Mary Gostelow Girlahead Podcast · 2026-06-25 · 16 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
41 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Hotel Rock Lititz occupies a distinctive niche in hospitality by serving as a production hub and base camp for touring entertainment crews rather than leisure travelers or artists. Kim Levenson explains how the property's five on-site studios, production school, and campus design cater to the intense operational demands of touring production - 18-hour work days spent assembling and disassembling stage sets, lighting rigs, and special effects that must travel consistently across venues. The hotel provides 24-hour catering through on-site craft services, a "Roadside Market" convenience store stocked with crew favorites (Hot Pockets, Uncrustables, healthy options), two bars including the nano-brewery Cetish, and critical amenities like laundry facilities in the studios themselves. Levenson emphasizes the psychological shift post-Covid toward private rooms and personal recovery space, plus community gathering areas (pool tables, shuffleboard, lounges) where crews from different tours reconnect. The property's unique design - sliding road case doors, stage decking desks, backstage pass walls, elevators designed by different production companies - creates an immersive environment that attracts and retains talented technicians. With 18+ years in hospitality and the hotel operating continuously since 2018 (except Covid closure), Levenson has built a business that operates on "touring time" rather than traditional peak/off-peak cycles, faces the central challenge of perpetual capacity constraints with a waiting list, and maintains exceptionally low staff turnover by offering genuine excitement and industry authenticity that traditional hotels cannot replicate.
Guests typically fly into Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Harrisburg airports and then drive to the hotel, which is located about an hour from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They stay during multi-week production rehearsal periods when they're assembling and testing stage sets, lighting rigs, and special effects for touring shows.
The hotel offers full-service on-site catering with craft services in the production studios, a "Roadside Market" convenience store stocked with items crews want (Hot Pockets, Uncrustables, candy, healthy snacks), and two bars - Per Diem (the main bar) and Cetish (a nano-brewery specializing in IPAs) - plus two AA meetings per week for crew members in recovery.
Guest rooms have laundry facilities on each floor, and the production studios also have laundry facilities inside so crews can reset during their one-to-two week stay before reloading equipment for tour. The hotel operates 24/7 with staff and amenities available around the clock.
Rooms feature sliding road case-inspired doors, desks made from stage decking, walls decorated with authentic backstage passes from a 40-year industry career, and lobby elevators each designed by different on-campus production companies (pyrotechnic, sound, lighting, scenic design).
The hotel's primary challenge is insufficient room availability - it is perpetually sold out or near capacity, forcing management to maintain a waiting list of rejected bookings, which paradoxically makes getting a confirmed reservation feel like a luxury status symbol.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are a handful of genuinely interesting operational details about serving production crews rather than artists, AA meetings on campus, and the touring-vs-non-touring demand cycle, but the episode is padded with pleasantries and surface-level lifestyle commentary that adds no value to a B2B operator.
We don't really look at the artist, uh, the main person who everybody else sees on stage. We look at the crew, the road crew
We don't have weekdays or weekends. We don't have peak time and non peak time that most of the other colleagues in the industry have. We have touring time and not touring time.
The niche positioning strategy - ignoring the headline artist and anchoring the entire property to production crews - is a genuinely contrarian hospitality model worth examining, but the conversation never probes why or how this positioning was discovered, leaving the original thinking largely unmined.
We look at the crew, the road crew, who is coming through and making all of that happen
when we opened, we thought we were going to have a couple of crews throughout the year, but we were still going to focus on the normal leisure traveler and the corporate traveler. And now eight years later, we're primarily focused on housing these crews
Kim Levenson is a genuine single-property practitioner who has been with the hotel since construction and has 20 years of industry experience, making her credibly operational rather than a thought-leader, but her seniority and scale are modest and she offers little strategic depth beyond describing day-to-day life.
I've been doing this for 20 years
I've been there since the building was being constructed. And every year has been a completely new challenge
The episode includes a handful of concrete details - five studios up from one since 2018, six-week crew stays, 18-hour workdays, two AA meetings weekly, named bars - but there are no revenue figures, occupancy percentages, marketing metrics, or pricing data that would make the evidence useful to another operator.
when the hotel opened in 2018, there was only one studio. And now we're, uh, at 2026 and we have five studios
sometimes the six weeks maybe that they'll be staying with us
The host asks almost exclusively descriptive, lifestyle-curiosity questions and never pushes on marketing strategy, pricing, customer acquisition, competitive moat, or the business model; the conversation reads as a charmed fan chatting with an interesting operator rather than an interview designed to extract transferable knowledge.
Do they eat an odd time?
Do you have to have a barber hairdresser full?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Kim Levenson is totally immersed in entertainment - Taylor Swift and U2 are among artists who rehearse in production areas at Hotel Rock Lititz, Pennsylvania. What’s it all like?
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to Mary Gostelow's Girl Ahead Podcast, your weekly insight into the world of luxury hospitality for those who know it best. Brought to you by JetX, the world's favorite private aviation company.
Speaker B: As director of marketing for Hotel Rock in Littits, Pennsylvania, Kim Levinson really doesn't seem to have much of a job. Her, uh, hotel, which is the hangout and base for those who make big entertainment work, is full all the time. What a fascinating life. I'm meeting her actually in an entertainment place, and that's why there's music in the background. I want to talk to Kim about what makes her hotel, uh, so special. How do you describe yourself?
Speaker A: Passionate, uh, passionate about the industry, about the hospitality industry.
Speaker B: How did you get into it?
Speaker A: Accidentally. I went to culinary school and realized that I couldn't cook and found myself in the front of house in the serving and, um, management of the restaurant that I worked in.
Speaker B: You know, it's amazing how many other top hoteliers wanted to be astronauts, wanted to be deep sea divers taking a little holiday job hunking bags around or something, and they liked it. But you have the most unique job because you are, uh, running a, uh, hotel for the entertainment industry.
Speaker A: Primarily, yes, we absolutely service the entertainment industry as our main guest, but not when we say the entertainment industry. We don't really look at the artist, uh, the main person who everybody else sees on stage. We look at the crew, the road crew, who is coming through and making all of that happen. So the lighting designers, the production people, the carpenters, the welders, the fabricators, all the people who really make the show come together.
Speaker B: Actually, there was a hotel in London, um, that used to go after the production crews and used to go after the backing musicians rather than going after, um, the stars. Do you have a lock of warning when need be for a filming?
Speaker A: So we know that they're coming to do their production rehearsals, so we'll know that they've rented one of the studios on our campus and that they're going to be having a production. But we never know really when the artist may come. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. It's really kind of up to how much trust they have in the rest of their team as to whether they really need to be hands on. And some people just really want to be hands on. They want to be one of the people who's making everything happen. Whereas some are like, I know that they know what they're doing and I'm just gonna show up at the first venue and know that Everything's taken care of for me.
Speaker B: Hey Kim. Um, you are, uh, near Philadelphia?
Speaker A: About an hour.
Speaker B: How, how do these people get to you?
Speaker A: So a lot of times they'll fly into Philadelphia or Baltimore or Harrisburg, which is another major, uh, hub for us, and then they drive into the hotel and once they get there, they're there working on making these productions happen.
Speaker B: Oh, working. Does this mean that they're really working? That they're not parking?
Speaker A: Oh, they are fully working, sometimes 18 hour days. Uh, they're doing all of the work to make sure that all of the set pieces can come together and that the speakers aren't blocking the lighting and that the stage, uh, special effects are popping off at the right time. But one of the other things that they're doing is they're assembling and disassembling the entire stage in a safe way and in a way that makes the most sense. So that as they travel the world for the next year or sometime, or sometimes two years, depending on who the artist is and how long the tour is going to, that every piece has its place and every person knows how to make that production be torn down and set up in every city every couple of days so that the, uh, audience can really have the best showcase. Whether they see it in California or Vancouver or over in London, they're getting that same experience because they work through all of the little tiny pieces from sometimes the six weeks maybe that they'll be staying with us as they work through all of those people.
Speaker B: These are people who travel together, who work together, they really know each other. So it's very unlike a usual hotel. More like running, ah, a school really, kind of.
Speaker A: Uh, we do actually have a school on site now. Uh, when the, uh, hotel opened in 2018, there was only one studio. And now we're, uh, at 2026 and we have five studios. And there's also a school focused on the production industry and teaching. People who are coming up as the people who formed this industry 60 years ago are now starting to retire, they want to pass that knowledge on. And so they created a school to teach people how to do what they've been doing. All the.
Speaker B: That must be extraordinary. Uh, grownups behaving like school kids. Absolutely. What does this mean from your operational height?
Speaker A: It has been a different thing every year since we've opened. Um, when we opened, we thought we were going, going to have a couple of crews throughout the year, but we were still going to focus on the normal leisure traveler and the corporate traveler. And now eight years later, we're primarily focused on housing these crews if they come through to do these productions. And every once in a while you get somebody who is having a wedding locally that we have rooms available for them and they're so excited to be a part of everything. The energy and the vibe that we have on this campus.
Speaker B: Oh, there must be so much energy.
Speaker A: It is really unique.
Speaker B: But these guys and girls, if they're working 18 hours a day, they know all the, uh, other hotel guests. Do they share rooms or no.
Speaker A: Uh, the industry has really changed. It used to be that sometimes the crews were looking to save money and so they double people up, but now everybody really needs their personal space. Uh, I think that's one of the things that we learned through Covid is people's time to recuperate and be by themselves and, you know, really re energize themselves so that they can give their full 100% the next day requires that they're not sharing a room with somebody. Uh, but when they do want that connectivity and that interaction with other people, they can come down to our lobby, which we've made into a really engaging space with pool tables and shuffleboard tables and a bar and lots of lounge areas. So they may have been on a tour six months ago with one crew, and now they're working for a different artist on a different crew. But they'll come together at our lobby and be like, oh, my gosh, I haven't seen you in so long. What's going on? What crew are you working with? You know, how can we work together on the next project? Uh, and it may be a lighting guy, maybe a sound designer. It may be just a welder who was on a tour and now they're doing something different.
Speaker B: Do they eat an odd time?
Speaker A: Very odd.
Speaker B: You have to have 24, uh, breakfast.
Speaker A: Uh, we, we have a full service catering on site that basically operates craft services or a green room in the facility where they're rehearsing. Um, but then we also in the hotel have a small kind of convenience store that we call the Roadside Market. We are in la. There's all kinds of roadside stands. Uh, and what we found is that a lot of the people eat like teenagers. So they want Hot Pockets and they want uncrustables and they want a candy bar late at night or a Snickers ice cream bar. Uh, but then there are people who really want the super healthy things. And so they're getting those items through catering. Or maybe they'll, um, order a factor box and have it shipped to the hotel. So they've got all their meals, three meals a day ship to us, and they stock their fridge while they're staying.
Speaker B: You allow anything in Azur?
Speaker A: We try to say yes to as many things as we possibly can.
Speaker B: What about alcohol?
Speaker A: Uh, so we have two different bars on site. We have our bar, which is called Per Diem, because obviously these are people who are in the industry and they have a per diem to spend every day. And where better to spend your per diem than at Per Diem? Um, and then we also have another nano brewery on the campus, which is called Cetish, and they specialize, uh, in IPAs that they're making their on site themselves. But we also realize that in this industry, a lot of people are sober or have made the choice that they need to not have alcohol. And so we actually have two AA meetings a week on campus. So that while these people are there, if they need to have that, uh, additional support through an AA meeting, they can do it without ever even leaving our campus.
Speaker B: Do you have families sometimes?
Speaker A: Um, every once in a while we'll have families. Especially on times when maybe the touring industry is at a spot where everybody's out on tour so nobody is putting together a production. And so then we do open up to the general public, and we have all kinds of families and sports teams and weddings and, uh, just people coming in. There's a lot of retirement homes in our community, and so they'll be coming to see grandma and we'll stay with them.
Speaker B: It's so tempting just to talk, Kim, about the actual production teams before we move on to other parts of your business. What about things like laundry?
Speaker A: But we have guest laundry on most of our guest room floors that they can do laundry. But then if they're one of the crews that's there, they actually have laundry facilities inside the studios as well, because this may be their one time where they're in the same place for a week, maybe two weeks. And so this is their chance to kind of reset and do all their laundry before they have to load everything back up and go on tour again.
Speaker B: Do you have to have a barber hairdresser full?
Speaker A: We don't have one on site currently. It is definitely something we've talked about, but there are sometimes productions where they'll request one that'll come in on an ad hoc basis and they'll set up shops in one of the studios and do hair for everybody. Or, uh, there's a couple different massage companies in the area that will come on site. Uh, we also have a company who's a local coffee food truck and he comes in to make sure that they're all caffeinated.
Speaker B: Do you have such a thing as a weekend when no guys and girls are with you?
Speaker A: No.
Speaker B: Seven days a week.
Speaker A: Every day is a work day. Uh, we don't have weekdays or weekends. We don't have peak time and non peak time that most of the other colleagues in the industry have. We have touring time and not touring time.
Speaker B: What does this do for recruitment? Does it make it easier to hire team members?
Speaker A: Most of our staff has been there since we reopened after Covid. So we opened in 2018 and then of course Covid happened and the industry shut down. Uh, however, we retained all of our management teams through Covid and most of our line level staff, uh, during that time and they've all stayed with us. So we have very little turnover in
Speaker B: all of our departments because goodness is fun for them.
Speaker A: It is. You really never know who you're going to run into in the elevator. It could be your favorite artist. It could be somebody that you have no idea who it is. Uh, I can't name any names, but I've definitely had my share of experiences where I go up to. We have really good ice on our fifth floor. We got a new ice machine up there that does crushed ice. And so sometimes I'll go up there to fill my ice for my office and I'll get in the elevator and somebody gets in the elevator with me and I'm like, I kept trying to hold my breath.
Speaker B: When you keep my computer, it makes you feel like a teenager.
Speaker A: Absolutely. You hear that? Oh, this production team is in house right now and they're here for a couple of weeks. And you know that the artists may be on site but you never really are going to see them because they're working weird hours because they're getting ready to go out on tour and so they're maybe sleeping through the day and then they come out four or five o' clock at night to go do their rehearsal. And, uh, you're just getting ready to leave work and filling up your water bottle to go home. And all of a sudden you see your favorite artists in the lodge.
Speaker B: Could you ever go back to a normal.
Speaker A: I really don't think I could.
Speaker B: You have to create something completely exciting yourself.
Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B: Pushing the thing. Perhaps go to Disney.
Speaker A: I would have to have somebody really pull hard to get me to leave this property. Like I said, I've been there since the building was being constructed. And every year has been a completely new challenge and a completely new way of doing things. And when you get to say yes more than you get to say no.
Speaker B: What was the latest challenge that really taxed you?
Speaker A: Our biggest challenge is not having enough availability.
Speaker B: Oh, goodness.
Speaker A: Industry.
Speaker B: They're listening to Kim talking.
Speaker A: It's a, uh, big challenge when you, you have to in a way, say, I don't have rooms right now, but I can put you on my waiting list. And let me tell you, people who are on our waiting list who get in, they are ecstatic that they were able to kind of. They feel like they've cut the red velvet rope, that they were able to get something that somebody else has that feeling.
Speaker B: What are they going to find when they do get in? They're lucky to get in. What are they going to find in their bedrooms that they might not find?
Speaker A: So things that we have that you're not going to find anywhere else is, uh, sliding road case, back ring doors. We've used stage decking to make our desks. We have an entire wall of backstage passes that are actually from an employee on campus's personal 40 year history in the industry. Um, each of our lobby landing elevators has been designed by a different company on our campus. So there's one that was designed by the pyrotechnic company. There's one that was designed by the sound company, by the lighting company, by the scenic design company.
Speaker B: Oh my goodness. I want to come and visit you straight away. I'll be on the.
Speaker A: I will put you on the waiting list, Mary. I would love to.
Speaker B: As long as I get it before I reach 110. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because it sounds as though. It sounds though the hotel is for all ages. We are.
Speaker A: And I think master that as a hotelier. Uh, I've been doing this for 20 years and I think really for me the most rewarding thing is that I'm able to share my guests when we are sold out with all of the other hotels in my community that I'm able to say, hey, I can't take you this time because I'm sold out. But let me connect you with one of my friends who I know will give you the same level of service and quality that you deserve in one of my friends hotels.
Speaker B: Well, that's lovely because you have a lot of friends. You're helping them. Yeah. But uh, the people that you have walked are a, uh, bit miserable. But they're going to come back and stay with you, Kim. Naturally. Or perhaps they'll go into the industry. I hope so what happens if you personally need a bit of do it yourself work at home? And you've got all these brilliant technicians staying with you?
Speaker A: Well, thankfully, I have a very handy husband who does most of the work for me. But at least I know that if there's something he can't fix, I have a resource somewhere on campus who can help me figure it out.
Speaker B: Uh, you have the most ideal job.
Speaker A: Thank you, Sam.
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