When most children waited for long lines to mount Russian mountains in Hershey Park, Ryan Stana found himself gravitated for something he excited a lot: The Park’s Theater. “I sat down and looked at the programs, and I was captivated,” he played Entrepreneur. “And when I was in the last year of high school, I was still seeing those programs, but I began to notice this quality ‘without polishing’. Maybe my pink glasses broke, but I saw an opportunity to provide excellence and innovation to the attraction and entertainment of leisure.”
Stana says he had two dreams as a child: becoming a Broadway artist and becoming a teacher. And those two passions joined when, shortly after the university, he launched his own live experience company RWS Global. “I am very lucky,” he says, “both parents are entrepreneurs and are extremely supportive, they taught me that with hard work, everything is possible.”
Since its launch from the corner of an apartment in New York City (later), RWS has become a power in live entertainment, throwing Broadway shows like The lion kingCreating entertainment and experiences for cruises such as Disney Cruise Line, producing global events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games of Paris 2024, and much more.
Credit: RWS Global
Entrepreneur He spoke with Stana to get the complete image of how his company was launched and grew. Like the shows and events produced by the RWS group, its history is full of drama and action.
Tell us about the moment you decided to start your own company.
As soon as I finished university, I moved to New York City and became an associate producer of corporate and retail events. I was winning $ 600 per week. The company for which I was working had incredible creativity, but did not know how to operate and budget. I can’t believe that I just say that because I was in high school, it was terrible with mathematics. But I realized: “Hey, they are winning $ 200,000, but they are spending $ 250,000”. I saw that you need to have a balance between creative and operational thinking. Then, one day I called my parents and said: “I hate this work.” And they were like, “Ryan, why don’t you go and open your own business?” And I said: “ok.” Then I renounced.
So that is the decision: how did he activate the business?
I return to my apartment in New York City. I had two roommates at that time, Barry and Colby: “I will open an office at the corner of our live room. And when the phone rings, I need you to answer, it sounds like people work here. That night to all the people with whom I had worked and said:” Now I work for RWS Global. If you are interested, communicate. “I didn’t tell them that I had it because I was going to trust a 21 -year -old?
And when did you know that this idea was going to work?
Approximately three weeks, Clear Channel called me on an initial presentation and asked me to present a $ 150,000 event. I remember having entered and throwing, and when he left the room, the client came out and said: “Ryan, we are giving you this concert.” And I knew we had something special in our key offer: key key operations. We handle creativity, people and operations, and we have systematized the process.
Your company makes many different types of events. Can you reduce it for people who are not familiar with the live events space?
We are the world leader in the creation of live moments in entertainment and sports. Basically, we are divided into six divisions: design destination, where we are designing real thematic, zoos, aquariums, museums, visiting centers. Then we have our land production division, where we provide temporary experiences and live shows in thematic parks, retail centers and seasonal programming. We make emerging brand experiences in hotels and resorts. Then we have our production division at sea, where we provide Broadway Broadway type productions and immersive experiences in cruises. Then we have a retail and merchandise division. And our sixth division is our casting division. We provide about 8,000 jobs worldwide for technicians and artists. We create a trajectory for our talent, so you can start working for us in Six Flags, go to a cruise and, if you do well, place it in a show or Broadway show. That allows us to corner the market.
Credit: Musical Media
As an interpreter, could you say: “Hey, I’m going to introduce myself as Simba?”
I couldn’t say that nobody would do it since I said that. I still have a lot of joy to see the success of our talent. That is what drives me. And when I say talent, they are not just people on stage. It is seeing people in our office also succeed.
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Can you give us an idea of your company’s income growth?
We reach about $ 50 million in revenues a year after the pandemic. We have grown to nine figures since then. We expand mainly through acquisitions. We acquired a casting company in 2016 (Binder casting), then we bought a destination design business in 2021 (JRA). Then we buy our largest competitor in Europe in 2022 (TED). And then we buy the sports division in 2024 (great great events), and more recently we buy an application (Harmony Helper) that helps artists learn their music in a faster way, allowing our productions and our customers to save money. In 2023, we also taught in a private capital firm, Bluestone Equity Partners. I sold a minority amount of the business to move our company to the future.
Did you prepare the theater school for all this?
I only learn how things come. I really think if you are passionate about what you do, you will solve it. Recently I told a friend that you don’t need to spend time getting a MBA. If you have passion and work hard, you will succeed. But do you think being an entrepreneur is not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? You are completely wrong.
How do you believe in a manner of management management that does not extend too much?
I have made it a point from the first day not to make our success based on myself or anyone. It is about having the systems and processes for the company to grow. And have a timeline for action. We say that these are the things we want to achieve in 2025. And if it is a new idea, great, we increase it to 2026. Then, once we have established that base, the integration of those businesses is very simple. Now I would be lying to tell him that he does not have little light when you buy six companies, but you listen to people and respect what they say, and advance.
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How do you turn off your brain? Are you able to see programs and not have your work in the brain?
I can’t relax when I see a program, which I can promise. People would probably laugh when I say this, but it’s about finding a balance between work and life. And the only person who can change a balance between work and life is you as an individual. I always make sure that once a week, I have one day I stayed. That is Ryan’s lazy day, where I only see meaningless television and I cool and spend time with my husband and my family to remember that without these people, I could not be doing what I do.