolong Bao and beef noodles…I would die for them.”

"He eats a cage a day," Blair joked. The team of 57 people, except for a few executives such as Jacqueline Berto, Amy Morrison and Celine Joshua, has a daily dining allowance of US$80 per person, and one meal is included. The continental buffet breakfast included in the room rate is considered an average standard in the performance industry - slightly lower than the average price of US$100 per day for an artist team's entourage, but considering that the executive team will stay here for two weeks, the interior of the SLS Hotel The per capita consumption in the restaurant is not high, and it can actually make everyone in the team eat very comfortably.

Take The Noodle Den, the Chinese restaurant Adam Cohen mentioned, as an example. A bowl of Lanzhou beef ramen costs $23, and a drawer of six crab meat and pork dumplings costs $16, which just meets the standards.

"It's a smart choice, Blair." Adam shrugged. "I'm not spending this money on Frappuccinos and pre-made salads."

"It sounds like a very targeted attack."

"That's because it's inherently very targeted."

"Okay, guys, it looks like two weeks of hotel life has had no negative impact on you...you're still so energetic."

In the office of Star Tower, Blair and Adam, who were sitting opposite each other, were famous for their back-and-forth teasing. It was almost the same way of getting along with him and Barbara. However, bickering with oneself was very interesting, but listening to others bickering would just make it noisy. So Han Yi smiled and directly shifted the conversation to the topic he really cared about.

"How is the artist team doing? Did anything unexpected happen?"

"Not yet, Mr. Han." When it came to work, Adam Cohen instantly put away his lazy and teasing expression, coughed twice, and glanced at the laptop in front of him, "The guests on the first day, NERVO, Migos, Marshmello We checked into the Wynn yesterday. Madison and Diplo flew to Las Vegas with you. Blink-182 will arrive later today. They have notified us in advance and will come directly to the on-site rehearsal...Kendrick and ASAP's expected arrival time is tomorrow, and each of them has reserved one and a half hours of rehearsal time in the evening."

"The guest for the second day, Lil Yachty is touring with Rae Sremmurd in Charlotte today. After the performance, he will take the earliest flight to arrive the next day. Elle and Nikki have already arrived early and are also resting at Wynn...Major Lazer ...Diplo has arrived, and Major Lazer has arrived. Horsh will take off from New Jersey tomorrow afternoon, and will arrive in Las Vegas at 7:20 pm. She is resting at home during this time... Ariana, let's follow The SB Projects team has communicated that she is not willing to come over for rehearsal in advance, and it is said that there is no need to rehearse in advance. On Saturday morning, before the audience enters the venue, she can familiarize herself with the stage according to the spot map we submitted to her."

"Martin Garrix, the same manager, the same situation, different reasons... He has another music festival performance at Dakoma on the 28th. He will fly over after the performance and will be in Las Vegas. Si spends the night, so you don’t have to worry about him not being able to make it in time for the show.”

"As for Dr. Dre and his team, Eminem and 50 Cent will also arrive on Saturday, but Dr. Dre will come in advance on Friday. It is said that he wants to meet you."

"Yes, I invited him to come to the show in advance." Han Yi nodded, "Let's have a small meeting by the way."

"Understood, ah... ok, on the third day, the first group of artists, Billie, is also here with you. Dylan Francis... he just finished performing at the Amsterdam Music Festival on the 23rd and took a two-day break in Europe. He will return to Los Angeles tonight, and when he arrives in Los Angeles, he will immediately leave for Las Vegas without spending the night."

"G-Eazy, Lana Del Rey and Snoop, what I'm writing here is... your private plane will pick them up and the accompanying team tomorrow. You happen to be here and I want to confirm with you whether this is still the arrangement." Blair opened the thick folder and drew a circle on one of the pages.

"This is still the arrangement." Han Yi confirmed that G-Eazy is UTA's agent client, Lana Del Rey has a management contract with Renyu Management, and Gou Ye is his highest-paid label executive so far... It doesn't matter what kind of transportation external artists take to attend the music festival, but these three cash cows within the music industry group system must be given sufficient face and properly arranged.

"Great, then there's no problem. Justin Bieber will fly over immediately after his performance in Glasgow on the 29th. He won't be able to catch up with the rehearsal, but as long as there is no delay, he can arrive in LAS four hours before the official performance. David Ku Tower flew in from Miami on Saturday and Kanye West’s private jet was on Friday…”

"Oh, yeah, damn."

"What's wrong?" Seeing Blair Shuman sighing silently as he covered his forehead and stared at the paper information in front of him, Han Yi asked, "Is there any problem? Is it Kanye?"

Han Yi had already been mentally prepared. If anything is going to go wrong this Mad City, it's going to be Kanye's side.

Kanye has never been a loser when it comes to losing his way.

"Yes, it is him."

Adam glanced at Blair who looked troubled, licked his lips, and took over.

"His team...Scout's side informed us today that the artist's reception rider needs to be modified..."

"They are asking for six additional presidential suites, which is non-negotiable."

　Originally this chapter was 10,000 words long, but I couldn’t finish it. It should be 10,000 words tomorrow.

　　

　

(End of this chapter)