An Interview with FanroomLive.com’s Jeff Krauss
What do Ice T, Morgan Fairchild, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, DH Hugely and Tommy Chong have in common? Give up? They have all done celebrity Meet and Greets for FanroomLive.com, a new entertainment company with a philanthropic aspect to some of its events, that rose from the dark days of COVID lockups.
FanRoom Live became a force in the celebrity virtual teleconferencing sector early during the COVID pandemic. They have hosted meet and greets during the lockdowns with everyone from Coco Austin (3 million Instagram followers) to Sean Kannan, aka “Mike Barnes” from the Cobra Kai series (96k followers on Twitter).
Further, the philanthropic element to the platform is quite impressive. What makes Fanroomlive less of a pandemic guilty pleasure is the fact that some meet and greets raise money for charity. Fanroomlive.com has raised money for charities like #KidswithCancer, the LA Dodgers Run 4 Hope, the American Sudden Infant Death Institute and Wrestling For Warriors.
As the platform has evolved, so have the options for participants. There are, so far, one-on-one hangouts and video chats with virtual selfies on offer with tickets, which are moderately priced. The platform itself is only a few years old — as old as the pandemic — and will surely evolve even further with offerings for fans.
One thing that kind of fascinated me about Fanroom Live was how Cedric the Entertainer — one of the founding partners — got connected to this enterprise at the beginning of a global pandemic. I asked Jeff Krauss, CEO of IE Group Events.
The Corsair: The early pandemic was a very traumatic time for all of us. It could not have been easy at all setting up a business not in person in collaboration with celebrities and sometimes their charities as the sky appears to be falling and the world ending.
Jeff Krauss: My partner Mich Faulkner (Founder and CEO of 123Talent, Inc.) called me one day and said to me ‘Jeff we should do some virtual events with our athlete clients/friends.’ Mich owns 123 Talent so he's always looking for opportunities for clients. Especially during the pandemic when everyone is bored in the house. So I just said to him ‘We can do that with athletes but we can also do that with celebrities and influencers.’ Maybe we can do some charity events? Let's make a few calls. I called Cedric with Mich , we were and still are great friends with him . He said to us this is a great idea but we can make a brand out of it and do this ongoing. We started plotting and planning from there .
The Corsair: COVID dramatically changed the way fans interact with celebrities. Movie theaters shut down. Television production stopped. FanRoom Live events definitely fall into the unscripted, experimental category of enterprises that the pandemic brought to life and the industry in general. No one has a favorite child, obviously. But is there a FanRoom Live event that particularly stands out for you for any particular reason?
Jeff Krauss: Thats a great question. We have had some really great ones but a few come to mind. I really enjoyed the Tichina Arnold and Beth Behrs event because we got to raise some money for We Win Foundation. The charity helps families taking care of loved ones that have lupus and other auto immune diseases pay there bills to take that off their plate. Also it was great to talk to Ced, Tichina and Beth all at once for a few min. Another one was Paul Wight (Big Show from WWE) We brought on a charity called Wrestling Warriors Project that connects sick kids to wrestling shows. Of course no one could go to a show at the time so we brought few warriors (kids fighting illness) onto the show to meet Paul. One of which was in the UK and Paul is one of his favorites. Paul took his shirt off and signed it for the kid for the charity. After that we posted it on Youtube and my friend Rob Wilds messaged me and said ‘Hey Jeff I saw that video. I have 2 signed world title belts 1 from The Rock and 1 from Undertaker. I can donate 1 for autcion for the charity and 1 I’ll send to the kid.’ The child in the UK his birthday was around that time so his parents surprised him with The Rocks signed world title. Undertakers belt got auctioned off within few hours for $1,000 if I recall. There are more stories but those stick out.
The Corsair: Where do you see FanRooms Live in ten years?
Jeff Krauss: Charity will always be part of the platform. We started this for a few reasons but one of the biggest was that we can put smiles on peoples faces. Weather it be a fan who is meeting their favorite celeb, or maybe the fan or even the celeb had a bad day and there conversation cheered them up. Or it could be the charity that now has more funds to use to help people. Either way we look at it as we are contributing something that is different and is good for the world in many ways. By the way if you want to see something entertaining we just had Crystal Reed on the platform and there is a video of our Host/Co-P Jae Benjamin doing a freestyle rap which was not planned and never been done before as one of her fans is a rapper and he asked him to do a rap for Crystal. Jae had to help him out it was really funny and entertaining but these moments just happen that’s whats so great about the platform is anything can happen and its upclose, intimate and personal and just a very different experience. And shout to Jae Benjamin and Stacey Toy they do a great job of keeping the flow and energy going.
“As for where I see FanRoom in ten years? Well I see it growing to be something very special . We have big plans but I cant divulge everything. I will say this though, Thanks to Jae Benjamin and his relationship with GameStop and Abante Productions (He’s one of the stars of ‘Into the Veil’ which is on the GameStop NFT Marketplace) we are now able to sell FanRoom Live NFTs on GameStop NFT Marketplace including collectible tickets to FanRoom Live Shows. The GameStop/ Abante Productions partnership with us is something we are very excited about building and we have a lot of big plans for.
On Saturday, December 8, Vanderpump Rules Stars Scheana Shay and Brock Davies on FanRoom Live for a virtual meet and greet at 3PM EST. Tickets are $25 here.
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