The interview process began on December 12 and ended on March 25. They began interviews before they were fully ready to hire this position and by the end of the interviews when they gave me a rejection it was because the group of interviewers got together to review what was actually needed for the role. This was unsurprising information because the whole process did not feel like it was well thought out and it was unclear as to whether the hiring manager or the TA team member was running the interview process.
Between December and early January I completed 4 interviews (Recruiter, Hiring Manager, Director of Ticketing (Arenas) and EVP of Ticketing). All of these people only had experience with sports and arena ticketing and it was apparent in the questions they didn't know to answer. In these first interviews, the topics of customer service and RFPs never came up (both of which I have experience in). The interviews were fine. It seemed like it would be a decent culture fit and as I learned more about the role and the company's expansion into resident-style entertainment I was really excited. I had been working in Ticketing Strategy for three years with Cirque du Soleil overseeing revenue management, strategy, ticket operations, and customer service for their resident portfolio (five shows in Vegas; one in Orlando; BMG across New York, Chicago, Boston, and Las Vegas). I oversaw the closing of The Beatles LOVE; the market research, pricing structure, RFP for ticketing, and ramp up of 'AUANA in Honolulu as well as the on-sale and pricing Alize in Berlin and BMG in Orlando. Opening a new show in New York wouldn't be much different and everything they explained was work I had done already many times over.
After my interview in early January I received radio silence and had to seek out answers. I was told the process slowed down. Mike Rotondo (VP of ticketing) reached out to get coffee with me when he was in Las Vegas for a conference. I met with him and the director of ticketing for the arenas. We had a nice conversation. Mike wasn't very personable, so Vanessa and I were mostly talking. After Vegas (end of January) I did not hear back for another two weeks at which point I was told the job was being paused. About a month later they reached out that the process was being resumed. I was given 24-hour notice to fly to New York for interviews.
While in New York, I was called by the recruiter the day before my interviews and she basically had a phone interview with me. My original recruiter went on mat leave in January and Unza took over. The whole time I was dealing with her was difficult. She clearly did not understand time zones (she suggested I fly out Tuesday morning to start interviews at the office on the same day. The first flight out of Las Vegas lands at Kennedy at 3pm the earliest. I wouldn't make it to Brooklyn until at least 5. Make it make sense). After communicating with her to schedule interviews, she called me the day before to start talking about my resume and asked me to send her an updated resume with less than 24 hours notice because I had started working a freelance job a few weeks prior.
My interviews were scheduled 5 hours back to back on Tuesday. I was supposed to receive 30 minutes to eat lunch and a 15-minute break. I ended up getting exactly one 17-minute break in which I ate room temperature salad that she held in her office for me.
During my interview with Mike (VP of ticketing) whom I've met with twice already, he begins asking me new questions about having run RFPs. When I was standing up our show in Hawaii I ran an RFP and I've done it elsewhere. I explained this. We then went into other questions. He also tried to "prepare" me for my conversations with the Chief Corporate Development Office (Sam Zussman) and the CEO (Sam Altman). He was obviously beating around the bush and not wanting to be direct about the kinds of questions I would be asked or about their personalities.
Following, I interviewed with Beeta Soltani (VP of Talent Acquisition). This was a 45-minute live case study in which I was presented with three situations relating to a single scenario and was asked my approach. I actually enjoyed this conversation and had a nice time talking with Beeta.
Following, I met with Tracey Taylor (SVP Marketing, Entertainment Properties). I felt like I connected really well with Tracey and was excited to potentially collaborate with her, knowing how ticketing and marketing function so closely together. I did have to laugh to myself. Tracey had only been with the company for six days by the time I sat with her for an interview. It felt almost like a joke that someone who was hired while I was in my interview process is interviewing me. Nevertheless, we had a great conversation about the state of entertainment and what these roles look like.
My second to last interview of the day was with Paul Kavanaugh (EVP of Ticketing). During my interview he shared with me that they were really interested in my background because of my experience with distribution sales given that they only work with brokers primarily. Most of the interview was fine. At one point he gave me the Emma Stone from Bugonia speech saying that they don't want people working there who want to clock out at 5pm and are just there to collect a pay check. They sprint and recover - this already tells me they don't understand resident entertainment. You have to be able to marathon, not sprint. I'm sure he didn't like that I told him boundaries are important to me.
[this is where I got to eat my room temp salad, 4 hours into interviewing]
My final interview of the day was with Sam Altman, the Chief Corporate Development Officer. He sat behind his abnormally large desk while I sat across the room in a very low chair. I'm not familiar with his background except that he's responsible for creating these new entertainment concepts they are putting out and there's pressure on him for them to be successful. We got very much into the weeds about the Cirque / MGM partnership, why he thinks net rates for distribution partners is operating at a loss, and exactly how he wants tickets scanned to enter the venue. He very obviously had no experience with venue management or distribution partners. Continuously interrupted me when I was trying to complete a thought. Overall, he was very smug and standoffish.
After interviews, Mike and Paul (VP and EVP) took me to dinner. Sam was supposed to join, but sent someone else from his team instead (Alex Kippel, Sr. Director of Corporate Development). In the car to dinner, Paul asked me what I had for lunch and I told him warm salad. He said if he was running the interview process I would've had hot lunch and Mike's (hiring manager's) response was "I'm not running it!" -- I'm sorry, but who is at this point?
During dinner, which should have been a less formal conversation, I was fully interviewed by Alex with breaks when Alex and Paul had conversations about member renewals.
The following day I came to the office early to "prepare" for my interview with Sam Zussman (CEO). Mike did not prepare me. We spent 15 minutes talking about what I should focus on and then I found my way back to the lobby. Last minute interviews with Randy and Darolyn from their Marketing Technology team were added. These made sense, but seemed unnecessary. Daralyn felt like they wanted to be anywhere but interviewing me, and, to be honest, I don't blame them because I also felt like it was pointless.
My interview with Sam started weird. He hit me with the "tell me what I can't read on this paper." After interviewing with 8 other people, I don't really know what that means anymore. We got the conversation going. He did a regular amount of interrupting one of which was to ask me if I wore suits in my previous role at Cirque. When I told him no, he said, "I can tell. You look uncomfortable." Thanks.
At the end of our interview he asked me to tell him something about myself that he would be surprised to find out a year from now. I'm not sure what he was looking for and every time I answered the question he said, "No, that's not really what I'm thinking." I finally had to give up and say that I guess I don't know to which he replied, "So there's nothing surprising about you?" I'm not sure what kind of answer he was looking for or what he was baiting me into saying.
My was scheduled to end 3 hours before my flight. Industry City is at least an hour from the airport and TSA wasn't operating fully, so I walked onto my flight just before boarding finished. Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment did not pay to allow me to select a seat so I had one randomly assigned and they did not pay for my luggage, so I paid $60 in total so I could actually wear clothes to my interview.
Following the interview, I know they reached out to my references because they each told me. My references spoke to different people - Mike called some, Unza called others. Not sure why. Unza shared that I was a top candidate, but seemingly I was their only candidate.
I heard nothing for two weeks until I reached out to the recruiter asking about timelines. The next day the VP of Talent (Beeta Soltani) called me to let me know the group got together to reevaluate what's needed for the position. It felt like this was probably the first time they all talked about what they needed in this job. It seems like the initial pass at this was the ticketing leadership pushing forward because for some reason they have in their heads an RFP process will take more than three months. I appreciated the call from Beeta and that I didn't just get a canned email rejection after 14 interviews and a flight to New York.
The general vibes weren't great. Most of the senior leadership was white and I'm almost positive they were all straight, except for one. It was very much a sports environment no matter how much they try and say their not and that they place so much importance on the company values. Also, the CEO is a big time Zionist and "proudly serves as Chairman of Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal, Israel's wounded warriors and their families."
In total these were my interviews:
Recruiter
(second recruiter)
VP Ticketing (three times)
Director Ticketing (Arenas)
EVP Ticketing (twice)
VP of Talent Acquisition
SVP of Marketing
Chief Corporate Development Officer
Sr. Director Corporate Development (kinda)
VP of Data Analytics & Insights
VP of Marketing Technology
CEO
It took all of these interviews for them to figure out what was needed.
