Jerry Seltzer, co-founder of Bay Area Seating Service (BASS) Tickets in the 1970s, a San Francisco Bay Area computerized ticket services, died on July 1 of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 87. From 1983 to 1993, he was a vice president of sales and marketing for Ticketmaster. On his return to the Bay Area he joined Bonjourfleurette.com as marketing and sales director and COO. He co-founded the Sonoma Valley Film Festival (now Sonoma Filmfest) and served on a number of community boards, including the Bay Area American Red Cross, and he helped produce the 30th anniversary special for Cecil Williams Glide church. He later was employed by Brown Paper Tickets in sales.

As of mid-2010, Seltzer was serving as an advisor to gotdibbs.com and working as a volunteer consultant to new amateur roller derby leagues.

It is Seltzer’s involvement and formation of roller derby that he is perhaps best known. Seltzer said that his father had always wanted roller derby to be a legitimate sport, and to be in the Olympics, further adding that with the contemporary grassroots movement of roller derby, including the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), Modern Athletic Derby Endeavor (MADE) and USA Roller Sports (USARS), he thought roller derby could now be an Olympic sport. He is known as “The Commissioner” by some participants in modern roller derby.

“Jerry was one of kind. A man with a mission,” longtime friend Michael Coats told the Sonoma (CA) Index-Tribune’s Emily Charrier. “Whether roller derby, BASS Tickets or the Sonoma film festival, the man could put butts in the seats. Sonoma is a bit lighter today without him.”

Seltzer was a promoter deluxe, much of it due to roller derby, a sport invented by his father, Leo, in 1935. Jerry succeeded his dad in overseeing the league in 1959 and spearheaded a sport popular not just in the Bay Area but by that time fully across the country.

He produced the film “Derby” in 1970, and was featured in “Derby Baby,” a documentary he brought to the 2012 Sonoma International Film Festival, along with a dozen derby players. Nov. 18, 1985 was declared “Jerry Seltzer Day” in San Francisco due to his work with Thunder Road, a drug rehab for teenagers.

Professionally, he was a born promoter who knew how to build an audience. It began with roller derby. The sport was invented by his father, Leo, in 1935, as a cheap form of entertainment during the Depression. When Jerry took over the league in 1959, the sport was popular in the Bay Area but not especially well-known across the nation. Seltzer changed that.

Spreading like wildfire, roller derby was broadcast on more than 110 television networks and played 52 weeks a year, making it one of the most-watched sports of the era.

Personal confession: as a child it was on my must-watch list every Saturday night on Channel 11 at 11 p.m., with memories of those San Francisco Bay Area Bombers, the Detroit Devils, and so many other teams.

Seltzer and Harold Silen founded BASS in the 1970s and its computerized system gave purchasers the opportunity to buy tickets over the telephone. Seltzer later served as vice president of marketing and sales for Ticketmaster, helping it grow into the country’s largest ticketing agency.

Details have not been released for a private memorial that the family will schedule for a celebration of life for a man worth celebrating and who always celebrated others.

Stateside Foods has been announced as the new naming-rights partner of the 6,000-seat Bolton Arena, located in Middlebrook on the boundary between Horwich and Lostock in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, UK.

Stateside Foods has been a partner of the arena since 2013, with the venue having staged a number of the company’s events. The deal is effective immediately.

As part of the new agreement, Stateside Foods will benefit from branding across internal and external locations at the arena from mid-July. The partnership will also be promoted across digital platforms.

Stateside Foods employees and their families are also entitled to a fully-funded gym membership as part of the deal.

“The partnership with Stateside Foods has developed over the past six years,” said John Ashley, head of commercial at Bolton Arena. “By increasing their sponsorship to become the new naming rights partner, this demonstrates the benefits of our working relationship.

“Stateside Foods are one of the largest employers in the local area and we aim to assist them to enhance their brand awareness. With over one million visitors every year, the arena is the ideal platform for Stateside Foods to reach the local community.”

Bolton Arena opened in 2001 and hosted events during Manchester’s staging of the Commonwealth Games the following year. The venue has also hosted Davis Cup tennis matches in the past.

This has been a transformational year for the IAVM Foundation.  With your help, the Board of Trustees has continued to take the necessary steps to strengthen the Foundation both organizationally and financially.  As a Trustee, it has been a pleasure to be a part of this transformation.  We have placed our focus on Leadership, Strategy and Fundraising which has created positive outcomes for the IAVM Foundation and IAVM membership. 

VenueConnect is in just a few weeks and the Foundation will continue to build upon this momentum through our many events and activities such as the Foundation Golf Tournament sponsored by People Ready on July 21^st and the IAVM Foundation Silent Auction sponsored by Spectra which will take place at the Trade Show. Online bidding for all of the fabulous items in our Silent Auction will begin on July 9^th!

We also look forward to engaging with you at the Young Professional 30|UNDER|30 Awards Reception on July 21^st and the Diversity In Leadership Reception on July 24^th .

See you in Chicago!

 
YOUR FOUNDATION. YOUR FUTURE.
 
Adina Erwin
Incoming Chair – IAVM Foundation

Bertice Berry, PhD, a best-selling author, award-winning lecturer, and sociologist, understands the challenges women face in aspiring to leadership positions. She also knows well the ramifications that businesses make should women not be given the opportunity to attain those higher positions.

As part of her Women in Leadership keynote, titled Putting You Center Stage, Berry will tackle many of those issues that women confront as part of their chosen vocations. In the case of the public assembly venue world, she calls women in leadership critical and crucial to the advancement of our communities.

There is much more that Dr. Berry will discuss in this keynote that benefits both male and female genders. The session also cuts across all sector types, so plan to arrive early for a seat to hear from this expert in the field.

Before VenueConnect in Chicago, Dr. Berry spent a few minutes talking about some of her keynote.

The title for your keynote is quite intriguing. Let’s start by asking how women do attain center stage status?

The tendency for women is to shy away from leadership, interestingly enough. I find it kind of ironic that women have no problem standing up and accepting the responsibilities of a given position, but not necessarily the role.

Do you find that more women are attaining executive management or leadership status today based on qualification and skill set than might have been the case just a few years ago?

Women have had the skill sets and qualifications for years. I think men are accepting the role of promoting more women. If you ask any woman in leadership, she hasn’t celebrated anything. With the accolades and everything, there is a tendency to not to want to outshine or make anybody feel bad. The change that’s happening ironically is men who have daughters are looking even a few years back and saying we’re not going to succeed without having more women in these roles because we (women) are the ones making the purchase decisions. We need to have our leadership look like our clientele. Men are moving out of the way or stepping aside and saying let me guide you. Women, what we have to do is step up and recognize we deserve it and have for a long time but it just wasn’t there.

What are some challenges that still might be holding women back from reaching their true potential?

Again, I would say that a number of women don’t deserve the good they have attained. There is a concept that says we achieve because of love but you don’t deserve it and you think at any point somebody is going to recognize that you don’t really belong there. If you have a bunch of people around you who are not sure who they are or what they do then they won’t feel like they deserve anything. That is pretty much everywhere, but for women in this industry multiply it by a thousand. Everyone at the end of the day wants to know that they did a good job,

How do you see the role of women becoming more prominent in our venue management world which traditionally has been a male-dominated one?

Everything is happening all live. We are the keepers of social events. It doesn’t matter where I come from, whether I am black or white, gay or straight, Democrat or Republican, we all want to see the same thing and enjoy it. You in this industry bring us together. Women have to be an integral part of that. You have women in the household making 90% of the purchasing decisions. If that decision is not represented on the other side of that interaction, then they are going to lose. You have to consider that the role of a woman has to be considered in the events, in the experience, in all of that. It is not just inevitable but it is necessary … it’s happening in every other industry and in this one it will have to happen just for survival sake.

Their will obviously be a large number of women in your audience for this session. What would be your desired main takeaway for them as they return to their venue or business?

All of this is for all of us, but the thing I really want people to understand is none of this means if I have 80% we have to fight over the other 20%. It means the more we create for everybody the more we have created for all of us. It doesn’t take a leadership position away from a man because a woman gets one. It opens up many, many more leadership positions everywhere. The way my mother would say it is if you are trying to make a peach pie and you don’t have enough peaches, put some apples in there. You’ve got a whole other pie! Now you’ll have people calling and asking for the peach apple pie. The more great people you put into leadership the more there is for all of us to have to go around. I have never done a presentation when there weren’t men in the room. More often than not, they are already the good men who know and understand all of this.

After conducting a national search, Steve Peters, CVE, owner and president of VenuWorks, announced the internal promotion of Tiffany Vickaryous-Hubbard to Executive Director of The Sanford Center in Bemidji, MN.

“I am pleased to announce Tiffany’s acceptance of the Executive Director position in Bemidji,” Peters said. “She has proven her leadership at the venue and within the community and I have great confidence that she will work hard to ensure continued success.”

Vickaryous-Hubbard served as Director of Food & Beverage Sales with Ovations Food Service for the first seven years of her career. During this time, she was instrumental in the grand openings of Winnipeg Blue Bombers Stadium, Texas Tech Athletics/Jones AT&T Stadium, Chafetz Arena St. Louis University, Gateway International Speedway, Nashville Municipal Auditorium, and Tennessee State Fairgrounds.

Following her time with Ovations, Vickaryous-Hubbard was the Director of Food & Beverage at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, ND where she managed a team of five full-time and 130 part-time employees. Most recently, Vickaryous-Hubbard has worked for VenuWorks as the Associate Executive Director of The Sanford Center.

“We are so excited to welcome Tiffany as the new Executive Director of The Sanford Center. As an established member of our community, she brings a local connection and an understanding of the area that is appreciated and will benefit the building, its partners, and the community,” said Mayor Rita Albrecht.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the amazing team at the Sanford Center. To be able to work in an industry that I love while living in a community that my family and I call home is truly an incredible opportunity. I look forward to working with the City of Bemidji, VenuWorks, and all our community partners to continue to build on the success we enjoyed during Jeff’s (Kossow) tenure,” said Vickaryous-Hubbard.

Vickaryous-Hubbard’s first official day in her new role will be July 1.