We recently connected with Mickey Hanning and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Mickey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

We started this event in 2007 as a silly idea to have a little fun in New Orleans. When we started the event it was open to all and we had no plans of turning this into a full blown festival. Each year it was exponentially growing, which led to more and more costs, like venues, permits, police, insurance, etc. After 3 years in the original format, we opted for a “voluntary” registration that only the diehard fans opted in to. The following year we made the afterparty ticketed, but left the “running of the bulls” part of that open. In its prime, we had estimated over 15,000 attendees and the best ever registration numbers hit just over 2,000. Those numbers have trimmed down, but the percentages really haven’t. Many folks think that the city just lets us do the event for free, when in reality, it’s very costly to put on an event of our model.

So, what would we do differently? I think we would start this over as a ticketed ONLY event, like most 5 and 10k runs and we’d try to enforce it more. This would likely have made for a much more steady and controlled growth model that we could capitalize on for expenses and sponsorships. Trying to change the model after thousands had expected a “free” event was difficult, and locals deemed it a “money grab” when in reality it was life support.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Mickey Hanning and I work in the wine and spirits distribution industry. My wife and I began San Fermin in Nueva Orleans with some friends back in 2007 as a lark…a play on the Running of the Bulls in Spain. One of our partners at the time was a new member of Big Easy Roller Derby and she suggested we ask them to be the “RollerBulls”. It was a match made in heaven, or is it the OVEN? We decided to do the event at the same time as the event in Pamplona was happening, which is early July…summer in New Orleans is brutal. Anyway, we hit a nerve with the local folks, and then it started to spread and grow each year. By 2015, we had over 15,000 attendees, and over 300 RollerBulls from around the world! It grew from a 1-day event to a 4-day (now back down to 3) extravaganza! It’s still one of the city’s most anticipated events, and has become part of the summer for thousands and gets international attention.

What we are most proud of is how many people come to our event each year. Folks come from all over the world and make this part of their annual summer plan. When things get tough and we get a little apathetic, it’s their emails, social media posts, and mostly their smiling faces that keep us going.

What we’d like for more people to know is that this event take a lot of time and even more money than most think. We’d like to get more attendees to register for our parties and attend the official event. We love that the city is all dressed up in White and Red that weekend, but we need the support.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our event is quite the visual stimulant. Pictures and videos really make it fun. We started out back in 2007 with only a MySpace page! That moved to Facebook, then Twitter (X) and Instagram. One of our partners at the time was running it, and we did well. He had some experience in his real job, and was really into doing things right. When he left, it was on me! That’s when we decided to find and pay for a pro. This is something that I took into my real job and we’ve never looked back. It takes a while to set up a worthy post, find the right #s, the right song, the right time of day, etc. Unless you have the time and knowledge, let someone else do it and pay them! They’ll do it right.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In 2019 Hurricane Barry whipped up on the fly and headed to town. This was the first time we’d had that threat the week of our event and were were flipping out! It sorta came out of nowhere and it’s ETA was the day of our event. We had to call some friends in the industry to figure out what to do. We decided that we’d refund anyone that wanted it. Since the majority of our ticketed attendees come from out of town, it was a gamble. We pushed it to August, hoping those folks could just reschedule their visit. Unfortunately, most folks are settled back in to life, school and the kids’ homework. This was a disaster for us. We took a pretty big hit and weren’t sure how we’d survive. We have an awesome support system, so we were able to make good on the fixed costs with a little help from that. We have since weathered the 2020 Covid year with a REALLY fun Virtual SFNO, then 2021 when the city wouldn’t allow the Running of the Bulls, we hosted a great night party. By 2022 we were back in full swing and ready to make it better and better.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nolabulls.com
• Instagram: @nolabulls
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/nolabullsllc
• Twitter: @nolabulls

Image Credits
Lucas Barrios- Ryan Hodgson Rigsbee- Tom Pumphret