When most of the children were waiting in long lines to ride a roller coaster in Hershe Park, Ryan Stana found herself gravity to do something that gave them great adventures: the park theater. “I will sit and watch the show – and I was imprisoned,” he told that entrepreneur“And when I was a senior in high school, I was still watching those shows, but I started noting this ‘unplaced’ quality. Perhaps my rose colored glasses broke, but I saw the opportunity to bring excellence and innovation for attraction and holiday entertainment.”
Stana says that when he was a child, he had two dreams: to become a broadway artist and become a teacher. And they came together two passions, when immediately after college, they launched their live experience company RWS Global“I am very lucky,” he says, “My parents are both entrepreneurs and are very helpful – they taught me that with hard work, anything is possible.”
Since the launch from the corner of a crowded New York City apartment (later more on it), RWS has become a powerhouse in Live Entertainment, such as the Casting Broadway Show Lion kingCreating entertainment and experience for crucline such as Disney Cruise Line, Paris 2024 Build global programs such as Olympics and Paralympic Games, and more.
Credit: RWS Global
entrepreneur Talked with Stana how he launched and enhanced his company. RWS produces Global like shows and events, his story is full of drama and action.
Tell us about the moment you have decided to start your company.
As soon as I finished college, I moved to New York City and became an associate producer for corporate and retail programs. I was earning $ 600 a week. The company I was working for was amazing creative, but they did not know how to work and budget. I cannot believe that I am also saying that when I was in high school, I was terrible in mathematics. But I realized, “Hey, they are making $ 200,000, but they are spending $ 250,000.” I noticed that you need to have a balance between creative and operating thinking. So one day I called my parents and said, “I hate this job.” And they were like, “Ryan, why don’t you go and do not open your own business?” And I said, “Okay.” this is why I left.
So this is the decision – how did you really start a business?
I went back to my apartment in New York City. I had two roommates at that time, Barry and Kolbi, and I said, “I am going to open an office in the corner of my living room. And when the phone rings, I need to answer you, so it seems that people work here. I deduct money from my utility bill every month. I will send an e-mail every month. Who was going to trust the child of the year?
And when did you know that this idea was going to work?
In about three weeks, the Clear Channel told me about an advance presentation and asked me to pitch for an $ 150,000 incident. I remember I was going in and pitching, and when I was getting out of the room, the customer came out and said, “Ryan, we are giving you this gig.” And I knew that we have something special in our major offer: turnky operation. We handle creativity, people and operations, and organize the process.
Your company does many different types of events. Can you boil it for unfamiliar people with live event space?
We are the leaders of the world in entertainment and making live moments in sports. We are essentially broken into six divisions: design destination, where we are actually designing theme parks, zoo, aquarium, museum, visitor centers. Then we have our land production division, where we are providing temporary experience and live shows in theme parks, retail centers and seasonal programming. We experience pop-up brands at hotels and resorts. We then have our AT-C production division, where we provide full-scale broadwe-type presentations and immersive experiences on cruise ships. Then we have a retail and merchandise division. And our sixth division is our casting division. We provide over 8,000 jobs worldwide for technicians and artists. We create a trajectory for our talent, so you can start working in six flags for us, can go on a cruise ship, and if you do well, the broadway show or a commercial is placed in a commercial. This allows us to corner the market.
Credit: Medora Music
As an artist, can you just say, “Hey, I’m going to cast myself as Simba?”
I could not say so nor would anyone like me to say anymore. I still find great pleasure to see the success of our talent. That’s what drives me. And when I say talent, it is not just on the stage people. It is seeing that the people of our office also get success.
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Can you give us a sense of revenue growth of your company?
We reached around $ 50 million in revenue, a year after the epidemic. We have increased to nine figures since then. We mostly expanded through the acquisition. We acquired a casting company in 2016 (Binder Casting), then we bought a destination design business in 2021 (JRA). We then bought our biggest contestant in Europe in 2022 (TED). And then we bought the Sports Division in 2024, and recently bought an app (Harmony Helper), which helps the artists to learn their music in a fast way, which allows our productions and our customers to save money. In 2023, we also took a private equity firm, Bluestone equity partners. I sold a minority amount of business to move my company in future.
Did the theater school prepare you for all this?
I just learn things like things come. I really believe that if you have a passion for what you do, you will detect it. I recently told a friend that you do not need to spend time to get an MBA. If you have a passion and you work hard, you will get success. But if you feel that being an entrepreneur is not 24/7? You have gone wrong.
How do you grow in a managerial way that does not spread yourself very thin?
I have made it a point since a day to make it my success on the basis of my or any person. This is about the system and procedures for the company to grow. And there is a timeline for action. We say that these are these things that we want to complete in 2025. And if a new idea comes, great, we collide it from 2026. So once we have laid that foundation, the integration of those businesses is very simple. Now I am lying to tell you that when you are buying six+ companies it is not bumpy, but you listen to people and respect what they say, and move forward.
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How do you close your mind? Are you able to see the show and are not going to your work brain?
I can’t rest when I watch a show – that I can promise you. People will probably laugh when I say this, but it is about finding a job balance. And the only person who can change a work-life balance, you are as a person. I always make sure that once a week, I have a day that I shut down. This is Ryan’s lazy day, where I just watched the mindless television and chill and spend time with my husband and my family that without these people, I can’t do what I do.
