Show Notes for Podcast #66
The Overland Expo Podcast: What and Who Makes This Event Amazing?
Summary:
Matt Scott and Scott Brady discuss the past, present, and future of the Overland Expo with event Directors Lindsay Hubley and Jessica Kirchner. This podcast does a deep dive into their commitments towards training, travel, and the spirit of overlanding.
Host Bios:
Scott Brady
Scott is the publisher and co-founder of Expedition Portal and Overland Journal and is often credited with popularizing overlanding in North America. His travels by 4WD and adventure motorcycle span all seven continents and includes three circumnavigations of the globe. His polar expeditions include two vehicle crossings of Antarctica and the first long-axis crossing of Greenland. @scott.a.brady
Matthew Scott
Matthew is a leading expert in automotive adventure. He has extensively explored the world’s most remote places by 4WD and is considered an industry authority on overland travel. He is the only American to ever become an editor of a major Australian 4WD publication and has over 15 years of competitive auto racing experience. @mattexplore
Guest Bios:
Lindsay Hubley
Experienced public trade show and consumer event strategist with core competency in the enthusiast publishing and automotive aftermarket industries. Skilled in brand strategy and development, event management, and business acquisitions / restructuring. Personally dedicated to OHV land-use advocacy, fostering the careers of women and the future young executives in the automotive aftermarket.
Lindsay started her career with Family Events producing events tied to the famed Petersen Publishing brands such as the Hot Rod Super Nationals, Car Craft Summer Nationals, 4 Wheel and Off Road Jamboree, and the Hot Rod Power Tour. The company was skilled at bringing the magazines to life through interactive experiences for each unique set of enthusiasts. As the company grew and new trends continue to emerge, the team identified expansion targets to diversify their business. Lindsay and her team in 2008 expanded their portfolio from hot rod, muscle cars, and trucks to include off road and power sports with the acquisition of the Off Road Expo in 2009 and the Sand Sports Super Show in 2016.
In the end of 2018, Lindsay co-founded Lodestone Events and acquired Overland Expo, the premier series of overland events in the world bringing together all the camping, vehicle and motorcycle equipment and services you need to get outfitted and get going.
As the product of mentorship from leaders in the racing & performance, off-road, classic car and hot rod segments over the last two decades, Lindsay is passionate about mentoring the next generation of young industry leaders. Lindsay had the privilege of working with many young industry up-and-comers as part of my SEMA Young Executives Network (YEN). She spearheaded the development of SEMA’s Launch Pad Program, a “Shark Tank”-type program giving young entrepreneurs a platform to present their ideas in front of a panel of influential SEMA Member company executives. The young entrepreneurs that go through the Launch Pad program become dedicated SEMA members, volunteers and are serving today within the organization.
Lindsay is passionate about advocacy that protects the rights of automotive hobbyists. Her passion for off road makes her keenly aware of the challenges facing the future of off-road hobbyist’s access to public lands. She has served on the ORBA board since 2011 and has worked alongside Tread Lightly! to ensure land access for OHV purposes. Lindsay also co-founded the Overland Expo Foundation, a group of enthusiasts passionate about protecting overland travel and the majesty of our public lands.
Jessica Kirchner
Marketing, communications & event management professional with 15+ years of experience in the live event industry. I love bringing enthusiast’s passions to life. Lodestone Events is an event production company with core competencies in event planning & logistics, marketing & communications and sponsorship & exhibitor sales. Lodestone Events owns Overland Expo, an event designed to help 4×4 and adventure motorcyclists get trained, outfiitted and inspired to explore the world. Instagram: @jk_indy33
Sponsored in part by:
To learn more information please consider checking the links below:
Instagram: @overlandexpo
Full Transcripts:
Scott Brady: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I’m your host, Scott Brady, and I’m here with my cohost, Matt Scott. We are all drinking some champagne right now, which is celebratory in some small way, but more I think as lubrication for conversation. Let’s call it that. So I am very, very excited to have Lindsey and Jessica. They are the co-founders of Lodestone events who put on the Overland Expo that we have come to know and love, and this event is very dear to me. It’s been exciting to see it grow from conversations that even started in my kitchen. So this is really exciting to see from 2009 until today where we’re going to have 30,000 people, we’ve heard, here in Flagstaff, which is the biggest number yet?
Lindsay Hubley: Yes, absolutely. Definitely. The biggest number so far.
Scott Brady: Well, thank you both so much for being on the podcast. How does the [00:01:00] number 30,000 feel?
Jessica Kirchner: It feels really great because, you know, I think there’s a lot of pent up energy in the industry and so we knew that the event was going to be really strong this year, but people came out in droves even in the rain on Sunday, so it did really impress me. It’s definitely a hardy community.
Matt Scott: I think it’s cool. I went to my first Overland Expo when I was 21, and I was not drinking champagne in an Earth Roamer then. I was drinking PBR in whatever Scott had me sleeping in.
Scott Brady: Some version of a trailer or a roof tent.
Matt Scott: Probably something like that. I mean, it wasn’t bad. It was great. It was cool.
Scott Brady: Every day’s a good day.
Lindsay Hubley: We’ve all grown up.
Jessica Kirchner: But we still have PBR on Fridays.
Matt Scott: I’ve got a fridge full of it.
Scott Brady: The apple does not fall far from the tree.
Matt Scott: Champagne budget. Beer taste.
Scott Brady: I like that.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, I think… you know, the attendance is absolutely fantastic…[00:02:00] it’s a great judge of what Overland Expo has become and it is definitely representative of the foundation that Roseanne and Jonathan kind of set forth for the brand, but on top of that, the industry support here this weekend between the media that’s here and then the, you know, over 400 brands that are here to sell product and introduce new product and to engage with the community is really fantastic.
Scott Brady: Well, and for me, one of the foundations of the event that I’ve always been so proud to be associated with is the way that you help to inspire and educate new folks to the overlanding space, and it looks like that has remained a priority for you and your team. Can you talk a little bit about how you view that part of the event and maybe even how you intend to grow that more in the future?
Lindsay Hubley: Sure…
Jessica Kirchner: Sure…
Scott Brady: They’re sisters by the way. This is going to be very entertaining.
Jessica Kirchner: We share the same brain. We can both answer these questions.
Scott Brady: Matt and I [00:03:00] still hope we would get a brain at some point.
Matt Scott: I don’t really have one…
Jessica Kirchner: Maybe you will after a glass of champagne… so we were really impressed, we teach them overland foundational classes here, and we’re really impressed with the attendance in those classes. So many newcomers to the hobby and we feel a duty really to help to train those people to overland responsibly and to learn responsibly and to know what they need and what they don’t need, and to know that they can find all those items here at Overland Expo. So we had an event on Friday night, a foundation raffle. We asked everyone, hundreds of people at this raffle, asked everyone who here is this your first Overland Expo? Nearly 85-90% of the people raised their hands, and we were amazed to see that many newcomers.
Matt Scott: That’s so fantastic from the industry side, like the media and an exhibitor here. This is how people get into it. This is how, you know, [00:04:00] we talked to so many people. I’m going to the Overland Expo to learn about overlanding. I want to check that out. It’s kind of the entry point, I feel for this hobby, for this passion. I think it’s hugely important, and so happy to see it back. So happy to see that you guys survived and that now you’re thriving. I mean, 30,000 people…
Lindsay Hubley: And we introduced a new show this year in Colorado, the Mountain West Event, and we had over 17,000 attendees there for the first year. It was fantastic.
Scott Brady: I was impressed by that. One of the things I really liked about it, it was very easy to get around vendors. The way that the whole event was laid out, I thought it was very efficient to get around. I also liked the fact that there was a little bit of difference in elevation. So you could kind of get up towards that big building and just get a sense of the scale and the space that was there. So I really enjoyed that event, I think you’re going to do well with that, especially with the proximity to Denver.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, and the same thing [00:05:00] at our foundation event on Friday night, you know, we had, you know, hundreds of people in the room and it was a lot of Overland experience folks that’ll go through our training programs and the education programs on. And we had, you know, 80% of those folks were brand new to the industry. So that’s, you know, or I should say brand new to Overland Expo. So, you know, I think that’s a testament to the brand. But you know, as Jessica was saying, the education component of that is so important because if we’re the first stop for them to come and to get inspired and get educated, we have to make sure that that education is, you know, it has a foundation in overland respectfully and to be able to, you know work with great partners with like the BDR and also tread lightly to make sure that our training is, is on point for those things.
Matt Scott: And then you have seven P2, which is like the absolute best of the best of the best.
Lindsay Hubley: World-class, and with Overland Experience you get that hands-on driving experience. I mean, anybody at the event can come to any of the basic education programs, but that upgraded, you know, [00:06:00] training experience with 7P and the Dart team for our adventure motorcycle team is…
Scott Brady: Yeah, Bill Dirgue is fantastic as well.
Lindsay Hubley: Fantastic as well. Yeah. We’re very, very fortunate to have a very great group, and again it’s a foundation that, you know, Jonathan and Roseanne and really the Overland community has… it’s a great opportunity for us because it was a foundation that was set before we…
Scott Brady: Yeah, they were very passionate about making sure that training component was there, that environmental consideration. As the industry grows, what we’re going to see more and more is these ancillary industries wanting to get involved with this rapidly growing segment and oftentimes there can be some challenges with like side-by-sides come to mind where it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with a side-by-side, but it is a different form of travel and if we bring them in through that process of training, tread lightly, and understanding that there are speed limits on trails and things like that, then I think it could be successful. But [00:07:00] what we want to be really mindful of is when we do integrate ancillary communities, that they come in through that process of training and awareness and understanding that we’re a guest on public lands and that we’re a guest in foreign countries and we knew we have to come into it from the mindset of minimizing our impact on communities, on individuals, on trails, for example, and that’s one thing that’s really important, I think, with 7P is that they understand that impact and they know that they can recommend people… look, don’t have groups over three to five, because it ends up expanding campsites and we get trails closed down. So we’re starting to see that good communication happening, which is so important.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, and I think we’re also reaching out across different lines of communication to, you know, embrace the outdoor community because the majority of where we’re finding our growth in people that are coming to the space are folks that are [00:08:00] not… they’re overland curious, but they’re backpackers or they’re hikers or they’re mountain bikers, and they want…
Matt Scott: We have so much growth from mountain bikers and climbers and that kind of stuff, fishermen, you know, they may not identify as an Overlander, but they have the Tacoma with the bumper and the MaxTrax and the roof rack…
Lindsay Hubley: They’re vehicle-based adventurers.
Matt Scott: Yeah. Yeah. It’s their base camp to go a little bit further and I think it’s been cool to kind of see that integrated into the event as well.
Lindsay Hubley: And we share a foundation with, the outdoor recreation communities and I think in the public land debate, you know, there’s room for everyone on public land and it’s an opportunity for all of us to get out and see how beautiful this country is and we’re so incredibly, you know, it’s just amazing what this country can provide to us and I mean… It’s just an amazing country. It really is.
Scott Brady: And there’s so much to see and this really facilitates that, and then we were so fortunate in one way [00:09:00] with the pandemic is that it encouraged so many people to get out, and I think that that’s why you’re seeing this big boost in attendees is that so many people did go buy a sprinter van or they did put a roof tent on their Forerunner and they went out and they socially distanced by going to some beautiful place. And now they realize that this is something that they really enjoy, so it’s exciting to see this not only continued adoption, which we expected, but we’ve seen this almost turbocharging of the industry because of what has happened over the last year.
Matt Scott: There’s like so many Sprinters now.
Scott Brady: It is crazy.
Matt Scott: I mean, I just got married and Scott was there, and it was like Sprinter, Sprinter, Sprinter… I mean, I even saw a sticker on a Tacoma that was like one less Sprinter, I think Sinwei has one on his GS or something.
Scott Brady: And I know Overland Expo has traditionally been more of like a [00:10:00] vehicle-based adventure community, but we’re trying to be more welcoming to the Sprinter van community as well.
Jessica Kirchner: And they can be built very capable. We have several vendors here at this show that are building more capable vehicles. Stronger vans that are able to go deeper into the backcountry and that’s certainly one of the foundations of overlanding is getting remote.
Lindsay Hubley: Yeah. Well, and it’s, you know, again, going back to like the industry support here, even this weekend at Overland Expo, you know, the amount of product… the new product and the innovation that’s gone into those products is really incredible. There is so much more accessibility to all of these vehicles across the board and so many different varieties of products that are out there today.
Jessica Kirchner: It’s just bringing modern conveniences to your camping adventure. Pretty incredible.
Lindsay Hubley: As we sit here and in an Earthroamer?
Scott Brady: This is a very rough day at Overland Expo. Another question that [00:11:00] comes to mind for me, now that you have spent several years managing these events, I’ve really seen your experience running events, kind of permeate the processes of Overland Expo. It’s definitely handled the increased crowd size because of all of your experiences with that. But what do you have to learn about overlanding… like what’s the standout realizations that you’ve had that are maybe different from the events that you ran before? What’s different about this?
Jessica Kirchner: The community is so different. All the communities we’ve worked with have been wonderful in their own ways, but this community is so kind, they want to talk to each other. They want to swap fab techniques. They want to inspire each other, and we have loved getting to know so many of the instructors and the presenters that have been a part of this community for so many years. That’s been such a treat to get to know these wonderful people that are part of the community.
Lindsay Hubley: And I think, you know, the products and the people in the [00:12:00] industry, the community. It’s the authenticity of all the brands that are here and the people that are here. I mean, that is… there’s a resounding underlying current of authenticity with everything that is presented here at Overland Expo. And I have to also, get to give a shout out to the Overland Expo OG team, you know, those folks like, you know… Eva Rupert, Azure Neil, and, you know, Alison Dulap, Anthony, all of those folks…
Scott Brady: Wonderful humans.
Jessica Kirchner: Salt of the earth, wonderful people. And they all had these incredible, hidden talents. They were doing things for Overland Expo, but over the last two years, we’ve found new, hidden talents in all of them, and we’ve tried to put them on a pedestal to bring those talents out and they are just shining this year.
Lindsay Hubley: And I think, you know, that’s… we obviously had some hard times during COVID-19 because of the events completely being shut down. So that has been a challenge for us, you know, but our team stayed together. You know, the group is very [00:13:00] strong. We’re stronger now than we ever have been. But, you know, Lodestone is currently bringing on, you know, a ton of support people, but, you know, the original team, kind of our brand ambassadors are leaders in how we move the company forward. And the rest of the team has now been brought into basically managing the real logistics that have to go behind, you know, producing like a world-class event, and so they’re basically the infrastructure that’s been needed to really support the authenticity of the brand.
Scott Brady: And the growth of the industry. For sure.
Lindsay Hubley: Right. But those are, you know, the, the original team that was, that was a part of the, you know, the founding of Overland expo, including 7P and Roseanne and Jonathan still are very active with us and right with us. But you know, those folks are those folks who are leading the charge in how we are developing.
Matt Scott: I think it’s cool how that core team is still here. And I think like the worry, the worry, when, you know, your Overland Expo got sold is like…
Scott Brady: What’s going to ask you to happen?
Matt Scott: What’s going to [00:14:00] happen to the community?
Jessica Kirchner: There was so much institutional knowledge with that team and ownership that would come in and clean house like that doesn’t know what they’re doing there is institutional knowledge there.
Scott Brady: And authenticity that I think the community was really counting on staying around.
Jessica Kirchner: So one thing that we have learned so much is just from the OG Overland Expo team, we have learned the ways of this community. We’ve learned some things about producing the event because this event was produced differently than any other shows we’d ever produced. And in the beginning we were like, I don’t know that you want to do it that way, but we watched them do it that way and we were like, this works. And this is the way it’s been here, so let’s make this work because it works for this community.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, you know, even Jessica was talking about new talents with the team, right? So like we founded the Overland Expo foundation, which the raffle used to go to Concerventures, which was Roseanne and Jonathon’s foundation, and so we founded the foundation and we’ve now named Alison Dulap as our executive director. So she’s going [00:15:00] to stay on board with us and really develop all of our causes, all of our, you know, strategic direction for the foundation and you know, all the different Overland inspirational, you know, stories that we can fund. And then also all the different organizations that we can fund to help their causes, like the BDR and Tread Lightly and…
Jessica Kirchner: Cleanup projects coast to coast.
Scott Brady: So what do you see as some of the needs within the community? What are the things that are being underserved that we should all be mindful of doing a better job of in your mind?
Lindsay Hubley: I think…
Jessica Kirchner: Protecting public lands and motorizing access to public lands… responsible use of public lands.
Lindsay Hubley: I think, you know, the foundation is going to have a great opportunity to kind of reach across those different organizations like the outdoor recreation communities. So that we can work together and we can all use our public lands. The other thing I think that the foundation is gonna be great at is actually supporting overlanders in very [00:16:00] diverse categories, and I think that, you know, we’d love to see more cultural initiatives across the board, so the foundation is going to fund great overlanding communities across the entire, you know… internationally and across the United States that, you know, maybe we’re highlighting some people that need to be highlighted in the community.
Scott Brady: No, that’s wonderful. How do people get involved with the organization with your not-for-profit?
Jessica Kirchner: So people can apply for funding on our website, OverLandExpoFoundation.org. And Alison Dulap, she and the board of directors… Lindsay and I are on the board. Anthony Sicola is also on the board of directors. We review causes that have applied, and we allocate funds throughout the year. So we’re in the process right now of allocating funds, different organizations and projects. There were 501-C3s, and then there are also just individuals as well. We also this year launched a program, a scholarship program where folks can apply to come to [00:17:00] Overland Expo to basically get a complimentary Overland experience package, so let’s say you’re just starting in the community and you want to come here and get trained, get outfitted, get inspired. You can apply for the scholarship. We’ll put you through the program. Our editors will follow you through the program and we’ll make sure that your causes and what you’re working on also gets some notoriety across all of our channels.
Scott Brady: And then how would a company get involved to help as well, that maybe helps sponsor.
Jessica Kirchner: We are developing that, and we will let everyone know in 2022, hopefully in January. The 1st step this year was to really get this thing launched. Do some fundraising, which we have done a tremendous job of this year, just using the events as a stepping stone for that and the next year is finding a new way to get the industry involved.
Lindsay Hubley: We also built two ultimate builds this year. One was with Honda on an Africa Twin, that was our ultimate motorcycle build. And then also one with Toyota on a Toyota Forerunner. Both builds debuted at our mountain west event, which was absolutely fantastic. We [00:18:00] had great participation from the community and from the industry, and then those are going to be raffled off with… I’m sorry, not raffled off. Sorry, auctioned off at the end of the year. Probably the 1st of November… around the 1st of November. And with 90% of the vehicle and the motorcycle proceeds going to the foundation. So we’re going to…
Jessica Kirchner: Fundraising… we’ve done a really great job of fundraising. Now we really need folks to take a look at our program and the causes that we support and apply for funding because we are ready to start funding organizations.
Scott Brady: Yeah. So those that are listening. If you want to go see the world and you’d like to get a sponsorship to come to Overland Expo, this is your chance.
Jessica Kirchner: Yes, absolutely.
Scott Brady: They want to help.
Jessica Kirchner: Scholarship.
Lindsay Hubley: It is a scholarship.
Scott Brady: I love it. Speaking of scholarship, I think that Matt needs some more champagne.
Matt Scott: Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Lindsay Hubley: The Overland Foundation will support you in that pour. [00:19:00]
Jessica Kirchner: This is quite the brunch here, guys.
Scott Brady: Yeah, it is… cheers.
Jessica Kirchner: Cheers to brunch, cheers to champagne lunches.
Scott Brady: Now there’s a couple other things that come to mind for me: how do you see the event growing and the ways that you want to share? I mean, we now have three events in the country. They’re all very well attended. What do you see as being the future or what are the next steps? What can people look forward to with the event going forward?
Lindsay Hubley: Well, we are looking at an additional location. It would be in a location that’s definitely farther off the grid than our current three locations. So we can’t tell you exactly what that is yet, because we haven’t finalized those details, but we’re hoping that’s going to be announced for 2022.
Jessica Kirchner: But it’s definitely a region of the country that is coveted. All of our fans, the industry is telling us this is where we need to go next. And [00:20:00] they’re asking us, they’re begging us to go to this region of the country.
Lindsay Hubley: So we’re looking at that type of expansion, and obviously we want to grow the education components of all the events. Flagstaff as much as, you know, we have great attendance here… we’re kind of out of space here. So this is…
Matt Scott: I mean, you were limited by parking at this event, you couldn’t get enough shuttle space and everything.
Lindsay Hubley: So it’s a challenge here. We love this area, we love this place, because it’s so beautiful and it really lends itself to a beautiful backdrop for Overland Expo.
Matt Scott: Do you think it’ll stay in Arizona? Are we thinking staying in the southwest,
Jessica Kirchner: Ideally, we would love for this event to stay here and to continue to find ways to manage audiences with offsite opportunities. I mean, honestly, our problem right now is that as you guys know the industry is so strong and the demand is so high that the events have gotten really large, and so trying to find spaces that can manage an event of this size.
Matt Scott: Companies are bigger too. You know, I mean I remember [00:21:00] when we first started coming to Overland Expo, everybody was camping but now it’s a work thing. Like I can’t have my staff camping here and working 12-hour days, and then being wrecked. Like you have to have that infrastructure. I could see it though…
Scott Brady: There’s only so many rooms.
Matt Scott: Flag only has so much space.
Scott Brady: Well, and what was interesting is one of the last times that we talked, you said you hoped that the mountain west was going to take some pressure off of Overland Expo West.
Jessica Kirchner: But we created a new pressure…
Scott Brady: You just had 30,000 people show up.
Lindsay Hubley: I know. It’s crazy, but it’s good growth, you know.
Jessica Kirchner: It’s good growth but thank goodness we added the Colorado event because imagine what it would’ve been like here, but adding Colorado helped us to draw in some of those Pacific Northwest companies that can’t come all the way to Arizona. So it was kind of a halfway point for them to be a part of the show. But then, you know, the events have gotten so big that our challenge is finding venues that could [00:22:00] accommodate an event of our size, but that still have the character that Fort Tuthill has in the beautiful pine forest and the mountains.
Scott Brady: It’s difficult.
Jessica Kirchner: It is. It’s very complicated.
Matt Scott: Yeah, you don’t want to do it at an NFL stadium or something.
Jessica Kirchner: Exactly. But those places are perfect, but not these types of events.
Scott Brady: It’ll definitely be a change of character for sure.
Lindsay Hubley: But you are going to see some changes just in the education components and you know, one of the things we want to do across the board is to create very diversified education components. Maybe even some more B2B programming. Obviously, there’s. Folks here that already attend… a lot of industry that obviously already attends from a booth space perspective, but we also have a lot of retailers that attend. A lot of buyers that attend to, you know, research products and see what’s happening in the industry. So you know, part of the education component this year was a panel each show on alternative energies and just talking about like the future of overlanding and how is electrification going to change the [00:23:00] game? And we have some new technologies with like, you know, propane generators with ALP. So it’s really interesting to see, you know, the different panelists and what they bring to the table. You know, solar is just not the only game in town anymore. So there’s a lot of different other things we’re interested to see what hydrogen’s gonna do. So, you know, this weekend we have Mercedes here, Volvo here, we have Honda here. We have, you know, the folks from Rivian showed up. There’s just a lot of conversation going around about it, so I think it’s important for our audiences also to be very educated in how people are developing that technology.
Scott Brady: And for the most part, this community is very open to new technology. I mean, a lot of people in the industry are technologists. These are people that are working remotely, they’re digital workers. They already see technology as a part of their daily life. I mean, there’s certainly luddites, like myself, maybe in some ways, but…
Matt Scott: I like my V8.
Scott Brady: Yeah, it’s not only a [00:24:00] V8. It’s a supercharged V8.
Lindsay Hubley: And Hey, you know, the thing is like, that’s not going anywhere. We all know that, so it’s not going anywhere. It’s going to change and develop, but like technology… it’s just going to continue to move the needle. And I think that to be at the forefront of that technology and to provide programming for it is important.
Scott Brady: And it will facilitate. People spending more time in the backcountry. Like Starlink is a great example of that and the ability for people to work remotely, broadband internet from pretty much anywhere. And of course that’s where education is so important. How do we minimize the impact on these really remote and beautiful places? So now the next question I have is something that I’ve noticed in the two of you is a very strong leadership, not only amongst yourselves, but with you and your team and in the industry, you both have been very active in being leaders for overlanding in ancillary markets like SEMA, outdoor retailer, and other spaces. Talk a [00:25:00] little bit about your values in leadership and talk about the things that you two have learned as leaders in this space… or we could just talk about you two being sisters. There was some, somebody spiked, somebody’s shampoo with Nair if I remember,
Jessica Kirchner: That is a lie.
Lindsay Hubley: I mean, she did throw a spoon in my head.
Jessica Kirchner: She did throw pepper in my hair.
Lindsay Hubley: Oh my gosh. I think I have a bruise still on my, no, it’s like a gash in my forehead… I had to have real surgery because she threw a spoon at me.
Jessica Kirchner: I ruined her modeling career. Sorry, you had to become an event producer instead.
Scott Brady: I’m going to blame my hair situation on my sister putting Nair in my shampoo. So, but it’s my only excuse.
Lindsay Hubley: I think, you know, leadership. Right? So, you know, I don’t, I wouldn’t say that we’re the most fantastic leaders and that we have like some like a 10 step [00:26:00] program that, you know, that we could sit and talk about. Right? But I think Jessica hit on it earlier what we have here and, and what we acquired from Jonathan and Roseanne, like it had a foundation and that institutional knowledge and just listening and being open to, you know, new ideas and opinions, and being able to take those ideas and opinions and really help those to grow and foster those… I think we’re both very good at that.
Jessica Kirchner: And I think we also… we spent a lot of time listening and finding out what each team member was good at, what their strong skill set was and giving them an opportunity to really shine in those areas. And then also making them take some responsibility in those areas and tasking them with becoming experts in their field and feeling like they were experts in their field and then supporting decisions that they made onsite at events, or in our day to day, 365 days a year of operating a business, and I think our team feels like we support decisions that they [00:27:00] make well.
Scott Brady: And then you also… a great example of leadership is taking responsibility for your team. COVID hits, your revenue essentially stops, and then you make the decision to not pay yourselves and pay your people, those are the kinds of things that I’ve heard about the character of you two that I think our industry needs going forward. We need to make that important.
Jessica Kirchner: You’re gonna make us say the dirty P word, and that’s the word pivot. You’re going to make us say that word…
Scott Brady: Just don’t say synergy.
Lindsay Hubley: So everyone… if you guys, honestly if you want…
Jessica Kirchner: If we ever have to say the word pivot again after this interview.
Lindsay Hubley: So there’s a great there’s actually a great scene from friends when they’re carrying this couch up this stairway and like Ross and Rachel and… I can’t remember all the characters that are in it, but they’re like carrying this couch and they’re trying to get it up around this stairway around the corner.
Jessica Kirchner: And they’re like pivot, pivot, and Ross is like ARGHHH, [00:28:00] Rachel goes we can’t pivot anymore, and that was our life in 2020
Lindsay Hubley: I feel like the staff was like that, but at the same time, I mean, when you take an event team, and it’s an event team, right? We have Eva Rupert, who’s a food and beverage manager, we have Azure Neil who is like logistics, like moving shuttles and like placing…
Jessica Kirchner: Operations queen.
Lindsay Hubley: And then you have, you know, Anthony who… he’s the director of sales for Overland Expo he sells booth space.
Jessica Kirchner: But without events, we have nothing to sell.
Lindsay Hubley: Can’t sell booth space. You’re not logistically doing anything. Definitely don’t need a food and beverage manager. So at that point in time, I got a great credit out to Nick James. He’s a new addition to our team. He came on at the end of 2019…
Jessica Kirchner: January 2020.
Lindsay Hubley: And he came up with our, our editorial strategy and kind of came up with the compass, which is our publishing channel today and he basically turned [00:29:00] our seasoned event professionals into editors, writers, and…
Jessica Kirchner: Content creators, photographers, videographers. It was pretty amazing.
Lindsay Hubley: But what we found out was, you know, they are Overlanders, this is what they do. So, you know, like social distancing, it’s what they do. So they’re like, Hey we got this. So our food and beverage manager became our motorcycle ambassador and, you know, Azure went from a logistics manager to our director of programming and programmed all of our virtual events. And Anthony, he’s a fantastic writer and he’s so inspirational in the way that he tells stories. So, all of these folks became extremely important to “A Pivot”, you know, but at the end of it, what we ended up with was, this absolutely fantastic group of folks, and on top of that, our virtual strategy… We had what? 36,000 people attended our [00:30:00] virtual education that had never visited OverlandExpo.com before. So we knew that those people were there. They’re craving education, and our people, the team… they were amazing and the way that they were able to do that.
Jessica Kirchner: Everything with those virtual events was kept in house with our core team of professionals. They produced all of that.
Lindsay Hubley: Now I’m not kidding you. There was a lot of crying. Yeah. I mean, the day that we announced it.
Matt Scott: Did you pivot away from crying?
Jessica Kirchner: We did… and then we cried again, and then we pivoted and I think that in the beginning they thought we were crazy. They really did think we were crazy, but then they were like, this makes sense, and today we have basically diversified our portfolio and made ourselves more valuable to the community as well.
Scott Brady: You found other ways to tell these great stories that you’ve been telling in person. Now you’re able to tell it through video and, and Eva has done an amazing job with that, and the rest of your team and your editorial is fantastic, [00:31:00] and people are following that, which I think is so important.
Lindsay Hubley: And we are going to be launching in 2022. It’ll be a pretty interesting educational virtual education and video strategy. So look forward to that rolling out. We also launched a program called Why We Roam this year, which is a video… a compilation video of like all of our community ambassadors and it highlights great Overlanders in the community. You know, not necessarily our team, but like just folks that are doing really great things, you know, in, in the community.
Scott Brady: Very cool. Well, it’s impressive to see what you’ve done.
Lindsay Hubley: Thank you. We appreciate that. It wasn’t just us
Matt Scott: It was really well run this year.
Scott Brady: Super tidy.
Jessica Kirchner: You want something? Don’t you? You want something…
Scott Brady: Matt has all he needs.
Jessica Kirchner: That has all thank you for saying that we had our challenges this year.
Scott Brady: It wasn’t on the surface. I didn’t see it.
Jessica Kirchner: Well by design. That’s good. We like to be ducks on the water, right?
Lindsay Hubley: Underneath the surface.
Scott Brady: I did hear an ambulance last night. Hopefully [00:32:00] everybody’s okay.
Jessica Kirchner: Everybody’s okay.
Lindsay Hubley: Everybody’s okay. Just maybe a little bit too much partying.
Jessica Kirchner: Too much to drink.
Matt Scott: Wait was that me?
Lindsay Hubley: You don’t remember that?
Matt Scott: Blame all of the hangovers on Paul May, every year on Sunday, I have this idea one day. I blame Paul May. I need a handout for all of the people that have hangovers.
Scott Brady: T-shirts like this, we should have Paul May…
Matt Scott: But we’re going to forget it after this day. And then I’m going to bring it up again next year on Sunday. So is there a date for next year?
Jessica Kirchner: It is going to be around like the third weekend in May.
Scott Brady: Back to the regular…
Jessica Kirchner: Traditional dates. So we’ll announce our full schedule in November.
Scott Brady: Okay. Awesome.
Lindsay Hubley: So I gotta ask you, what was your favorite part about the show this year?
Matt Scott: Hmm. Yeah. Having a lot of people in my booth buying [00:33:00] things, I mean, I could lie… no, I mean it was packed. We did a lot of classes, which was really cool to be able to put that in the source book. And we brought 7P to assist with the teaching. You know, I love the equipped party every year, and I think it’s really cool that that’s kind of been allowed to stay because that is that the old guard get together, and I think that that’s really important, and it’s so cool to see that, you know, it was a pivot.
Lindsay Hubley: Don’t say that word…
Matt Scott: That was great. I mean, that’s something that I look forward to. I mean, especially after the year that we all… Are we saying it was two years now? I don’t know.
Jessica Kirchner: It feels like five…
Matt Scott: After COVID 19. In 2021. It was just nice. It felt like the world was kind of starting to get back to normal last night and that was my favorite part. That was my favorite part. What about you Scott?
Scott Brady: Well, personally, it’s always wonderful to see people that I love and that have been a part of my life for a long time. I mean, we’ve been doing this for [00:34:00] 20 years, so to see these people that have made my life possible because of their support is always just really meaningful to me, but as a business, one of the things that was really fun is we launched the podcast in, it was a few days before Christmas in 2019, and then there were no events. Now we knew that podcasts were doing well. Like statistically, it was doing very well. And, but we had no idea if anybody in our community was listening, maybe these were those ancillary folks or people who don’t… but it has been nonstop at this event how much people have enjoyed the podcast. We just went over a half a million downloads. So there’s things that are happening that are really meaningful. But the thing that was most meaningful to me is the person walking into the booth and saying we love the podcast.
Matt Scott: People were tracking us down. It was great. I mean, like I was also a little bit mad because I’ve been writing for 10 years and doing these significant trips [00:35:00] and now I do this stupid podcast and that’s what people are like coming up to me for. It’s cool. It’s great. It’s awesome.
Lindsay Hubley: You’re a total celebrity. They’re like can I have your autograph?
Matt Scott: I only had Scott ask for my autograph.
Scott Brady: I’m still trying to be as cool as Matt.
Lindsay Hubley: I’ll ask you for it. I’ll be like, can you sign my t-shirt?
Matt Scott: I will sign your t-shirt, but there’s a fee.
Lindsay Hubley: Is it an upgraded booth space?
Matt Scott: 100%.
Scott Brady: So that’s been really fun and reinforcing, and of course it’s just so many people here we’ve known for so long because we’ve been doing this for a very long time. Even people all the way back to the expedition trophy days, I ran into Justin Pitcairn who was famous from the expedition trophy of jumping his Jeep and his adventure trailer in Europe, and a great friend. And just to run into folks like that is really [00:36:00] meaningful to me, so the event is so wonderfully run and it’s a Testament to what this community is capable of. I think not only the industry of this community, but the individuals. So I guess that leads me to another question: what do you see going forward? What should people anticipate going forward? What are you trying to promote more of where you’d like to have some industry support? What areas do you see the industry going that people should know about? Well,
Lindsay Hubley: I definitely will… I’m very passionate about this so I serve on a couple of different boards. One is the SEMA board of directors is something that I took on this June.
Scott Brady: Congratulations about that by the way.
Lindsay Hubley: Thank you. I appreciate your endorsement too. So I also serve on the off-road business association, we’re very active with Tread Lightly and you know, one of the things that has… it obviously in 2020 we had so many people get out and start recreating and again, you know, it goes back to education. But you know, you know, folks, when they’re out there, they [00:37:00] really do have to recreate responsibly. Cause it’s really important
Matt Scott: So many people on the trails now. Right?
Lindsay Hubley: So many. Yes. And I think that the foundation of education and it’s really important, but also as people that promote products in this industry, Overland Expo is a place where you can come and get geared up. Right? But all of the people that participate in this event or any event, you know, whether you’re going to an off-road event or you’re going to an expo to sell whatever it is, but if you create a product in this industry, you have an obligation. You do, you really do… to create some kind of messaging around recreating responsibly because at the end of the day, like…
Scott Brady: We don’t have an industry.
Matt Scott: It’s like what happened with rock crawling, right? It was a huge thing, and then all the places started getting closed because people weren’t recreating responsibly.
Lindsay Hubley: Yes, and, you know, I just think it’s really important.
Matt Scott: That’s what terrifies me with the UTV thing, is it’s such a big industry, but I have to say, like I go to Moab, I even go locally around Prescott and things are so torn up right now… and then [00:38:00] even camping areas like the van life thing and the Overland thing is so popular…
Scott Brady: Haul out your poop please. I mean like Moab literally had to shut down all camping because of human feces. Like if we cannot be adult enough to haul out our own poop. Do we really deserve to be in the backcountry?
Lindsay Hubley: I know it’s basic right?
Matt Scott: It is an education thing, but there’s so many people that are new to this and there’s so many people that in the pandemic left the cities. I mean, I talked to so many people that worked for Google or they worked for Facebook, or they worked for whatever they had like never camped or done anything before. So they go to Moab, and they think I’m in the middle of nowhere and it’s like, no you’re not… Like there’s going to be thousands of people that drive down that trail each day and if each one of them does this, goes a little bit [00:39:00] wider on the trail or something you end up with highways…
Scott Brady: Then they’re closed.
Matt Scott: And then they’re closed. Right? And then, and then we don’t have, you know, if we don’t have the places for people to recreate, we don’t as an industry have the ability to sell products to those people. We saw that, with rock crawling, we’ve already seen it. We’ve already been through it., You know, there has to be that responsible voice. Like I’ve always advocated and said in the podcast, like we need to work with the forest service. We need to work with BLM, you know, to ensure that there are areas for overlanders to go. Because right now we’re running on like a 1970s management plan or something. Right? I’m not saying that’s the actual case, but it sure seems like it.
Lindsay Hubley: But there are, you know, I got to give credit where credit’s due. I mean, there are places in this country that do not… should not be motorized recreation. I mean, it, it just is what it is.
Scott Brady: That’s why we have wilderness areas.
Lindsay Hubley: That’s right, and there’s a place for that, and again, [00:40:00] you know, this public land debate, like we can all recreate responsibly, and we can all be in this public land debate, and we can use our public lands. You know, I do think that if you serve a product up to this industry, we as industry leaders in this community, we really have to take the stance of protecting our right to recreate. But a lot of that is us educating the community, and so starting a movement of responsible recreation. I don’t think it’s a terrible thing.
Scott Brady: It’s not, it’s essential for our future. And it’s essential for future generations to be able to enjoy the back country the same way that we have. I mean, I hope that my nephews get a chance to see the same places that I have, and if we keep going out with groups of 20 or 30 vehicles, That’s not going to happen. It’s just not responsible. Well, and there
Lindsay Hubley: There’s so much of this country that you can’t see on foot, right? You can’t see it on [00:41:00] foot and you can’t see it even on a mountain bike, you know, there are places that you do need an OHV access area. I just hope that… I agree. I hope 20 years from now that, you know, we’re still promoting the Overland expo and we still can get out there because it’s really important. I mean, there’s no reason to come to an Overland Expo to get trained and inspired if you can’t go anywhere.
Scott Brady: So we all have to work together on that. And I think that that’s, that is, that is so important and it’s so refreshing to hear you both say that and acknowledge that the future of our industry includes responsible use, and we talk about it on the podcast all the time, because we don’t have a future if we don’t do that.
Matt Scott: And there’s a lot of places to go, you know, I think one of the traps that the industry falls in and honestly us as media fall into is we tend to promote the same places, like stop going on the Mojave road.
Scott Brady: It’s getting loved to death.
Matt Scott: [00:42:00] Like stop going to Moab. Like, I mean the best part about somebody who loves Utah. Like I love Utah, because that’s like where everybody goes… it’s the magnet for everything and it leaves everything else. Like, you know, completely untouched.
Scott Brady: Open up a map, look for a road in the middle of nowhere and go check it out. Try something new. Reduce your impact. Don’t tag your campsites on social media. There’s just a lot that we can do. These are basic things that allow us to preserve these places for future generations. We’re so fortunate to live in this country and we’re so fortunate to have public access, and that involves keeping it that way.
Lindsay Hubley: So Scott, when are you going to take Jessica on an international adventure? We have been asking you since 2019, not to pressure you on the podcasts.
Matt Scott: Have you been to Baja?
Lindsay Hubley: Let’s go… [00:43:00] I’ve been to Baja.
Jessica Kirchner: Not that way, not that way though.
Lindsay Hubley: Do you have trucks? We can take our ultimate builds.
Scott Brady: There you go, take the Ultimate Forerunner.
Jessica Kirchner: We can take the ultimate bills.
Lindsay Hubley: I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say like Mongolia.
Scott Brady: I think that’s what I said the other day.
Matt Scott: The plan always was a silk road with the Gladiator.
Scott Brady: Yeah, that’s right.
Matt Scott: We’re planning this Africa trip. That’s a little bit of a secret.
Jessica Kirchner: Not secret anymore.
Scott Brady: It’s a little bit secret. More soon.
Matt Scott: The car is secret. I mean, what were we talking about? To the southernmost point, to the highest point, to the lowest point, to the Northernmost point, but getting through Libya right now is a little challenging. Yeah. I’ve got friends in Libya.
Lindsay Hubley: So have you also, I mean has overseas and internationally… I mean, obviously we usually have a lot of international instructors that come [00:44:00] to Overland Expo and we weren’t able to host those folks this year, but have you seen travel ease up overseas?
Scott Brady: No, it’s still a challenge, which is for example, why I stepped onto a sailboat to go out in the middle of the Pacific. So I, as a traveler, it’s hard to get places as a traveler. I found a different way. Matt was just able to go to Tanzania recently.
Matt Scott: And it was not easy, like getting to the Serengeti right now, you know, South African airlines. You can’t fly through Ethiopia because they’re at war. You know, so you have to go through all of these different places and then you have the requirements of all the COVID testing and you have to jump through all the hoops… which if there’s hoops, that’s great. You can jump. It’s just not attainable for most people. I mean, it was our honeymoon, so we were willing to spend a little bit more, but we probably spent $2,000 on COVID testing for our honeymoon.
Lindsay Hubley: That’s incredible… well, like one of our favorite 7P trainers came in, but you know, Duncan Barbour, he’s absolutely fantastic. Came in from Scotland. I think he was stuck in the mountain west during our actual show in Colorado [00:45:00] for two weeks in Mexico City, because he was like, I’m not missing the west in any way.
Jessica Kirchner: And now there were other 7P trainers that were stuck in the Virgin islands, and I was like, I would rather be stuck in the Virgin islands…
Scott Brady: They both sound great.
Matt Scott: I’ve been stuck in the worst places.
Lindsay Hubley: I think so too.
Jessica Kirchner: We were sad though, that, you know, some of our core presenters like Simon and Lisa Thomas, Ted Simon, and Sam Manacom, you know, these guys weren’t able to come over this year and that broke our hearts because we wanted to. I see them here and they’re staples at the show.
Scott Brady: And they’re so inspiring.
Jessica Kirchner: They’re so wonderful. They’re such incredible supporters of this event. Sam sent Lindsay and I both separate emails last week. Just words of encouragement, and you guys are doing a great job. We support what you’re doing. Can’t wait to see you when we see you.
Scott Brady: Well, I think at the moment that we have to be… just, as we do when we travel, we have to be adaptable. We have to be open-minded. [00:46:00] We’re not going to be able to go to the places that we want, so we will find a way. Adventure will find a way, and that may mean like Mexico right now is open. So that’s a place for people to go.
Matt Scott: Canada’s open now.
Scott Brady: Canada just opened up in the last couple of weeks. So there are possibilities for people to go and travel. It just may be different than what we originally planned. And I think that that’s part of what makes travel so interesting is that. You know, I’ve rocked up at borders and I find out that the country’s at war and I’m like, oh I’ve got to find another way, and you find another way. I think that that’s part of the joy of travel is being able to adapt to that, and I think that that is one of the hallmarks of this event is that you have always brought in these thought leaders, these truly experienced travelers, not just good marketers, real travelers, because it’s easy to fill a docket of salespeople that are going to tell people what they should buy when they don’t really need to buy much of all of it. But you haven’t done that, you’ve [00:47:00] brought in real travelers that have been around the world and they’re inspiring people. They’re educating people and they may buy some things along the way, but that’s not the premise of it, and I think that that’s the most important thing. And that, for me… that is why I still believe in this event as much as I do. You both have shown incredible leadership even through this crisis, you’ve taken good care of your people and then you’ve taken good care of the community by reinforcing training, a love for travel, not making the vehicles and the gear the forefront and I think that, that says a lot about you two.
Jessica Kirchner: It’s really all about the people and we truly believe that, and you know what you were saying about the education series, there’s a lot of demand for brands to be involved in education. And we are dedicated to keeping that brand agnostic because we really feel like it’s all about the people and their stories and their experiences. And we want to keep that clean.
Lindsay Hubley: Absolutely. Well, Scott, we have to give you a shout out, cause I know that you had a hand in helping this event rise [00:48:00] to where it is today being a great media partner and also being a part of the contributing team that helped the event.
Scott Brady: It has been so fun, the entire process I’m so grateful for all of it, and of course I am just a very small cog in my own team’s wheel and I’m just fortunate again to like you too. I’m so fortunate to have an amazing team of people that are all smarter than I am. Thank goodness. So we’re really lucky, for sure.
Matt Scott: Everybody at your office always asks me, when can Scott travel again?
Scott Brady: Don’t you want to go somewhere? Please leave. Please leave. I love that. That’s good. Okay. We’re all on the same page. Oh, that’s so good.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, you know, it’s really interesting because last year when we weren’t traveling as much, I mean, we used to be on the road every other week and you know, we gotta give a shout out to our husband’s because we were home all year last year.
Jessica Kirchner: They have never had us [00:49:00] around this much oh… they were like wow, that’s a lot of time.
Scott Brady: So this’ll be a fun question for each of you, what is the place that you’ve been on your own travels that you loved the most, the place that you are drawn to in your own travels that you’ve really, you’ve really loved.
Lindsay Hubley: Well, one of the reasons we wanted to launch in Colorado was not only to relieve this event of some tension and to give it other, you know, other options for folks. But I guess I am speaking for Jessica and myself in this that, you know, Colorado has always been a state that we absolutely love. We vacationed there since we were little kids,
Jessica Kirchner: The Rockies are always calling us.
Lindsay Hubley: The mountains are always calling.
Jessica Kirchner: We are avid snow skiers. So any day of the week, we’d rather be on the slopes, honestly.
Lindsay Hubley: And we love the summers out there. We love to hike and kayak, there’s not a bad season.
Matt Scott: I actually love Indianapolis in the summer.
Lindsay Hubley: Oh stop [00:50:00] it… it’s not bad. It’s not bad.
Matt Scott: I love tornadoes.
Jessica Kirchner: We love Indianapolis in the summer, cause that’s where our friends, our family… But we’d rather be in Colorado in the summer.
Scott Brady: Some good timing. Why not make an event, a place that you want to spend time?
Jessica Kirchner: Honestly, we, since we’ve been producing events, we always said we wanted to produce an event in Colorado, so selfishly we did add that event, but also because it’s an adventure Mecca, we knew that the demand was there, but it was a great opportunity to expand.
Scott Brady: That was a great choice for sure.
Lindsay Hubley: But we are mountain dwellers, 100%. We love the cool mornings.
Matt Scott: What’s your favorite town in Colorado?
Lindsay Hubley: Telluride.
Matt Scott: Used to live there.
Jessica Kirchner: You did?
Scott Brady: We were just there a couple of weeks ago.
Matt Scott: Just got married there.
Lindsay Hubley: I’ll tell you what my husband and I have been looking at places and Ouray, I freaking love…
Matt Scott: My father-in-law. I grew up in Ouray.
Lindsay Hubley: Oh my gosh. I love it there.
Jessica Kirchner: She has family on her husband’s side, they [00:51:00] just bought a place in Lowville.
Lindsay Hubley: Yeah, and so we spent some time out there right after mountain west, we actually went out for about two weeks and spent some time there.
Jessica Kirchner: Lindsey took her mother-in-law out in our ultimate Forerunner…
Lindsay Hubley: My mother-in-law. Oh my gosh. I mean, this is an 80-year-old woman and she literally could not stop taking pictures.
Jessica Kirchner: I mean, she does love to take pictures.
Lindsay Hubley: She does love to take pictures, but I’ll tell you what… she was like, put me in that Forerunner, lady. Let’s go.
Jessica Kirchner: And she brought some chocolate chip cookies with her too.
Lindsay Hubley: She’s the cookie maker, man. Like we lived on cookies for like three days.
Scott Brady: Oh, that’s amazing. Is there anything that you two would like to share with our audience before we ask how they can find out more information about the event?
Lindsay Hubley: I just want to say thank you.
Jessica Kirchner: Yes. Thank you to everyone. Thank you this weekend for everyone’s patience, we had tremendous walk-up at this event that we weren’t even expecting, and there was a lot of folks that had a lot of patience with us with the shuttle buses, and we [00:52:00] appreciate that more than, you know we are working diligently behind the scenes to add more shuttle buses and get people into the events faster and create better experiences for pretty much for every event that we’re producing. We just appreciate the fans. We appreciate the community, our followers, and we’re just excited to hopefully produce more, really cool live event experiences for people and bring people more content.
Scott Brady: A fourth event is very exciting, so we look forward to hearing the announcement on that, which we’ll of course share with our audience as well.
Lindsay Hubley: Scott, we may give you a heads up.
Scott Brady: I like that. I appreciate that very much. How do people find out more information about Overland Expo, your compass content channel, and how do they find out more also about your new not-for-profit?
Jessica Kirchner: Everything is accessible overlandexpo.com. That’s kind of a hub of all of our information, and then we have little spokes on the wheel from there, so you can find it all at overlandexpo.com.
Scott Brady: And then on [00:53:00] Instagram, you’re @OverlandExpo. And then any other, like your Tik Tok? I mean, I don’t know.
Jessica Kirchner: We are trying to dabble. But we just don’t know if we want to go there.
Scott Brady: I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I downloaded it and I’m like, ah this isn’t working.
Jessica Kirchner: Scott do you have a Tik Tok?
Scott Brady: I do not have a Tik Tok.
Matt Scott: That’s like the dancing thing…
Scott Brady: I don’t dance, I don’t sing, and I don’t have a cat.
Jessica Kirchner: How about right after this podcast, we go film a little Tik Tok with our champagne.
Lindsay Hubley: Oh my God.
Jessica Kirchner: That could be our foundational content.
Scott Brady: Oh, that’s so good. I’m totally in.
Matt Scott: We can make our Tik TOK debut.
Scott Brady: I’m excited for this.
Jessica Kirchner: @OverlandExpoWest
Scott Brady: Matt, any other questions for these two amazing humans here?
Matt Scott: You know, I’m just, I’m just so excited the event has kept its soul. You know, I think that was the worry, that was the chatter, and you know, it’s just [00:54:00] it’s Overland Expo, but it’s kind of just run better. I mean, not to say that, like Jonathan and Roseanne didn’t run it well it’s just…
Scott Brady: They did their very best sure…
Matt Scott: You professionally run events, you know, and it’s grown, which grows the industry. It’s just nice to see.
Jessica Kirchner: Yeah, well, I mean it is a family owned and operated business, Lindsey and I are sisters. We work together every single day. We make a lot of decisions while drinking wine. So we hope you like our decisions.
Lindsay Hubley: Yes. But yeah, and I think the team, you know, the team enjoys the fact that, you know, their voices are heard. Yeah, they can throw up a crazy idea and we’re like, well, I don’t know. You wanna throw some money at that to see if it works?
Jessica Kirchner: We’d throw things at the wall to see if they stick all the time.
Scott Brady: All the Pivots…
Jessica Kirchner: Oh you had to say it again.
Scott Brady: And on that bombshell, thank you both so much for being on the podcast and thank you for your leadership in the community and being an inspiration to [00:55:00] so many of us. You’ve done a great favor to this community with what you’re doing, and we cannot wait to see what comes next.
Jessica Kirchner: That means a lot. Thank you guys, very much.
Scott Brady: You’re so welcome. And we thank you all for listening and we will talk to you next time.
