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Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media Interviews Brad Wilson from The Three Waiters
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Transcripts:
Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. On today’s show, we have Brad Wlilson, the general manager of The Three Waiters. Hi, Brad.
Brad Wilson: Hi. How is it going, Mike.
Mike McAllen: Very good. We got all our technical difficulties behind us now and we’ll full steam ahead.
[Laughter] [0:00:19]
Mike McAllen: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and the audience also?
Brad Wilson: Sure. My name is Brad Wilson and I have been working as a general manager of The Three Waiters since 2005. I have a really diverse background and I’ve done anything from sales to copyrighting to making clay for a ceramics company to …
Mike McAllen: Really?
Brad Wilson: Yes, yes. To teaching art. I was a graphic designer for a while so I have a very diverse background and when I was in my early 30s, I decided to go into something more stable, musical theatre.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Brad Wilson: I’m joking. And so then I started performing and I was performing in some Broadway tours and some regional theatre and [Indiscernible] [0:01:04] New York and that’s how I got to know the Three Waiters by simply answering an ad in an industry magazine where they were looking for talent and worked my way up through the company and now, I have a full time position with them as the general manager.
Mike McAllen: Wow. That’s pretty exciting. My sister was also an actress in musical theatre in New York for a long time. Just kind on a side note.
Brad Wilson: Oh, yes, cool
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes. She’s in it forever. Now – but now, she’s a mom. Anyway, so tell me a little bit more about the Three Waiters and also, you have another branch off from this. Correct?
Brad Wilson: Sure. Yes. With the Three Waiters, maybe well-known to some of your listeners, we have been around for a while. We began back in 1998. My bosses are Australian. They actually began in Sydney. There’s a somewhat of a connection to a – the first event they ever did was for Locklin [Phonetic] Murdoch, which is Rupert Murdoch’s son and it was just a one-off thing and it was very, very popular and they worked on the script and worked on the situation of the show and how it works. And they got to the point where it was at this point, arguably [Phonetic], the most successful corporate or private entertainment act in the world.
We’ve done over 8000 shows now and I think about 75 or 80 different countries the last I heard and we have – shortly after our Sydney office opened, we opened an office in London and then in 2000, we opened an office in the United States, originally in the West Coast and since, have moved our offices to New York and we’re in the Empire State Building right now and I’m looking at where the Statue of Liberty should be but it’s such a rainy, stinky day that I can’t actually see that far.
But – so we have a – you know, we have a, you know, great office here in the Empire State Building and we continue to work worldwide doing shows all over the place all the time and so yes, this – I mean we’ve performed for, you know, a wide variety of different kinds of groups. I mean primarily, we do corporate entertainment. The Three Waiters does but we also perform for private events, weddings. In fact, we performed at Rod Stewart’s wedding last year and I can tell you more about the show but that’s the history of the company in a nutshell.
Mike McAllen: So tell me how it works? How does the Three Waiters works?
Brad Wilson: Well, it’s – what it is basically is – it’s not a wacky waiter show and I think it’s important to emphasize. Everything that happens in our show could happen in real life and that’s why it’s believable and so, the things that bring our show into the minds of people as being a good thing is that it has, you know, really magnificent voices, terrific singers and it’s funny but it’s sophisticated humor. It’s not, you know, unsophisticated or only appropriate for certain kinds of audiences. We’ve done shows like I said for celebrities like Rod Stewart. We also performed for five different royal families and we had performed for truck drivers. Literally, one of our waiters actually made his entrance out of the cab of a truck at a truck driver’s convention.
And the reason it’s popular is because surprise element is always popular with the audience and the musical selections are a mixture of opera musical theatre and standards and even the opera numbers are really, really familiar but basically, here’s what happens. We appear at the event before the guests arrive. We do a sound check, get everything set up and then we assume the guys of waiters – actually at the wait staff. So we dress like them. We behave like them. If we’re at the Four Seasons, we behave according to Four Seasons standards. If, you know, we’re at a restaurant in New York City, we behave as they do. And then, during the evening, little things start to happen. At one point, the maitre d’, our maitre d’ stands up and makes a quick announcement. He goes – he then just goes asks, gets everyone’s attention. He goes, “[Indiscernible] [0:04:42]. I’m the assistant banquet captain.” He goes on to make an announcement. It sounds pretty legitimate and then a little bit later, he goes back up and he says, “Excuse me, one more time, ladies and gentlemen. It’s Alfredo again. I’m sorry to interrupt you second time but – well, I want you to know we did find the owner of the lost handbag. It’s – everything is fine there but there is just one more thing [Indiscernible], if I could have your attention.” [sings] [0:05:09]
Now, I don’t know how that sounds over the phone but in real life it sounds pretty good. And the audience claps and he says, “[Indiscernible] I have to explain ladies and gentlemen the reason I sing for you is not spontaneous. I was asked to sing by,” and then he references someone in the audience and says someone, the president of the company perhaps gave him an incentive. They said, “If you go up there and sing a little bit just kind of liven up the evening, I’ll pay you $50,” or, “I’ll give you – or I’ll donate money to the building fund,” or something, some kind of incentive.
So the audience thinks that they have just witnessed kind of a singular occurrence, something interesting but, you know, certainly real. You know, that, you know, it just happened he’s a good singer. He goes back to work and nothing else happens for a while then once the people are eating their dinner and everything is kind of a low, quiet buzz in the room as everybody, you know, socialized as they eat their main course, the Frenchman gets up, clinks his glass, gets everyone’s attention. [Indiscernible] [0:06:03] then he goes on to say someone in the group there got the idea – got in the spirit of the evening and offered him double the money if he would sing a whole song. And so the audience thinks they’re making the wait staff do this because they’re in a crazy mood or they’re celebrating or whatever the case maybe and so from that, a show happens.
I obviously won’t perform the whole show because I don’t know how long your podcast is but …
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Brad Wilson: But generally, it involves the rivalry between the two guys. The audience gets involved. About 90 percent of the show is among the tables of the audience and all of the music members come naturally out of the situation. At some point in the show, the third waiter makes his entrance. He’s always an American or a Canadian or British, wherever we happened to be performing. He’s the hometown hero. He comes in and saves the day and so, the three of them engage then in a series of trios. It ends really, really big. The audience by that point has figured out it’s a show but we never tell them until the very, very end and that’s why it’s fun because they get to witness all this good music. It’s a very funny show but at the same time, they don’t really know if it’s a show until their own minds get wrapped around it and they figure it out.
And so, that’s basically what we do. It’s a fun, fun show. I love performing in it. We’ve done. I have performed hundreds and hundreds of them myself. I – you know, I play all the parts. Obviously, not all at once but, you know, I really enjoy it and it’s a great, great job. It’s a great company. It’s nice to come back on Monday morning and get all the voicemails and all the e-mails from all the clients who, you know, are telling it’s the best thing they’ve ever had and that kind of thing, which is always gratifying.
And, so that’s – that is the show in a nutshell, very big nutshell but a nutshell.
Mike McAllen: That’s fantastic. Yes, I’ve heard only great things from people when I told them just recently that, you know, that I was going to be interviewing you.
Brad Wilson: Oh, cool.
Mike McAllen: Oh, they’re fantastic so …
Brad Wilson: Yes.
Mike McAllen: And I was also reading a – it’s interesting. I read on your website this morning trying to do a little preparation was the weddings. It sounds like a great, fun thing too having the bride and groom kind of [Indiscernible] [0:08:11] of the wedding [Indiscernible] each other.
Brad Wilson: Weddings are probably my favorite thing to do as far as a private event. Well, the – maybe even more than corporate events in some ways because they’re such a happy occasion. They’re festive and people are all, you know …
Mike McAllen: In a good mood.
Brad Wilson: They’re for reasons – of good reasons but it’s really good for the bride and groom too. They’re performing really in many respects all day long. You know, they’re up on the pedestal. Everybody is looking at them. Everybody is asking the questions. They’re expected to act and behave and dress and look a certain way and while that’s – obviously, it’s their day and it’s very gratifying for it all to be about them. Sometimes, it’s nice to be able to let your hair down, put your feet up and relax a little bit and enjoy yourself and …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Brad Wilson: You know, if you have us at your reception, that’s exactly what happens. They can relax. It is – you know, have a good time and let the pressure be off them for just a little bit so they can recharge their batteries and then the – it’s kind of like a gift to their guest too. Their guest [Indiscernible] comes thousands of miles and it makes it a very memorable, special occasion. Obviously, we throw in things during the show, you know to – you know, to have fun with the bride and groom and have fun with their audience members and the guest and the family members and so forth. And so yes – we, the UK office particularly is – they just do so many weddings and I have always been jealous of them that we don’t do as many as they do. So any wedding planner is listening, I would love to beat the UK next year on weddings. [laughs]
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Brad Wilson: But we love doing them.
Mike McAllen: Yes. It sounds fantastic. I know that – I wish I had heard of you before when we got married.
Brad Wilson: Oh.
Mike McAllen: Because we had a huge wedding and we had – there’s a huge – well, not a huge wedding. We had a big wedding in the backyard and there was a pool in the middle of it and we had synchronized swimmers come out which was really great.
Brad Wilson: Oh my god.
Mike McAllen: We have the thing, which was – you know, everyone was all like kind of their mouths roll open. We were laughing because they were like – they were like, “What the hell is going on?” but …
Brad Wilson: Right.
Mike McAllen: To have added that too, you guys singing would have been just fantastic.
Brad Wilson: Yes. Weddings are truly, you know – I mean, they’re the best of all worlds as far as events in my opinion and because of the – you know, everybody there knows each other and they’re comfortable with each other and they’re enjoying the show of this company and so it makes a performance. As a performer, that kind of vibe is great, you know, to get back from them
Mike McAllen: So let me ask you, what kind of production goes behind it? What do you bring with you or what’s – is there …
Brad Wilson: Well …
Mike McAllen: There must be something that you must …
Brad Wilson: Yes, what we do basically is we have production writers based on the guest count and without obviously getting in super detail, it’s just enough support whether it be speakers, microphones and in some cases, lights and in staging that would give the audience of a certain size of the show that they deserve.
And so, what we do is when we go to contract with a client, we simply attach to that an AV writer which they can then take to various sound companies in there area or – and, you know, and ask them, you know, to bid on it or whatever process they want to do and so we let them do it locally. We perform – you know, we performed last year in I think 32 different states and so we don’t have a sound company that travels with us. That would be cost-prohibitive to the client. So we just let them source it locally. In many cases, we can recommend companies to them that we’ve worked with and have done a good job or companies we know to be fair in pricing but we do stay out of that. It’s just the three guys literally traveling to their event.
We’ve done the preparation beforehand with their – with the event planner, the wedding planner or the corporate contact we have. Our office plans with them, how the guys are going to get there, where they’re going to stay, what they’re going to wear so they look like the wait staff. So, all that is done ahead of time. The guys literally show up prepared and do their jobs and that’s it. We sing the [Indiscernible] [0:11:50] tracks. The guys bring a CD with them and the sound check is the time where they make sure that the AV writer has been fulfilled and everything works.
And so it’s really simple. What’s interesting – I’ll interject just because I’m afraid I’ll forget. The show does look simple. It’s just three guys and it starts off being very much, you know, just real events, you know, waiters and so forth that are working on staff. They don’t know it’s a show. I found the reactions I’m getting from clients particularly in this economy where people are talking about the perception of events being extravagant or overdone or whatever.
We’ve had people hiring us specifically because we don’t look overdone and, you know, we are also, you know, reasonably priced and just as memorable. I would argue as any headliner that they would hire but beyond the actual savings, the appearance of just three guys dressed as waiters, it’s this concept and the script and the talent of the guys that’s really the showcase and the thing that they remember. We don’t have anything exploding or people swinging from the rafters or anything like that. It’s not necessary. So it does make us attractive for, you know, clients that are maybe trying to not look like they’re breaking the bank on their event this year but they still want to have something that their audience will talk about for three or four, five years.
Mike McAllen: That’s a great point. I think that that – there probably is a big resurge of entertainment like yours.
Brad Wilson: I would hope, yes. I mean it’s …
Mike McAllen: You know, we’re all trying to get more stuff going on at these events.
Brad Wilson: Sure.
Mike McAllen: You’re saying the perception is – I mean, I have just recently lost [Indiscernible] [0:13:22] because of perception. It’s still. I mean, really silly because it’s going to cost them more money but the perception is what they’re going by.
Brad Wilson: Yes. In some cases, I have actually heard of people moving events from what was perceived as being a luxurious place to a less luxurious place but in so doing, they ended up doubling the cost of the event just because they were worried about PR.
Mike McAllen: Right.
Brad Wilson: And which is ironic because in reality, they’re spending more money on the even than they would have but …
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes, like some of these places that are built for that like Las Vegas, which is built for events but …
Brad Wilson: Yes.
Mike McAllen: … it’s perceived as now, you know, extravagant which …
Brad Wilson: Exactly. It’s a shame but, you know, I think …
Mike McAllen: But that’s great for you. I mean it’s good for you with this – maybe it’s going to work for you because that’s …
Brad Wilson: Yes. It is good and I mean, you know, all the – your production wise as well and other thing you keep in mind with us is – you know, we know the US is a huge country and not only just big. It’s just – there are so many major cities. There are so many places to do events. We actually have multiple teams of performers all around the country so that we are as local as we can be while maintaining the talent level that we think the clients deserve. Like for instance we have multiple teams in LA, you know, we could do I think three shows in LA at night if we needed to. We have multiple teams in New York City as well so those are our two biggest hubs. We also have a full team in San Francisco where you’re from. We have a full team in Vegas. We have a full team in Orlando. We will soon have a full team in Chicago and we just have one more guy we need to hire. The audition process is pretty rigorous so we don’t grow with the performers any faster than we can do and still maintain the show quality.
But, you might not have to fly a guy in if, you know – or at least maybe it would be a shorter distance than you would imagine because of what we’ve done to hire performers around the country and make them as close to you as possible.
Mike McAllen: Very cool, very cool. So do you have like a case study or something? You would like to share something?
Brad Wilson: Well, sure. I mean, you know, it’s – our show is really simple and it fits into an evening really easily so, you know, there’s not often a case where we have this massive drama on site where something crazy has happened but I’ll share with you just a couple of anecdotes. These are things that I’ve thought about as I was walking back to the office today from lunch. I hope my office staff isn’t listening because this story I’m going to tell right now, I have told 5000 times and they laugh at me when I tell it.
But we did an event once out on Long Island for Marriott Corporation and it was out at Marriott Hotel for Marriott managers or owners, big people within Marriott and that night, I was playing the Frenchman so during the cocktail hour and during the [Indiscernible] of meal, we pretend to work on staff and I tried to do things that keep me in front of people’s eyes so they see me. Nothing crazy like dropping something or tripping but more like doing my job, you know, in a way that they can see. So I went up to a table and I explained, you know, with my French accent what the wine list was that night and the wine pairings and so forth that we had selected for them and they – one lady in particular took an interest in me and started talking to me and asking my how I came to be in the States and why I was here and how long I planned on staying. And at one point she said, just kind of lowered her voice and she said, “Listen I probably shouldn’t do this but I’m really impressed by you.” She goes, “Would you consider relocating to Greenwich, Connecticut?” and she tried – she actually tried to hire me as, you know, to work on her staff.
So that, you know, fast forward to when I’m actually performing and singing and then of course by the end of the show, clearly I’m an actor and a singer and so, she was real – and she came up to me afterwards. She was hitting me and, you know, and this thing, “I can’t believe you did that to me. The whole table knows I tried to hire you.”
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Brad Wilson: So, you know, it’s – that’s what makes the show fun though is that we establish our real identities as wait staff, you know, in a way so that, that people can’t get their minds around what’s going on later when we turn into what we turn into. Another thing, just …
Mike McAllen: So, you didn’t take the job?
Brad Wilson: No.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Brad Wilson: No, I didn’t. It was funny though. She withdrew her offer but what – here’s the – and event planners can probably identify with this next one real quick. We did an event at Cipriani’s Wall Street. It was for [Indiscernible] [0:17:40]. I think – I don’t think they mind me saying that. It’s a very great charity, worldwide charity organization and they do a lot of great things and they attract major, major support and that night, George Bush, Sr. spoke and as politicians will often do, he went over time by about 10 minutes and the kind of clientele that was there was not the type to – you know, they had to leave at a certain time and the event planner started panicking that the evening was going to go long and they weren’t going to get the donation and so forth.
And they came to us and asked us what we could do and so on site, we actually cut the show down. What we did is we cut certain lines out of the script that weren’t narrative lines. In other words, they didn’t – they weren’t necessary to the story. They were more bits that were funny and interactive with the audience and we cut – and plus, we were very quick on the uptake of our cues and our lines. We cut almost 10 minutes off the show, not quite but they were obviously ecstatic, you know, and she has written a great testimony for us since and they want to have us back the next year and that kind of thing.
So, you know, we can be flexible. The guys are really, really good at what they do and that was, you know, a situation where we kind of saved it. The only last thing I would mention to you that might be memorable or interesting to a group would be the Three Tenors. The Three Waiters and the Three Tenors do have some staired, you know, repertoire and obviously we’re three guys that sing, you know, powerfully and have a lot of soaring high notes. A lot of our selections we perform in the show are things that the Three Tenors used to do. The last time that the Three Tenors performed, it was in 2003 in Bass, England. The promoters of them were aware of us and after the last concert was over, they had a dinner, a VIP dinner where the three tenors were obviously the guest of honor and notable people were there to eat dinner with them and they hired us to perform for them, the Three Tenors. The Three Waiters performed for them and we actually have – I’ve got. I’m looking at a picture right now of Luciano Pavarotti and Domingo and Carreras giving a standing ovation after the show and obviously huge, huge thing for us. It means a lot to us that we could, you know, please them enough that they would give us a standing O and …
Mike McAllen: Wow.
Brad Wilson: And so we don’t – I will name drop those guys quite often. It’s something that we’re very proud of. [laughs]
Mike McAllen: That’s a great story.
Brad Wilson: Yes, yes. So those are a couple of things that are – that I can remember and there are other things like that but, you know …
Mike McAllen: Those are fun, really fun.
Brad Wilson: Yes. It’s good. It’s good. You – with, you know – and when you’re an actor and you’re pretending to be someone else, it’s a whole different thing than being on stage because we’re on stage, people know that you’re not Mordred or King Arthur or whoever. They know that you’re somebody else. In this show, they don’t and so, you know – I – and, you know, I could – like I served, you know, hors d’oeuvres to James Gandolfini one time and I was playing the Frenchman and he was talking to me for actually an amazing amount of time considering I was just a waiter and, you know, I could go put on my resume that I have improv with James Gandolfini which is will be stretching the truth a little bit but it’s fun to think that you just – that you have convinced that you were somebody that you weren’t because he’s obviously a famous guy and …
Mike McAllen: Right, right.
Brad Wilson: And yes, so – you know, it’s a fun show for multiple reasons but these stories are just a few things that I think might be interesting to event planners or people in the events industry.
Mike McAllen: Yes. That’s so great.
Brad Wilson: Yes.
Mike McAllen: So how about some tips for the audience? Do you have anything like reasons why corporate entertainment is important for meetings and special events?
Brad Wilson: Okay. Well, you know, I mean, I’ll be honest with you. For me to say anything else than it’s extremely important would be, you know, you’re going to expect me to say that to somebody in the industry that does entertainment but I do really believe it’s true. And, for instance, you know, it’s – we – one client that I really love to work for and I probably shouldn’t say who they are because I didn’t ask their permission but they’re a major power company in the States and, you know, even though they’re regionally located, power companies can bid for big jobs all the time. And she – one of my favorite events I ever did was for her and we performed down in central South America in a Four Seasons on a golf green and it was just this pristine event. It was amazing and it was – I still think about that and I talked to her about it last year and she goes – you know, she goes – this is before the whole economy thing and she goes, “It’s events like that, that really make our company work.” She goes, you know, “We brought you guys down,” and we did this great show for them. We treated them like a million bucks. These were potential clients of theirs. We showed them, you know, that we cared about their business and she goes, “We won the contract,” and she goes, “I put not small credit to what you did.” In other aspects of what we did in the context of an event that seems to some to be luxurious meant millions and millions and millions of dollars to that company and to the state that company was located in.
So, you know, corporate entertainment can impress, you know, the potential clients that you’re entertaining if that’s what the event is all about. One of my favorite things I always mentioned is that entertainment at an event gives all the attendees something in common that they didn’t have in common before. This is especially important, I would say, if you have a group of people that don’t know each that well. Maybe it’s the top managers of regional locations of a company that have never been together in one place at one time so there’s going to be tension there. There might be some rivalry, just because of different offices there or whatever or it might be an association of people in the food industry that might be competitors but they’re all there because they’re in this association. And they don’t know each other.
So, when we get done with the show, they have experienced something together that – together as a group and then they – after the show obviously, they talk about it. They joke about how the one was guy was fooled and thought he was really a waiter or whatever and how beautiful the singing was and so forth. And all of a sudden, they have that one commonality that can carry over through the rest of the conference as far as – then they build on that, you know, then they have more things in common and then they discover that they have more things, you know, in common as the event goes on and it starts that ball rolling by giving them a common experience and I think entertainment in general can do that. It can reinforce the message. I mean the Three Waiters is a scripted show but we do customize certain parts of the show and certain lines to cater to the situation, particularly with fund raisers. You know, we’ll remind the audience why they’re there essentially with the things we say during the show and that can help reinforce the message.
Obviously, there are companies out there that create, you know, entertainment or, you know, mini-musicals that are, you know, scripted specifically for the client and obviously, that reinforces it. With us, we take a little bit more subtle approach. It doesn’t look as if they’re getting beaten over the head with a message but we can remind the audience of the purpose of why they’re there. And then, yes, you know, it’s – that’s a viable thing. Probably one way that we can be used or entertainment can be used is just to prepare an audience for a really long night. If you have got a night of awards, you know, a lot of people will roll their eyes when they think of going to awards nights. They’re important and they’re great but they can be long or long presentations or long speeches or so forth.
And, you know, having entertainment in there can energize an audience, can re-enthuse them. That’s not really a word but make them enthusiastic, I guess.
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes. No, that’s …
Brad Wilson: It’s super important to, you know – and that – I think that that’s an event staple obviously that that’s what, you know, a good event planner will do is try to keep that audience energized and engaged the whole night but, you know, I think entertainment can be a key component in that. Those are the things I can think off of my head.
Mike McAllen: Yes, those are fantastic.
Brad Wilson: Yes.
Mike McAllen: So, Brad tell the audience how they can get a hold of you to learn more or to book you guys …
Brad Wilson: Sure. Well, we – the Three Waiters has a website obviously to promote our show. It’s www.TheThreeWaiters.com. And you can reach us toll free at 1-877-827-3261. My name is Brad. You can e-mail me at Brad@TheThreeWaiters.com. Our company is actually called – when we answer the phone, we’re Mardar Entertainment. Because the Three Waiters has been so popular and we have done so many shows, we are often asked to come back and we do have alternate versions of the Three Waiters and we can come back. But we felt the need to come up with other shows that are equally strong in concept but are different so that we can come back and I just got back from doing one for [Indiscernible] [0:26:26] where we had done the Three Waiters a year before or two years before, I think. And we did one of our new shows. I didn’t have time to talk about it, probably I have used my time up but if you want to see an equally good show that involves surprise, and music and humor, that – literally been done one week after the Three Waiters for the same company. That’s how different it is.
It’s called Hypnotwist like hypnotist only you put a W in there so it’s H-Y-P-N-O-T-W-I-S-T, Hypnotwist.com. I won’t even get into what it is but you can look it up. It’s – I love it. I have performed in it. Often …
Mike McAllen: Well, give me a little …
Brad Wilson: Little …
Mike McAllen: We’re not in a hurry …
Brad Wilson: Little piece? Okay. Hypnotwist …
Mike McAllen: People can turn this off at their time.
Brad Wilson: Don’t turn it off.
[Crosstalk] [0:27:13]
[Laughter]
Brad Wilson: Alright. Well Hypnotwist is – the entertainer of the night is introduced by a VIP there. He comes on the stage and he’s actually an eastern European guy. They don’t know who he is and so comes on the stage and he’s introduced as being somebody that the CEO saw last year and really thought he was great. So he comes on to the stage, very mysterious. He goes into the audience and picks three volunteers, gets them on to the stage and he says, “A big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen for my three wonderful volunteers are about to be hypnotized.” And that’s a big deal. Obviously the audience is really like whoa. The people on stage are obviously a little nervous themselves. Now, two of the three people that he brings onto stage are actors. So, they’re complicit into the situation. They know what’s going on and they’re trained to do this show.
So what he does starts off very realistic. The things – if you’ve ever seen hypnotists on YouTube or on a TV show or something, you know, the things – they make people relax. They put them into a hypnotic state and they give them suggestions. You know, you’re on a tight rope. You’re scared you’re going to fall off or, you know, you think you’re Marilyn Monroe or whatever, things that people would expect. But it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows and before you know it, they’re doing full-on choreographed numbers. He has turned one guy into Tom Jones. He has turned the other two guys into the Bee Gees, you know, and it becomes – it’s off the wall funny because the audience – just like the Three Waiters, the think they’re seeing one thing but they’re seeing something else and they get to figure out on their own which is which.
Mike McAllen: But there’s a real person out there that’s really
Brad Wilson: Yes. And one of the people …
[Crosstalk] [0:28:50]
Brad Wilson: Yes, we do pick – we’ll – in fact, we can do up to two real audience members who can get involved in the show directly. Obviously, we interact with all the audience members. We’re off stage all the time going up to them and doing stuff with them but we do bring real audience members on the stage that helps the credibility of it and helps people, you know, think that what’s going on is legitimate. We plant the other guys in the audience and they’re really easy to do excuses, either new employees or guests of employees. It’s not that hard at all. But I love that show and it has been a great addition because the Three Waiters, you know, they share the common elements of surprise and humor and music but the surprise is coming from such a different angle. You would never ever associate them.
And, yes. And so, you know, the other act we have is called the String Angels and that is an electric violin group formed of female performers and it’s beautiful to watch. It’s beautiful to listen to. It’s electric violins with – I would say pumped up classical music, classical music brought into the 21st century. It’s very, very event planner friendly. We actually designed it to be that way before we went out looking for performers. So we have a multiple cast as well with that show and we let the event planner have a lot of latitude in how they use the String Angels. We’ve had to use them as opening numbers, in between awards or a whole four show and so, that obviously can be seen at TheStringAngels.com. So those two shows happen directly because of the popularity of the Three Waiters and people wanting us to come back. And so, you know, Hypnotwist and The Three Waiters are very similar in the concept. String Angels is a bit different but they – we all put a lot of thought into them and wanted to be event planner-friendly.
So, that’s – and all of our shows have agent-friendly websites, which if anybody wants to contact me, I can send to them. We have all agent-friendly materials, Web kits where people can go to a Web page. I send them all the information so I’ll pretty much do anything. I’ve even designed ads for people, you know, for free that wanted to do an ad in there area, promoting their – our show or promoting their representation of us. So, yes.
Mike McAllen: And so, you’re also on the Twitter.
Brad Wilson: Yes, I am. That’s how I met you.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Brad Wilson: I have the Twitter. Sounds like something George Bush would say. I – yes, I love it. This is the first social thing I’ve – social networking thing I’ve ever done. But yes, I am – IBradWilson. It’s like an iPod. I, the letter I and then Brad Wilson all mashed together and I’m not as interesting as you are and I’m not – but I try to be.
Mike McAllen: I don’t think I’m very interesting.
Brad Wilson: Oh, you are. At least you’re on Twitter.
Mike McAllen: Yes, [Inaudible] [0:31:31]
[Laughter] [0:31:32]
Brad Wilson: Yes, I do love it. It’s amazing. I know a lot of great people on there.
Mike McAllen: Yes, I’ve connected with family members and people on there that I haven’t talked to in years. It’s kind of fun.
Brad Wilson: That’s wild.
Mike McAllen: But anyway, thank you very much, Brad for being on the show and maybe we can check in later.
Brad Wilson: I hope so.
Mike McAllen: What else you guys are up to and you know, revisit what’s going on with you guys.
Brad Wilson: Well, yes, I would love to do that. I really, really enjoyed talking to you and then – and thanks a lot very much.
Mike McAllen: Alright. Thank you so much.
Brad Wilson: Alright.
Mike McAllen: Talk to you later. Bye.
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