Consider It An Interview With Dan Berkowitz: CID Entertainment Founder On Phish Riviera Maya, VIP Experiences & More

The jam scene has helped birth a number of music industry trends over the past 20 years including instant live recordings, webcasts and festivals such as Bonnaroo and Hangout. Another trend that has developed over the past decade or so from our community are VIP packages and destination concert events. One company that has innovated in the enhanced experience and travel package field is CID Entertainment. As CID prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary we spoke with the company’s namesake, founder and CEO Dan Berkowitz about how he formed the company, its Phish Riviera Maya destination events, what the future holds and more.

JamBase: Let’s start at the beginning. What was your first job in the music industry?

DB: I was a huge fan of the Disco Biscuits in 2001 and 2002 and I somehow, through a very weird twist of fate, became close with the band and their organization. I would help out and they would jokingly call me “red team go,” because I’d be in Philadelphia and they would be on tour so if they needed a merch refillment or if they needed some sort of production element or something from their storage unit brought out to tour they could count on me to be there almost every weekend in late 2001 and 2002. I developed a relationship with them and their crew that way. Then, in October 2002 they let me throw a couple of shows at the Locust Club which no longer exists here in Philadelphia.

I threw one show which was basically a the Disco Biscuits side project with all the members of the band and that went well. And then on October 27, 2002 I threw my first show ever for the Biscuits at the Locust Club and at this time they were selling out the Electric Factory, they were a big band in Philadelphia. They were growing and growing and growing and I brought them into a very posh nightclub that could only fit 400 people, so it was an intimate and unique experience for fans of the Disco Biscuits.

That was the night I decided not to be in the music industry, and that didn’t work out, so here we are.

[The Disco Biscuits 10/27/02 | Captured by Chris Lonergan]

JamBase: So what you’re describing, was it a more expensive ticket to have them at a small place? Was this the genesis of the whole VIP, intimate experience?

DB: People famously called the “Mindless Dribble” the band played the “$42 Dribble.” It was a $42 ticket which was an awkward ticket price, but it was the only way I could make the show work. I forecasted the show to pay the band all of the money at 100 percent sell-out, so that’s where I honed my business acumen. So yes, we charged more money for a more intimate experience with the band and I would venture to say that a lot of people who attended a lot of shows those days remember that night as a very special night.

JamBase: How did you move from that position to become the Disco Biscuits’ tour manager?

DB: I don’t know exactly how that happened, but I have a lot of meeting these days with people that other people might be intimidated by, or people that might seem imitating, and I’m never nervous because I feel like the one meeting I had that I was least qualified to have was the one I had with [Disco Biscuits bassist] Marc [Brownstein] and [Disco Biscuits guitarist] Jon [Gutwillig], where I asked them if they would let me be their tour manager. And they actually said yes. So if I could get out of that meeting with a positive result I could get out of anything with a positive result. That helped create this delusional sense that things would work out if I just tried hard enough.

I was maybe going to go to law school, I had taken the LSATs and I was at a crossroads. The band was also at a crossroads. [Original Disco Biscuits drummer] Sammy [Altman] had just told us privately that he was going to leave the band. He told me at [Disco Biscuits keyboardist Aron] Magner’s apartment and it was me, Brownie and Magner and my first response was, “get me a cabin in the woods and give me six months and I’ll be the drummer.” So, short of that, I thought the next best opportunity would be as tour manager. But the band wasn’t 100 percent sure if they were going to continue, they were at a crossroads there. Jon and I spent a lot of days in his apartment which we called the “war room” trying to map out what we were going to do, how we were going to do it and if we were going to do it. There were people who had been working with the band for a long time that were also at a crossroads in their lives. Some people took other opportunities which led to there being a vacancy that I asked if I could fill. I cared and I had a little bit of sense to me, but I didn’t really know anything about anything. Miraculously they let me lead the charge and help them even decide if they were going to continue. I certainly wasn’t the one who made the decision, but I helped provide some options. We went through our extensive drummer search, said goodbye to Sammy and brought [current Disco Biscuits drummer] Allen [Aucoin] into the band. That spanned 2003 and I left the band in 2006. When I say I left the band – that wasn’t 100 percent my decision.

In 2005 and 2006 I started offering travel packages for fans of the Disco Biscuits. We did multiple night runs at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey and I ran buses to the shows. In 2006 tDB guys and I decided to part ways and I went to work for Electric Factory Concerts and all the while offered travel packages for other shows like The Roots, the Beastie Boys and MIA. I tried to start this division within Live Nation/Electric Factory Concerts for VIP packages, but it wasn’t getting the traction I was looking for. It’s not like I deserved to get the traction I was looking for, but I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and didn’t understand why three days after bringing this idea to someone there wasn’t traction on this. So I went out and I started this on my own in 2007.

In a very George Costanza-like move I moved back into my own office at the Disco Biscuits’ studio. I didn’t tell anybody. I just set up my computer and started to work. They walked in and said, “What are you doing!?” I responded, “I started my own business,” they shrugged their shoulders and said “okay.” I paid them rent and I’m forever grateful to them as they, Umphrey’s McGee, STS9 and Gov’t Mule were our first clients. I’m proud to say we still work with three of them. Umphrey’s, unfortunately we don’t as they took our program in house by marrying the staff we sent out on the road with them. You can’t really fight with that.

JamBase: What were the first CID packages?

DB: It was different from every band. Sound Tribe was doing five nights at The Tabernacle so we did ticketing, hotel, poster and download packages. For Umphrey’s it was travel packages for their New Year’s run in Chicago as well as posters and early access to the venue they were playing. We also did “a hang,” it wasn’t quite a meet-and-greet but it was a cocktail hour with the band. For Gov’t Mule there was a soundcheck element to it and a meet-and-greet with Warren. With the Biscuits it was travel packages but it was also Camp Bisco which was super lucky.

A lot of successful entrepreneurial experiences have a lot of luck involved. You have to work very hard and you have to make a lot of correct decision, but you also have to be fortunate. The Disco Biscuits had a festival, so I was able to offer packages to not only artists on tour but also to festivals and that’s the cornerstone of our business now. We had Camp Bisco and Ian Goldberg of Summer Camp let us try out a couple of things with him as well. Looking back at it we were starting something real, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was just trying to survive. I knew I wanted to be in the music business, I knew I wanted to be around the music that I loved and I knew I wanted to help people get closer to the music that they loved. That’s all I knew. It was the start of something and I didn’t realize that. I’m really really lucky that the artists that I worked with gave us the opportunity that they did and we pulled it off.

JamBase: Who were some of your first clients beyond the jam scene?

DB: It all ties back to it. You can basically tie almost everything we do back to the jam band scene, even Coachella and Kings Of Leon. So Kings Of Leon were the first non-jam act that we worked with. Jonathan Levine, who is one of my heroes in life and in business, brought us into Phil & Friends and that turned into The Dead and on The Dead Tour is where Kings Of Leon’s management saw our work and that’s how Kings Of Leon became one of our first non jam band clients.

Coachella is a similar story. Phish brought us to Festival 8 and Coachella asked us to stay, and by “asked us” I mean they said yes because we begged them. We met the Coachella guys because we worked on the Rothbury Festival which Madison House brought us in for. I certainly believe our strong jam band roots led to a lot of opportunities. For instance Mike Luba, who manages The String Cheese Incident, also produced the Yo Gabba Gabba Tour. Particle’s manager produced the Fresh Beat Band Tour and manages Victoria Justice, so it’s incredible how much of our work all stems back to the jam band scene.

JamBase: How many people work for CID now?

DB: Ninety-three including those who are out on tours for us. We’re about 70 in the office and we have offices in Philadelphia, Nashville and Colorado.

JamBase: What do you consider a landmark moment in the company growing to its current size?

DB: Another jam band-related story, one day Kenny Chesney was listening to Pandora and he heard Grace Potter and fell in love with her voice. He had his agent and tour promoter Louie Messina find out who Grace Potter was and who works with her. That led Louie to Grace Potter’s agent Hank Sacks and the two went out on tour together in 2012. Hank asked Louie, “Hey, are you guys doing VIP on this tour?” and Louie said, “Nah man, we don’t really do that.” Hank, I don’t know what gave him the cojones to say this, but Hank was like “What if I can promise you that it’s gonna be great?” and Louie said “All right, I’ll talk to this guy, I’ll talk to him once and see how it goes.”

So Hank calls me and says “Dan, Louie Messina’s about to call you” and it was a shock. I certainly knew who he was was, he’s a titan of industry in the music business. He produces Kenny Chesney tours, George Strait tours and Taylor Swift tours, he’s kinda a big deal. As Hank is telling me really quickly what the conversation was, I see an Austin phone number pop up on my phone. I pick up the phone and my voice cracked as I said, “Hello.” He introduced himself, told me Kenny Chesney was going out on tour and asked me if I could turn around a proposal for a VIP program by the end of the day because we have to move quickly.

That happened and all of the sudden a few days later I’m down in Austin meeting with him and his team and we got signed to do the Kenny Chesney tour. And he’s still one of our clients today. That was us entering into the country music world which now we count Eric Church, Luke Bryan, George Strait, Blake Shelton and a whole bunch of other artists as partners of ours. Now we produce Luke Bryan’s Crash My Playa down in Mexico, our first CID Presents event, which never would’ve happened if Hank didn’t put himself on the line for me.

JamBase: Do you try to take into consideration the general public when laying out space and features for VIPs?

DB: We always do. Ninety to 99 percent of every show is going to have people who are buying GA tickets and not our packages. These shows would not exist without those people. We are thankful to those people for supporting those shows which allow us to do what we do. And a lot of the shows we’re also offering experiences for those people whether they’re shuttle packages or GA travel packages, so it’s not like they’re not our people … they’re all our people. We’re designing every experience with everybody in mind so that goes from the artists that we work with, their teams, the people who purchase GA tickets, the people who purchase VIP tickets and the people who purchase SuperVIP tickets. If we’re diluting anyone’s experience we’re not doing a good job.

JamBase: How did Phish Riviera Maya come about?

DB: I had a relationship with the Phish camp for a little while, some of them since Festival 8, some of them since before. [Phish tour manager] Richard Glasgow actually tour managed Phil Lesh [while Phish was broken up] and I actually became very close with Richard during that time. Phil & Friends at the Nokia Theatre was the first time we ever did VIP tickets and they played 14 nights. So, Richard was a mentor. As much as I knew what I was doing, I knew how to take care of people, I knew how to design great experiences for people who love music and I knew how to execute them, but I didn’t really understand the business side – the ticketing side. While I understood it at a minimum, Richard taught me so much down there in the Nokia’s basement. So I’m always going to look up to him as a mentor and I’m lucky to call him one of my very good friends.

I’ve been close with him and a lot of guys and girls in the Phish camp for a little while now. I’ve been talking about this as an idea for a long time. We did Crash My Playa down there and god bless Luke Bryan and his team because they took a chance on us when we had never done anything like that before. The first year was a smashing success, the next year was even better and our third year is is shaping up to be the best yet. After we did Crash My Playa successfully I said to the Phish camp, “Look, this is what I’m talking about. We can pull something like this off. Obviously the show would have to be very different, but we have a bit of experience at this point. We’re not just travel package guys.”

Richard agreed to come down to Mexico with me. I was like, “Let’s go, let’s look at this venue I want you to see this beach, what we’re talking about.” Finally he agreed, I don’t even know if he thought that he was going to say yes or if he thought that this would work but he came down. He agreed that this would be an amazing place to throw a Phish concert. Over the next year we worked on confirming it and then everyone’s focus in the Phish and CID camps turned to Fare Thee Well after getting closer and closer to that. After FTW is when we finally got the nod that this was really going to happen. The rest is history.

JamBase: What changes can we expect from the inaugural Phish Riviera Maya to the 2017 installment?

DB: A lot of people think because we’re offering more hotels there will be a lot more people down there, but the reality is there’s not. There’s going to be around the same amount of people and by around we’re definitely not talking about thousands more people or even hundreds more people. We wanted to give people more options and perhaps we didn’t message that the best way, because I’ve heard concerns that the shows are going to be much bigger. It just won’t.

I know that there are concerns about the show growing and growing and growing, but that’s not what we’re doing. We’re looking to throw an intimate concert on the beach for people who love Phish. And we’re hoping to do that for a long time to come.

JamBase: Have the band members been involved with the details of the concert at all?

DB: As far as setting up the show and any sort of creative elements, they’re involved. Not directly with me, they have a team of people that they work with, but all of the creativity is them. On Crash My Playa we handle a lot of the decor on site, the site lighting and the branding, but mostly all if not all of the creativity at Phish Riviera Maya is them.

JamBase: What does the future hold for CID Entertainment?

DB: I want to continue to bring people to places they’ve never been before to see the artists that they love. So the ultimate goal would be Skrillex on the moon.