Customer Spotlight: AMP’D Entertainment

September 24, 2021

Meet AMP’D Entertainment

AMP’D Entertainment has been transforming events for more than a decade. With clients like FOX Sports, HBO, Fender Music, Golden Globe Awards, and the iconic Beverly Hilton, AMP’D has provided lighting, audio, video, staging, rigging, and more for premier events like awards shows, sporting events, fundraisers, concerts, galas, trade shows, and every other type of event that involves a live audience.

Founded by Arteen Kharrat, AMP’D has more than 27,000 assets under management that have been scanned in and out of the warehouse more than one million times. This has led to AMP’D writing and managing more than 5,500 completed orders in the last three years, while generating consistent, meaningful revenue growth. All of this was done with Flex as its most important, foundational piece of technology and software. Flex makes it all possible day in and day out.

What excites you about your business?
All of it! From the initial phone call, the first site-survey, developing plans, coming up with strategies to meet clients’ needs to trucking logistics, we love every step of the process. Nothing beats watching a client’s face light up when they see it all come to life! Not to mention, the load out and the truck doors closing. Safe to say, we get excited about every aspect of our business. But if you had to boil it down?
Ultimately, I greatly enjoy two things: servicing people’s needs and logistics. That’s what we love and that’s what we do all day, every day; handling non-stop logistics and continuously servicing people’s needs. These are the core components to success in our business.

Whether it’s a theatrical show to take someone on a journey, a concert filling the audience with joy, a fundraiser with a message that touches enough people’s hearts that they donate just a little more than they planned on – it’s all a form of service.

Your work creates meaningful impact.
Yes. Many of our projects are large scale fundraisers for non-profit organizations. Galas. As a result, our crews in the shop and in the field are constantly thinking about ways to make the audio that much more clear, or the video that much more provocative, or the lighting that much more exciting, because we know it may capture somebody’s heart and inspire them to donate $50,000 instead of $10,000. Or even $100,000.

If that happens with three or four people, an event that might typically generate $500,000–now generates $1,000,000. And then next year’s event is even bigger and better. And that’s cool!

People must know and realize that we’re not just a company providing “stuff.” We are truly providing expertise, support, and service to our clients and ultimately their success is our success.

Where does your revenue originate?
Year over year we are consistently: 30% straight dry rental, 30% full production, 30% retail sales, and 10% installation and integration.

What was life like before Flex?
Prior to Flex, our entire business operated on Microsoft Word. Quotes. Invoices. Pull sheets. It was such a rudimentary way to do business. It worked, but it limited us and our ability to grow. I didn’t realize how absolutely invaluable organized financials and inventory management were. Flex highlighted that variance and opened our efficiency rates to unbelievable levels. There was a lot of trial and error and extremely late nights to get there, but ultimately Flex has been a crucial component to us becoming the well-oiled machine that we are today. And were still looking to fine tune and get better every day.

Why Flex?
With no fewer than 30 competitors within 10 miles of us, the ability to respond credibly and quickly to potential jobs is a crucial advantage. Flex immediately opened us up to the opportunity to operate more efficiently and at a larger scale. When we started with Flex, we were a $300,000 healthy “mom & pop” business. But Flex is FLEXIBLE. Meaning as a small operation early on, we were able to afford the software and start our transition. As operations grew, Flex had the horsepower to be able to grow and scale with us and was able to do so rather seamlessly.

This helped to recognize early on that Flex was the right solution to go from being a $300,000 company to $1mil to $3mil to $6mil+ very easily. And that’s BIG!

We were blessed that we grew at a very rapid rate, and even more so that Flex could keep up with us! Now, on any given day there may be 15 people working on Flex orders administratively with a dozen+ traditional and mobile scanners running operationally. And pre-covid that was five days a week 5:30am until 12:30am plus weekends. It was nuts! Awesome, but nuts!

At the moment we are leveraging more and more RFID tags, and once again Flex has done a great job of keeping up every step of the way!

Do you remember the early days? What was your biggest surprise?
I remember everything! I was surprised by how dramatically Flex helped us reduce loss, which not only helped gain more efficiencies, but also uncapped our growth. The efficiencies Flex created allowed us to focus on more important aspects which led to revenue, business growth and reliability for our clientele.

What are the most important Flex features for your business?

My two favorite elements of Flex are the historical data and the way Flex handles kits (bundles). Flex is the only software that provides the ability to pre-scan a kit of items into a case, put that case on the shelf for future use, and then when it’s ready to be pulled, easily scan the case and all the associated barcodes will follow along with it. This allows us to schedule building our kits during slower times and in our QC department — not as we’re on deadline trying to prep a show and load a truck. This reduces stress, saves time, and effort when it matters most! Flex competitors require my team to scan and build a kit piece by piece under the pressure of prepping an order to go out. It’s a time-consuming task, and with Flex allowing us to do this in advance we can offset time crunches, balance our workload across departments, and ensure each task gets the focus and attention it deserves. It’s just another example of the efficiencies that Flex creates. If there is another piece of software that can do that, I have yet to find it!

Why would you recommend Flex?
I get asked that question a lot. No other software is as flexible and when you’re not flexible, you’re not scalable. Flex is flexible! Of all the software solutions I’ve looked at–and I’ve looked at them all–Flex has the best overall product offerings in the market. Flex continues to improve upon itself and time and time again proves to be an invaluable tool. Flex truly, truly has been incredible for our business!