Let's Talk UNLV

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Well, you're with Renee Watson on Let's Talk UNLV. We have an exciting guest, Mr. Eric Aldridge.

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Welcome Eric.

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Hey, what's up, Renee? How are you?

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Normally this podcast is ran by Keith and I but he bailed on me today, so I'm gonna take it easy on you Hopefully you'll do the same because I'm flying solo. I don't have my partner in crime, but welcome to let's talk UNLV Yes, yes excited to be here and

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You know talk about all that what happened this past week.

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All right, so we got a lot to talk about. So Eric Aldridge is the Vice President of Community Affairs for AEG. Aldridge currently is the Vice President. The foundation donates money to nonprofits that focus on sports, health and wellness, youth education, and the arts. And in between AEG and the Lakers, he has had stops with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Walt Disney Company, and the Boys and Girls Club. So we invited Eric to talk about Day in Vegas. So you've had a pretty busy weekend. Talk about Day in Vegas. Give us an overview. Well I

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think the first thing is I want to change the name from Day in Vegas to Days in Vegas. Days in Vegas is a three-day music experience, live music festival that takes place at the Las Vegas Fairgrounds. We've had it in the past, and obviously we missed it last year during the pandemic, but we layered a couple of new things onto this year's week-long activity zone. That's kind of what I'm here to talk about.

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Okay, so Days in Vegas as it's now being referred to started when and when did it end?

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So the Day in Vegas festival was November the 12th through November the 14th so Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the big headliner Friday was Kendrick. And then on my side of things, as the Vice President of Community Affairs for AEG, which is the parent company for AEG Presents and Golden Voice, which is the division that runs the Day in Vegas Festival, we put on a three-day community engagement, three days of community engagement activities for high school students in Clark County and of course the students at UNLV. Yes, let's talk

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about that. Tell us what was the reason for selecting UNLV. We're certainly not the only institution in Las Vegas, but you reached out to UNLV, you hooked up with Keith and I to tell us about this amazing opportunity, but what was it about UNLV that you wanted to present this opportunity to have a career exploration program for both high school students and UNLV students?

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Yeah, so, you know, when you go through this process of trying to figure out what you want to do in the various communities outside of just throwing a festival, as a company, we try to create some opportunities to give back, and a great way that we thought we could give back to that community was to get students who might be interested in careers in music and entertainment and all the things that are around a festival and get them close to those potential job opportunities. And so when we reached out, when we were doing our research, Dr. Rogers and yourself were very highly recommended by some UNLV alums that I knew. We reached out to help us organize this and connect with the students. That was our initial pathway.

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Now this is not a new partnership in that you work with local high schools and or other agencies to put this kind of program on. Talk about the history that you have in presenting these opportunities to different students and students particularly from an historically underrepresented

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community. Yeah so absolutely Renee I mean you know throughout our history at AG you know we're based in Los Angeles California and we're very fortunate to be able to throw fantastic live events like Day in Vegas, large-scale festivals like the BET experience at LA Live. We're the home of the Lakers, Clippers and the LA Kings. So what we try to do is use those events as a backdrop to engage young people. And through the years, we've had a variety of different programs primarily focused on income students, students who might not have access to these types of experiences, and quite frankly, might not know the pathways to these various job opportunities and career opportunities. So, you know, as we go and plan these things, it's not necessarily about, like, you know, who has the best GPA or the best test scores. I mean, we're looking for students who these types of experience would be life-changing in some cases, where, you know, they just don't have that access. So you know in reaching out to UNLV from the high school side they have a long storied history in the market especially with first-generation students and then on the campus you know the work that they do with all of the affinity groups or student organizations who represent people of color and all down the line. That's what we wanted to have, and I think that's what we got. So we're very happy with this first year partnership with UNLV.

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Yeah, so that fits very nicely with UNLV mission, and especially for the outreach for first-gen students, which we have so many. I don't know if you know this, but your program was highlighted during our first-gen week. So shout out to the intersection for doing a phenomenal program. So we wanted to weave that in during that special time. So let's kind of walk through the November 9th event that happened with the high school students. What did that look like?

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Yeah, so we started these three days of community activations with a high school engagement event that took place at Circus Circus. And the reason why we picked Circus Circus is the hotel that's adjacent to the Las Vegas Fairgrounds, basically the old RV park down below Circus Circus is where the festival takes place in that footprint. And so we brought the students there and you know high school students a lot of them you know just even talking about careers in your future a lot of times that's just new ground for them and so our goal was to get as many students as know they got to hear from our panelists and these panelists were made up of AET executives and then we had a couple special guests and they just took the students through you know what their career trajectory has been, of how they got to where they are, what they're working on in the future and the number one goal with the high school students is really just to inspire, right? Just to get them thinking about, you know, something more than just, you know, where they are in high school. And as they start to think about college and turn the corner towards that direction, it gives them a chance to think about, you know, potential majors and things like that, that, you know, kind of helps set the course for their career. So our panel, they were great and we were very happy to have our Vice President of Ticketing, Rhea Roberts Johnson. Rhea is the first African American woman to be a Vice President at Golden Voice, which is a division of AEG. We also had Jay Recreero, who's our Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. who is the president of Issa Rae's newly formed record label radio RAEDIO, a play on her name, Issa Rae. And so we were just very pleased to have such a strong industry panel to deliver it to the high school students. Wow.

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So I love that you said that this work is really just about inspiring. But we know that even with inspiring work, that comes at a cost and it comes with tremendous responsibility and planning. So talk about all of the ways that you had to put this together in working with the Center for Academic Education Outreach, Dr. Keith Rogers and team.

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Yeah. So, you know, we're still in a pandemic and working through those various protocols. Dr. Rogers and his team, they do such a fantastic job of connecting with the high schools and the students. Working through the timing of it all, making sure that they had food and were alert and ready to go. And I tell you what, I've done a lot of these programs through the years and I was just really impressed with the high school group from the standpoint that they're high school students, it's a long day for them. So they've already started their morning at school and now this is a late afternoon, evening session, but they were really motivated by the panelists. And I just think the overall ability for them to be tied into the Day in Vegas Festival. So when we wrapped up the panel, Kyle Casey, who is the festival director, kind of in charge of all the operations at the Day in Vegas Festival, took the students on a tour of the footprint. So they were the first people to see the stage set up and kind of the lay of the land before any artist or anyone from the public got a chance to see it. So they got a really special sneak peek into how it starts from the beginning all the way to what they saw, which was Sunday where they all got passes to attend the festival.

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And how did that go over? The passes for the festival?

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Well, you know, I wasn't able to catch up with them, you know? I think they were in their element with their friends and it's a very popular festival, primarily centered around hip-hop artists. And so, I mean, that's what Day in Vegas is known for and, you know, they have all the heavyweight hitters and, you know, and some folks that I don't know who they are but the trials do show up for them so I'm just gonna assume that they are big time. Right, right,

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right. Well I know Keith is not in the you know he's not with us right now but I'm sure he'd be grinning from ear to ear to know that the students were motivated and that they made a really good impression on AEG. So now let's kind of move to the college students. What happened there? You had a two-day exploration program to look at the music industry and possible careers. What happened there?

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Yeah, so with the college students, it was a little bit of a deeper dive. I mean, typically, you know, when we do this programming, it's generally targeted for high school students, generally, you know, juniors and seniors. But you know, this time around, just kind of based upon how everything was set up in the proximity of UNLV to the fairgrounds. We brainstormed, we said, you know, we're going to do, let's do something with the students at UNLV who might be interested in this field. So we created an application and so the students who were represented in the two-day program, they applied and they put their best foot forward. They were very intentional in making, taking the time to get the application in. And so we got 48 well-rounded college students from UNLV with a cross-section of majors. We had everything from students who wanted to produce, who want to work in hospitality, service, just all the special events. And so, just a wonderful cross-section of students. And the number one goal that we were trying to achieve with this group of students was not only to inspire but kind of take that next step. So, the sessions were based around meeting people who worked in the various industries. So someone like Danny Bell. Danny Bell is a talent buyer for AET and what a talent buyer is basically, in layman's terms, a promoter, but he is the person who booked all of the artists for Day in Vegas. So he worked with the agents and the management companies to get all those people there. So it was to inspire, it was to have them meet people like Danny Bell. And then, taking one step further, we did some speed mentoring, which students got to move around and not only hear from the executives with the company, but also some of our entry-level employees as well who were involved in everything from marketing to operations, social media, and just a variety of different elements within the company. So as they work through the first day and then into the second day, the second day of the panel was really focused on, okay, now you've heard what the jobs are, you know who some of the people are who work the jobs, now how do you actually get a job? And we really focused on hearing pathways to the various careers. So Joe Hadley, who is a agent for CAA who is the co-lead over their R&B and hip-hop and R&B touring group at CAA, obviously a global agency. They heard from Ellen Royce who is in the AEG HR department. Really like, okay, how do you actually get the jobs? How, where do you go to apply? How do you make the connections, et cetera? And then they got to tour the festival site, and it was more advanced than it was on Tuesday. So they really got to see what it was going to look like Friday night.

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Wow. I'm just so impressed with the cross-section of students that participated in this activity. who runs an area that student involvement activities is something we do all the time. We're always pleased to see that when we have a group that is so diverse with so many different interests and reasons for attending an event, to know that you captured that in two days is something that we strive for to do every day. And we always don't meet that mark, but to know that that was captured here is just so rich and good to know. So talk to us about the submissions. We know that they had to go through a process of creating some kind of statement, as well as some video to really explain why they were interested in this particular opportunity. What did you see and learn about our students from that perspective? Yeah, that's great.

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I mean, it's a tool that we use when we do these types of programs. We really want students, you know, who have a genuine interest. So the application, you know, it was, you know, overly long. It really did focus around a couple things. So one was just how has music impacted your life or inspired you? And then the second part was they were asked to upload a video that, you know, it was pretty open. You could show your talent, you could give your pitch on why you wanted to be in the program. And it gives our staff who's reviewing the application the chance to really get to know the students before we meet them in person. We find out where their interests lie, we find out where their passions are and the students took the questions a few different ways. I mean some of them talked about maybe their struggles over the last couple years and you know just trying to you know get their footing as a college student with everything that's going on. Some of them talked about some missed opportunities they felt like they've had in their lives just because of everything that was going on. So that really made us feel like this is even more important than we maybe initially thought. And then we were also just really inspired by the students who just talked about the impact that music has made on their life, whether it made them feel better, it helped them get through a tough spot in their life, or whatever the case may be. So we were just really impressed. The thing that I really loved was the report that I got back from you about how many students who, you know, they didn't quite make the deadline and they were clamoring to be a part of the program, you know, which is great because, you know, hopefully we have a chance to go back and do it this year. But it also gave me a speaking point for those students who did get everything in on time about their intentionality and presence and taking care of business. And I'm pretty sure walking away that we will have a few students that will be working day in Vegas Festival next year. And I would not be surprised if we have a couple of students join Golden Voice in some capacity. They were really impressive.

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So if you could maybe just go a little deeper. Can you maybe just think of one submission that really left a positive impression on you that came from the number of submissions that you received?

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Yeah, you know, I think there was one young lady who, you know, talked about, you know, how she followed the Day in Vegas Festival prior to applying and how she, you know, she knew who the artists were, she knew about the format of the festival, she attended the previous one I believe it was in 2019 and so she was just so well versed but she also expressed that she didn't know that this opportunity would be available and so when it came across her computer screen that this opportunity was available, I mean she said, you know, my eyes just lit up. She's like, this was perfect for me and you know just to know that how important just the creation of these types of opportunities are for a young person, you know, really makes me feel good. It really puts a lot of wind beneath my wings when you're starting from scratch and you're trying to create something and you're hopping through all the hurdles whether they're legal or you know timing or whatever the case may be and to

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know that you know that impact is there. So tell me you talked about number one goal was to inspire so how has your staff or yourself been inspired through

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this experience in partnership with UNLV? Well, you know, for me, every time I step out and do these things, it just always reminds me of how important connecting with people are. And probably more so than ever this year for all of us, whether it's the students or our staff, I've mentioned earlier in this conversation that this is something that we've just done on a regular basis through the years, but quite frankly we hadn't done anything really in person like this in almost two years. And so it just fortified how important these things are and for our staff, they just walked away very impressed, very grateful that they had the opportunity. The nice thing about these festivals for us is there's so many people that are on site working to make this festival fantastic and so for them to step away from their their real job right and volunteer their time to come over and share with the students it just shows the character of the people that work at our company as well as how much they care about young people and making sure that their industry has diversity, that their industry has people who can come in and carry the torch, so to speak. So yeah, I think all around it was just a really positive thing for everyone involved.

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I think you're so right. Exposure is so important. I just met with a student maybe just less than an hour before coming on here and we talked about how her choices this far have been really I guess led by what she has seen or not seen. And in this case she wants to look you know go into the you know political realm and she just you know began to reflect of how many times she has not seen black political female leaders in the role and how that has to some degree influenced how she may see herself going into that field. And so I think the same thing applies. And so the fact that you've provided this exposure and the different types of positions and had that honest conversation of how this business works is just amazing and I'm so glad our students were able to experience that. So let's talk about next steps because you said that you talked to our students about next steps. What is the next step for this partnership going forward? Well, first day in Vegas as a festival has

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really established itself as a go-to festival. I mean there are people that travel from all across the country to come in for that event. We get so many talented artists, the best of the best, like Kendrick Lamar and Tyler the Creator and Post Malone and Roddy Ricch, just to name a few, come in. But then you have all these up-and-coming artists who have their fan bases and you know how the music industry works. Like one moment they're on the stage and there's a hundred people just watching them at 3 p.m. and then the next thing you know a couple years later they're on the main stage and they have thousands of people watching them. So the business has really established itself. And then for us, establishing the partnerships that we have with UNLV both at the high school level and at the college level, I think for us it's something that we are committed to doing moving forward in some capacity. And then I think the other thing is that the students that participated, they're going to get a list of all the panelists so they can follow up with them. There's also going to be a survey that goes out to the students. And we're hopeful, again, that we will be able to find a few students out of the UNLV group that will ultimately either be working the festival next year or think about working at AEG Presents or AEG or Golden Voice as a career. So that is what's next and I'm excited for all those students. for them, we really spark something in them. Hopefully, as things continue to grow and things kind of get back to what we're used to, then this information that they have is going to help them moving forward.

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All right.

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Thank you. You heard it first from Eric Aldridge. Thank you so much for joining us. I tell you, I was so impressed with this planning and coordination. All these things came together within less than two months. And so it's a testament that we put the right people together who have the will to. You could accomplish so much. So glad for our students to have this exposure, this opportunity. And for all the students who didn't get a chance this time around, we hope to be able to offer this opportunity next year. So be ready, be prepared to submit your how you wish to be a part of this process so that we can have Eric and team review your application. And you know, it's also just good to have somebody in business that's just a good person. And I found Eric to just be a good person with follow through skills, commitment, and great communication. And when you have that kind of combination you just have a winning program. So congratulations to AEG for bringing this here, and we certainly look forward to the partnership next year. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Renee. Tune in next week Wednesday at 12 on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. That's a wrap. on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More.

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That's a wrap!

Transcribed with Cockatoo