Ep 112 Leveraging your event emcee and secrets from cruise ship decks below, with Nathan Cassar Part 1

Could your next emcee be the ultimate secret weapon to unlocking the untapped potential of your events? Imagine a captivating force that goes beyond mere introductions and announcements, delving deep into the layer of genuine connections and unforgettable moments from the moment your attendees walk through your event door. It's a game-changer that transforms ordinary events into extraordinary experiences. 

Nathan Cassar challenges us to expect more from our emcees by peeling back the curtain on the cruise industry, revealing its commitment to a great guest experience and also its secret, quirky world - ever heard of a noodle black market on a ship?

Based in Sydney, Australia, Nathan's rich experience has included being a Cruise Director for Princess Cruises, emceeing wedding receptions and leading major awards evening galas. His own awards have included Best Wedding MC by the Wedding Industry Awards (Western Sydney) 2023 & 2022 and Most Entertaining MC (NSW) - Lux-Life Global Excellence Awards 2022.


Quotes from this episode:

"It's about showing people that  guest connection is number one, and it's something that I see being lost in so many opportunities throughout the year".

"What really makes people's memories come to life in relation to a past event in their life is something that allowed them to feel really connected to the experience."

-Nathan Cassar


Nathan's website:
www.nathancassar.com.au

Connect with Nathan:
Email: mc@nathancassar.com.au
LinkedIn: nathan-cassar-master-of-ceremonies-sydney
FB: @nathancassar.mc
IG: @nathancassar_mc

Nathan's image credit: Puzzleman Productions

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Transcript

Adelaine Ng: 0:00

Nathan, welcome to the show.

Nathan Cassar: 0:01

Hi, Adelaine, it's great to be here. Thank you.

Adelaine Ng: 0:03

Well, a show is where you're super comfortable. You're a seasoned emcee with a broad experience. You've done the cruises, the weddings, corporate events, but your story is a little interesting in that you didn't start out as someone who was confident on stage. So you know, tell us a bit about that.

Nathan Cassar: 0:22

Oh yeah, wow, that's so true. I essentially began as a kid. I was an extraordinary introvert and so if you were to take a time machine and go back in time and meet me, you know, before like around, say, the age of 13, 12 and so forth you'd see this very shy, like academic kid, you know, bright-eyed, wanting to understand the world around me, but certainly not somebody who you could say, oh yeah, like he's going to have a flair for the stage, he's going to captivate audiences, he's going to be able to use the words and say them in a nice loud, confident voice and, you know, change people's feelings and emotions around them. But yeah, some very important things happened in my life that are primarily going on my very first cruise when I was 14, and it opened a world, not only in the sense of like my own personal growth in terms of understanding that I actually really wanted to become like the best cruise director. At the time, I saw the cruise director there and I was just like, oh my God, I got to do this one day.

Nathan Cassar: 1:16

But what it really also showed me was that something that came a lot later in my career, when I joined Princess back in 2015 and beyond, which is then I got to start to learn how to actually be amongst a immersive environment and not just be sort of a purveyor and an executor, but be a creator, and to see how bringing people together to one location and saying, look, this is your playground and we're going to make everything sit around the guest experience possible for you was something that, over the course of time, transformed my mindset when it came to large-scale public events or even the small stuff that the relatively small stuff that I do today, such as like a wedding or a small corporate event, because it showed me that what really makes people's memories come to life in relation to a past event in their life is something that allowed them to feel really connected to the experience.

Nathan Cassar: 2:10

And so obviously, I was a purveyor of that for a long time, both as a permanent crew member on as an assistant cruise director and then later as a fleet supervisor for entertainment experience and the corporate entertainment department, creating the game shows that would help to impact that immersive experience. But combined with that, now in my new role as my own business, it's exciting to be able to sort of excite the senses amongst people, to not only just challenge the way that they experience what they would maybe consider before they come into the event sort of a run-of-the-mill experience but also really challenge them to be immersed, to be involved, to be engulfed by the entire emotions of something so that they walk away going. That was amazing. I want there to be part too.

Adelaine Ng: 3:02

Yeah, wow, so did I get that right? A single event on a cruise ship just changed the trajectory of your life.

Nathan Cassar: 3:10

I would dare say so. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a bit of a butterfly effect. Imagine my parents didn't take me on the cruise, right? It was just one of those things that it was seven days. But yet seven days showed me that when you put somebody consider myself to be the best case example, right, because you consider this right. I'm an individual at the time that was very shy, very introverted, and if you'd asked me to participate in game shows where I was gonna be really exposed and I have to answer questions and broadcast my voice, I hated hearing my own voice. I was just telling somebody this yesterday. For some reason, I hated hearing my own voice and watching myself on camera as a kid, and so can imagine Well, I think most of us do, even as adults.

Nathan Cassar: 3:54

I've had to get used to it now. Now I'm like, yes, now I was talking to my videographer from an event I just did and I'm like, oh yeah, tweak this, tweak that I don't want this. But it's such a change, obviously, but you're not wrong Like it's genuine fear for a lot of people. But I went from like a really extreme fear of that and then on the cruise it just the environment is so immersive that it just pulled every good part of me out to the surface because of the way that the staff interacted with you, the way that everything is such a through-thread experience from the very start to the finish, because each of the little touch points of gains and activities entice you and intrigue you and excite you and they all connect when done right of course there's not. Every cruise is pretty cool.

Adelaine Ng: 4:34

Just quietly.

Nathan Cassar: 4:35

Yeah, but when they're done right and they've got the right mix and the right flavor, they really do create those sort of nexus moments like I had in my life, where I discovered parts of me that I didn't realize and then from there it was just a matter of holding a dream alive, to keeping that flame ablaze until I got older, to re-experience it as a passenger Again when I was 20, so six years after that and that pretty much just confirmed that that was where I wanted to be. And, of course, in between their time I professionally public spoke in school and debating, and did everything I was just so inspired to just wanna learn how to be a creative performer.

Nathan Cassar: 5:13

And you're right, it was definitely a chance experience that I would never wanna remove from my journey.

Adelaine Ng: 5:20

That is so pivotal, because I do know that you do talk about being bullied as a kid as well. So going from that experience to what you've just described, that must have been so special to you and a huge motivator for why it is that you do want to create really good, immersive experiences for other people, just for that chance opportunity that there could be somebody in the crowd that might need something like that.

Nathan Cassar: 5:47

Very true and you know, what's really cool actually is that I have had a few experiences, both from my time when I was dealing with, like even specifically, bullying I recounted on another podcast recently of my journey with an anti-bullying program that I created, sort of like when I was in high school and I was partnered with West Tigers and the anti-violence movement and Uffers and Naaf and this is sort of like the beginnings of me becoming an individual who is capable of putting together these live public events that you know expose really critical thematic elements and also, you know, put me on a spotlight, because I, in this case, became one of the feature speakers. But you never know where you're going to inspire somebody. I, apart from the few emails that I received, I remember as a kid from the experience with the anti-bullying program that I did, where a number of mums reach out to me and say thank you so much, like it was so great to hear your story and you've really inspired my child. They really feel like they have a kindred spirit in this world because of what you've brought to the surface. But even I was just I'm just thinking of going through even a more happy note I guess you know sort of more related to my career.

Nathan Cassar: 6:59

I've seen recently some, some passengers that were just like me when I was a kid, back when I was 14, you know, when I was asking the cruise director and the cruise director staff, oh you know, how do I get this job? I had people come up to me who was inspired enough to ask me when I was working on ships, to say, oh, how can I get this job? And one such person just recently posted that he's just got a job, I think, working for NCL as part of their entertainment team, as part of their feature new shows that are going out, and I was just like that's amazing, like he was so determined to make that happen and but I was, you know, part of that journey as well. And so you never really know who you're going to inspire and it's really important to be your authentic self but also to be a proponent of, to remember where you're, also the environment that you're contributing to, because nothing exists within a vacuum and a myocross and you really have to be contributed to the whole experience.

Nathan Cassar: 7:55

God knows the amount of times that people have been to a bad restaurant and said, look, we're never going back to the restaurant. The food was terrible, the toilets weren't clean, all this. Look the waiter. He was, you know, really nice, but unfortunately like we can't go back because the overall experience. We'd love to see him again. Hope he gets another job somewhere else so he can see him, because we don't want to go back there. And it's very much the same when it comes to events.

Adelaine Ng: 8:18

Yeah, very, very true. You have a unique perspective, you know, having worked on cruise ships. So I'm sure a lot of listeners are just wondering what is it like to live on a cruise? You know a bunch of people are happy to just get on it for a couple of days and then get off, but you would have seen a lot, you know, just being on cruise ships. I don't know how long you did this for. Could it be yours?

Nathan Cassar: 8:41

Yeah, so I started back in 2015, january 3rd 2015, during the Grand Princess never forget it it's a starry eyed 22 year old as a junior assistant cruise director, joined in LA in San Pedro port, and that started a journey that took me three and a half years as a junior and then an assistant cruise director, promoted one year later and then specifically chosen for a job as a fleet supervised entertainment experience which long wanky LinkedIn title for basically the role of somebody who was responsible for performance review across all the 100 plus crew staff and cruise directors across the entire fleet of 17 ships at the time, and then also creating some of the largest game shows at sea, including my own creation, the can you survive game show, which is currently being re-rolled out across the Princess Cruises fleet at the moment. So definitely leaving a big legacy behind working with budgets that I didn't even. You know I barely had five digits in my bank account and I'm working with multi six digit budgets, you know, for game shows and so forth is this.

Adelaine Ng: 9:41

That's the most money to play with he really was, you know, and it's.

Nathan Cassar: 9:45

It was sort of that taste of like what can be really done. When you're given a brief, that's really exciting, you know. And also again going back to this idea of it being immersed within an environment, you've got a captive audience. I guess the one not so parallel between, obviously, real life and cruise ships is that we have to in the event. Well, you know, you have to obviously market, you have to convince people, you have to advertise. You've already got a captive audience when you're on a ship. So it is a bit easier sometimes to obviously expect that you're going to get a crowd, as long as it's obviously promoted in the rundown of the events for the day and the little blurb, you know, sounds enticing enough and the cruise director says enough times at the end of a show or on the public announcements that something's taking place.

Nathan Cassar: 10:28

But cruise ship life is a double-edged sword. It's something that people think it's like going away to to join the circus. It's really not. It definitely requires a lot of hard work. You work in seven days a week, 13, 15 hour days, depending on the call of the day. It's not built for people who want the glitz and glamour of travel over anything else. You really need to understand that you are in the ultimate service of people every step of the way, particularly in the entertainment field, because you're the face and the celebrity of the ship. You represent the essence of the vibe in the energy, and so you have to be captivating, interesting. You have to remember that you always on like some of these parallels obviously exist in real world as well, but it's it's sort of like a lot of that times one hundred.

Nathan Cassar: 11:15

You know the theater show. You go to the Sydney theater or something and you watch a show and you don't expect that the cast again and then just just generally get up and Get out of the dressing room and just getting another uniform and then start roaming around and start chatting with people. That's not an expectation. You know you may be lucky to catch the back door, something. Where is On a ship? Is she done that show? You're like, okay, well, that's that. You back out talking to the people again. So the blurred line between stage and the audience, it's just gone, it's completely disappeared.

Nathan Cassar: 11:50

So if you're not comfortable as somebody who can Not have that distinction, we can keep that separate.

Nathan Cassar: 11:57

It's probably not for somebody but for the people who can handle that and love that kind of immersion with the people that they're entertaining and giving those memories to it is honestly one of the best things you can ever choose to do and I got countless memories of times both below deck in the crew bar but also obviously on shore and it's a real community and you got 40 plus nationalities on board. All love each other and I don't say that as a PR tactic like that. You know there's obviously some outlying circumstances and situations that happened but they smashed pretty quickly and often people you get shunned very rapidly by being an outlier like that. It's just not tolerated. You know we're all there to make money for families or we're there to To extend our careers and depending on which part of the world you come from, you have different motivations but at the end of the day you are one big, happy family and it really does play out really nicely as a connection and collaboration between multiple different departments of the entertainment field.

Adelaine Ng: 12:57

That's a really interesting insight and if anyone's wondering now you know, how did you actually break into the industry? Though I mean you were in Australia. Did you just kind of take a plane to Los Angeles and then rolled up at a ship and say, hey, how did that?

Nathan Cassar: 13:16

happen. You know it's funny though you joke, but that's actually how people use this. Like I'm talking, like well, before I was born people did that. That is, there are stories and there are books written by Our famous cruise directors and other people who used to work on ships kept a famous captains of cruise lines who literally did that. So if you imagine like the loveboat days from the TV show which Princess was the feature cruise line for For some reason still can't get over them you know that people in those times literally used to do that and in fact the reason why I know this also is because I remember talking to one of our matriodes. I think he may be retired now, but I had the privilege of working with one particular matriode who was celebrating his forty fifth year at sea. Wow, yeah, I was such such an incredible moment and I remember speaking to him after we did the bomb.

Nathan Cassar: 14:06

Alaska ceremony in the in the dining room is the last farewell that it used to do the fire. Now they don't, unfortunately. I was just a little candle in a the battery operate candle thing. Times a change and I was a kid in fourteen big fires, lights off, all great. That's gone now, but when we did this thing I said oh, congratulations in the forty five years. And he says yeah. I said how did you ask him, like, how did you get into this? And he said literally almost basically what you described. He said he was just needing money.

Nathan Cassar: 14:36

Heard of a friend who's been on the ship thought I can do that, packed two bags, walked up to the gangway and said I want a job. And in those days people like the hotel manager and the captain would. In the vision there was no like HR department or crew managers in an office or something. Basically the ships were almost their own little mini kingdom so they had full, almost full rights to hire anybody. So on the spot, it's just like the pirate times, like okay, yes, you're coming aboard. Maybe there was literally how it worked and you would be at a work like months upon months, upon months upon years if you wanted to not supposed to. Now it's only ten, ten months in a row. But the international shipping laws and maritime laws that change a lot for the better. But it's just an incredible thing for me, not so much of a romantic story. There's a recruitment agency in Brisbane who was hiring for princess.

Nathan Cassar: 15:26

After attempting one time in August. It was my last six months of my uni degree. I was unsuccessful just due to timing. They immediately said it all replies, sorry, now, too soon, okay, so I tried again in October and, funnily enough, I'd accidentally swapped. I think I did like a Facebook authentication the first time and I forgot that actually the email that they had was the wrong anyway. So I on a win. I'm like why have I heard for like two weeks? And I was like, oh crap, they've got the other email. So I logged into this other one I never look at and it's like being you're the next level is like oh my god, this thing's been here for like seven days, so like I get in there and from there it was funny. My mum will never forget it. I got this email and it said we would like to invite you to apply and for some reason in my head I just I was like I know I've got this job. I know that there's still a process, but I know, I know, I know.

Nathan Cassar: 16:24

And I ran and I was like oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh, my dream job, Because like what's your readjust?

Nathan Cassar: 16:29

you guys really they're just asking you to put an application and I said I know, but that's something right. And then you know, eight steps later, a psyche Val. You know another two interviews and then the visa process and everything else. Eventually you get a signed a ship and then you get a letter of offer and then it tells you when, when and where you're going to do your visas and everything. And then you get on a plane and you go. Okay, well, I guess this is my new home for six months.

Adelaine Ng: 17:00

Fantastic. Well, I don't know if you had to sign any privacy clauses, like what happens on the ship stays on the ship. But you know, I'm sure you would have seen an experience thing where you would have thought what you know if people outside the ship could have just seen what I just saw. It's just some of those really strange and sometimes wonderful things that happen. I mean, what are the? You know some of the best stories you can tell from what you've seen.

Nathan Cassar: 17:26

I can tell you this one thing. So I mean, obviously I've seen a lot. Yeah, I mean people probably say the New Year's Eve parties are some of the best, probably the best party you can ever do. I would say, if anyone's thinking of doing any kind of event, go do New Year's Eve on a cruise ship. It is, without a doubt, like the most amazing hyped thing of all time. Definitely saw some interesting things walking through the halls, on the eyes of security Certainly get a little bit, as we're all sort of having a good time and celebrating a new year. We all sort of like went all few things on the slip, but you know nothing, nothing firing or anything like that. But certainly you know we let people be people.

Nathan Cassar: 18:05

But one thing that is actually really fascinating there's a concept on ships, in the crew below deck, there's this concept of the noodle man. Now I want to explain what I mean by that, please. Yeah, so on ships, as everyone probably knows, in the passenger code of conduct, you're not allowed to bring cookers and rice cookers and woks and things like that. Now that's the same for crew as well, like we've got our own galleys. And back in the day, though, like I'm talking back back back in the day, they actually used to be a big thing, people having parties where they used to cook things and all that kind of stuff, and then a lot of fires happened on ships. And then regulations came in. They stopped all that, for good reason. However, the noodle man is a black market legend amongst crew and still exists today, just like you can also, on call, get a massage man to also come directly to your cabin not for the crew, just for the guests, sorry, not for the guests, just for the crew. And this noodle man is sort of associated with the how do I put it? The more the black market side of the crew areas, given that you got to go down to deck two, which is quite below sea level and it's, you know, it's another microzone down there, because you've got a majority of cultural populations down there.

Nathan Cassar: 19:18

From the princess, it was Filipinos and Indians who comprise the biggest majority of the crew on board, and so this communal aspect means that you know they can, they sometimes they crack down on it, they get wrong. Not condoning any of this, but they certainly, you know, are able to get away with some of this stuff. So you would call there'd be this number be very black market number and you'd call and say this particular cabin. So I had two o'clock in the morning. I want, I don't know rum or something, because they all know all the people in the store rooms and stuff too. They would send all their friends and paisanos, as we would call them, on ships, fellow countrymen.

Nathan Cassar: 19:52

They would then get all of the equipment they would, all the food they would need, and then they'd be cooking up storm and then they'd have it and then ding, knock, knock, knock. Three o'clock in the morning. Here's your noodles came over. Yes, here's the 20 bucks, off you go. So I don't know if it still happens today. I'm going to hazard a guess and say it probably does. I don't. If any of you ask ownership about the noodle man, they'll either deny it or they'll kind of like oh yeah, it's not supposed to happen. It probably doesn't happen here. No one will like actually.

Adelaine Ng: 20:21

No such thing matter.

Nathan Cassar: 20:23

No, not actually give you the number for it, I can assure you on that. But it's definitely one of those interesting things that sort of sit underneath the water levels, literally. That is an interesting and less has talked about component of. Look again, not right. I understand that it breaks a lot of codes and I, you know, if I was in a position of power on the ship to have had to crack down on that, I certainly would have followed that directive for a good reason. But I certainly think it's an interesting quirk and something people don't really know about.

Adelaine Ng: 20:54

That's probably something that exists in, you know, just any kind of industry where you are together doing a particular mission and for the long term, and you just need, you know, you just need one of those things that, just to make life a little bit more bearable, I guess you know a little bit more enjoyable, contributes to the community feeling. Even though that's probably not the best idea. I'm sometimes breaking a couple of codes, so that was like your brilliant life on sea. What brought you back to Australia?

Nathan Cassar: 21:22

Well, probably back to Australia, was an interesting set of circumstances, kind of the personal in the sense that so the beginning of 21, I was living in LA all of 2020, which was wow, what a social experiment that was. You know, given a pandemic year yeah.

Nathan Cassar: 21:38

COVID, covid, capital of the world, particularly where I was, and the future of our industry was no where near inside at all. And so, but to couple up with that, I was married at the time to an American and we were living in LA. I like to say when people say, oh, what happened to the marriage? And I say, well, you know, it was a victim of COVID, not the death kind, but the statistical kind, and so, unfortunately, we called a quits the beginning of 21. And so that meant I had to come back with choice timing though, because my return flight coincided with the first two days post January 17th of the reduced caps for the flights, and so I went from having a one way economy ticket to a $10,000 business class ticket to ensure that I got out of the country. Yeah, you mean Wow. So I'm already like significantly more down in the red before I even started and, you know, say goodbye permanently to my life there in the States, in LA, and for a period of time after you know the lockdowns and so forth.

Nathan Cassar: 22:41

One really interesting thing I learned was that I, australia, doesn't like foreign employment experience. Generally speaking, I learned this the hard way. Oh, yeah, it was incredible thing. I thought that and this applied to the event world too who I thought was really inclusive at the time when it comes to hiring somebody who's had professional experience abroad versus someone here.

Nathan Cassar: 23:08

I struggled. I didn't get a single interview. I employed people to help me to get cover letters done and resumes completed and to get every transferable skill after having worked for the Fourth Largest Quizline Incorporate and blah, blah, blah and nothing, nothing at all. It was only really until another major nexus point in my life, which was my brother's wedding, which I would never have been able to attend if the after effects of the ending of my marriage had occurred. It was there where I hosted the wedding and got encouraged by a number of people to pursue my current business as a professional emcee full time. It's an interesting set of circumstances that brought me here today a bit of tragedy, a bit of heartbreak and a bit of happiness all in between, but wouldn't change it for the world.

Adelaine Ng: 23:56

That is so sobering. I mean, my experience coming to Australia and looking for work was a little bit different just because I was looking for work in an international broadcast radio station, the International Arm of the ABC. That, I guess, was different, where international experience was priced. But I have noticed that in a lot of situations or circumstances in Australia some local experience does help tremendously. So even if you can work for free for a short period of time just to be able to say I did something local, that just immediately opens the doors.

Adelaine Ng: 24:32

But you're right to the point where there are a lot of companies which will not even look beyond a resume that does not have anything local on paper, even if you are very well decorated overseas. So it's quite interesting. I guess it says something about I'm not sure if the right word is mindset. So it is an interesting point that you make and I guess that's been part of this be under the bonnet for you, as you have been all around the world and you've now transitioned from cruise ships to wedding emcee-ing and actually let's go to this point as well. I mean, because you also say that you disrupted wedding emcee-ing. I mean, can you tell me what you actually mean by that?

Nathan Cassar: 25:17

What I mean by that is there is a how do I put it? I know, as soon as I arrived into the scene and I started hosting the way I host to my style, applying genuine tactics and performance methods from my cruise ship days that really actually engage in excited crowd, I was met with some immediate sort of shining by some fellow compatriots in the industry, because they, for a long time there's been a conservatism that's been enjoyed. It's it's sort of like for, as an example, it's sort of a race to this, to the bottom of the lowest hanging fruit, which is, you know, like I say, a DJ emcee who literally just makes announcements. They literally just say, okay, here comes so and so food is served. First speech, second speech, no consumer expectation and no industry expectation for them to be anything more than just delivering Quoted information to a crowd, and so the vast majority of people, even you know, given that DJ emcee-ing, celebrancy emcee-ing, people who are, you know, speakers, emcees, comedic emcees I find that what I often my category, my niche, is. It's become like a bit of a slashee. It's just this addendum that someone says oh, why no, the correct end of a microphone, and I know how to turn the microphone on and I'm not definitely afraid of standing in front of a crowd. So I'm an emcee and it's like, no, no, you're not. But unfortunately, that sort of concepts has really grounded my gears only because of the fact that I know that there is such a much more vibrant way to perform to people and it really actually comes down to really going back to the days of old.

Nathan Cassar: 27:05

The days of old MCs and hosts literally would shake people's hands from the moment that they walked into the door. So you would literally host the room, you would work the room, you remember names, and this is stuff that we do on cruise ships daily. The things that were required to do or encourage the best cruise direction in the world are able to. You know, remember, play through different things about multiple people saying council on the way of a particular voyage and that kind of connection between people with paramount to making those experiences great. And then, similarly, in what I do in my industry about how I disrupt, it is simply by elevating that expectation which is having like, for instance, getting there an hour early and actually getting to the can of pay section and having a drink with people and immersing yourself with the audience and the guests before you actually get to the main bridal entrance. Or, for instance, like tomorrow, I've got another awards come night coming up. There's obviously an expectation that at the corporate awards nights, you know the, the emcee will, you know, have a green room. He or she will come out, say the things, maybe make a couple of the same classic jokes and then head back to the, to the green room, or maybe go to the VIP table. But yet this kind of blind or effective I don't need to talk to people, I've just got to get on stage as my lectin, that's my microphone. All that it lends to people thinking that we're an overpaid, over celebrated, over limelighted kind of. You know the space and, realistically, the only people were spending the money on are like your TV personalities or you're extremely out there. Committee can see you actually, you know, have a way of doing things differently, and so it's a shame that that is the case. But at the same time, I intend on showing people that I may not be a celebrity MC who's been on a radio show or you know moonlight on a TV show or something like that. I'd love to do that one day. I have an ability to be able to really connect with people, and a focus of what I do is all about the guest connection first. So and that's really where you bind people together, because you'd be surprised, the things you talk about I was at a wedding recently where I started a conversation with a guy was a whole bunch of cops who happened to be associated with one of the grooms and as we're talking and I was like, okay, so what was your rank?

Nathan Cassar: 29:23

Was your rank? Was your rank? And I'm retired? So what was your rank? And so, yeah, so who's the boss? And he laughed and put one hand up and he said him and they said, oh, you know what I do now. What do you do? I'm a lawn Retired. He said all about six months on our year or something. I said, okay, how much, how busy are you like? Is he retired? You do this a lot busy, like most weekends, if it's in the right season. I said Well, but you retired and then just immediately got all this business. Oh, no, man, you know I was, you know I was. I had a guy you know did a bit of cash jobs, you know, before I retired. I said, hmm, did this the age? And he goes oh, no, you know, and then I was. Someone said this is the beauty of that, just having these kind of conversations. Someone said oh, imagine this, all from the age of it was here and all of a sudden, literally this lady goes home from the age.

Nathan Cassar: 30:30

That is a moment and, like you know, it's obviously relatively benign, but it's more just funny because people, you know I remember that experience and that was their first impression of me to that was literally the first conversation I had with this particular group, so that set the tone. I was able to bring out something that we talked about the guys, retirement lawn mowing business and it became a really funny thing that people are just some why I say I'm a disruptor that a lot of people just afraid to have those connecting conversations. I think because maybe they think that it's inorganic. I disagree with that because it's plenty ways you can make it natural. Some people just don't have the ability to communicate like that because they're more focused on capturing something on their phone to put on tiktok later on, to show how great they are, to hide behind the digital wall, and just some people just just don't have the I guess, the X factor that this has to go to somebody and engage past.

Nathan Cassar: 31:26

How are you? Are you having a good day? How's the weather? Are you enjoying yourself? You know they stand and I like conversation topics that you know kind of get a bit stale. So there's this I like to be bold, I like to show people. I'm not afraid to push the letter a bit, understand a crowd and, you know, be a little bit cheeky and so forth, within reason, but at the end of the day it's about showing people that the guest connection is number one and it's something that I see being lost so many opportunities throughout the year.

Nathan Cassar: 31:56

May be a wedding, may be a corporate event. I can tell you tomorrow night's corporate event, I'm there before they even get there. I don't care. People the beginning go well, I'm not used to this. Why is it not part of the game, whatever? But at the end of the night they realize oh wow, you went around all around the room and you had a really good time getting it clearly looks like you enjoyed yourself getting to know us. He took care of us and that's really, technically, is not like as my event. I was invited to say it, but it I'm adopting that and there's just not enough of that anymore and I really wish that. Could you know. I can foster that more with some of my fellow emcees out there.