Hello to all of you, unconventional conventions. Welcome back to Rocky Talkie. We're a Rocky horror podcast that talks about anything and I cannot stress this enough. Everything, Rocky Horror. I'm John and I'm Aaron. We're joined by Fred Moro R K OS Original Asshole. Hi, Fred. Hello, Fred Aaron and I are thrilled that we could talk with you today. We are both big fans of all the work that you do. But for those of our listeners who may not be as intimately familiar with your contributions as we are. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your 25 years being part of the Rocky Horror community? Sure, I'd love to. Uh So I've been involved with Rocky, like you said, for 25 years. I've started out on lights. Um I started out as an audience member actually and then got brought into the show by the cast director at the time and then I started out on lights, moved my way onto the stage. I was cast director for a while for a previous cast that was not Archaeo Army for a short period of time. And basically I do whatever is needed as far as R K O goes. Um, we don't really have titles. I just do whatever crops up that needs help. Jack of a Million Trades. A million Master of none. Well, I think that's an understatement. So thank you so much for joining us today. We are super excited to have you on air. Now, before we get started with the show, we'd like to take a moment and ask each other. How was your week? Did y'all get up to anything fun? It's been a busy week over here. I mean, we have seen so many shows this last week, non rocky shows and Rocky shows at the end of last week. Um We saw a ton of stuff on Broadway. We've got a ton of stuff on Broadway we're seeing next week. Uh We just went and saw one of our uh cast members, uh had her first play uh that she wrote that just got its premiere. So just the other day, a couple of a couple of folks went and saw that uh with us, it was fantastic, great to go out, support your local cast members and all of the endeavors that they're doing where they're not running around on stage naked. Um So that was super fun. I know, but uh it was, it was a good time. Every everybody had fun. We were hanging out lots of hanging out, lots of, lots of just chilling with people this week. Uh it was, it's been pretty good. How about, how about you, John? What have you been up to? What have I been up to? So, this past week, actually, somebody who, um, I very much cherish a value as a person has flown in to New York City. It is her first time in the States. It is her first time in New York City and she is staying with myself, Savannah and Adam for about a month and my first week has kind of been nothing but acclimating her to the city, acclimating her to the, you know, our living space. Uh And she has absolutely loved everything so far. We've done a lot of shit. We've done some touristy stuff, we've done some off the beaten path things. I took her to her first Broadway show. We went to go see Moulin Rouge next week, we're seeing uh Beetle Juice and Haiti Town, uh took her, you know, on the Staten Island ferry. We went to Junior's, uh you know, we're, we're doing everything that there is to do. Uh Today is kind of like our low key day because we are streaming later. Both of us are streaming later, but it has been literally nothing short of fantastic. Uh She went to Rocky last night with us. A sold out show sat right in the front. Uh She got degraded in front of the audience. It was fantastic. It's, it's been absolutely wonderful. Uh She's actually passed out behind me right now. Poor things exhausted. But, uh, it's been, it's been great. It's been great and, uh, I could be happier. All right, you got all the New York stuff done. Time to act like a real New Yorker. Sit in your apartment and order seamless. Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. We're, we're streaming tonight. She's actually never had Taco Bell before because they don't get it in her country. So, after we're done this, we're actually gonna go to Taco Bell and order some Taco Bell and we're gonna pop our Taco Bell cherry on stream tonight. It's gonna be great. I'm so sorry in advance. What about you, Fred? What have you been up to this week? Oh, well, we went hiking. Um We got a seasonal waterfall in the vicinity of where I live even though I'm close to Boston. Um We're surrounded by a lot of park land. So we went hiking and checked that out. So that was fun. And then um got back from that and decided to start working on cleaning out my castle hotel. I mean, um my dungeon, I mean, my basement just trying to get a whole bunch of stuff that's just been piling up over the years down there out of there. And uh yeah, it, it's been an adventure. Any good rocky stuff. Should I, should I be checking your ebay account sometime soon? Just, you know, inquiring mind. You want to know, I ironically I did find a package from South and from a convention. So I got to go through that. Um, I found some old dog tags from the R K O K 2016 convention and then I, I found some old, um, costume pieces from when we did Evil Dead Two that I gotta pull up out of the basement and then just put in a closet somewhere. So, they're not getting musty. All right, my checkbook is ready. Well, with all of that out of the way, let's dive into our first segment. It's a global news who first up in global news. Everyone's favorite. Sledd is about the graces all but some screen time in a new multigenerational rom com titled. Maybe I do the film stars Emma Roberts and Luke Bracy as a young couple who are questioning the next steps in their relationship. The two decide to turn to their parents for guidance and invite both pairs over to ask how their marriages are working out as it turns out. All the parents played by Diane Keaton, Susan, Sarandon, Richard Gere and William H Macy. All already know each other very well. And cinematic hijinks ensue. Oh shit, guys. We're all thinking the same thing here. Right. Right. Orgy. Definitely orgy. There's literally nothing else it could possibly be damn. Like maybe this is what Susan was alluding to in her tweet. Like, do y'all remember that? Wait, what? I must have missed that one? Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, somebody tweeted about how it was such a shame that Susan Sarandon doesn't play sluts on screen anymore, which I mean, Susan obviously is going to respond to that. So she retweeted and commented that quote, there's still time I would literally pay fives of my dollars to watch, Susan get touch, a touch, a touch by William H Macy. I mean, we all would buddy, we all would. Well, maybe we can. This movie was just announced a few days ago and as of now there's no official release date, but it sounds like a really fun big budget romcom. So we'll probably get to check it out sometime over the summer. Ok. So serious question time as seasoned veterans of Acho Cons 12 and three, basic math dictates that we've all partaken in at least seven orgies apiece. Yeah, that tracks and anyone who's been involved in at least a few of them knows that every orgy has a weak link, someone who doesn't quite hold up to the other participants. So I gotta ask between Diane Keaton, Susan, Sarandon, Richard Gere and William H Macy, who is the weak link in that orgy? And why? Oh. Hm. That's a tough one. Well, I googled some, uh, Richard Gere quotes and I'm pretty sure that he's the weak link here. Let me just, uh, let me just throw some of these out there. Quote. My life is pretty simple and normal so obviously simple and normal. Not, not what I'm looking for at my orgy, but even more telling he once said the secret of my success is my hair spray. And as anyone knows, hairspray makes an absolutely terrible lubricant. So Richard Gere, get the fuck out sorry. Rooms full. Yeah. Uh We're at capacity. Uh For me it's, it's gonna be Richard Gere. Richard Gere is 100% the weakest link in that orgy. Um I do think that on the opposite spectrum that William H Macy is going to be the surprise underdog of the orgy. I think that William H Macy can last extremely long and 100% knows what he's doing with his hands. So like he may come a little bit early, but he can still partake over and over again because he's very, very good with his large monkey hands. And I think that both Diane Keaton and Susan Sarandon are very much in the center. They, they know what to do. They get the job done. They have a great time and then they leave. All right. Factual, factual. Lots of you can't argue with any of that. What was he? And I got to scroll through this. Who? William H Macy. Yeah. Fargo. Yeah. Shameless. Pleasantville, didn't he do? Who did the whole? Oh, no, I'm thinking of somebody else. He was in the cooler. Nice to meet you. No, he plays a uh uh like a down on his luck gambler, uh, William H Macy playing somebody who's down on his luck that night. But here's the funny, the best thing is he is constantly paid by, uh, this casino to go in and be bad luck at the table games. He's the cooler he goes in and he ruins people's luck. So, maybe, maybe I'm gonna have to change my answer because, like he has professional experience ruining things that are going well. Counterpoint Richard Gere, put a gerbil up his butt. You know, you can't confirm that. I mean, South Park while accurate might have flubbed some facts there. What do you think, Fred? Who's the weak link here? William H, Macy Jurassic Park three. That's all I got to say. We don't talk about Jurassic Park three, bad Sequels. Velociraptors. What more can I say? Bad, bad orgy. Well, hands up if you can't wait for this movie to drop. So we can see if all our predictions come true. I have all seven of my hands raised right now. Goddamn it, John. Well, with that, let's move on over to some community news. So first up in community news, a few weeks ago, we chatted with you all about J C C P's upcoming crossover event with the legendary Baltimore Cast, Chocolate Covered Rocky Horror, which will take place over Pittsburgh Pride Weekend on June 4th of the Hollywood theater. But just this week Chocolate Covered Rocky Horror announced that they're planning to turn the weekend into a double feature. The cast will be performing in Pittsburgh on the fourth and on June 5th, we'll be teaming up with the Sonic transducers based out of Washington DC to bring the Rocky Horror sixties show to Baltimore think Rocky Horror meets hairspray. Sure to be a humorous, full, soulful and sexy experience. The production will take place on Sunday, June 5th at seven PM at the Baltimore Sound stage. Tickets are only $30 for a single $25 each for two or more or $35 if you're lazy and you pay at the door. If you happen to be in either the Pittsburgh or DC area for the first weekend in June, we highly highly recommend that you guys check out one of these shows. Chocolate Covered Rocky Horror is a fabulous cast that's known for putting its own creative spin on all of their performances. We're also thrilled to add that if you happen to live in or around the DC area, catch the show and love what you see on stage. Chocolate covered Rocky Horror is currently recruiting new members, a coordinator website right now. They're in the market for actors, vocalists, models, dancers, and technical crew. So just about everyone for more information on C C R H s hometown performance with the Sonic Transducers, their Pittsburgh show with the J C C P or their recruiting process, you can head over to Earl Oren dot com or you can check out the link in our show notes. And before we close out community news, we just want to give all of our lovely listeners a reminder that two of your Arch O convention masters Creach your feature and Ricky Mortis are still looking for submissions for the convention's drag race event. If you're interested in performing a drag number at the event, all you have to do is fill out the form on the R K O con dot com website with all your particulars, your drag name, your performance genre, the best way to tip you, that sort of thing. You don't even have to have your performance numbers picked out yet. As long as you were able to get your final song selection sent over to the show runners by like early June or early July at the very latest, you're golden. If you have any questions about how the show will work the submission process in general, your costumes where babies could pretty much anything really, definitely reach out to creature feature or Ricky Mortis and they'll be thrilled to answer any and all of your questions. So this is actually a brand new segment for A O and we are all super excited to see everyone's bomb ass performances and to see the show do well as a whole. So if you are on the fence about submitting, please consider this sign to take the plunge and show us what you've got on stage. We promise we'll all be cheering you on and not making fun of you behind your back. I'll make fun of you in front of your back. Exactly. I'll make fun of you. I'll make fun of you in front of your as well. That's at least, isn't it? We, we'll all do it with a bunch of shots in our hands. So it'll be fun as hell. I'll do it with my penis in my hand. God damn it, John. We just talked about orgies. Well, I want to talk about them again. So who's organizing the one after the drag race? I don't know, like you just volunteer. I still have seven of my hands up, propose something. Get the action item. It would be nice if we had an orgy after the drag race event. Roy, I don't think that's an officially sponsored event and of course, all the dets as well as the submission form can be found at a K O con dot com. All right, Fred, we know that as one of the con runners, you are totally and completely impartial and you love every single piece of the con equally. But is there like secretly deep down a con event that like you're looking forward to even just the teeniest bit more than the others? Maybe the orgy? I mean, we promise we won't tell. Oh boy, that's a tough one. Um So I'll say, I mean, number one, it would be nice to see people again. Right. That's what this is all about is just getting people together, get, getting to see other people in the community. That's gonna be huge. I mean, that, that's the event for me. What I'm looking forward to seeing is the drag event. I think that's gonna be awesome and it's just breaking new ground and, you know, we want to cast a one 10 here in the community and let people just strut their stuff. Absolutely. I mean, that's the same reason that I'm super excited to see Reefer Madness and Hedwig, right? Like new things that we haven't really seen before. Like sign me up for that shit, new stuff that just makes the, and it makes every convention a new convention. So it's like, oh, I've, I've done a convention before. Yeah, but this is different. Absolutely. Transition into a fact. God dam it, John, here here. I got you. Oh, it's stage directions. Yeah. All right. You too. I'm pretty sure that everyone out there can guess what we're going to be talking about for today's FAA Q segment. Fred asks a question. Is it Tacos? I've got a million questions about tacos. I'm having Taco Bell in like two hours. We can talk about tacos. It's Mr Taco. It is the best place, but it closed. It's not Tacos. In fact, it's not even Fred asks a question, but it's an FAA Q segment. No, no, no. This week we're doing Fred answers a question. I fucking hate you. That's right. You do. This week we're talking all about merch that delicious, delicious cast creative outlet, moneymaker, branding opportunity. And so so much more you guys have talked about some of this stuff before. But in the past, you've almost exclusively covered officially licensed merch or mass market professionally produced items. Today, we're going to dig in a little deeper and talk about merch at your local cast level. We are talking about all of those items that your cast might sell before your show or at an event where you've booked a booth or just that sweet stuff that you want to show off at R K O con to let everyone know that you are part of the coolest cast in the country. Hell yes, I love this topic. I'm so excited. We have Fred on here to talk about it. Here's a, here's a little quickie to get us started. Ok? Yeah, that exactly that long. So what was your guys' like first shadow cast produced merch item that like you might have been at a show and you saw it and were like shit. I have to have that. Was it like a shirt or a button, maybe a poster or something else entirely? And John don't fuck me on this. You better have an answer. Um Shadow for merch item. What do you got? You know, I don't give a shit about this. Um I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. Uh I know that this might sound like a cop out, but it's entirely fucking true. I think that one of the most genius merch ideas to ever come out of a rocky horror cast is actually the N Y C R H P S shirt, the iheart, New York, but the hearts, the lips. I, I think about that, like, at least once a week and I'm, it's, I think it's also because I live in New York City, so I'm overwhelmed with iheart New York stuff and especially, you know, dragging my friend around the city for the past week. There's a lot of variations of that brand of that idea. But honestly, I think that the, the iheart, New York with the heart being the lips stands out to me. Uh I have like four versions of this shirt. I don't know why. I'm pretty sure I did not buy any of them meg, kicked me off cast for stealing Rocky for M Y C R H P S Merch. But I really like when I was on, like, when I wasn't on cast and I was just like going to the show over and over again. That was kind of the thing that, that was the thing. I was like, I feel like I've made it when I owned that piece of merchandise. Did you know, we didn't actually even have that shirt until about 20 years ago. We, we had never done it. And then, um, uh, deadly sting who does all the wonderful Frank tattoos, uh, her and I, uh, pitched that one to Madman Mike at the time and he was like, absolutely. Let's go ahead and do it. And we spent a ton of time getting the font. Exactly incorrect enough that we couldn't get sued over it. And it was, it was probably, it's so simple. It's one of those like, oh, it's such low hanging fruit. Why in God's name hadn't we done it before? And I, it, it, everybody likes it. I, it's one of the best selling shirts that we've ever had and, yeah, I, it's absolutely one of my favorites. Yeah. What about you, Fred? Like, whatever it is, I'm sure Aaron would offer you his firstborn child if you ever wanted to put it up on ebay. So, uh, our old venue this is, goes back to even before officially R K O Army. This is like a K O players and absolute pleasure players. The first cast, Roy was involved with, we had a home theater in Warwick, Rhode Island for years called the Meadowbrook Theater. And I believe it's still true to this date. It's the longest running theatrical production in Rhode Island history at like some, something like 648 weeks straight. So they had a week 500 t-shirt and I was like, I've got to have it. So, of course, you know, we, we grabbed that and, you know, I still have it in my closet. There was a week 600 shirt as well. But it's, it's 500. Sounds better than 600. And it always reminds me too. Somebody brought 500 rolls of toilet paper to the show for the 5/100 show. So then you saw, ok, you can stand on a pile of 500 rolls of toilet paper and be about 6 to 7 ft off the ground and not sink into it. It's, it's amazing. Oh, that's fantastic. It really was something special. It was, it was just an amazing night. It was packed, you know, they, they had a bunch of interviews, it got picked up in the local paper. It was awesome and got a lot of those like the commemorative, you know, shirts and things for that that are like for a specific event. It brings you right back to where you were at. Then you know, when you bought it, when you saw it, you know, it helps you, it helps that memory, you know, stick around. Milestone. Yeah. So Aaron, what you thinking? 2, 300 bucks, all yours. If the price is right and the wa is tight, you're fired. All right, y'all who are listening to this fucking podcast know damn well that I would have never fucking said that as a reaction. It's a script I'm supposed to say the words, OK right now. All right. So 1st March item. Um, if John had kicked it to me better, I would have had more time to stall. I live for putting you in the hot and sexy seat. Yeah. It's really weird because the first hot and sexy seat, uh, the first shadow cast that I was ever part of, we never did any merch. So I never had an opportunity to have something from that. Um, it was probably, it was probably, once I had moved to New York, we really only did a lot of buttons at that point and we had the old, old cast t-shirts but they never really, like, hm, give me that. I think one of the things was at the, uh, first convention I ever went to the AC 08 convention. Uh, the shirts for that. I was just like, ok, this is the first con I've ever gone to, I've got to pick up something that, like, helps me remember it. And that, like, I'm gonna wear forever. I don't think I've ever worn it since, but, like, had to pick one of those up. Um, and it, it, it's weird because it's, it's more about the event and what I remember about it. I probably couldn't even tell you what was on this shirt. Um, but that's, that's one of those that, like, walk in the, walk into the, uh, the event hall and I'm just, like, straight to the merch table. We're gonna get ourselves one of these, but I mean, this kind of like segues really, really well into the whole kind of point that we want to talk about today, right? Like if you're out there and you're maybe like looking to start creating merch for your local cast or maybe just expanding the existing selection of merch that you guys have. There's a ton of options to you and just like with any kind of retail, not everything is going to appeal to everyone and not in the same way. So how do you really strike that balance? Right? When you're considering a new line of merch for your cast, what's the checklist that we should all be like running down in our head? Is it about price? Is it about logistics? Is it about making sure that it's original? Like, so when someone on a K O, right, it comes to you, Fred and says, I've got 50 ideas for new merch. Like what metrics are you using to narrow it down? So like what's gonna make sure that you get the biggest bang for your buck? The first thing I think about is what are you trying to do with the merch? Are you, are you, are you trying to fundraise or are you trying to build awareness that hey, you're a brand new cast and you just started and you want people to know that you're out there, right? So you wanna like rep your show, you know what are you trying to do that? That's the first thing. The second thing then is, you know, you, you can talk about convenience, cost, logistics, all that. It all has to be taken into account. It's, it's about what makes the most sense for what you're trying to do and what can you handle. So that's, that's the overall thing, like, ok, um, if you're a small cast starting out and you only have a few people, you know your priorities, I've got to get a V up otherwise we don't have a show, right? The cast members need to get situated otherwise we don't have a show, they need to get changed all of that. Ok. Once all that's covered and we got the preshow, ready to go. Ok. Now what about merch? So what can you handle? Right? That, that inherently is the first question you need to ask is what can I handle before a show? Then you have to think about. Where can I store stuff? What, how much do I need to bring it to a particular show? Am I at a venue that is like a home venue? So we don't go around. Um R C O has a lot of road shows that has to be a huge consideration for us. You know, we need portable stuff set up quick and just be ready to go at a moment's notice versus if you got a home venue, I mean, you're in like Flynn because, ok, well, we're here every week or every month or every quarter and they're gonna want to store some stuff here so we can just pull it out of a closet and we're ready to go. You need to take that all into account and figure out what you can handle. I think that's really great points because it, it's not just starting with a really cool idea of some design that you want to put on a shirt. It's what are you trying to do with it? What's the goal with it? Is it to make some money? Is it, is it to build awareness? Like, you know, your really super cool niche, you know, idea of that one shot of Magenta where she does that one thing. I mean, that's not gonna help people know about your new warm waters cast that you got out there or whatever, whatever it is, you know? Absolutely. And inherently it's about, ok, what can I feasibly set up before a show if it's, if I'm doing this huge show or if I know that I've got a run of several shows. Ok, maybe. Hey, that's a great idea. It's unique. It's original. Um We're, we're willing to take a shot on that because we know we got seven or eight shows booked on the schedule iced with venues. So we've got a great opportunity to sell through this stuff versus all right. Um I'm, I'm gonna do a seasonal calendar. And we've got one, one show a year and we're gonna sell that calendar at that show. You got one shot to basically get your money back out and get, maybe get into profit if that's what you're trying to do, that's risky. Right. So, what's the right level of risk versus reward? And is it something that's gonna translate for people? Excellent, excellent points. And obviously these aren't hard and fast rules. What works for R K O or New York or what works for a convention isn't going to work for every cast out there. But there are evergreen items that I think everyone has considered stocking at one point or another. Can we run those down? Actually? Like, we're in a really weird spot here in New York after the Panera bread, we've essentially reset back to square one with like a lot of our merch right now. We are selling prep bags at our shows and ads about it. I'd love to pick your brain on the classic items because even something like t-shirts have a lot of options and it can be overwhelming if you're suddenly tasked with your casts. Merch and you don't know where to begin. Absolutely. Let's run it down. Shirts are absolutely one of the first things that most casts invest in, but there's a lot of ways to make your life a little easier when you start thinking about Rocky from a retail perspective. I mean, and, and that's, that's what casts are, are doing right. Like Merch is retail. So, so shirts, what works? What doesn't, what should we all be kind of avoiding in this? Like, it's really tempting to order 10 different sizes and styles of like a half dozen different designs. But I'm pretty sure that that's just going to be an absolute nightmare. Absolutely. So, this is where, you know, uh, a lot of people in the community might actually strongly disagree with me. I hate shirts. I hate shirts, anything size wise. Like it's just so difficult to manage because I mean, you want to be inclusive on sizing most of your shows. You want to make sure you have a good assortment of sizes. I can't tell you how many people have come up to art K O at, at a show in Benoy. Oh my God, you guys actually have a three XL. Oh You have a four XL. Oh Yeah, we act, we actually do. We want to be inclusive about this, but it also means that's just more stuff you need to manage. The key thing is you, you got to keep it under control. You don't want 300 different designs, pick one or pick 21 design. That's your primary design that you're, that you're pushing at shows and then maybe there's that new idea. Well, that new idea you can phase in and then phase out your old idea. So the way I approach it is like we want basically one shirt out of any single time point. So that way it's manageable. Yeah, I mean, we, we encountered this before everything shut down here. We had kind of phased in a second shirt design. Um But we were running them concurrently, right? We had our classic eye lips, New York shirt. Uh and then we have our Statue of Liberty logo, fantastic design. We got a wonderful artist to do it. But at the end of the day when we started running our numbers and looking at it, it just wasn't selling as much as the other one and we're sitting on a lot of stock of it. And you know, it's, it's one of those that it's kind of like maybe, maybe we should have taken this a little slower and now that we're looking at bringing stuff back, we're gonna start with that old classic because it's the one that we know sell. Yeah, it's always a struggle like what will resonate especially for apparel, right? And it, they take up a lot of space, they're heavy. Um Anybody that assisted me at prior conventions or prior events and sees us lifting bags of shirts around those IKEA bags that you can get for like storage are amazing for shirts et cetera. But you know, you put 20 shirts in a bag. I mean, you're gonna feel that, I mean, who needs a gym membership? We can just carry all that stuff around. It's true. It's true. I mean, we had, I, I, that's the other thing, it's like, half of our prop closet would be taken up with just bags of shirts, just bags of stock that's sitting there doing nothing but taking up space. Yeah, I know. Emotionally I get invested and, like, oh, my God, that stuff is still there. Why isn't it moving on that? It, it's just this huge corner of like a wall of stuff. And you're like, all right, I'm kind of done with this. It's like, it's a great design. It's, it's amazing, but like we need to figure out a way to move on here and this is all fantastic advice and I know that we've been guilty of not heating in, in the past. Like just ask meg how many extra, extra small baby doll with our alternate logo are sitting in storage? But something like buttons I would imagine is like a very different topic. I think everyone in the community knows that over at R K O, you guys specialize in those like super high quality enamel pens. They are lovingly designed by some of the most talented artists in the community. And your years of logistical experience has the manufacturing and sale sign down to a well oiled machine, but like for a cast that's just starting to branch out. Is it just make some art and buy a button maker on Amazon? Like, where would you suggest that people begin and how can they expand once they dip their toes into the pool? Right. So when, when it comes to buttons, I, I think buttons are tricky so you can go one of two ways. And I've actually, I'm, I'm gonna shoehorn into another topic in a second. But when it comes to buttons, get a cheap button maker at first, minimize your investment, test out a couple of items. Or maybe there's somebody in your local community reach out among artists, et cetera. Maybe they already have a button maker. That's fancy, one of the more professional ones and hey, work out something with them. Hey, can you crank out 20 or 30 buttons for me of these two or three designs? Do a test, see how it goes. There's a lot of people too. If you go on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist or whatever, there's always people turning over equipment, you and you, you end up saving money in the long run doing it at home. But on the other hand, if you order in bulk online, you arguably can end up with a higher quality product. It's less time. So what's your time worth? That's really what you have to ask yourself. Are you willing to be sitting at home for, you know, three or four hours before a show, punching out buttons and then putting them into the maker and putting them all together and then putting them in a box and organizing everything or do you just want to order in, especially if you've got like, a couple of big shows coming up and you, you want a lot of inventory, then you're probably going with a bulk manufacturer. Versus if you just want to try something out, find the cheapest equipment that you can test it out first or find a friend that has the equipment already and use them. And this sounds a lot like what we were talking about with t-shirts. Right. Like, don't go out there and make 700 different designs. Every single character you can possibly think of, figure out what sells first. Right. Absolutely. I mean, you can, if, if you really want to do buttons, quote unquote the legit right way, then, I mean, you're looking at American button making machines. Um, I forget what, what the name of it is. But, um, I think it's American button machines but those each, for each size, you need a separate machine and they're like $300 a whack. So, and I've been at craft shows. Um, uh, a friend of mine used to run a business and I was helping him out at his booth and it was a guy next to us and he was running a booth called Sutton Button and he had a unique way of doing it. He just had a generic design and it was targeted at kids. But you could see how this would work at a show too. So he had just like a piece of paper printed out and it was like, ok, come over, do your thing with your design or do your art, right? And maybe it could be rocky hearty. Maybe it couldn't be, you, you could do a million things with this but do your thing and then he'll grab the thing, punch it out, make a button right on the spot. Sell it to him. Here's a dollar. He was making a lot of money doing that. He don't line, you know, so you can do a million things with this again. It's a question of what direction do you want to go with it? Do you want, do you want something fancy? Do you want something that's more like audience participation where somebody could, you know, kind of have an old button making station and, you know, just throw me a dollar, make your own button design. Here's our background, rocky horror theme thing and then you can do your own thing with it and make a button and leave the show with it. I love that idea. That's, I'd never even kind of thought about that. I mean, obviously, you know, you're committing to having a cast member, they can sit there or a crew member, they can sit there and do that. But like, it's, it's a great idea to, to, to bring that audience participation aspect into it. Um, I certainly know back in the day, right? Like, and by back in the day. I mean, you know, eighties, nineties, you know, that kind of thing. There, a lot of casts really leaned heavily on, uh, just kind of the mass market stuff that they could put on buttons, right. Pictures of the characters, the lips, like, you know, Rocky Horror or whatever. Um, I'm curious about your opinion on this. Is that something that cash should kind of away from? Like, obviously nobody on here is a legal expert. We're not gonna tell you you're gonna run into copyright issues or any of that kind of stuff using it. But like, is that something that you're concerned about with the kind of stuff you guys are producing at R K O or you know what's, what's the thought there? I, I think you're going down the road, you want original art, you want some sort of parody work, you want some sort of fun thing, your own take on it because again, you're, you're also competing with ebay and Amazon and all the other online forms. Posh Mark Makkari. I mean, people are reselling buttons, they bought wholesale already. So how much of a market are you really going to have for the same thing that I can already get on the app? That's not much perhaps, right? I mean, and, and even some of the more generic stuff like Etsy is flooded with it, right? If you, if you go to Etsy and you search for Rocky Horror lips. I mean, take your pick, there's six pages of buttons that you can buy on there. And, and then how, how do you stand out among all of that? Like, OK, the, the people have a unique take on the button like they did a black and white, but it's the same scene with Frank on the throne that everybody's seen a bazillion times. OK, cool. I, that, I, that's fun. But maybe I'm looking for something unique. Make me, maybe I'm looking for something that's just, you know, also the audience member connects more with the cast that way. Like, oh, no, this is our stuff. Oh, really? This is your stuff. You, you did all this. Oh, wow, that's so awesome. Oh, give me four of those and it's absolutely a great way to, to foster engagement just within your cast, right? You know, maybe you've got an artist who, you know, maybe they're a college student, maybe they're just out of high school and they, they don't have a lot of published, you know, work or whatever. Um They're gonna jump at that opportunity to, oh, you want me to draw you Frank as a duck? I can draw you Frank as a duck. I've been drawing Frank Ducks for years, you know, and let's have fun with it, you know, let, let, let's uh um I forget who the artist was. That did the, um, the uh Rocky Horror Time Warp graphic as hieroglyphics, right? It was amazing. Oh, that's cool. And it's actually spelled out in hieroglyphics. Like you got the Egyptian look. And there's Frank as an Egyptian. I mean, it's an amazing piece and it's unique. I mean, that, that's like, oh, my God, this is awesome. This is, this is amazing. And this is 10 times better than what I could get on Amazon. Yeah. Absolutely. And I know that's exactly, you know what I'm seeing when I'm looking, you know, at the R K O booth and, you know, all these unique enamel pins that's got like, Harley's amazing art on them and just stuff you've never seen before. And you're like, oh yeah, I do want a marriage maze pin like, oops, never really thought about it because it just hasn't been out there and, you know, people haven't done it. So, absolutely. So does the same advice apply to like patches, key shades magnets, you know, so on and so forth. Are there unique considerations there? They're certainly more difficult to manufacture than like a button maker at your kitchen table. So, uh patches, you know, you can find a local embroidery company that's willing to help you out keychains. I mean, if you really want to, you can go to Michael's and, you know, come up with your own design and, and assemble it yourself or you can go more bulk manufacturing magnets are tough, but they're good to have. I do have enough people that say Oh, yeah. Uh, pins aren't my thing. Or patches aren't my thing. But I, I do like magnets. I mean, there's a reason why you go into every single retail store in New York City and, and what's the first thing that you see is a walk in the door besides, like a core with water and beer or something? You see this huge rack of, like magnets? I love New York and here's a big apple and I mean, and there's a bazillion of them. Why are they there? Because obviously there's enough of a market for it that, you know, hey, it's a $4 item. I, I, maybe I'm not looking to drop 20 or $30 on a t-shirt but $4 for a magnet. Sure. What the heck. You know, you, you're at that price point where you're like, oh, yeah, whatever. Sure. I'll take two. I mean, it's cheaper than a hot dog at the theater. So, why not? You just need to be cognizant of a lot of these things. They don't sell as fast as like your traditional buttons or, uh, pins. So, you know, realize that they're not going to be something that you're gonna sell a bazillion of. And so do you want to deal with all of that? And, yeah, and definitely take that into account, you know, with how much you're stocking, right. You know, like, you don't need 500 you know, bulk order when you're selling for a show? You know, and, and can you afford to do that? Right. So, I mean, I'm, I'm always concerned about what the sustainability of the community is as far as cast funding and, and budgets and, and, you know, do you have enough money to replace your tank when the time comes, you know, do you really want to tie up $1500 2000 dollars in buttons or t-shirts or, or keychains? And then guess what? We thought this would be amazing, but they're not selling and good luck explaining why you can't buy a new spotlight because you're sitting on, you're sitting on 100,000 magnets, like they don't do much to show your actors. Uh, but they, they, they let you stick stuff to stuff. That's right. So I think a lot of what we came to on this, right? Like find, find original pieces that really stand out that, that show your brand and just be really aware of, you know, how much you're stocking, what stuff sells and, you know, take it slow, use cheaper alternatives at the beginning and, uh you know, really, really flush out what you're trying to do with it while we're on that topic. Right? And specifically around original art, I think we've got to talk about stickers and posters and bumper stickers, right? All of those paper products. I love supporting content creator in the community. And I think that original art is absolutely a fantastic way to do that. Be it, stickers or prints or whatever. But I have to imagine from like the, the retail side of the logistics side, there's gotta be a lot of pros and cons there. Like, what do you think about when you're curating paper products? So, paper products are tricky. I mean, you've got to be real, especially with paper products. Right. I mean, wrinkles. Um, you can end up with stuff damaged very easily. It can get bulky or awkward to carry around. It's one thing, oh, I'll just grab a artist portfolio. You know, that somebody maybe had for sale on ebay and I, I got some way to protect the work as it's coming into the show. But how are you gonna display it? Do you do any outdoor shows? Because let me tell you something, talk to any artist or craftsperson, outdoors, humidity, paper, you know, if they do water colors, I mean, oh my God. Um. Right. So you, you gotta be really cognizant of that way. What if somebody spills, spills a soda on your stuff? Right. So, you know, uh, it, it's ruined now, you can't save it. Versus they, they spilled it on some buttons. Ok. Life's gonna suck. But you can rinse it out in the sink and, and you can basically salvage the work versus now the stuff's destroyed. So, paper products are tricky. It can work. I would be hesitant to spend a ton of money. On it or, or to do something very specific, you know, like a poster for your specific show, perhaps not, maybe you gear it towards something more generic. On the other hand, if you can find like a local print house that can do a small scale run and you do like four or five posters, you know, and you're looking to know, like do something special, print out four or five posters, have the cast, sign them all and then sell them at the show. You could do amazing at that. You wouldn't, you'd be amazed how many people, like, oh my God, this is awesome. Especially if you're doing a theme show. Stickers are tricky. You really got to check with your menu. Um, you gotta get a, a temperature reading in the room because, ok, the stickers, we sold a bunch of stickers. What if they put them all up in the bathroom? Right. And then you leave it right. I mean, it happens 99% of the time. I haven't seen that but you need to be aware, like it could be a risk. Like, ok, yeah. Uh, some and some venues just ban them. You know, there's some comic cons. Like, I, I know there's some anime expos. Stickers are banned. They don't allow them in the building just because of that because they've had issues in the past with people just plastering them all over the place. Yikes I hadn't even thought about that. But, I mean, it's, it's definitely because, especially, especially with stuff like your props and things that, you know, might be sitting out in the lobby for half of a show or something. You come back out and suddenly you got 15 stickers on it and it can work to your advantage too if you have like a castle logo and you do like some nice stickers or something. Guess what part of your math should be? I want extra so I can mark all my stuff with them. So that like there's a giant arch os army sticker on the side of the ladder like, ok, whose ladder is that? Oh, that's ours. See, because it's got a sticker on it or the spotlight, especially if you're in a venue and your shirt with other organizations or whatever, we mark your stuff. Well, then it's an opportunity, do some stickers and then also you can as part of your calculus say, hey, I'm not just spending this money to just do merch. Guess what? I'm gonna repurpose some of this. So if it doesn't sell, I can still use them to mark all my items. Absolutely. I mean, I know we did um we did temporary tattoos for a long time. Um They worked out really good, but part of that cost benefit analysis was just like we're gonna lose a third of these just to the elements, right? Just to moisture and this and they stick together and, uh, a lot of that was ok, we take that into account and, you know, all the ones that are kind of, you know, a little too crummy to sell. Well, those are the ones that we give out to the cast for free, that they can plaster on themselves for pride parades and, you know, for all this other stuff. So definitely that, that alternate angle of like, all right, what's the other use for this? If I can't sell them or if there are too many of them get slightly damaged or any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, you, you in the back of your mind, you need to have a backup plan. Like um there's a lot of talk in the artist communities about like blind bags or grab bags. So if you got like dead stuff, you know, you can throw it in a bag and, and just, ok, so it's not a prop bag, it's just the bag of mystery and for whatever reason, a lot of times people love that they, they're huge sellers at stuff like Comic Con. You just see boots that are nothing but mystery boxes, line boxes with Mario on the side of them or whatever. So definitely something to look at. And what about all the other stuff? Like all those things that cast member ask about bottle openers, pens, water bottles, coffee cups, underwear. Like just all of that. I think everyone has pitched these kind of ideas before. So, what is your position on that stuff? Is it too difficult to stock, have you found some unexpected items that sell like hot cakes? What are your vibes on this? Well, I'll tell you the unexpected item that, that ended up selling like hotcakes was the enamel pens for us. We didn't really think this would be that big a thing, but it, it seems it's, it's obtainable art for people. Right. I'm not spending $300 on this, this unique piece. It's only, it's only 10 or $15. I, I, and I can wear it. So it's wearable art too. So it kind of punches a couple of different categories. Some of these things like pens, water bottles, coffee cups. I mean, you got to really take a look at, ok. How much storage space do you have? Um, coffee cups, water bottles gets really heavy. Where can, can you display this? Are you set up to handle it? You probably want to curate what you have and, but if you've got something you want to take a shot, it's like, all right, well, really thinks this is gonna be amazing. Ok, great. Well, well, let's do a thing internally. We like, do an internal order or something like that and everybody is gonna want a water bottle anyway. So if I'm guaranteed on selling 20 water bottles, how many more do I need to sell to get my money back out at least. So then at least, you know, you're, you're agreeing together as a team like, hey, guys, we want to make this happen. Ok? Well, let's make this happen and you know, is everybody willing to step up here and, you know, put a couple of bucks into the pot on that to help us get to. Yes on that. So that way we're not relying just on the audience buying all these items. Ok? Hey, I got 20 or 30 captive cast members. They're willing to step up here and everybody wants to make this happen. Ok. Well, let's make it happen. And I mean, that's just a great way to take the temperature too. Like you've got 20 hyper invested people, if only two of them are interested in a water bottle. Well, maybe your audience won't be either, you know, and vice versa if every single one of them is like, give me that, that underwear. OK? Maybe that's an item that you can, that you should be bringing out to the audience. Yeah, absolutely. The, the underwear that Tesla X have is an amazing idea. Um And it's, it's well executed because it just, you're dealing with sizes, but it's a smaller item. It's a light, it's easy to carry and, you know, people just, oh, it's a lark. You know, it's, it's kind of funny. Uh So your general audience members into it, but then you've got a lot of cast members who are like I'm on that role anyway. Like, oh my God. Yeah. Give me that because I want it as part of my costume. So I, I think part of the takeaway for all of this stuff is, you know, the more you stock, the more you have to handle in logistic and just make sure that that's what you want to be doing with it. But up until now we've been talking almost exclusively about kind of cast branded Merch or stuff that you're bringing specific to your show. I've been wanting to ask you about this for a while. Fred, what do you feel about generic mass market items? I've been curious about these because particularly back in the day, that's just what a lot of Rocky casts only had for sale. Do you mean like, like generic, just Rocky horror merch? Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of stuff like the official trading cards or like glossy character head shots. That's stuff that you could buy in bulk and resell. I mean, like Rocky horror face masks or, I mean, maybe I've seen casts that have copies of the Blu Ray available at their tables. Like, do you think it pays off to dive into some of that generic merch or are you just setting yourself up to hold a lot of slow moving stock? So for Generic Merch a again, you, you gotta realize too, you're competing with Amazon now, right? So, um you're competing with ebay, you're competing with Google where I can, I can just go on the app and order it and it'll be there tomorrow. I approach that stuff cautiously. I would take a look at number one. How many shows you have coming up? Are you, do you have any mega mega shows coming up? Right? Where you're gonna have at least a few 100 people? Ok. So if you have that coming up, maybe it makes sense if you can find somebody that's willing to take it on, do the work to find out. Ok. Is there a wholesale path to get this item? How can I get this item for my cast? It, can I get it at a reasonable price where, you know, at least, you know, I'm not making 50 cents on each sale because at that point, why bother? Right? Is it, is it really something that's going to really drive things for you guys? Right? It doesn't make a lot of sense to do this Blu rays, et cetera. Um Yeah, I mean, the cast could sign a Blu Ray or something, right? So you could take a off the shelf item and kick it up a notch by creating some tie in with the cast. Like you, you know, you could get it autographed or you, you could grab a pack of trading cards and have the cast autograph it a couple of the trading cards as the character on the back or something like that. And then you're taking that generic item and you're kicking it up a notch and making it something unique and special. And that's a way to leverage it and make it something more amazing. And also more of like a, not a heirloom item but like a keepsake. Oh, I lost my virginity at that show and I got the DVD signed by the cast and I'm gonna keep that forever. I just went very quiet because that's a very clever idea. And, and I hadn't really, I never think about this, especially for shadow casting. It's, it's not a Broadway show. It's not a, this, it's not a, that, it's not any of that, but people don't care and they, they, they're just like, no, I went to see that thing. These were the people that I saw it with and here's, here's the signatures on the Blu Ray cover that I got and yes, I paid $5 more on Amazon. But, uh, all right, you know, interesting. That's a really interesting take. I like that. Yeah, because at the end of the day, what you're doing is, I mean, we're presenting interactive content that's differentiated from a lot of stuff out there. And yeah, it's not a Broadway show, but on some level, I feel like this is where the future of the movie theater industry is headed to some degree. You can't just show a movie and count on the crowds to show up anymore. Um, especially you know, post Panera bread. So you need to find some way, especially if you're a small business owner, differentiate yourself and look at what your community theater is doing, right. They're doing talk backs, they're doing, uh, you know, meet the cast, maybe they're doing some unique, you know, workshop thing or whatever. Our community kind of falls in the same zip code. We may not be on the same street, but we're definitely in the same zip code as that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that's something that um not a lot of casts have explored. Right? That option of the, the, the extra stuff. It's kind of we, we have it down to, they show up, they get in line, we do the preshow, they might stop at our merch table, they're gonna just run through the movie and then kick them back out the door. Hopefully they'll pass by the merch table on the way back out. But there's all that other stuff that community theaters and especially that is doing, that really creates a, more of an experience that frankly at the end of the day can drive more merch sales. If you just listen to some guy talk for 10 minutes about what it's like to be Magenta. Uh you might want him to sign something and well, you might want to pay $4 for it. So you never know what kind of a connection that you've made with an audience member Well, our frank at the time, Maddie, you know, somebody wanted her autograph, you know. Yeah, she, she was just blown away by it and it's like, oh, oh, yeah. I mean, that happens sometimes people are just like you connected with me so much on stage. I just found this an experience. Can I get your autograph and, you know, in, in another way too, the audience, you can take a page from what bands do, etcetera, the audience is supporting you like that. This is their way of showing their support to what you're doing, to all the work you're throwing out there to all the rehearsals, the blood, the sweat, the tears. This is their way of showing. I support what you're doing out here. Absolutely. I think that there's a massive wealth of information that we've gone over related to the actual items that a cast can sell. But Fred, as you've said before, it's not just what you stock, but it's also how you present it and all of the logistics of effectively managing a small store at your weekly show. So what are some of the things that you found on the logistics side that casts should get a handle on before they start expanding their offerings? I mean, the first thing is storage, right? So are you constantly moving to different venues like R K O is, or are you doing something more like, hey, we're here every week, if you're there every week, you got a lot more options and you can get a lot more creative with displays and such. Um depending on what you have for storage, get on some of the local artist forms, walk around at your local craft show. See what other people are doing. Everybody's constantly tinkering with their displays. I know I am. I mean, sometimes, you know, the back of my car looks like a disaster zone because I've got all these random things that I'm like playing with. But, you know, think about how you're gonna display stuff. Like, are you gonna make it up high? Don't just lay it all flat on a table. That sucks. You know, it's a good way to start out, you know, and, and do a test but you've got to get stuff vertical so people can see it. So those wire cubes that'll people at Comic Cons use, there's a reason they all use them because you can set them up, break them down, they're flexible. You can grab a bunch of binder clips and hang art off of it or hang merch or pin up a t-shirt or whatever pretty quickly and inexpensively. So that's one way to go. The other way to go is see what other bands are doing. Like rock bands that tour, you know, especially your smaller ones, their local community guys and gals, those people know what they're doing because they're counting on that merch sale for the show. So what inspired me was um is a band called The Lights Out. And they had a video called Build a Merch Case to make Optimus Prime Jealous. And it, there was this crazy thing that folded up and it had a lighting panel and it had a bunch of C DS and they would just leave it there with a donation box. And so they'd run their show and while the show is going on and they're on stage, they've got this thing with a thing of C DS and they're like, you know, you'd be amazed, people just put money in the donation slot and then they take a, a CD and they leave and it's selling for us even when we're not there and they do really well with it. So I'm like, that's brilliant. You know, how do you organize stuff? Right? Color code, your t-shirts or R K O does Roy. So we bag them all up, we put tape on them so we can be, we tell what sizes we have that payment. You gotta take credit cards these days. You're gonna lose 30 40 50% of the sales on the table. If you can't take a credit card, get a square account, you can get the equipment for free or for 10 bucks to set up an account get started, especially if you're trying to suss out if this is even feasible for you guys like, hey, you know, make sure that you're setting yourself up for a good test. If you've never done merch before besides prop bags and you wanna try something out, make sure you can take credit cards. So that way you're gonna get a really good test and say, hey, so how do we do here? Did we do, do we do $10? Well, well, we didn't take credit cards. Seven people would have bought something, but you couldn't take a credit card. So you lost all those sales. Did you get a really good test out of that? No, Venmo is the big one for us that everybody has to pay with now. Hard. No, no hard. No, I, I have heard horror stories. I cannot personally confirm it. I've got a Venmo account personally. I've heard horror stories of people quote unquote in the industry that do like artist, a comic cons, all that sort of stuff for a living, losing thousands of dollars on Venmo from getting hacked or, or whatever. I don't know the full story, but it's enough to be like, I am very, very hesitant to go down that road. It's like we take credit cards. Um, we can do apple pay with square if you get the reader, that's like 40 bucks that will check most the boxes, Venmo. It is an open discussion out there around. Is this really feasible? A lot of people use it? But you're taking a risk. That makes perfect sense. I mean, plus if you've got a demo account. It's linked to a card that you could probably accept anyway. Right. So, yeah, exactly. So, just give me the card and then, you know, you need the ferrier set up to what you're doing. Right. Maybe you just have a, a box that you flip open at a venue. You can just grab a cheap suitcase. That's what a lot of bands do. They put a little string of ferry lights around it. Battery pack for 10 bucks because you need light. Don't assume that where you're gonna be, there's a light and people can see your stuff. You need a light just to have, you know, battery powered ones are cheap. Make sure you got signage. We take credit cards. My friend used to do craft shows. I couldn't believe he had like seven signs up. We take credit cards. Do you take credit cards? So, you know, it's like, yeah, well, here, here, here, here, um, and prices like most people won't maybe walk up to your booth. Make sure you have a good size price sign. So people can kind of see what stuff's for sale, how much it is and then determine. Ok. Is this something in my budget or not? Most people won't even bother walking up if they don't see the price. Yeah. The last thing you want to do is lose a sale because, you know, you, you're one guy who's vending is talking to somebody and you know, actively in engaging and somebody standing there waiting to find out how much your buttons are, you know. So we've covered a million things here and I, I think this is kind of where it can start to get really overwhelming for people. Right? Like suddenly your simple merch set up of, like we're selling prop bags for five bucks is now like gone to a button board and a bag of t-shirts and, and then you take it further and now you got a full retail display that maybe now you're setting up a bigger ordeal than half of what your props are for the actual film. Even past that, we all know it doesn't stop there beyond your local show. Like you personally have a ton of experience managing the logistics for things like R K O Con and for other big, you know, events expanding just out of merch. Is it kind of the same thought process? You know, where you're starting to look at that stuff where you're having to treat Rocky more like a business when you're ordering programs and signage and posters and flyers and like all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you got to do the math. I mean, it's, it's a lot of work. Like, I ironically like Roy talks about the sweet spot, our cast director, right? I mean, sometimes you'll find that maths weird, like you can get 250 of an item for a dollar a piece or you could get 300 of an item for 35 cents a piece. And, and you're like, well, why, why would I order the two? I'll just order the 300 because it's actually gonna be cheaper overall. But, you know, promo materials and, and all that sort of stuff. I mean, what do you have room to store again? Do you have a place to display it? Do you have people that are willing to like hand out stuff or whatever? Right. Um Before you spend a ton of money on flyers and posters and that sort of thing, do you have some place to put it? Like when you get to the venue? Because now you might need to bring an easel to put the poster up, right? So now you can't, can make sure you got a checklist to make sure you don't miss something. Banner stands are great for that. Like get a graphic designer, put up a banner stand. Um Rocky for her quality. They were at A O K 2019, Rocky for equality. Does the show up in uh Maine? They do the Rocky Horror show, not the shadow cast of the play and they have the best banner stands I've ever seen and it gets the point across and you can get a banner stand made for like under $100. We're, we're starting to think about doing some of that for A K O as well because you can just, you have this little over the shoulder thing, you pull it up, there's a big huge sign that's like six ft tall. Um And then you close it up at the end of the show and you go not hard to navigate. It's not heavy, it doesn't take up a lot of space, etcetera. Again, you just gotta realize like, ok, how much time, effort and money do I want to spend on making all this different stuff? And am I getting what I need out of it? I mean, one of the things we did for a K O when it comes to um just getting engagement with the audience is um we spend money every month on a text to join email, you know, instead of having the clipboard or whatever, hey, text, you know, to R K O E M and uh you'll get a link back on your phone, sign up for your email list. And that way we're kind of starting to build a audience list independent of Facebook, independent Instagram, independent of everything that I can just directly reach out to people that really like what we're doing. I mean, that's huge. And guess what, you know, you don't need to do a signage or anything else. You just throw something up on your screen if you can and say, hey, just text this number, get on our email address. Don't count on Facebook to tell you what's going on and hear directly from us. It's, it's, it's a great tool. Yeah. I mean, and those are the hyper engaged people that you can direct market to then, you know, that you can, hey, we got new shirts. Do you want to try them out? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think we can all see why a lot of this stuff can be, like, extremely daunting for the average cast just looking to get their branding on some shit. But it doesn't have to be like, you don't need decades of experience and spreadsheets living in your brain rent free to get started, but it certainly doesn't hurt either. So, wrapping us up here, we've all seen a lot of Rocky. We've all visited quite a few casts during our tenure. Is there some merch item that you've seen recently that just lights up that interco collecting dragon and goes, I've got to have that or even more flatteringly. That's a great idea. I've got to steal that from my cast. Mine personally is the, uh, the asshole in slut underwear that I like. Um, I, I'm pretty sure I mentioned it on the podcast at one point. And then the very next week Harley came up and gave me a pair because I had talked about them and I was like, this is it, in my own humble and correct opinion. It is the best piece of Rocky Merch Bar. None. I feel like there are so many casts that, like, are like, oh, we should do underwear and then they, you know, because they think it's funny and then they actually went out and did it and I absolutely love it. I think it's a fantastic idea. They're, they're wonderful. I've even used them for shows when I've forgotten my black underwear before they work it. It's one of those things that you see and you go, oh, I could, I could see that being in, in my hot topic or in, you know, in my, my, my local, you know, alt store, right where you're just like, oh, it, it, it's so simple and straightforward and, uh, we got to steal that idea. It's so good. What about you, Fred? Was there? Uh, there's something other than those underwear that there was just like. Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah, absolutely. And I can't, for the life of me remember the name of the cast. But, um, we had a nice thread going on one of the shadow casting forms, uh, a while back and people were kind of just sharing their merch and I was like, there was a cast, I think Indiana perhaps. And they had like glasses or like hip flasks with like, some sort of like illustration on it. I was like, that's amazing. That's amazing idea. Of course, bringing glasses et cetera is kind of painful too. But, you know, I, I know, I know some, uh, from doing craft shows with my friend. There's some vendors on the circuit that do like a laser edge glass work, et cetera, the cantor sets and stuff and, uh, make a business out of it and they just travel the country selling glassware, um, with illustrations etched on to them, you know, fandom related type stuff and it kind of punched some of those points. And I was like, that's an amazing idea and I'm, I'm just waiting for them to, to eventually get to the point where they have this for sale online. I'm definitely gonna be a customer. Yeah, I, I love that and it's, it's one of the things that, like, we didn't really broach on it too much today. Those, like, high ticket items. Right. Those, like, it's always such a risk, right where you're investing in something that you're expecting to sell for 100 bucks or, you know, even $50. Right. For something that's, you know, high end like that. And it, it's, we haven't seen a ton of it in the community, but when I do see those specific things that casts have, that's always the thing that, that I lock on to. And I'm like, oh, man, I, I guess I do need a croquet set or, you know, whatever random thing that's just re bouche. Right. Like, I've never seen one of those before. And wow, Castle Hotel. Right. Exactly. I mean, listen, I would give like infinite money for an Oakley Court Lego set, like just literally infinite money. I would just throw at someone to assemble a 3000 piece, you know, Oakley Court Lego set, but it's stuff like that that's, you know, it strays really far into like art and all of this kind of stuff where you're, you're talking about high ticket items. But those are the ones that always just light me up with just like, oh man, I've never seen that before. And honestly, it's the reason that the damn underwear is such a thing because you just go, I've never seen that before and it's so obvious. Damn it, why hasn't anybody done it? And now they have so I, I love that stuff. You heard it here first, folks, Aaron wants to buy your underwear. Well, yes. And our show, goddamn it. And that's our show. We want to thank Fred for joining us on air this week and being a wonderful and beautiful co-host. And as always, we would like to thank our writer Jacob and our editor Aaron from Tennessee. We appreciate all your work. If anyone has a question that they'd like us to answer on air for our ask a question segment or some community news that they'd like us to talk about or even just a cool story to share with the community. You know, we'd love to include it in our show. Go to our website that's rocky talkie podcast dot com and fill out the contact form to tell us all about it. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It helps to make the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us to grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talking content, you can check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. We'll talk to you next week. Bye bye. See you. 70 six. So good. Hold on. Someone just decided to die outside. We make sure they're stopped. The, the, the death has ceased before I start talking.