Executive Profile: Raw Cereal’s Anders Rahm & Cort Lawrence Are ‘The Creative Bridge Between Imaginary And Reality’

To those squarely involved in talent buying, concert promoting and representing artists on the agency side, the creative aspects of a show are an integral part of the deal but mostly left to those on the talent side of the equation. People like younger-than-their-experience-suggests industry vets Anders Rahm and Cort Lawrence, who formed their own creative and design studio Raw Cereal backed by vision, experienced artist relations and concert production know-how to make it all happen.

In this edition of Pollstar’s Concert Support Services Directory, which can be purchased here, our executive profile features these rising talents, who have been involved in visual and creative aspects on major tours including Cardi B’s “Little Miss Drama” blockbuster trek, Morgan Wallen’s recent stadium runs, K-pop favorites Big Bang and upcoming runs and special performances from Bryson Tiller, longtime client Calvin Harris and Queens of the Stone Age.

Pollstar: While you’re both seasoned vets by this point, Raw Cereal formed in 2022.

Cort Lawrence: While we’re a young company, Anders and I both have decades worth of combined experience and time in this industry. We found each other right after the pandemic and started working together. He actually hired me for a project, which was Kid Cudi. After that, we quickly knew that we could collaborate and join forces and start a company. We always say, if you want to go somewhere fast, you go alone. But if you want to go somewhere far, you go together. We’ve really come a long way from where we started just four or five years ago and we’re pretty proud of all of our accomplishments. We were recently acquired, about seven months ago, which is another big step for us as well.

Anders, you’re somewhere right now working with Noah Kahan’s team?
Anders Rahm: We’re working with The Playground and StuFish and it’s great. I think Cort nailed it, that it’s been a lot of hard work. I had been working in content studios and gone freelance and was kind of a one-man operation, and so was Cort. He was a one-man designing company, and I was a one-man producing company, so it made sense to come together and take on more work. We both had big visions. When we started, we were like, “We want to be a $100 million a year company.” Now, a couple years in, I’m like, “I think I don’t want to do that (laughs).”

We were just dreaming. Cort had finished up The Strokes, and we just did Kid Cudi, and we said, well, let’s just do this. Technically we’re only six full-time, and on any given day we’ve got about 20 people working. The entertainment industry isn’t like anything else out there because everybody’s jumping from gig to gig, which is tough because we have so many people that come in and do such amazing work, and we want to keep them as busy as possible.

Everyone knows everyone in the business, but on the production and creative side, that means being able to actually source the skills and materials needed for very specialized projects.

LAWRENCE: There are certain people and vendors and relationships that are needed to make the show happen. We have a show right now, and we desperately needed a specific video program or an operator, because without them, the show just wouldn’t have that same capability set. Not only are we the creative leaders of the concept, but we’re also the creative leaders of how it runs on the road. We have to make sure this engine is fine tuned and is operating on full cylinders, and we can put in the right people to operate the show; make sure it’s going great every night.

Your role varies and involvement can vary from project to project. How would you describe what you do overall?
RAHM: At its core, we work directly with artists and management teams to develop their creative concepts for their touring shows. Occasionally, that blends into marketing initiatives or album launches, TV performances, festivals, promo and things along those lines. But, generally, living mainly in the live entertainment space is how we operate. The key is really building those initial relationships. A lot of times folks will come to us once they have an idea of where they want to go, what they want to do logistically. Maybe once they have their tour dates or they know they want to go out next year, they’re still working on the routing, they’re talking to Live Nation, they’ll come to us and they’ll say, “Hey, here are the types of venues we want to play, and here’s what we’re thinking of doing.” At that point, we’ll usually start with a basic creative treatment, developing a story around what their general goals are.

LAWRENCE: We’re the bridge between imaginary and reality. That’s how you get those great instances of, we made this and we were able to visualize it, and it came out just as we imagined it. That’s the goal with any project. At the same time, how do you explain to an artist every detail? We have to really be communicative and creative leaders in sharing every step of the way of what’s going to happen.

RAHM: Right now, we’re building a show based around the Egyptian underworld. There’s another show where we want cameras that interact with the audience, and this Noah (Kahan) show is focused on mixed media and humanity. It’s about really developing those themes for our clients, and then working, generally, directly with the artists to nail down what they want. It’s creative communication and ideation and execution, being able to handle all of those things is really the role and whatever comes up.

There’s a lot of other people involved in the creative side for each project. How do you juggle between the different players?
RAHM: I can run through a couple of examples. I’m the show director for Calvin Harris, but we partner with (production company) 1826. They do the design, but I’m the general contact for Calvin himself. We text most days and he tells me what music he wants to play, how he wants to play it. I help communicate that to the team. We work on the general creative; 1826 works on the physical design and the production management and we work on a lot of the other elements of the show. And then we’re kicking off Queens Of The Stone Age in a month, and Cort is sitting directly with (frontman) Josh (Homme) and working with him on what he wants his design to look like, working with his management group to develop the technical workflows and the routing updates.

We carry the torch wherever we need to, and we work with everybody as best we can. A huge part of our growth and vision has been building partnerships, no matter what the skill sets are. I like to say that Cort is the production whisperer. He’s built a huge career from understanding what it’s like to push a case onto a truck; he knows the roadies and he knows the vendors and he knows the production managers and the tour managers in such a huge way.

You had a major creative role in Cardi B’s first major tour, “Little Miss Drama.”
RAHM: We worked with (creative agency and production company) Silent House and (choreographer) Sean Bankhead. (Production and lighting designer) Dan Norman designed it, and we were doing the visuals for that tour. We’ve got a great relationship with (executive creative director) Patientce Foster … That’s what allowed us to really fine-tune every moment to that show. Cardi herself was leading a lot of the creative as well. This tour was her biggest, her magnum opus to date. We met Patientce and built trust with her very quickly, and she’s wildly creative. She and Cardi have built a career together, which has been really cool to watch.

We’re jumping into some more stuff with them right now. We just talked with Patientce yesterday and we’re excited to see her at some award shows coming up and build some new shows for them this summer.

What can you say about working with Morgan Wallen, who continues to play major stadiums across the world, although you’re not involved in his current tour.
RAHM: Morgan’s amazing. We ran our tenure with him for three years. The show that we built consistently smashed records. For us it was huge and such a place to flex our muscles and spread our wings. That was our first time really going “Oh yeah, we can do this.” Seeing Cort manage the crews and the designs with Chad Guy, the production manager, and Murph, their technical director, we really have a great relationship with those guys, and we were able to pull off some huge stuff. It was a really pivotal point in our personal and professional careers.

Competition is cutthroat across the touring industry and throughout all of music. What are clients looking for right now, and how do you stand out?
RAHM: They’re looking to differentiate. When we talk with our clients, a lot of them are coming to us wanting something different. Sometimes, they know what that differentiation is and how they want to set themselves apart. Sometimes they don’t, and it’s our job to figure that out. What we’re constantly seeing is a real thirst for what’s new and different. You don’t always have the money and the time to take a one-mile step ahead. Sometimes you’ve got to take a real, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other step ahead to progress creatively. Our clients come to us because they want to be represented by a show that is them. Whether it’s representing their style, their hometown, their upbringing, there’s a lot of representation because they have a brand themselves to uphold.

We’re also [working with] Bryson Tiller, and he’s got a big tour coming up, He has a nerdy side to him. He loves video games; he loves sci-fi. So we’re really inventing this sci-fi world for him that he can live in and I’m excited to share those designs once they’re wrapped. Same with with the new Queens stuff. I think it’s gonna be huge.

Live Nation and AEG are putting out a lot of smaller venues, these 4,000-caps., which is a big deal for us, because we have to think creatively to bring a show that is accommodating to a venue that size, and I think it’s a smart idea. There’s a lot of artists that can hit those rooms and sell them out easily versus selling out stadiums or arenas on their own.

We’re also seeing a new mini Sphere [planned] on the East Coast and another in Abu Dhabi. There’s so much entertainment that’s going to be happening globally. (The Sphere) is one of the toughest to tackle because it’s all video. You really have to focus on the video elements. So we’re building up a team that can accomplish that. What we just accomplished with Moment Factory at the Sphere for Phish was a huge step for us as well. We want to be a weapon in concert touring. We found early on in Raw Cereal that when we go too wide, we become masters of none, so over the last couple of years, we really started to hone in on being concert directors and designers and producers.

What’s next for Raw Cereal?
RAHM: I think our biggest growth periods are in operations and growing the company. It’s such a gift to sit here and see the palpable growth month over month within the company. We’re working on integrations with our larger venture group and we have three sister companies now, so we’re building this big network.

The word on the street, and you’ll probably hear this from other folks, is executive production. Being an executive producer akin to that in the movie space has become the way for concert touring. I see that as the next big wave, people developing shows outside of the promoters or management groups. I think you’ll start to see more creatives building up the concept of the tour itself or of the experience, so that the infrastructure can be there.

Our partners in our venture group at Hovercraft Ventures, which includes OMM and Visual Endeavors, allows us to step into some spheres with already developed infrastructure. By being in the venture group and developing this internal structure, we now go from guys with a dream to guys with a team. I’ve never said that before, but it feels really good, right? We used to pitch a lot of things that we were very excited about, but we didn’t necessarily have the infrastructure to build it. Now, we can go in and say, “Hey, we’ve got 50 people in the background ready to build out your new marketing activation. Here are our case studies from OpenAI and Nike and Microsoft.” Anyway, I’m rambling, but I think the future is bright.