What does Rockhouse Partners exactly?

“We are a technology based entertainment agency. We work with entertainment properties and brands and help them connect with consumers around their business goals. We are digitally focused, so a lot of what we do involves the web, email, and mobile. We do a lot of working venue in our firm as well.”

Who are your customers?

“Our customers are entertainment properties and brands. We work with team Radio Shack, Churchill Downs Entertainment, the Tennessee State Fair, Nashville Predators, and any other team or entertainment property that are selling tickets and sponsorships.”

Speaking of the Tennessee State Fair, you guys are in charge this year. How will you make this upcoming fair different from the years past?

“We will be giving and providing much more attention to sponsor activation and delivering more value for both the fans and the brands that are sponsoring the event. We’re going to focus on 2 things: 1. Selling tickets 2. Selling sponsorships. This will give us the tools we need for further analysis.”

Can you tell us your methods for motivating fans to create better ticket sales (sporting events, concerts, etc.)?

“There’s an awareness element. All of us here have worked at Ticketmaster at some point. Ticketmaster has spent a fair amount of money on consumer research. We’re going to sell more tickets by: 1. Identifying the target audience 2. Identifying partners who have networked with music festivals, artists/bands, fans. We all have access to different networks of people who we can reach relatively cost-efficiently through digital means. That’s typically where we start. We also have traditional media layers through radio, print and television. It’s great to have those things, but it’s even better to understand what type of awareness you’re driving and which marketing channels are selling tickets.”

We’re entering a new online world of location-based marketing notification systems. What are your thoughts on Groupon and Facebook Places engaging brands and their companies with their fans? Does this help or hinder your company?

“The evidence is in the numbers. We are data focused and dollar driven people. If any of those channels or tools help us sell more tickets, we are all about it.”

What has changed in your space in the last 3-5 years?

“A lot of new tools and applications have allowed us to migrate online through email and mobile uses, so those are all good trends for our company. The question is ‘How do you turn the new tools and data/numbers into action and better results?’ That will still always be the challenge for agencies. You can only be as good as the numbers and graphs.”

Advantages/Disadvantages of working out of Nashville

“Well first of all, it’s relatively inexpensive. The cost of living is low. Southwest Airlines takes us pretty much wherever we want to go in a couple hours. We do travel a lot and Nashville is in a central location relative to where we do business (New York, Chicago). In terms of people, we’ve been fortunate to meet people who get what we do and want to work with us… knock on wood! As far as disadvantages, I don’t know. There probably are some but we want to focus on the upside. We don’t really think that way.”

What do you see on the horizon for Nashville?

“I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on right now. We’re all pretty excited about the new Entrepreneur Center and to get that up and running. The entertainment industry has a huge opportunity and that’s what we do, so we want to take on as much as possible. For marketing companies, I think there’s going to be in 5-10 years, tremendous opportunities. We’re thinking that much more agencies will be data driven and we are going to take that where it leads us.”