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282: Fang VonWrathenstein from MAD WITH POWER FEST | Interview
6 Plays8 months ago
Interview with Fang VonWrathenstein, organizer of MAD WITH POWER FEST, a Power Metal/Traditional Heavy Metal festival in Madison, Wisconsin, USA! We discuss our demands, ticket fees, visas, arcade machines, and cheese. And the fest. @madwithpowerfest #metalfest #metalfestival #metalpodcast #madwithpowerfest #lordsofthetrident #madisonwi #powermetal #traditionalmetal MAD WITH POWER FEST [Aug 2+3, 2024; Madison, WI, USA] - https://madwithpowerfest.com/ Early Tickets: https://www.patreon.com/lordsofthetrident LORDS OF THE TRIDENT [Heavy/Power Metal; Madison, WI, USA] - https://lordsofthetrident.bandcamp.com/ PODCAST THEM DOWN - https://linktr.ee/pctd https://patreon.com/podcastthemdown
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Transcript
Introduction and Metallica Connection
00:00:00
Speaker
Tonight on podcast them down fang for mad with power and lords of the trident
00:00:10
Speaker
Good afternoon, man, and welcome to Water Polo Tryouts. I'm the new coach, James Hetfield. I know what you're thinking. Whoa, did James Hetfield from Metallica? The answer is no way, even though I look and sound like him and have all his guitars. The point is, if I had to deal with the kind of pressure that guy's under, I'd probably crack and end up as a high school water polo coach. So it's a good thing that I'm just this very different James Hetfield.
Reviving the Interview Segment
00:00:40
Speaker
Hail, Metal Nation, it is time for our interview segment, which we haven't done in like two years. So... Hey, to be fair, I think it's only been like 22 months. Yes, and uh...
00:00:57
Speaker
That's, I'm rounding up. Okay. We recently read, I'm going to fade it out nice. It's going to sound wonderful. We recently read a metal promo that we were sent for Mad with Power Fest and it left us with many, many, many, many questions.
00:01:17
Speaker
And so we invited Fang to join us on this episode so we can get some things straight. And Matt, you did some investigative journalism, you tell me. Oh, I have. And we're ready to crack this case wide open. He's covered all my dirty secrets. All the skeletons have got a good closet. Oh, my God. Well, let's start with the first secret that you probably you may or may not even realize. Not only.
00:01:46
Speaker
is Lords of the Trident, your band. Label mates with my band Burning Shadows, but we've also played a show together. Really? Really? Yes, I know. Both of these are, both of these are surprising. Now I have to see, now I have to pull back the, uh, the list of previous shows here. Okay. Well, you're going to have to go back and I'm going to get a control F for burning.
00:02:12
Speaker
It might not have been the same day, but it was the same fest. Okay.
Festival Memories and Band Ties
00:02:18
Speaker
Was it, was it, was it warriors of metal or what was it? It was warriors of metal. See, he got it on the very first try. There you go. There you go. Yeah. So we played Lords of metal. We played warriors of metal forever. Lords of the Trident. I've been seeing it. It's been on all my screens nonstop. And also our most recent, uh,
00:02:43
Speaker
I don't know if you want to call it and it's an album length EP or most burning shadows. Most recent album length EP was released on raft child records in 2019. So I don't need to tell you about raft. I don't need to tell you about raft child record. We all know how that went.
00:03:02
Speaker
Well, we had a good time in 2019. How about that? I had a great time. I had a wonderful time with Raf, too. So yeah, we don't need to get into the nitty gritty of what happened with Raf Child Records. But I will say that Raf is a great guy. We had a wonderful time with him. We had a good time on tour. It was a fun time in Europe. And it was definitely an experience. Oh, the cat's going to get ready to boop my nose. There we go.
Reddit Exposure for Bands
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh, that was amazing. He did it. The cat booped my nose, and now she gets a treat.
00:03:31
Speaker
that is probably the last time people if you're not watching on youtube you're missing the best part of this interview so i have uh kept tabs on you but like not um entirely uh
00:03:49
Speaker
of my own will because your, your, uh, YouTube videos, uh, words of fang. Yeah. They would show up on Reddit every so often back before Reddit turned into a dumpster fire or as it too. Yeah. And then that was the slow reason it turned into a dumpster fire. People were like, ah, that fang, get him off of there.
00:04:10
Speaker
You'd pop up every so often, and then I don't know how I missed it. It's plainly obvious, but I didn't realize you were the one behind Mad with Power. I couldn't put one and one together.
00:04:25
Speaker
No, it's okay. I do make an effort to try to tie Lords of the Trident into the marketing as much as possible to kind of co-brand it.
Mad with Power Fest Overview
00:04:36
Speaker
But we're not necessarily ramming it down people's throats. It's not like Lords of the Trident presents Mad with Power Fest or anything like that. But yeah, if you
00:04:51
Speaker
If you look hard enough, you'll notice the connection and it'll probably be eventually obvious, but yeah. I will tell you where the connection happened. If you want advanced tickets, join the Lords of the Trident Patreon. Then I went to the Patreon and oh my God, what an awesome Patreon. But we'll get there too. Okay, okay.
00:05:20
Speaker
But first mad with power Madison, Wisconsin's oh wait No, no you you wrote it best on the site I have to find the exact thing a power metal and traditional heavy metal festival in the cold desolate northern lands of Madison, Wisconsin That's true. That's true
00:05:39
Speaker
And you've had great lineups in the past and this year is no different. You know, this band called Lords of the Trident is headlining this time. But these these fests are also like great ways to find
00:05:55
Speaker
other bands that I may not have heard of. There's Fellowship from Power Metal from the UK, Anthem, Legendary Japanese Power Trash Metal, Magic Sword. I know all about Stark Hill and Ocean's Slumber, because I'm open for them. I don't know Vintersee, probably because they're from Portland. So is Vesuvian. They're from the West Coast. Dioleth, we played my other band, Isenmoor, played with them in August. Wow. OK.
00:06:24
Speaker
So they're great, and they have solar guitars and they let me play one. I've heard nothing but good things from everybody who's played with them. I have not had an opportunity to play with them yet, but I hope, I mean, obviously we'll fix that during Man of the Power Fest, but yeah, I loved it. Can't wait to see them, yeah.
00:06:43
Speaker
And then Glyph, Lame Genie, and Celestial Wizard. And then I look through the archives. You know, we played with Wilderrun, Power Glove. I don't think either of the seven bands spires or kingdoms I've played with. 8th of Rome. We played with them so long ago. It was probably around the time we went to... There's another... Yeah. We played with them back in...
00:07:14
Speaker
back in the days of the Wars of Metal. And then, of course, Mega Colossus, who's also our label mates, Craft Child Records. Yeah, and on and on. Empress, Shadow Strike. I played with them like last month. So it's like this fest is right up my alley. Awesome. OK, so with that out of the way, we got the
00:07:44
Speaker
the promo. And basically, you took everything you hated about Fests and fixed them. I'm trying. You know, I'm doing my best. My friends are like, Hey, when are you gonna start a label? And when are you gonna start a touring company? I'm like, I'm just one
00:08:03
Speaker
man, let me try to fix one thing at a time here. You all have been to festivals. I've been to festivals. There's things about going to festivals and going to shows in general that we just hate, that are more difficult than they need to be. And if somebody had the time and attention to detail and wherewithal to fix them, they could be easily fixed.
00:08:27
Speaker
And so, you know, essentially when we started up Madis Power Fest, I looked at a bunch of the things that I disliked about the festival experience. And I tried to fix as many of them as I possibly could. I tried to take as many of the best ideas from the festivals that I think are doing it right. And also I tried to like look at some of the things that the festivals that I thought the festivals were doing wrong and just be like, don't do it. Just, you know, look at the bad things and let's just not do those things.
00:08:55
Speaker
But yeah, I'm actively trying to make the best experience a lot more fan focused, a lot more fan friendly, a lot more user friendly generally. So that a lot of the things like ticketing fees and not having an opportunity to eat and missing bands and not having anything to do between the bands and all that sort of stuff is all fixed.
00:09:26
Speaker
Not something you have to worry about when you come to matter the power fest so I'm wondering if you've been to the same festivals I have cuz you know you don't have to name names.
00:09:38
Speaker
But I like it. Just you saying that reminds me of certain festivals I've been to. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there I've been to a few of the festivals and and Man of Fire Fest essentially was started kind of out of spite, you know, because we that's
00:09:58
Speaker
That's so metal.
Addressing Festival Frustrations
00:10:01
Speaker
We were promised a spot at a major Midwestern festival that got conveniently forgot about. And even though I remind the person who runs the SEND Festival, he keeps forgetting about it for the last seven or eight years. We had another festival where we got offered a spot and then the guy lost the email quote unquote where we confirmed
00:10:28
Speaker
even though i had a read receipt from him opening it uh he still said he lost the email um and then he pushed us to next year well next year something political happened and he's going to push us to the next year after that and then the year after that
00:10:46
Speaker
one of the bigger bands management, quote unquote, bought our spot from out under us, which actually didn't happen. That was a complete lie. And then I gave up and I said, screw it. I'm going to build my own festival and it'll be better because it'll have arcade games and pinball and it'll be better than Festival X, which has been dicking me around for years. And then the year after we started that festival, or a year or two after we started that festival,
00:11:12
Speaker
The booking agent for said large festival had the gall to come back and say that he would offer us a slot on said festival if we paid him $15,000.
00:11:29
Speaker
American dollars. I mean, it's up north so it could be Canadian. That's like a Mazda Miata. That's a nice used car. We're not buying you a nice used car. Okay. And I was not the only band that he did that to. Oh my God. So, the question has been raised of like,
00:11:51
Speaker
How many other bands have bought him Mazda Miatas for a spot on SED Festival? My question is, how much does it cost to replace, let's say... Oh yeah, Deathland. Let's say I want to take over Vintersee's slot. How much is that going to cost me?
00:12:12
Speaker
Well, unfortunately at Madis Power Fest, we've removed all of the bullshit from the festival, so you can't buy spots, unfortunately. Unlike some other fests, you cannot buy spots on our festival, and we pay all the bands appropriately, and we pay them upfront. So, you know, we try to treat the fans right, we try to treat the bands right. The whole purpose of the festival for me
00:12:41
Speaker
And it may be the same for you guys. I go to metal festivals, not necessarily to see the bands. The bands are great. I love seeing live music. But the main reason I go to festivals
00:12:56
Speaker
is to have the opportunity to hang out and see the people in person that I only get to see once a year, right? So we all coalesce in this one location once a year, and we all get to see each other and hug each other and catch up and buy a beer and that kind of stuff. That is my reason for going to festivals. The music's great, but the people are what I'm going there for.
00:13:21
Speaker
So I'm trying to design Mad with Power with that idea in mind. We put together a lot of stuff that is an easy way for people to organically meet new people, make new friends, catch up with old friends. We do all sorts of additional activities in and around the festival to facilitate that sort of like friend matchmaking.
00:13:48
Speaker
And so that's on the fan side. On the band side, the main idea with Mad with Power is bringing in mid-tier acts, collaborating, getting people to know each other face-to-face, to perform on stage with each other, to make friends, to make those connections.
00:14:07
Speaker
one of us is eventually gonna blow up and be the next you know whatever made in metallica whatever and when that happens or as that happens right the first people you're gonna think of to take on tour with you will be the people that you gelled with the friends you know and i've been on tours where like
00:14:27
Speaker
You really, really, really like the people that you're on tour with. You love the other bands. And I've also been on tours where it's like, yeah, the other bands, we don't really connect all that much. And let me tell you, the tours where you are like best friends with the bands you go on tour with,
00:14:45
Speaker
Are the best times in your life is so fun just hanging out with your best friends the entire tour so it's you know it's there's no friction everything works easier you split everything so my ideas right.
00:15:01
Speaker
Let's bring all these bands together. Let's get them to meet face-to-face. Let's have them put faces to names and personalities to names so that they're not just like an avatar that pops up in your Facebook Messenger. You're actually like, oh, yeah, Adrian from Seven Spires. Like, yeah, we're cool. Like, yeah, she rules. Like, this is awesome. Oh. I was going to bring up Seven Spires specifically. Yeah. Because I was also digging around Lords of Trident's page. Yeah.
00:15:29
Speaker
Cam and Sabrina from Seven Kingdoms and the rest of the band, we're like, I mean, if we're not BFFs already, I mean, you know, we're as close as we can get to BFFs, I think, at this point. Like, so that's the whole idea. Like, you know, I am very much of the idea that a rising tide raises all ships.
00:15:49
Speaker
And if we can just get people in the same room with the mindset of we're all going to have a good time. We're all going to collaborate. We're all going to become friends. We're going to leave here, you know, being best friends. I'm going to take all of the bands and be like, no, no, like I'm going to do that with every single year. And and I want it night is very awkward. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to play pinball.
00:16:18
Speaker
But obviously, the US scene for Power Metal is nowhere near as strong as the European scene for Power Metal. Oh, absolutely. We played some tiny place on a Monday in nowhere Germany, and they apologized for the poor turnout. I was like, what are you talking about?
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, so how do we fix that? A lot of people bitch and moan about it online, on Reddit, saying the US power metal scene sucks. What do we do? How do we fix that?
Building a US Power Metal Community
00:16:54
Speaker
Bitch and moan. The way that we fix it, the only way to fix it is to have more power metal bands in the US.
00:17:03
Speaker
Simple, right? Duh! But how do you get there? You get there by when somebody is starting up a band when they're in high school or early college or just out of college or whenever they're in their lives, right? They have this idea of, okay, I'm going to start a band. What genre do I want to be in?
00:17:21
Speaker
And if they have the opportunity to see the power metal scene as we've created it, you know, we're all friends. We're all collaborating. We're all on each other's albums. We're all sharing each other's social media posts. We're all like hanging out in real life. We're actual friends, you know, who spend time with each other outside of music and also inside of music. They might look at that and they say, damn, that
00:17:46
Speaker
that's really that seems like a really fun scene every like this guy knows this guy this guy knows this guy this girl knows this guy like everybody knows each other everybody's friends i want to i want to be in that i want to be part of that and so they would say okay well you know maybe i'll start a power metal band and maybe i can also be part of that and that's the cool thing about the scene it's like the answer to that is yeah of course you absolutely can you know like
00:18:14
Speaker
You can be friends with us, you can be part of the scene, you can hang, you can play mad at the power. It's like, yeah, absolutely. This is the seed that I'm hoping that I'm sewing for the trees that I'll never see, essentially. I'm hoping in 30, 40 years, people will stop complaining about the US power metal scene being bad because all of the good we've put into it will have grown the scene to the point where it's not a problem anymore.
00:18:43
Speaker
That was awesome. That was his first answer. We're sunk. He is too good at this. I hope you're ready for a five hour podcast, baby. I can go all night. We have unlimited time on this, on this platform. We'll just, we'll be done with all of the April episodes in one night. I know. Here's part 17 of our coverage.
00:19:10
Speaker
Well, there's also the festival for three months, but here there is also a section on mad with power fest dot com. That's the plug. How can my band get to play mad with power? Oh, you were asking about that earlier. Right. Well, so I found this after. So the
00:19:38
Speaker
The episode hasn't aired yet where we read the promo. So demanding the burning shadows come and or Eisenmore. I forget what I, I don't remember what I say on this podcast. I believe you demanded, if I remember correctly, you demanded that burning shadows be on the lineup, but you offered Eisenmore as like a bargaining chip.
00:19:59
Speaker
yeah but on the condition that the podcast gets to come oh yeah well that would be the official be the official podcast however uh lord of the trident has their own podcast too by the way so when you're done with this go listen to that anyway there it's this uh how do you get booked
Funding and Band Selection
00:20:21
Speaker
uh i could have just read that first number one have amazing music okay that's easy uh number two never sit still these are all explained in depth on the site prove to me you'll use the opportunity be active in your communities and i like don't give up
00:20:39
Speaker
That's amazing. Right under that it says, don't bug me though. I'm paraphrasing. This is just like good advice in general. The whole words of Fang series on YouTube was essentially like,
00:20:57
Speaker
I've went through a lot of hard lessons as a musician from when I started in my garage at 14 to now. And if I can save other people from learning the hard way and just tell them what I've learned and then they don't have to fuck up, then that's an easy way to put more good into the world. But yeah, honestly, the biggest thing for me
00:21:24
Speaker
more than anything else is I pay very close attention to what bands I feel will use the opportunity correctly. Because the whole, my whole gripe with
00:21:42
Speaker
festivals before you know in the early days of matters power the big festivals that i saw in the u.s the headliners of these these power metal these trad metal festivals all that sort of stuff the headliners were like 60 or 70 years old and that's not even hyperbole i mean like sometimes these dudes came out
00:22:03
Speaker
with a walker and fucking oxygen masks i mean like seriously and i understand i understand booking legacy acts is a bit of like okay this will sell tickets this will get people in the seats i get that but if your band hasn't put out an album in like
00:22:22
Speaker
fuck 10 years? Are you a band? Are you still going? Why are you going to even do anything? Why would I give the slot to you instead of giving it to a band that could actually use the momentum to take themselves to the next level? I always ask myself that question and I pay very close attention to it.
00:22:49
Speaker
A lot of people have sort of, I've been very vocal about this, and people have given me a little bit of flack, not a lot, but a little bit of flack about booking Anthem this
Visa Challenges for Bands
00:22:58
Speaker
year. Oh man, they haven't been in the US in 35 years, and aren't they a band that's full of old guys? Yeah, they've also put out an album almost every three years for the past fucking 20 years. Their last album came out, I don't know,
00:23:13
Speaker
six, eight months ago, and it's great. Yeah, exactly. You know, they're still making music. They're still going. They're still touring. And this could be an opportunity for them to kind of re-break the American market, which they've been kind of a little bit, you know, not, they're bigger in Japan, obviously, right?
00:23:33
Speaker
So that's the mindset that I look at. I don't want to book people who haven't done anything in 10 or 20 years because that's a wasted opportunity. That's the thing that I was griping about eight years ago when I started the fest. So I'm going to try my damnedest never to do that.
00:23:54
Speaker
The uh, so these foreign bands our visa is going to be an issue like they're constantly in issues with frog power and the visa process absolutely blows in the united states. So um And i'll be i'll be i'll be completely transparent with with you guys. Um Because i've been super transparent about this on on the internet in general. Um the so
00:24:18
Speaker
In order to do this right, you guys have been overseas, or at least a lot of bands have been to different countries outside of the United States, even if it's just Canada. As Americans, for most countries, 95% of countries, if we want to tour there,
00:24:38
Speaker
We walk up to the border with our passports and they'll ask us, hey, what are you doing here? We'll say, oh, we're playing a few shows as a band. Are you gonna be here for more than two weeks? No? Okay, come on in. That's what they'll say. There's no extra paperwork. There's no visas required. There's no extra stuff.
00:24:56
Speaker
Here in America, mostly because of the xenophobia that has been rampant, we have this insane visa process for touring musicians. You have to prove to the immigration services that the person you're bringing in or a group that you're bringing in
00:25:15
Speaker
is of extraordinary talent. Talent that is above and beyond anything that you would be able to find in America. And the way that you do that is you have to put bare minimum.
00:25:30
Speaker
60 pages, 60 pages minimum of reviews, flyers, album charts, album sales. You have to get at least five letters of recommendations. Like legit legal letters saying this band is awesome.
00:25:49
Speaker
I want to write those letters. Yeah, you have to do all of that. So then, on top of that, it is highly advisable to have a law firm that specializes in this, do this work for you, because the attempt to get the visa, when all is said and done, is roughly four to five grand. And that is for a chance, an opportunity to get a visa. That's like for an interview. Yeah.
00:26:18
Speaker
If you fuck up anything on the paperwork, if you don't cross the T's or dot the lowercase J's, then they will essentially delete your application and you are out five grand. They do not give you that money back.
00:26:34
Speaker
You have to pay five grand again to try again, which is why you use a law firm to do this because they will do it right. But it is absolutely fucking ridiculous. And that is part of the reason why some of these festivals charge so much money
00:26:53
Speaker
uh for for their tickets this is part of the reason why prog power is tickets are so expensive because every single band is bare minimum five grand that's before airfare before hotels before food and even before paying them to play yeah you already have to pay five grand and if you fuck up if the attempt fucks up somehow
00:27:12
Speaker
You have another five grand you have to pay to try again. And maybe you have to pay an extra $2,000 to expedite the process. And then once you've got the visas in and everything is OK, they have to schedule an interview at the consulate where they live. And wherever that is. And those interviews can sometimes cost up to five, six hundred dollars just for a slot.
00:27:38
Speaker
So the whole process is stupid and totally bullshit. So a long roundabout way of answering your question, yes, we did everything legally. Yes, I spent 10 grand on the attempt for the visas for both Anthem and the fellowship. And we are in the process. Now, why do a lot of the bands who come to Prague Power, why do they run into visa issues every year?
00:28:08
Speaker
Hey, that's my question. Why do Prague Power bands run into visa issues? All right, there you go. So, pure speculation on my part, because I'm not part of Prague Power, but I don't know if you guys have ever dealt with musicians before, but I don't trust them. I don't trust musicians.
00:28:29
Speaker
I gotcha. That's legit. Yeah, absolutely. So I personally am doing, I and my team, I'll specify, I have two other people on staff who are helping out with this. I and my team are personally seeing to every aspect of the visa process, because there's only one person I trust to get the shit done in time, and he is sitting right here, you know?
00:28:55
Speaker
But at the same time, you can't be in their visa interview, right? So you have laid out this cash, you have gotten the lawyer, you have done all this work, you've assembled the package, and then they just mouth off to the consular officer. And it's like,
00:29:11
Speaker
Sorry. I did everything I could do. The biggest thing that has expedited the process is I'm the guy holding the bag and I'm the guy that is bugging them
Arcade Games at the Festival
00:29:25
Speaker
every two days. Like, guys, did you do it? Did you
00:29:29
Speaker
and I will get incessant with them and just be like, okay, listen, we need to get this done. We are a week overdue. Get your shit together. What are you doing? This is costing me five grand. Please stop being musicians for just a second and learn how to do a spreadsheet. Just learn how to do a spreadsheet. So yeah, visas suck and I wish I never had to even think about them. They are the worst, literally the worst.
00:29:58
Speaker
Wow. I'm sorry I asked, but I'm glad I asked. That's awesome. I mean, that's nerve wracking and frustrating, but I think a lot of... How many people go into a festival expecting to see some band they've been looking forward to and they're like, oh, there are visa issues. You're just like, well, somebody just fucked up. No, people were working hard, spending a lot of money, putting shit together.
00:30:24
Speaker
The thing is, also, this is our first year dealing with bans and doing the visa process ourselves. Oh, wow. Dealing with bans that need visas. We've had bans, like, at least the researchers last year, obviously, are Canadian, but they had visas. They had them through their record company and all that sort of stuff. That was all.
00:30:48
Speaker
If they have a tour, right? Like if they've assembled a tour and they have the visa, then that's fine. It's already like done and it's just kind of like they're here already. I also feel like that's why you'll see bands from Europe or whatever a whole lot for a few years and then not for a while. Yeah. Like when that band from Estonia, I think, Metzital kept coming.
00:31:15
Speaker
They're like, hey, we were here eight months ago, we're back. But yeah, I mean, like, I, part of the reason I'm overseeing everything directly and, you know, being very anal about it, is since it's our first year, and since it's, you know, fellowship's first time in the United States, Anthem's first time in 35 years, I want to believe and I want to prove to people that
00:31:43
Speaker
I can navigate this visa process without it fucking up, you know, like some other festivals have fuck ups every single year. I want to believe that if a competent person, you know, not saying that they're not competent, but like I want to I want to believe that if I am doing it,
00:32:04
Speaker
And I'm comfortable in my own abilities of keeping spreadsheets, keeping notes, being competent, following up on emails. I want to believe that it is possible to do this without something falling through last minute. So I am putting my entire self into this visa process to make sure that it happens. If something messes up, I ultimately want it to be on me.
00:32:34
Speaker
Wow. That's, that's just so they, that in itself is such, you know, festival aside, right? Just that process is just incredible. You know, it's like, Oh, and you also have to put on a festival by the way. Small, small, small extra details, right?
00:32:52
Speaker
What's the total polar opposite of Visa applications? I think that would be what arcade games and pinball games. Are you hiring a service that brings them in? Do you get to choose? Yeah, sometimes.
00:33:14
Speaker
You know, one of my big loves, I grew up about a block and a half, two blocks from my local mall when I was a kid. Oh, I am. I am jealous. We weren't allowed to go to the closest shopping center that had an arcade. So I couldn't play Mortal Kombat until it came out on SNES or Genesis. Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
And then ABACABB to get the blood that you could get at the arcade. For just a quarter.
00:33:46
Speaker
So I essentially grew up in an arcade. And so that being in an arcade, to me, there's just something that is intrinsically calming about it. I don't know why. But I love arcade machines. I love pinball. I'm more of an arcade guy than pinball. Down in my basement, I built myself a couple of arcade machines. Yeah, I was trying to see those.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah, during COVID, I built a virtual pinball table over here. So I just love them. I love them. And because I love this stuff so much, I go to arcade and classic video game conventions. And because of that, I meet a lot of different people. I meet a lot of different people who run arcades. I'm in the community there. So when we started Mad with Power, essentially,
00:34:42
Speaker
And we only needed 10 to 15 machines because we were in a smaller venue. I could just call up some of my local buddies and have them pop over five cabinets from this guy, five cabinets from this guy, a couple of pin balls from this guy, and make it work. Now that we're in a 2,500 capacity giant arena, basically,
00:35:09
Speaker
we have quintupled the amount of arcade machines and pinball. Because of that, I've had to call in more favors every year. So it's not just one or two guys that are helping me out with five or 10 machines. It's like three or four arcades in the area that bring in 15 games each, essentially.
Mortal Kombat Themed Attractions
00:35:33
Speaker
What is that loading like? It's hard enough
00:35:38
Speaker
you know, half a dozen, a dozen, 20 bands, you know, and all their equipment and all their shit. Like how do you get, not just arcade machines, but pinball machines, right? Like universally recognized as the most difficult thing to move ever. How do you do that?
00:35:55
Speaker
Like, you know, it's actually, you would be surprised at how quickly it goes. So essentially they, because the venue is brand new, you know, it's built in, I want to say it was built in like 2018. They have a wonderful semi loading dock with two loading semi doors. So the people will come in essentially with, you know, large trucks or semis filled with
00:36:21
Speaker
arcade games, you open the doors and you just roll them off of the semis. So there's no like lift up or anything? It's just no, it just goes down a ramp and essentially you just roll them into place and then all you have to do is plug them in, turn them on, put free play on. So the the load in and load out of the pinball machines and the arcade machines are actually not
00:36:42
Speaker
that bad. And after... Probably compared to the band stuff. Yeah. After eight years, we've kind of got it down to a science too. You know, like we can, we can get all the games, all of the machines on like the main floor out and together in like an hour ish, you know, something like that. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. No, when I first read about all the arcade machines, I was like, these guys must hate sleep.
00:37:07
Speaker
I do. I do hate slam night. That is one of the taglines that everybody always always says. It's like, you know, oh, Ty doesn't sleep. You know, no, not at all. No, absolutely not. I don't know how you're putting on a festival with all the lords of the Trident stuff that exists. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I like to stay busy, which can be a good thing and also a detriment.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I mean like load in load out is it can be the band stuff can be even like more complicated than the machines. And in terms of your question about like, do I get to pick the machines? Oftentimes, yeah, I do. As an arcade kind of like the guys that I work with,
00:37:52
Speaker
are like super nerds for arcade connoisseur people and i'm also a super arcade nerd you know so i'll be like yo uh that that total carnage cabinet that you guys have that was signed on the faceplate by the people who made it and it's like beta zero one i want that like bring that oh bring the fucking spy hunter bring the discs of tron get the you know like i'll just like
00:38:17
Speaker
I'll walk around the arcades. I'm like, that one, that one, that one. And they're always like, oh, yes, sir. You have a very good taste. Yes. Oh, wonderful. Very good, sir. Yes, very good. Yes. Oh. So one of my dreams, and this is probably way too deep of a cut for anybody listening, but I don't know. Maybe there are some arcade nerds out there who listen to your podcast.
00:38:42
Speaker
There was a machine that was banned in the United States called Sonic Blast Man. It was built by the arcade company Taito out of Japan. I've heard of this. I think I saw a YouTube thing on it. Yeah.
00:38:57
Speaker
Go on. And essentially it was a punching video game. It was one of the first punching video games where it was like there was a, it looked like a long pinball table. There was a big TV screen at the top and essentially it would measure your pounds per square inch that you punched. And you had to get over a certain amount. You get three punches to do it. So they said, you know, on all the instructions, like please wear the boxing glove. You have to wear the boxing glove. And in Japan, everybody's like, yep, I must wear the boxing glove. These are the rules. In America, everybody's like, I ain't wearing no goddamn boxing glove.
00:39:27
Speaker
They had 20 lawsuits of broken wrists. And Tyto, not only did they stop selling the machine in the US, they ordered all of the arcade manufacturers to destroy
00:39:47
Speaker
the machines. Wow. To the best of the arcade community's knowledge, there are zero remaining Sonic Blast Man cabinets in the United States, but it is my dream. I know there's got to be one or two out there. It's my dream one day to like, I would mortgage my house. Didn't you say it's a Japanese company? Yeah.
00:40:13
Speaker
you have a japanese band coming yeah are they arcade nerds so the thing is here's the thing right there there are there are sonic blastmans in japan it's a very popular arcade game and and there's like sonic blastman 2 sonic blastman 3 sonic blastman x the new sonic what you know like i could i could order a japanese cabinet and have it shipped over the united states and own a sonic blastman but
00:40:40
Speaker
I want the American one. I want the one that doesn't exist. That's the one I want. That's my white whale. So if I were to ever find one of those, ever, I would not only would it absolutely make an appearance at Mad with Power Fest, probably surrounded by like a gold velvet rope, but
00:41:01
Speaker
This is for the double platinum sponsors. Exactly. That's my white wheel. That's the thing that I would sell all my possessions to own. It doesn't come with the boxing glove though. Wow. You know what? If I own it, I'll break my own vest. It's fine. If you find it, I will personally send you a pair of boxing gloves. Your glove's comped.
00:41:29
Speaker
So so yeah, I you know, we were I get to curate some of the some of the people who come I trust their judgment I'm like just bring a bunch of stuff. That's cool. Okay This year obviously is Mortal Kombat themed. So we're gonna be having at least a couple Mortal Kombat Cabinets coming We every year we have the the guy who played Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 2. Yes. I saw that
00:41:53
Speaker
I was gonna ask you that because out of context on your Instagram, I was just, what's going on here? They really love Mortal Kombat. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
00:42:04
Speaker
But so he's coming again this year. He comes every year. A great friend of ours, his name is Dr. Philippon. He's a really awesome dude. We've hung out with him quite a lot. And this year, I'm going to try to get all of the rest of the Mortal Kombat actors. So the guy who played Scorpion and Johnny Cage and Kano and Raiden and Liu Kang, I'm going to try to get all of them. If you get the guy who played Jax, I'm going to lose it.
00:42:34
Speaker
Oh, I know him. Oh, my God. He signed my poster, like my Mortal Kombat poster back there. Signed by Jax. Yeah, I know him. He lives in Chicago. He's a cool guy.
00:42:45
Speaker
That's not even that long of a drive, comparatively. Yeah. Jax is the easy guy to get. The harder guys to get are Liu Kang's kind of hard to get, Melina Katana from like Ultimate World Combat. She can be a little hard to get. But yeah, I think I'm 99% sure I can get Kung Lao, Scorpion, Johnny Cage, and Shang Tsung.
Embracing Local Identity
00:43:13
Speaker
It's hard to get the guy who played Kentaro because like the animator has to move him like every fourth of a second. But we'll just have to we'll have to get some like claymation dolls. Yeah, like claymation. Could you get all the sonias and have them fight? Man. Yeah. So, you know, I'm working on that. If bare minimum Shang Tsung will be there again. That's that's amazing. That's amazing. Oh, my God.
00:43:43
Speaker
That's his like, well, if everything else goes wrong, we'll just have Shang Tsung. Yep. Wow. That's wow. I, I, I did have Lords of the Trident questions, but I don't think we'll even get to it. We might have to schedule another interview here.
00:44:06
Speaker
I do have some questions about the festival itself. I disavow prior knowledge of anything you're about to say.
00:44:19
Speaker
You might not know this, Spang, but we're not just a heavy metal podcast, but we're the world's preeminent heavy metal flag podcast. Oh, I see where you're going with this. Now, I don't. Some might say the flag of Madison, Wisconsin is challenging to incorporate into a metal festival with its prominent role of a periwinkle blue. Can you talk about that decision process
00:44:47
Speaker
Does it just come from like civic pride? I mean, there are elements, there are elements of the flag that are pretty metal. But I would say, if you showed me this flag and say, make a metal, power metal festival logo out of this, I might turn down the jobs. So if you could talk a bit about that. I mean, look, as far as the vexical logical side of Madison's flag,
00:45:14
Speaker
If we're talking about that, it's a pretty fucking good flag. It is a quite good flag. Comparatively to Wisconsin's bullshit flag. It's a damn good flag. And so where that all came from, right, is I was a fan of Madison's flag. My neighbor, right next door to me, is flying and has flown for many, many years, a Madison flag in the pole in his yard.
00:45:44
Speaker
And so when the time came to design a logo for mad with power, madness and with power, I'm like, well, I want it to be some sort of a crest of some kind. What do I put in the center of the crest? Oh, well, I could just take the center of the Madison flag and kind of
00:46:05
Speaker
because that's kind of crusty that kind of like fits in there. You know, it is a great logo, actually. Yeah. And then and then like the rest of it. Yeah, you just I just took the flag and slapped it in there. And that's the fun part is like,
00:46:21
Speaker
There are very few Madisonians who actually know what our flag looks like. Oh, wow. I would say if I had to throw out a random guess, I would say less than 30% of the general community has a general idea of what that flag looks like. So I always get the question every year of like, what is with the logo? What are the colors? And then I get to say, like, did you know?
00:46:51
Speaker
And I get to flex my nerd cred a little bit. Oh, nice. And everybody's like, no way. And then they find out that the Madison's actually kicks a lot of ass. Yeah. And they're like, oh, hell yeah. Go Madison. Fuck yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
We need to do city flags still. So we have rated the quality and metalness of all the United States state flags. Yeah. We gave Wisconsin's flag a quality score of three point three three out of 10. It's so bad. It's like four for the middle of the state on the fucking flag. Come on. You know, there's there's another there's another state nearby that tried to get a better flag and failed miserably. So you could you could do worse. I know. I know.
00:47:36
Speaker
I know. Well, now I'm wondering how metal your sports teams are, because that is another thing we do here and podcast them down. We go through how metal every team in a league is. And I see the Wisconsin Badgers. It's not Badgers might be metal. You know, we're going to have to think about this and get back to you. Have you ever met a Badger?
00:48:06
Speaker
There's a reason there's a reason that whole like, you know, honey badger ain't nothing to fuck with me was a meme badgers are Really badgers can be really fucking aggressive and mean and terrible and extremely metal They badges will fuck you up real black like real bad in real life if you mess up
00:48:28
Speaker
them. Sounds pretty metal. I remember being a kid and watching like some cartoon of the wind in the willows where they go to Mr. Badger's house and then later I was reading about Badgers and that story changed a lot. Oh yeah. And I was slightly horrified. Oh yeah.
00:48:43
Speaker
Now, Badgers are relative. I would say they're relatively mental. Maybe not the most mental animal out there, but they are aggressive and strong and mean, and you don't want to accidentally put your face in a badger den or arm or leg or whatever.
Unique Festival Activities
00:49:00
Speaker
That would be bad news. If we're going to talk shit on a Madison team, I think the easier target, obviously, is the Madison Mallards.
00:49:12
Speaker
is. Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. Unless you want to make a joke about like corkscrew penises, they're not very metal at all. You know, while we're on the subject of medicine, I did find the subject of course. Well, also, maybe I didn't read your guide to medicine. So thanks. Guide to Madison, Wisconsin. I can give you my guide to Madison, Wisconsin. Okay.
00:49:42
Speaker
We were driving to Minneapolis to play the Sword Metal Festival, I think it was. And we stopped in Madison and went to Culver's and it was delicious. That's my entire guide to Madison. It was on the way. You just fire a regional fast food chain. Very good. And then I went to Culver's in Austin, Texas, and I was just confused. Yeah.
00:50:11
Speaker
That's too hot to be soaking things in butter. You need a much colder climate for that to work. There's farmer's market metal cheese massacre Saturday morning. What? Yep. Yeah. There's.
00:50:27
Speaker
I don't even want to go through this thing. Vintage brewing, fast, young blood, brewery, old sugar, distillery, IO, arcade, Essenhaus. So a lot of people, right, when you come, one of the things, one of the pieces of bad festival things that I was trying to fix with this is
00:50:49
Speaker
you know let's say you go down to i don't know we'll say prog power as an example right and it's in atlanta i've never been to atlanta maybe i'm coming to atlanta for the first time i don't know anything about atlanta i don't know any of the local places that are good to eat i don't know any of the places that locals would recommend or say like stay away from or whatever and none of them are in midtown
00:51:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And also, like, you know, there, there is time between the two days, the three days, the four days of the festival. And, you know, maybe I want to sleep, but maybe I want to go do something, maybe want to check out the city. And so with these festivals, you sort of left your own devices, especially if you're alone, especially if you're not with a group.
00:51:35
Speaker
And if you've never been to a city before, you can kind of sort of look up, oh, what are cool things to do in this city on Google? But it's always better when somebody who lives there tells you what's cool and what's not, or what they like and what they don't. And so what I did with this fangs guide to Madison, as I said, OK, here's a bunch of places to eat that I really like and have my seal of approval and are within walking distance of the venue and the fest.
00:52:02
Speaker
Here's a bunch of places to drink. Here's a bunch of things that you can go and do and see, which are also in the area of the festival, which are either cheap or free. Most of the things are free. We've got a wonderful art gallery. We've got a free zoo. We've got a wonderful gardens. I mean, there's just all sorts of stuff to do.
00:52:22
Speaker
And then in the spirit of community building, in the spirit of getting people together for social events to try to make friends and build the community, there's a bunch of additional fest related activities that we have in this Fangs Guide to Madison. So for example, our pre-party on Thursday night, we do at a local arcade, and it is literally just like,
00:52:46
Speaker
show up, play some arcade games, meet people, have some fun, have some drinks. You know, we might have a few things, a few events happening, but it's not going to be anything super big.
00:52:56
Speaker
But the cool thing is, is like almost all the bands get in a day early. And so you never know who might be showing up to the arcade. You know, is Brittany Slays from Unleash Yours just going to be showing up and buying you a drink? Is the guy from Anthem going to be over here, like, you know, trying to talk in English to you? Like what's going on? Like what's going to be happening? You know, so if you want to guarantee possible meet and greets, you're going to want to check out the VIP package. Of course, of course.
00:53:26
Speaker
But, you know, if you want a secret meet and greet, you go to the pre-party. And then, of course, the metal cheese curd massacre flash mob is easily one of my favorite things. Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say that? I might have had a mini stroke. What did you just say? Metal cheese curd massacre flash mob.
00:53:44
Speaker
Okay, that's what I thought you said. All right. For what we do, the festival's on Friday and Saturday. The festival is about half a mile-ish from the state capitol, and every Saturday in the summer around the state capitol is the United States' second biggest farmer's market.
00:54:07
Speaker
and what is Wisconsin known for if not cheese curds right and and and let me tell you there are just like there are people who've never been to Wisconsin or never been to Madison there are a lot of people who come to the festival and have never had fresh
00:54:25
Speaker
cheese curds like cheese curds made that day you know they go into a they they buy false metal cheese curds they'll walk into like a gas station and they'll get these fucking congealed bags of bullshit and they'll be like oh i ate cheese curds i ate those are not cheap they listen if it ain't squeaking
00:54:44
Speaker
you did not eat cheese curds if you could if you can't like freely move them with your hands then they are not cheese curds um so what we knew is we tell everybody okay get your most get your battle jackets on put your most metal t-shirt on grab your boombox blast and blind guardian meet
00:55:03
Speaker
at the top of state street right where the farmers market starts at eleven thirty bring cash and we're going to have like three hundred metal heads descend on the farmers market with all the people in the strollers all the people buying vegetables all the sort of stuff and the main goal is we are going to sell out
00:55:21
Speaker
all of the cheese curds we're gonna walk on the farmer's market and we're gonna destroy the cheese curds stands we're going to make sure that they go home empty of cheese we're gonna get ready we're gonna give us give them all of our money i'm gonna take all of their cheese and the cool thing is that the farmer's market now knows that this happens every year but i still don't know when so this is like random weekend.
00:55:47
Speaker
when like 300 metalheads descend on the farmer's market and they don't know why either. They just know the metal people are coming and they want cheese curds. That's all they know. So it's amazing.
00:55:59
Speaker
This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard about. And this is a side event. That's a side event. This isn't even the main attraction. Yep. Yeah. That's why Matt is power is fun, you know, because we do this kind of shit. So, so yeah, we, um, we, we, last year we just demolished, demolished the cheese curds. Um, and then after, after we successfully buy all the cheese at the farmer's market, which by the way, since it's the second biggest farmer's market in the United States, that's a lot of cheese, a lot of cheese. That's a lot of, you know,
00:56:28
Speaker
possibly, you know, thousands, maybe tens of thousand dollars worth of cheese that we go through. Once everybody is chock full of cheese, we take them on a little guided tour of the Capitol building because the Capitol building is wide open and I just bring a bullhorn and I walk
00:56:44
Speaker
them through the Capitol and show them some, oh, here's some cool historical things. Here's some things about our monuments and history. We take them up to the observation deck where they can look out all across the city. It's a really fun time. And it's a really great way for community building. Wow. I can't help myself. We live in Maryland, which is very close to a Capitol building that some people think is open. Oh, yeah.
00:57:21
Speaker
There's no, there's no farmer's market there despite reports. Oh man. Let me, I gotta, I gotta refill my beer. Give me, give me 20 seconds. Sure. I'll take this opportunity to do the same thing.
00:57:40
Speaker
Hi, everybody on the podcast. They both left, but I'm still here, Matt. And so, you know...
00:57:48
Speaker
This will probably be cut, but if it's not, I'd like to remind you that if you're not a patron, you're missing the most amazing semi-annual content that Podcasting Down provides. If you like stuff coming out occasionally of good-ish quality, you should join the Patreon. Oh, and there's a beer. That's another thing we do on this podcast. Chocolate mousse pastry style. That is amazing. Oh, yeah.
00:58:16
Speaker
Untitled art is a local brewery here in Madison. They make some of my favorite beers. This one's only eight percent So this is gonna be a kind of a sessioner But yeah You're talking about patreon. He shows the beer. No one's gonna mention that fangs extra Metal beer club early access videos
00:58:39
Speaker
Fang, if you're not on the payroll of the Madison Tourism Board, they are fucking up. You know, it's funny, every year I email them and I say, hey, I'd love to work together with you guys and it's just radio silence.
00:58:57
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I legitimately I've gotten the feedback from people before. They're like, why do you do it in Madison, man? Why can't you do it in like Chicago or someplace? It's easier to get to or like a major city with like a train station or something like that. And it's like, well, sorry that I live here.
00:59:22
Speaker
First of all, fuck you. But second of all, I legitimately really love my city. I do. I think Madison, Wisconsin is a wonderful, amazing city that's
00:59:38
Speaker
run by a lot of really great people. I love a lot of the people in our local government. They do a lot of really good things. There's a lot of really wonderful art programs and biking programs and just like really cool progressive sort of city-wide policies that are put into place. Madison is a huge, a lot of people don't know Madison is a huge hub
01:00:01
Speaker
for music. We've got the biggest or perhaps second biggest music publishing company is in Ministon, Broad Jam. Frank Productions, who owns the Sylvie, the place that we put Madis Powerfest on, they are logistics and touring company that works for Metallica. They're Metallica's touring company.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah. They put on some of the biggest festivals, the biggest tours in the entire country, and they're located here in Madison. There's at least 10 or 12 giant companies that are related to music that live in Madison that I can talk about, Sonic Foundry, Broad Jam. The list goes on and on and on. So a lot of people are like, what is Madison? It's like, dude, Madison is a huge music community.
01:00:52
Speaker
Uh, sorry, you didn't get the memo, but like i'm trying to like let people know that this city actually rules not only that wisconsin in general beer Amazing fucking great some of the best beers Uh, some of the best microbreweries, uh in in the world. I think are in our state. Um, some of the best cheese I mean, you know and I mean god just it's it is wisconsin kind of fucking rules. I don't know like especially madison. So Sorry, sorry. I made you come to a very fun place and enjoy yourself
01:01:22
Speaker
Sorry, I brought you to a place that's amazing.
Enhancing Fan Experience
01:01:28
Speaker
Sorry, I offended you with my friendship. We've had a lot of fun, but now I do have a serious question for you. And this might be a difficult question to ask, but we've gone through a lot of the expense, a lot of the difficulty
01:01:51
Speaker
Why not just have these machines on quarter play? Why are you putting all this revenue that you could reinvest back in the festival? Just why are you leaving it on the table? Because that is not in the spirit of user friendliness. Fair enough. Fair enough.
01:02:11
Speaker
My MO with running this festival is no bullshit or as little bullshit as humanly possible. As far as I'm aware, we are the first festival in the United States to take on Ticketmaster and win and say we are going to wrap up
01:02:33
Speaker
all of our ticketing fees into the price of the ticket. And so you are going to like the price that we show on the website is the price. It's going to be a checkout that wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on to repeat the price listed on the website. I was just at a show last night or two nights ago. And I can tell you the price on the website was not the price I paid by a significant amount. And would you hate that?
01:03:02
Speaker
And that, my friend, is bullshit. And that is what I strive to eliminate at Madis Powerfest. So I walked in and sat down with the reps of Ticketmaster.
01:03:19
Speaker
because frank productions is part of ticket master and so we got we had an opportunity to talk with them directly and we said look you know we're not charging extra fees we're not charging any of these convenience fees service fees bullshit fees whatever um i what i need you to do is i need you to wrap all that up into the price of the ticket so that if i say that the ticket is a hundred dollars when you get to check out it's a hundred dollars plus like you know a
01:03:47
Speaker
85 cents of local tax or whatever, right? But it's gonna be plus or minus a dollar, $100. It's not gonna be plus or minus $30, you know, or $50 or some shit like that because of extra service fees. Now, I lose a lot of money.
01:04:04
Speaker
I lose a lot of money doing that. Which is why I'm saying it, just turn over. Quarter play. Quarter play. But the thing is, it's like, A, do we want people walking around the festival in a mosh pit with like quarters in their pocket, like flying out? I do. Okay, I guess. Do you want the people who are playing on stage getting pelted with quarters by drunken people throwing them from their pockets?
01:04:34
Speaker
Only if they suck. I didn't think about the quarters in the pockets thing. And I should know, but so in a different life, in a different time, I was once on the organizing committee for the Dalai Lama's visit to Washington DC. Oh, cool. At the Capitol, at the Verizon Center, it's now the Capital One Arena. And we were giving everyone as part of this thing a little piece of grass.
01:05:00
Speaker
uh 13 000 people uh and it was a it was a cluster fuck it was a disaster and i had the um manager of the verizon center you know 13 000 person arena yelling at me saying
01:05:20
Speaker
I have had Metallica concerts in this venue more orderly than that. He's had Metallica concerts in the 90s in that venue. No, no, no. He was yelling in my face. I've had Metallica concerts more orderly than that. And if you don't think I won't shut down the Dalai Lama, try me. So just thinking about people
01:05:45
Speaker
mashing with quarters. It's just brought back that memory. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're absolutely right. No, no coins. If you're coming to Mad City Power, believe your coins at home. It's free play for your safety. Yeah. If somebody really wants to invest back into the festival, I mean, the best way to do it is to buy a VIP ticket or to... Oh, wait. I have a, I have a bell for that. Hold on. Say that one more time. A VIP ticket.
01:06:14
Speaker
Get a VIP ticket. The Dalai Lama himself instructed you to get a VIP ticket with that wonderful chime bowler. You know, one of the places he's been many a time is Madison. So it's funny you mention that.
Patreon’s Role in Festival Success
01:06:30
Speaker
My day job is that I work for the Center for Healthy Minds.
01:06:34
Speaker
Oh, cool. Yeah, we study mindfulness meditation, so we take Buddhist monks, we stick them in MRI scanners, we tell them to meditate, and then we do science papers on how their brain changes when they meditate. And so every time the Dalai Lama comes to Madison, he comes because of us. We do like a yearly thing. I've had an opportunity to meet him a few times, and he is hilarious. That dude could be a comedian. He's so funny.
01:06:57
Speaker
So now it's time we're going to go up to the festival and then we're going to go to the Center for Healthy Minds. It's going to be the best week of our life. I have bad news.
01:07:08
Speaker
sponsor vip tickets sold out yeah not only that but um the platinum vip tickets sold out gold vip tickets sold out no silver vip tickets still available available we still have a little as of recording we still have a few uh a handful i would say um the so yeah the um
01:07:30
Speaker
One of the nice things about building a festival in a community sort of aspect is that people get really jazzed about coming back every year and about supporting the bands that we bring. And I'm very, very lucky to have the wonderful people, the wonderful fans, the wonderful support that we do for this festival and for just Lords of the Trident in general. And this year,
01:07:56
Speaker
This year, we sold out of all VIP tickets in 20 minutes. Last year, it took an hour to sell out of all the VIP tickets, but that was only because the website crashed eight times.
01:08:14
Speaker
Well, you're going to be sold out 20 minutes before they go on sale next year. Yeah. So, you know, I, and I try to, I try to tell people this, you know, I, I try to like jam this into people's brains. Um, you know, if you want to get a VIP ticket, if you want the extras, if you want to get seating,
01:08:32
Speaker
right? And you want all of the extra kind of cool stuff that comes with the VIP packages. You got to get on the Patreon, you got to be there for the ticket drop. Because those tickets go really, really, really fast. In this case, 20 minutes. I feel like we can
01:08:50
Speaker
We moved over to a newer server farm. We had to spin up about 60 child servers to deal with the load of all the people. There were about three, 400 people trying to buy tickets all at the same time. And the good news is this is the first year that our website did not crash at all. So that was good. But I think next year, if we can preload the site, we could probably sell out in like 10 minutes instead of 20.
01:09:18
Speaker
Nice. Wow. I'm telling you, I mentioned the Patreon. I should mention there is a digital high five level that's only a dollar. OK. Yeah. That will get you access to this as well as the aforementioned Metal Beer Club and Discord. Like this is the whole subject we need to do on another episode.
01:09:40
Speaker
Yeah. Since Madness Power began, we never had ticketing fees. Never. For the first five years of the festival, we built our own ticketing system so that we didn't have to charge any ticketing fees to anybody at all. It was only when we had to move into the Silvie because we moved up to the biggest venue in the city, and the Silvie was linked with Ticketmaster. We couldn't get out of that.
01:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, so that's what I was wondering. It's very hard to find a large venue that is not affiliated with Ticketmaster because they have the monopoly and that's their whole strategy. And we were, honestly, we were grandfathered in to the venue that we were using for many, many years in terms of not using Ticketmaster. They had been on Ticketmaster for many years, but they made an exception for us. When we moved to the bigger venue, they said, all right, sorry, exceptions over. You got to use Ticketmaster now.
01:10:37
Speaker
We never charge ticketing fees ever, and we still don't. Ticketmaster takes a gigantic chunk of everything. They take roughly about 24% of every sale goes to them instead of us. We only get about 75% of the total ticket cost of everything that people buy. It's actually higher than I expected.
01:11:03
Speaker
Yes. But the way that we can do that, the way that we can offer that, the way that we can kind of eat that cost and pass the convenience on to everybody else is because we are the number one most supported independent power metal band on Patreon. And so what we do is we say, look, you don't have to be on the Patreon to buy tickets. But if you want to get a VIP ticket,
01:11:29
Speaker
Pretty much your only chance cuz they sell out in 10 to 20 minutes pretty much your only chance is to get on the patreon and You can get on the patreon at a dollar you can sign up for a dollar And you can you can you can cancel right away if you want that's totally fine We understand that a lot of people are gonna do that But you know yes, so
01:11:49
Speaker
You can think of it as a dollar fee to get the pre-order. If you want, and again, you can wait. You don't have to get a VIP ticket. You don't have to join the Patreon. It's all optional. But if you were going to go to a regular fest, you would be paying at least $12 in ticketing fees.
01:12:09
Speaker
Probably more like $20 to $30 in ticketing fees. If you jump on our Patreon at $1 a month, that's $12 a year. That's essentially nothing for a lot of people. $12 a month is not much for a lot of people. Some people it is, a lot of people it's not.
01:12:27
Speaker
And those $12 goes to support not only the band, but the festival in general. If we didn't have the backing of the Patreon, we wouldn't be able to put on Mad with PowerFest because we essentially can look at the Patreon and say, okay, we're bringing in $3,500 a month. So if the festival explodes, catches on fire, everybody dies and nobody comes,
01:12:52
Speaker
I will be in a very, very bad position, but over the course of the next three years, I will be able to pay off the reverse mortgage on my house and settle out of court all of the fire damage fees and all that sort of stuff, because we have this money rolling in month to month. And if the festival is a success, we're going to take that $12, and we're going to make a bunch of cool stuff for free with it that we're sending out to all the people on the Patreon anyway. So it's worth the dollar a month, I think.
01:13:24
Speaker
man that's that that that is i mean i'm i'm but what was that again what's that picture the best the best and most muddled patreon on the on the internet uh not only do you get access to mad with powerfist you also get uh wonderful early access to videos like fangs metal beer club and
01:13:48
Speaker
Power Metal Opera Battles and Power Converter and the Tridentcast and access to all sorts of... Oh, if you sign up at the $5 level, you get access to our Patreon vault. That includes high-quality, lossless downloads. Wave. Wave? Wave? Wave. Wave. Now you're speaking his language.
01:14:17
Speaker
Every album that we've released since we've been on the Patreon, every single that we've released since we've been on the Patreon, all of our live shows, pretty much most of the entire show is mixed mastered. So we have bootlegs from pretty much every show we've ever played in full lossless quality, fully mixed, fully mastered that you can have. Would you consider or ever call those official bootlegs? I have, yeah, I have, yeah. I feel vindicated.
01:14:47
Speaker
Burning Shadow's official bootlegs!
01:14:51
Speaker
But we don't have everything. Lord of the Trident has everything. We only have the Germany shows. When you're beating, you're beating, I guess. Not only that, we also have a, we have a tablature vault that you can download. You can download pretty much all of our guitar and bass tablature at that $5 level. And I'll let you guys know this right now. You can, this is, this is a secret that I have only told
Future Goals and Sustainability
01:15:20
Speaker
The backers on the Patreon and a select few people on some of our live streams. But I'll tell you guys this right now. The 19 people are about to hear it too. Yeah. And the 19 people that are listening. So we have a new album that we've just finished. It's a new EP. It's a five-song EP. And what we're going to do is probably sometime in the next month or two, if I had to gaze into my crystal ball and give you a date, I would say late April, early May.
01:15:49
Speaker
At some date around that time we are going to suddenly drop the EP Unannounced out of the blue for the patreon backers and anybody at the $5 level at that time is going to get a full physical copy mailed to them of the brand new
01:16:12
Speaker
And not only that, we are not releasing the EP that you're gonna get in your mail, the full thing, for five months. So you're gonna be able to get it, and you're gonna be able to be like, nah nah nah, boo boo, you can't have this, only I can have it. We're gonna be trickle releasing song by song, one song per month.
01:16:31
Speaker
over the next five months. You're not going to be able to stream the full album. You're not going to be able to download the full album. You're not going to be able to buy the full album until those five months are up. Once the five months are up, you can do all that sort of stuff. But at any point during those five months, if you sign up to the Patreon, you get that full album for free. And our last four albums also for that same five bucks.
01:16:56
Speaker
This is not a good business move, but this is a good moral move. You should be subscribed to their Patreon.
01:17:05
Speaker
Absolutely. If you have money left, feel free to join the podcast and download Patreon. But if you have to make that decision, I understand. And frankly, I might make that one too. You got to do both. Do both. Do both. If you can. But if you have to choose, you know, we're not yet sending you physical podcasts to your mailing address.
01:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, we can. Oh, we could totally do that. Although if you join at the $100 level, we will do a podcast from your house. Yeah, it would have to be the $100 level. Potentially on a weekly basis. As long as it's not in Madison, because $100 isn't going to cover commuting to and from Madison. You have to be in the greater DC Baltimore area. People in Fredericksburg need not apply.
01:17:55
Speaker
And I'm not crossing, I'm not crossing a river, so no Virginians can apply. Okay, but what if they live in Ashburn and we can go across Point of Rocks? We'll meet at Point of Rocks. We'll meet at Point of Rocks. All right, is it fair enough? We'll record on the Bullsville Fair.
01:18:14
Speaker
I like how you went hyper local. Yeah. All of a sudden I was like, I don't know what they're talking about. No one does. People from the counties talking about doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm sure my roommates don't know what I'm talking about at this point.
01:18:29
Speaker
But yeah, if you're interested in supporting the fest and supporting the band, the best thing to do is jump on the Patreon. That is where 90% of our yearly income comes from. And that is the money that we use to take chances and to do things like put on a major festival that becomes North America's largest power metal festival or do stupid things like, oh, we're going to tour Japan again. That's dumb. Don't do that. Or do that. Actually, I will say touring Japan is really fun.
01:18:58
Speaker
A band without that, the Patreon literally saved Lords of the Trident. We came back from our European tour in 2019. We came back $10,000 in debt from that tour.
01:19:17
Speaker
Burning Shadows did not come back that much in debt. Just a little bit. We weren't there as long, though. You guys are in advance, so you understand. You come back $10,000 in debt. If you don't have a regular income that you can look at and say, OK, this sucks, but in
01:19:40
Speaker
three or four or five months will be out of debt, then you're at each other's throats saying like, my credit cards too. Oh, you guys gotta give me some money. I don't have any money. Oh, we gave you all the money. The number one thing that breaks up relationships obviously is finances and all that sort of stuff.
01:19:57
Speaker
And I am 100% sure, 100% sure that if we did not have the support on Patreon and we came back $10,000 in debt from Europe, Lords of the Trident would have broken up over money issues. We would have been at each other's throats about money. We would have broken up. It would have been game over. There would never be a Mad with Power Fest, right? So the Patreon is the reason we're able to take these big dumb chances.
01:20:22
Speaker
and maybe go into a little bit of debt for the greater good, I suppose, or whatever. But yeah, it is the biggest thing that supports our weird, crazy endeavors. So if you guys want to join and grab a bunch of CDs and a bunch of music and a bunch of cool perks, patreon.com slash Words of the Trident, that's my plug, and I'm sticking to it. Amazing. Yeah, we're going to allow that. Yeah. Oh, that's a lot.
01:20:52
Speaker
That's also a good stopping point because I don't think we can go any further without a deep dive into Lords of the Trident, which would be another episode. That's good because I have a lot of investigative journalism questions about that, too. Well, that wraps it up. So until next time, Metal Nation, if you haven't joined the Patreon for either.
01:21:17
Speaker
Lords of the Trident or podcast them down. I was trying to decide which one to say first. You made the right choice. You made the right choice. Think about which one to say first. Go do it now. Right now. And if not, if not, we will not see you in Madison. Yeah. So there. So
01:21:45
Speaker
I totally missed the one media pass button. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We can apply to get a media pass. And instead of just making baseless demands when we're reading the promo, we should have actually looked at the website. But you know, that's not on us because we like to read promos without any preparation or research. So really, for the good of the... I completely understand. For the good of the...
01:22:12
Speaker
Also, please don't listen to that episode.