By thestadiumbusiness.com

Global technology company JMA Wireless has acquired naming rights to the Carrier Dome, home of Syracuse University’s sports teams.

The 10-year deal rebrands the stadium as the JMA Wireless Dome, or the JMA Dome for short. It marks the first time the Carrier Dome’s naming rights have changed hands since the venue opened in 1980, with the university’s 40-year partnership with Carrier coming to an end last month.

Syracuse University said that JMA Wireless will support the Dome’s digital infrastructure transformation

by establishing “advanced connectivity offerings” for fans and other guests.

JMA Wireless was recently appointed to provide 5G equipment for SoFi Stadium, home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Chargers. The company is also opening a new 5G campus in the City of Syracuse.

The university announced last month that it will embark on the next phase of its work to enhance, elevate and expand the experience at the Dome, which has a capacity of around 50,000 for football games.

The latest phase of renovations will build on the recently completed $118 million transformation of the stadium, which was funded entirely by the university and private philanthropy. These renovations included a new fixed roof, the largest vertically hung scoreboard in college sport, the installation of air conditioning and state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems.

The next phase of the renovations includes a complete reseating of the entire venue and the construction of an on-site and publicly accessible event facility.

Syracuse University chancellor Kent Syverud said: “This is an exciting moment for Syracuse University, Syracuse Athletics, and the broader Central New York-community. With JMA Wireless as our new naming partner, our campus community, student-athletes and fans alike can expect a world-class event experience, unlike anything they’ve ever seen before at Syracuse University.

“I am grateful to JMA founder and CEO John Mezzalingua for his partnership and vision. His investment in the City of Syracuse and Central New York will pay dividends for years to come in the form of economic vitality, career opportunities for local residents and cutting-edge technology innovation taking place in our region. We share JMA’s commitment to the City of Syracuse and Central New York and look forward to seeing the positive impact our partnership will have on our local community.”

Mezzalingua added: “Our company’s ties to the city and university run deep. I remember when Syracuse redefined college athletics with the Dome, a unique venue that ushered in a period of unprecedented success for Syracuse sports. With this partnership, we have an opportunity to lead once again.

“The Dome will have the most advanced 5G network of any collegiate stadium, connecting fans as never before. It will also enable powerful new augmented reality training systems, advanced coaching tools and sensor-based performance optimization to attract elite athletes and help Syracuse win. The JMA Dome has an incredibly bright future ahead, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.”

IAVM has added two new tier levels to our existing discount structure for Professional Group Membership. The two new tiers are:

Tier 1 – 5 employees, $2,150 – new!
Tier 2 – 10 employees, $2,750 – new!
Tier 3 – 20 employees, $3,150* — original program that was introduced in 2014

All current venue types are eligible to participate. One individual shall be designated the Primary Member/Representative for the Group Membership. Eligibility requirements may be viewed by clicking here. Note: The criteria are the same for all tier levels.

These new options will be of particular interest to venues in smaller markets and for those with smaller budgets but need training and professional development options for their employees. To apply, complete the online Group Membership Application.

Membership renewals are invoiced annually. The billing goes to the principal contact who may make changes to the roster as needed.

This program is a great way to involve your staff in IAVM, to be volunteers and attend national, regional and chapter events. Check IAVM’s event calendar to see the upcoming lineup for 2022. Contact membership@iavm.org with questions.

*Perks for Tier 3 Group Members: three job posts annually, $250 value each; two VDS research reports annually, $299 value each; and five VP magazine print issues once they are resumed, digital copies are now available. These extra benefits will be available to Tier 3 Group Members. The primary will make the requests for these services.

By R.V. Baugus

Samir Bitar, Principal with The Art of Consulting in Los Angeles, will headline the Performing Arts Centers keynote at VenueConnect when he speaks on Guest Journey Mapping. The session is Thursday, July 21 from 11:00-11:45 am. A highly sought thought leader, Samir and his company serve as an authority on audience and service design strategies. But before we give you more on the company, let’s allow Samir to take it from here in an interview that we conducted with him to discuss customer journey maps and provide a glimpse of what this exciting presentation has in store for participants.

RV: Share with our readers something about your background and then bring us up to speed on your current role.

SB: I started my exploration of customer journey mapping (CJM) as a student at Carnegie Mellon University, where I focused my studies on novel techniques in the marketing and service design sectors to increase participation in the Arts. But I really got religious about CJM after assuming the directorship of the Smithsonian Institution’s central office of Visitor Experience. With over 30 million annual visits across 19 museums and the National Zoo, it fell to my team and I to research, develop, and advocate for improvements to a 21st-Century museum experience. After leaving the Smithsonian, I opened a consulting firm (The Art of Consulting) to assist nonprofit, public service, and mission-driven organizations improve their engagement with existing audiences and acquire new ones. I’ve helped the City of Riyad better understand stakeholders of their national museums, Brooklyn Navy Yard appeal to a broader base of DIY entrepreneurs, and several museums develop engaging exhibitions. In 2020, I began guest-lecturing on the techniques and use of customer journey mapping. In 2022, I co-developed and began co-teaching a graduate-level course on Customer Journey Mapping at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

RV: Give us some detail and insights about your PAC presentation. Without giving away the kitchen, what will be some of the things you will share with your audience?

SB: In this fun, interactive session participants will get a crash course in Customer Journey Mapping. I’ll pull from a case study of a digital product I developed at the Smithsonian, Trip Planner, a first-in-class content aggregator for arts and cultural organizations. We’ll explore both what a customer journey map is and how it can be used for managers of performing arts centers, theaters, arenas, convention centers, amphitheaters, stadiums, and the like. Next, I’ll coach participants through the key steps of mapping their own customers’ journey. We’ll conclude with an overview of how to use a finished CJM to advance business objectives. Participants will leave the session with a CJM outline for their business.

Session objectives:
· Participants will understand what a customer journey map is and how it applies to their business setting.
· Participants will be able to identify the various component pieces of a customer journey map and outline one from end-to-end.

RV: How about a main takeaway you would like people to leave with and take back to the venue where they work?

SB: Why has mapping customers’ journey become a critical step in the development of successful products and services, across all sectors of the economy? Because doing so has proven to be a remarkably effective method of transforming organizations’ relationship to their customer vis-à-vis business objectives. From Apple to the federal government organizations use customer journey maps ultimately develop more responsive and more profitable products and services to current and future customers.
So, why journey map? For many reasons, but for brevity I’ve summarized into four reasons:
• CJMs works to develop a firm’s empathy for its customer. Analyzing customers’ needs and behaviors from the customer’s perspective is the first step in establishing a true customer-oriented business ethos. Further, the iterative process of constructing customer journeys works to ventilate teams’ thinking around the products/services they develop and the people who use them.
• CJMs provide a qualitative dimension to quantitative data. Most businesses today have reams of quantitative data like point of sale, and transaction, along with demographic, geographic and now web analytic data. This type of data is great, in fact critical. Keep it. Use it. But it’s not enough. Quantitative data presents a one-dimensional view of customers through the eyes of the firm. Customer journey maps offer a critical qualitative companion to quantitative customer data, like customer’s needs, expectations, behaviors, challenges, and sentiments, from the customer’s perspective.
• CJMs reveal opportunities for increased revenue. In revealing highlights (what’s working) and paint points (what’s not) of a firm’s product/service offering, constructing a customer journey map provides the time and space to identify opportunities for improvements to the customer experience, which often translates to new revenue opportunities.
• CJMs increase leadership buy-in. Customer journey maps presents critical business data as an accessible and compelling visual infographic that earns buy-in from key decision makers, far more so that typical written reports – Far more.

By Kristi Mexia

Hollywood Park is extending Samsung’s AR experience, Dreamground, through December. The AR experience offers guests a physical and digital playground through a combination of whimsical physical structures, on-screen animation, and custom AR functionality.

Dreamground at Hollywood Park is free and spread throughout Lake Park. Guests can explore three immersive worlds: Bubbloonland, Fluttering Forest and Crystal Galaxy, which are all enhanced by corresponding sculptures throughout Lake Park. Users exploring Dreamground can add their own virtual elements to the sculptures and surrounding landscape by using their smartphone to place and create interactive elements on any surface in Dreamground. Users can even draw midair to make custom floating creations.

Elements created in Dreamground last for up to 24-hours, so users can see what others have created before them, collaborate with friends in real-time, as well as leave something behind for others to see. This allows each experience in Dreamground to be unique and build upon other Dreamground visitors’ creations. Dreamground also features interactive face filters and allows users to share their unique content – photo or video – across social channels.

In addition to the onsite sculptures, Dreamground can also be accessed through SoFi Stadium’s 4K Infinity Screen by Samsung. Prior to select ticketed events, guests will view a Dreamground video on the Infinity Screen that features a QR code that once scanned allows them access to Dreamground inside the stadium. Built for the future, the Infinity Screen by Samsung has the largest LED content playback system ever deployed. With nearly 80 million pixels spaced 8 millimeters from center to center, each panel can be uniquely or congruently programmed with statistics, live and/or animated content.

Dreamground also features content exclusives for Galaxy 5G device holders on Verizon. These users will have access to Galaxy G5 Portals throughout Dreamground that feature 4K, 360-streamed video and ultra-high-fidelity AR. The ability to explore and interact in high resolution and in real-time showcases the power of the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G.

Kristi Mexia is Sr. Director/Head Corporate Communications at SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park.

By Blair Cardinal

Content and booking professional Starr Butler-Jemison will join OVG360 as Senior Vice President of Content Development & Private Events, overseeing a new division focused on innovative private functions, major corporate events, and content development across the OVG360 universe of 300+ arenas, stadiums, and convention centers.

Butler-Jemison, who will begin on July 5, will report to Chris Granger, President of OVG360, which is the third-party, venue management, venue services, and hospitality division of Oak View Group (OVG), the leading global venue development, advisory, and investment company for both the sports and live entertainment industries. She will be based in Detroit.

With well over a decade of experience in booking, venue, and event management spanning arenas, stadiums, ballparks, and non-traditional entertainment venues, Butler-Jemison will bring her creative approach to filling dark days, curating corporate experiences, securing unique content, and generally supporting venues build and better activate their networks of promoters, content creators, and corporate clients.

Butler-Jemison joins OVG360 from the 2020-21 NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks, where as Vice President of Booking and Events for Fiserv Forum arena and Deer District, she established and led the department responsible for securing and developing diverse programming — including concerts, family shows, private events, sporting events, outdoor activations, and festivals — within the arena, outdoor plaza, and owned-and-operated venues throughout the entertainment district.

“I am thrilled to be joining the talented OVG360 team at such an exciting time in the organization’s expansion,” Butler-Jemison said. “OVG’s recent acquisition of Spectra has unlocked enormous opportunity, and all of the venues in the OVG360 network will benefit. I’ll be looking at ways to program and route unique content, to invest in content development where it makes sense, and to build out an exciting corporate and private events platform across our family of venues – from arenas to convention centers, and from stadiums to state fairs. I look forward to building on OVG’s legacy of creating unforgettable experiences for our guests!”

Prior to her time in Milwaukee, Butler-Jemison served as Director of Booking and Events at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., a Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) property, where she grew the new line of business into a multi-million-dollar revenue source for the organization. A native of Manhattan, Butler-Jemison was instrumental in securing the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center.

Earlier in her career, Butler-Jemison also spent several years in the private tours and corporate event space, where she gained insight into how food and hospitality – concessions, private events, catering and beyond – integrate into a holistic, premium guest experience.

The previous two venues where Butler-Jemison worked – Fiserv Forum and Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils – are members of the OVG Arena Alliance, a collection of the top venues in North America that provides a united platform for booking, content development, procurement, and sponsorship sales opportunities, which is overseen by Granger.

“We are excited and very fortunate to add someone of Starr’s caliber to our OVG360 leadership team,” Granger said. “Her impressive track record has time and again set the paradigm for content development in live entertainment and sports. Starr has repeatedly been the first person in her role to build out new, sustainable, and still-thriving content and booking lines of business. She brings broad industry experience, from talent management to food and beverage, and a vision for helping us establish long-term relationships with clients and a consistent but distinct experience across our large portfolio of venues.”

In April 2020, Butler-Jemison was named a “Connect 40 under 40” recipient, recognized as a noteworthy event professional, influencer and innovator who is making a mark in the event and meeting industry. Then in 2021, she was named a “VenuesNow All-Star,” an honor awarded to industry leaders who have demonstrated excellence, innovation, financial success, commitment to diversity and leadership in their field.

Butler-Jemison has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Binghamton University.

Blair Cardinal is