SMG announced the addition of several new members and promotion of a current member to Chesapeake Energy Arena and Cox Convention Center’s marketing team in Oklahoma City.

Lucy Albers has been named Director of Marketing and Public Relations. Albers was most recently Director of Marketing at the SMG-managed facilities in Sioux Falls, SD, and was a part of opening the 12,000-seat Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in 2014. In 2017, she was a recipient of the Generation Next Awards from Venues Today (currently VenuesNow). With more than 10 years of experience in industry marketing and strategy, Albers will oversee the marketing department in building creative promotions, increasing ticket sales, and enhancing the venues’ profiles with local and national media.

Landon Bahl has been named Booking and Marketing Manager. On top of assisting with multiple industry events, the North Dakota native recently spent time with Creative Artists Agency in Nashville. Bahl will provide support to both the booking and marketing teams in Oklahoma City and assist in enhancing the venue’s back-of-house experience for artists and tours.

Emily Coursey has been named Graphic Design and Analytics Coordinator. An Oklahoma native, Coursey holds several years of experience in customer relations and operations with marketing and event companies. Coursey will primarily focus on graphic design for all venue needs and analyzing customer data to increase revenue trends.

In addition to the new hires, SMG has also promoted long-time team member Valory Dalton to Director of Ticketing and Business Development. Dalton has been an integral part of SMG’s team with years of both Marketing and Box Office experience in Oklahoma City. In her new position, she will continue to excel in leading revenue-generation as well as marketing and premium opportunities for the buildings and their events.

The new team members join current Marketing Manager, Stacey Aldridge, and round out a full team built to develop marketing strategies, build revenue streams, and enhance both customer and tour experiences at Chesapeake Energy Arena and Cox Convention Center.

By Michelle Riehle-Ludtke

The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), owned by the City of Los Angeles and managed by AEG Facilities, recently revealed a massive, hand-painted mural created by Portraits of Hope, titled Shaping LA. The mural, spanning the length of four football fields, will be displayed for approximately six months on the LACC’s South Hall facing the 110 freeway and on the ground level of the facility in and around the West Hall parking garage facing STAPLES Center.

The vibrant project was conceived 13 years ago by Portraits of Hope founders and brothers Ed Massey and Bernie Massey. In 2018, the City of Los Angeles Department of Convention and Tourism Development (CTD) began working closely with Portraits of Hope to showcase an upbeat, identifiable mural to the LACC exterior. Geometric shapes are core design elements of the project, as the young participants are responsible for “shaping” the future.

“The Los Angeles Convention Center is the perfect canvas for this one-of-a-kind project.” said Doane Liu, Executive Director, CTD. “Shaping LA has uniquely transformed the landscape of Downtown Los Angeles, proudly exemplifying the creativity of our great city.”

Shaping LA is the largest public art and civic project in the country thanks to the efforts of thousands of Los Angeles residents through civic education and public policy sessions in over 1,000 schools, creative therapy sessions for hospitalized children and persons with disabilities, social service programs and community operations for the public. Additionally, the project was made possible by partners, including AEG who donated $10,000 toward the project, as well as GES and Freeman who donated labor to install the mural.

“We are proud to support the Shaping LA project because it embodies the AEG values of community service and support of the arts and education,” said Ellen Schwartz, General Manager, LACC. “This project has impacted so many lives and we are excited to be an integral part of this story.”

Portraits of Hope is a national non-profit organization committed to developing dynamic, public art projects that enrich the lives of children and adults. This initiative is a continuation of the program’s large-scale, national projects which have brightened and visually transformed public settings and symbols ranging from the NYC taxi fleet, blimps, planes, lakes, and buildings to LA’s coastal lifeguard towers, urban laundromats, animal shelters, and frontline fire and rescue vehicles by working with organizations from NASA to NASCAR. Shaping LA is Portraits of Hope’s first major project within the city of LA since The Spheres at MacArthur Park in 2015.

After approximately six months, the artwork will be donated primarily to social service institutions to beautify their environments.

Photo by Felix Massey

Detroit’s Cobo Center won an annual Detroit Green Task Forces Earth Day Business Award on April 20.

The City of Detroit Green Task Force is made up of numerous environmental advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, environmental businesses, government employees and residents. The Green Task Force works to create green jobs, improve environmental policy, and build a more sustainable city.

The April 20 event is held each year to celebrate Earth Day and to recognize those individuals and businesses whose work is committed to securing Detroit as a more sustainable and resilient city.

“I am proud to recognize the hard work and efforts of our sustainable community who are working creatively and collectively to make Detroit the greenest city in the country,” said Councilman Scott Benson, chair of the City Council’s Green Task Force District 3.

The Detroit Green Task Force awards local organization with their “Earth Day Business Award” for outstanding efforts in sustainability and contributing to the Detroit Green Task Force’s sustainability action agenda.

This year, at their annual awards breakfast, Cobo Center received the Earth Day Business Award for being significantly invested and adjusting operations to prioritize sustainability for each event and on an ongoing basis for facility operations.

Cobo Center currently holds multiple industry and local recognitions for waste reduction, energy and water efficiency, and is becoming an industry recognized destination for green events.

“We are humbled by this honor from the great city of Detroit,” said Claude Molinari, venue GM. “This recognition of our ongoing sustainability efforts is truly appreciated.”

Darren Burden has been appointed as Project Executive Director for SMG at Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong.

The project, scheduled to open in 2023, comprises a 50,000 seat stadium, 10,000 capacity arena, 5,000 seat public sports ground, 60,000 m2 of retail space, and public open spaces.

Burden most recently served as a consultant for the NSW Government, leading the business case for the redevelopment of ANZ

Stadium, the former Olympic Stadium, in Sydney and prior to that as an operations adviser on the newly completed Bankwest Stadium in Western Sydney.

Until July 2018, Burden spent nearly five years as Chief Executive of Vbase, manager of Christchurch’s leading venues including Horncastle Arena, AMI Stadium, Hagley Oval, Air Force Museum Wigram, and the Christchurch Town Hall. With such a diversity of venues the company delivered over 700 events annually – always through its mantra of “make life more eventful.”

Before moving to Vbase, Burden spent seven years in Dunedin, working as the chief executive of the trust established to masterplan and build Forsyth Barr Stadium in time for Rugby World Cup 2011. He later became the chief executive of Dunedin Venues, operator of the stadium as well as the Dunedin Centre and Town Hall.

Burden has been involved in a number of other venue developments including the redevelopment of Christchurch Town Hall, the major refurbishment of the Dunedin Centre and the opening of Hagley Oval in time for Cricket World Cup 2015.

In 2016 Burden was named Venue Executive of the Year and Supreme Venue Person of the Year by the Entertainment Venues Association of New Zealand at their annual awards. In 2018 he was named as Asia Pacific Venue Professional of the Year by the Venue Management Association.

Mike Veeck, co-founder of Fun is Good, will lead the Arenas sector as the Keynote at VenueConnect in Chicago and will show the audience how to discover what brings us joy and how to put it into practice in all that what we do. Mike’s message creating a fun and successful team is applicable to both work and personal scenarios. When we find our joy and passion, great things follow, in both our work world and in our personal lives. It makes perfect sense, yet it’s often hard to make this happen. In a very entertaining session, he will make us think and laugh in the same minute – and provide great advice we can implement immediately.

If the name Veeck is familiar, it should be. Mike’s father, Bill, who while owning the St. Louis Browns Major League Baseball team famously sent a “small person” to bat, was known far and wide for tweaking the staid system of professional baseball. Like father, like son, as Mike has toiled in the minor leagues with teams all while holding true to the family credo of having fun.

Mike took some time to talk about his session, Fun Is Good – Creating Joy & Passion in Your Workplace and Career. He will also lead a breakout session on Marketing Through Creativity and Building Strong Partnerships.

Fun? Is our job supposed to be fun and how can that happen?

A big emphatic YES – our jobs need to be FUN! Research shows that when we laugh, when we’re engaged in what we do and have fun, we’re physically and mentally healthier and we’re more productive. And this holds true professionally and personally. As employers we need to create an environment where fun and passion can flourish … and as employees we need to seek out organizations that respect and foster that environment.

In many companies we work with we find that people are so dissatisfied and actually angry. We try to help them with that. Why do we take ourselves so seriously? Why did we stop laughing and enjoying each other? I believe in hard work … we absolutely need to take our job responsibilities and our customer interactions very seriously – but not ourselves. When a culture is fun, open, and communicative, it encourages, even celebrates mistakes – and that’s a place people want to be and do business with.

You come from a “fun” family well known for many things in the world of Chicago and before that St. Louis baseball. Any surprises that come from one of your talks, and please don’t say you bring a “small person” on the stage!

I learned many things from my Dad! While he so respected the sport of baseball and took seriously the players he put on the field, he equally loved creating a place of joy for fans. He created a safe environment for families to escape for a few hours, forget about their trouble,s and get caught up in the magic of a game. I try to emulate that every day in the ballparks I’m privileged to operate – sometimes successfully and often times not. Maybe hosting Tanya Harding mini-bat night or hiring mimes to perform instant replays were mistakes … but hey, I tried, people laughed – and then I apologized. I’m sure I’ll have a few more mistakes from this summer to share with attendees in Chicago.

Why do so many find it so hard to make work fun, from top management on down? Are there stereotypes that fun does not equal productivity?

You’re right – many “adults” we talk to believe that having fun is frivolous and should be reserved for children. Nothing could be further from the truth. The joy and curiosity that kids exude and their willingness to fall and happily get up again, are the exact traits we need across every organization. This behavior fosters the flexibility we need to stay in front of customer expectations and the creativity we need to build the next great promotion and partnership. The successful/productive people I know want to do business with partners that laugh, have fun, and are pushing the boundaries of creativity.

How does this apply in the arena world where employees work ridiculously long hours?

I get it – significant time away from family and friends is tough. In my humble opinion, to build this fun and engaged environment and to ask each other to put in crazy hours comes down to transparency and respect. When we openly communicate what has to happen (turn the building around in 12 hours) and more importantly WHY it has to happen (what it means to our business and to us personally), then we create a transparent culture where co-workers can choose to “buy-in to the big picture.” A key word here is choose, because when we’re transparent and communicate our WHY, some may get it and choose to “sign up” while others may “opt out” of the big picture we’ve created. This transparency leads to healthy, respectful conversations … and soon a fun and engaged culture. Wow – that sounds way too serious for me! Ha, ha!

What are some takeaways you would like from this session as well as the breakout session on marketing/social media?

Truly, I just want attendees to laugh a little bit and to get out of their comfort zone. I know when they do this, they’ll get a hundred great ideas from their peers in Chicago!