Morgan Margolis
From growing up within a dedicated show business household to becoming the CEO of an ever-expanding organization with over 20 + years of Hospitality and Entertainment experience, Morgan Margolis has been on a long journey that continues to move forward and upward.
At the beginning of 2000, Margolis signed with Knitting Factory Entertainment (KFE) as Operations Manager at the newly opened Knitting Factory Club in Los Angeles. At the time, KFE’s enterprises included only the Hollywood venue, and the well-known Manhattan avant-jazz club (established in 1987) and a catalog of independent music on the Knitting Factory label.
“At Knitting Factory Los Angeles, simultaneously managing three rooms seven nights a week at three different capacities and variable music genres really prepared me for anything tossed my direction,” notes Margolis. “It was a constant state of organized chaos.”
Margolis took over as Vice President of West Coast Operations as the company expanded to the Pacific Northwest, where KFE opened concert houses in Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington, and also produced tours and concerts at other high-capacity venues throughout the nation. In 2007, after successfully running Pacific Northwest operations, Margolis was promoted to Vice President of National Operations.
Within a year, Margolis was named CEO of Knitting Factory Entertainment and for the last nine years has helmed the company. Guiding the corporation from a three-unit venue business, with $5 million in yearly gross revenues, to a twenty unit multiple tiered operation and portfolio company to north of $40 million a year in grosses and 600 employees nationally.
Outside the normal of day-to-day promotions, Knitting Factory co-produced the Tony Awardâ-winning, Grammyâ-nominated musical “FELA!” based on KFE-produced musician and Afrobeat godfather Fela Kuti.
That show became a kernel of KFE’s first theatrical film, the Oscar-Nominated Alex Gibney’s Finding Fela, which had a theatrical, digital and DVD/BD release in 2014. Most recently, KFE served as producer on the 2016 documentary, They Will Have To Kill Us First.
The label has also partnered with Partisan Records, a Brooklyn-based indie label, www.partisanrecords.com. KFE further consolidated management companies and formed Knitting Factory Management, www.knittingfactorymgmt.com and finalized its music management moves by adding Selby Artist Management, www.selbyartistmgmt.com – award winning dance / theatre / composers.
Margolis is key in relationship-building, and in 2016 he strategically aligned KFE to a multi-year seven figure deal with ticketing giant, Ticket Master / Ticket Web. His overall vision is to turn KFE into a 360-degree entertainment company and these steps have led to key ownership stakes in media enterprises including: Giant Step Marketing and Media (www.giantstep.net), an award-winning experiential marketing organization, and the Connect Group (www.theconnectgrp.com), an agency focused on food, sports, and entertainment. KFE also owns the “taste maker” web property, The Talkhouse (www.thetalkhouse.com), which connects the conversation between artists.
“With venues, restaurant / bars, touring, labels, a marketing and publicity machine at our fingertips, and the artists coming through our own venues, it just seemed logical to me to try and create a division that would take care of the artist and help to move their careers forward through our system,” says Margolis. “This division is still expanding and I’m currently looking at numerous strategic partnerships with other companies.”
KFE i.e.: KFE Presents, the national touring and promotions arm of KFE has also expanded its footprint. Booking national acts across multiple states including, but not limited to Memorial Stadium, Idaho and Big Sky Brewery Amphitheatre in Montana. Between those two, there’s approximately 25 shows and 100k plus fans served outdoors annually. KFE Presents also has contracts with; Slowdown, NE; The Myth, MI; Criterion OKC, OK; and Elevation 27, VA, as a talent buyer. Recent partnerships have also included Rachel Ray’s Feedback in Chicago, Hortons Hayride in California, the ongoing Desert Daze Festival in Joshua Tree, CMoore Concerts in the Pacific Northwest, and many others.
In describing the company’s diversification, “KFE has really had a paradigm shift,” Margolis says. “We’ve moved from essentially a straightforward brick and mortar venue and touring company to a multi-layered media company. All of our assets are intertwined to create a new network that works for the greater growth of each of the business units. Sometimes I feel as though we are an eight-headed serpent and it definitely gets very difficult to rein in all of the areas we’ve expanded to. But in the long run, our goal is to expand the business to also handle outside companies and consult on business development and branding, sponsorship, advertising, construction, promoting and more. KFE is looking to become a one-stop shop for a multitude of content needs and outlets.”
To that end, Margolis has diversified Knitting Factory Entertainment in many unpredictable yet undeniably connected ways, such as opening the successful gastropub The Federal, www.thefederalbar.com in North Hollywood and Long Beach. Most recently, they also opened downtown Los Angeles’ Regent Theatre; The Thirsty Merchant, www.thirstymerchant.com in Valley Village and another four El Tejano Tex Mex restaurants, www.eltejanotexmex.com , located in North Hollywood, Woodland Hills, Downtown Los Angeles and West Hollywood. Hospitality division highlights have helped drive an additional $20 million in gross revenue yearly. Further hospitality expansion in 2017 added a stake in LA’s growing craft beer scene by taking a position in Boomtown Brewery, www.boomtownbrew.com. 2020 with Fillmore Capital on a multi-million dollar hospitality concept in LoDo, the creative hotbed of Denver, CO spinning three projects Brewery, tex mex and old school rock n roll bar into an entertainment complex, opening Winter 2021.
KFE made its first foray into the hotel business by investing in the Arrive Hotel brand, www.arrivehotels.com, —Palm Springs’ first ground-up hotel project in ten ears. The synergy of these endeavors, from the recording studio to the stage to Broadway to Brooklyn, points to a company with the creative leadership to continue to grow and provide endless high-quality entertainment options.
“How does running restaurants fit in with managing a band or promoting an act?” Margolis explains, “There are some direct crossovers as it is all hospitality in the end. How do you treat your customer? Dealing with the different personalities and doing everything you can to put the right product in front of the consumer, taste, design detail, staffing is central to our philosophy . Management gives customers , patrons and guests the personal touch, and stays up to date with all of the clientele, as well as with shifting technology and social platforms.”
Margolis acknowledges the contributions of his department/division heads in pushing the KFE brand forward. “Essentially, while each member has deep experience in their key business unit, we are ‘all hands on deck’ and most team members can and must cross over to lend a hand in all departments when needed. Most of this team has been with me since I took the reins as CEO in 2008. To say we couldn't succeed without their individual and collective contributions would be an understatement.”
“Each day, we propel Knitting Factory Entertainment further into the future; strategically integrating KFE across an increasingly diverse portfolio of revenue-driving business units, from a broadening spectrum of Entertainment, Management, Technology, Consulting and Hospitality disciplines."