AHP 052 - Andrew Wintner (Cassette)

Speaker A: You're checking into a hotel podcast featuring conversations with innovative leaders in the hospitality industry, from hotels and motels to suites and boutiques, hosted by Jaime Black.

Speaker B: All right, Jaime Black. Um, very excited tonight to be connecting with Andrew Wintner, founder at Cassette, a music curation agency. How are you doing?

Speaker A: Um, I'm good. How are you, pal?

Speaker B: I am well, I'm so happy we're connecting because, you know, you and I started this dialogue over email, uh, you know, I guess a few months ago at this point, and I think we were connected, you know, or maybe you became aware of me from, um, you know, Brandon from Hotels Above Par, being on the podcast and we're going to talk about your connection with them. But anyway, this, this was something that we planned before the holidays and it feels like a long time coming. So I'm glad we're, we're getting to connect now.

Speaker A: Yeah, me too. I'm really excited. I appreciate the, uh, opportunity.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm excited to dig into what you do and what Cassette does. And so, you know, we're going to get to that in a moment. I always start with some background. How did you find your way into music and hospitality? Because these are such cool worlds to work in and you, you kind of like took not just one, but two really interesting career paths and blended them together and kind of did a, you know, chocolate and peanut butter like, like, let's have it all thing.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you told the 14 year old me that I would be making mixtapes, uh, for a living, for cool luxury hotels. Right. It's like, it's crazy. And you know, I started working in hospitality essentially when I was in my teens, you know, working as a busboy in restaurants. Like, I think I started working at the, at the Beach Club when I was 13 years old as a cabana boy. So I've always been around hospitality. When was I worked at the, uh, for Restaurant Associates in New York City when I was still in high school as a busboy at Rockefeller center, which I, interestingly enough, is now a client of mine. So it's, it's a really cool thing for me. Full circle, um, and was always just super into music. I remember, like, I have super vivid memories of specific mixtapes of like when I discovered like a song like, you know, Wish youh Were Here by Pink Floyd, you know, early Bruce Springsteen stuff. And, um, then getting into tape trading of the Grateful Dead and Fish when I was in college. Uh, when I was in college I was a DJ at, and I use DJ very lightly because I was basically pressing play on one CD player and then pressing play on the other CD player. It was not a mixing serato, you know, turntableism. That was not me. But I did have the ability to choose the right song. And then I started, ah, an actual DJing business while I was in college where I DJ for the fraternity and sorority parties that were off campus and still was working in hospitality as well during the summer in restaurants. So had no idea that these two paths that I was on would sort of intersect. Uh, eventually after college, I started out working in PR in entertainment. Didn't really love the entertainment world, but one of my clients was, um, Randy Gerber, who at the time had a company called Midnight Oil and did all of the bars in the W hotels. And so while I was doing PR for him, I was like, wow, this is really incredible stuff. I was living in Los Angeles and essentially told him that I, I was quitting my job at this PR agency and I was moving back to New York to come work for him and stalked him for about three months and eventually got a job in PR and sponsorships for him. And that's when I first saw the impact that music had on spaces. He was so focused on lighting and music. It was like the two things that mattered most. And we would burn CDs in the office that we would play in the properties. And I just really got into it. Eventually I moved to Las Vegas, still working in hospitality. I was at the Palms for a little bit doing marketing and sponsorships. And I reconnected with a, uh, New York restaurateur named Steve Hansen, who, he's my partner in my business now. He was opening up a restaurant in Las Vegas. I did some consulting for him, eventually moved back to New York to work for him again in marketing, sponsorships, all kinds of different stuff. But on the side it was, well, who's going to do the music? So we were programming the music on ipods, dropping them off at the restaurants. Anytime you wanted to make an edit, you'd have to go get the ipod and bring it back to the office. And it was pretty crazy times. And eventually I left and moved to LA. This was 2010. And he said, well, who's going to do the music for us? And I said, I don't know. And I started researching it and found out that there was an actual industry of companies that literally program music for businesses. And while I was in Los Angeles doing some consulting for some hotel companies, did a lot of side hustling of music, doing programming for friends in the business having worked in hospitality for so long, just you kind of like get to know everybody, right? Because everybody bounces around, you're always going out. And, uh, I turned the side hustle into an actual business. Went to go work for another agency doing music for businesses that was based out of the UK and helped them open a North America office. Was there for about four years and then left to start my own business, which is now seven years later, which is crazy to think about because it does feel like just yesterday.

Speaker B: I mean that, that is a journey. And, uh, when you say starting your own business, we're talking about cassette. And again, this is a, you know, it's an agency that does music curation, really specializing and not limited to, but really specializing in hospitality brands. You know, what are you doing as founder of this, of this company and what is this sort of like focus and uh, you know, mission that you are accomplishing here?

Speaker A: So it's interesting, right? Like it's sort of twofold, right? There's a music curator, right? That's almost the easy part to me, right. It's working with the clients and deciding the right playlists and all the things that go into that. And we can talk about that. And the other side of it is running a business that's more of dealing with HR and legal and accounting. And those are things that are a lot harder for me and maybe not as much fun. But, uh, that's been a really interesting learning experience for me over the years. So I'd say on the music curation side, working directly with the client to understand their brand, who the customer is, what the comp set is, what the market is. And I like to focus on what is the purpose of the music. Right? Because you can obviously have some places where a, uh, high energy coffee shop where they want to turn the tables, or it's more of a nightlife thing and they want to drive beverage revenue and how can we get people to stay for the extra drink. I've even had clients who wanted music to literally play the role of creating space between tables so that the tables couldn't hear each other talking. So really it's trying to learn what the brand wants, what the client wants, what spaces, what space wants. Taking all of the experience that myself and our team have in spaces and making the recommendation of based on all of these things that you are trying to accomplish and who you're trying to target, this is the style of music that you should be playing. And we always tell our clients this is what you should do. Not everybody Listens. Right. Music is very subjective. Right. Everybody has, you know, their own taste. And I can't, you can't tell someone that their taste is wrong. Right. So it's why we never go into a meeting with a client and ask, well, what kind of music do you want? Because if that was the case, there are other services that could provide that and they could build their own playlist and do it themselves. We try to come in more, uh, like an interior designer or an architect or a branding expert, right? Where we look at this entire experience holistically. And it's not about this one song or this one artist that you may like or may not like. It's the whole picture, 360 degrees. And how can we create that right. Experience that reflects the brand, delivers on the purpose of the music and, you know, enhancing guest experience. There's also, uh, helping the internal guest, as a lot of hotels call them, and that's the staff, right? The staff are there 40, 50 hours a week. They're hearing the music a lot. And while the music isn't necessarily designed for them specifically, we do take into consideration how it is affecting them because you want to make sure that they're doing really well at their job and so their happiness matters as well.

Speaker B: There's a lot there to, I think, dig into. And I think something that's interesting is that of course this is not a one size fits all type of service. You know, I mean, you, uh, know this obviously, but it's like a nightlife focused restaurant in Miami is going to need different vibes than a tranquil spa at a hotel in, you know, wherever, Right? Like, it's just going to be a different type of vibe. How do you identify what is the right type of, you know, kind of sonic environment that you're delivering based on the client, based on maybe the market, based on the, uh, you know, who was visiting the hotel, all these things, and then come back and say, all right, I've got something that I think is really a fit that is going to match what, you know, what works for all involved here.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we ask a lot of questions, right? We ask questions of like, trying to get to the heart of what the brand is and what the experience is. Obviously the difference between a spa and a nightlife dining restaurant, that's pretty easy, right? But we actually, interesting enough, we have some clients that will have such a wide variety of different concepts under their banner and you're dealing with the same individual person. And so, like, their music knowledge may not be that deep. So they don't know like what the difference between. Let's use let us entertain you as an example. The Chicago based restaurant group that I know you're familiar with, you know, they have fine dining restaurants at the St. Regis Hotel, the Miru and Tray Dita. And then they have Ramen San, which is a high energy sushi restaurant playing hip hop. Right. So you know, we really just try to understand like what is the vibe that they are looking for. Our music knowledge and our m abilities to find music is so deep right now. Like we've been doing it for so long. I mean I literally have been building playlists for 35 years and you know, with today's technology you just have to know where to look. Now it used to be a lot harder, like 20 plus years ago. You'd have to have a relationship at a record label or no radio people, or be just a super intense vinyl crate digger to have like these like real deep tracks and just know all the content that's coming out. And now it's just being fed to us like all over the place. So you know, if you know where to look. And one of the things that we do is we have a small team at uh, Cassette. There's uh, seven full time employees, three of them on the music team. But we have about 10 freelance music curators globally that we work with. So I've got someone in Paris, someone in Mexico City, someone in Tokyo, someone in Nashville. So like depending on what the project is that we need, if it's not something that we feel like we've got a really strong hold of the genre, we've got this network of other people that we can reach out to to help us really build creative lists.

Speaker B: And I think that's so valuable because I think everybody thinks, oh, I have good music taste. But then there are people who professionally have good music tastes and.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know, and they're more well versed than just sort of like what's in the, the kind of highest rotation on like Spotify playlists or what's on the radio or what have you, which is certainly not, you know, that's very surface level. And so, you know, when you are working with these clients or when you're pitching prospective clients, you know, they might be saying, well you know, we got someone on staff who kind of knows what's going on at music. They go to Lollapalooza, they've been to Coachella, or they say kind of who cares? People don't listen to the music when they come into our Lobby, they're coming because they want to visit the hotel. How do you kind of convey that, like, how important the music is and the fact that you guys are professionals and you can really deliver a more nuanced and expert and in depth experience than just sort of like, oh, I have a nephew and he listens to music. I'll have him do it.

Speaker A: Literally had every single conversation that you've just mentioned across the board. However, I think we're really lucky in that the people that work with us work with us because we're opinionated and they trust us to deliver what they might not be able to deliver for themselves. I have a lot of clients that are actually really knowledgeable in music. And there are some large brands that have, you know, entertainment and music, you know, brand people on, you know, full staff. And it's really helpful to have that because, you know, if you have a company that has 40 different. 40 hotels and it's one brand, but 40 hotels, there's a different GM in each of the hotels. And the GM may we like something different. But when you have that really strong brand person that can advocate for what you're trying to accomplish, it makes it a lot easier for us. And I think that's the consistent piece for us is that our clients believe that music matters. Our clients aren't hiring us to check a box. Right. There are people out there, right or wrong, there's no judgment that just it's music is a checkbox. Just like it's a utility, like air conditioning and heating and power. Right. It's just. Oh, uh, yeah, we know that we need that and we need to pay the music licensing fees, but they don't necessarily believe that it matters. I don't really have any clients that feel that way. Right. We, we charge more than some of the other agencies. Part of it, you know, it weeds that out. You know, we do a lot more work than some of the other channel based services that. Here's your 80s channel. Here's your rock channel.

Speaker B: Oh my God.

Speaker A: Uh, Christmas M channel. Yeah, but there's, you know, look, here's

Speaker B: where I carry every December.

Speaker A: Yes. I mean, look, we, you know, this is really interesting. So holiday music is always something that's slightly controversial. Right. Like, I recently heard this. This past holiday I heard Christmas music in an airport two weeks before Thanksgiving. So it's, it's.

Speaker B: I'm shaking my head for listeners. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: You know, depending on the space, I, we always recommend to our lifestyle brands not to play holiday music. Now there are lifestyle Brands that go all out on their holiday decorations. And some of it makes sense. We try to cap it at a certain percentage that's not too high because by December 10, you know, you've heard that holiday song 30 times in every retail store that you've gone to, or you've heard it in the car, heard it in your office building, and it just gets tiring. We do the music in Rockefeller center, as I mentioned, at the ice skating rink, which is literally the mecca of holidays globally. And it caps out at 25%. Holiday music. There's only about 150 good holiday songs.

Speaker B: I'm surprised there's that many. But yeah, I believe it. I'd love to look at some of these clients that you guys have worked with because there's some really impressive names here. I mean, including Fontainebleau, Las Vegas. I mean they're new to Las Vegas, but certainly Fontainebleau. I mean, major, uh, incredible, just significant hospitality operator. So let's start with them. What was it like working with them in this Vegas property? And Vegas, of course, major music city. I mean music really, really matters in Las Vegas, especially at those lifestyle hotels and casinos.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, you know, for me, you know, we've, we do a lot of other work in Las Vegas and I lived there for three or four years, so I really do understand the market. And when we got the opportunity to pitch for the business, it was very exciting and you know, uh, it was very high up leadership. And the president of Fontainebleau was involved with, you know, the decisions and he was very music, he was very knowledgeable about music and knew what he wanted. Uh, they have a really, really strong brand that was, you know, this mixture of throwback to Sinatra kind of style with what's, you know, hot now, right. Like they have the hottest nightclub in Las Vegas there live. So it was just such a great opportunity for us and to be in there from the start. Right. Sometimes you go in and you replace someone else's product. We were able to, you know, see all of the renderings and all of the different designs and meet with a lot of different leadership, come up with lots of different concepts. I mean, we have more than 40 unique zones of music in that building.

Speaker B: Well, and, and those, those, those hotel, I mean everyone, anyone who's been to Vegas knows it. They're just massive. If you've never been to Las Vegas, it's hard to comprehend the scale of these hotels. I mean, they're like a little mini universe, each one of them. So I'm not surprised that there's 40 or however many, you know. Yeah, different, uh, yeah. Channels at Play.

Speaker A: Well, they have, you know, 15 different restaurant concepts. They've got, you know, the spa music there is some of the most interesting work that we do. Also, because they didn't want anything traditional. It's got, it's almost like nightlife, spa esque concept. It's really, really cool. Um, and obviously the restaurants there, Motherwolf, Don Angie's Poppy Steak, I mean, it's just this incredible collection and they're all different. So for us it was just like a, uh, I was like a kid in a candy store and seeing the final product. Like, I remember it was maybe like three days after opening and we were just sitting at a pai gow table on the casino floor and you could just feel that it was right, you know, and it just, it was really proud of the work that we did there. I mean, myself and our head of music, we, we were there for a week, like living on property before it opens. Not the most fun thing living in a hotel when it's not open. It's not easy to get coff. Um, sure, but it's definitely one of the one, one of the, one of the projects that I'm most proud of. And now, uh, we also work with the Miami property as well.

Speaker B: You know, another brand that equally, ah, very cool. Totally different type of vibe though than Vegas and Fontainebleau. Graduate hotels, you know, and graduate hotels like Fontainebleau, they have a very distinct brand. If you've ever been to a graduate hotel, you know, I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you've been to a graduate hotel, but it's like, uh, they have.

Speaker A: Or if you have a kid in college, you've been to a graduate hotel.

Speaker B: They have such a distinct esthetic and experience there. And it is so college and youth focused. So like, what are you bringing to that type of project?

Speaker A: That was a really exciting one. So that was developed originally by AJ Capital out of Nashville. They sold the brand to Hilton a year and a half ago, I believe. But you know, it's this incredibly nostalgic throwback so that, you know, the, the guest is someone who went to that university or is bringing their kid to the university for a tour or it's graduation weekend or you're going back for a football game. And the hotels are all essentially right on college campuses, which is really, really rare in a lot of cases. And they just are so cool. And so on a music level, we basically play 70s disco yacht rock, classic rock through the 80s into early 90s hip hop, and it, like, stops there now. Some of them have a little bit of more unique, like the national property, we play a lot more like outlaw country, but everything has a nostalgic component to it. And so it's just. It was so much fun to work on.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they're just supremely cool hotels. I have the big graduate hotel book on my shelf. It's a massive monster coffee table book. Yeah. Um, now, obviously you're not just working with hotels, so in the hospitality world, let us entertain you. And they have restaurants. I mean, certainly here in Chicago, where I'm based, they have these incredible restaurants. I just did the interview at Crying Tiger that you helped set up, which, thank you so much. With Chef Tai Dang.

Speaker A: How amazing is that space?

Speaker B: Oh, my God. And the food is just incredible. But phenomenal restaurant. So what was it like working with that restaurant operation? And again, like you mentioned earlier, they have a lot of different types of concepts.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, they have a lot of partners in their business, but the Melman family, RJ and Jared, are both very involved with the music, very opinionated in a good way. And sometimes we even can get into. I don't want to say an argument, but we will disagree on it and we'll try different things. And sometimes they're right, and sometimes we're right. Um, but it's really nice to have a partner like that who's willing to hear from other people. I really think that the work that those guys have been doing in the last 10 plus years is just taking things to a whole nother level. And they've expanded down to Nashville. A lot of projects now in Nashville. And we were in Nashville in October around the opening of, uh, abba, and it's the hottest spot in town.

Speaker B: And it's so good.

Speaker A: It's so, so good.

Speaker B: So good.

Speaker A: Every touch point. They know that every touch point matters. Right. And they're paying attention to the fork and the napkin and the light fixture and the uniform, everything. And, you know, yes, most of our clients are in hospitality, but we're in retail, we're in wellness, we're in real estate. And the. The through line for all of our clients is that they all understand that each of these touch points matters. And that's what makes, like, that's what makes it exciting for us because, like, I believe. I literally believe that every song matters. If there's one song that is wrong, whether it's wrong because the volume on the track is too Loud or the edit on, it's off. And it doesn't transition well into the next song. There's an explicit lyric or it just doesn't feel right because it was someone's either opinion or accidentally put in there. It can have a negative effect on the guest experience.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: The music touches every. Every part of the room. Every part of the room. You know, if you have, uh, a piece of art on the wall or a piece of furniture that maybe someone doesn't like, it doesn't necessarily ruin everything because you can just turn away. But it's kind of hard to cover your ears in the middle of a public setting like that.

Speaker B: No, I get it. And you know, another. I mean, again, you guys, you have a lot going on. And we mentioned that Brandon Bergson Hotels above par. I mean, boy, like, they are just doing incredible work. That's how we got connected. And you are doing this newsletter collaboration with the hotel's boat PAR team. It's called off the record. What does this accomplish? How did this happen? Like, what does this partnership allow everyone involved to do? Because I think we both have just a tremendous amount of respect for what Brandon and the Hotels About Par team have built. And it's very cool you're working together.

Speaker A: Yeah. Love them. Um, Brandon and Brittany over there have just been incredible to work with. I met Brandon in Chicago last July at the Independent Lodging Congress, which is an incredible event that I highly recommend to any hospitality goer. And I've never done marketing for our business, never spent any money, never done outbound sales, rarely even make sales calls. Most of it comes from relationships, referrals, an existing business growing or someone leaving from one company and going to another. Last year, when we rebranded the company to Cassette, um, we decided, let's, let's, you know, dip our toes in the water. And I'm not a social media person. I don't use Instagram. I'm, um, barely on LinkedIn. And, you know, we really were like, let's see what, you know, this is. We don't want to do advertising. And I look at. I, uh, look at the content that people in our space are posting, and I just don't find any of it interesting. And so for me, it was, if we're going to do something, let's do something that I would want to read. Right? Like, I think about who our target demographic is as a customer. Right. Chief Brand Officer at XYZ Hotels. We don't have to name any names, right? That's who I. So I want to know what they're looking at and what they will think is interesting. And so I met, when I met Brandon, we spoke on a panel together last summer. I loved the substack that he has. And we together came up with this idea of a music guide, but not, not some of these other ones that are already out there. We wanted it to be really unique. And I think we're about to launch the fourth one, which is going to be Chicago. It's actually Chicago, you know, and each edition has evolved. And we've had Berlin, we've had Paris, and we had Los Angeles. And so it's a mixture of a great place to see live music. This is a great local band, this is a great local radio station, this is a historic place where you can see where an album cover was shot. And then following these interesting people in these different markets, our musical journeys. And so there's some really incredible playlists that are on there now, like the last two, the Paris one and the Berlin one. The music curators did an incredible job. I highly recommend it to, uh, for people to listen to. So it's been really successful. I don't know where it's going to lead. We're always looking for different things. The involvement with ILC has been really great for us and, you know, I like being under the radar a little bit. You know, we're not for everybody. You know, it's a very specific customer that we want to work with. And, you know, looking outside of hospitality, like I said, you know, I think that the, uh, the wellness space is, is really interesting and hospitals, they're all paying attention to the guest experience, so to speak. I think everybody's taking a, uh, note from hospitality and how to get people into their spaces, how to take care of them, how to pay attention on all of these different things. We're definitely seeing it in the real estate world.

Speaker B: You know, how can people find out more if a brand wants to reach out to you, to work with you? Like, what's the best way for anyone to connect with Cassette?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's more information on our website, which is cassettemusic.com I'm on LinkedIn. Not that much. But, uh, there's a way to reach us via email through the website and that's the best way. And hey, if they say that they heard us on your podcast, we'll give them a 20% off of services.

Speaker B: Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna plug that on the sub stack and the LinkedIn and everything. I love that.

Speaker A: Um, amazing.

Speaker B: Andrew Wintner, founder at cassette. Man, this is so cool. I really would love to have you on a hotel podcast in the future. Like, let's make this the first but not the last conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Speaker A: I love it. Again, so grateful for the opportunity. I really love the show. You've been listening to a production of Dynasty podcast. Find more Dynasty podcasts@, uh, dynastypodcasts.com for the dynamic Dynasty Dynasty Descent.