Paw Patrol Live Revenue
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A story about how VStar Entertainment licenses children's TV shows and turns them into successful live theater productions.
"I started looking into this company called VStar Entertainment. What they do is license kids' brands and put on kids' Broadway shows that tour around the country. They have this brand called Paw Patrol - it's basically another kids' cartoon. They sold $40 million in just ticket sales last year, and that's not even counting merchandise.
The backstory is fascinating - some guy in the 1980s was watching Sesame Street and thought 'Sesame Street should do a live show.' He raised $500,000 from an investor, mortgaged his house for another $25,000, and got the license to Sesame Street. He started with Sesame Street shows, then did Muppets. Later they merged with another company doing similar shows.
The whole thing eventually got bought by Cirque du Soleil. Cirque is now doing $1 billion a year in revenue - it's insane. About 5-10% of all Las Vegas tourists go to a Cirque show when they're in town. They now own Blue Man Group and VStar Entertainment. Together they sell about 14 million tickets per year across all their shows."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.