Weniger Taking LIB to New Heights

Before Justin Weniger became a partner and CEO for Life Is Beautiful (LIB) in 2015, he was a student at UNLV. In 2003, Justin Weniger walked-on UNLV’s football team, and to pay the bills, he parlayed a couple of stunt man gigs into paying for college and worked crowd management for WeServe. Justin is one of those guys who latches on to an idea and that idea morphs into another dozen to support it and then another dozen. His mind never sleeps. In 2005, he formed a business distributing flyers for nightclubs before he hooked up with a printing company. He and partner, Ryan Dougherty, created Wendoh Media and cornered the market on nightclub flyer distribution. Soon the demand mandated a magazine. However, the magazine they launched, SEVEN Magazine became much more, focusing on UNLV, community, live music and downtown.

Festivals evolved slowly in Las Vegas…

Junefest

It took a while for live music to take root in Las Vegas and festivals were no exception. In 1993, Junefest used beer, classic rock and a cheap ticket ($10 and kids free). Just about every classic rocker played Junefest….Joan Jett, Journey, Styx, Ted Nugent, Jethro Tull, Allman Brothers, Foreigner, Pat Benatar and Joe Walsh…you get the idea! The party crashed in 2001 when hotels caught on to the demand of this genre. There are now more than 200 classic rock shows a year.

Vegoose

Until 2005, Las Vegas did not host a major music festival. On October 29 and 30 of that year, Superfly Production and AC Productions launched Vegoose, at the same site the Grateful Dead made famous ten years earlier – Sam Boyd Stadium. The lineup included more than thirty bands including Dave Matthews, Widespread Panic, Arcade Fire, String Cheese Incident, the Killers, Jack Johnson and Beck.

Vegoose at Night (the after-shows in hotels venues) were a huge success selling out ten different shows including an acoustical evening with Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds at MGM, Widespread Panic and the Meters also at MGM, String Cheese Incident at Orleans and Phil Lesh and Friends, Gov’t Mule, Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Ween at the venue formerly known as The Joint.

Unfortunately, Vegoose did not draw many locals and was unable to get the traction they needed. 2007 was their last year.

?Electric Daisy Carnival

The Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) was established in Los Angeles but could not shake the “rave” persona. In 2010, 160,000 showed up at the Los Angeles Coliseum. As day turned to night, the stadium floor reached capacity and was closed off to fans. Upon hearing the news, festies began rushing the stairwells and fences surrounding the Kinetic Field floor causing mass chaos. After more than sixty arrests, 200+ medical emergencies and the death of a 15-year-old girl who overdosed on ecstasy, the Coliseum Commission pulled the plug.

?EDC creator Pasquale Rotella looked east to Las Vegas who had an ideal venue; the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s location on the outskirts of Las Vegas and its massive infield has been home for EDC since 2011. As usually happens in Vegas, the combination of the city and any great event exponentially increases fans.

The magic of EDC is Rotella’s passion for the fan experience and how he makes 140,000 fans feel like a tight-knit family. That, of course, and his detailed vision for the fan experience. “We're always pushing,” says Rotella.?“It's never good enough. I'll never be out done. I won't be done in twenty years with accomplishing what I need to accomplish with the festivals.”?

“I would say that we are the most expensive festival in the world and the most advanced festival production in the world,” says live music production manager icon, Jake Berry. ??

But don’t take my word for it:

In 2019 the festival drew more than 150,00 festies, per night.

Life is Beautiful is launched

Rehan Choudry’s vision was to create a distinctive festival that had purpose. “Festivals are supposed to be points where people of common interests and perspectives come together to make a difference,” he said. His idea was to create a platform that empowered people to share their stories of resilience with people who needed it.

With four themes – music, food, art and learning – along with an eighteen-square-block footprint downtown and Tony Hsieh’s money, he launched Life is Beautiful in 2013.?The Killers, Kings of Leon and Beck headlined while a who’s who of restaurants and celebrity chefs clearly distinguished LIB from all others. For art, the red velvet rope was eliminated so festies could feel, be a part of and meet the people that were part of it (chefs). Street art was introduced with no frames, in the entire gallery style exhibit. Three days before the festival, you could walk around and meet D’Face, one of the most famous street artists on the planet right there painting. The speaker series featured presentations from the linguist for Game of Thrones, who was a hyper nerd, but loves languages.

Enter Justin Weniger

Wendoh Media’s role for the LIB I was local marketing. Vegoose was unsuccessful at capturing the local market. Weniger’s challenge was to dramatically increase that. In LIB’s first year, they drew forty percent more locals than Vegoose.?

Hsieh was committed to a second year but was looking for a solution for the heavy loss. Most festivals need 3-4-years to gain traction and break even. LIB was no exception. While it was a critical success, it lost an estimated $10 million its first year. In 2015, LIB would shake up its management.

“I was part of a “co-working” exercise in Hawaii with Hsieh, Donner and the Zappos team,” says Weniger. “We are sitting around the conference room, and everybody’s got a laptop out. I proposed several ideas to boost attendance. Later at dinner, Tony asked me to run LIB.?Without having an intimate knowledge of the numbers, I started looking at how other festivals worked.”?

Weniger did not take the job that year but spent it thoroughly evaluating the festival. He then spent three months developing a plan. Although LIB went to three nights in year two and attendance grew to more than 130,000 versus 80,000 in year one, there was still a big loss. At LIB II, Weniger would have an epiphany.

“When Imagine Dragons went on Saturday night, I sat in the middle of it and looked around,” recalled Weninger.” This is it; it's hit its tipping point. It was the top two most emotional sets I've ever seen. Dan Reynolds (lead Singer) is in his hometown reliving his youth, in front of everybody and crying, but completely in a state of flow. They have a song called,?’We Are the Warriors’ it's very melodic and he plays an acapella version of it.?He is crying. ‘We are the warriors that built this town” and then they play ‘Welcome to the new Age.’?The place is going nuts, and I have a tear in my eye. This is the New Age of Las Vegas.?With a million people telling me there's no way that LIB makes sense. In my gut, it means more than we think it does.”

However, going into year three, its future was still in question.

In another brainstorm session, there were more questions. What's the long-term vision??Why do we do this? Why do you go to this festival???What's the plan to support it??The answer??Move forward. LIB launches a new logo. They move the dates to September where hotel occupancy is lower, and fans get better room rates.

“It's almost like a year one festival,” says Weiniger. “We waited too long in year two to announce and go on sale.?In year three, LIB sold out the presale in thirty minutes.”

The musical lineup was diverse and balanced. “We invested more in the two, three and four acts each night,” says Weniger.?Over the three days, Mumford and Sons, J. Cole headlined with support from G-Easy, Empire of the Sun and the Lumineers. Overall, LIB drew 146,000, which helped cut its losses but had not turn the corner yet.

LIB IV (2016) was announced for the first time at LIB III. Bands wanted to play the festival. Their enthusiasm was contagious as the festival sold out immediately. In three years, LIB went from obscurity to one of the top ten festivals in the world. In 2017 LIB was awarded “Festival of the Year” by Pollstar Magazine. It’s been a learning journey for Weniger and his team. What’s the formula??“Every person on this team absolutely obsesses over the customer experience,” he stated.

Weniger looks ahead: “There is not a single brand, let alone a festival today, that will survive with even the slightest hint of inauthenticity. The festivals that are left standing, that continue to grow are authentic and transparent with messages and purpose. What I love about our festival, and what continues to grow our festival, is the way people from each of our pillars – from street art to culinary to music and the inspiration series – and most importantly the extended Life is Beautiful community (fans) – are all equally inspired by one another. We do this because we are passionate about each of its components and the opportunity and the platform to inspire and impact.”

What does Weniger reflect on and most proud of? Breaking even, making a profit, booking Billie Eilish? No. It is the reward of achieving what LIB set out to do. “Most importantly, we've seen the evolution of downtown Las Vegas through it (LIB),” says Weniger. “Our initial goal and mission was to shift the conversation from the problems of the community to what the possibilities are for the community. Creating this three-day event made the statement – this is what my city could look like.”

The LIB manifesto video best portrays sentiments. The voice is Dan Reynolds (Imagine Dragons) and Andra Day.

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