LOS ANGELES — Making sure everything is in its place and ready to go is what Julio Garcia has been doing for more than a decade. He’s the owner of Jive Live Entertainment, an event planning company he started in 2009.
“We began our business in my kitchen. I went to Best Buy, bought a little 5-foot desk, printer, fax, scan machine and got a phone line because we didn’t have a phone line and started hitting up everyone we met over the last three years,” Garcia said.
Initially, no one called back, but his persistence paid off. Jive Live is now one of the company’s helping plan events leading up to the Super Bowl such as the 2022 Play Football Family Festival at Bishop Mora Salesian High School.
It will be held the day before the Super Bowl and over 500 students athletes are expected to attend the various events where they’ll meet NFL legends. From the autograph station to the skills and drills run station and equipment fittings, Garcia has to make sure every part of the event is ready to go.
Garcia learned to be an entrepreneur at an early age. He grew up in Shandon, a small town on the Central Coast with a population of just over a thousand people.
He said “growing up we would farm our land with mostly corn, watermelon, chile, tomatoes and I would get to sell that produce in our front yard every summer and that’s how I bought my school clothes growing up.”
Now he’s leading the way in event planning in LA. For him, working with the NFL came at the perfect time. It’s an opportunity that came through taking part in the Super Bowl 56 business connect program, which connects minority, women, LGBTQ and veteran-owned businesses to compete for NFL contracts.
He said the “pandemic was really rough on us and this was a moment to kind of come out of it and then we were accepted into the program and not having any expectations I just grateful to be part of a program, part of a team that’s bigger than me.”
Garcia said he is hoping this event will lead to more opportunities and inspire future generations of entrepreneurs.