Robert Wilson III

Interview With Crossties Management

Interviewee: April Hilton

1. As one of the first venues in town and the first one to open after the creation of

Texarkana’s new entertainment district, you have been put into a unique position as a

quasi-test dummy for how this will work out. Have you seen this lack of precedent effect

you in unforeseen ways, and how do you adjust to these situations.

April: Okay yea I think that one of the biggest roadblocks about being the only dedicated music

venues in town is getting people to stay up to date about what we have to offer. People aren’t

really used to having an entertainment district yet so people in and out of town will miss a show

they want to see because they don’t think to check up with our social media. We hope this will

change but for now, our best way to prevent this is going out and using in-person advertising

because it sticks in the head of someone better and they are more likely to remember or tell a

friend about a show.

2. Do you usually find it hard to get artists who aren’t local to come to your venue to

perform? Why or why not?

April: the only hard part about getting non-local artists to perform on our stage is keeping track

of shows and tours months before they happen. We are in a great location between Shreveport,

Dallas, and Little Rock. Artists, mostly smaller more independent artists, are usually very excited

to add an extra stop to their show, but we are so new that many aren’t aware they can do it.

3. Where have you found most of your money is made? Do you find with our new open

bottle policy in the Entertainment District has increased how likely someone is too buy

more drinks?
April: Most of our money you would think is made off of tickets or drinks, but really we make

most of our profit off of hosting private events. We spend a lot of time and effort in designing

Crossties to have an upper-class atmosphere while also being very approachable so we could

attract more events. I wouldn’t really know what buying drinks downtown was like before the

entertainment district, though I do notice that many of our customers who aren’t dining with kids

or come from out of town will take a to-go drink or beer with them, which is pretty sweet.

4. What was one of the worst shows you have ever had in your short existence? What went

wrong and how did you learn from it?

April: I think our worst show we ever ATTEMPTED to put on would have been our second

show. We never actually got around to having the show put on because we had such poor

communication with the ladies who wanted to stop and do a show. We advertised the wrong

dates, and we had people show up on that day to support their favorite local artists. We ended up

having to offer free drinks to everyone who bought tickets as well as give them a refund. Most of

our poor communication and mistakes from that show came from trying to plan it maybe a week

before the show? We definitely were humbled by the experience, and give ourselves several

weeks in advance even on small shows, much longer for big-name artists.

5. If you had to give one piece of advice to another hopeful who wants to open up a venue

in their town, what would it be?

April: The most important thing when running any venue is keeping yourself busy. An empty

venue is a venue that doesn’t make any money. Even if you sell food and drinks like a restaurant

that usually doesn’t always cover operating expenses. Artists have as much to benefit from

having several shows a month as we do.

 The biggest takeaways from my Interview with April Hilton was that venues, regardless

of location or size, are trial and error business that stays most successful when it keeps itself

busy. Regardless of the success or failure, you experience in running a venue, you must learn and

push forward in order to have any success. Venues are multi-faceted businesses as well and need

multiple streams of revenue in order to make a profit. One of the most important things in

running a venue is attracting customers and patrons on a recurring basis. Using market analysis is

important to see which techniques in advertising and sales work best in demographics because

different locations can lead to different marketing strategies being effective and these

environments can change often.