Doctor Rodgers is the man, Cain’s is the venue, but that’s only where our story begins. We all know about Cain’s Ballroom; the venue for every kind of musical taste, every walk of life and every strata of income. We all have looked at the success that is Cain’s and thought to ourselves, “Why didn’t I think of that? I could do that.” The Rodgers family, who own Cain’s only make it look easy. Fact is they put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into a venue that is now a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t always this easy and smooth sailing; there were numerous hurdles lined with barbed wire they encountered along the way, and today, the Rodgers family is not content to sit back on their successes and just let the business run itself. The entire family is involved in the day-to-day operations, often while being involved in numerous other ventures that are either tied to Cain’s or are completely unrelated, but either way, the Rodgers Family has a story to tell: a story that needs to be told to anyone who has ever considered starting their own business but doesn’t know where to begin. So get yourself something to drink then sit back and get ready to take notes on how to make your idea of starting your own business happen by learning from The Rodgers family’s life lessons.
It all started in the summer of 2002, when Jim, his wife Alice and their two adult sons, Chad and Hunter learned that Cain’s Ballroom was up for sale. As Chad tells it, “We knew going in that we had very little, if any experience and that this definitely a different beast… We also knew that we were going to need to put lots of time and money (and love) into the building, as the Cain’s was pretty run down when we bought it…” The dream was kept alive through the knowledge that this run-down old warehouse in the Brady District had lots of potential and the Rodgers Family had the love to give it. All that was needed were some good handymen, a checkbook and nerves of steel. Unfortunately, a handyman team, a checkbook and tough nerves turned out to be insufficient. It was not the rebuilding of Cain’s, but rather the day-to-day operations that after Cain’s was up and running that proved to be the hard part.
So we move forward to quite a while (and lots of money) later, and Cain’s is ready to open its doors. It was then that the Rodgers troupe saw that there was insufficient promotion in the Tulsa area. So now, not only did they need to operate a music venue, they started a production company (aptly named ‘Doc Roc Productions’) to bring events people wanted to see to Cain’s. The music business is not for the faint of heart. You need a good poker face, you need to do lots and lots of homework to find the acts that bring people in the door and you need to have a financial cushion for the bands that don’t pay off so you can still keep your lights on. Did you know that 85-90% of the money that comes into a musical venue goes to the artists? Kinda scary when you think about it. Imagine going to work, get paid $500 for a week’s work and your new boss says, “Hey wait, you have to give me back $450 of that for incidentals.” So you get $50 for your hard-earned week of work. But that’s what the Rodgers family deals with at every concert. Now imagine that you go to your job the following week (although most of us would quit right away) and your boss says, “Well, this week, not as many people liked your work, so you have to give back $490 of your $500 paycheck.” I would be outraged. The Rodgers family, however, has to book bands in the hopes that folks like us will be so excited to see them that we show up and pay to see the acts and they can pay the bands the 85-90% of the ticket sales to make it all happen. Doctor Jim Rodgers, the driving force of Cain’s (who is a neurosurgeon by trade) says that there’s a lot that goes into owning a club but the biggest thing he and the family had to decide on was to keep themselves honest in an arena where ‘less-than-honest’ folks are in abundance. The Rodgers family was not about to compromise on their scruples to make Cain’s work.
So how does a family who has to make a group decision about which musical acts will be brought in make it all stay afloat without going crazy? They admit that they are already crazy (crazy in a great way; they are the nicest people- I just couldn’t believe that these salt-of-the-Earth people were the Cain’s legacy). But not too crazy to not listen to each other’s opinions about what acts would be advantageous and not too crazy to sit down and do lots and lots of research into what bands would bring people out of their nice comfortable recliners for an evening of music in Tulsa. It wasn’t always this way, however. In the beginning, the family would just pick bands that they liked, only to find out that they made some bad calls, so a new way of booking acts had to be decided upon. No more ‘booking with their hearts,’ no, they now had to really think about what would excite lots of people while not charging an arm and a leg for people to come through the door. No easy feat when you think about it, but the past seven years have proven that the Rodgers family has figured out the hard part and they’ve made Cain’s a venue that competes with the likes of BOK Center in Tulsa and even the Ford Center and Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City.
So what got the Rodgers Family into this business? Well, Jim Rodgers is a spine surgeon. No, there’s no punch line, he really is a spine surgeon (who listens to the Black Eyed Peas while he’s in surgery: is this a cool guy or what?). He always loved music (just by talking to him, you know that this guy would have traded in his scrubs for leather pants in a heartbeat, but he took the high road to pay his bills), but unless you can get yourself a winning place on American Idol, it’s a tough business to be in, so he turned to medicine – at least for a while. That’s not to say that Jim gave up on his dreams of someday being in the music business, he just had to postpone it for a while. He married Alice and had two boys to raise, so he postponed his music career, but he never gave up on it entirely. Neither of Jim’s sons initially went into the music business either; both Chad and Hunter had started careers that weren’t really in the music business, but when the opportunity to buy Cain’s came along, they jumped onboard with the idea.
Doc Rodgers’ wife Alice is also involved in Cain’s: Alice handles Ida Red’s, and if you’ve been to Cain’s and never bothered to stop by Ida Red’s, you need to change your ways immediately. Ida Red’s is not promotional junk; there are books about Oklahoma, Cain’s t-shirts for adults, kids and everywhere in between, guitar picks, key chains, patches, cozies, you name it. Ida Red’s was Alice’s idea. Alice is a retail guru who knows what she’s doin’. She owned a boutique in Muskogee in the 80’s (called Wit N Wimsey, in case you were wondering), so starting Ida Red’s was a perfect transition. Mrs. Rodgers knows her stuff too; she has the eye for the edgy, cool goods, and she has made every effort to make Ida Red’s look and feel like you have stepped into Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in 1969 and she has succeeded famously. It was an effort to make merchandise and tickets centrally located while offering new items to appeal to everyone. When you go, don’t forget to check out their 60 different Okie sodas or try some of their old-time penny store candy while you shop for your new Cain’s tee. Spoiler alert: keep your eye out for their root beer tasting coming soon. Their Web site is pretty cool too; find it at www.idaredboutique.com.
The idea behind Cain’s is not to sponsor acts that already have a following; the idea is to get bands that are up-and-coming to perform. What makes this kind of decision a great one is that people in our area get to check out new music for a good price, new bands get some notoriety and the prices are good for everyone. When tickets to bigger venues are over $100 per seat and folks are worried that they may not be able to afford all of their bills each month, it’s a wonderful thing to find a place like Cain’s where the concert tickets are no more than movie tickets, children are welcome to many of the shows and non-smokers can go hear a band and not be inundated with the smell of smoke. The location of Cain’s makes it even more enticing. There are many places to get great food at reasonable prices within walking distance of Cain’s and there are so many art galleries and studios where you can spend a little time getting some culture before checking out a new band. The best part is that you can see a band in a place where the owners are present, the bathrooms are clean, they care that your experience is a good one and they’ve put their hearts and souls into making your experience a great one. What more can you ask for?

Three big lessons learned for owning a music hall business from Doc Roc and his family:

1. Book entertainment with your head not your heart. What YOU like or what was great in the past or might be in the future involves a lot of research.
2. Be vigilant. Just like any other profession there are 'bad apples." We learned this the hard way.
3. Be present. Someone from management should always be at a show.
4. Extra lesson to help you succeed: Communication is the key to making any business a success. Never assume that what you are thinking about is understood. Be sure to tell others what’s going on at any given time. Also, everyone is your best friend. Tickets are controlled by the road manager/performer/ or agent, NOT the venue or production company.