Russ: This is the Business Maker Show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. With me now, I have Sheryl Rapp, the co-founder of The Up Experience. Once again, Sheryl, welcome back to the Business Maker Show.

Sheryl: Thank you for having me.

Russ: You bet. So we're at 2012. Is this what, number four?

Sheryl: Number five.

Russ: Number five. My God. How time flies. Wow. Okay, so let's start by imagining somebody's not been paying attention for the last five years and has no idea what we're talking about. Tell them about The Up Experience.

Sheryl: Well, The Up Experience is an one-day event, here is Houston, where we bring in 16 thought leader from, really, all over the world, and they come in for this one-day event, and they each speak 20 minutes about their life's work, their passion, and their perspective on the future, and it's 16 completely different topics. So it's a very intellectual day of learning.

Russ: Okay, and I am, for full disclosure, have attended, I think, three of the four, and they were incredible. In fact, my favorite was probably last year. So Kahn just blew me away, and all of them are great. Generally speaking, you kind of the got the idea - it was based off of having attended tab. Is that right?

Sheryl: Mm-hmm.

Russ: Okay.

Sheryl: What started off - my husband and I, Arnie, had gotten so busy in our day-to-day lives, and our kids, and our business. We just never had enough time to read all the books that were stacked up by the side of our bed. So we started attending conferences like this, where we could get rapid fire information from people that were really changing the world, and we'd come back so intellectually stimulated and charged and educated, we felt great. We felt like we could go forward with incredible enthusiasm and knowledge for what's ahead. So we kept attending the events and we'd come back, and we kind of looked at each other and said, "We need to do this in Houston. There's nothing like this anywhere in the South." We always have to travel to the east coast and the west coast, but there's nothing like it in the south, so we decided to create The Up Experience, for the intellectual community here.

Russ: Well, I'm glad you did. One thing I know, too, that's different about The Up Experience and Ted, is that the attendees actually have some up close and almost personal interaction after a speaker has delivered their 20-minute speech, and that seemed great to me, and unique, that - do others - I know Ted hasn't in the past. Do any of the others do that?

Sheryl: You know, this is what I do. I travel all over the country, attending these conferences, searching out for those amazing people doing amazing things. So this year all ready I've been to 18 to 20 different conferences all over the country. No one lets you get up close and personal with the speakers that just speak on the stage, and that's one of my pet peeves. I would get so excited from what I heard, I'd want to hand them my card, or make a connection, or ask a question, and you just never have that opportunity. So we created The Up Experience to have this 30 minutes after four speakers speak on the stage. They then go into this big room we have cornered off into four areas. So you get 30 minutes to get up close and personal to the four speaker that just spoke on the stage, and that's ended up being an amazing part of the day.

Russ: It makes me curious about when you're recruiting guest to be here, who have spoke probably at other deals, and you tell them, "Oh yeah, by the way, that this event, you're required to stick around and talk -" What's their reaction to that usually?

Sheryl: Oh, I mean, I've never had anyone -

Russ: Nobody had a problem with it?

Sheryl: - complain about it. No, they love it. They are connecting to the Houston audience, and things are happening, and the people are like-minded within the Q&A area, so all these different connections are made. We love that. I've never had one complain about it.

Russ: Okay, cool. Okay, so, the important thing. Who do you lined up so far that you can share with our audience? We're still several months away. In fact, the event is held on what day?

Sheryl: It's October 25th, at the Stafford Center for Performing Arts, and we have started announcing one speaker a week. So we're up to nine speakers out of the 16, and we are very excited.

Russ: Okay, tell us a little about the nine that are all ready public knowledge.

Sheryl: Okay. We have Burt Rutan. It's very exciting. He's going to talk to us about the future of space travel. He's the one who won the X Prize - $10 million purse X Prize from Peter Diamandis - and he's done an amazing job for the future of space travel. We have Jason Roberts, who's coming in to talk about crowdsourcing and community involvement, and will literally get the audience up on their feet. He is an amazing crowdsourcing professional in implementing change in cities, so I'm very excited he's coming. We also have Barbara Corcoran. I don't know if you watch The Shark Tank.

Russ: I think I met Bark Corcoran. I have a little bit of history with their - I was doing online real estate; we went up to New York City, when she was still in the business. Now she's a star - an entrepreneurial star, right?

Sheryl: Amazing. In fact, she has the number one producer that started a company - it's actually a barbecue sauce in a rub from Shark Tank's - and we're talking to her about possibly doing something with us with them. But she's going to talk about entrepreneurship and success, and a little bit about her story, so we're excited she's coming too. Always great to have powerful women.

Russ: Absolutely.

Sheryl: We also have David Dow, who's a Houstonian - grew up in Houston, and he gives a very powerful 20 minutes on the future of the death penalty, and how to prevent a lot of the people that are on Death Row from even getting there. Very passionate, very powerful 20 minutes.

Russ: Well, it seems like from the news over the three or four years, about 30 percent of the people that are put on Death Row are not guilty.

Sheryl: That's right, and could have been prevented. Absolutely. So that's terrific. We also have Don Sadoway. He's coming in from MIT. He is a brilliant professor and inventor of the first liquid battery. He is going to blow the audience away on the future of liquid batteries, in powering a city.

Russ: Interesting.

Sheryl: Yeah. So I'm very excited he'll be here too. We also have Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't know if you've ever heard of the wine sommelier who started wine purchasing online. He literally started the first wine dot com. He's gonna talk a lot about social media and the future of social media and how you need to get involved, and what areas of it will change and affect your business.

Russ: Cool, and that's the lineup. So, full on, right?

Sheryl: Yeah. Well, we have Dr. Wade Adams, who is here in Houston. He's going to talk about the future of nanotechnology and energy; and we've got Jane McGonigal, who's going to talk about gaming.

Russ: Cool. Well, Wade Adams has been on the show at least once, and really, he's right at the center of nanotechnology. Very interesting guy.

Sheryl: We also are very excited Dr. David Eagleman, with Baylor College and Medicine -

Russ: He's a star every year.

Sheryl: He is. He's coming back for his fourth year. He's going to MC the event, and then talk about the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience, so -

Russ: Okay. Well, his presentation last year - my God, and it was either followed, or preceded, by his book, where he started talking about religion, and I was just so tuned in to it. What a guy. Cool.

Sheryl: Yeah, he's terrific.

Russ: So, I'm curious with this fifth year. How are ticket sales going?

Sheryl: Ticket sales are great. We have over 600 all ready sold. The theater holds 1,000, and we are absolutely hoping for a sell-out year.

Russ: Wow. Now that's - isn't that - this time, several months ahead - is that by far, the all-time record for sales?

Sheryl: Oh, it's way above anything we've ever had. Last year this time, we had 50 people registered, so this is great. Last year we had 650 total in the audience, but to have 600 all ready registered four or five months before the event is a huge -

Russ: All right. So, audience members - this sounds like a potential sell-out, that you could be left out on. So if they want to get ticket and sign up, how do they do it?

Sheryl: Go to www.theupexperience.com, and you register online.

Russ: That's cool. Well, I'm excited about this year's event. Once again, congratulations to you and Ernie, for putting on such a spectacular event, and I hope it's so successful that you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

Sheryl: I hope so too. Thanks.

Russ: All right, that's Sheryl Rapp, co-founder of The Up Experience. This is the Business Maker Show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.