15 Minutes of Fame (15 M.o.F)

Welcome back to another 15 minutes of fame. My name is goldy. Today I am joined by anna belyaeva. I hope I got that right. Did I get that?  Anna and I have worked together in the world of events. We're both announcers and event emcees and personalities for video media to all things considered audio media.  We both share the same thing about, a month into this. What is today? April 12th. We definitely haven't been working for at least a strong month now.  Big time out. The questions will be to anna today. We know you're not working. What are you doing to stay with your clients?  What are you doing to stay busy? Are you practicing your craft? Things like this. We'll move into that. But first, anna tell us who you are.  What do you do for a living? She's all yours. Hello, goldy. Hello, everybody. So happy to see you again.  The world is blocked right now. My name is anna belyaeva, as said, you pronounced really well. I'm an emcee, sports presenter, beat reporter, field talent. Depending on what kind of events you're working for.  I work for my proper agency, my own agency, which is busy with weddings, private events. It's another type of clients and another kind of events.  You have a wedding planner, you're just like announcing, for sports events. When you don't have a wedding planner, you are also an organizer. You do a lot of stuff.  Small events, you have 100-200 people. It's not the same as, for example, for big international sport events where we do a lot of stuff and entertainment for thousands and thousands of people. Since my childhood, i've been mad about acting but I never thought it will be my profession.  Then I started writing the olympics, in sochi. Real quickly, where were you born? I'm born in russian.  I live in portugal right now. Are you doing business out of portugal? Is this like when you go and set up an event locally? That's where you're at.  I work all over the world. Mostly in france, portugal and russia. In france, I was living with friends before I got married.  I continue working there because I speak french. I like france, they have a lot of big international events. I would say, even more than in portugal.

Welcome back to another 15 minutes of fame. I'm goldy. I'm joined today by my friend... And i'm learning the new way... I've got to point this direction.  This is chris arnold. Speaking of direction, this guy is nowhere near me right now. He is marinating in the great country of switzerland.  This is fun. That makes this whole thing international. Makes it real. It makes it exactly what I am really trying to do here with 15 minutes of fame and that is reach out to human beings during this pretty rad time on the earth.  With that being said, my friend, my french speaking announcer who I got to work side-by-side with at the winter youth olympics in switzerland this year. How are you today?  Why don't we give a little information about who you are and what you're doing and let the world know who you are. Well, hi out there. My name's chris, as goldy already mentioned.  I'm, as well doing, event announcements, as you just said. At the moment, kind of grounded at home.  At least during the weekends, because during the week I was able to start producing disinfecting lotion at the distillery I am working at, as well, at the moment. Luckily, i'm still able to go out and to earn some money because as all the events got canceled, no money coming in from that side.  It sounds like you're working two jobs, so you have something to work within. You lose announcing, you can still do something else.  Exactly. I'm doing that. Those lotions at the distillery at the moment, about five tons in so far, which most of those five tons were running through my hand.  I can tell you, I feel my back and my hands and my shoulders. I bet. The announcing is way easier. Yeah, right. A little less manual labor. When you make all this lotion, the hand disinfectant, people are curious -  What's the simple process? In five seconds - how do you make it? Basically, at the moment, we were still able to find some already pre-mixed by a chemical company. Pre-mixed with, alcohol ethanol, which is 96 percent of pure alcohol.  Then there is, stuff in it that you can't drink it. I think you will puke. It smells. It's "disinfecting". There is as well, something for the skin in it as well, so that you don't get your hands too dry. Sure.  So, you take your gin, and you just whip together some alcohol and voila - it cleans your hands? What are you doing? No, we actually, at the moment still get it from outside, as we are a pretty tiny distillery.

Another 15 minutes of fame today I am joined by a long time and in some corners of the world, very famous dj naka g actually let me get my arrows right because i've learned how to work this thing it was backwards.  Dj naka g he's been around the world with his craft of djing. He has been with the olympics. He has been with places in the western us. He lives in aspen, colorado.  He's open format and he can also do speciality parties. Dj naka g who are you and what haven't you done? Goldy, thanks for having me.  My name is michael nakagawa. Also known as dj naka g. I have been djing professionally for well over 20 years. Before that, I was a bedroom dj for about five years.  I've done the x games. Every single x games that's been to aspen since 2002. I've got about 19 of those under my belt and then i've done a bunch of summer x games. I have been the resident dj, if you will, for x games for summer and winter since probably around 2005-2006. That opened up many doors for me, including the olympics. I've done three winter olympics the last three from vancouver to sochi to pyeongchang 2018 and 1 summer olympics in brazil in 2016.  You and I met through red bull. As we both have had the chance to dj out of the mxt and the sugga. I don't know if you were back in the day of the pinzgauer. I know you've been around forever.  Mxt - for sure. Not sure, did you say the pinzgauer? The pinzgauer was the first, and then the sugga came along. Then there was some peppering of others, like the bus in chicago and all these other like fire trucks peppered around the world. The mxt, she was basically what everybody knows. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.  I did do the bus once. I opened up for z-trip at the base of buttermilk, once on the bus. That thing's massive. It's incredible. They brought it on the snow.  It was awesome. It was really cool. Well, naka, I wanna step right into the quicksand of the world that we're living in today.  As it kind of rolls off the tongue. Just as easily as is speaking about our careers. You and i, before I pressed record on this this morning had communicated that.  You know, this morning we wake up and we're on this roller coaster right now. We're two weeks deep into being literally physically quarantined to our homes.

Welcome back to another 15 minutes of fame. Andy jensen on the other side of me, right here. Andy is the owner of bonfire brewing. He is also the founder and creator of bonfire block party in eagle, co. About a 5,000 person event, concert. Three days.  It's such a good concert. Sometimes i'm not sure how many days I was there. Andy has dealt with the curveball of coronavirus living in a mountain community.  Also being, like I just said, a concert producer, along with his team and then also owning a brewery and being a local business in eagle and just feeling it from like, every friggin' side.  Wow, talk about getting in a fistfight with mike tyson and just not really being bigger than you are already right now. Andy, tell us who you are.  What you own. What you do. Where you've been. How things are. Andy jessen of bonfire brewing and bonfire block party. Along with my wife amanda and our team of 17 full-time employees here in eagle, co.  We've been around since, the winter of 2010. We're coming up on our 10-year anniversary and 8th anniversary of the block party. You can say your local.  You could start putting stickers on your subaru and your black lab. You can name him woof. You're a local. You're embedded in the businesses. Right now you've got the brewery, which is its own beast.  You've got the event that essentially grows into being its own beast. Last year we had 5,000 people there. 5,000 on friday and 6,000 on saturday. It was packed.  Town was packed and it was awesome. This is definitely one of those concerts right now that is just so locally charged. People supporting it. You originally wanna have the bonfire block party in june?  Voila, here comes corona. When are you having it now? We just recently announced a postponement to august 28-30, 2020. The last weekend in august.  Andy started thinking about that honestly towards the end of february, once the first cases started showing up in the united states. Amanda's a former public health professional. She got worried about this a lot sooner than the rest of the team did.  Then when it really started to hit and we started to hear the words "social distancing", that's when we put everything on pause.

Here we are. Another day of the 15 minutes of fame. Speaking of days, it's april 13th. Right now. Just check my calendar.  I have got sean hanagan with me here today. Sean hanagan has been a longtime friend, a longtime colleague in the world of skiing, discussing gear.  Sean is a gear nerd. Any time you get around him, just know, that you don't know as much as he does. It's just something you got to accept.  And it's all good. Sean has been living in the vail and beaver creek area most of his career and life, as far as i've known him.  Started as a schoolteacher in the area. Went on to do some city government now into general managing a ski and bike shop, locally, in edwards.  Which has brought us to the question - what is it like to be sean hanagan? A community member, in a ski community that happens to be a very hot, hot zone during this coronavirus?  How does the business cope and survive and look to the future? In 15 minutes. Sean - take it away, brother. Thanks, goldy.  Great to see you. We've known each other about, 18 years now? We met up here in edwards. As you said, when I first got here, I was a schoolteacher. A science teacher locally.  At one point decided, 13 years in, that I needed a break. Took a break. For "a year. " I went to go work as the land use planner for eagle county.  That year turned into 12 years. At that 12-year mark, I was getting kind of itchy. I tend to get itchy career-wise after about a decade or so.  A good friend of mine owns a local ski and bike shop here, in edwards, called the kind bikes and skis. He bought it three years ago. He started joking about having me come work for him.  One of my goals, as I was getting older, was to simplify my life. Take away some of the stress. Bring back some joy and start working in a place where, you know, it was something that brought joy to me every day.  We talked and talked and talked. It became more serious than an offer hit the table. I talked to my wife.  We talked it through and kelly was pumped up. I'm seven months in now, being the general manager of the kind bikes and skis.  As you said, it's been a really interesting time. Early winter was fairly normal, me getting used to what it's like, to manage a store and people.  I've managed projects before, but this was my first foray into really managing an organization. Then, of course, we had an outbreak of the coronavirus eagle county, even though you would think, vail and beaver creek - we're small, we're quiet -

Welcome to the 15 minutes of fame. Stoked to be joined by mr. Chris bivona. He is the founder, creator, host of all good things down at the ski town all-stars posted up, I believe in east vail, co.  Lives right across from one of those sick waterfalls that throws down around the month of april to may. Mr. Chris bivona, I only know that much about you.  Tell the world about who the hell you are. My name's chris bivona. I am originally from the garden state - new jersey. Grew up skiing, ski racing there. Went to school in upstate new york and then finally made my way to colorado about seven years ago.  Started ski town all-stars, kind of as a joke, about 2. 5 years ago. I was repping in the industry for a bunch of brands.  Out of the blue, my buddy was like - "hey, you wanna help me ski rep? " i'm like, "what's that? "  Before I knew what I had my own lines. I was repping some faction outerwear, mons royale merino wool. I kind of got thrown into the ski industry.  Which as a kid, you think of the reps as god's. It was super cool because i've never worked in a shop. Basically started ski town all-stars as a joke.  Used all my connections with all the retailers. The original conversation I would have with retailers would be, "hey, i've got this new line" and they'd be like, "what are you selling now? "  We were always pioneering new lines. I'd be like, "have you heard of this ski town all-stars company? They're like, "i've seen it around. " i'm like, "well, I started myself. " instantaneously the conversation went in a totally different direction with a lot of buyers. That's why we're in, gorsuch, christies, craniologie, mountain outfitters. Stores on the east coast - kittery trading post.  That's the organic way. You did it organically. It just happened. That's the best way. It was kind of cool and obviously social media has been huge for us.  I'm an ambassador, not an athlete. I support ski for a bunch of brands. I don't get paid. I'm not an athlete. That whole thing drives me crazy.

Okay, here we are. Welcome to another segment of 15 minutes of fame. My name is goldy and joined with me today, on my left side is julian carr.  Who is julian carr? Julian carr is known for his skiing. Julian carr is known for his event production in trail running. Julian carr is known for...  The list goes on. Why don't I pass it off to you, julian carr. Tell us who you are and thanks for joining us here on 15 minutes of fame.  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's good to be productive in this interesting time in the world.  I'm julian carr, professional skier and founder of the cirque series mountain races and founder of discrete clothing. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it professional skiing that led you into a clothing company? Was it clothing that led you into skiing? What happened?  You know, I grew up doing lots of team sports, but a lot of skateboarding too. I really liked how it was a very personality, athlete-led industry and when I got into, focusing on skiing in college, long story short, I realized in the ski industry, back then, it was very much a kind of racing scene.  There wasn't a lot of personality-led marketing or branding or companies. I also saw that as an athlete. Even if my wildest dreams came true and I had a great career as a professional skier, you have a shelf life as an athlete, obviously.  I saw a few of my favorite skiers getting to the point where they were looking at the next steps in their life. I saw a few of them, really struggling with what that next step was gonna be.  It was some of the biggest names of skiers back when I was starting my career and I right away was like, I want to create a cool little brand that I could grow alongside my skiing so that, if and when the shelf life of the idea of being a professional skier comes up, i'll have something else going on that will be a creative outlet, will be part of the industry and obviously income.  They both kind of happened at the same time, but I think a lot of my passion was put into the ski career, and I put in just enough effort in the brand that I knew I could convert it into being a pretty airtight program later.

Welcome back. It is goldy right here talking on this side. And it is the 15 minutes of fame.  And as a matter of fact, joining me today on this particular cast is mr. Travis parr. He is a painting and other type of medium artist.  And the way I got to meet this fine gentleman was because I enjoy skiing what you might see behind me right now, these fine, fine icelantic skis, born and raised right out of golden, colorado and well, evergreen as well.  That's where they're made now in denver, golden, evergreen. You guys are so colorado-ry that travis is the guy who paints all the top sheets for icelantic. He's done it since the beginning, and he's still doing it now.  The questions i've got for travis today is, "what the hell is going on, man? " holy cow. Talk about a curveball in the world that we're living in.  Corona virus and how does this treat what you've done in the past and what you're doing now? Well, we're only currently on day 15. Who knows how long this thing's gonna go? But you know what? I was just saying was, you know, as a community and as a global entity, we've always looked towards the arts, and right now, you know, it's netflix, it's tv, it's social media.  It's... It's these awesome zoom meetings that are happening and things are changing. People are getting super creative on how they're gonna connect with each other, what they're actually gonna offer to the society. And, you know, I don't see my profession actually being stunted by this.  There's a lot of creativity out there and things to talk about, about what's going on. Keep going. And what we're going through. And so, by doing that, it's... It's just a crazy process.  For the first week, I currently didn't create anything. I just kind of wanted to sit here and and manifest, like, really what is going on. And instead of, you know, working out of fear, I really wanna work out of love.  I mean, I think that's the true thing that we all need to kind of figure out is how do we... How do we make these decisions? And are these decisions based out of fear or are they gonna be based out of love. And right now it's just, I mean, the pot is just boiling over with all of these emotions. So as an artist, these are our tools for our craft to express our self, and so there's definitely a lot of content to be created from this. That's a really interesting point. I kind of now kind of bring it to a tangible moment that... Could we see a line of icelantic skis that have a covid-19  Interjection because of what happened in your life? Will there be a top plate that is kind of like homage to a time of life? Well, you know, what's funny is i've been doing that with icelantic since day one.

Well, we're off. My name is goldy. Welcome back to another 15 minutes of fame. Different setup this time. Got it all going on.  I've got lee putnam from rockfan entertainment. A staging, lighting, sound, full compass. You want to throw a party? They've got all the buttons and knobs.  Lee to my knowledge, owns the business. Got it started years ago. He'll speak more about that in a minute. Down here- new setup-  We're tech guys? That's jeremy down there. Jeremy is also part of rockfan entertainment. He will describe what his role is in the company. We will discuss further, obviously, now, four weeks into this -today's easter- it's april 12th.  That's about 29, nearly 30 days of physical actual lock down because of the whole party that we're living in right now. I can guarantee you between the three of us, we've thrown better parties than what we're in right now. As far as the party goes. Let's take it away.  Lee, if you don't mind starting. Talk to us about who you are. What you own. What you do. Where you've been.  My name is lee. I'm part owner. I'm co-owners with jeremy in rockfan. Started the company in 2012. We do everything from speaker rentals to concert production, we also the sound system installations and staging with live events. Basically anything audio video related.  That's kind of where we live. We do events that range from 50 people up to 10,000 and beyond. We travel all over the country. That's kind of our background.  I'm gonna kick it over to jeremy, who's my partner in all this. I look down. I'm jeremy. I co-own the company with lee. Lee pretty much summed up everything we do. We do events for small amounts of people and really large amounts.  Also system integration for businesses. With that right there, I can attest that both these guys are pretty much rock stars in their world. Hence the name of the business rockfan. I've got a chance to work with both you guys on site.  Around stages. Jeremy, you and I got to battle a ski resort through every single weather adversary. Battle sums it up. Battle in the world of events.  Taking a break like this actually is now well worth it or well earned. Let's just fast forward through the already known. We know you're not throwing events right now. We know your clients have called you. They said, "hey, we're shutting down. " we don't know what's going on. You don't know what's going on.  We're a month into this thing right now. We think we're about 2 to 3 weeks out of maybe opening doors on stuff. We just kind of rolling with it right now. I know that a lot of the humans i've spoke with on the 15 minutes of fame have discussed, how they stay connected with their clients. Some do it with writing notes.  Some do it with phone calls, zoom meetings. What are you guys doing to stay with your clients right now so they know that rockfan isn't just good at setting up a soundboard and tuning in the lead singer, but that they are also human beings that are part of this worldly situation that need to keep the business going.  What do you guys do right now? A lot of our customers are also in the same boat we are. They're event producers.  They're breweries. They're restaurants. They're going through the same thing. A lot of it is just genuinely checking in and caring.

Here we are. Another version. Another theme. Another day. Another episode of 15 minutes of fame. Today with me is the one, the only, the very famous in a lot of people's worlds -  Christy nicolay. Christy - you're here on the 15 minutes of fame today because you are an event specialist on high. You have been around. You have seen this world.  I'm very excited to have your input and thoughts about what you do for a living and how the world is today. After about two weeks of hard core lockdown of coronavirus and the versions of what christy nicolay and her company will be doing here after the waves have settled.  World - christy nicolay. Go ahead. Hey, how are you? First of all, I love your specialty lighting behind you.  Oh, thank you. It's very fine led stuff. Yeah, very fancy. I'm good. Just hanging out here at the homestead, which is, super rare.  Really awesome, but super strange, not to be going anywhere for a while. I think the last time I was really with work people was on friday, march 13th.  That's when we officially were finished. I was just kicking off the bnp paribas open in indian wells, which is one of the tennis tournaments that we do every year.  And when you say "you," what company do you work for? I'm working for van wagner. We were van wagner sports and entertainment, but we've gone back to just van wagner productions.  They're a company that used to be a division used to be big screen network, which is the company that i've worked with and hired since salt lake 2002 olympic winter games.  That was like digital marketing things. They did all of the content for the big screens. So all video production, and then they sold right after the rio 2016 olympic games, where we could just done, I think, 7 out of 9 olympic games together, they sold to van wagner group which is based in new york.  Then as soon as I finished rio, I also started working for them. So now I get to work with all the people that I used to work with separately, but now I work for them.  It's been since november 2016 already. It's been great. We do all sports, all the time, everything from super bowl to... I mean I don't get to do the super bowl 'cause there's other people better at football than me. We do super bowl. Olympic games. Kentucky derby, u. S. Open of tennis. March madness. Nhl.  All sports. For anybody who's watching who kind of maybe it's still like, "well, I wonder, what does she mean by what we do? "  Think of the mainframe, the hub, the big 52' rigs that pull in, that have all the tv stations stuff with the cameras, the lights, the action.  Christy is managing all of that aspect right there. That's huge. I mean, for what people are seeing on tv.