How Chester Bennington Made My E3 Conference F***ing Amazing!

By now I'm sure you've heard the tragic demise of Linkin Park's lead singer Chester Bennigton. Details aside, this tragedy has inspired me to write an article I've been procrastinating for quite some time. First let me give you a little background on my experience.

Me and my colleague attended E3 at the behest of a client, who had given us a last minute invite. On 24 hours, and having already missed the first day of the conference, we flew down to LA. After our initial meetings with the backers of our trip, we found ourselves a bit lost on what to do. Without any time to schedule meetings beforehand, we were forced to improvise. We went from booth to booth cold pitching everybody on our product. While, some of those efforts did lead to some future business, for the most part we found ourselves unprepared and outmatched.

Not wishing to accept the trip as a waste, we attempted to blow off some steam by crashing a few of the E3 parties. Unfortunately for us, they were all booked/sold out. However, we spotted a glimmer of hope when we noticed that Los Angeles based GungHo games were throwing a party at the Conga Room to celebrate the release of their survival horror game "Let It Die." We had flown out to LA a few weeks prior for a face to face meeting with GungHo's CEO, so we had hoped that we could name drop and bambusal our way inside. Once we arrived, we were quickly turned away; told that the event was sold out to capacity. As good fortune would have it, the CEO happened to be walking by, and he waved us on in! Sweeet!

As we walked up the stairs to the venue we were stunned by two things.

1. The high production quality of the event.
2. The absolute lack of people, for a supposedly "sold out" venue.

So that you can better understand the visuals I'm about to describe, let me give you some background on "Let It Die." Basically the game is a cross between Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Resident Evil. You fight zombies, tag walls, and use your skateboard as a weapon...all while listening to an awesome hard rock soundtrack!

As we arrived up the stairs, the first thing we noticed were that the waiters were strutting around in their traditional black n white garb serving orderves while wearing Gas Masks! There were two buffet tables set on either site of the room, each stretching out about 30 feet and offering a wide array of items; everything from sushi to burritos. There were two, or perhaps three, full service open bars, and an entire section of the club had been converted to a makeshift "Let It Die" arcade. My first thought was that this was a lot of effort for a party, whom at that point, only had about 50 people in it. Then there was the stage...

... an abnormally large and well lit stage in comparison to the venue in which it housed it, but other than that, there was nothing particularly unusual or unique about it. Certainly nothing that caught my eye. About an hour later seven musicians, casually dressed, walked out onto the stage and started tuning their equipment. After about five minutes, they did a brief shout out to the crowd, never once actually introducing themselves, and then began to rock out. I thought to myself, "Huh, this garage band is pretty damn good." Then I went a long my way, got a few drinks, continued mingle, got a little playtime in on the "Let It Die" cabinet, and then started to find myself a little bored.

I had noticed the stage area was pretty empty, there were only about 120 people in the venue at the time, and nobody was paying much attention to the live entertainment. However, there was a small group of enthusiastic developers headbanging at the front of the stage. I was feeling a little loose at the time so I decided to join them. I was having a great time, I slapped hands with the lead singer, and was screaming lyrics with the guys next to me. Eventually I made my way away from the stage with one of the other headbangers. We chatted, exchanged business cards, and then he said "I can't believe they got Linkin Park to play at this event."

I looked at him completely dumbfounded. "Linkin Park?" I asked. He informed me that the lead singer was actually Chester Bennigton. I looked at the stage, and conceded that the singer did indeed look and sound like Chester, but they were not singing any of their songs. They were just doing covers of other famous songs, like a typical local band would. I also stated, that none of the other guys looked anything like Linkin Park, Mike Schinoda was definitely not on stage. In fact, one of the guitarist looked like Robin Finke of Nine Inch Nails, and the other like Gilby Clarke of Guns n' Roses. Then, they did it. The band started to sing "Crawling" and I realized it was indeed Chester Bennigton. Also, that was indeed Robin Finke and Gilby Clarke!

I got together with my colleague to let him know that we were actually being treated to a private concert formed by a who whos of hard rock greats! After getting together with a few others, who were just as shocked as we were, we were able to deduce that the other members of the band were Dave Kushner from Velvet Revolver, Joey Castillo from Queens of the Stone Age,  Franky Perez of Apocalyptica, and Blasko of Ozzy Osborne/Rob Zombie fame! On top of that, we later found out that famous Japanese game composer and Silent Hill producer Akira Yamaoka was also on stage a a guitarist.

At this point I looked around the venue, and realized there were still only about 150 people in this club, and only a handful on the dance floor. Nobody knew what they hell was going on. Nobody realized the gravity of what they were witnessing! I figured, at some point everyone would catch on, so I decided to use it as a perfect ice breaker for conversation. Me an my colleague devised a plan of action and immediately began working the floor!

• "Hey what do you link of Let It Die?"
• "Oh, its pretty neat!"
• "Yea I really like the soundtrack. Are you a fan of hard rock?"
• "Yea, its really cool."
• "Who is your favorite band?"
• "Oh I don't know I have lots, here are a few..."
• "Oh yea, you like (Ozzy Osborne, Linkin Park, Guns n Roses, ect.)?"
• "Yea, sure do!"
• "Well, what do you make of this party. Pretty nice set up, eh?"
• "Yea, its its very unique."
• "I can't believe they got all those famous rock stars to play just for us!"
• "Famous rock stars? What?"

Every conversation went somewhere in that direction. I kept each one, quick, and to the point. I was able to exchange business cards, pitch my product quickly, and leave a lasting impression. Pretty much everyone I talked to immediately headed out to the floor to get a closer look. After about 30 minutes of this the floor was packed! Eventually, the entire club caught on and it became nearly impossible to do any business because the place turned into a full blown fanboy loving, headbanging, mosh-pitting rock fest!

The venue appeared to be virtually stuck at 150 people or so throughout the night. I questioned the effectiveness of renting out such high paying musicians to perform for such a small group of people, in a performance that went largely unnoticed for the first 90 minutes or so of the event. But, after chatting with some of GungHo's marketing team, it turns out that they had about 600 people drop by...but they all came in and out. So, the max amount of people in the venue at any point in time was always below 200. My phone had unfortunately died before I realized who actually playing, so after returning home I scowered the net looking for some videos I could show my friends. To my surprise, there was very little press about what had just occurred. Furthermore, the only video I could find of the event was some badly taken cell footage uploaded to YouTube. I would think that a lineup of stars like this would have been promoted to the moon. That it would have been live streamed across the various heavy metal web publications. But at last, it was just a private little concert...and trust me, I am VERY grateful for that!

Not only was I lucky enough to be immersed in an event that many would fly across continents to experience, but the networking I did at the event led to many great deal for our company. Being the one to inform people of the gravity of the event that they were all lucky enough to be attending left a lasting impression! It also made for great e-mail openers: "Hey what did you think of that concert? How lucky were we!?!"

To this day, I have never attended, or been a part of a more successful networking event. Nor, have I ever attended a better concert. Until the day I reach Connor McGregor levels of notoriety, I don't expect that I ever will. This was a very private experience that very few will people will ever get a chance to form into a long lasting memory of. Mr. Chester Bennington, not only did you bless this world with an amazing voice and inspire millions of young awkward suburbanites to chase their dreams, but you also helped further my career. The deals and connections that I made as a result of this night have drastically further my career development. Thank you very much!