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Round Room Live, an eOne company run by co – chairs Stephen Shaw and Jonathan Linden, has been called by Billboard “the new leader in family entertainment space.” The company specializes in transforming new and iconic intellectual property into live events, staging experiences ranging from family shows with loved ones to events and exhibitions focused on major cultural figures and touchstones. Round Room Live was one of the first family show producers to create a live show around a series created on YouTube for preschool audiences; most are maintained with television licenses and film content.
The company’s current list of world touring theatrical performances includes: Baby Shark Live !, Blippi The Musical, Peppa Pig Live, Blue’s Clues & You! He lives on stage i PJ Masks live!. The Round Room exhibition division is on tour Jurassic World: the exhibition; Mandela: The Official Exhibition; i Tupac Shakur. Wake me up when I’m freewhich opened in Los Angeles in January 2022. Reflecting Round Room Live’s connection to the public, March 2022 marked the most successful month in its history, a startling feat given the ongoing uncertainty. of the live performance space.
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In fact, with the recent announcement of Blues Clues and you Live on stage, Scheduled for this fall, Round Room Live will end 2022 as one of the tallest children’s theater businesses, with 650 children’s shows on four tours and 125 weeks in four traveling exhibitions. “They’re creative spending two hours in the seat of a track watching a children’s show come to life as an event that brings a family together,” he says. Forbes.
He directs the show
Round Room Live creates and manages entire productions. The production part features creative directors, writers, directors, actors, choreographers and stage and costume designers. Another side is the tour team, which is in charge of marketing, promotion, ticket sales and merchandise. There are competing companies across the country, just like a Broadway tour show.
Founder and co-chair Stephen Shaw and co-chair Jonathan Linden are entertainment industry veterans who learned the business from some of the industry’s greatest visionaries and pioneers, who were responsible for promoting some of the highest-grossing concerts at the stadium and stadium level. in history, including the Rolling Stones and Barbra Streisand “. energy and visually stunning for audiences of all ages In 2018, Entertainment One (eOne) took a majority position in Round Room Live, now eOne is a division of Hasbro.
Lead and grow
Stephen Shaw, a self-proclaimed “methodologist” who takes risks, cites the founding of Round Room Live as the biggest risk he has ever taken. He left a senior position as president of Michael Cohl’s S2BN Entertainment, where his boss, Cohl, taught. him as a producer and promoter, as well as strategies for building and running a business. Shaw and his wife put everything they had into Round Room Live, to acquire initial intellectual property, develop a few projects, and pay a small staff. Shaw also cites his father as a formative influence on his career, not only because of his hard work ethos, but also because of his model of a healthy work-life balance.
A key turning point in Shaw’s leadership was the formation of a board of directors, at which point he no longer worked with the team he had assembled but with experienced executives, investors, and shareholders. “That’s when you have to put on your big boy pants and be a real leader,” he said. His great challenges as an entrepreneur have been to form an experienced team, find and develop premium intellectual property and be patient with sustained growth.
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Shaw is always thrilled with a successful show, a full house and a demand for tickets. He also gets deep satisfaction with branding, creating something out of nothing, and transforming an idea into a plan. Her daily routine includes a morning run (“my lifeguard”) and working early before distracting from emails and calls. And during the pandemic, with zoom and endless phone calls, he discovered a digital note-taking device called reMarkable, which organizes notes into their respective folders, transfers them to Word documents, and sends them an email. Asked about the most valuable investment he has ever made, Shaw says they are his wife and children, and being a father.
Round Room Live co-chair Jonathan Linden was previously CEO of Michael Cohl’s S2BN Entertainment. Jonathan began his career as a lawyer (a benefit in the world of live entertainment) and earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He was recruited by Cohl to work with him on Live Nation, where he met and befriended Shaw. He was a senior vice president of the office of the president of Live Nation and directed and managed many important transactions in the live entertainment space, including rights offers for major concert performers and the acquisition of a of the world’s largest merchandising and entertainment companies. . Linden has been part of the senior team producing and promoting numerous high profile projects, including the Barbra Streisand tours, An Evening with Oprah Winfrey and Broadway shows such as Rock of Ages, of which he was lead producer.
Linden says one of her big business victories was getting eOne to support Round Room Live just two years after the business started. He saw it as a validation that what they set out to do was on track and as exciting for a great corporate partner as it was for them. One of his biggest risks was leaving a large law firm and making his way into the entertainment business.
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After years of working for others, Linden says Round Room Live has provided the opportunity to pick projects, select teams, and chart the path with Shaw – growing the company’s enthusiasm every day. I knew Round Room Live was taking a different angle on children’s and family tours. They were risking brands that didn’t have TV shows aired to support them; the risk was to feel that the world was changing and the types of brands that were popular were changing, and the risks have paid off.
Linden is an avid listener to podcasts (especially those about the travels of successful entrepreneurs). She loves to watch sports and reads to relax, currently Phil Shight’s “Shoe Dog.” When it comes to technology, Jonathan finds the Apple Watch more useful than ever before and has resolved some office emergencies. She is involved in all of her children’s activities and enjoys talking about sports with her son, who shares his fantasy football team and hockey and soccer card collections. She is still waiting for her 11-year-old daughter to include her at one of her dance parties.
Round Room Live is at the forefront of the ongoing evolution of children’s and family entertainment. He has revitalized the model, finding new ways to monetize intellectual property and maximize revenue with multiple tour units simultaneously. “His success is well earned;” he says Forbes“It comes down to doing the job well.”