Mike McGee, CVE, attended his first IAAM (now IAVM) meeting at the age of 22 as AGM of the Monroe (La.) Civic Center. When he returned home he found out he was the new GM.
The connections he made while at IAAM in San Diego in 1971 became invaluable in his new role and in his future career. Among that initial group of professional and soon personal friends was Ray Ward, who he met at the 1972 convention.
That’s among the many reasons McGee is honored to be receiving the 2024 Ray Ward Award during Venue Management School (VMS) on June 8-14 at Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel, Fla.
McGee taught private and public management, contract negotiation, and merchandising at VMS for six years and was on the Board of Regents for five. At the time, he was CEO of the Houston Summit, where he launched several enterprises, including being founder and owner of Leisure Management International, one of the early providers of contract/private sector management to public assembly facilities. LMI was later bought by Spectacor Management Group.
Though he will not be teaching while at VMS this time, he’ll be on site all day Sunday, June 9, to visit with old friends and make new ones. His wealth of knowledge extends well beyond managing venues and founding companies, having worked for several allied members, including Clear Channel, Ticketmaster and Aramark.
McGee recalled he first learned about IAVM from Neal Gunn, who was manager of the Monroe building, when he came on board as marketing manager. “I wanted to go to IAAM because I wanted to meet people I had heard about, get to better know producers of ice shows, the circus, Disney on Parade, Globetrotters, and Longhorn Rodeo, who were very high profile there. I needed to get to know those people, because I kind of liked the business and thought I could do okay in it,” McGee said of his early days as a venue professional.
From Monroe, McGee moved to Lakeland (Fla.) Civic Center, because “Neal [Gunn] campaigned for me to be his assistant. People said, ‘you don’t want to go from manager to assistant manager,’ but I thought there was more opportunity, and I was right.”
Gunn soon moved to New Orleans to manage the Louisiana Superdome, and McGee became director of Lakeland Civic Center. In Lakeland, McGee wrote the specs on every piece of furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) that went into the building. “I didn’t have the background to do that, had never done it, but I learned from the people at the IAAM trade show that sold stages and spotlights and food and beverage and drapery.”
Over the years, he has been involved in over $2 billion worth of construction of facilities [including but not limited to the first Miami Arena, Amerant Arena in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Marval Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, and Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney] and probably $500 million of FF&E. “You never stop growing. Learn what everybody else does and how it relates to the whole,” he recommends to anyone starting out in this business.
When McGee came to the Houston Summit, the operation was very siloed — Ticketing, operations, marketing all did their thing. He changed that because “we all depend on each other.” The Summit hosted 210 events a year, and he had a full-time staff of 30. There has to be crossover and collaboration.
LMI was the third company McGee formed while managing the Summit. The first was John Crow Television, which did point-to-point broadcasts for the Summit, Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, Kansas City Royals, and all Southwest Conference sports. “We built a 47-foot TV production truck initially, and we ended up with so much business I had seven of those running all over the U.S.”
John Crow Television, founded in 1980, made the Summit one of the first buildings to do in-house TV production simultaneous to producing the event. McGee recalled he only got into the business because the company that had been doing it, Mobil Color Inc., closed, and he didn’t want to lose that piece of business. “At the time, we had no fixed signage in the Summit; it was all electronically generated, so if we turned off the projectors for the screens, it didn’t look like there was any advertising in the building, so the building stayed clean. We had $750,000 worth of advertising generated in the building, and I needed that inventory, so I felt it was incumbent on us to go into that business if he was going out.”
“We built our own first truck for $1.3 million in 90 days and took it to the National Broadcasting Assn. show in California and got all kinds of awards. Two insurance companies and private investors said we needed to get in the truck-building business, but I said there aren’t a lot of people needing trucks, let’s stay focused.”
Century Sports was the second company McGee and associates founded. That firm promoted all of the Harlem Globetrotters dates in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, plus a few in Florida. When Vince McMahon decided to expand what was then World Wrestling Federation, Century Sports did the marketing and promotion in Texas. They also promoted Sesame Street and CCTV dates in Texas.
So, McGee was going to all these buildings to cut deals for events and closed circuit and saw another opportunity. “I felt we could operate venues better than the public sector could and save municipalities some money,” McGee said. There wasn’t a big private management push at the time, just a few like Denzil Skinner who had the New Orleans’ Superdome, San Francisco’s Moscone Center and Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. Mostly, the other private building operations were one-offs.
The Summit partnered with the Houston Astrodome to propose private management to city-owned venues. “I would like to think I was one of the pioneers in that business,” McGee said. “All I did was take advantage of opportunities when I saw a need and figure out a way to make it work.”
Private management is a whole different dynamic today, but it behooves everyone in the business to remember its roots. “You’ve got to bring something to the party. How do you make things better. Back then, I could say, ‘last year you lost $700,000. I could operate this building for you and cut that deficit to $500,000.’ To me that’s showing a profit.”
When McGee taught public vs. private management at VMS, he would ask his students to put their pencils down and cross their arms. “Now some of you have your left arm over your right, some right over left. Which is right? That’s how private versus public works.”
There is no substitute for seeing the big picture. McGee has seen all sides worldwide. In addition to his venue management, TV, and promoting experience, he served as EVP of North American Business Operations for Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Chief Administrative Officer of Clear Channel Entertainment, which became Live Nation. Prior to joining Clear Channel, McGee served as SVP of Aramark, overseeing strategic initiatives and other business development areas for the Sports and Entertainment Services Division, which in addition to the domestic market also included Germany, Spain, England, and other western European countries.
It all started with a career in radio and entrée into venues as marketing director in Monroe. “I was a young man in a hurry,” he said of his career, probably not unlike most attendees at VMS 2024.
