π§ In this episode of the Agency Side Podcast, host Justin Levinson sits down with Katie Meyer, CEO and Director of Events at MoonLabβa women-owned event production agency redefining creativity with sustainability.
Katie shares her journey from breaking into the events world to leading an agency with a national footprint. She talks about how MoonLab has grown by fostering strong client relationships, embracing hands-on craftsmanship, and innovating through its in-house fabrication shop, BlockLab.
They dive into the balance between creative vision and practical execution, why sustainability matters in large-scale events, and how to nurture a collaborative team culture that drives consistent results. Katie also opens up about the challenges of scaling a values-driven business and the importance of trust in building lasting partnerships.
This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the strategy, dedication, and heart behind Moonlabβs standout productionsβand what it takes to lead with purpose in the modern events industry.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on sustainability, leadership, and the art of unforgettable experiences.
[02:15] Katie's Journey into Event Production
[05:03] Growth and Client Relationships at Moonlab
[10:07] In-House Fabrication: BlockLab
[13:07] Standout Campaigns and Global Projects
[15:01] Event Scale and Team Dynamics
[16:28] Building Effective Teams and Partnerships
[19:22] Navigating Client Relationships and Core Values
[22:27] Hiring for Culture and Growth
[25:06] Adapting to Industry Changes and Trends
[28:15] Leveraging Technology and AI in Creative Processes
[30:53] Personal Insights and the Importance of Travel
CEO + Director of Events
Katie Meyer is the CEO + Director of Events at MoonLab Productions, a women-owned and women-led event production & creative agency in Los Angeles, CA. Katieβs vision for MoonLab is rooted in a commitment to mission-driven projects, fueled by a relentless drive to ensure that creativity, inclusivity, connection, and innovation are at the heart of every event. Her enthusiasm for rethinking how events come to life is evident in the way she builds and collaborates with the Moonlab Team, pushing each individual to break boundaries, embrace unconventional thinking, and exceed expectations. Projects under her guidance continue to reflect MoonLabβs unwavering alignment with its core values, while aiming to redefine how events are organized, designed, and experienced. With a background and start in media, advertising, and experiential events, she has produced award shows, film premieres, and large-scale activations for nearly a decade. Passionate about mission-driven projects, she continues to push boundaries in the event industry, shaping transformative experiences that leave a lasting impact.
Justin Levinson (00:10)β
Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson. And today I'm here with Katie Meyer, the CEO and Director of Events at Moonlab, a women-owned and women-led event production and creative agency based in LA. Katie's work is all about bringing mission-driven events to life with creativity, inclusivity, and bold thinking at the center. She's re-imagining how events are designed and experienced. And under her leadership, Moonlab continues to push boundaries and inspire connection.
We're thrilled to have her on the show to talk about what it takes to lead with vision, build purpose-driven teams and shake up the world of experiential production. Boy, that was a mouthful, but I got it. Thanks for being here today, Katie.
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Katie Meyer (00:49)β
Thanks so much, Justin. Excited to be here.
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Justin Levinson (00:52)β
Yeah. Well, the first question I always like to ask is, you know, just personal, like how did you get into this particular space to begin with?
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Katie Meyer (00:59)β
Yeah. β mean, Jesus, kind of, feel like it's a long, long answer, but, I'll shorten it, β best I can. I think honestly, my story of, getting into the events world is, honestly kind of a little bit of luck, a lot of hard work. I actually didn't even know that, β working in events was a career like that. People could really do this and have such an incredible career path in this space. β
And it was happenstance that, um, a long, long time ago when I was in college, I attended a friend's birthday and her aunt happened to be the woman who's still to this day produces the Elton John AIDS foundation Academy awards viewing party in Los Angeles. And she kind of took a risk. Um, on me, I was a junior at the time in college and she said, Hey, if you're interested, you know, I was expressing, like media, like advertising. I, I like the PR, like all of that. And, um, she invited me to go out and.
Needless to say, when that's your first event that you get exposure to, kind of easily fall in love with it. And from there on out, I just knew that, that honestly being in the event production world is where I needed to be and what I needed to do for the rest of my life. So yeah, was definitely like kind of a ham happenstance moment. β and since then I have bounced through a few different careers before landing in events, β which I think taught me a ton, but.
really grateful to be at Moon Lab and to be building something so incredible that we are building here.
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Justin Levinson (02:26)β
Definitely. When you were in college, what is it that you were studying?
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Katie Meyer (02:30)β
Yes, so nothing really to events. I was studying international relations and sociology. So very kind of it's funny. It's nothing that you know, no marketing degree, no nothing in PR, nothing in business. Just I went to a liberal arts college and love to travel. And I also which I think goes hand in hand with events love people. So sociology kind of helped me there a ton still helps me to this day.
But I was very fortunate to have a lot of internships and opportunities, like I was saying, through advertising, marketing, sales, different, I think, industries that when you take a 360 view of events are all in the events world and in our industry. So gaining those skills at the time I didn't realize would be so valuable and so important to working in events, but they certainly are.
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Justin Levinson (03:25)β
Yeah, that's fascinating. When you started over at Moonlab, β what position did you begin out over there?
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Katie Meyer (03:31)β
Yeah. So I was actually an associate producer coming into Moonlab. So I was an associate producer at one of my prior agencies and then quickly became a producer at Moonlab. So kind of, we were super small at the time. It was literally me, the CEO, and then one other producer. With that, we kind of continued to grow. And because we were so small, I just was exposed to wearing so many different hats, learning so many things so quickly.
that I really just grew very, very quickly, I think at a more rapid pace than you would at a large agency.
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Justin Levinson (04:06)β
Yeah, that could be an advantage of working at a smaller shop. When you say like wearing many hats, what does that look like within your agency?
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Katie Meyer (04:14)β
Yeah,
it's yeah, a great question. it certainly evolved in a good way. β I would say as we've grown, of course, that means we get more support. We get people with all different backgrounds, different skillsets that can, you know, take on different types of projects. So I think when I started, you know, wearing all different sorts of hats, you were, geez, anything from, you know, designing the
creative deck with the creative team to leading all the vendor comms, to leading the client comms, to sourcing all the items. Like you really were a one person show. And so because of that, I think you really like learn, you know, the skills that you need to kind of execute very, very quickly. I will admit it was a lot of hard work and I'm so grateful that our team has grown and that, you know, we have people to help balance out the bandwidth and the work. We certainly have many more.
clients than we did when I started at Moonlab, which is also incredible and just a testament to, you know, the hard work and creativity that our team has. But yeah, it looks different, I think, in every phase of Moonlab. The roles certainly can look very different.
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Justin Levinson (05:20)β
Yeah, you said the clients are obviously give a lot more now than you did when you began. I'd be curious to see how that sort of journey blossomed from, from like the infancy of just having a few to, get onto you now.
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Katie Meyer (05:32)β
Yeah,
100%. Yeah. I think it's incredible. Our founder Cassandra, she's incredible. I've obviously been working super closely with her and she's been such a huge mentor to me, but she started Moonlab on her own from scratch, you know, and she, our first client ever, which I think is incredible as a small agency, was actually Uber. And we still work very, very closely with Uber to this day. So to start off with a client that is obviously so well known, has so many incredible just like
presence globally at different projects. I think it really spearheaded us to this exposure that not a lot of small agencies will get. And because, know, smaller agencies tend to work with smaller types of clients. We were quite the opposite. We were a small agency working with very big clients and very big names. So that exposure was a huge help. And I think over the years, we have certainly, as we've grown, been able to, again, bring in more people on our operations side, on our
production side who maybe have some exposure to PR, to marketing, and we've learned how to continue to market ourselves as an agency. Because I think sometimes clients come in and see us as a small agency, but then they see the work that we do. And it can be very surprising and very shocking, but we've invested a lot of time into how we're showing up in our world, who we're networking with, connecting with, where we're showing up, I think. β
big thing for us this year, literally last week, we made the event marketer top 100, β it lists for agencies. that was huge for us. I was telling the team, we have been, you know, working at that applying for that year after year, literally at least since I started at Moonlab. β so I think that's just like, and I just goes to show kind of where honestly we are a decade old agency at this time, or 10 years, β in 2025, but we're really just getting started. β
with this new direction that we're headed in. It's so exciting. We're absolutely just stoked to be headed this way.
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Justin Levinson (07:33)β
Yeah, that's fantastic. Congrats, congrats your team on that. That's really cool. I guess when you, you know, I noticed you guys work with like a lot of big clients. saw like Prime and, and like, like you said, Uber, Uber Eats, all the many different, a lot of big ones. I guess, did it happen sort of like organically where, you know, you had the, you guys had the first Uber client and then you guys just were massively successful there. And then other companies came to you organically or how did.
it sort of grow into other, these other big brands coming to you and wanting your services.
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Katie Meyer (08:09)β
Yeah, great question. And you kind of said it is it's definitely we always say we get our best new clients through prior clients, right? Or existing clients. So for example, like one of our large clients is Instacart as well. We've now been working with them for almost five years. We got connected with them through a client point of contact at Uber who then transitioned to Instacart. we are I think at Moonlab like something that
really does set us apart. And I think this goes hand in hand with just being a small agency is because we're so small, we're able to really invest the extra time and I think resources and just dedication to building such strong relationships and partnerships with our clients, you know, and there's no right or wrong way, obviously, in this industry, like it is so different across the board for agencies, what we've learned has worked for us is focusing on the relationship and the partnership with our client, you know, and that
That means making sure that our client point of contact really know our producers and the creative team. And because we have in-house fabrication team, they also even know our fabrication team, which is very, very rare in our industry. So we put a lot of emphasis on, maintaining and building, building and maintaining partnerships. And I think from that, lot of our clients trust us so much that, you know, they are kind of honestly like shouting our praises and sharing our.
our work with people that they know or who I've worked with and are looking for an agency to support with projects. So we're very fortunate. β
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Justin Levinson (09:40)β
Yeah,
that's cool that the client has multiple connections and different touch points within your agency because sometimes, you know, people get pushed off to just like one accounts person and communication gets pretty difficult. So that's kind of, that's cool. Could you explain to me a little bit about your in-house fabrication department and how that works? Thanks for tuning in folks. This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first boutique creative recruitment agency.
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Katie Meyer (10:34)β
Yeah, 100 % love to one of my favorite things part of Moonlab is BlockLab. So BlockLab is our in-house fabrication shop. It's actually founded by our co our founder Cassandra and then two other people that she actually worked with at a prior agency as well. So it's so great. It was very much like her brainchild and something that we realized as a gap in our industry is, you know, having to go out to so many different vendor partners and
One thing we recognized is, especially looking at things with a sustainability lens, think was, you know, okay, like sustainability is on the forefront. Like it's very important to us. It's one of our pillars, but a lot of these fabrication teams that we're working with aren't really thinking about that, you know? So it was kind of a mix of a few different things that came together. And I think that's such a huge part of it that we were like, how can we be cutting edge while being sustainable and modular?
β And also helping to just streamline things for our clients. So I think that's how BlockLab really came together. How we work with them at Moonlab. Typically I'm there in the office with them in Burbank. We have a warehouse in Burbank and a lot of our teammates are there. So we literally are physically working under one roof and it helps so much because you're just able to not only like just ask questions and get pricing quicker or β ideas for design or materials or things, but.
They're also able to help join on client comms. Like I was kind of saying earlier, you know, that's super rare for a client, but I think it helps to kind of reassure clients that how we're designing building is the right way for their needs. And they can literally hear it direct from the source. So we work very, very closely with them all day, every day. It's an amazing partnership.
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Justin Levinson (12:19)β
So when it comes to the fabrication department, are they physically building there too, or is it just sort of like the design there? does, how is that working out?
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Katie Meyer (12:28)β
Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Yeah. So they are physically building as well and they're constantly growing what we're able to do like in our warehouse. So of course there's a bit of outsourcing that they do do depending on the build. Also, since they are a small team, depending on bandwidth and just how many projects we have, but they are doing quite a bit in house. And I think one of the coolest parts too, is we are doing a lot of kind of
digging into a little bit more on like the technology side. So we're dabbling with, you know, 3D printing and how we can bring things to life with 3D printing, different technologies, different lighting. We even have built, some of our team has even built like touch screens, like custom touch screens for clients. So there's so much that I think we're doing beyond just like your standard fab shop, particularly on that technology sides, ever changing, ever growing. This is only the
a year and a half, almost two years with BlockLab. So they are certainly new and fresh. And it's been incredible to see what we've been able to accomplish together in just their first two years and excited for more.
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Justin Levinson (13:34)β
Yeah, I was looking on the website. A lot of your work was really popping. I like that. seemed like it was really aesthetically, yeah, it was just really cool. you have any standout campaigns that you really enjoyed doing? I'm sure you guys have done a ton of them, but any in particular that are really important to you?
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Katie Meyer (13:53)β
Yeah, definitely. With BlockLab or like just MoonLab or Mixibo. Yeah, definitely. think, I mean, in my time at MoonLab, goodness, we've done everything from COVID days, we produced a massive COVID vaccination site for six months in Chicago. And that was very unique as an event agency to do a production of that scale, working super closely with FEMA and disaster relief.
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Justin Levinson (13:58)β
I've been general, yeah.
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Katie Meyer (14:21)β
So that was a huge highlight for me just because I think it taught me so much. think we've also done everything from brand activations to, your trade shows, your conferences, your galas, and all of those have all been incredible highlights. I think one big highlight for me was two summers ago, we did a big global project where we brought to life 50 plus activations for one brand across
literally 40 locations in the U S and then 10 additional locations in Europe and doing a global event and getting exposure to something like that really just changes the game. Again, another moment where you're learning on so quickly, learning on your feet, moving quickly, making mistakes, pivoting solutions. β and that kind of helped us to gain exposure in the global space. and since then we've continued to do trade shows and different events globally as well. there's been, there's been quite a few highlights.
But it's, think the biggest highlights for me are the ones where we really kind of bring the most to life and also are able to learn so much and grow so much from the project that we're doing.
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Justin Levinson (15:28)β
Yeah, do you get to travel a lot?
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Katie Meyer (15:30)β
we do. Yeah. Yeah. We travel quite a bit. Majority of course, in the U S a lot of our projects are Las Vegas based Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, some in Miami. But then we do get to travel globally as well. So over in Europe, we've done quite a few, β and hoping to quickly move to other countries too.
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Justin Levinson (15:52)β
Yeah, that's cool. You do virtual events too, right?
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Katie Meyer (15:55)β
We do. Yes. Yeah. We do virtual events. I think not so much since the COVID days. I think the virtual events have thankfully in a way kind of disappeared a little bit, but hybrid is certainly very big for us. We do a ton of hybrid events, particularly like I think in our conferences and our galas, a lot of times clients are looking for a hybrid option. So, you know, to be able to stream it out to more people that can be in the room. So we have done quite a few of those in pre in recent years.
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Justin Levinson (16:24)β
Yeah. What's sort of like the most hands on deck you need for an event, like in terms of like people typically.
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Katie Meyer (16:32)β
man, it depends. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely depends on the scale of the event. know, like smaller events can really just be a producer and a designer. And then our large events will require multiple producers, obviously multiple designers. Yeah. It depends. You know, the, the one I was mentioning, the global event where it was 50 plus locations, obviously we're a very small team.
And so when we're in those positions, we look to lean on our incredible vendor partners, particularly in the labor sector that are able to help us be boots on the ground and kind of get the job done in multiple spots at once. So, yeah.
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Justin Levinson (17:14)β
Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of like, like putting together teams, so you have a mix of like staff people and you also, you work with freelancers as well. It's, is it kind of a mix of.
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Katie Meyer (17:26)β
Yeah,
it's definitely a mix of both. think it's interesting, right? Like kind of what I was saying earlier, when I started at Moonlab, we were so small, so nimble. We also had less clients. So we did all of our production in house. I think as we're growing, we're looking at how to best strategize with our growth, right? And I think that comes in different phases, different seasons. And I think one thing like I've certainly had to learn as a leader is that like that will always be changing.
And then that, you know, change to our structure and how we operate isn't a bad thing. It's actually a good thing because it shows that, you know, we're growing and we have to change the way that we do things and we should never be relying on the, you know, the saying like, well, that's how it's always been done or that's how we've always done things. So it's, an ever changing kind of process in how we operate β and working. have such an incredible ops team that are constantly just looking at, know, what is going on in our events industry.
How are other teams working? You know, we love networking. think that's one thing I appreciate so much in kind of my tenure in the industry is when I started, it was a very competitive space. And I think like over the years, I think kind of post COVID, people kind of realized there's enough work to go around for everyone. So let's, know, instead of competing with each other, really network. I meet with so many other agency leaders, vendors, freelancers, you name it. It's so incredible to just.
hear from other people and learn how people are doing things and how we can help each other to continue to grow not just our individual agencies, but the industry as a whole.
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Justin Levinson (19:02)β
Yeah, that's pretty cool. it ever? mean, I know you guys are still competing, but competing together, you know, in a good way. there ever, β you know, do they ever give you like, does one agency ever say like, you know, you should go with Moonlab for this or we're kind of maxed out during this time sort of refer.
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Katie Meyer (19:20)β
that happens. Yeah. Yeah. So you nailed it on the head. I think we've seen which is so great. Like that's been such a positive shift and we do it as well. There's been, you know, a few projects here and there that have come through where our bandwidth has either been strapped or it honestly might not be like where our skill sets are. And you know, we want to be putting clients and brands in the hands of people that can bring the event the project to life in the best way and we totally recognize that you know that
might not always be us for certain projects. And there are so many agencies out there that specialize in different spaces. And we certainly want to just help to kind of spread the work and collaborate together where we can.
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Justin Levinson (19:59)β
Yeah. And you guys are focused on inclusivity and being environmentally friendly, all that kind of stuff. Does that impact when you guys are choosing clients as well? Or there's sometimes that maybe a brand might come to you and may not be as true to your core values and you might also say that that's not a fit.
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Katie Meyer (20:20)β
Yeah, yeah, that's it. That I think may have might have been one of the most challenging lessons. I think I've had to learn particularly the past couple of years. I think it's, when you're when you're in this position and you're growing and we want the team to grow and we want our client Rolodex to grow, you know, you can kind of have that like, we have to do it all. And like we have to bring on all these clients. And we have had a few moments and a few projects where we've certainly learned to
stay true to our values and to ensure that we're really aligned with them. I think we talk about it with the team all the time. And when you look at our projects and our clients, we're not really an agency that's a one and done per se. Like, you know, some agencies will just, you know, do one event and then they move on to the next client, do a different event. We, again, going back to our partnerships, prefer to really...
grow with our clients β because I think that's how you build the strongest relationships and we really like to become an extension of our clients team. So there are, there have certainly been a few where that hasn't been the case. And again, those have been our moments to learn and to take those learnings and kind of apply them to, future client conversations and pitches and projects.
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Justin Levinson (21:32)β
Yeah, that's, that's really important to feel like they're an extension of your agency opposed to, β yeah, just feeling like they're, yeah, that's cool. In terms of hiring people, what do you usually look for in people? imagine you're a CEO, you're, that's a big part of your job is scaling the team and making sure you guys have enough boots on the ground.
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Katie Meyer (21:53)β
Yes, it is. we're actually in that literally as we speak, we're expanding our creative team. So we're really excited about that. And I think I've been fortunate to have been a part of that kind of role with Cassandra even back, honestly, when I first started at Moon Lab. So I've learned so much again, through the different phases, the different opportunities to scale. But I think something that is a little different about us.
And I've kind of always been a firm believer of this is that you can't necessarily teach people, you know, the soft skills. like their work ethic, their attitude, who they are as a human, but you can teach a lot of the technical and the hard skills. So I think while a lot of people may be looking at like, okay. Like, can they, you know, can they build a budget or if it's designed, like what are their 2d graphic skills, 3d skills, et cetera? Like for us, I think the most important thing as a small agency is that we're bringing in.
good humans, you know, that want to be a part of our mission and what we're growing. And we'll have, course, a baseline of skills, of course, but are willing to learn and are willing to grow. Because I think like anyone who is just like adaptable and willing to receive feedback and be in a collaborative nature, like you will grow. And I think that's something that
you know, I, as I mentioned earlier, like a lot of people took a lot of risks on me when I certainly was not by any means qualified. If you're to look at my resume to do the jobs that I was doing, but I think what they saw is determination, the work ethic and like the passion to be in the space. So I think I'm so conscious of just seeing that in people and, really looking to bring those types of people.
on-chart team and I, you know, I'm of course biased, but I do think that we have one of the best teams out there. We're an incredible group of people here at Moonlab.
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Justin Levinson (23:42)β
Yeah, that's incredible. I look for the same too in people that have that of that spark. yeah, personally, when I got into the recruitment business, I was definitely a by-law candidate. I was nothing special on paper. you know, think, at least when I see myself, I saw the whole and I ran through it. You know what I mean? Like, if you find those people that are like, you know, when I first got into recruiting industry, there was
and I was part of my first agency. There was a, β gentleman who was sort of like the top biller at that time. And he had sort of gone on to do his own thing. And when he did, that's when that door opened up and I kind of saw it I was like, I'm gonna, this is, this is something I could do. And so when you find people that have that sort of like that spark, they see it, you know, they're hungry, but they have a good attitude and all that stuff. That's always, β pretty great. Yeah.
Yeah, do you have, you say you're growing your creative team. Yeah, maybe you could tell us about, you know, what parts of the business that are growing there.
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Katie Meyer (24:47)β
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think it's where we're definitely looking at how our industry is changing and what that looks like. So because of that, we're definitely looking at, okay, what are the needs and what are the changes that are happening in the industry and like, where are our gaps right now? Right? So I think we're seeing a lot of like, we talk about this a lot, but events like our
kind of becoming like some people are saying it's starting to feel a bit saturated and like a bit like rinse and repeat, right? So clients are very much looking for like, what is that next big idea? You know, what is honestly gonna like break out on social media and like make a huge impact? What like Gen Z is always talking about.
community, like they want to feel a part of something and like have those moments. So we're constantly researching and looking at different trends and stuff and where our gaps are. I think one thing we've recognized is as we have been growing and like getting more work in more clients in, you know, sometimes you get into autopilot and you just have to kind of keep going and like need to get the work done. And so we want to ensure that in this change and in this phase, we're not losing that.
creativity, we're not losing that passion, we're not losing that spark, those new ideas. So ensuring that we have a really supportive team that can continue to collaborate together to just constantly keep those creative juices flowing to bring like our best workflow forward throughout this next phase.
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Justin Levinson (26:11)β
Are you going to other events that other agencies do for inspiration and doing that?
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Katie Meyer (26:17)β
Yeah, yeah, we sometimes do. We also like to attend a lot of like industry events. So went to the event marketer experiential summit earlier this year in Vegas. And that was incredible to just hear from a lot of speakers in our agents in our industry. We're also in two weekends, we're going to create and cultivate they have a big festival that we're doing. So that's a lot of marketing PR experiential. So we do try to attend a few
industry wide events, I think a year just to get out there to be able to network to be able to learn. And then for other agencies events, if and where we can, you know, if it is like a public activation or event 100 % a lot of our team is in Los Angeles. Obviously, there's brand activations on every street corner in LA. So we are very fortunate to live where we do and get that type of exposure. But it's also a lot of honestly, just like being in touch on LinkedIn.
on Instagram, on TikTok, like you name it. I'm just really staying in touch with brands that we admire and you know, agencies that we admire. We have so many agencies that we admire the work that they're doing that they have done, how they've grown and scaled. And it's really cool to be in a position where we can like look up to all these different teams and brands and everything.
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Justin Levinson (27:35)β
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Being in LA, that's the place to be. Yeah. Cool. That's really great. β Yeah. As far as like tools go and like team collaboration, I curious, mean, with like, obviously, the rise in technology and AI and all these different things that are happening out there. Has that, you know, what kind of tools are you guys using? mean, there's obviously there's basic things like Asana for
you know, people that communicate and tools and stuff like that. But what does that sort of look like? What is, what is a tech stack for an experiential creative agency look like?
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Katie Meyer (28:09)β
Yeah, 100%. So I think like on our side with like technology, I know you just mentioned AI, but I think like, obviously, even just I mean, goodness, like just a year ago, like AI was not a thing. And I think it's created such a huge shift in our industry. And something that is definitely like top of mind and a very big discussion, because I think there's a lot of, you know, fear of losing that human touch and that human creativity. So constantly navigating, I think how to use it and how to preserve authentic
and creativity while using it as a tool and extension of our team. one way that that looks like is we use it as like a brainstorming tool. You know, when I was at the experiential event market or summit, there was so many conversations about it. And it was so fascinating to see how agencies were literally writing in like, you know, different briefs into chat, chibi T and like, pulling through asking it like different questions and how it can help you to come up with like concepts. But I think for us, it's, know,
something coming from AI should never be your final. It should just be a tool that helps you to get to your final. So learning with it on that, I think with quick turn pitches, you we have some pitches that literally they come in in the morning and they are due at night. Like when you have something with that much time constraint, like these tools are so, so beneficial because instead of immediately panicking, like, how am I going to get this done? You know, you can take a step back and be like,
Okay, here's the brief. Here are my initial ideas. Let me kind of have a friend, aka chatgbt, help me out with refining these a little bit. And then, you know, let me actually bring them back to our design team and actually design. But it saves a lot of the time when you have really quick turn moments like that. It's just ensuring that you continue to use it in the right way.
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Justin Levinson (29:58)β
Yeah. Someone had told me, or not told me, but maybe something I just actually made my friend on the podcast, but the formula of success with AI is sort of like human. Human. Yeah. That's sort of like, β so yeah, I've been thinking about that. when I'm, when I'm working, of course there are certain things like, think I was looking online the other day. One of my friends sent me, β there's a β band that
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Katie Meyer (30:10)β
Second.
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Justin Levinson (30:27)β
came out recently called Scarlet something Scarlet Sundown. No, Velvet Sundown. They're going viral on Spotify. I know this is sort of not related to our conversation, but yeah, they came out as an all AI band. They're not real people, but they went viral on Spotify. was in the Rolling Stone.
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Katie Meyer (30:38)β
Okay, okay.
Yeah.
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Justin Levinson (30:54)β
I listened to it and it was like, you know, from, I love lyrics and I love lyrics and music too. Obviously I have all these guitars in the background. mean, but from a copywriting or from a lyrical perspective, it was very like Moon, June, Spoon. Like you could not like the cliches, like the metaphor, everything was just so like, it's like they took every, you know, I mean, that's what it was obviously they just kind of sampled the stuff in there.
Yeah. But the drums sounded pretty good. I like, told my friend who's a drummer, I'm like, the drums actually sound, they sound pretty, they sound good. yeah, it's, I do fear a world sometimes that can go too far down that world. But yeah, I guess, you know, last kind of topic, I was kind of curious, what your, you know, what, what do you sort of like outside of work? What do you sort of enjoy doing that keeps you fresh and energized?
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Katie Meyer (31:48)β
That's a great question because I feel like I'm
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Justin Levinson (31:50)β
Guessing
it's AI music is probably really just...
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Katie Meyer (31:54)β
I'm
actually, I'm gonna have to look them up after this because I'm super curious. Like, very, very curious. Also curious how they even did that. I have so many questions, but yeah, I mean, I like, you know, I hate to say it, but I feel like I'm one of the lucky ones. I absolutely just love what I do with, you know, work in here at Moonlab. But when, when I'm not doing that, I think for me, you know, I mean, it's,
kind of simple hobbies. To be honest, I am a sucker that sounds super nerdy. But I am a sucker for leadership and like your self help style books. I don't know why I absolutely love them. They're all I read. β I'm currently reading unreasonable hospitality by Will Gadara. So fascinating about the restaurant industry, but it
applies to obviously so much of what we do in the event industry and I'm like nerding out like taking notes on every page. It's embarrassing. But yeah, I mean, I mean, hey, you know, reading travel is huge. I think one thing that we emphasis actually at Moonlab is, you know, mental health and wellness and a lot of that. Our teammates take a lot of time to travel. I think it's so important, especially in our industry to
travel and to see the world because it helps you to see how different people and cultures are doing, are living life, honestly. And there's so much, like I know some of our designers have traveled to like Japan, to different spots in Asia, like just different parts of the world and have come back so inspired, creatively to like just have new ideas that bring things to life. So travel is always something I try and fit in to the year, you know, whether it's like a new country or even a new state here in the U.S.
There's just so much that you can learn and it's absolutely fascinating to just like see how different people and cultures are like living and yeah, yeah, so definitely love to travel.
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Justin Levinson (33:46)β
That's great. Cool. Okay. Well, I really appreciate you being on here today and giving us your insights and telling us about MoonLab. And yeah, just really appreciate you hopping on here today and look forward to continuing the conversation in the future with you.
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Katie Meyer (34:00)β
Awesome. Thanks so much, Justin. Appreciate it. You too. Bye.
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Justin Levinson (34:02)β
All right, Katie, take care. Bye.
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Agency Side host and the creative matchmaker extraordinaire at Coming Up Creative. Connecting top talent with leading agencies by day, uncovering industry secrets by night (well, whenever we record).