front-line - Ozone Magazine

That’s creative. How did you come up with that idea
PN: To be honest, one of our DJs that we’ve dealt with
for years, DJ Saxwell, had been doing it on a smaller
level with another company. They decided to step down
because it wasn’t a major success for that company. We
all got together and said we could make it big. I would
say the idea came from Saxwell.
Does your company do events outside of Florida
PN: Oh yeah. We do events all around the country.
We do big events for the Super Bowl, the NBA All Star
Game, Essence Music Festival and things like that.
What are your plans for expansion Are you happy with
the size of your company or would you like to see it
grow even more
PN: We were just thinking about that last night. We
plan to start a teen division with Front-Line to capture
a younger audience so when they get older they’ll
know about Front-Line. Also, we’re going to get into
the ad agency business. We have relationships with all
the major radio stations, mainly in the South. We can
really go out and do a lot of good marketing for other
companies. Of course, Willie and myself don’t just play
into going to the club every day so we’re going to
expand into other businesses like restaurants, day care
centers. Willie already has a dump truck business. We
really plan to go to a whole other level. We also plan to
start buying tours and things of that nature.
How do you stay ahead of the competition in the
entertainment business
PN: We really feel that we’re our own competition. Competition
is healthy but we feel we’re own our competition
because the more and more we push each other, the
further we’re going to go.
What is the most rewarding part of your job
WF: Seeing an event go successfully. It takes hard work
to put on an event but at the end of the day knowing
that it was a success, not just money-wise but everything
went good – the artists showed up, there weren’t
any incidents, things like that, that’s when we’re happy.
PN: I would say the same thing Willie just said – seeing
that everything came together and went fine. It’s not
always about the money. Sometimes it’s about the look
and the perception. That’s what a lot of people don’t
understand. Sometimes they do an event and may not
have made the money, or may have lost some money,
but sometimes success is based on what your customers
feel. It’s about how the party or concert turned out.
WF: As long as your customers are happy, that’s a success.
If they’re not happy, then it’s not a success. Some
promoters are happy they made a lot of money, but
their people are upset. That’s not a successful event
because it’s going to be real hard for you to come back
and do another one.
What are your thoughts on that Is that difficult
PN: You’re definitely right about that. I have people in
my family that ask me to go here and there for them
and do this for them, but I got to go to work. They
don’t look at it as a real full-time job, but it’s more than
a full-time job. It’s 24 hours a day. We may get a call
at 5:30 in the morning that something went wrong at
our club and we may have to get up out of bed and go
see what’s going on. It takes a lot of planning to put
together all the stuff that we do. We do events almost
every day of the week.
Do you have a website where people can view your
upcoming parties
PN: FrontLineEvents.com andClubWhispers.net
Do you have any other knowledge to share
WF: I don’t want to seem too harsh, but we have a
problem of trying to make people understand that we
all need to support each other. Pat mentioned that we
have a nightclub. There’s only one other black owned
club in Central Florida. We try to make sure that our
community understands that we’re entrepreneurs;
we’re business owners. We need support. The only way
this place is going to continue to run is if we all stick
together. You have clubs that open up and say they’re
not doing any Hip Hop, but what they’re really saying is
they’re not doing any blacks. But as soon as their club
starts to fail, they turn to the black dollar. The black dollar
is the strongest dollar in the nightclub business right
now. You have a lot of cliques, like the upscale urban
people, and sometimes they tend to stray away from
an urban owned club. People told us in the beginning
when we opened the club that we need to be as diverse
as possible. We said no. We’re trendsetters; we set our
own standards. We have a full-fledged urban club and
we’re proud of it. You can get your Hip Hop on one
night, your R&B and Neo-Soul on another, your Reggae
on another and your Latin on another night. We’re
diverse, but we’re diverse in the minority community.
PN: A lot of times people look at us, including other
promotion companies, and say that we don’t want to
share the wealth. It took a lot to get where we are and
I always practice this quote: I don’t have any control of
how the wind blows, but I can adjust my sails to reach
my destination. For people who don’t understand,
everyone has the right to do business and it’s up to you
to go out there and make it happen. //
Words by Ms. Rivercity // Photos by Terrence Tyson
A lot of people also might not understand the entertainment
business runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.