The Modern Hotelier #104: Streamlining Live Music & Entertainment Booking for Hotels | with Mir Hwang
===

David Millili: Welcome to a special edition of The Modern Hotelier. We are coming to you from the Green Room at ILC Sausalito, California. Steve, who do we have on the program?
Steve Carran: David? Today we are joined by Mir Hwang. The CEO of GigFinesse. Thank you for joining us, Mir.
Mir Hwang: Dave. Thank you, Steve, for having 
Steve Carran: me. 
Yeah, so I'm interested in your story.
You were born in Korea, then moved to Vancouver, and then you grew up in Potomac, Maryland. How did that shape you into who you are today?
Mir Hwang: you know, I think I can kind of compare this like running a startup. We had to pivot a lot as a family, right? Um, moving around and having to find new friends and having to find new activities and new things that I could latch on to and kind 
of have it be my new identity, um, allowed me to honestly, I think be more flexible, of a human being in general, right?
Having to travel so much and having to like relocate so much. And I think it's also opened up, um, my viewpoints, uh, quite drastically, where I got to see and experience, you know, different cultures in a very unique way, uh, by having enough of a time to actually involve myself, right, within those communities.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. And West Coast, East Coast, totally 
different vibes.
Right. 
so
David Millili: And so, so you're a musician, so tell us what instruments do you play and what's your favorite instrument to play?
Mir Hwang: Ooh, so I, I would say my main instrument, um, is the drum. So I used to be a touring, uh, session drummer, um, and that's how I fell in love with the music business in a very traditional sense.
Um, sure we can get to that later, but my favorite instrument now as I get older, I think I'm falling more and more in love with string instruments. 
Steve Carran: Nice, very nice. So for those that might not be familiar, can you tell them a little bit more about GigFinesse,
Mir Hwang: Yeah, so GigFinesse, I always say we're a game changer for how hospitality venues and concepts Consume and book live entertainment. so think of us almost like a matchmaker, right? Where, you tell us your vision, your budget, exactly what you want and what you see and envision in terms of your live entertainment programming. And our technology streamlines the entire kind of back of house process.
And our team of basically expert curators go outsource those talents. And it's really as simple as, Clicking a button, and we make those live experiences and live entertainment happen. 
Steve Carran: That's 
David Millili: That's great. So how did you come up with the idea and what was the moment when you knew that you had to execute and, build this
company?
Mir Hwang: Totally. I, GigFinesse truly, I think, stemmed from my own pain points. as a musician and a touring session drummer, it didn't take me that long for me to realize how inefficient the talent booking side of the live music business was, right? To this day, still in 2024, if you're an independent musician or a hotel, there's so much unnecessary middlemen that currently exist, right?
You have to go through promoters, you have to go through agencies, sometimes you have to go through the general managers or the F&B directors. People are still processing 1099s manually by hand, right? Sometimes a lot of these larger organizations are having to wait net 30, net 60, to pay out a lot of these artists, down to COIs, insurances.
There's so many different layers, where my whole thesis was, this is really detracting away from what's really important, which is the experiences and the music and the entertainment itself. So how can we digitize and use technology to kind of democratize our process and streamline everything 
Steve Carran: That's awesome. Now, in your early days of starting GigFinesse, was there a challenge that came up where, very unexpected, where maybe you had to pivot or you learned from that challenge at 
Mir Hwang: soon. Bye. Bye. Bye. Some news I would say was kind of like, You know, baptism on fire, 
it was, we launched in the winter of 2019 in New York City. I had, you know, decided to forego med school and I had convinced my cousin to quit his job at Google, and we were both very optimistic about this.
We were like, hey, we're young, now's the time for us to take the leap of faith. We see this huge potential, so let's give it a shot. as you can imagine, right, it's very hard to build a live entertainment business, uh, when everything is completely shuttered and shut down. hindsight is 20 20, but I think for us, that's what really gave us a lot of resilience and I think the ability to really continuously pivot, and really run a lean but strong team where every single one of our members at that time, right, was really motivated and dedicated to, finding product market fit in a way that's very different from I think what was the norm in that time with tech companies.
I think. There was so much focus on grow at all costs, right, and let's just deploy all this capital that we had raised, uh, to find what works and what doesn't. We had to strategically, I think, define our parameters, um, and really go after customer verticals that really saw and resonated with our value proposition, which, you know, Turns out, right, was 
Steve Carran: I gotta ask, what was your parents reaction and your aunt and uncle's reaction when you convinced your cousin to quit his job at Google to go into 
business 
Mir Hwang: Um, so, 
you 
know, I 
always 
say my mom, um, you know, she almost didn't speak to me 
for a 
couple months. Right. Um, I still remember, right. Um, I was too scared to tell my mom this story.
So how my mom found out was, through my aunt, you know, when Ryan had decided to leave his job at Google and she was very excited and I guess she called my mom. Hey, you know, so great that our, you know, kids are getting together to do this, you know, venture together. Um, I remember waking up to seven missed calls.
For my mom, and I was like, oh my god, mom, like, so sorry, you know, deep in, you know, my chem, orgo lab, uh, what can I 
do? 
It's like, oh, nothing, you 
know, your aunt called, um, saying that Ryan just quit his job at Google, to work on this, you know, music company. What the hell is going on? And, there's a lot of, kind of, you know, pushback, definitely, um, I think, coming from more of a traditional, right, like, first generation, I would say, Asian American background, it's, This seems very scary for a lot of parents, I would say, uh, but fast forward to now, obviously here we are, right?
And, uh, we've been, now I think she's obviously very supportive. Both my parents are very supportive and, you know, it's been a long time coming, but 
you 
David Millili: know.
Steve Carran: That's awesome.
David Millili: So give us a little bit more insight. So how many hotels are you currently working with? And give us a little more detail around how you're helping them really become more efficient at, in the whole process.
Mir Hwang: Totally. So right now we're booking a little over, I would say, 14 to 1500 shows a month nationwide. Um, and we really work with a variety of types of clients, right? It could be hotels, restaurants, wineries. breweries, coffee shops, retirement communities, country clubs, you name it. And I always say we like to focus on like the long tail of the live entertainment business.
There's a lot of focus on like, you know, discovering or helping out the next Taylor Swift or the Drakes of the world. But when you actually take a step back, 99 percent of an average person consumes music in a very different way. It's not via stadium tours. It's really that Singer songwriter at the lobby bar, right?
It's the jazz band at the steakhouse or the DJ at the hotel rooftop. and we wanted to kind of really streamline that process. so hotels I think are a great example where now more than ever, um, I think we briefly talked about this before we started the interview where There is definitely a drastic shift in how people, especially I think the younger age, like my age or below, decide on which hotels to stay
at, 
right?
Hotels, I think, used to be a place to just check in. And check out. Now it's becoming more of a cultural hub. Um, I think it's where people want to hang out, right? And more than ever now, I think, especially coming out of the pandemic, the experiential side is becoming more and more crucial. I think for a lot of these brands to not only set themselves apart, but also attract new clientele and even local clientele. but to do so, it's been pretty difficult, I think, for a lot of these businesses to find an efficient way to go about sourcing these talents, right? We hear stories all the time where it's like, hey, we're using a local guy and he's connected to, you know, 15 of his friends. And it's the same people that we're seeing all the time, right? Or it could be a really well established place, but they have the same piano player coming in there for 30 
years, right? 
And maybe 
the guests want something new, um, or they don't have the time. You know, how hospitality industry is a general manager is working 80 hour, 90 hour weeks, and then corporate says, Hey, now you need to.
Start programming this place. He doesn't have the bandwidth to do so, right? Then it falls under like maybe the bartender's hands or the F& B director. So we wanted to basically make it as easy as possible for them to just tell us their vision. Hey, I think this would really work beautifully in our space. And then our team can go out and just execute
Steve Carran: and that leads up perfectly to my next question. How does GigFinesse help hoteliers in that creative process or planning process 
for a musical event? 
Mir Hwang: So I always say, we're as involved as you want us to be, right? So there are clients that reach out to us where they're like, we know exactly what we want.
our clientele are, Super luxury, they want this type of, 80s swing big band, right? So then we can be like, okay, perfect, that's exactly what we'll source and deliver to you. Sometimes it's more of a collaborative approach, right? So where they're like, hey, this is our budget. We're not sure what would work best, and we're not even sure whether or not it's going to yield positive, rev par, for a lot of these hotels.
So then we can actually look at holistically all the data that we have in that market where we can say, hey, actually it seems like singer songwriters with a backing band is going to be the best Cost effective way for you guys to book because you don't have the budget to maybe bring in a five piece band But it'll still give you guys that energy and also that's what seems to be doing well in let's say the Charlotte market so then we can actually make a little bit more of a strategic Suggestion rather than just saying let's just try let's just try DJs and see how it works, right?
So that's been also very 
Steve Carran: That's awesome. That's awesome. 
David Millili: Do you have any examples of when a hotel was in a bind and they came to you kind of one of those last minute things like, hey, we need some help. We need entertainment.
Mir Hwang: Yeah, 
I 
can 
think 
of a
few. 
so, actually, probably a 
ton, 
but 
the most recent example, um, the two that come to mind, one is, There's this general manager who was recently hired and they were rolling out, this whole kind of venture where, hey, we have to focus on live experiences and live entertainment.
And he was managing about six different properties, in, the Nashville Market And he was clueless. He's like, Oh my God. So we're working with all these different local promoters in every single hotel. Our payout structure is completely different. our 
accounting team is processing, You know, hundreds of 1099s a year individually, right, going out and paying out all these different artists.
Artists are complaining because they're still getting paid on net 30, net 60 terms, right? and they need that cash now. 
forget about even also marketing integration, right? Like how do we go and update the website? It's not just about having music, right? It's about how do we also tell our guests that We have these offerings, so I think he felt extremely overwhelmed, so he called us and he was like, guys, like, we don't have that much time, I need to figure this out.
in two weeks, and I heard about you guys, so is there anything you guys can do to kind of streamline this process? we were able to launch all of their venues in less than a week's time, turn around. got it up and running, right, integrated everything directly all to their websites. and he called us back and said, hey, you know, I just want you to know, I didn't tell my boss about GigFinesse.
Because I needed the credit, you know? 
David Millili: so 
Steve Carran: so there's two questions we're asking everybody that sits down with us. What do you think is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the independent 
space? 
Mir Hwang: Oof. I mean, I feel like it's ever changing, ever evolving, but like, in, being independent, I think I see this very similarly to musicians as well, right?
Like, being independent comes with, I think, a lot of positive benefits, but it's also more difficult than having, right, Um, so I think it's more and more important for independent venues to set themselves apart that much more so than what you would consider to be a little bit more of a cookie cutter scalable template, uh, that these larger, more resource heavy organizations might have.
Um, and I think the best way to do that is through guest experiences, right? Whether that be in the form of entertainment, or whether that be in the form of While I feel really appreciated checking into this hotel rather than a large, right, commercial hotel. so I think that's probably the biggest challenge, right, consistently.
How do you set yourself apart in an ever growing pool of, right, competition that keeps on 
Steve Carran: Great. 
David Millili: And what do you, so, again, another question we're asking everybody, where do you see the independent hospitality industry and what trends would you predict for 2025?
Mir Hwang: so, I think one, definitely what we discussed, more and more of an emphasis and move towards experiences.
I think that's going to be a must. I was on almost 146 flights last year, right? 
And 
you 
have 
a choice 
to stay at all these different hotels. And one of the things that, you know, I always talk to with hotel management is this, right? Hotels, in the beginning, like we discussed, it's a place for you to check in and you go off premise.
Um, I think it's important for them to think about ways to now bring people on premise and can you take more meetings on premise? Can you, you know, have the dinner meeting there? Can I just invite my friends out to my hotel and take them to the rooftop and catch up there, right? And how do you consistently push for that?
I think we'll have to revolve around some sort of live entertainment or experiences. so number one there, and I think number two is, yeah, like we discussed overall, Making sure that they can be strategic about all the different, I think, spendings. Um, right now, another thing that we're noticing with a lot of our clients is They want 
to invest in They want to invest in a lot of these ancillary benefits. Costs are almost prohibitive, right? Like, everything's going up in value, right? Like, whether it be personnel pricing or food pricing, rent, whatever it may be. So I think really being able to be strategic about what is the best and most efficient way to drive that, you know, ROI, but do it in a way where you can actually calculate, right, the cost.
The positive, like, returns that you're going to be able to get. 
David Millili: Yeah, well thank you so much. We hope you enjoy the rest of ILC and uh, we'll be seeing you around. Awesome.
Steve Carran:  All thank for stopping by.