From Wire Sources

ASM Global announced that Senior Vice President of North American Convention Centers, Brad Gessner, will retire at the end of 2019. Gessner will continue to serve as a consultant with the company.

“My wife Debra and I will be moving back to Texas in January to be closer to our family and spend more time with the grandkids,” Gessner said. “I have been contemplating this move since the beginning of the year and felt the timing was right now that the merger is complete. It has been a privilege to work with such a talented and dedicated team over the past seven years, and I am very proud of the significant strides we made together, successfully transitioning management and improving operations in our North American convention center facilities. I look forward to working with the ASM Global team to help drive the next wave of growth and innovation.”

As Senior Vice President, Gessner oversaw AEG Facilities’ portfolio of North American convention centers including the Los Angeles Convention Center, Hawaii Convention Center, Puerto Rico Convention Center, as well as the recent addition of the Palm Springs Convention Center. Gessner also served as the General Manager of the Los Angeles Convention Center until July 2018. When he arrived in the job, the Los Angeles Convention Center was running on a deficit. Under his leadership, in just a few years it was delivering an annual operating surplus of $10 million driven by implementation of operational improvements as well as an increased slate of event programming that included more conventions, meetings and special events.

“Brad was instrumental in helping to shape AEG Facilities’ North American convention center business, and led the division through a period of transformational growth,” said Bob Newman, President and CEO of ASM Global. “After a tremendous 42-year career, we are delighted that he will remain as a consultant with ASM Global. His thoughtful leadership and drive for results will help ensure that we meet our global objectives. I want to thank Brad for his invaluable guidance and extraordinary contributions over the years.”

Gessner started his career in 1978 as the Assistant Director of Special Facilities for St. Lucie County in Ft. Pierce, Florida. During his career he worked as General Manager of the HemisFair Arena and Municipal Auditorium in San Antonio and served as the Deputy General Manager of the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Racetrack. Prior to joining AEG Facilities in 2012, Gessner worked for 14 years at the San Diego Convention Center, serving as the General Manager of the facilities for six years.

By R.V. Baugus

By now hopefully you have read through your September/October issue of Facility Manager magazine. Within the pages of the magazine highlighted by a cover feature story on good friend and industry veteran Beth Wade was a secondary feature on Sara Escobar, a young lady who just graduated high school this past May and is now a college freshman at the University of Texas.

You might recall that in writing the story I placed an editor’s note before the feature stating that while Sara has no direct connection to the public assembly venue industry, her story is indeed one about life and overcoming some of the most difficult challenges that can be thrown at someone so young.

It was only a matter of days before one of our industry’s wisest in Frank Russo sent me an email to share some ideas about how Sara’s story does in fact play into our industry.

“Venue managers with a significant part-time labor force should consider using this article as a motivational tool,” Frank wrote. “The story gives hope, guidance on how to improve your lot in life, how to be grateful for and accept what you have been given, and how doing better gives you a chance to help others.”

Frank has always been someone I could count on, and I should have known he would have found an even greater silver lining in this story.

I now challenge our industry’s venue managers to heed Frank’s advice to make this story shareable among your part-time labor. It is not only a story of hope (where many stories begin and end), but one of an individual who actually turned her hope and dreams into the reality of a college education on the road toward one day becoming a dentist.

Frank didn’t stop at saying our industry’s part-time employees should be the only benefactors of Sara’s story.

“I’m away for the weekend but as soon as I get home I’m making copies of this story for my grandkids!” he shared.

By R.V. Baugus

You take the home field advantage. Really, we don’t want it. Take it, please.

Strange giveaway, right? Turned out not to be with the scintillating World Series that just concluded with the Washington Nationals downing the Houston Astros, 6-2, to capture the franchise’s first championship as the Nationals.

So about this home field deal. It seems that history was made when Houston’s Michael Brantley went down swinging to end the game and send the Nationals’ players and coaches onto the field at Houston’s Minute Maid Park to begin the championship dogpile on the pitcher’s mound.

Aside from the franchise taking the championship home to the nation’s capital, the series was the first in Major League Baseball history where the visiting team won every game. Every game. The Nats captured the first two at Minute Maid to get an early advantage as the series shifted back to Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. There, the visiting Astros went on a surge and swept all three games to send the series back to Texas for what local fans surely thought would be a clincher with Houston now leading the series, 3-2.

Alas, the odds continued for the visiting team with Washington overcoming the deficit to win it all in seven games.

Want some strange but true stats? For the first time in MLB history the road team went 7-0 in the World Series. Just two other World Series — the 1906 and 1996 editions — saw the road team win the first five games, but never has the first six or even all seven been won by the visiting team.

The jitters usually come for road teams in most sports. Could this have been an instance of the home team pressing too hard? Who knows, but the Nationals averaged 7.5 runs per game in Houston while averaging a paltry 1 run at their home stadium. On the flip side, Houston averaged 6.3 runs per contest on the road while getting just 2.8 runs at home.

Home field is more of a statistical advantage in basketball and football, but in baseball the home team still wins approximately 54 percent of the time. Crazy!

Lastly, and most boggling, is that MLB, NBA, and NHL have combined for more than 1,400 best-of-seven postseason series, with this Houston-Washington tussle the first time the road team has won seven games in any of those series.

Al Michaels coined “Do you believe in miracles?” when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet Union in the semifinals of the 1980 Winter Olympics. Well, statistically speaking, we just had another miracle that played out on a baseball diamond.

Home field, anyone?

By R.V. Baugus

Bill Carl “BC” Johnson, Chief Listening Officer of the BCJ Group, will present a workshop at the February 17-19 GuestX in San Diego on the topic of “Discover A Culture Your Guests and Employees Will Love.”

Does the name BC Johnson sound familiar? If you attended VenueConnect this past July in Chicago, it should. Johnson was the keynote speaker at the Amphitheaters & Fairgrounds sector meeting on the topic of “Creating the RIGHT Culture for Your Organization.”

With an overwhelming response to the session, Johnson returns to lead another interactive session to GuestX attendees. Johnson took a few minutes away from a busy schedule to share some about himself and what attendees at GuestX can expect from his presentation.

GuestX is of course about the guest experience. Why should folks plan to attend GuestX?

Leading organizations are always looking for an edge and a competitive advantage. By consistently exploring the cutting edge of GuestX, organizations can expect to be creative and innovative. Creativity and Innovation are driving forces behind a successful Guest Experience.

Help some of our attendees out who may not know you about your professional experience in this field of guest experience.

For 20 years, I worked at a Human Trap built by a Mouse in Orlando Florida! At Disney, I served as a finance director, organization development director, business development executive and led major client engagements for the Disney Institute. Since leaving Disney, The BCJ Group has engaged with professional sports teams, college athletic departments, and cruise lines to connect their culture to the employee and guest experience.

What are just a few of the things you can share as a “sneak preview” for what you expect to speak about at your session?

Guest expectations are increasing year over year. What you did today and yesterday are now baked into the guests’ expectations. Our guests expect their experience to be personalized and frictionless. Organizations need to be positioned with the right business strategy, organization strategy, and people strategy to meet this challenge.

Speaking of guest experience, what do you see as the biggest change in that area today as far as what guests expect when they go to a venue?

Our guests’ expectations are being shaped by Amazon, Zappos, Netflix, Starbucks, etc. Everywhere they go and with everything they do, they expect it to be fast and specifically designed for them. When they walk into a venue, they come loaded with these expectations.

Any takeaways you hope to leave attendees with for them to go back home and implement or execute?

During our time together, everyone will walk away with 2-3 things they can take back and immediately implement. The GuestX challenge is a continuous journey and we will move forward on this journey together.

Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of GuestX 2020. Seats are limited so register today!

By R.V. Baugus

Daniel Malandruccolo, director of guest services at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, and Amber Watts, senior director, guest services at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, are two of the champions and creators of a session at the February 17-19 GuestX in San Diego touching on the important topic matters of accessibility and inclusivity for guests at public assembly venues.

We caught up with Daniel to discuss just some of what attendees can expect to learn at GuestX.

GuestX is of course about the guest experience. Why should folks plan to attend GuestX?

We are revolutionizing the way guests think about guest experience. This conference and the panels surrounding it center around total inclusion. This is not only inclusion for our guests, but inclusion for all departments to work as one with the goal being AMAZING guest experience.

Help some of our attendees out who may not know you about your experience and expertise in the area of accessibility.

I am proud to say that our arena was the first NHL arena to be sensory certified. After working with Kulture City, we have made giant strides to make all our guests feel welcome. All on our guest services team are sensory certified and go through a full ADA inclusion training. I got my first taste of true inclusion during the 2015 World Series when I was working with the Mets. We had to build many temporary ADA locations in under 48 hours and when that happens, you learn laws and regulations real quick!

What are just a few of the things you can share as a “sneak preview” for what you expect to speak about at your session?

Nursing pods, sensory inclusion, the tough questions for legal councils and more! Come ready to learn a lot about ADA inclusion.

Speaking of accessibility, what do you see as the biggest change in that area today as far as what guests expect and encounter when they go to a venue?

The needle moves every event for guests. The experience on the ice or field is not the only thing that brings a guest to your venue any more. Every day we are thinking about ways to keep our guests entertained. Whether that is better concourse activations, give-a-ways, in game experience or just the overall customer service. A guest is comparing their experience at their venue to what they can have at their house in front of a big screen T.V. We have to ensure we can always provide a better experience than that. The term Driveway to Driveway experience means a lot to us. We try to make sure from the moment a guest pulls out of their driveway to the second they pull back in, they have a good experience along the way. This includes ticketing, parking, security, guest services, etc.

Any takeaways you hope to leave attendees with for them to go back home and implement or execute?

We are hoping to build a network of resources for all attendees. This will be useful for having real contacts in the industry to either bounce ideas off of or learn from.