Events Producer Shares Lessons From Successes, Failures

The head of Hawaii's largest events production company shared lessons he has learned from his successes and failures over the past quarter-century with BYU-Hawaii business students during the March 16 entrepreneurship lecture.

Mike Rossell, president of Production Hawaii, Inc., said the events staging and management company grew as a "natural progression" from his first business providing temporary hires, which enabled him "to discover certain types of equipment that were helpful to my clients."

He started importing large portable loading ramps for facilities that didn't have loading docks. "Almost nobody has a loading dock in Hawaii. We sold a lot of the ramps...and fast. We had no competitors," Rossell said, describing this situation as a "natural monopoly -- a monopoly without government influence, based on quality, service and function."

After doing a successful ramp sales demonstration in a parking lot, Rossell got the idea to set up a trade show. "The Hawaii Industrial Show was born. It caught the attention and imagination of literally hundreds of local companies," he said, recalling that R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was a featured guest speaker at the first show.

The show ran each year for about eight years, "and then it reached the point where it didn't make sense anymore, because relatively few new products were coming in. Now we go on a five-year cycle."

"We decided we had to create more events," Rossell said. He came up with Sports Week 79, "the precursor to the Hawaii State Games." However, he admitted he "made a lot of mistakes. We brought in lots and lots of people successful in various sports, but basically the event didn't work because I didn't tell the story very well in a $20,000 media campaign."

"This taught me my first big lesson: The key of benefiting from mistakes is to learn from them, either your own or from other people's."

His next production, Boat Days, put 22 yachts in the water of Honolulu harbor and was "wildly successful" with a canoe regatta and water skiing entertainment. "Only one guy wasn't happy with the show: the harbor master. He told me, Mike, you've turned my harbor into a playground, and I don't appreciate it. He put the kibosh on the future of the show. If I had it to do over again, I would have gotten him to approve or disapprove of every single part of the plan."

Rossell said his "biggest bomb" was Ye Olde World Faire, "a replication of several Renaissance fairs I had seen on the mainland. I didn't know 97% of our population didn't have a clue what a Renaissance fair was. Very few people came."

"I didn't do my market research. I also learned you better think about it before you commit money to something you're not sure about," Rossell said, adding it took him and his partners about four years to recover financially.

A series of children's fairs followed for 11 years at the Blaisdell Center. Production Hawaii also became associated with handling non-race aspects of the Honolulu Marathon, "another natural monopoly"; Brunch on the Beach in Waikiki, and Sundays at Bishop Museum.

He also helped a well-known California producer with the Maui Music Festival that got off to a good start in Kaanapali, but fizzled several years later when the producer didn't work closely enough with the resort. Rossell learned "it's best to stay on the good side of your landlord."

Hawaii Production did the Dragon Boat Festival in years two-through-five, where he learned "maybe it's not always a good idea to do business on a handshake. Events can become very valuable after a while," Rossell added.

The company also does special events, including helping with the set-up for a July 4th concert at Magic Island (Ala Moana Park) featuring the Honolulu Symphony and a fireworks show, the stage for the Waikiki broadcast of Wheel of Fortune, and a $2 million wedding reception. "In the event business, you really have to be ready for anything and everything," he said.

Rossell added two other key areas for Production Hawaii include selling graphic displays for companies -- including the PCC -- to use in trade shows, and putting up "sprung instant structures," such as the vocal music building at Kahuku High.

He also does set-ups for professional golf tournaments. At one recent tournament, Rossell said he gave up the chance to play with Tiger Woods in a pro-am event because he had a show opening that day. "When you're the producer of a trade show, you're not somewhere else on the opening day," he added.

"The biggest part of the business at this point is facilitating other companies who want to have an event but don't have the equipment."