(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein, welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is a creative force who has produced historic celebrations from the opening of the African American History Museum to the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Her name is Rebecca Linder.

She's an entrepreneur whose vision has transformed the event industry worldwide.

- Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with The Budd Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

(upbeat music) - Rebecca Linder, you are the CEO of an incredible company.

I have been to a number of programs in DC and other places where your company has produced.

Let me see if I can even attempt to paint a picture.

I walk in this room, there are thousands of people.

You take a big hall somewhere and you transform it into this magical place appropriate to the occasion.

There are AV, there are lights, there's staging, there's production where people come off and on stage, and there's singers and there's speakers.

And these are the ones I've been to have been important events with business people and dignitaries and government leaders and so on.

I just have to ask you, how does one even conceive a program like that?

And when do you start and how many people are involved?

- It's, well, first of all, thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here.

It takes a team.

I mean, it takes thousands of people to actually do a program as you're suggesting.

Something that has thousands of people, it's over the course of multiple days.

It takes probably in that case, a year and a half of planning.

- Really?

And what does it begin?

Does it begin with you talking to the client?

- Usually with the client and understanding and really listening to what they wanna do and what their goals are and understanding for me what's very important for my company is to understand what their really strategic goals are as an organization and then how does this particular event or project tie into that?

Once we understand that, we then go away and kind of get our core team together, not everyone, but the core team, production, creative, design, content, graphics, and talk about thematically what could this be?

And what does this event want to say?

And then we actually articulate that on paper with a brief that we then go back to the client and talk to them about, usually one or two options, if not three.

- I see.

- And then they make a choice and then we start to build out the event.

And our events not only include what's happening on the stage though, it also includes all the hospitality and transportation and all of the other kind of elements as well.

- Yes, of course.

So I have been to one event in Washington that you have produced at Linder Global Events and which is the name of the company, correct?

- Yep.

- Linder Global Events.

And I've been to the same event, one of those places I've been to, three or four times.

And every single time, it's a completely different experience.

By that I mean the lighting and I'm not doing a good job describing it.

What happens on the stage, what happens to the audience.

It's a bit of Hollywood.

- Touch of Hollywood.

- And it's a bit of formality and statesmen-like presentations.

It's all these people giving talks and so on and you've got teleprompters and people operating all this stuff and everything is timed and I'm sure you're working against the clock.

So how do you keep coming up with ideas like that?

And describe this lighting, I'm doing such a bad job.

Describing the actual environment.

- Let's start with the environment.

The environment itself for this particular event, it's an induction ceremony and as you say, there's dignitaries, there's Hollywood, there's a little bit of everyone there.

- And they've been everywhere and seen everything.

- Correct.

And so the onus is on us, always that impetus is for us to come up with something new, that's something though that is also sort of maintains the integrity of what this organization is all about.

So we have to marry those two things.

A little bit of magic and making sure we're on message and on point and we're also delivering an experience that is unmatched for the people in the room.

And so, and with that comes a room that is highly, highly curated from what's happening on the stage, from the performances to the lighting, to the rigging, to the color changes, to the design and what you're talking about, that takes us almost 10 days to build because we're in an auditorium where we then deck over all of the seats and create an entirely new environment so that room is transformed.

And again, as a process, that takes a really long time because once the idea-- - And it's expensive.

- And it can be, it can be, certainly something like that is because we come together and once we've had the idea and the theme is created, well then we gotta go through the process and then the design itself, the content, the messaging and then we have to get the technical piece done.

So we have to bring in engineers, we have to bring in stage hands and technical and production to make sure that it all works together and we can actually deliver on what we say we are promising, which of course is nerve-wracking, especially in the moment.

- I bet, I bet it's very stressful for you to make sure everything is happening and happening right.

Now, the events I've been to have been more business-related events, but you do other events.

Give us an example of another event.

- You know, an event that I was extremely proud of and for many reasons, both the technical feat but also sort of the bringing of people together was for Apollo's 50th anniversary.

NASA brought us on as part of the team to produce the 50th anniversary celebration.

We got a special dispensation in order to actually project and map onto the Washington Monument a recreation of the launch.

But what was so beautiful about it was over the course of two days, we had 500,000 on each night.

- 500,000 people?

- People on each night.

- This is all outside?

- All outside on the National Mall.

- How were you not worried it's gonna rain on you?

- You know what, rain, shine, it didn't matter.

It was gonna happen and we had contingency plans in place and if it thunderstormed, we had even bigger contingencies.

But the beautiful thing about that is when you bring that many people together and hear them ooh and ah at the same time, it doesn't matter how old, what race, what religion, what political affiliation, what gender, nobody cares.

It is just about being together and experiencing some magic together and feeling proud of our history and our accomplishments as a country.

To me, that was one of the most magical.

- And I've seen you bring in people who sing and people who dance and people who, where do you find all these people?

You must have a huge, you know, in the old days we called it a Rolodex, now you call it a contact base of some sort.

- Yes, that and my kids and I watch a lot of America's Got Talent.

No, you know what, we travel the world and I have teams that travel the world.

I have people and agents that work for us that travel the world and find new talent because what we're very conscious of, both from an expense perspective as well as from a newness perspective, a uniqueness, is finding talent that a lot of people might not have heard of.

In some instances, you want them to hear of them, but you also wanna go out and make sure you're in the discovery phase always.

And I think that's important to kind of keep your events fresh.

And having done this now for 30 years, it's really important for me to make sure I'm always with a fresh eye.

So talent we source from all over.

And again, but it is true, watching things like America's Got Talent, TV now facilitates a lot of these newcomers and the internet.

- Yes, the CLR talent, yeah.

So speaking of the world and you traveling the world, my goodness, you were born in West Africa, your mother's Jamaican, you grew up in countries like Jordan and Greece, of course the US, and Brussels, Belgium.

Why were you in all these places?

Were you running away from your parents?

- No, I was with my parents.

- You were with your parents.

- I was, my delightful parents.

My father was an American diplomat.

So I was born over, I didn't actually come to America, even though I'm an American citizen and naturalized born.

I was, I didn't come here until I was seven, almost seven.

And only stayed for a couple of years before I went to Greece to high school.

So it was actually a beautiful experience and it's helped me tremendously in my business.

- 'Cause you're exposed to so many.

- Just different people, different cultures.

I was always often, often kind of other, a different color, a different religion, a different race, a different language.

And so for me, it was incumbent upon me to figure out how to fit in and assimilate.

And it's been a really helpful skill.

- But Rebecca, you went to Boston University.

- Yes.

- You majored in political science.

(Rebecca laughs) Although you did acting, I think, as a minor.

- I was an econ poli sci major and an acting minor.

- What does political science has to do with having such a large global events company?

- You know, nothing and everything.

So nothing in the sense of, you know, I really didn't know what I wanted to do and I'm sure I'm not unique as a, at the time, an 18 year old coming from Greece.

You know, to me, political science was familiar because of my father's work and sort of the world I had grown up in.

But very quickly, I realized, you know, that was, it was interesting to learn, you know, and be a part of that.

But very quickly, I realized economics was interesting also 'cause I do have both kind of, you know, both brain, sides of my brain are activated on both practical and creative.

- Financial side, the creative side.

- Creative side.

And for me, events ended up in owning my own company became the perfect marriage.

But my transition to it was through acting because I really, much to my parents, a little bit chagrin.

- Yes.

- And yet they were very supportive.

I had announced that I was gonna become an actress and both my parents were like, "Really?

That's what you're gonna do after all this?"

- You said to the Boston University, all that expense?

- But I quickly realized that I liked the production more than I did, you know, back of the house versus front of the house.

before every performance.

So I didn't feel like that was sustainable.

- Ah, I see.

- But I realized the back of the house, I really enjoyed that, you know, curtain goes up six o'clock, ready or not, here comes the audience.

That really, I thrived under that pressure and that adrenaline.

- Yes.

I read somewhere where you also did the opening for the African-American History Museum, which is part of the Smithsonian.

I've been to that museum, but it was a different occasion.

What was that like?

Opening a museum, it was the grand opening for a museum, right?

- Yes.

- That's what you did.

- It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

I was actually, funny enough, I had just had a baby and I got a call, literally maybe a week later, I got a call from the museum, the Smithsonian, and I had done quite a bit of work for them.

I'd opened several of the museums and it was three years prior to the museum opening and they called and said, "We need you."

And I literally, a week later, after having had my second, I was like, "Okay, here I am."

And it was, they started out, they hired us as a consulting company 'cause we do have a consulting company as well as part of the events company.

And they hired us to help kind of formulate the idea because it was three years in advance.

And in doing that, we recognized the building wasn't even built yet.

And at that point, I think it was just starting to be a hole in the ground.

So what we had to come up with were, how do we celebrate this opening and the cadence of that opening in advance?

So that was the consultative side.

And we did that for about a year.

And then they brought us on as the production team where we started to produce the events.

But prior to the event itself taking place, there were some amendments that they wanted to celebrate.

So at that point, the building, the structure of the building was up.

And we ended up doing a mapping project on the building over the course of three nights to celebrate those amendments.

And it actually ended up getting a billion views for them worldwide.

- A billion views.

- A billion views.

So it was quite spectacular.

And then fast forward another year was the event itself.

And there was 21 events.

- 21 different events.

- 21 different events, both for the public as well as donors, as well as some private, some public.

- You did all of that?

- We did all of them in conjunction with the production team and PR and everybody else.

We did have one hiccup though, that was worth mentioning if you wanna hear a crisis story.

- What was it?

The fire water thing on everybody?

- No, not quite that.

But we were about three days away from the opening, which was a public opening.

And we had been working with the engineers and the grounds team in order to customize the stage.

Well, it turned out when we actually got on site, the gradient that we had been working from was actually a little bit different.

And so we had to recut an entire stage on Pennsylvania Avenue in order to redo it.

So it was quite a feat.

- Yeah, well, that's not a hiccup.

That's sort of a behind the scenes issue.

- Yes, very much behind the scenes.

- That happened before the event.

Didn't happen during the event.

The African American History Museum has an unusual architecture.

Does that stand for something?

- You know, the filigree, it does.

It actually, it's meant to sort of kind of be a crown of sorts.

And the filigree and the detail of it, they were all individually done, those panels.

And it's quite beautiful.

It is very different and was a little bit controversial.

- Yes, it's very different.

- Because it's very different from the rest of the monuments on the museum.

And yet, you know, it does have its own special place.

And where it is housed is also quite hallowed ground as well.

- So you do these big events, Apollo 11, you know, African American History Museum, et cetera.

Do you do weddings as well?

- You know what, when I first started my business, we're in the 30th year, I actually started doing some social events like weddings.

And I realized very quickly, as much as I enjoyed the people and it ended up not being the right format for me.

- The budget is not.

- You know, at the time, the budget was great 'cause I was 26 and I was like, "Huh, you know, sure, profit a little money, "I'm here for it."

However, I just realized that wasn't utilizing all sort of my superpowers related to both the creative and the business side.

And I found that sort of the fighting that went on between the families was a little bit disconcerting for me at the time.

I was like, "This is a lot, nobody gets along."

So I ended up shifting fully.

- But some weddings are very elaborate.

- Yes, and we do some of those now.

A lot of our corporate leaders and partners will ask us to help with their daughters or their sons.

- Something big.

- Or a birthday party.

- Several million dollar budgets and all of that that bring in all these famous singers, et cetera, et cetera.

Do you have a story about some time that where you brought somebody famous and they were very difficult to work with?

- Oh, I have so many.

- All of them, all of them.

- No, actually, most are fantastic.

I have to say, my experience with people has been, I love people.

And my experience has been really, they're great.

Sometimes, if someone's having a moment, but we all have those.

And as long as you extend everyone a little grace, it's great.

There have been one or two standouts.

I won't mention their names, but yes, there have been a one or two standouts that felt a little unreasonable to me.

One example was I had to sort of get this perfect formula for coffee.

I had to be in a special mug with a special this and a little bit of that.

- Was this a singer or?

- This was not a singer.

This was actually a very famous actor.

And he took both of them, and I had to do two of them.

And I brought them and I did it myself.

I mean, I had a big team and I have all sorts of colleagues.

- You wanted to make sure it's right.

- But I wanted to make sure it was right.

I delivered them both to myself.

He looked at both of them and tossed them over his shoulders and was like, "They're not right."

I was like, "You didn't even taste it."

(both laughing) But I was like, "You know what?"

- Rebecca, what is it about people like that?

I mean, I've heard so many nightmare stories.

The water has to be this kind of water.

The chocolate has to be this kind of chocolate and so on.

And what is it about them that makes them ask for stuff like that?

- You know, actually, here's the secret, is most of the time, they're not the ones asking.

It's their agents.

So that's really trying to sort of think for them about what they might want.

So it's really often about that person who's managing them.

The people themselves, 90% of the time, they don't eat the food, they don't drink the water.

They're actually very pleasant to deal with.

- Well, I've been to events where, events that you produce where, on the program where people like Robert Lowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, David Foster, Josh Groban, the list is long.

You know, a lot of these people.

I met them all in those events and they were all very kind and very nice and very, very cordial people.

But sometimes the event has a lot to do with that too, if they fit in that event and they know the people, has a lot to do with it.

So, I'm trying to understand how you do this.

So you sit down with a client, you agree on the strategy, you know what the outcome's gonna be.

You try to draw a picture, sort of a storyboard of how you're gonna make all this work.

- We do actual storyboards always.

- And then there's all these different subcontractors you have to coordinate.

You have food, you have transportation, you have lighting, you have engineering, you have stagehands, you have teleprompter people, on and on the story goes.

Do you ever bring them all together?

How does that work?

You have different people on your team in charge of each one of them, I assume.

- We do, but we do bring everyone together.

So towards, probably in the last month of the event, first of all, now in our virtual world, we can do a lot of calls.

Usually on a project like of this size, we would have almost weekly, we'll have calls.

Just to coordinate that everyone's on the same page, we have very, very detailed timelines that we follow that people feed into.

But as we get closer to the event, we do the onsite portion where we'll get on actually a stage like this and have maybe 50 chairs.

We'll have people kind of presenting where we are, we'll go through all of the plots, we'll go through everything, and then we'll break up into groups where we'll then go walk the spaces according to our particular segment.

So if it's food and beverage, we'll go back to the house, we'll look at all the sort of the safety portions, we'll go over where the footprint's going to be, technical team will go and start to work on the stage plot, make sure there's no tweaking.

We'll actually do some additional measurements.

Content, we'll always have content and graphics that we'll finally meet and talk about how we're gonna support that through the graphic package.

So it really is intense.

And that only gets more and more as we get closer.

And then an event like we've talked about, 10 days in advance, we're in the space, building everything out, and we're tweaking daily.

- And the event happens, it's a great success, the crowd goes home, what happens?

- Event depressions, that's it.

(laughing) That's when I go to therapy.

This is, you know, it's great because the event, while it takes 10 days, it usually takes about one or two to load out completely.

And so that ends.

And then there's an after action report that we collect.

We do a multiple versions of that.

- Sort of a debriefing session.

- We do a full debriefing.

- What worked, what didn't work.

- Correct, from the team.

Then we do one with the client, and then the client actually often does one with their team and some of their constituents as well.

And then we marry them.

- Have you ever had a client so unhappy with you they said, "Never again."

- You know what, we've been really fortunate over the course of 30 years, I haven't had that experience.

Now there are some clients that we don't work with anymore.

Most of that is because we've trained now their in-house team to do it themselves.

There's been instances where it hasn't been a good fit.

You know, we just have sort of a different ethos as leaders.

And so that's happened as well.

- So I went to one event that you produced where maybe, I don't know, a year or two, three years prior, I received an award from this group.

This is the DAR.

And they gave me the Americanism Award in their building.

And the building was a theater, actually.

And they had a stage, and I was on the stage, and I looked at the people, it was a packed house, and from all over the country, and it was a theater.

And then when I came to your event, there was no theater.

It was completely a flat floor, and a veranda that's all around the place.

And you walked up sort of a, what do you call that?

- A ramp.

- What is it?

- A ramp.

- A ramp, yes, you walked up a ramp to go into the space and so on.

And this particular event had dinner.

So you had all these people serving in the most beautiful settings on the table.

That must be, I don't understand how that's done, but that must be a very, very engaging project.

- It is, and you know, it's a wonderful project.

It's actually one of my favorites too, not only from a design perspective, but also from a content perspective.

And again, we do, you are correct, we rebuild that entire environment.

It is at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

- You literally build, so there's a stage like this, I mean, sorry, an auditorium like this, and you're building over the seats.

- We deck entirely over the seats.

We extend the stage, we carpet then the entire floor, we build actually walls and four grand staircases.

- So you have to do all this in adherence with a code.

- Correct, we have the fire marshal.

- Inspectors come out.

- Inspectors come, engineers, we have tons of engineers.

- Unless this thing breaks and 300 people fall right through.

- Correct, correct.

We really have to be careful about all the technical pieces.

People walk in and think, oh, it's so beautiful and oh, it's going so well.

The technical side of this and the safety side of this is actually a huge portion of where we spend our time.

- Yes.

So you've done so much and you've met so many people.

Have you ever met somebody that you talk about a lot, like you say, when I met that person, I learned something profound, or when I met that person, it changed the way I do business, or when I met that person, it taught me a lesson about this or that.

- You know, I've had several very, very big influences.

One, actually two come to mind.

One was Maya Angelou, the poet.

- Maya Angelou.

- She-- - She's a North Carolinian, lived in Winston-Salem.

- Yes, and she and I were backstage.

We were doing an event.

She was part of that event.

She was actually the keynote speaker.

And she and I were talking and someone interrupted me and I'll never forget this.

She grabbed my, I was young too.

I was in, you know, I'm 55 now, so I was probably in maybe my early 30s.

And she grabbed my hand very gently and kind of turned towards me and spoke in this deep, resonant voice and was locked in on me.

And she was like, "Rebecca, I only have a few moments, "so if I could have all of your attention "for just those moments, I would be deeply appreciative."

And it just stunned me.

- She focused you.

- She focused me and I just realized, and she was so, there was so much resonance in her that completely changed how I reacted.

And it really taught me emotional poise.

That was a very, very distinct moment for me where I learned how important presence is and how impactful it can be, even with a few words.

- Yes, it's amazing how moments in our life can be that impactful to all of us.

Rebecca, you're fascinating to speak to.

I can talk to you all day about all these occasions, but thank you for being with me on Side by Side.

- A pleasure, thank you.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with The Budd Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.