The COVID-19 pandemic has changed, not only the world, but especially the current scope of the public assembly industry. One thing it has not changed is the servant leader hearts of those venue professionals who power it.  IAVM is not just an association, it is a family of 7,000+ colleagues who are working with local, state, and federal agencies to not just monitor the current crisis, but to advocate and open doors for those affected by the pandemic where possible.

Here is a quick update of what is happening and what IAVM and its members have been doing:

What IAVM is Doing

IAVM has been hosting very successful town hall webinars for members, averaging ten a week. The webinars are sector specific and allow members to speak openly regarding the challenges they are facing, as well as sharing ideas for solutions. In addition, sector happy hours are offered through social meeting platforms, each evening of the week, to humanize the circumstances we find ourselves in. In addition, our Australian members have a coffee break webinars to afford our VMA members a chance to learn and socialize.

IAVM has created multiple channels to disseminate information and for resource sharing.  We currently have two COVID 19 working groups, both in concert with the CDC and DHS. These working groups are currently providing necessary digital resources, which are housed in an online clearinghouse on the IAVM website.  These groups are also looking to the future and creating a ramp up document to prepare our members for the plethora of events being re-scheduled to Q 3 and 4.

Through the use of the VenueNet, IAVM’s popular discussion forum, members have been able to openly discuss challenges and successes, ways in which their venues are giving back, strategies for the future, and so much more. 

IAVM recently secured the assistance of TwinLogic Solutions, a lobbying firm, to assist in seeking federal financial stimulus dollars for our members under the CARES Act. A FACT SHEET, detailing how the relief legislation could assist our members and member venues, was provided to all current members, as well as an update on the future steps regarding our advocacy for more stimulus assistance.

IAVM Members are Stepping Up!

One of the things that our members do best is to volunteer to give back to their local communities. They are playing a key role in fighting the pandemic, while serving the communities in which they reside. The following are just a few ways in which our members, and their venues, are giving back where it is needed most:

• 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.
• The United Center in Chicago has 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.
• 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
• 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. 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.
• 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. 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
• There are so many more that we do not have room to voice our pleasure in the heroes that are stepping up in a major way.

Each new day during this unprecedented time in our industry brings different ways in which IAVM is called to educate, advocate for, and inspire public assembly venue professionals, worldwide, and its members are asked to step up and serve the communities in which they serve.

Our venues were created as an economic engine and a wonderful place to gather the community. Now, our venues have become a greater asset to their community as venue professionals step up to a greater task, fighting the COVID 19 pandemic and serving those who have been negatively affected by this unprecedented virus.

Stay strong as we navigate these troubling waters. I am proud to be associated with IAVM’s Executive Committee, Board of Directors, and volunteer leaders who make us strong and relevant.

Brad Mayne, CVE

IAVM President & CEO

By Carl Adkins

The one that wasn’t. That’s what the 2020 Men’s Final Four is likely to be called in the future. Upon writing this, tomorrow was to be Final Four Friday. Peak arrival of 80,000 fans coming to Atlanta ready for an exciting weekend of championship basketball and other amazing events. I guess It just wasn’t in the cards…

I feel a little selfish posting about this given the current situation across the globe, but felt I couldn’t let the day go by without tipping my cap to the literally thousands of the sports and hospitality professionals who had put in, and were ready to put in, a tremendous ATL effort to make this the best Final Four ever.

Airport workers, hotel staff, public safety personnel, restaurants and attractions, venue staff at the stadium for “The Big Dance,” the arena staff for the DII & DIII championships, Centennial Olympic Park’s staff for the concert series, Georgia Tech and Georgia State staff – the host institutions for the championships – over 2,000 volunteers ready to serve, literally hundreds of event professionals to bring it all to life and the Congress Center staff for the many other ancillary events, all were ready for our moment on the national stage. All of these amazing people had invested so much time, energy and effort to ensure this would have been the crowning jewel of Atlanta’s trifecta of major sporting events – the CFP National Championship in 2018 and Super Bowl LIII last year and the Final Four this year.

Now, so many of these same wonderful people are just trying to figure out how to keep going. How to stay healthy and safe, pay the rent, feed and care for their families, pay the bills while wondering what the next few weeks and months hold … truly, uncharted waters.

While the gravity of our collective situation helps put things in perspective, I still hate that all of these amazing events that bring so much joy to so many aren’t happening this year. The student-athletes who could have made the “One Shining Moment” highlight reel, the media covering the events for the fans back home, the thousands of people enjoying live music in a most beautiful setting and the millions tuned in around the country to watch the magic of March Madness’s thrilling conclusion.

My sincere thanks to the amazing NCAA staff for all of their hard work and partnership with us as a host community and last but certainly not least, our host committee team. They’ve worked tirelessly to make sure that Atlanta was represented at its best. We were all so close to the finish line of four years of outstanding, raise the bar “and one” efforts … all to have it dissipate in a matter of hours a couple of weeks ago.

While the last few weeks has helped all of us locally prepare for the “one that wasn’t,” it’s still hard to take. The weather forecast this weekend? Gorgeous. Perfect Georgia Spring weather that would feed in to the azaleas in bloom next weekend in Augusta. A couple of weeks of the best annual events in the country – produced by the best for the rest. It just wasn’t in the cards. My heart breaks for everyone involved. It also breaks for so many that are suffering across the country with our new next normal. So, for now, we just have to accept … this was the one that wasn’t.

Peace to all…

IAVM member Carl Adkins has served as Executive Director of the Atlanta Football Host Committee & Atlanta Basketball Host Committee and for 20 years prior to that was General Manager of the Georgia Dome.

For the next few Thursdays, IAVM will be releasing pre-recorded ZOOMcasts on pertinent education topics related to the challenges you’re facing during the COVID19 pandemic. Each ZOOMcast will be around 30 minutes and will feature experts in their respective fields.

After viewing these recordings please tune in the following Wednesday to discuss these topics during a live Q&A session.

This week’s ZOOMcast is on Risk Management & Disruption Risk, presented by Peter Ashwin, AVSS faculty member, and Wayne Middleton, CVE, Chair of VMA’s VMS Committee. This is part 1 of a 4-part series called Business Continuity & Resilience (BC&R).

Click HERE to view the recording.

Click HERE to register for the live Q&A session with Peter and Wayne on Wednesday, April 8 at 6pm ET / Thursday 8am in Sydney / 10 am in Aukland

Upcoming Topics Include:
Venue Deep Cleaning
Business Impact Analysis (BC&R part 2)
Leadership in Times of Crisis
Business Continuity Management (BC&R part 3)
Readiness & Resilience (BC&R part 4)
Preparing for Upward Career Mobility
Venue Conversion Update
Preparation & Recovery

By R.V. Baugus

Do you remember where you were when you found out the rapidly rising death toll in China due to the COVID-19 coronavirus? How about when you heard that the United States had registered its first positive coronavirus test? What about when you got word about the first death stateside? When the NBA suspended its season even as games were being played? When your state went into a lockdown?

We don’t tend to forget milestone dates, or at the least dates that slap us upside the head with some news that we never would come in our lifetime. But here we are, most of us at home, riding out one of the most vicious pandemic storms to ever come our way, one with no available vaccine, and one that does not discriminate whom it infects.

Many of the fortunate still work from home, but sadly millions of others in industries from A through Z find themselves furloughed or fully unemployed, victims of a virus that no one can see, an invisible plague seemingly without a true finish line.

It’s amazing what our mind recalls. I know where I was on Tuesday, September 13, 2005. It was two weeks after Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and I was driving from Dallas to Lafayette, Louisiana, to visit Greg Davis at the Cajundome, where his University of Louisiana-Lafayette arena was housing guests (in Greg’s kind words) who had managed to leave New Orleans by bus.

Greg took me on a tour of the arena with some 3,5000 guests in place, down from a high of about 7,000. It was surreal to see concession stands that normally hawked beverages, hot dogs, and popcorns, now taped over and giving formula, diapers, and many other essentials to guests. Temporary showers were constructed just outside the arena. It was the most distant feeling from a basketball game or a concert that you could imagine.

Today, many of our members have stepped up to make their venues available for help in the battle against the deadly coronavirus. We do our best to keep up with venues who are doing their part and to share, but it is obviously always going to be an incomplete list. This is good in the sense it shows our industry for what it is — caring, available, ready to help at a moment’s notice.

We still don’t know when those symphonies, trade shows, concerts, and sports will return to our venues. We do know that they will one day, and when that day arrives, it will be the perfect marriage of venue managers and guests once again seeing each other in an environment where happiness rules the day.

(Editor’s Note: IAVM members are also unsung heroes. Many continue to show up to work, while numerous others have opened their doors (and their parking lots) to serve as makeshift hospitals, shelters for the homeless, and to serve as drive-through screening sites. And with many more in our industry at home, please be sure to thank the scores of heroes who keep us going each and every day and chronicled below)

By Steve Jones

In spite of the uncertainty that Coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused, there are still many industries filled with hard-working men and women who are continuing to work amid the coronavirus outbreak. From hospitals to delivery services, to pharmacies, to grocery stores, transportation and logistics and security companies, there are many employees who, while they may not wear capes, are our nation’s heroes. These largely unsung heroes are helping our us survive this crisis by driving vehicles filled with crucial supplies, stocking store shelves, filling prescriptions and providing essential public safety services.

Now is the time to share your appreciation or our nation’s unsung heroes. While most of are deeply thankful for the doctors, nurses, and emergency workers who are tending to the sick, we should also be appreciative for the men and women who hold essential jobs that require they show up to work during the pandemic.

The front line in the pandemic are the heroes working at grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores and take-out restaurants. These individuals are keeping us healthy by providing essential services that we desperately need. Consider thanking your supermarket’s shop clerk who is doing their best to keep the shelves stocked with necessities and the cashier who is ringing up the purchases. Express your gratitude to the Amazon delivery person who brought essentials to your home.

Our nation should all honk in appreciation for the men and women driving tractor-trailer rigs across the country who are delivering vital food and supplies at an unprecedented pace. Some police departments in several states are helping truck drivers find safe places to park and are even arranging to get food directly to the driver.

Let’s salute our hard-working highly trained men and women that are our country’s first responders. Nationwide, there are over 1 million security professionals on the job, classified as essential personnel, who can be put in high-risk situations as they confront and detain criminals engaged in theft, trespassing, gang activity and every other manner of unlawful behavior that occurs.

Employees, shareholders and other stakeholders look to their business leaders for strength and direction. Let’s express our gratitude to the company leaders who are sharing their intel to help others during this challenging time. For example, some leaders are publicly sharing their crisis plans, which include employee communications with information about COVID-19, how it’s transmitted, what they’re doing about it, employee FAQs, and links to resources with more information.

Steve Jones is CEO of Allied Universal, a leading security and facility services company based in Santa Ana, California, and in North America with more than 235,000 employees and revenues over $8.4 billion.