We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Zinni Brandon Black a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Robert Zinni, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Brandon Black & Robert Zinni met in 2020 when they were producing a small interview show for 5enses Magazine in Prescott, AZ. Zinni was the host and Brandon was the producer. During the pandemic of 2020, we interviewed local community members about how their businesses were hurting. Through that, we develoepd a sketch comedy show call “The TBD Show” to raise the spirits of people in Prescott. Dana Murdock, the owner of Thumb Butte Distillery allowed us to produce a sketch comedy show outside of their distillery.
From 2020-2022, we produced 2 seasons of the TBD Show that incoropated multiple local businss owners as guest and highlighted their show. In 2023, we took our show and developed a multi-media theaterical performance at the Historical Elks Theater. Those shows had a musical guest to start the show off followed by clips from our episodes with live action skits and a performance from the Endevour Theater Company. We did three shows at the Elks “The Legend of Zinni the Kid”, “Dick Zinni: A Comedy Noir” & Skitmas: A Christmas Special for Arizona’s Christmas City.
In 2024, we decided to create experiential events in the EDM world. We had a successful run in 2024, producing 8 EDM shows in the Prescott area. As producers, we curate vibes with muscians, DJS, visuals and art decor. Each show has a different theme: Oasis, Trance of the Tiki, Mystic Sands, Psychedlic Spring.
We are also a DJ duo called the TBD Crew. We have been playing in Prescott, Tempe and Miami, Arizona. We will be hitting our first EDM festivals in April of 2025 with PHXlights and Miami Loco Festival.
Our production company is community oriented. We like to partner with different creatives and with the money we make we want to pay the people who help with our events, whether it’s acting, promoting, creating sets or performing at one of our events.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Our production company, The TBD Show LLC. has morphed into an event production company. We started with a filmed and live-action sketch comedy show and now we are hosting The TBD Talent Show at the Raven Cafe. The Talent show is a “anything goes open mic”. It’s for local performers to perform their many unique talents on a stage. We have many acts from songwriters, rappers, comedians, poets, magicians and a few oddballs.
We still film episodes, but they are now more like specials where we will film a 30-40 minute short film and then create an evening around that theme. Our last episode was called “Lost in the Vibes” and it’s about our journey into the EDM world!
We also have been contracted to help produce and market different events in the area. We are working with the PV Chamber of Commerce to provide a free EDM show on May 10th for their PV Days and we help with the marketing of a few different events in town. Our expertise is to create silly and engaging social media content for all of our events.
We have also become DJS. Like our name The TBD Crew, you’ll never know what to expect with the vibe we curate.
Our main mission is to be good, do good and level up!
We are proud that we are approaching the 5 year mark and we are growing our business and gaining recognition for what we do. Between our comedy shows, talent shows, and EDM shows we want to provide the highest quality of entertainment for our community and beyond. We are also proud of the community and team that have volunteered to help with our events. We cannot do anything alone and it’s been very humbling to have others help out with our projects. We would say the TBD Show is an entity that brings people together. Whether it’s comedy or a dance party, we want people to leave our events with a smile and memories that last a lifetime.
We are also proud of our volunteerism in the local community. We provide a variety of different free workshops for the youth through the City of Prescott & Prescott Valley. We have put on film camps, puppetry camps and puppet karaoke for a variety of free events for the public. Our biggest joy is when kids interact with our puppets. It’s nice to see their excitement when they see a puppet or actu puppeteer!
It’s been a crazy ride and the cool thing between us is that we trust and support each other if we have an idea about a production.
We would like future clients and the readers to know that we are hard working individuals that want to curate vibes for people. We want to get people dancing but also experience something new. It’s interesting to think that our first EDM show in Prescott in 2024 was the first EDM show the area has seen. It’s fun for us to push the envelope of creativity but also bring something fresh to rural arizona.
As DJs, people can hire us for private events, weddings and our favorite Brunch!
We also provide film and video production. We have worked with political campaigns, nonprofits and other businesses for a variety of products. In all seriousness, we should really be a marketing company!
We want people to enjoy the ride of the TBD Crew because you never know what experience we will curate next!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
We feel that society can support artists in a variety of ways. For starters, people can buy tickets to shows that you are interested in. A lot of productions or films take a team of dedicated individuals to complete a goal. Not a lot of people know the energy and time that it takes to produce a creative endeavor. So, encouraging the arts, donating to youth scholarships are good.
In times of uncertainty or sorrow, society needs to be entertained. We like to think that we would be the entertainers of the sinking Titanic sometimes. A lot of our content is out of the box and sometimes leaves the audience questioning what they just experience. We strive to create original stories and events.
Another thing that people can do is not judge the artist for their efforts. Whether they are new, amateur or professional, encourage the artistic process. It takes courage and belief in yourself to put yourself in front of an audience. Encourage it because most people don’t have that capacity to perform.
If you’re a parent, encourage your kids to experiment in all art forms. It’ll help them with abstract ideas and problem solving.
Most of our jobs as producers or creatives is to problem solve the outcomes. Whether a film or producing a festival we have to figure out all the moving pieces to make sure the audience will get the full experience.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Creating an event or a film and seeing the reaction from the audience. Whether it’s laughter, cries, smiles, dancing even questioning WTF did they just see. That’s been the most rewarding for us. It motivates us to create better events or content. The more reactions we get the better. We really enjoy when people walk out of one of our TBD Show events and have to quesiton that they saw. That shows us that our creativity is unique. With our dance parties, we felt the love and support from the Prescott Community. After our first EDM event in Feburary 2024, we would be approached by random people in public thanking us for producing those events. For us it’s humbling and confirms that’s what we should be doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thetbdshow.com
- Instagram: @thetbdcrew
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqvpOCo-LuXsfLGN848vPbA
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thetbdcrew/trance-of-the-tiki-audio
Image Credits
Photo: Desousa Creative