Studio owner Darvin Lau (BayRidge School of Music) found his concerts costing more than they earned — until Mike Grande (Rock Out Loud Live) helped him change the playbook. On this episode John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com), with help from Mike and Darvin, walk through concrete steps that transformed Darvin’s costly concerts into profitable events.
Tips to make it happen:
- negotiating venue deals
- selling VIP tickets
- bundling registrations and tickets
- creating band slots instead of solos
- hiring photographers
- selling merch
- leveraging scheduling to retain students
Hosts share practical examples, pricing tips and timing strategies you can use to make your recitals pay for themselves while improving the experience for students, families and staff.
BONUS: download the FREE guide with all the tips form this episode, “How to Turn Student Concerts Into Profitable Events.” Get it at https://rockschoolproprietor.com/resources/
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.766)
Welcome to Rock School, Proprietor Podcast. My name is John Kozicki. And joining me today, I’ve got two guests. One is the founder of Bayridge School of Music in Brooklyn. And he’s an all around positive guy. He also travels with his music school internationally for a number of charitable events. Darwin Lau is joining me and returning again.
is the founder of Rock Out Loud Live, owner of three music schools, inventor of a number of music related products, Mike Grande. Gentlemen, how are you today?
Michael Grande (00:38.658)
doing great.
Darvin Lau (00:39.67)
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Michael Grande (00:42.028)
think your audience is tired of seeing and hearing me in my voice.
John Kozicki (00:45.174)
Well, Mike, you know, I’ll tell you what. Yeah, you you hold the record at this point for three appearances on Rock School Proprietor podcast. But last time we spoke at the end of our conversation off, Mike, you had pitched to me an idea. And I loved it because right now I am as we’re recording this, I am in concert prep mode for for my studio. And in about a month, we’re going to have
Darvin Lau (00:53.58)
Hahaha
John Kozicki (01:15.4)
about 20 bands performing over the course of two days in our end of session concerts. And you had pitched the idea of making these events and these concerts that we do in our music schools more profitable. And you had also mentioned that you’d helped Darwin with his school, Bayridge School of Music, to you shared your knowledge, you shared what you do.
Darvin Lau (01:40.142)
I
John Kozicki (01:43.612)
in your school with Darwin so that Darwin could make these events more profitable. And I thought this is perfect. Let’s get Darwin on here. Let’s get Mike on here. And we’ll talk about the events. And the hope is that in going through this process at the end of this conversation, we’ll have some bullet points or some actionable steps that the listeners can use from this conversation to implement in their own studios. So to get it started, Darwin.
why don’t you describe maybe what your concerts and your performances were like at Bayridge School of Music before you implemented Mike’s ideas.
Darvin Lau (02:27.832)
Sure, absolutely. I think, well, in the beginning, we didn’t even really charge for our concerts. then, you we had, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So then like you kind of get people who, first of all, aren’t like as serious, right? Because they’re not really like invested. They’ll come or not come or say they’ll come, they won’t come. And also, you know, we’re losing money because, you know, we have to pay the venue, we have to pay
teachers, we have to pay, so many things, right? And so that’s what it looked like. I think during the very beginning, we actually used our own space here, our own space here in Brooklyn. We have a little, kind of, we could fit about like maybe 30 people. So it wasn’t like the…
It didn’t cost as much, then we started renting real spaces outside, and then it started costing more money and all that. So that’s what it looked like. We were losing money.
John Kozicki (03:34.258)
Okay, so first off, I can certainly relate. think a lot of studio owners can relate to the idea of not charging for events. And I can say for myself, I was in that position at one point, too. And just like you described, what happens is the events get bigger. Or in my case, like for me, the turning point was I at the in the early days, I was doing these concerts all by myself.
Michael Grande (03:34.402)
Hmm.
Darvin Lau (04:03.15)
Mm.
John Kozicki (04:03.157)
Right. They were small enough where I could go there and I could load the gear in. No big deal. I could manage the stage and get the performers on and off. No problem because they were small enough. But then as they become more popular, as they grow, then you realize like, oh, I’m going to have to make sure some of my staff is here. I’m going to hire some people. The costs start adding up. And it sounds like you were in that same boat.
So Darwin, what were we talking about in terms of number of performers maybe and when you were renting spaces, what kind of costs you were incurring? If you remember.
Darvin Lau (04:43.502)
Yeah, absolutely. Right, right. No, that’s a good point about like growing because in the beginning it could work if you don’t charge anything like because you only have like when we were smaller, maybe we had, I don’t know, like 15 or 20 performers in any one show. But I think that, you know, now it’s like we have like 300. I mean, like we have like 100 performers, you know, and also like
Michael Grande (04:47.042)
Mm.
Darvin Lau (05:11.438)
300 guests or 400 guests, you know, and I think that that’s so the original thing it wasn’t scalable. Yeah So yeah, so yeah I’m sorry. What was the question that yeah Yeah
John Kozicki (05:18.527)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (05:24.565)
I’m just curious about, mean, if you remember, if you’re able to share those costs and the amount of money that you realized you’re spending on these concerts as they were growing.
Michael Grande (05:34.174)
Ahem.
Darvin Lau (05:35.726)
Oh, like actual numbers, like actual numbers. Or, oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like it would probably cost like a thousand to $2,000 to book a venue here in Brooklyn. It could be like a church, you know, it could be like a music venue, but that’s what it would cost. And then if you add in all of the staff and everything, that’s easily $3,000, right? For maybe,
John Kozicki (05:38.537)
I mean, if you have them.
Michael Grande (05:58.856)
Mm.
Darvin Lau (06:05.005)
a one day, five hour event and we’ll split, yeah, we’ll split between probably four shows within five hours. So it’s about 45 minutes each show and we’ll have a little break and then we’ll try to split that 100 performers into that four or five shows, yeah. So like $3,000, yeah.
John Kozicki (06:07.636)
Right.
Michael Grande (06:08.268)
Five hours, wow.
John Kozicki (06:26.421)
Great description. Yeah, great description there. Okay. And then enter Mike. Mike, I don’t know if you heard what was going on with Darwin or Darwin, you reached out to Mike and Mike put his palm right to his forehead there. my gosh.
Michael Grande (06:42.402)
But yeah, Darwin actually reached out and said, could you get me in touch with the bitter end? And that’s when the ball started to roll. Yeah, yeah, the venue.
Darvin Lau (06:42.547)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep.
John Kozicki (06:48.469)
The venue, the venue, right? Okay, and Mike, you’ve done concerts at the bitter end with your schools. Now, when you’ve done those concerts, are you renting out the venue or is the venue saying, yeah, you can come in because you’re bringing all these people and we will make money on food and beverage? How’s that work?
Michael Grande (06:54.977)
Yeah.
Michael Grande (07:11.982)
You know, you gotta be a really good negotiator. Let me just go back to what Darwin had said earlier. says, yeah, we were playing local churches. Folks, no one gets excited about playing St. Thomas or the St. Bernard Church. You know, you’re a rock and roll music school. You’re gonna sit there and pews. mean, I don’t know. So you gotta think of your school as being like the rock star school, right? And parents want bragging rights. Don’t forget.
Darvin Lau (07:18.956)
Mm.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Michael Grande (07:38.562)
Parents want that bragging right so what I say to somebody that playing the bitter end and by the way tell us we’ve started there and Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen and John Bon Jovi and Green Day Kiss You know they start to say holy smokes you’re gonna get my child up on that stage the whole mentality changes So you got to choose the proper venue then you have to have the good negotiating skills with it for example I know that the bitter end is not bringing any business in on a Sunday at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. No one’s coming
Darvin Lau (07:45.186)
Right.
John Kozicki (08:06.037)
Bingo. Yep.
Michael Grande (08:06.882)
So what I do is I call up the bitter end or the Starland Ballroom or the Stone Pony or whoever it is, right? And say, listen, you guys aren’t doing anything on a Sunday at one o’clock and I know you’re union and stuff, but what if you can give us a discount on the price? And they’re like, absolutely. So that’s what I do. I do with every venue. And then when I tell them, listen, we’re going to probably sell between, I don’t know, five or 700 tickets. And then all of a sudden the lights go on. And then I said, listen, if you rent us this particular venue,
Darvin Lau (08:19.746)
Mm.
John Kozicki (08:28.443)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Darvin Lau (08:30.454)
Hmm.
Michael Grande (08:33.314)
All right, we’ll give you, and I start the conversation with how much you want. You never come up with that number. You let for them to come back. And they say, well, we asked for 1500 or 2000. I’m saying, but I say to them, okay, this is what we’ll do. I will guarantee you your 2000, but I’m only pay you 1000. And that other 1000 is gonna be in the food and the drinks. And if you don’t make that at the bar, I’ll pay the difference. You have no idea. They say like, yes, like that. If you can negotiate, so you first get their number. I want 15 or 2000.
John Kozicki (08:54.581)
Brilliant.
Michael Grande (09:01.26)
Cut that in half because you know there’s gonna be 600 thirsty and hungry people, especially kids, and you tell them stack up on those chicken nuggets and they sell out. They make four or $5,000. So you end up paying 50 % of what they really wanted because you now have proven yourself. And the moment that last performance is over and that last person leaves, they say, when can we book you again? It’s crazy, it’s crazy.
Darvin Lau (09:09.397)
Yep.
John Kozicki (09:09.684)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Michael Grande (09:25.76)
So you gotta go out with these venues that you can’t go to churches, can’t go to auditoriums, you can’t go to libraries, you gotta go to venues. And there’s everybody in a local town or city, they have a local venue that people, big names come to. You just gotta speak to them. There was one Starland Ballroom. The Starland Ballroom never allowed.
Darvin Lau (09:29.719)
Hey. Hey.
Michael Grande (09:45.612)
folks like me, music schools, to come in and rent the place. They thought it was aggravation. They would never be able to pack the place. They’d probably get 100 people. They have bands like Green Day or they’ll have Guns N’ Roses there. So I just kept now in the place, because I knew I can get 700 people there. I could probably do better than most of their headliners. So for six months, they didn’t call me back. And I kept, I was so persistent. The guy finally said, And he threw out a crazy number. And I just said, yes. So we took the space, we rented it.
And the very last performance was over. He invited me up to his office, his suite upstairs, and he said, this is the most successful we’ve ever been on a Sunday and on any outside event that we’ve ever done, barring the Green Days and all these tribute bands. Any time, any day you want to come back, you let me know. And by the way, here’s an additional 1,600 because you made more money at the door. So that five or $7,000 I paid ended up to be like 4,500 and then it secured me for my next place.
John Kozicki (10:24.585)
Mm-hmm.
Darvin Lau (10:25.857)
Mmm.
Michael Grande (10:44.406)
But there’s a lot of little things and moving parts that go into play. But remember, it’s the bigger the venue, the more you can charge. You charge registration fees because your coaches have to, or sorry, your teachers, but in my case, coaches, your coaches, they have to actually spend time working with these folks, the kids that sign up. So you sign up and there’s a registration fee. And never underestimate what a parent is willing to spend on having their child.
Darvin Lau (10:44.429)
Mm.
John Kozicki (10:44.499)
Yeah.
Darvin Lau (10:57.054)
the
Michael Grande (11:10.818)
play on the same stage as Guns N’ Roses and Green Day and Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Never, because those are the bragging rights, because on Monday morning, they’re at their schools or their homes or their jobs and their offices and say, did you know my kid just played a stage and the night before Guns N’ Roses was there, and that’s what happened to us last year, it was crazy. And that becomes the bragging rights part of it. And then the next time we play that show, you go from 60 or 70 people to 90 people and then you have a waiting list to perform.
And it’s crazy. the more that waiting list grows, the more you can charge for tickets and the more you can charge for registration.
Darvin Lau (11:46.061)
Yep.
John Kozicki (11:46.709)
Great advice. I agree wholeheartedly, Mike, when you said go for the flashy venue, you know, avoid the churches, avoid the community centers, the retirement homes. I mean, there’s a time and a place for that stuff, not knocking it for those instructors who do utilize that stuff, but for what we’re talking about, for these concerts that we wanna be over the top, I agree with you wholeheartedly and actually,
Michael Grande (11:53.174)
Yeah, you have to.
Michael Grande (11:57.889)
Yes.
John Kozicki (12:16.829)
Episode 52 of this podcast, Mandy and I talked about great events and I talked a little bit more about that too. So that’s another resource. Okay, so number one point is you’re negotiating the price on the venue. Now, I’m debating whether we go into, Darwin, what your performances are like now, or we go into the, we kind of create these actionable steps.
Michael Grande (12:44.31)
Well, let me just, if I can interject, Darwin reached out to me I think four days before and said, this is my plan. That was a challenge. So if Darwin reached out to me four weeks before, I think the plan might have been incredibly different and he would have been a lot more profitable. So what Darwin I think believed and interject if I’m wrong, but I think he had one performer per song as opposed to getting four or five kids in a band to perform.
John Kozicki (12:50.165)
yeah.
Darvin Lau (12:50.253)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (12:53.535)
Sure.
Darvin Lau (13:09.847)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Michael Grande (13:13.67)
I’m going to tell you something that you’ll listen is really need to grab hold of. It’s never about the song ever. Parents are going to say, I don’t want my child to sing or play the song. This is inappropriate. And you make it appropriate. Or I think this is too heavy. This is not their genre. And you’ve got to explain to the parents it’s not about the song. And it goes back to your, you know, like what your school is all about, right? So my school is all about building confidence. I say to a parent, you know, I say,
Darvin Lau (13:38.263)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Michael Grande (13:43.114)
If you’re getting a child on stage, your child goes on stage and performs in front of 600 people, they’re not gonna remember the song. They’re gonna remember playing that song and singing in front of 600 people. And the confidence that they receive four minutes after they walk off their stage, they’re becoming now a whole different person. forget about the song for one moment, but you know the courage and the confidence it takes?
to get back up on that stage and sing and perform to people you’ve never done before. So when they go on a Monday morning to do a book report in front of 30 kids, in front of their class, they’re like, I got this, I just played to 400 people at the Stone Pony. And that confidence. And you know what? Parents, all of sudden that little light bulb clicks and they say, you know what? I think this guy’s onto something. That’s the key. So when I spoke to Darwin, I’m like, Darwin, you gotta get all four or five kids to play together because what does that teach them? It teach them that they have to rely on their friends.
John Kozicki (14:13.642)
Yes.
Michael Grande (14:31.138)
to make sure that they’re actually practicing and they’re getting ready. Because when they’re in a job role, when they’re 18 or they’re 25 and they’re relying on team players to get a project for their boss done, they have to be all held accountable. And that’s what’s so great about putting these little bands together. Because if the drummer doesn’t practice, the singer and the guitar player is like, wait, you’re not playing with a metronome. You really got to work on that, Tommy. And then become now friends. And then they have that connection between each other. That’s priceless. So by putting one kid up there with four of your coaches,
Darvin Lau (14:34.188)
Yeah.
Darvin Lau (14:52.525)
Hmm.
Michael Grande (15:00.866)
teachers it’s a whole different experience than getting five kids to perform in front of and even if they make a mistake most people don’t even know it’s just getting up there to perform see that that also builds that increases the amount of people that register from 50 to 100 as soon as you get those bands together and now there’s only gonna be a hundred so that means you got to put a first couple of groups of kids who might be playing two songs on the first song and the 15th song so those parents and families can stay and stick it out
John Kozicki (15:08.713)
Right.
Darvin Lau (15:16.919)
Right. Right.
John Kozicki (15:16.937)
Yes.
Michael Grande (15:30.102)
for that whole 90 minute show. So you don’t have that big chunk of people leaving. So there’s a lot of things. Darwin also said, I said to Darwin, what about ticket sales? Ticket sales have to be held and hold and distributed by the school owner. Never ever, ever let the venue handle ticket sales. If they do, they’re not your venue. Yeah, I’ll tell you why. This is, so if you handle these ticket sales, it comes into the registration, you hand the parents tickets when they register. If that’s left to the,
John Kozicki (15:47.317)
Great advice. Great advice. Yeah.
Darvin Lau (15:48.887)
you
Michael Grande (15:59.01)
The person that’s running this event, which is the music, the event owner, they don’t know those people, there’s no guest list there, and all of a sudden tickets are lost, you don’t know if they paid, you need to be that person that holds them. And a perfect example is when we finished the Starland Ballroom, they thought every music school runs it like we do it, rock out loud. So all of a sudden the School of Rock came, and they told me when I was there last month, they said what a disaster, how they ran things compared to the way you do.
Darvin Lau (16:17.376)
Michael Grande (16:26.946)
because they had the tickets ran through the door of the venue. So everybody had lost credit cards, lost tickets, they didn’t know how much to pay. They had to pay more money, they had service fees, they had charges. And all of a sudden that line lasted 90 minutes and that ate up so much of the performance time, it was a disaster. Now, parents come with a ticket, they scan the ticket, they walk right in. That’s the way to do it. You need as a school to have a registration fee and include two tickets with that registration fee.
Darvin Lau (16:47.327)
in.
Michael Grande (16:54.56)
My registration fees have been growing every year. Right now they’re at $110. So you get somebody comes in, $110, and a parent says, wow, that’s a lot of money for one song, but we’re spending eight weeks with your child every week performing and getting them up on that stage, and we have to pay, and that’s the cost of the expenses. So that was one thing with Darwin. The next thing we spoke about was utilizing the space. So the bitter end.
Darvin Lau (16:59.821)
Mm.
John Kozicki (16:59.849)
Wow.
Darvin Lau (17:10.231)
So.
Mmm.
Michael Grande (17:21.218)
has 16 front row seats. said, Darwin, you sell VIP tickets. You’ll never believe how many people are gonna jump for VIP tickets. And he’s like, well, it’s just small little seats. I said, yeah, but the difference is a parent gets to say, I got a VIP seat. When we did that at the bitter end, it was amazing because we charged twice the cost for tickets. More than that, tickets were 20, no, we charged 45 tickets for 25. So we charged $45 for VIP tickets.
Darvin Lau (17:24.023)
Mm.
Michael Grande (17:50.368)
The VIP tickets for the shows paid for the entire venue and the rest everybody came in and it holds 120 people so the rest was all profit right there. So I said, Darwin you’re gonna do that? I don’t think Darwin did that but if he did he would have made more profit on VIP tickets that would have paid for everything. That would be the next thing. The next thing you do is you hire a photographer. Why? Because parents are gonna take pictures of their kids on their phones, they’re gonna get blurry, they’re not gonna be good.
John Kozicki (17:59.861)
Mm-hmm.
Darvin Lau (18:07.405)
Michael Grande (18:15.874)
hiring a photographer. When you hire a photographer, might charge you $150 for 90 minutes or three hours, whatever it is. And then what you do is you put them all on a Google Drive.
John Kozicki (18:25.397)
I gotta talk to your photographer, Mike. Mine is $700 for the day rate. He’s fantastic though.
Michael Grande (18:30.198)
You’re crazy. my God. My guy does, but my guy does Starland and Starland, Starland Ballroom, Stone Pony, all the outdoor events for all the majors. And he charges me 150. I mean, we’re very close friends, but what we do is we put up hundreds of these photos on the Google Drive and I put a giant rock out loud watermark. And I say to the parents for five or $10, you can own all the pictures of this show.
Darvin Lau (18:31.628)
Hahaha
Michael Grande (18:57.954)
your friends, your family, you can take your pictures and you can print them out without the watermark. And that’s how I pay for the photographer. So if you’re $700, charge $10 and you get 70 people to pay $10, you’ve just paid off your photographer and anything over that is profit. But they’ll see the big watermark and you’ll get the watermark, so if they like the pictures, sure here’s $10, we’ll take those pictures, what’s $10, you know? But you gotta profit off of everything.
Darvin Lau (19:23.405)
Mm-mm.
Michael Grande (19:23.65)
Everything, that’s the thing. So you gotta make sure you negotiate the price. Whatever that price is, if it’s 2,000, well we’ll give you 1,000, we’ll guarantee 1,000, here’s the down payment. Anything over $1,000 that you make in sales and we’ll take the profit of that and you keep. So it’s a $2,000 nut, you got it, but I guarantee we’re gonna have a lot of thirsty people and hungry kids. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is make sure if there’s VIP seating, sell it. Sell it to the parents, VIP seating. Get a photographer.
These are the little things that we seem to forget all the time because we get so involved into those little performances. It’s not about the song, it’s about the performance. That’s my two cents in about 15 minutes.
John Kozicki (19:55.443)
Yes.
Darvin Lau (19:55.575)
Mm.
Mm. Mm. That’s great, yeah.
John Kozicki (20:02.401)
Okay, love all of this love all of this now. Back to Darwin. Now, when when you went to the venue and Mike, you mentioned the math on these performers, I’ll say, similarly, I used to do solo performances and bands in one one show. And over time, I realized like we can’t do these solo performers anymore.
Michael Grande (20:27.842)
It’s terrible. Yeah.
Darvin Lau (20:28.429)
Mmm.
John Kozicki (20:29.265)
Yeah, because it takes up the same amount of time in the show, but what’s happening is each one of those solo performers is bringing the same number of people as everyone else to see just that single performance. So, so Darwin, now when you did the show at the bitter end, now it sounds like, I didn’t know this going into the conversation, but four days before,
Michael Grande (20:50.839)
to poo.
John Kozicki (20:57.461)
the performance at the bitter end, you have this conversation with Mike. Now, Mike just went through all these things like negotiating the price. Obviously, I’m assuming you weren’t able to do that with four days from the performance. There’s a number of things I think that would take a little bit more time. But after speaking with Mike, how have you or how are you going to change some of these processes with your performances?
Darvin Lau (21:01.517)
Okay.
Darvin Lau (21:26.253)
Well, mean, I think that with talking to Mike, it was amazing that, know, so, you know, big shout out to Mike, because actually, did, you know, end up actually making like two, $3,000 at the end of the instead of losing to $3,000. And so I think that it was so amazing that people are like,
John Kozicki (21:45.823)
Great.
Darvin Lau (21:53.165)
Mike said, usually the venue is back $1,500, maybe $2,000. But if you keep bringing them that business of eating and drinking, right? And most of them are clients, think they are students and the parents ate like, I think like $1,500 worth of like, whatever. like my bill was like $300, right? Rather than paying $2,000, right? So that was so amazing. And Mike’s right, like next time definitely charge a VIP
Michael Grande (22:09.058)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (22:11.262)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Grande (22:17.783)
you
John Kozicki (22:17.983)
Yeah.
Darvin Lau (22:22.413)
tickets but just that alone, the venue alone and first of all the sound was amazing, much better than any church venue, right? And we usually had to bring like everything, like drums and all that stuff but at the bitter end they had the whole back line, you know? And that’s a term I just learned, the whole back line. I was like, what’s a back line? But anyway, we all had to do was bring cymbals and like a hi-hat or something like that, sorry, like a snare drum.
John Kozicki (22:34.397)
Yes.
John Kozicki (22:42.677)
You
Darvin Lau (22:51.125)
And they had everything set up. The sound guy was amazing. The service was amazing. Everything was set up.
Michael Grande (22:57.566)
One thing you should say, wait a second, do you tip the sound guy, you tip the service? A thousand percent, even if it’s 50 bucks, they will be shocked. And by the way, you do it closer to the middle because now they know, and then they push in a little bit more, but they know the next time that you perform there, they’re gonna wanna do your sound. I’ve had so many great relationships born from a $50 bill because you tipped them.
Darvin Lau (23:04.759)
Absolutely.
Darvin Lau (23:09.889)
Yeah.
Darvin Lau (23:16.385)
Right.
Michael Grande (23:22.816)
And now all of sudden, they’re telling everybody, rock out loud, you gotta get these guys in. And that’s why you become so popular.
John Kozicki (23:23.347)
Right.
Darvin Lau (23:27.479)
Right. No, absolutely. Yeah.
John Kozicki (23:29.535)
So yeah, yeah, humble brag here on that, what you just said, Mike, 100%, that relationship you have with the sound guy is huge. So a few months back, the owner slash sound guy at the venue that we use for my school, he called me up and he said, hey, John, I’ve got a little gift for you. And I was like, what? What are you talking about, Tim? He gave me.
his old mixing board. This is a 32 channel Soundcraft Performer 3SI because he was upgrading the system at the venue and he gave me for free that old mixer. So 100 % yes, take care of your sound guy, know, treat him well. Okay, so you made a little bit of money, Darvin, that’s fantastic. Now,
Michael Grande (24:01.974)
Wow.
Darvin Lau (24:03.213)
Mmm.
Darvin Lau (24:15.543)
Yep.
Michael Grande (24:20.353)
Uh-huh.
Darvin Lau (24:22.573)
A lot more money. Yeah, Yeah, and like, you know, we got to take the whole stuff out to like, you know, like sushi afterwards, like, you know, and that was like a $500 bill, right? Like, so, but that’s great. Cause like we’re making like two, $3,000 rather than losing two, $3,000. Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:23.957)
Yeah, yeah, great. You’re not in the hole with the performances.
John Kozicki (24:42.067)
Right. Okay. So that was, when was that performance? When was that performance that you did?
Darvin Lau (24:45.175)
So, yeah.
that was like a month ago, I say like a month or two ago. Yeah. Yup.
John Kozicki (24:51.58)
okay. Okay, so assuming, assuming you’re in planning stage, sorry, go ahead, Mike.
Michael Grande (24:53.91)
So if I could just interject, I’m sorry, you mentioned when he had that, I think it is a strategy for planning every single concert that I’d like to touch upon. This is incredibly crucial to every music school that’s listening. So I’m sorry to interject, but so go ahead and continue back with that question.
Darvin Lau (25:05.068)
Mm.
John Kozicki (25:12.723)
No, Mike, I think your microphone just got turned off there, but that’s okay. 100 % planning, and that’s exactly my question. Darvin, assuming that you’re planning your next concert at this point, your next performance, what of those takeaways from Mike, how are you making changes and what are you doing to plan for the next show at this point?
Michael Grande (25:16.458)
Yeah, sorry about that.
Darvin Lau (25:25.186)
Mm-hmm.
Darvin Lau (25:35.265)
Yeah, yeah, again, you know, just want to big shout out to Mike Gonde. He were off the camera before, but because of, know, all of the, you know, all of the advice, you know, we were able to be more profitable, a lot more profitable for our concerts, you know, and I think I would streamline the spreadsheet that I have. We have a spreadsheet of the net profit that, you know, I would definitely add, like Mike said, the VIP tickets for the front row so that we can
Michael Grande (25:40.002)
Thanks.
Darvin Lau (26:03.329)
you know, like Mike said, you know, just make back the at least the whole venue like right in in just the VIP sections. Yeah. And also the photos, you know, so I think that that’s, you know, really awesome. Like you’d watermark it right. And also be able to sell these photos to to the parents, you know, and that’s just more income. think every little bit, right. It just adds up to to, you know, because sometimes we underestimate all these little things. know, it’s fine. Just give it away.
Michael Grande (26:09.878)
You want to just capitalize,
Darvin Lau (26:31.905)
But no, everything adds up, know, because your cost adds up, your expenses adds up too, right? So your income, you’ve got to find like, you know, and so I think that’s really smart. I think I would add the VIP seats. I would add the photos. And we do have a, our photo guide also does our video. So we have like little videos that we make also, and you know, stuff like that, I think would be changes to make it even more profitable.
John Kozicki (27:01.192)
Okay.
Michael Grande (27:01.558)
think the schedule was the question. If I could just… Okay.
John Kozicki (27:03.893)
It was just in, no, it more in general. It was more about planning for the next concert and what he learned so that he can be, continue to be more profitable and build on what he’s learned. Now, Mike, I want to circle back to one thing and ask when you are planning the ticket prices, do you have a formula that you use in your head or written out?
how to determine the cost of tickets for students and parents when you’re considering here are going to be my costs, like my bottom line for what this concert is going to cost me, and that’s going to include the rental of the venue, my staff to work the event, the photographer. You kind of touched on the fee for photography, so maybe we don’t include that. But do you have a formula?
whether in your head or on paper that you use to figure out what your ticket prices are.
Michael Grande (28:07.5)
So you just gotta know your audience, right? So like a lot of the folks that come to my music school, they’ll do karate, they’ll do dancing schools and so on. So karate schools charge for like the belt up.
whatever that is, like 300 bucks and then you gotta buy the gi and then you gotta buy the belt. So there might be a $400 package right there for a kid to go and beat somebody else up. I mean, we’re not into that. And then dancing schools, you gotta get a tutu, right? And there’s like $200 and then you gotta get your dancing slippers. So I think that if you know your audience, I say to myself, for $100, it justifies, well, now it’s 110, but it justifies paying my coaches for the eight weeks.
John Kozicki (28:26.954)
Right.
Darvin Lau (28:29.101)
That’s right.
John Kozicki (28:33.097)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Grande (28:45.922)
And the ticket prices, then I say to myself, what does it cost to go to like, you know, whether it’s a movie and get a drink and just, you know, it might be $10 or $20 a ticket, but what would it cost for a parent to take a picture on a stage that these famous artists actually did and then know the music schools around you? What I could tell you is that there’s not a single music school in my state that could have or pack a venue like the Starland, only because I bring my music schools in from New York and
Jersey and we could really pack it. So that’s my advantage. So other schools, I mean, I have to pay like seven or $8,000 upfront before anybody steps in. a lot of music schools are strained, but because those registration fees are so, I don’t think they’re high, but they’re so reasonable for what you get and parents are willing to do that. Those registration fees covers that $7,000. And then after that, the ticket sale. So you got to really think that what you’re offering is of such value and that brag, I keep going back.
John Kozicki (29:22.271)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Grande (29:43.522)
going back to bragging rights, people will say, oh, I go to the school rock, I go to Monmouth music, but when they say they go to rock out loud, they’re like, yeah, I know about that. I’m sending my kid there too, because this is what they offer. Because if you could do that, then your price is literally, it’s as high as you. I don’t know if there’s a number, I don’t wanna take advantage, because I could probably continue to charge more and more, but I’m not.
John Kozicki (29:54.207)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Grande (30:04.406)
but I know that this is something that I think is a reasonable number. So I justify it based on what parents pay for their karate and what they pay for the dancing schools. And I think it justifies it.
John Kozicki (30:14.421)
Okay, clarifying question. Mike, when you say, when you talk about that registration fee, are you talking about that registration fee for all of your students or is this a registration fee for the performance program or specifically, gotcha.
Darvin Lau (30:15.404)
Yeah.
Michael Grande (30:27.948)
Performance programs so a lot of a lot of schools are gonna struggle with this ready, and this is what we get all the time Well, you know what my my child I don’t think they’re ready for the stage parents have no idea if their child is ready for the stage Not even the child does you got to get the child up on stage. That’s super super important So what we do is in one of my schools in Staten Island It was like we could not get people to register everybody’s got the parent that’s saying my child’s not ready so
John Kozicki (30:43.519)
Yes, yes.
Michael Grande (30:54.102)
What we do is the week of the show, we close the school only for the rehearsals of the show and the performance. So if a parent wants their kid to take a lesson, they can’t, they have to be in the show and they get three 30 minute rehearsals that week. So they get more than their money’s worth. So this is almost like forcing, I’m sorry for this, they’re forcing their child literally to go up there and rehearse and become part of this event.
by having them register. remember, that’s super important. We don’t do that in Jersey because we are packed in Jersey. But with New York, it’s been a bit of a struggle because parents are different everywhere. It may be different in your community. They might say, well, my child’s not ready. He’s too young. They’re too scared. They’re introverted. They don’t have enough friends. These are the reasons to get them on the stage. So what you have to do is push them a little bit. So that’s what we do. So we have everybody and encourage the parents that we do three shows a year.
Darvin Lau (31:28.066)
Okay.
John Kozicki (31:40.287)
Yeah.
Michael Grande (31:48.162)
And we encourage you, if you only do one, that’s a step in the right direction. But we want you to do as many as you possibly can. And we’re gonna close for the whole week. So if you wanna forfeit that one week a lesson, because you don’t want your child in a show, you’re gonna be losing that lesson. And it’s in terms and conditions. And they still argue with us, but we make it clear that this is not like you’re practicing for a basketball game that never happens. You could play guitar or play drums and sing and play piano, but if you’re never getting on stage in a
Darvin Lau (32:13.229)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Grande (32:18.048)
in a band to perform, what’s the purpose? Will you sit in your room? And that’s the reason why we do it.
John Kozicki (32:20.827)
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You also mentioned understanding your audience and you mentioned other activities like karate and dance. And I’ll tell you from personal experience, and this was big eye opening experience that I had maybe 10 years or so ago, maybe eight, sitting at a dance recital for my daughter. And while I was sitting there before any of the performance started,
Darvin Lau (32:22.093)
Mmm.
Michael Grande (32:29.398)
Yes.
John Kozicki (32:49.917)
I was just in my head calculating what we paid for for these tickets. And not only for those tickets, but my wife was going to go back the next day with my in-laws, right? So those tickets and see the same performance. And then I’m calculating the cost of the shoes that my daughter needed for the different dances and outfits. And at the end of the math, I just thought like.
Michael Grande (32:53.545)
Mm-hmm.
Darvin Lau (33:02.06)
Hehe.
John Kozicki (33:15.411)
I’m not charging enough. I’m not charging enough for these performances I do, right? And you’re absolutely right. It’s not necessarily about, now, I’m not saying I want to nickel and dime the parents of the music school, right? But because that’s, in part, that’s kind of how I felt, right? Okay, so we gotta pay, the fees for the classes we’re paying. Okay, Mike is a proponent of nickel-ing and diming people, okay.
Michael Grande (33:36.254)
I’m going to change that mentality in one second. Keep going, John. Keep going.
Darvin Lau (33:38.657)
That’s funny.
Michael Grande (33:43.17)
No, I’m not from no no no no no no no no that’s not what because yeah I think you’re missing the point right because the point is you want to pay your coaches you want to pay them a good number that’s what I don’t I don’t listen I whether I’m profitable or not I want to make sure that my coaches are being compensated for the hard work musicians are the last people to make money in this world to me anyway that’s what I okay
John Kozicki (33:52.531)
Yes, yes.
John Kozicki (34:00.821)
100 % 100 % No, where I was going with it, Mike was how I felt about the dance experience was that I was being nickel and nickel and dime. So my strategy was to say like, okay, I’m not gonna go like, okay, there’s, there’s this fee. And then there’s this fee, know, like outfits and shoes and blah, blah, blah, you know, I’m going to present it in a way that that I feel is a little bit more kind.
to my parents, but I’m still going to focus on making profit for those performances. That’s where I was going. that was that because that was my that was my my eye opening experience. Now, one thing that I wanted to touch on and I was surprised that this didn’t come up a little bit because this is this is something that I’ve definitely done. And and I’m kind of leaning more into it is
the opportunity to sell merchandise at these performances, whether that is just your branded merchandise like school t-shirts or whatever, or maybe specific concert t-shirts for these performances.
Michael Grande (35:14.564)
boy, I got one for you. All right, so we learned, and I don’t know if you’ve gotten different, we’ve learned that most of the time you don’t sell shirts. That’s always at the school. Your merchandise is always at the school. the cost to bring it in or the pain in the butt to bring it in in the boxes and put it on displays, that’s one thing. But do you wanna know what sells at rock concerts, folks? Ready? A $1 earplugs. I have Rock Out Loud $1 earplugs. So when they come in,
Darvin Lau (35:16.205)
believe it.
John Kozicki (35:32.788)
Yes.
John Kozicki (35:42.418)
No kidding.
Darvin Lau (35:42.615)
No.
Michael Grande (35:43.362)
As a matter of fact, I could run downstairs and I will show you them. They’re branded for $1 and they might cost me 10 cents. For $1 you can protect your child’s ears. Why not? they go, so the merchandise is the one, and if you need those contacts, I can get you, I don’t even remember where I bought them, but yeah, so we put them in a fishbowl. We put $1 earplugs. So people wanna bring their children, five or six years old, and they have their headphones on. Instead, they can put the Rock Out Loud earplugs on. So those work too. So we do sell merchandise. We just learned that selling,
Darvin Lau (35:48.237)
You
Michael Grande (36:13.1)
things like, you know, I guess the t-shirts, it was just too cumbersome to bring them in the hats and then put them up on the display. that’s one thing that we just don’t do.
Darvin Lau (36:18.487)
Mmm.
John Kozicki (36:20.415)
Yeah, so I’m gonna offer a little idea for you guys as an alternative to having to bring the merchandise to the show. You set up a Spreadshirt shop and in advance of the performance, you could do either your, again, your branded logos for the performances or, and this is, I think, an even better idea, you do specific to that show.
concert t-shirt for that. You open up the shop about a month before the concert. You can even offer a discount leading up to it and then you turn off the discount the day of the concert, leave that shop open another week afterwards and then that’s it. Done, right? Then you never get that concert t-shirt again. It’ll never be available. that’s, that’s a, you don’t have to bring the shirts. You don’t have to bring any of the merchandise.
Darvin Lau (36:49.869)
Mmm.
Darvin Lau (37:10.445)
Mmm.
John Kozicki (37:15.719)
Yes, your profit margin is a little lower because you’re doing the drop shipping thing and the print on demand, but still a way that you can monetize that a little bit more. Mike, we were talking before we started this about Gene Simmons. And man, you are like the Gene Simmons of the music school world with the branded earplugs thing. That’s exactly where my mind went.
Darvin Lau (37:25.261)
Mmm.
Michael Grande (37:41.992)
You know if you wait one second I could run down and you gotta check these out. They’re so amazing. They’re really so amazing. You’re gonna be like holy smokes. I could grab them.
John Kozicki (37:45.429)
How about this, Mike, send me a picture, send me a picture of it after after a conversation and then I’ll just like a blast it out there with with this episode. OK, so.
Darvin Lau (37:52.469)
Ahahaha!
Michael Grande (37:53.706)
Absolutely.
Michael Grande (38:00.278)
We gotta get into scheduling. That’s the last thing if we can talk about that super important scheduling.
John Kozicki (38:05.683)
Okay, yeah, let’s talk about scheduling.
Michael Grande (38:07.338)
Okay, so when I spoke to Darwin, I said there’s three times that I run a concert, two which are very, very important. The first one is in March. We do March because it’s the winter time and then lot of the folks who get their Christmas gifts, their Hanukkah gifts and stuff like that, they get their new instruments. You want to get, you really want to get them juiced. So you need to say, hey listen, you just got your gift for Christmas and all those folks that come in, because sometimes you get somebody that learns how to play it in a month, they’re like, I’m not interested. But if they sign up in January and they know they have a big concert in March,
You’re gonna keep them and they’re gonna be doing that concert in March. That’s a really good time to do it. The second, which is this is the most important, the very last Saturday or Sunday in the month of June. Why? When parents are getting ready to go on their vacations and school’s gonna be letting out soon, if you make it the very last weekend of June, that means they have to stay for the lessons and all those rehearsals for the month of June. Before we did concerts 10 years ago,
Darvin Lau (38:39.091)
and
Darvin Lau (38:48.065)
Mm.
Michael Grande (39:05.874)
May we started to lose people sometimes even in April because we were getting ready for the summer We maintain a full clientele of students until the last week of June It is amazing for your school and it’s gonna keep your coaches full for that whole month Whereas otherwise you were to lose lose them and that last month that last June performance the profits that you make will withhold you for this the July and the August months where everybody we lose 20 %
25 % of students. Simply that’s just the way it is. That’s the nature of the game, right? That’s the season of music schools. So now you have the profit to hold you over. That’s why that’s so strategic. The very last Saturday or Sunday, you gotta do it. That’s a non-negotiable. And the last one we do is November. The reason why I do it November is I have a big charity event. this is, so I started this thing called Mateo’s Mission. My son wanted to feed families at nine years old. We’ve been doing it now for 11 years.
Darvin Lau (39:51.735)
Yeah.
Michael Grande (40:02.454)
We hold this last concert, it’s generally at the Stone Pony, we’ll auction off guitars, but all that money, or the money that we build up for that charity goes to feeding families. So we do that in November, and it’s a big thing. And I tell parents all the time, and this goes back to what your music school’s all about, the, behind all of the beautiful facade, this is like the roots to the guts of Rock Out Loudest.
Darvin Lau (40:14.944)
in.
Michael Grande (40:28.918)
We tell people that when a child hands a gift of food to a family who’s in need for Thanksgiving and they’re able to actually eat instead of not eat that day, that child, they transform that child like that. So we do these big events in November, these charitable events, and we raise money. And I tell the families, and I say this in front of the crowds of six, 700 people, sign your child up to hand out these food baskets on.
the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because that’s when these children will go there. And there’s lines of children. And I got to tell I could send you pictures. We have hundreds of kids who are like six years old carrying 16 pound turkeys to cars and families who would not have, I mean, that’s life changing. And that’s another thing that goes back to the core of our music school. So if you do these events strategically, it’s not so much about profiting as now.
Darvin Lau (41:06.669)
you
John Kozicki (41:16.693)
Hmm
Michael Grande (41:24.702)
all that money that we make on top of the charities, because once we feed the X amount of families, now we have the rest as profit. That profit goes to bonuses for all of my coaches. And there are Christmas bonuses given. Every one of our coaches work a certain amount. Like the full-time coaches, they all get bonuses. They’re very generous bonuses. And it’s not being nickel and diming. It’s knowing that we are giving something back to the community. And we’re showing, and I’m showing my coaches how much I appreciate them.
John Kozicki (41:32.085)
You
Darvin Lau (41:33.165)
Mm. Yep.
John Kozicki (41:41.087)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (41:51.829)
That’s great stuff, great stuff. Okay, so last question for Darwin as we bring this home. Of all those, mean, Mike gave you so much to think about, all those points. What are maybe your top takeaways and the things that you feel like for Bay Ridge you are going to implement? I mean, obviously you’re gonna wanna implement all of them, but it’s a process. So what are priorities for you to see more profitable events for Bay Ridge in the near future?
Darvin Lau (41:52.045)
you
Darvin Lau (42:22.701)
Well, first of all, yeah, Mike, it’s amazing. I see his stories on Facebook and like I see him giving out the turkeys on Thanksgiving. It’s really amazing. And I think that, like we were saying, the profitability of it is also being able to give, right? Your business has to be profitable first, know, so in order to give. I think that, you know, first of all, we’re going to do more of that, I think, is being able to give even more with our profitable.
Michael Grande (42:36.832)
Yes.
Yes.
Darvin Lau (42:51.147)
events and also our business in general. But I think, yeah, think, you know, everything that we talked about is like, you know, kind of making those changes of adding those like VIP seatings and photos and just streamlining the net profitability of every one of our events and also adding the bands like Mike was saying, and just making sure that each time
we’re fitting more students into each time. We did have one band, I think, go on, but most of them were just single, right? So we had like four or five kids in this past concert in one slot, but that could be every slot, right? So in the future, we need to do more of that. the parents loved it. And also, like you said, the bitter end, the parents were like,
Michael Grande (43:38.027)
Right.
Darvin Lau (43:46.709)
some of them are musicians. I played this venue 30 years ago, and now my child at eight years old is playing the same venue. How awesome is that? So we’re thinking of other cool venues in New York City, because we’re in New York City. Why not take advantage of that? You have so many venues like Webster Hall and so many other places that just come to mind, but we never thought about it. And even though we’re in Brooklyn, and that’s in Manhattan,
Michael Grande (43:52.416)
Yes, see? Yes.
Michael Grande (44:02.977)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (44:03.338)
Yeah.
Darvin Lau (44:14.317)
And at first there’s so many things you’re thinking about, oh, are people gonna travel to Manhattan? Now that there’s congestion pricing and all that stuff, you gotta pay to get into Manhattan. But everyone showed up, right? And also it was a Sunday, so was free parking. people will make a way to see their child on a legendary venue. Honestly, it could be like, I have friends who travel out of the country. They go to Italy and go to all these places like Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
John Kozicki (44:28.009)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (44:32.233)
Yes.
Darvin Lau (44:43.937)
You know, so I think like Mike was saying, never underestimate, you know, what a parent will do and also will pay to see their child on stage. So those are all the things that we’re going to implement and, you know, we’re to look for like even other venues, but use the same strategies that Mike was teaching me, you know, in even cooler venues and all that stuff. But yeah, we loved it. Everything was amazing. And so we can be profitable and
be able to give even more with the profits that we make.
John Kozicki (45:17.437)
Love that, love that. Darwin, I can’t wait to, I hope like your next concert, you send me like an update. Hey, here’s what we did. Here’s how it worked out. That sounds fantastic.
Michael Grande (45:28.93)
Yeah, a P &L statement that shows you made $10,000. That’s what I’m looking for.
Darvin Lau (45:31.317)
I know, Yeah, yeah. I mean, we did. mean, yeah, we booked Carnegie Hall for next year. So that’s cool. We actually did Carnegie Hall last month. And we also were able to play on the Cyclones baseball. It’s kind of like the minor league of Coney Island of the Mets. And so that was really fun. So we were there a month or two ago. So we got to perform on the field. So that was really fun, too. So like really cool venues and all that stuff. We’ll see.
John Kozicki (45:32.009)
There you go, there you go.
Michael Grande (45:45.996)
Coney Island. Yeah.
Darvin Lau (46:00.033)
going.
John Kozicki (46:01.545)
I love this, I love this. Okay, so Mike, if you’re okay with this, what I think I’m gonna try and do, no promises, but what I think I’m gonna try and do is consolidate those points that you suggested and make those available as a downloadable PDF. Would you be okay with that? Yeah, okay.
Michael Grande (46:17.826)
Yeah, absolutely. People can reach me at Rock Out Loud at Gmail. If they have any questions, I’m open to helping anybody. really, I have no…
John Kozicki (46:25.695)
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, gentlemen, I appreciate both of you coming on Rock School Proprietor Podcast today. Mike Grande, Darwin Lau, thank you guys and we’ll see you next time.
Darvin Lau (46:37.325)
All right, see you next time. Thank you so much. Take care. Take care, guys.
Michael Grande (46:37.538)
Thanks so much for having me, John. Take care, Darwin.
John Kozicki (46:44.62)
we lost Darwin already.
Michael Grande (46:45.802)
Yeah, I don’t
