How Magic Box Event Center grew from hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue — with a team of three

At a Glance

Organization: Magic Box Event Center | Los Angeles, California

Type: Midsized event venue

Team size: Three people

Previous tools: Paper binders, Google Calendar, Outlook, Dropbox

Key result: Multi-million dollar revenue, multiple new revenue streams, 10 – 15 hours saved per person per week

The Overview: From Overlooked Concrete Box to One of LA's Most-Sought-After Event Venues

In many ways, Magic Box Event Center shouldn't be one of the most successful event venues in Los Angeles. It’s a 12-story concrete building with an unconventional layout of narrow hallways and small offices, set in a neighborhood that doesn't exactly scream "destination.” Its most distinctive feature is a giant chair parked in the middle of the parking lot.

And yet, Magic Box is now one of the most recognized event venues in the city, hosting major activations and productions for brands like Pokémon, Adobe, and Sephora. In the last decade, the venue has gone from generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to multi-millions.

The building is still a box. The oversized chair is still its most distinguishable feature. What changed was everything behind the scenes — powered by ShoSoft.

The Challenge: The Right Ambition, the Wrong Tools

Magic Box's CEO, Wayne Fernandez, had a vision that went far beyond running a typical event venue. He didn't just want to rent square footage; he saw an opportunity to build a multi-revenue-stream operation, charging for rental inventory, Internet, creative services, and labor, not just the room itself. He also aspired to break from the traditional venue model and act simultaneously as an event producer, developing and producing events with his own team.

"I realized we could be more than just a space for rent. We could drive revenue from so many other things like inventory and Internet. And, self-producing events,” Fernandez said.

But realizing that vision required the right operational foundation: streamlined workflows, reduced administrative overhead, and a system that could support a more complex, layered business model and capture multiple revenue streams.

In 2014, Fernandez went looking for an event venue management software that could meet his needs. Nothing on the market came close. So he built his own.

The impact was immediate. Event Director Kelly Monaghan remembers it clearly: "We used to use Google Calendar and Excel spreadsheets, and it was a hassle. Everything was all over the place. Once we started using our own software, things became more organized and our time doing admin work went down significantly."

When Fernandez shared what he'd built with colleagues across the industry, their reaction was unanimous: they needed something like this too. They had the same ambition — to scale beyond simple space rental — but not the tools to get there. That moment became the origin of ShoSoft.

The Solution: One Platform, Across Every Corner of the Business

Today, Magic Box runs its entire operation through ShoSoft. Despite hosting events for some of the world's biggest brands, the entire team is just three people. Fernandez asserts that ShoSoft is what makes that level of efficiency and execution possible.

"When I started at Magic Box, we had a team of six people. But now we’re three people total, and that’s because ShoSoft enabled us to do a lot more with a fraction of the full-time staff. People are always shocked to hear that we’re only three, since we punch so far above our weight. That's all due to ShoSoft,” Fernandez remarked. 

Event Manager Saul Hammerschlag puts it even more simply: "It's literally a screen that's open on my computer all day while I'm here."

What's striking about how Magic Box uses ShoSoft is that Monaghan and Hammerschlag rely on it in entirely different ways — a reflection of how comprehensive the platform actually is.

Monaghan lives in ShoSoft's accounting and exhibitor modules. She builds client quotes directly in the platform, where clients can view everything in real time and make payments without ever leaving the system.

"The #1 benefit of ShoSoft is everything being live. The client can see everything in real time and make payments in-platform. We never have to go outside or manually process credit cards. Having that all-in-one spot is amazing," she said.

For Magic Box's exhibitor-based shows, she also processes all booth payments and sells booth extras through ShoSoft. She estimates the platform saves her 10 to 15 hours of admin work per week — time previously spent chasing down invoices and processing payments manually.

By contrast, Hammerschlag relies primarily on ShoSoft's activities module, and points to a recent Adobe event as a clear example of what it enables: "I used ShoSoft to create the entire onsite schedule, and broke down activities by task and workforce, then broke that down by load-in and shift times. During the show, I carried around a little iPad and had every piece of information I could possibly need at my disposal."

He estimates ShoSoft saves him 10 to 15 hours per week. Beyond the time, he credits the platform for preventing the kind of errors that come from jumping between disconnected tools.

"I don't have to move between platforms, so I've caught missed steps or errors because everything is in one place."

The Result: Fewer Hours, Fewer Errors, More Revenue

The operational impact of ShoSoft at Magic Box is measurable and significant:

• 10 - 15 hours saved per team member per week

• Dramatically reduced errors from eliminated platform-switching

• Real-time client visibility into quotes, invoices, and payments

• Full on-site schedule and workforce management from a single device

But beyond operational efficiency, the deeper transformation resulting from ShoSoft is the way ShoSoft has changed Magic Box’s business and revenue streams. 

Through ShoSoft, Magic Box developed an organized internal rental inventory system, which it now uses instead of external vendors; inventory rentals now make up roughly 30% of Magic Box’s revenue. Another example is ShoSoft’s exhibitor management module, which has allowed Magic Box to directly sell booths and booth extras, capturing revenue it once used to give away to other platforms.

Fernandez also points to how ShoSoft has empowered his team to self-produce its own events, completely upending the idea of a venue operator as someone who solely rents space. By integrating all the components required for full-scale event production — from scheduling workforce to selling tickets — ShoSoft has given Magic Box the tools to plan its own events without relying on external producers, unlocking significant revenue. Using ShoSoft, Magic Box produced the King Tut Experience and Street Art Live, two highly complex and successful immersive experiences. 

"ShoSoft has completely changed our business. We've consolidated all our backend operations, but beyond that, we can access totally new revenue streams like self-producing our own events,” Fernandez affirmed. 

By giving the team a single, comprehensive, and organized view of their operation, ShoSoft made it possible to identify and act on revenue opportunities that were previously invisible, from inventory rental to ticket sales. In this way, Magic Box didn't just get more efficient thanks to ShoSoft. It became a fundamentally different kind of business.

The Takeaway: What Magic Box Proves About Event Venue Management Software

Magic Box is proof that the right venue management platform isn’t only an operational tool, but a growth engine. For a three-person team managing multi-million dollar productions, ShoSoft is what bridges the gap between big ambition and the bandwidth to execute on it.

In many ways, ShoSoft is a roadmap for setting up and operating an event venue to maximize revenue — just like Magic Box does. With ShoSoft, venues can identify additional income opportunities through smarter use of space, services, and integrated tools like ticketing and exhibitor sales. ShoSoft gives them the framework to structure their business properly and scale quickly. 

Ready to transform your venue like Magic Box? Schedule a demo with our team today.