By R.V. Baugus

Once again, IAVM members are answering the call in times of emergency, and today the biggest crisis throughout the world resides in the pandemic COVID-19 coronavirus. We are sharing below just a sampling of how our member venues are doing their part to assist in any means necessary to help others in need.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU IN TWO WAYS!

— Please send your story to rv.baugus@iavm.org so we can share with the membership. If you have a longer story to tell, we welcome those as well.

— IMPORTANT: Please send high resolution PHOTOS of at least 2MB or 2,000KB to me at the same email address. We would like to put together a compilation of stories told through photos, such as the one you see below from the Vicksburg Convention Center, for both the newsletter and the next issue of Facility Manager. We strongly encourage you to send those to us!

The Vicksburg (MS) Convention Center (managed by VenuWorks) team worked diligently this week to create CDC compliant masks to be distributed for the community, local medical outlets, and emergency responders. They brought sewing machines from home, donated fabric, and put their heart into providing this valuable offering. Their goal is to create at least 50 by week’s end. The design of the masks display super heroes which goes along with the theme of the medical personnel out there working diligently to take care of many. – -Annette Kirklin, executive director

The United Center in Chicago announced that it would become a “logistic hub” for the city, state, and federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the arena itself along with the outside campus will be used in helping food distribution, first responder staging, and collecting medical supplies. “On behalf of the Chicago Bulls, Chicago Blackhawks, our athletes, our front offices and our dedicated United Center personnel, our thoughts and support are with the people of this great city and state. Together, we will get through this,” the venue said in a statement.

The local emergency operations center in Asheville, NC, requested to use the Harrah’s Cherokee Center as a point of distribution for supplies, materials and food packs. Additionally, they are today setting up a local COVID- 19 hotline for FAQs, etc., and utilizing the venue’s box office phone system and staff to manage. — Chris Corl, general manager

The Louisiana Department of Health is using the Burton Coliseum Complex as a testing location. Presently, the testing operation is intended to serve a five-parish (county) region. The initial plan calls for testing to take place for the next two weeks or until they exhaust their supply of test kits. No fees will be assessed for this operation. In fact, the government agency that owns the complex (county government agency) authorized me to cover all supporting expenses, such as equipment rentals, signage, and meals. Lastly, our government agency committed to covering all fees for anyone tested without insurance. — Jason Barnes, director

Foodlink is utilizing the Floreano Convention Center in Rochester, NY, as an emergency food supply box packing center. — Meredith Howie, event coordinator

The Richmond (VA) Raceway is being used as a storage location as the county collects supplies and distributes them. We are not charging them for the facility usage. — Megan Hazzard, director of events

I have a group of 275 Volunteers ages 50 to 89. They are amazing people! Every other day I send them a message, a “how to” on how to get groceries delivered to their doorstep. I also send funny pictures of my grandbaby. Next, I will send training points by email that we can all keep adding to and engaging with. — Betsy Boes, FOH & volunteer manager, Luther Burbank Center, Santa Rosa, CA

The Convention Center Authority in Nashville announced a donation of $500,000 to the COVID-19 Response Fund on behalf of the Music City Center. The donation will support those in the hospitality industry as well as others in the community who are facing hardship due to the virus. Music City Center is making the contribution solely through its operating revenues. As we face these volatile and uncertain times, the one thing we can all do is find ways to support one another. We cannot predict when businesses will return to any degree of normality and want to offer help to our community of workers and families who have been furloughed or displaced. — Charles Starks, president and CEO, Music City Center

By Rich Thompson

This past Monday, March 23, the VenuWorks-managed Bridge View Center in Ottumwa, Iowa, began their partnership with the Ottumwa YMCA & Ottumwa Community Schools in developing an Emergency Meal Distribution Program, in which we utilize our facility and kitchen to assemble and distribute 1,000 lunches and 1,000 dinners daily to area children, with those numbers looking to increase as warmer weather arrives in a few weeks.

Distribution options include drive-up service during predetermined times at the Bridge View Center, as well as 16 other designated locations community wide. Delivery options are also available in certain circumstances.

Bridge View Center’s Executive Chef Bob Newell and his team of volunteers have been working 14+ hour days in implementing this program, along with their help from Ottumwa Community Schools’ food service managers, and Ottumwa YMCA’s staff and volunteers covering all aspects of sourcing product during these challenging times, food
prep/production, and distribution community-wide.

Bridge View Center’s Administrative team is providing support by fielding calls, handling of all food billing and accounting work, and managing public relations to build awareness of the program.

Bridge View Center’s Operations team are also assisting in cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting all work and food prep areas twice daily to ensure that equipment, materials, and the environment are maintained in a sanitary condition.

As you can see, this is a complete team-wide effort, and we are proud to be able to support such a program, and to effectively impact our community in such a visible way. Our relationships with local media have paid off as well, covering this program and helping us get the word out to parents who are having trouble feeding their children in this difficult time, whether it being for financial reasons, or simply having to fulfill their employment duties. For
example: click here.

Rich Thompson is Sales & Marketing Manager for the Bridge View Center.

By Michalle Riehle-Ludtke

The Los Angeles Convention Center & Levy Restaurants teamed up Musically Fed, a nonprofit that works with artists, promoters, management, and venues nationwide to donate unused, backstage meals to community organizations comprised of at least 50% veterans and focus on feeding the homeless, hungry, and food insecure, to donate and distribute 4,000 pounds of food to the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools benefiting students and their families grades 6-12.

Musically Fed, after being notified of another 4,000-pound surplus, resulting from event cancellations, harnessed relationships garnered during its GRAMMY Awards initiative. In 24 hours, Musically Fed connected with Alliance facilitating a cooperative effort powered by LACC, Levy Restaurants and Musically Fed. This amalgamation of socially-minded organizations successfully provided several bags of free groceries for hundreds of students and their families.

“We are thrilled to share the success of this initiative,” said Ellen Schwartz, General Manager, Los Angeles Convention Center. “As a facility committed to sustainability and community service, Musically Fed was a perfect partner to further our goals to reduce our environmental footprint while serving those in need.”

COVID-19 school closures and the ravaged grocery shelves left in its wake, left many Alliance families ill-prepared due to both the depletion of available food and their dependence on the schools for daily sustenance.

“It was amazing to see how quickly everyone moved for a common good,” commented Jonathan Tiongco, Founding Principal for the Alliance Marine – Innovation & Technology 6-12 Complex, which is part of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools. “After a few texts, everyone sent out eblasts and posted to our Facebook parenting boards. Two hours later, hundreds of families showed up with tears of joy in their eyes.”

“Schools and at-risk populations have been all the more acutely impacted by this pandemic,” commented Musically Fed’s CEO, Maria Brunner. “Our amazing partnership with Levy Restaurants and the Los Angeles Convention Center, provides a beacon of light from civic-minded organizations; leveraging their resources and compassion to positively impact so many families, during this otherwise dark time.”

“At Levy, we are continuously looking for new ways to help and give back to the community whenever we can,” said Patrick Smart, General Manager, Taste of LA by Levy, LACC. “Working with Musically Fed during GRAMMYS was such a great experience, we knew they would be the best group to call when we were looking to repurpose food, and ensure our community was benefiting from our donation.”

Michalle Riehle-Ludtke is Marketing & Community Relations Specialist for the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Photo: Levy Restaurants team at the LACC after loading 4,000 pounds of food donations.

By R.V. Baugus

The Jacob K. Javits Center has been in the national news with construction of a temporary medical station to house non-COVID-19 patients and relieve the burden on local hospitals.

The venue sent out a tweet on Thursday morning that reads, Our workforce constructs extraordinary events and exhibits throughout the year, but this is the first time we’re building a medical facility inside our halls. We’re honored to help New Yorkers in need during this global crisis. #covid19

By this time next week, the 1.8 million square-feet venue will include a 1,000-bed medical station for non-COVID-19 cases and overseen by more than 300 federal workers.

“I want to thank (IAVM member) Alan Steele, who runs this convention center,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said during a March 23 press conference. “He has put on many shows before, and his team is very adaptable, but this is the first time they have ever built a hospital inside the Javits Center.”

The addition is called the New York Medical Station at the Javits Center and serves as an overflow hospital to treat non-COVID-19 illnesses. In all, there will be four separate 250-bed facilities to help with the overflow from the escalating cases in the City.

The help from the convention center comes at a time when it is undergoing a massive expansion and renovation that actually should help once the temporary medical stations are erected, as will upgrades made during the last major expansion in 2014 that included a better lighting system and new mechanical systems to reduce noise and improve air quality.

It also helps that the Javits Center has enormous loading docks that will allow for moving in freight in rapid turnarounds.

When all is complete, an additional 2,000 beds will be onsite to ease the strain of New York’s overtaxed hospitals receiving patients in large numbers.

By Brian Wright

As I look back on my first 10 years in the venue management industry, I realize that the one common aspect of each of my roles has been internships. Heck, I did four of them during college with Finley Stadium, Chattanooga Lookouts, The Ripken Experience, and the Chattanooga Lookouts again.

In both of my full-time roles at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, TN, as venue manager and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta as assistant facility maintenance manager, interns have played a critical role in our operation. In two-and-a-half years at Mercedes-Benz alone, we have had 17 operations interns, and six of them are now working full-time in the organization and numerous others elsewhere in the industry.

It is one of those rites of passages most of us went through to get where we are today and we regularly sit at lunch and tell current interns horror stories of grungy tasks we once had to do. The competitiveness of our industry forces college graduates to take on internships before being considered for entry-level positions. And so, as employers, we know that interns need us to build their resumes and get their career off the ground. But rarely is it discussed how vital interns are to us being able to pull off our events and project schedules during our busiest times of the year, while not killing our budgets with overhead.

Thus, venues must make it a priority to have an internship program that is focused on the individual and developing their experience. Here are a few strategies we have used at Finley Stadium and Mercedes-Benz Stadium toward that effort that I believe can help launch the individual’s career:

1. Hire slow and set the tone.
I have been fortunate to live on both sides of the coin hiring wise. At Finley, we were lucky to get 20 applicants, all from UT-Chattanooga, whereas at MBS we have averaged 200+ each hiring period from around the world. Regardless of which category you fall in, the idea is the same: review each resume carefully and look for some relatable experience to pick your interview candidates. Then hire from the interview for attitude over aptitude. As a wise man once said, “You can teach aptitude, you cannot teach attitude.”

My first day as ticket operations intern at the Chattanooga Lookouts at age 18, I was taken to the back steps (the ballpark sits on a sizable hill) and set up on a pressure washer. Not knowing how to turn it off (or for that matter on), I continued happily pressure washing all day long. Our owner, Frank Burke, who was also working very hard mowing the hill with a residential push mower (which further imprinted on my first impressions that everyone in this industry works their butt off), noticed me and started calling me Honey Badger, a nickname that I couldn’t escape in Chattanooga.

So, to overemphasize the ups and downs of working in our industry I choose to make the first day of our internship program very exciting with tours, meeting people, and generally fun activities. But, the second day I assign a cumbersome task or project to see where their work ethic and attention to detail is. Only one time has an intern walked out on the second day (because he was above pressure washing), but he saved himself the trouble of later finding out this industry was not for him.

2. Welcome feedback and personalize the internship.

Remember what it was like the first day of your first internship when everything in sports and events was sunshine and roses, but quickly reality alters your perspective and you find your likes, dislikes, and questions? It is so important that you provide opportunities for your interns to interact with you one-on-one regularly. This is an exercise we do every two months formally, and more often, informally. It is a good opportunity to keep your interns steered in their right direction and receive open, honest feedback. It is then your job to provide them opportunities to get closer to their passion, as this is where they will be at their best.

3. Provide opportunity for ownership.

Encourage your interns to find gaps in your operation and let them fill those voids. We have created multiple positions at Mercedes-Benz with interns where our initial staffing model fell short. In each of those cases the intern saw an opportunity through open-ended projects with an end goal and a few loose steps to guide along the way and took the initiative to turn it into their own. By the end of the internship, they not only laid the framework for the position, but sold themselves to fill it.

4. DON’T kick them to the curb.

If your company has open positions your interns could be qualified for, try to keep them. But never discourage them from seeking full-time employment elsewhere (even in the middle of their internship) or try to keep them on as an intern after their internship period is up. Both serve a disservice to them. Their goal is to get a full-time job, so if it isn’t in the cards at your venue, they should get additional experience elsewhere to get closer to reaching that goal.

Being intern-centric means you will actively help your interns take the next step in their career. The biggest mistake interns and entry-level job seekers make in my opinion is simply listing the job descriptions on their resume. Employers want to see what specifically you accomplished, how you made your venue better through metrics, and what your venue is doing now because of you that they weren’t doing before. To be able to do that, Internship program leaders need to provide opportunities to ask questions, take ownership, and provide work in areas they are passionate about. That is when you find out what someone is capable of, and ultimately help them reach their goals.

Brian Wright is assistant facility maintenance manager at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.