By NBA.com

BSE Global, the company that manages and operates Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets, has named SeatGeek, the mobile-focused ticketing platform headquartered in New York, as its official ticketing partner beginning this October. SeatGeek will take over ticketing for all Barclays Center events, including concerts, and Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty games. The landmark partnership will create a ticketing experience built for the future for all Barclays Center guests.

Barclays Center will use SeatGeek’s top-rated digital ticketing platform for all aspects of the purchasing experience, including the ability for fans to easily buy, transfer and scan their tickets through their mobile devices. Fans can also utilize SeatGeek’s platform to identify the best ticket value for a given event through its proprietary Deal Score technology, and access a dynamic arena map to see the view prior to purchasing their seats. Additionally, SeatGeek’s technology will make it easier than ever for Nets and Liberty season ticket members to seamlessly access, manage, and transfer their tickets across any device.

In addition to ticket purchasing and management, Barclays Center guests can leverage SeatGeek’s best-in-class mobile platform to enhance their experience, including SeatGeek’s Rally technology by which fans can interact with their mobile app in unique ways like listening to a playlist pre-concert, purchasing an upgraded experience, or planning their transportation route.

“BSE Global and SeatGeek have similar DNA when it comes to innovating and adapting to the ever-evolving preferences of the live event consumer market,” said BSE Global CEO John Abbamondi. “We see great potential in leveraging SeatGeek’s latest technological developments and collaborating with them on ways to enhance the fan experience at Barclays Center.”

Since opening in 2012, Barclays Center has continually invested in technological enhancements and fan-friendly innovation both on and off the court, becoming a premier event destination globally. The arena is consistently ranked among the best in the world, including being named one of the top 20 venues of the decade by both Billboard and Venues Now after only seven years of operation.

“Barclays Center is one of the premier venues in the world, so this is a monumental deal for us as we work together to modernize the event-going experience,” said SeatGeek co-founder and CEO Jack Groetzinger. “As fellow New Yorkers, we couldn’t be more proud to bring our leading mobile technology to both our hometown and visiting fans.”

As the arena’s official ticketing provider, SeatGeek will power BSE Global’s back-office technology through its enterprise software, SeatGeek Enterprise. These industry-leading data and analytics tools will help the venue manage hundreds of events per year and better understand demand for tickets in real-time.

Pre–Conference Workshops are integral parts of the VC21 conference. Now, more than ever, venue staff needs to participate in professional development, and this year’s safety & security focused workshops are the perfect way to enhance your career development!  Intended to provoke intellectual discussion on critical issues, methods, and theories emerging in the field of venue safety & security, both the Cyber Blended Threats Workshop and the Trained Crowd Manager Workshop are both designed to help us all adapt, transform and innovate!

Don’t forget to add one of the following to your VenueConnect 2021 registration:

Cyber Blended Threats Workshop – Venue managers can no longer think of security only in physical terms. Venue managers and executives always need to be aware of threats to their locations, guests and staff. Completely cyber-based threats were always on the periphery of worries concern for physical location managers, but new threats are emerging that are no longer just one type or the other another. A Blended Threat is a natural, accidental, or purposeful physical or cyber danger that has, or indicates the potential to have, crossover impacts and harm life, information, operations, the environment, and/or property. From hurricanes to active shooters to ransomware, threats to venues now bridge both the cyber and physical worlds, and venue managers needing to be prepared on all fronts. Workshop participants can expect to leave with a better understanding of the magnitude of Blended Threats and a sense of their importance, steps to take to in addressing these threats in their venues, and an awareness of resources available to assist them with their effort.

Trained Crowd Manager (TCM) Workshop – Designed to provide an overview on how to improve public safety and provide venue operators with an all-hazard approach to identify hazards, respond to emergency situations, and assist in crowd management during ingress, egress, and dispersal of crowds during evacuations for an overall improved guest experience. The workshop will begin with a presentation where staff responses to differing risk types, risk locations, crowd types and phases of crowd movements will be discussed. How your response will be affected by your venue type will also be explored. After the classroom presentation all attendees will visit the state-of-the-art Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons, for reality-based training exercises that will highlight and reinforce the earlier discussions. Attendees will be able to discuss crowd management techniques with both staff and other attendees, gaining valuable insights.

The pre-conference workshops at VC21 in Atlanta are your chance to reconnect, rediscover and reimagine, so reserve your spot NOW for just $99!  If you haven’t already registered for VC21, don’t delay!  Online registration ends at NOON CT on Thursday, July 22nd!  Register Now!

Please welcome our newest members who joined IAVM in June 2021. Thank you for being a part of the association! Also, let us get to know you better by participating in the I Am Venue Management series. Please visit http://www.iavm.org/i-am-venue-management-share-your-story to share your story and photo.

Kevan Akers, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Danielle Appleman, Gas South District, Duluth, GA

Phil Bassett, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Allyson Bellamy-Goslin, RBG Security Specialists, Cranston, RI

Michael Bleau, EventHub, Seattle, WA

Angela Brickley, Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill, NC

Jocelyn Church, Resch Center, Green Bay, WI

Jason Cichowicz, Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena, Baltimore, MD

Sofya Clark, Artpark, Lewiston, NY

Yarkeisha Dean, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Nick DeLuco, Oilers Entertainment Group Canada Corp., Edmonton, AB, Canada

Christopher Denby, Greater Richmond Convention Center, Richmond, VA

Said Estrada, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Camille Falzone, BC Place, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Andrew Firman, Football West, Maylands, Wau, Australia

Peyton Fisher, 3CDC, Williamsburg, OH

Jennifer Garner, Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, Little Rock, AR

Nicholas Giovanniello, Headway Workforce Solutions, Raleigh, NC

Brian Gorney, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Charmaine Greene, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Malena Grosz, Keen Independent Research, Phoenix, AZ

Rob Gruin, VenuesWest, Floreat, Wau, Australia

Stacey Hall, NCS4, Hattiesburg, MS

Doug Hamilton, VenuesWest, Floreat, Wau, Australia

Chris Harp, State Farm Arena – Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta, GA

Craig Hartenstine, Grande Exhibitions, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Kam Hobbs, Peace Center, Greenville, SC

John Howden, SaskTel Centre, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

Alina Jablonski, University of Kentucky, Monticello, GA

Nate Johnson, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Joy Joslin, Oklahoma City Thunder, Oklahoma City, OK

Cody Kopp, Walton Arts Center/Walmart AMP, Fayetteville, AR

Adam Ledgister, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Sharon Lee, San Mateo County Event Center, San Mateo, CA

Sarah Lehne, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Ari Levin, Madison Center for the Arts, Phoenix, AZ

Jeremy Lucy, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Jojy Mannanal, Cintas Corp., Long Beach, CA

Brittany Martin, Georgia World Congress Center, Austell, GA

Karrah Martin, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Reginald May, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

David Mello, K&K Insurance Group, Fort Wayne, IN

Marla Mitchell, Shreveport Convention Center, Shreveport, LA

Mark Moore, Lied Center for Performing Arts University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

Amy Murdock, CCI Code Consultants, Inc., Saint Louis, MO

Eric Nagy, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Molly Nakazono, Inventory Smart, Englewood, CO

Ezinne Nwaogu, Prudential Center, Newark, NJ

Megan Oberg, Rider Levett Bucknall, Denver, CO

Blake Oyler, Event Services – Utah State University, Logan, UT

Allison Parton, Clayton Arts Center/Maryville College, Maryville, TN

Hudson Perrine, Clayton Arts Center/Maryville College, Maryville, TN

Neda Perry, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Shannon Perry, Ontario Convention Center, Ontario, CA

Jeremy Poston, Electric Theater Center, St George, UT

Vanessa Ramos, Horseshoe Hospitality Services, Midland, TX

Juan Reyes, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Illya Riske, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ

Cassie Roberts Dispenza, Saffire, Austin, TX

Mike Ruhnke, Verizon Business Group, Piscataway, NJ

Dan Sandfelder, University of Kentucky, Lexington, GA

Rick Schmidt, Conventional Wisdom Corp., Ocoee, FL

Sarah Schock, Phoenix Suns Arena, Phoenix, AZ

Tom Scott, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Tommy Sisemore, Walton Arts Center/Walmart AMP, Fayetteville, AR

Shaun Sites, Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts, Boise, ID

Michael Smith, Pan American Center, Las Cruces, NM

Marcus Steele, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ

Curtis Thompson, Staff-1, Durham, NC

Patrick Trevino, TRAX Analytics, LLC, Alpharetta, GA

Todd Udy, Event Services – Utah State University, Logan, UT

Aja Vogelman, UVU – School of the Arts, Orem, UT

Tom Wagner, Levy Restaurants, Chicago, IL

Dylan Wanagiel, Prudential Center, Newark, NJ

Michael Ware, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Greg Wasserman, Prudential Center, Newark, NJ

Marissa Weseloh, Verizon Business Group, New York, NY

Josh Wickard, Oilers Entertainment Group Canada Corp., Edmonton, AB, Canada

Kathi Wimmer, Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex, Raleigh, NC

Kimberly Woodward, Riverside EpiCenter, Austell, GA

Jesse Zunke, Rider Levett Bucknall, Phoenix, AZ

Due to the many generous donations given by members, your IAVM Foundation Board of Trustees is proud to announce the winners of the VenueConnect 2021 scholarship winners for the Joseph A. Floreano Scholarship + Internship Program and the 100+ Women of IAVM campaign!

2021 Joseph A. Floreano Scholarship + Internship Program scholarship recipients:

• Sara Beatty, CVP, Theater Operations Manager, Kauffman Center for Performing Arts
• Donna Miller Brown, CVP, Production Services Manager, Kauffman Center for Performing Arts
• Victoria Radford, Director of Events, Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex
• Tammy Sweeney, Chief Operations Officer, TCU Place
• Eboni Wilson, Director, Guest Services, MGM Resorts

 

2021 100+ Women of IAVM campaign scholarship recipients:

• Victoria Costantino, CVP, Security Manager, Alamodome
• Polina Selinevich, Event Manager, Alerus Center
• Cynthia Tucker, Assistant Director of Event Operations, University of Southern California – Trojan Event Services
• Ashley Keen, CVP, Production Supervisor, Mesa Arts Center
• Erin Southard, Events Manager, Vicksburg Convention Center

 

Congratulations to the 2021 Scholarship recipients!  And THANK YOU for investing in YOUR Foundation to make each of these scholarships possible!

 

By R.V. Baugus

Steve Koonin is a busy man these days. The chief executive officer of the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arenas wears many hats.Steve Koonin is a busy man these days. The chief executive officer of the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena wears many hats. Steve (“Don’t call me Mr. Koonin!”) recently carved out a few minutes on the day of Game 4 of the NBA Hawks competing in the Eastern Conference to talk about a number of topics near and dear to his heart, many of which he will share as the Closing Keynote Speaker at VenueConnect in Atlanta with a presentation titled “From Venue To A Vehicle For Reopening.” His is a session that you will not want to miss and will be complete with insights on the role of venues today, the role and necessity of innovation, and even a story of stories about how he broke into the industry. Sorry, no spoiler alert here. You’ll have to be there. to talk about a number of topics near and dear to his heart, many of which he will share as the Closing Keynote Speaker at VenueConnect in Atlanta with a presentation titled From Venue To A Vehicle For Reopening. His is a session that you will not want to miss and will be complete with insights on the role of venues today, the role and necessity of innovation, and even a story of stories about how he broke into the industry. Sorry, no spoiler alert here. You’ll have to be there.

I CAN TELL FROM THE TITLE OF YOUR SESSION THAT SOME CHANGE IS IN THE WORKS FOR VENUES, AND IN THE TYPE THAT YOU OPERATE, DEFINITELY WITH ARENAS. HOW ACCURATE IS THAT?

Steve Koonin: Arenas have changed from venues to a reflection of the city. To me, venues can be a vehicle for recovery. How your venue means something in your marketplace I think is the future of the venue. We’re at a real reflection point. Let’s be honest, nobody ever thought that an arena or stadium would do voting, would do vaccinations, would do food. That’s the stuff I want to talk about is the ability to be so important that it changes your perception in your marketplace. We’ve seen that in ours.

We have to help people reimagine and think differently because if you’re going to go back and open up, pay x amount to the promoter, I don’t know if you will be successful, but if you demonstrate to the community that you’re part of the fabric of the community and that you stand for something, I think people will value the venue a lot more in the future than they have in the past.

I really believe that venues have a different role today than if we would have had this conversation two years ago.

TAKE A LEAP FORWARD NOW AND TALK ABOUT THESE CHANGES THAT YOU HAVE JUST MENTIONED IN MORE DEPTH.

When you look at a venue on the outside they have scale, they have mass, and people bring events there, but until recently they really haven’t served multiple functions in the community. They’ve shown multiple pieces of entertainment. Then the pandemic comes forward and all of a sudden you have to have a place for people to vote so you can socially distance and have incredible WiFi and technology that allows people from all over the city to get there.

We were the first arena to open our doors to voting. It was the largest single arena voting site in the history of the US with 3,000 people able to come in and vote safely and securely and taking advantage of our trained staff of hospitality, our technology, our location. Next comes vaccinations and we were leading the charge. Where’s the scale coming from? Stadiums and arenas. And then, kitchens during the pandemic. Our seven kitchens and Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s 11 kitchens all working around the clock to create meals for the hungry, for healthcare workers, and our role wasn’t to host the next concert, our role was to help the community get through the crisis.

When you become a fabric of the community, you become a place that people care about and a place that people know stands for good, then you’re increasing your role and your relevance to people throughout the community. We’ve seen that happen.

ONCE YOU GET TO AND THROUGH THAT POINT, IS IT TRUE ABOUT THE OLD SAYING OF “NO TURNING BACK?”

Correct, and there should not be any turning back. I look at the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium. They did a terrific job both with vaccinations and with voting. What do we have? We have scale, parking lots, seats, square footage that – even a small venue has more than a library or a school. If you look at the way voting has been done in the past and even the way that food distribution been done in the past, it’s always been on a very small scale. Now these venues – which a lot of them are community supported and city supported – are really paying it back to the residents of those markets. I think there is no going back for us. I think there are more and more and more things that we can and we should be doing with our venues to make sure that our cities and towns have everything they need for people to be successful.

OBVIOUSLY YOU NOW HAVE TO BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING WHEN YOU GET INTO THE PUBLIC ASSEMBLY VENUE INDUSTRY, RIGHT?

You look for opportunities and they don’t always have to be done in a negative. We saw voting as an opportunity, not a negative, because the formula was right, meaning connectivity, hospitality, scale.

I’m going to do a lot of speaking on our venue. We have a barber shop, we have a distillery, we have Top Golf, we have different things because the consumers are changing. I’m going to end with talking about how innovations fuels recovery. The innovation doesn’t always have to be bricks and mortar capital, but looking at your business differently.

WHAT NEW IMPLEMENTATIONS DO YOU SEE GOING FORWARD FOR VENUES AND THEIR STAFFS AND FANS AS WELL? WE THINK OF A LOT OF THOSE AS PHYSICAL IMPLEMENTATIONS BUT WHAT ARE SOME OF THE INNOVATIONS?

I think the innovation of moving from seats to spaces is a really important piece. I think how people use your venue is something today that’s far different than yesterday. Growing up, we would go to a ballgame, sit in the seats, eat and accept a hot dog that was cooked on a roller, stuffed in aluminum foil hours earlier, have a beer and never really got up and moved.

Today, a goldfish has a longer attention span than the average Millennial. That’s a scientific fact. So, you can’t go to market the same way. You can’t just have pedestrian offerings and think you’re going to be successful. You are competing with a great night out. You’re competing with people’s living rooms, and you have to innovate and you have to create and you have to replicate the best night out in your city. If you can do that, then you’re going to have tremendous success.

TALK A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MEALS YOU SERVED TO FRONT LINE WORKERS AND THOSE WHO JUST NEEDED A MEAL.

We did it three different ways. The first thing we did immediately when the country shut down is we realized there would be a lot of kids that would not be getting meals at school so how could we help and how could we supplement that. One of the things we had done was build 27 basketball courts throughout the metro area in underserved communities and we used those and turned them into pop-up grocery stores. Families could come by and get two weeks of groceries, vegetables, fruit, produce, dairy for free from those Hawks’ courts.

We created a delivery service and partnered with a company called Gooder which is a very cool food and security company. We partnered with State Farm who happens to be our naming rights sponsor and obviously one of the great companies in this country to help people in difficult times.

We created these grocery stores all throughout town that provided two weeks of groceries at a time and evolved that to a senior home food delivery. So, the first immediate thing was to make sure that we could help the communities around our courts which were some of the most underserved communities in the city.

The next piece we did, we wanted to keep and assist two different groups. A lot of medical workers leaving the hospital going into grocery stores were getting shot and they’re booed and even told they could not walk in wearing scrubs. We created a program called Healthcare Heroes where we took a bunch of restaurants who were obviously closed and struggling and turned them into commissaries. We made 8,000 meals per day for healthcare workers to take home to their families. So, when you got off your shift whether you were a doctor or orderly, you had a great meal pre-cooked, packaged and you could just walk out the door with it and go home and avoid going to the grocery store.

The third piece was working with the Atlanta Food Bank. We have seven huge kitchens in our building, so there was no reason for them not to be working. Our partners at Levy and our chefs came in and, again, created meals for months.

That’s what I’m talking about as looking at the assets you have and the problems you have and match them together.

IS STATE FARM ARENA NOW PLAYING AT CAPACITY?

We started with friends and family and then on January 26 we went to 1,700 people. We took that up post All-Star Game that we hosted to 3,200 people in mid-March. We went full bore except for some restricted NBA seats since the playoffs started in mid-May. We’ve been sold out 16,500 for every game. Knock wood, no issues.

DO PEOPLE NEED CONFIDENCE STILL TO ATTEND EVENTS?

The confidence of seeing it happen in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles now, and I think people see there is some genuine acceptance that now it’s working, and then obviously having vaccinated sections and vaccinated-only concerts like you saw with the Foo Fighters in Madison Square Garden last week. Those are the kind of events that continue to build confidence and bring it back.

For members of IAVM, this should be a record-setting year. It’s just, let’s get there, and let’s get there safely.

WHAT IS A TAKEAWAY YOU WOULD LIKE FOR YOUR PEERS TO GO HOME WITH?

I would like people to walk out and look at the people they either came with or work with when they get back and say, do we represent our home towns? How are we doing things differently? How are we taking lessons that are learned in the pandemic and applying them for the future? And how well do we really understand our customers? At the end of the day, the more that customer feels that you understand them, the more patronage they’re going to give you. We have so many options for entertainment in the world and the biggest one we usually compete with is our own living rooms at home. A night out has to be extraordinary. Are we extraordinary or are we just average? Then, how we get to extraordinary doesn’t mean expensive. It just means that from the service to the smiles to the experience means something. How are you thinking about your experience in your market for your customers?