Google “HipCats Entertainment,” and the first link you’ll find is some little entertainment company in Mount Lawley, Wash. Definitely not who I was looking for. [Update: HipCats Entertainment now has a website that shows up first in Google search results]
How could this guy not have a website?
Turns out for up-and-coming company on the Phoenix entertainment scene, websites aren’t everything.
In a little more than a year, HipCats Entertainment has grown to be a local Phoenix staple, putting on concerts at Phoenix First Fridays, Scottsdale, Ariz., Third Thursdays and, now, their latest project: A December concert for First Fridays at the new CityScape in downtown Phoenix. It’s a pretty big deal, if you’re a Phoenician.
Vincent Leon, founder of HipCats, currently touts a desk job at Fujifilm—a far cry from life on stage, and while he’s a fan of music, he’s never even played in a band.
So how did a white-collar worker come to start his own entertainment company?
“Actually, it was very spontaneous,” Leon said. “I actually was just driving to the theater and I saw a bunch of people walking around the street, and I didn’t know why they were there.”
Turns out, the crowd of people Leon saw were perusing Roosevelt Street for Phoenix First Fridays. At the time, it was one of the largest art walks in the nation.
“I thought, ‘Wow, what these people want is to be entertained,’” Leon said. “And with the economy as bad as it is, this particular event is meeting people’s needs because they don’t have a lot of disposable income.”
That’s where it all started. He envisioned a platform that would anchor the event.
“The following Monday I had a meeting with the Phoenix First Fridays people, and we agreed that I would bring them a stage,” Leon said.
“I thought, ‘Wow, what these people want is to be entertained. And with the economy as bad as it is, this particular event is meeting people’s needs because they don’t have a lot of disposable income.” — Vincent Leon
Problem was, Leon didn’t have a stage, or audio equipment, or lighting—or anything one would need to put on an event.
“At that time, it was just a gleam in my eye,” Leon said. “And that was April of 2009.”
Since then, Leon’s spur-of-the-moment idea has grown from its rocky start.
“The first concert we did was in May, and it was in a parking lot,” he recalled. “We spent a couple hundred dollars, rented some audio gear, got three of our favorite bands together, and got some crappy lighting, I mean, it was really bad.”
Looking back on it, all Leon can think was that it was “cute.” Cute in the aspect that not even eight months later, he had his own gear that could run circles around the stuff he had first rented.
When he first started out, Leon had envisioned “an amazing 20,000 watts of pro audio,” and truss lighting.
Leon saw partnering with other companies as a way to not only help each other, but also create a totally unique entertainment experience.
Within the first couple months after its creation, HipCats Entertainment began partnering with local Phoenix recording studio, TallCat Productions. (The similar names were a total coincidence). Leon saw partnering with other companies as a way to not only help each other, but also create a totally unique entertainment experience.
For First Fridays, the companies began pairing up with local dance teams that would perform between music sets.
“About eight months later, you know, piece at a time, it just all came together,” Leon said.
One thing, he admitted, that wasn’t part of his original vision was the stage’s innovative backdrop: A 25 ft. by 9 ft. video screen.
“You just can’t help but think when you’re listening to music, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you had a screen so you could play music videos in the background?’” he said. But Leon admitted at that point, he was still a long way from actually seeing that vision through.
“We figured it would take months,” he said. “I mean, we’d have to collect projectors, laptops, hundreds of feet of wire, the screen itself. Then we’d have to engineer and design the frame for the screen, and keep in mind, if you want a screen to be big, just a five mile per hour wind is going to blow it down. It doesn’t matter what anchors it.”
“It all happened a lot faster than we could have done it on our own, because Third Productions already had all of the gear.” — Vincent Leon
But in typical Vince Leon fashion, he wasn’t satisfied with the idea that a video screen was next to impossible. He used his knack for partnering up and began talking with Third Productions, an independent production house that has its hand in a bit of everything.
For their work with Leon, Third Production parents, Danny Torgersen and Shawn Oliver, planned to bring their video skills on board.
“It all happened a lot faster than we could have done it on our own, because Third Productions already had all of the gear,” Leon said.
Technically they had every component except a handy-dandy 25 ft. by 9 ft. screen. In all actuality, the screen wasn’t the problem; it was creating a frame strong enough to keep the thing standing whenever the wind kicked up. To support a large screen, Leon would have needed something as heavy as a truck—a 26 ft. stage truck that carries all of the stage and lighting equipment, to be exact.
“The reason why that’s fabulous is because we have a 6,000-pound truck, which the screen is anchored and bolted to,” Leon said. “So even if there’s a hurricane, the screen’s not going anywhere.”
Not every new business owner is as lucky as Leon has been. For most new entrepreneurs, it takes years to get a business going.
While in its first year, HipCats Entertainment was largely non-profit. Now that the business is growing, however, Leon has been working on some paying stage gigs and earning revenue from video screen advertisements. So what’s next for the Fujifilm/entertainment aficionado?
He’d like to one day do a music festival—one that would put Woodstock to shame.
