Organize a fundraiser. And that means go to the manufacturers, see about them being willing to donate things, do some major like auction some stuff off your nonprofit. You can run things like auctions and such. Do something like that. If Special and Lit Podcast can do a 24-hour marathon stream for Project Pinball Charity and raise over $50,000, we could have raised over $50,000 in a one-day event for replay. We could have. Yeah. It could have been done. So you do that. Then you, again, update people. Here is what the debt load is. Here's what we're down to. Then give a deadline. All right. We need to raise the rest of this by November 1st, 2020. anything that is not raised will be closed out by selling assets now because of all the steps we've already taken you should in theory have raised some money from the from the the donated replay tickets and your fundraiser so now you don't need to sell everything you might need to sell most things but not everything so ideally you get more donations coming in during this time period, you reach November 1st. If you did not raise your $600,000 in donations, and you probably didn't, then you say, okay, we still need $300,000. So now we're selling assets to close that gap out. Now, during all of this, you would have been communicating in transparency, okay, if we have to sell assets, Pinnberg 2021, if it happens, we'll not have 1,000 plus players. We have to shrink it because we're going to have less games available. So it's just a math game. And that's part of the reason why you had to refund the 2020 tickets up front, because as executive, I would have gone into this saying, I do not think we'll be able to fundraise the full amount of money. We're going to have to sell assets. We just have to assume it. So there's no way we can assume we can run at the same size. You do all of that. You end the year with reduced assets, zero debt load. We still hit the goal that the board had. There's now no debt. All the loans are replayed. You go forward, plan for 2021. If 2021 did not happen at Spenberg, obviously you're in a bind. You repeat all the same steps I just did. Let people offer to donate their money. It should be less. You'd still, you know, you have your storage facilities and stuff, but you won't have any of those loans due anymore. So you have to raise less in 2021 than you would in 2020. So maybe you could do it all with a fundraiser. If not, you still have assets. you liquidate what more assets you need to and you just you you contract the non-profit until you're able to run events again and those events may become a pale imitation of what they were in 2019 but you're still alive and you still have assets you could still do public events you just had to shrink it's not ideal but shrinkage is better than death right yeah they live on as a virtual entity, but they would still be able to organize and run a PINBURG. And that would be the other thing that I would, and this obviously, this would have been very different, especially if I was an executive earlier than this. But when planning for 2021 PINBURG, you got to raise the price. I don't know what the strategy was, their glide path to break even. I think it involved getting sponsors on board. This is, while this is a nonprofit, This isn't a charity. There's no excuse in my mind to run and subsidize ReplayFX, the event ReplayFX. Right. Pinnberg and ReplayFX should at least be paying for themselves. Honestly, they should be generating you enough revenue. If that's the only major event you run, they should be making you enough profit to pay for your operations for the entire year. and if that means you need to double the price of the tickets then that's what you need to do and if that means there are certain people that can no longer attend it's unfortunate but organizational survival has to come first as you onboard sponsors then you lower the price those would have been my i mean that those would have been my recommendations to the board that would have been my strategy and i think my strategy would work i i think your strategy She would have had a good chance to work, especially if it had been implemented earlier. Right. Because if they're ever set up, well, you noted in the 990. I'm sorry to sorry to cut in, but you noted looking at the 2018 990, how much they lost, like hundreds of thousands, like a couple hundred thousand or something. Yeah. Almost 200 grand. Yeah. And that's your one. That's your big event. If you're losing money on your big event, you've screwed up already. that event should never have lost them money. I mean, even, and this goes back to conversation you and I have had, uh, talking with people who run small conventions, small local conventions. They typically don't lose money. I mean, the smallest of the small do, but typically they make just, they, they have enough profit to keep everything open and to make the reservations for the following year when they roll out of the thing and to start the planning. And yeah, they need pre-ticket sales and the sales at the, at the convention to maintain and finish paying everything off, but they can typically roll out of it without being in debt. And for what, in all honesty is the premier event in pinball to have been costing the organizers, $200,000 is insane yeah I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw I had to go back through those numbers like 5 times because I could not believe they were losing money on that event I was like you said they should have been honestly I figured that that event would have covered most of their rental fees and storage costs and all that stuff for a year because that's the whole purpose of that event. And the fact that they were losing money on that event means they were doomed. I mean, if it was a one-off, I've not looked at any of their others, but the fact that they had loans of such size and the issues they have, I don't think it was a one-off. They should have been making large amounts of money. No, they noted in their frequently asked questions on their website relating to this announcement that at least most years they lost money. Maybe in 2019 they didn't. I don't know because we haven't seen 2019. Yeah, if you're losing money at your premier event, the event that actually brings in all your money, then you're doomed to failure. The question is how long until you collapse? Right. And according to the Slam Tilt podcast episode, it was noted that a lot of it seemed to be that the Replay Foundation's president, Kevin, he was sort of subsidizing a lot of this. out of generosity. So that's how they close the gap. But again, as an executive director, going into it, I'd be like, okay, but I want a model. As a public administration professional, I want a model where I don't need to rely on the generosity of a wealthy board member to subsidize the organization. The organization should be self-sustaining. so right why isn't the organization self-sustaining you look at the whether numbers are like you know this is like a two million dollar budget but it's pretty straightforward there's one big event and the big events costing money so the solution is to create the big event and either drop the big event but that's what you're known for or make your big event make you money and it's honestly it's that simple you already have a good because it's run for so many years you have a good sense as to how much this costs to put on. It's no longer like, it's not like a surprise is happening where we're like, oh no, we, oh gosh, the rental was so much more than we thought. No, I'm sure this is all really well predicted. It seems like without, and I haven't talked with their board on this. So I, you know, I don't know. It seems like maybe the strategy was bring on more sponsors and keep growing the event and eventually volume, volume of attendees will make them be able to break even. But why, why do it like that? when you could just make it break even from the get-go by raising the price. Right. Because, and again, you know me, I complain about the flexing and gouging and expensiveness and cost growth in pinball all the time. So I understand in a way it can almost sound like I'm being a hypocrite here. But this is just organizational survival has to come first or else you can't keep putting on events. I mean, look what's happened just with one year. With one year, it all fell apart. so given all of that i would have been like no even if it means only wealthier people can afford to come to the event we just as we grow it we can lower the ticket prices we get sponsors we can lower the ticket price but we have to at least break even so that we're not put in a bind i mean you mentioned other smaller events i think when we're talking with the in the with the kansas city folks at carrie wing who organizes the kc pinball championship she has not lost money on putting those events together by design. It's like, oh no, we have to break even. We have to break even. I mean, most events don't have the luck of having deep pocket backers to prop them up through an issue while they make a slow climb to, I mean, none of these events should ever be making enormous amounts of money, but they should be able to pay for themselves. If the event can't pay for itself, I understand things are going to happen. There might be a year or, or maybe two where the event doesn't pay for itself. But if you can at least break even on the event, your event is either too cheap to get into or too large for what you can afford. Right. Yeah. And some of this may be like before, like how Pinnberg was being structured in Papa before the Replay Foundation. Some of this might just be like cultural, like they were used to relying on generosity to sustain what the event was happening. And that mentality didn't shift when they became the Replay Foundation. But in my judgment, my personal opinion, it should have. At that point, it should have been about, all right, this entity needs to be able to stand on its own as quickly as possible. and so again we're talking like since 2012 they they formed so i assumed like 2013 was probably their first pinberg uh as replay foundation there was plenty of time to ramp this you know have a couple of years where maybe there were some minor losses that they figured out just how much everything was and all that but by you know by now by 2018 they should have they should have been able to break even in my you would assume uh i do i do assume yeah i mean that's the thing and we've said it before and it came up in that conversation I was in shock It does not make sense for an event that large and that hailed an event that constantly wins the favorite of everybody It the one everyone wants to go to It is the pinball event to not be making money. Somebody screwed up. Well, and again, that's where I would point and say, and this is the big risk when you don't have You don't have an executive director. That was that process of trying to sort all that out and looking at those numbers and having a professional there to make recommendations about, OK, we're closing. We're still relying too much on board member generosity to close the gaps out. Here's our issue. This is the only event we're running. We either need to up this event or you need another event that subsidizes this. I mean, there are a few strategies you could do. I know what I would do, but there are a few different strategies you could do if you wanted to. So unfortunately, given the position that they were in once, PINBURG 2020 couldn't happen. And again, not to beat a dead horse, but to make it very clear, I do not blame their governing board for choosing the solution they have chosen. If I were on their board, I might have chosen this solution as well. Well, and the thing is, I think by the time they realized how much trouble they were in, I think it might have been too late for the other solution. It could have. And again, I'm trying to wear two different hats. Like what the logic of what they did as board members, I completely get. If I had been an executive director of the Replay Foundation, what strategy I would have done to keep the organization afloat would have been different. But it all depends on I have to, you know, in my in my what if because I'm playing a what if game in my what if when would I have been there? If you had tapped me in November 1st and said, now fix it, I'd probably be like, I can't. It's too late. You have debt due in a month. Your solution you've chosen as a board is your solution. Had you tapped me in June, maybe we could have tried to do the fundraiser thing that I presented earlier. And if I was involved before, like back in 2018, I would have looked at these numbers and said, I want the 2019 proposal to make money.