Those seeking to feel more powerful should turn up the bass.

“When watching major sports events, my coauthors and I frequently noticed athletes with their earphones on while entering the stadium and in the locker room,” said Dennis Hsu of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. “The ways these athletes immerse themselves in the music—some with their eyes steely shut and some gently nodded along the beats—seem as if the music is mentally preparing and toughening them up for the competition about to occur.”

Hsu and his colleagues conducted several experiences to determine how music—and what kind of music—influences cognition and behavior.

“Experiment 1 found that music pretested to be powerful implicitly activated the construct of power in listeners,” the authors wrote in the study‘s abstract. “Experiments 2–4 demonstrated that power-inducing music produced three known important downstream consequences of power: abstract thinking, illusory control, and moving first. Experiments 5a and 5b held all features of music constant except for the level of bass and found that music with more bass increased participants’ sense of power.” 

The songs found to be powerful in the pre-test were Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready for This,” and 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.” Low-power songs were Fatboy Slim’s “Because We Can,” Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out,” and “Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa.”

“Not only did we confirm that certain music makes people feel more powerful than other music, we established the capability of music to activate the concept of power implicitly and promote power-related cognition and behavior,” the authors wrote. “Although the current research established a causal link between music- and power-related cognition and behavior, several questions still remain and require further research in the future.

“The English novelist George Eliot claimed that music infused strength into her limbs and ideas into her brain,” the authors concluded. “The effect of music appears to manifest itself not only in its ability to entertain but also in the ability to imbue humans with a real sense of power, both in their limbs and in their minds.”

And to get you pumped up, here’s Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

(photo credit: Łukasz Strachanowski via photopin cc)

There was a lot of news this past week. Here are some stories that caught our eyes.

Why the Summer Music Festival Bubble is About to Burst
—Wondering Sound
“Let me see here. For just North America, we have a list of 847 different festivals.”

5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans
—Fast Company
“Americans think it’s normal to hate their jobs. Let us introduce you to the Danish concept of arbejdsglæde. It means happiness at work. Here’s how Danish offices make sure it’s happening.”

The Story of Live Nation Labs: How the Event Giant Got Its Very Own Startup to Prep for Music’s Future
—Gigaom
“Live Nation bought BigChampange for its media consumption data smarts, which allowed the company to get new insights into where people like what kind of music, and which concerts they’d be wanting to go to.”

A Case Against Name Tags
—BizBash
“Name tags are the perfect symbol of what’s wrong with ‘networking’ events—those people who work the room, scanning people’s badges for a company they want to work for, or sell to, or both.”

Could Red Bull Become the New ESPN?
—Contently
“Red Bull owns the conversation about action sports, and that conversation is now happening on both mobile and on TV screens, with Red Bull TV’s Chromecast integration, the RedBull.com app’s Apple AirPlay integration, and a Red Bull channel available on Apple TV.”

(photo credit: jordangordon via photopin cc)

The recent Meeting Professionals International World Education Congress featured a session about contract issues, and Sue Pelletier at MeetingsNet offers a great recap. In the article are some related story links, and one of them is “11 Lessons on Negotiating with Convention Centers” that MeetingsNet published last year. It’s a good inside take on how planners view working with convention centers, and No. 8 (Exclusivity: Never Assume) on the list mentions IAVM.

“Two years ago, the International Association of Venue Mangers Inc. released its ‘Exclusive Services Convention Centers/Exhibit Halls White Paper,'”  Dave Kovaleski wrote. “While the organization that represents the country’s major centers underscored that ‘exclusive service and third-party vendor contracts are the decision of each facility manager based on the operating needs and political mandates,’ it also called for those facilities that do have exclusives to freely disclose them early in discussions with clients.”

Because of the first, recap article, people are seeing the second article and wanting to read the white paper. Now you can do that. Just click here to read or download it.

(Image: Orange Photography)

IAVM member Roy Sommerhof made the news this week when he spoke with WBAL in Baltimore (home of VenueConnect 2015) about M&T Bank Stadium’s $35 million improvement project.

“Most notably, all the concession stands have been renovated,” said Sommerhof, vice president of stadium operations for the Baltimore Ravens. “All the equipment inside of them has been replaced. We have more points of sale and more variety on the upper level for fans, and so we think the service will be better.”

You can listen to the full interview below, and if you’re a member who has made the news, please email us at editor@iavm.org so we can feature you on the blog.

(photo credit: Kevin H. via photopin cc)

Sure, free Wi-Fi is nice, but it’s useless if your phone’s battery dies. This is where uBeam comes in, and this week the company received some great press on its announcement of a working prototype that will be built for consumers.

In the simplest terms, uBeam is a wireless charging system. It charges your phone via ultrasound, which is converted from electricity through a charging station. The charging station is thin (no larger than five millimeters thick) and can be attached to a wall. Yes, your venue could become one large phone charger.

“This is the only wireless power system that allows you to be on your phone and moving around a room freely while you’re device is charging,” uBeam CEO and Founder Meredith Perry told The New York Times. “It allows for a Wi-Fi-like experience of charging; with everything else you have to be in close range of a transmitter.”

The goal is to have uBeam available to consumers within the next two years with two different charging stations—one for small spaces, such as homes and offices, and the other for larger venues, such as stadiums, conference centers, and music halls.

“We’re going to sell directly to consumers, and we’ll sell them to restaurant chains and hotels—we are going to saturate the market with uBeam transmitters,” Perry said in the Times article. “In addition to your local coffee shop saying it has free Wi-Fi, it will also say it has free uBeam.”