Please welcome our newest members who joined IAVM in May 2017. Thank you for being a part of the association!

Also, let us get to know you better by participating in the I Am Venue Management series. Please visit http://www.iavm.org/i-am-venue-management-share-your-story to share your story and photo.

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Randy Brown, CFE, serves as executive vice president and general manager of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Brown has also served as IAVM chair and carries the credentials to speak about the change he has seen in the industry in the last 20 years.

“The lines between an IAVM Professional member and an Allied member have blurred over the last couple of decades,” Brown said. “Many of our Allied members are operating venues. They are decision makers when it comes to public assembly venues.”

This is Brown’s way of saying that One Member, One Vote, an initiative that followed extensive study, review and open discussion over the last two years and which was unanimously voted on by the IAVM Board of Directors to bring forward proposed changes to the bylaws that would make the Association more inclusive and diverse in its decision making, is an initiative whose time has come.

“It has been a long time in coming,” Brown said. “With so many more people now decision makers, by nature as such it is right to give them a voice in the management and operation of our Association. It’s the right move at the right time.”

As a means to incorporate the perspective of all IAVM members, these changes would allow every member of IAVM equal opportunity to engage in the Association through the right to vote. These proposed changes must be approved by two-thirds of the current voting members of IAVM.

Brown mentioned other categories of IAVM members who also currently lack the approval to vote, as based on current bylaws. These include Retired members, a category that Brown will fall into one day.

“How do you take somebody that has been a Professional member of the Association for four or five decades and just say that effective tomorrow or at the end of the week that they have nothing more to contribute?” Brown asked. “Every member is a contributing member at some level of our Association.

“It’s a fairness issue but it’s really a matter of we have this group and this resource as an organization, so why wouldn’t we take direction from the best and the brightest that have been part of the Association for decades?”

Indeed, passage of the vote would constitute change from the norm, but Brown said that there is no reason to fear change, at least as far as One Member, One Vote is concerned.

“You don’t do things the way you did 20 years ago,” he said. “We certainly don’t in our venues. The same has to be said for the Association.”

The voting period remains open now so please look in your email inbox for the ballot if you have not already cast your vote.

Donna Karl Sakelakos, CMP, has been named director of event services at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. In her role as director, she will supervise the planning and execution of all events held at the facility. Karl will head a team of nine event services managers and coordinators who boast an impressive 140 years of experience at the convention center, with three managers serving 31 or more years.

Karl, a veteran of the meetings industry for over 30 years, brings a solid and extensive leadership background to the position, including over 18 years of professional convention and association management, and eight years of experience in convention sales and client relations.

She most recently served as vice president of event operations for Tradeshow Logic, where she launched the meetings division and grew it to over 18 annual meeting programs.

She previously served as the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau’s vice president of client relations from 2004–2012. In that role, she implemented improvement strategies and tactics on behalf of meeting and convention buyers. Karl proved integral to the tourism industry’s post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts: she spearheaded public relations client contacts and re-negotiations; developed disaster protocols in coordination with local and national officials, and raised $2.5 million in sponsorships to host the PCMA Annual Meeting.

Karl began her career in the meetings industry with the American Academy of Pediatrics in Elk Grove Village, IL. Over the course of 18 years, she rose through the ranks to ultimately serve as director, division of convention and meeting services.

Karl earned her Certified Meeting Professional designation in 1992. Over the course of her career, she has served on the board of directors of many leading industry organizations including GMC-PCMA and PCMA Foundation.

Her leadership skills have garnered her many prestigious awards and nominations, including:
•GMC-PCMA Dick Dano Award (Nominated, 2000);
•Meeting Professional International Award – Hall of Fame Association (2001-2002);
•GMC-PCMA Bob Donovan Award Winner – Meeting Planner of the Year (2003);
•Tradeshow Week Green Innovation Award – The Industry’s Top Eco-Leaders (2009);
•PCMA Spirit Award (2009, 2010).

“We are extremely excited to have Donna on our staff as she will give our operational staff a different perspective on managing events. She has been on both sides of an event: event management and event creation. This is a stellar hire for the convention center,” said Bryan Hayden, vice president of operations of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. “She also has super client relationships throughout the country.”

Daktronics announced the company will design, manufacture and install a new LED video display and audio upgrades for Northwestern State University (NSU) at Harry Turpin Stadium on campus in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The stadium upgrades will be completed and entertaining Demon fans this fall.

“Northwestern State is pleased to continue its partnership, which originated 20 years ago, with the world’s largest and best scoreboard company by installing an updated and greatly enhanced video board at Turpin Stadium,” said NSU Director of Athletics Gregory S. Burke. “Our University, football program and fan base deserve this tremendous upgrade. I cannot wait until our home opener on September 16 to see how it will change the game-day experience for Demon fans and students. What excites me most about this project is the infusion of enthusiasm it will create in our football locker room, as well as among our season ticket holders and fan base.”

The new end zone display will feature a 15HD pixel layout and measure approximately 17 feet high by 54 feet wide. The large digital canvas will provide excellent image clarity and contrast with wide angle visibility to appeal to every seat in the stadium.

“This new video board will be positive on many levels, most notably the impact it will have on the Demon football program and on NSU home football Saturdays,” Burke said. “Recruiting, image and branding will all benefit from this new look. For our fans, based on the configuration of Turpin Stadium, this new video board will make them feel as if they are sitting in their living rooms watching the Demons.”

Capable of variable content zoning, the new LED display can be used to show one large image or it can be divided into multiple windows to show any variety of live video, instant replays, up-to-the-minute statistics, graphics, animations and sponsorship messages.

“We’re excited to continue our long-standing partnership with NSU,” said Andrew Rice, Daktronics sales representative. “The new video display is going to be an amazing addition to their live event productions on game-day, both for the student-athletes and the fans. It will be great to see the completed project and how it helps the university achieve their goals this year.”

Daktronics will also be adding improvements to their audio system, which is integrated with the video and scoring system. The audio upgrades will improve the full-range sound reproduction and help deliver clear and intelligible speech for a powerful audio experience for the fans.

Four experts in the field of safety and security took to a panel Thursday to lead an IAVM webinar on Understanding the Risk & Securing Mass Gathering Events. The webinar drew a large audience of 558 listeners and later participants who had several questions to ask of panel members following the 45-minute webinar.

Much of the interest in the webinar was likely drawn from the recent terrorist attack outside the Manchester Arena in the United Kingdom, but suffice to say that safety and security are ongoing hot topics and will continue to be in a time when IAVM President/CEO Brad Mayne, CFE, pointed out that we no longer live in a “not if, but when” time, but actually now reside in the “when” regardless of our geographical location.

“The British continue to investigate whether the incident there was a lone wolf or terrorist cell,” said panelist Bill Flynn, GARDA Risk Management. “Due to the sophistication of the device it suggests the possibility of a network. He targeted two main egress points to minimize the detection and maximize the casualties.” Twenty-two were killed in the attack and dozens injured.

Flynn noted a shift from centrally coordinated attacks in homegrown situations to lone wolf attacks, citing that there were 16 homegrown violent terrorist arrests last year in the United States. Flynn added that last year 423 incidents took place domestically and internationally with close to 50 percent of those happening within 30 miles of where the attacker lived.

“No community is immune,” he said.

IAVM veteran Russ Simons, Venue Solutions Group, spoke on Threat, Risk and Vulnerability Assessments.

“Our venues have emergency plans,” he said, “but they are not revisited regularly. We underestimate the opponent’s skill, intelligence and cunning.

Simons noted that in 2015 there were more than 1,600 reported bomb threat incidents and more than 400 actual bombings that year.

“All of these assessments are critical to do,” he said. “Without doing them, you are setting yourself up for something bad to happen. And it will happen in some form or another.”

Al Shenouda, City Shield LLC, who along with Flynn has been working closely with IAVM on the Emergency Management Safety & Security Initiative (EMSSI) for convention centers, spoke about the importance of public and private partnerships to counter the foe.

“It takes a collaboration of multiple stakeholders to do information sharing,” he said. “Think of everyone as good security for soft targets.”

Andy Jabbour, Gate 15, wrapped up the webinar by striking a parallel between buying insurance and the uncertainty that venues face going forward with respect to safety and security.

“Like insurance, risk assessment can’t be ‘one and done,'” Jabbour said. “You understand the threat environment. Like insurance, you pay every month.”

Before fielding a series of questions from webinar attendees, Shenouda closed the panel comments by noting “We’ve had attacks and thwarted attacks in every state.”

Every state. It is something that should sink in for every venue manager if it has not already.