254 - Turning Your Passion Into Your Career and Frida with Vicente Fusco

May 8

254 - Turning Your Passion Into Your Career and Frida with Vicente Fusco

Listeners, we're back this week with Vicente Fusco

Fusco began his career in Monterrey, Mexico, promoting tour productions across Mexico for Cirque du Soleil, Cavalia and Slava’s Snowshow. In 2013, Fusco joined Canadian-based Starvox Entertainment, where he oversaw touring productions across Mexico and North America as well as international engagements. Today, Fusco manages global business development for both Starvox Entertainment and Lighthouse Immersive, expanding beyond their existing North American markets with successful productions in Dubai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Koriyama, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, among others. Fusco is a Producer for The Art of Banksy exhibit in North America, with current/upcoming runs in Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Boston, Washington, and Toronto, as well as an Associate Producer for IMMERSIVE FRIDA KAHLO, arriving in seven North American cities this spring.

During this episode we talked about:

05:58 - How he ended up in the US
07:04 - Getting into entertainment
11:37 - Learn by doing it
18:31 - Opening the exhibits department
20:49 - About Immersive experiences
26:37 - The Frida experience
31:54 - Choosing the artists

Pam: Hello everyone. This is Pam de Cafe con Pam, the bilingual podcast that features Latine, Latinx, Latinas, Latinos, and people of the global majority who break barriers, change lives and make this world a better place. Welcome to episode 254 of Cafe con Pam. Today we have a conversation with Vicente Fusco.
Vicente began his career in Monterrey, Mexico, promoting tour productions across Mexico for Cirque du Soleil, Cavalia and Slava’s Snowshow. In 2013, Vicente joined Canadian-based Starvox Entertainment, where he oversaw touring productions across Mexico and North America as well as international engagements. Today, Vicente manages global business development for both Starvox Entertainment and Lighthouse Immersive, expanding beyond their existing North American markets with successful productions all over the world. Vicente is a Producer for The Art of Banksy exhibit in North America, and an Associate Producer for IMMERSIVE FRIDA KAHLO, arriving in seven North American cities this spring.
***
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***
Pam: Listeners. I had a lot of fun talking to Vicente. We went back into his life and how he kind of got into this work, which is so interesting to me because I mean, being an associate producer for art shows is kind of like not a traditional thing to do. So I was curious as far as how he got into this work and he shared a lot of those things. And I hope you enjoy this time. It was a shorter kind of interview. And here comes my conversation with Vicente Fusco.
***
Pam: Vicente, welcome to Cafe con Pam.
Vicente: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Pam: Yeah. Anytime. So the question that we always ask is what is your heritage?
Vicente: My heritage, that's a complicated one.
Pam: Oh, is it?
Vicente: Mexican. It always is. I suppose. I'm Mexican born and raised. I have an Italian last name, which is Fusco and my mother's maiden name is [inaudible], which is Irish, but I'm mainly Spanish from Spain. I don't even understand it myself, but I hope that cleared a little bit of the of the doubts.
Pam: I mean, I'm mainly Spanish, porque yo soy Covarrubias, but according to the DNA thing is like 40% indigenous is 40% Spanish. So who knows. [laughs]
Vicente: Exactly. Well, if we go with the DNA thing, which I've also done, I'm like probably 65% Spain. The rest of the European would be, would be between Italian and, and the Irish thing. And I mean, who knows. I hope it's, uh, accurate.
Pam: But we don't know. That's the thing, like once you're from Latin America, like who knows where you come from?
Vicente: Exactly. Like I said, I'm Mexican born and raised, proud to be. I live in, in the US now. So, uh, it's interesting.
Pam: Where in Mexico?
Vicente: I was born in Mexico City, but I grew up in, uh, Tampico, which is in Tamaulipas, the border state to Texas.

Pam: Right, right. I'm from Mexico City.

Vicente: Amazing city. Isn't it?

Pam: Si, claro. Chilanga. How did you make it to the US?

Vicente: Well, being from Tampico, which is a border state, a city that is in a border state in, in Tamaulipas, I've always been, um, going back and forth into the US for, you know, basically tourism. But I did go to college for a couple of years in the US in Tennessee, and I've been working actively with Starvox entertainment for, for almost 10 years now. So this is a, uh, Canadian based company with a lot of action in the US and Mexico, North America mainly. So I've been in touch with the US for a long time. We just, uh, recently moved here, uh, around six months ago. So actually kind of post pandemic-ish or, you know, so yeah, we just decided to, uh, move here, me and my family and we're super happy and, uh, we love it here. People have been super kind, super friendly.

Pam: Nice. And where is here?

Vicente: Charlotte, North Carolina.

Pam: Oh, wow. That's fun.

Vicente: Yeah, it's been great. And again, we're very, uh, appreciative of, uh, the welcoming we've we've had here with our whole community and it it's been a great experience.

Pam: Amazing. So how did you get into entertainment? Is that something that you always wanted to do?

Vicente: I never knew what I wanted to do. Uh, like from a younger age, I, I was always into music. I play the guitar, play the bass. Play the drums, like my main hobby growing up was sports and, and just locking myself up for six hours, going through classic rock albums, uh, you know, until I learned every note, every word and, and it was something that drove me from a very young age. And I guess growing up, I always wanted to do something with music. You know, I was young, I had a band or two here and there. We would jam, we would do this and that. Then during my college years in Tennessee, being in Tennessee, close to Nashville and, and all these amazing music and whatnot, you know, going to the shows, but there's so much more than just musicians in, in Nashville, right? It's, it's, it's the whole business of music, right. Everybody's there and there's just so much talent. And I thought, I knew how to play the guitar like these guys are just. But I did learn a lot about the background, right? Like the behind the scenes of this world. And that really caught my attention. So after college, I decided to move back to, uh, Mexico to in Monterrey actually. And I began diving into production, right? Like I wanted to do not to be in front of the audience, but behind the scenes. So I started learning. Really by taking on, you know, simple, smaller, first tier jobs, just to get acquainted with what theater was like, with what the live entertainment was like.
And I started like soaking all that in and at this time there weren't too many companies in, in Mexico are doing this. So I thought that was an opportunity, and specifically theater. I was like, I don't know anybody that's doing this. So I started doing theater and I started working with a very, uh, important promoter in Monterrey who was really my, my mentor at the beginning of it all. So I, I basically started off in the theater world doing cultural, semi cultural commercial stuff in theater and touring it across Mexico.

Pam: Okay.

Vicente: So that, that's how it all, that's how it all started.

Pam: So it started with music really?

Vicente: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it still is. Music is still what drives me most. I guess, but yes, that's, that's I think that's the spark that started it all.

Pam: And so in Monterrey, what happened afterwards? How did you transition?

Vicente: So after a couple of years doing, uh, the Monterrey thing, I took on a couple of jobs, overlooking important acts, such as a Cavalia, which I don't know if, if you know, Cavalia is a massive massive show with horses. There's theater, there's scenery, there's original music. It's like, I, I was like, I can't believe that you can do this in a tent with like 40 horses on the road. And, and, and they do what, what they're told and these amazing acrobats. And I was like, this is, this is just crazy. Like, well, what is this? So I started getting into that a bit, right? The, the, the bigger acts and the, uh, more like world known brands, I guess. And shortly after I had known Corey Ross, the, uh, president and founder of Starvox for a while, because we had toured his shows in Mexico. And, uh, I don't know, we just got the phone one day and he's like, what are you up to? I I'm in New York city. What are you doing? Oh, I'm in New York city as well. Do you wanna have lunch? I'm like, sure. Let's have lunch. And uh, we had lunch in New York city and by the end of the day, we were, uh, we had agreed on why don't we do something together. We opened a Starvox office in Mexico and I said, sure, let's try it out. We, we had always been close and there was sort of a chemistry between us in terms of how we thought about entertainment in general. He was amazing. He was super supportive from the get go. So after that meeting, I'm like, well, if you wanna do this, I need to go to Mexico city. So that's what happened after Monterrey. I moved to Mexico city and, uh, I started the whole Starvox entertainment thing and it was great. It was very formative. It was very successful. We were, we were mainly producing and touring shows in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Pam: Mmm. So what was your role like, what was your title during this time?

Vicente: I was in charge of a Mexico city office, which in turn kind of, uh, overlooked everything international. So I was always in touch with the opportunities in Asia, in the Middle East, in, in Latin America in general. And you know, if we were gonna do something in Mexico and we did a lot, I was kind of like the general manager of it. I, I was practically in charge of it. And it was great because half of the time you had, I had no idea what I was doing. So you learn by doing it and seeing how the people around you react to, to your ideas and your processes. But I, I was very lucky because both Corey and, and my previous mentors, they really opened the doors. It's like, you're, you're getting a master's degree on a shorter amount of time. Right? By being out there and trying it out and making so many mistakes, which is very important. You need to make these mistakes in order to know what to do, but more important, what not to do.

Pam: What is something that you learned what not to do?

Vicente: It depends on what you're doing and where you are at, right?

Pam: Well, during that time, what's a lesson that you learned?

Vicente: I learned that you need to really put in the work. That was something I got from the beginning. The harder the work it'll pay off,
eventually. I know it's kind of cliche, but if you put in the hours and, and you're general managing something, really, you need to get into it all. You need to get into the marketing. You need to get into the production that the gear learn about it. That was something I really took on from the beginning. I, I was unloading trucks at the beginning. I was there with the crew. I wanted to see what it took. I wanted to see how they came up with the puzzle that made the road cases work within a space that, if I was looking at the road cases and I was looking at the truck, I'm like, there's no way that, that these are gonna fit in there. Like those sorts of things to me are still today are very interesting to me because, you know, there's, there's people out there that can really do the impossible, really getting into all the areas to me was crucial.

Pam: So if you were to look back at the time in Mexico, In Mexico city, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself?

Vicente: I would've probably studied a bit more academically. I would've prepared myself a bit more. I was kind of too eager to just get out there and jump at it and start working and, and it was great, but I did miss out on a bit of a more solid platform in terms of academics that I think would've served me a ton.

Pam: Like what would've you studied?

Vicente: Something that would complement that, which I was learning out there. Right? So if, if I had a better background in finance and economics and accounting, you know, solidify all that where I can understand macro and microeconomics and combining that with what I was learning out there, that would've been like a heavy combination.

Pam: I know.

Vicente: So, you know, I don't, of course I don't regret anything. I feel super lucky at all, but if I could go back, I'd do that.

Pam: Nice. Let's take a quick coffee break.

***
Pam: Vicente, do you drink coffee?

Vicente: Oh yeah. Like you wouldn't believe.

Pam: How do you drink your coffee?

Vicente: Black.

Pam: Así como es? Me too. I'm a black coffee drinker, too.

Vicente: Así como es. I'm very big on coffee. I, I, I like getting coffee machines and I've had a few and, you know, I, I really like to get into it.

Pam: Oh yeah?

Vicente: Change the grinding level and yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Pam: What is your current brewing tour?

Vicente: I have a, I have a Jura, a Jura machine. I think it's the S8.

Pam: Okay.

Vicente: So, I mean, it's got all the bells and whistles. I've got, you know, if I flat white and then if I want whatever I want it it'll get done there, but I, I drink it black. So I don't know if, if it's too much for me.

Pam: Just get the drip machine. You'll be fine.

Vicente: Yes, exactly.

Pam: That's so funny. So you have the fancy machine and, do you do like an Americano, like espresso, or you just like drip it?

Vicente: I can do the espresso, but I really like, it's got a set up for an Americano, which I tweaked a little bit to my taste.

Pam: Mm-hmm.

Vicente: Again, it depends about the coarseness of the grind and whatnot. You can tweak it, right. Like.

Pam: Okay.

Vicente: Um, it's like--

Pam: You do use a machine.

Vicente: Ah, absolutely. All the time. It it's called a semiautomatic. So it kind of does everything for you, but you can tweak and you can program according to your tastes and, it's just a lot of fun. I, I find it fascinating. It's fun.

Pam: Nice. So outside of your black coffee, if you go visit a local coffee shop, what do you get?

Vicente: Americanos.

Pam: ¿Si?

Vicente: I swear to God.

Pam: Support.

Vicente: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it depends also where I am. Right. I I'm, I'm one of those guys that, you know, when in Rome do as Romans do.

Pam: Mm-hmm.

Vicente: If there's something that's very particular about a certain city I'll drink that, [inaudible] that as well.

Pam: what's your favorite coffee you've had in elsewhere?

Vicente: You mean a country where I've had the best coffee? Uh, that would be Italy.

Pam: Yes.

Vicente: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, I don't know how they do it.

Pam: Italians are particular with their coffee. I was a barista at some point in my life.

Vicente: Oh wow.

Pam: I had an, yeah, I had an Italian client and he would come in and he would not get his espresso shot unless it was from me. Like, he would send them back. And so like all the other baristas would see him walk in and be like, yo, here comes your homeboy. Cuz he would literally throw them at people cuz he'd be like, this is not an espresso shot. This is not how you pour it. And so he would only get 'em from me. And then when I wasn't there, he was like, he would make a big deal cuz nobody could serve espresso, so Italians are particular with their espresso shots.

Vicente: I think I need to try your espresso shot now.

Pam: Not a barista anymore. So maybe I'll come play with your machine. That would be fun.

Vicente: I remember in Italy, like, like the espressos and they give you this little cup of, of, uh, frizzante water that they call. Right. Which is like bubbly, but, but like super thin bubbles.

Pam: Yes.

Vicente: Together with, I don't know, they just make a whole thing out of it. It's amazing.

Pam: It's very ritualistic for sure. I learned that from him because he taught me how to give him his water. And like he demanded the cubes of sugar. If we were out of the cubes of sugar, he would be like, how dare you have a coffee shop? Like, this is not a coffee shop, so he trained us. He trained us to serve good espresso. Okay. So on my end today I'm drinking matcha. So right where I am geographically is around 10:30 in the morning, and I've already had my cup of coffee, black coffee. And now it's time for matcha because I try not to drink too much coffee. And so what was recommended was matcha tea, which is great. So it's kinda like my midday morning and I add mushrooms to it.

Vicente: Mushrooms?

Pam: Mm-hmm so it's like nootropics, adaptogenics, and it keeps my brain focused. So it's great for concentration, I'm ADHD. So the mushrooms help. It's great.

Vicente: Interesting.

Pam: I know. Okay. So let's go back to the show.

***

Pam: So you're in Mexico city, you do this role, you're kind of learning as you go. And then how do we get into doing what you do?

Vicente: Well in Starvox, we were doing live entertainment, right? Basically. One milestone that really changed things for us was when we opened our Starvox exhibits department. This is around, uh, 2018.
We get the rights to present The art of Banksy, which is a original Banksy art exhibit. So we found it to be fascinating. It was really very different from what we were used to doing, obviously, but Corey came to me with this idea and together, we thought that it would be great to launch and we opened exhibits and it was a huge success. We, we did, um, summer of 2018 in Toronto. So you're coming from theater world and, and, you know, live entertainment and backstage and the scenery and whatnot. And all of a sudden we have to deal with $40 million worth of art.

Pam: Yeah.

Vicente: And we have to go into venues with temperature and humidity control. And again, we go back to this learning process that, that I used to go through back in the day, which is so enriching and it it's, you know, it's fantastic. So that was some milestone for us because first of all, we're still doing it. We have The Art of Banksy on tour right now in the US.

Pam: And these are originals, original artwork?

Vicente: Yeah, a hundred percent. It's an unauthorized exhibit by the artist. We work with art collectors from around the world that they loan us the art. And, uh, we build a, an amazing exhibit. It's very unlike a museum exhibit because it's Banksy. So it's, it's very rock and roll. It's very industrial like.

Pam: Yeah.

Vicente: We go into very particular venues, in Toronto we were in an old ammunition warehouse of the World War I days.

Pam: Wow.

Vicente: So we kind of look, we kind of look for these awesome venues. We kind of transformed them into having our exhibits and, uh, it's been a great learning process with the whole Banksy thing. So we opened Toronto 2018 and we're still doing it now. So that was like, okay, we're now doing exhibits. There's something here. So that, that was very important for us because at the end of the day, that's what led us to the Van Gogh thing and the immersive world, which is you, I'm sure you know, today, exploded during the last couple of years.

Pam: Yeah. How did that come about?

Vicente: So we were doing Banksy and we didn't have a whole lot of colleagues that were doing exhibits. So when we got into the exhibit world and we really had to go and meet this, you know, producers that did exhibits, I mean, it's not the same as this, the people we knew from live entertainment. So from the live entertainment world, everybody knew, yeah, Starvox, they do the exhibit thing. So I think it was Svetlana Dvoretsky who's the co-founder of lighthouse with Corey Ross. She came to Corey and she said, listen, you guys do exhibits. Have you seen this immersive Van Gogh thing that's going on in Europe, in France?
It's amazing. You guys should do it. So Cory calls me. He says, have you seen this thing? I'm like, I've heard about it. I haven't seen it. And he is like, well, go see it. Let me know if you like it. So I did. And he said, while you're at it go and see other immersive shows and you know, let know what you think. And by the way, I think it was Svetlana at that time said, go see it. And if you guys like it, you come to me because I wanna be in. So that's, that's really how it all happened. I mean, this is obviously pre-pandemic, right? I flew there. I saw that show and I saw others as well, I came back, and I told these guys, you have to go see this thing. It's it's, it's insane. It's, it's amazing. It just made you feel different things. It was different from seeing a concert. It was different from seeing an exhibit, traditional exhibit. It was different from going to the movies. I mean, you were just getting a sensorial experience that was different. They didn't believe me. Not that they didn't believe me, but they said we gotta go see this thing. So they flew there as well. They saw it and yeah, we decided to, you know, let's, let's do this. It's amazing. Let's try it out. So we started working almost immediately with Massimiliano Siccardi, who's the artistic creator of the show. And he was super enthusiastic about it. He's like, sure. Like it's never been done in North America. To my knowledge, there was no immersive show ever produced in North America maybe.

Pam: I don't think so.

Vicente: It was such a new thing and nobody was doing it. And we're like, this, this is amazing. Let's let's do it. So the plan was that open Toronto first because it's our hometown. So the Italians came to Toronto, Massimiliano and his team, we started scouting venues. It was very, very exciting process. So we get on with it. We found a place we start building and I think it was maybe three or four months before opening, the world shut down.

***

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***

Pam: So you learned with Banksy, the whole process of bringing original art and the temperature control rooms, but then you're moving into some more cinematic type of environment. So what was the learning there?
Vicente: You're absolutely right. It's a different thing. It's new, right? What Massimiliano does is it's very interesting process, right? And, and you can see that you have to be a genius to do it. I always say like, he's a genius. He kind of decomposes art, let's say he takes, uh, The Starry Night from Van Gogh. He takes the stars, he takes the water element. He takes this and that, and he reconstructs everything according to his interpretation of what he wants to say. So he combines that with movement and with beautiful music behind it. And it's something very interesting, right? We feel, we felt that it was, uh, we still feel that it's an amazing phenomenon and it, and it relates to so many people. Now we know that right after what we've seen. We see the outcome of this and it it's, you know, everybody feels compelled to some extent and, and it's just amazing. So yeah, of course we had to figure out how do we do this. We use very large scale buildings for this.

Pam: Yes.

Vicente: So we were used to going into venues. For this, we had to lease buildings, transform them into venues. And then load in a show. So we had to learn about construction. We had to learn about permitting for construction, fire watching, it was like, what are we getting into here? Like, you know, we kind of brushed through the construction side of things with, with Banksy. We learned a bit about it, right? Cause we were going into buildings as well, but for this, we needed like a massive, massive stage and everything's projected. So we went into the projection world or how many, you know, what's the technical specs that you need, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, it was, it's a great learning process for sure.

Pam: Yeah, because it's sound, it's visual and like the whole exp, because I'm going to the Frida one, but for now I've been to the Van Gogh. And like from the moment you enter, you're walked into like, everything is just kinda like it, it is an immersive experience.

Vicente: Absolutely. Absolutely. And going to Frida, you know, the platform we had with Van Gogh and everything we learned and, and, and we realized what you could do and, and what emotions you could really touch with something like this. Like the Frida Kahlo was like, we have to do Frida Kahlo, right. It really was like a very natural next step. And again, we were very lucky to have that platform and, and that, you know, the success, that Van Gogh gave us really allowed us to have a choice and, and be as creative as we wanted to be with the next thing. Sometimes we don't have that luxury.

Pam: Yeah. So what can we expect to see in Frida?

Vicente: Frida's such a different show and we're really excited about that. Yeah. It's super different because it says a lot about the person. So the way Massimiliano structured the show with Frida, of course, you're gonna see her art and you're gonna see what everyone would expect, but there's a very high content percentage that's just about her life, who she was, where she's from, what she liked, what she disliked, her experiences. So that, that was very fun to, to watch from, from the beginning. And it's so different that again, you realize that you can do different types of experiences within the immersive experience, which is fascinating.

Pam: For sure. I'm excited to experience Frida. What are your thoughts on Frida? Because I grew up with Frida Kahlo. I grew up in Mexico and I knew about Frida Kahlo before the world knew about Frida Kahlo, and I don't know como se dice en inglés, la chotearon, like it's, it just became so commercial that.

Vicente: Yeah.

Pam: Like Frida's like, ugh. Do you not know any other Latin American artists? So what are your thoughts on? I, I think Frida's amazing. She does have a lot of history. So what are your thoughts about how commercialized Frida has become?

Vicente: I, I think she was very commercialized, but it hasn't been going on for too long. Like the real branding and the commercializing of Frida really came to be maybe with the movie. The Salma Hayek movie.

Pam: Maybe that started it.

Vicente: I think that kinda took it to another level. Because you're absolutely right. I'm Mexican as well. We've known Frida from, you know, since I don't know, it's something that's. Yeah. It's something that, that you just knew from, from growing up, right. But you know what, maybe that's why the, the, the angle on her as a person is so interesting. Because from my point of view, she's just so relevant to today with, uh--

Pam: And I don't think a lot of people know that.

Vicente: No, I don't think they do.

Pam: Like, her beliefs and what she stood for, what she stood against, like all of the depths of Frida Kahlo and you know, her side of the communism, like all of the things that aside from the eyebrows and the flowers, there's so much more depth for Frida, you know?

Vicente: Absolutely. And we're happy to kind of bring that forward to some extent. Obviously it's, you're not gonna see a documentary. You're gonna see it all in a very abstract way, but very representative of, of all of this on, on a personal level. And I just feel that Firda as an empowered woman almost, what is it, 90 years ago or whatever it was.

Pam: Oh my gosh.

Vicente: It's it's, it's amazing. In Mexico.

Pam: In Mexico, right?

Vicente: No, it's a completely different world. Let alone a completely different Mexico, right? So I go a lot to Coyoacán, which is where she was born and raised. My in-laws live in there. So when I'm in Mexico city, that's where I stay, and it's just such a magical place. And this is for your audience to know this is where the Frida Kahlo museum is.

Pam: Right.

Vicente: It's in Coyoacán. I mean, you just walk down the streets and it just feels like Frida Kahlo everywhere. Right?

Pam: Everywhere. Yes. I happened to be in her house. This is like, I don't know, 15 years ago, because now I guess they charge, like, if you're not Mexicano, then you have to be a different amount. Versus if you're Mexican, like it just goes to show how much popular Frida has become.

Vicente: Yeah.

Pam: And so at the time there wasn't a line to get in. It was just like, pues ahí está la casa de Frida Kahlo, so.

Vicente: I remember that.

Pam: There's yeah, like you would just walk in, como si nada. And the energy is like really powerful.

Vicente: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think if it's not the most, I think it is the most visited museum in Mexico city. And that's a lot to say because Mexico city has, I don't know how many museums it's, it's insane. I think you can go to one museum every day for the whole year and you're not gonna go twice to one. I think it's it's if it's not the number one, it's gotta be the top five. And, and that says a lot about what you were saying right? There, there's this Frida explosion that's been going on for, I don't know if it's been 20 years or so.

Pam: For sure. So for those of us in the US, where can we find the Frida exhibit?

Vicente: Well, by now we're open in, in, uh, nine markets, I believe. So we're in LA, we're in San Francisco.
We're in Dallas, Houston, Denver, which is one of my, my favorite venues. You know, something that's very particular. All of our venues are different. Because we go into buildings. Right. And, and we transform them into venues. They all have, you know, different architecture and, and the way Massimiliano structures the show, they really play with the architecture. So it's super cool. It's very fun to watch.

Pam: I'm going to Denver.

Vicente: You're gonna love it. It's it's super exciting, I love the Denver venue. We're also in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston. It's a great venue as well. I think I've covered them all.

Pam: I think so. And how do you pick your artist? Who's next?

Vicente: It's a complicated process because we are a big company. We're very lucky. We have amazing professionals working on the Lighthouse Immersive world. So we have to listen to everybody because everybody's super smart and everybody is super talented and experienced. But, but that's one thing. The other thing is that everybody is also subjective about things, right? Cause it's art at the end of the day, but it is a long process and we try to be meticulous and selective about it. Of course, we work with Massimiliano as well, being the artistic director of, of, you know, if he doesn't feel it as an artist, we won't go there.

Pam: No va a salir.

Vicente: Of course, it's a process that is spearheaded by Corey and Svetlana who are, uh, the producers.

Pam: Nice. Where can we find more about the shows?

Vicente: Immersive-frida.com, that's the best way to just, we have very informative, very visual, very cool webpage. And, uh, you get the chance to choose your city. Explore what the Lighthouse Immersive venues are, where they are specifically, calendars, what shows are playing when, super informative. And of course you can buy tickets there.

Pam: And time wise, how long does it take? Cause that's something that I didn't know before I went to Van Gogh and then I was like, oh, okay. So what's the timeline for somebody who wants to go like-- I'm going on Friday evening, for example. So is it one of those like expect to be there for 30 minutes, two hours, 15 days.
So what's the expectation of time so people can plan ahead.

Vicente: So we've got hourly time slots. So it, I think it's, it's the best standardized because it's, it's, it's a tough question to answer. It's something that within an hour, you, you really can allow yourself to explore around the venue, let it sink in. Like I, I, when I'm asked these sorts of questions, they're like, what should I expect? Not a lot of people ask me, what should I expect. And I say, just leave your life behind you for a second. Walk in there with a blank canvas. Right? Don't expect anything. This is a new experience. So try and come in without prejudice. Right. And let it sink in because at the end of the day you can like it and you and you very well may not like it, but that that's the beauty of it. I mean that's the option, we're happy because then it's [inaudible]. I love seeing the reaction of everybody because it it's really something that you've never seen. And if you've seen it, it's it, you saw it very few months back because maybe you went to Van Gogh, but it's a different format and, and it's super cool. It's super cool.

Pam: Yeah. And even me visiting Van Gogh, I don't think about Van Gogh being the same as Frida because it's different art, different story.

Vicente: Completely, completely different. You'll feel a different thing. And we try to listen. Right? To the audience. We take their, the criticism. We, you know, we take their praise of course, but it's been a very fun experience. We feel super lucky. The Frida show is amazing. We're very proud of it. Massimiliano did amazing work with it. It's the official Frida family show. We have the Frida Kahlo family endorsed the show, which we're super honored.

Pam: Wow.

Vicente: About. Right? So we've had the family work with us through the process of building the show. So they were telling us stories about Frida that really, I don't think anybody else knew about.

Pam: That's awesome.

Vicente: So it was super cool because we took all of that into the process, right. The creative process, and the stories were just amazing. And, and people think because of her painting, a lot of people think, well, she was a super sad person to live, she lived with pain all her life. She painted her pain, for sure. There's no doubt about that. But the family told us that she was like the most fun person you could ever meet. Right. She was always partying. She was fighting, but she, but then she would make up and then she would have, you know, this relationship here and she would go to the US and have three day party and come back. It's like, wow.

Pam: So progressive for her time.

Vicente: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Pam: Amazing. Vicente, thank you so much for sharing all the things with us here at Cafe con Pam. What's your quote or mantra that you have that you live by today?

Vicente: Those that talk don't know, and those who know don't talk. And I guess it has to do with the, with what we live, you know, the times today, you know, there's so much information out there. It's so hard to rely on information because of the same thing. And, and I just feel that people are more confused than, than they used to be. So it's kind of ironic, right? You have access to everything. And we seem to be more confused than ever. So I like to say, listen, do your thing. You know, don't take it too seriously, do your thing, you know, go on with your beliefs and, and I think you'll be all right. So I, I like that mantra. I try to apply it every day.

Pam: All right. And do you have a remedio that you wanna share?

Vicente: Are we thinking about where we're feeling sad or we feeling ill that sort of remedios?

Pam: Sure.

Vicente: I have a tea that has some booze on in it. It's got a little bit of rum. It's got a little bit of black tea. Lemon, cardamomo, which I'm not sure how you say English. And you'll be good to go.

Pam: For like a cold?

Vicente: Yeah.

Pam: Huh? That's a new one.

Vicente: So when you have like a, yeah, a cold or cuerpo cortado, which is what you say in Spanish, right? Like you're gonna have a fever. So that, that, that feeling before you have a fever.

Pam: That's the remedio, okay listeners, check that out. Let us know if it works.
Okay Vicente, thank you so much for being at Cafe con Pam. Everyone go check out the Frida exhibit. I can't wait to go this upcoming Friday and I'll share on social media about it. How fun. Thank you for being here.

Vicente: Fantastic. Thank you for having me. Great meeting you, listeners stay shining!

***

All right, everyone. That was my conversation with Vicente. I hope you enjoyed it. I had fun asking all the questions about how he got into this work and how does one become a producer for an art show. And Vicente shared all the things. So I hope it was of interest to you and, or inspired you maybe to explore a career that you may not have thought of, or maybe to see the possibilities that you could become a producer or that you could perhaps make it a career if you love art. And I'm curious to know what your thoughts are and or if you resonated with this episode. So feel free to screenshot and tag me on social media @cafeconpampodcast on both Instagram and Facebook. I check Instagram a little bit more than Facebook.

On that note, I would love to connect. There are different ways to connect. You can follow like I mentioned on the socials, Instagram and Facebook @cafeconpampodcast. You can also check out my work cafeconpam.com. That's where you can find all of the things that I do. And if you feel called to leave a review for the show, depending on the platform that you listen to. So all of my Spotify users, you cannot leave reviews. I'm so sorry. I know I get your DMS and I've, I've had conversations with you about it, but you're like, I wanna leave you a review, but Spotify doesn't let me. Yes, Spotify doesn't let you leave reviews. Now, there are some alternatives. If you are an, an iOS user, you can check out Apple Podcast where you can leave a review there. Or there's also an alternative podcast player. It's an app called Goodpods and I use it, is really fun. And that's where you can actually leave reviews per episode. So, if you have been looking for an alternative platform for podcast listening, Goodpods is, is a good alternative, cuz it also lets you leave reviews and you know, your reviews mean a lot for the show. It supports the show in ways that you can't even imagine because it, it helps with the visibility of the show. It helps the algorithm. It tells others about the show. So leaving a review is it's of importance. And I so appreciate your time leaving them.

It's also small business week this week, or I guess we're closing small business week. And if you have a small business, I hope you made lots of sales. I hope you are having lots of success.

Y bueno, if you would like to also join my online community, we have a Discord server stayshining.club. You can join at any time. Introduce yourself, let us know. We do fun things inside there. We cowork. We have fun.
We do challenges inside and it's a lot of fun. Check it out.

Thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate your time. Your listenership. I will report back when I go visit Frida because I'm recording this episode prior to my Frida Immersive visit. And so check out my stories on social. I will be posting about it. I will be sharing more. Stay tuned for that. Y bueno, como siempre, stay shining!