The IAVM Sustainability Committee is hosting three fantastic presentations for you at VenueConnect. Our booth will be located at Booth 2743 by Theaters C & D.

1. SESSION 1—Sunday, July 27, 10:45-11:15 a.m.
How OCC Achieved LEED Platinum in 2014. By Matt Uchtman
The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) recently achieved LEED Platinum in March 2014. Learn more about the steps OCC took to go from becoming the first LEED Certified convention center in 2004 to achieving LEED Platinum in 2014.

Matt Uchtman has been the director of operations at the OCC since June 2012, overseeing the facilities technical services, operations, sustainability and capital projects. He also served as OCC’s operations manager of technical services, supervising the facility’s engineering, electrical, maintenance, grounds, telecommunication, and audiovisual services for national convention, consumer tradeshow, and special event clients. Prior to joining the OCC, Uchtman worked at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio, in multiple roles in the operations department and the university’s arena and sports complex. Matt has a Bachelor of Science degree in sports management from the University of Dayton and is a graduate from the International Association of Venue Management’s School of Venue Management.

2. SESSION 2—Sunday, July 27, 11:30 a.m.-Noon:
How Pritchard Sports and Entertainment Group Earned Florida Marlins Best Diversion Ratio Recycling Award. By J. Roland Hayden
This presentation will cover the recycling efforts at Marlins Park that earned the team an award for the best diversion ratio in the NL East. The creation of the recycling plan will be discussed, along with the resources and partners involved, the procedures they enacted, and the results of their efforts. Join us to learn how your venue can start or improve your current recycling efforts.

Roland Hayden has 30 years of experience in facility maintenance services. The past 22 years were specifically dedicated to the public assembly facility market segment. Roland currently serves as president of Pritchard Sports & Entertainment overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company throughout the country. Pritchard Sports & Entertainment provides full service turnkey cleaning maintenance to public assembly facilities, metal and marble restoration, and energy efficient lighting retro fits to include approved playing surface lighting. Roland is a long-term member of IAVM, the Stadium Managers Association, and the Building Service Contractors Association International.

3. SESSION 3 — Sunday, July 27, 12:30-1 p.m.
By Green Sports Alliance

Look for this exciting session announcement at VenueConnect!

You may have been told more than once to stand up straight. Well, if you’re seeking to make a big-picture decision, then you should take that command to heart.

A new study by Pankaj Aggarwal and Min Zhao, professors at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management, shows that when people believe they’re physically higher up, they take more broad-minded approaches to decisions.

“Consumers perceiving themselves to be physically ‘high’ or elevated are more likely to adopt a global perceptual processing and higher level of conceptual construal, while those perceiving themselves to be physically ‘low’ are more likely to adopt a local perceptual processing and lower level of conceptual construal,” Aggarwal and Zhao wrote in the study’s abstract.

“Mental construal” can be loosely defined as “where your head is at” when making decisions.

“This difference in level of construal also impacts product choices involving trade-offs between long-term benefit and short-term effort,” the authors wrote.

For example, a higher-level of mental construal results in “why” questions, whereas a lower level mental construal aligns with “how” questions.

In other height news, please consider another recent study that shows people are more excited and creative when they stand during meetings. Now, if we could all have standing meetings on the top floor, then all the world’s problems would be solved, right?

(photo credit: Arjan Almekinders via photopin cc)

Lollapalooza attendees can leave their wallets at home when they file into Grant Park in Chicago August 1-3. This year, festival producer C3 Presents will send attendees wristbands ahead of the event that will allow them entry and purchasing power.

The system, called Lolla Cashless, was developed by C3 partner Front Gate Tickets, and it uses RFID technology. Wearers sync their waterproof wristbands to their credit card information online using a pre-selected, six-figure PIN number. When buying food, for example, an attendee just enters a PIN number at the point-of-sale, and the payment is applied to the credit card. The transactions are stored in the point-of-sale systems and not the wristbands.

C3 tested the system at the CounterPoint Music Festival in Atlanta in April.

“We followed up with festgoers at CounterPoint and feedback was supportive,” C3 Presents Marketing Director Patrick Dentler told RedEye. “People ended up getting through the lines quicker at food stands and the bars.”

There are other benefits beside purchasing conveniences.

“The wristbands have safety benefits too…,” Katie Sola reported for Mashable. “Medical staff can access a visitor’s emergency contact information through the wristband, and a lost child could be located by tapping in.”

For now, the system will be used to streamline the fan experience and not gather data.

“We don’t know John Smith purchased five Coors Light[s] over the course of Friday morning,” Dentler told Mashable.

Here’s what the wristband looks like, courtesy of someone selling one on Craigslist.

 (Top photo credit: Ashley Garmon/Lollapalooza)

That smartphone break your employee takes is actually good for her. According to new research out of Kansas State University, employees who take smartphone breaks are happier at the end of the workday than employees who worked without personal breaks.

“A smartphone microbreak can be beneficial for both the employee and the organization,” said Sooyeol Kim, a doctoral student in psychological sciences. “For example, if I would play a game for an hour during my working hours, it would definitely hurt my work performance. But if I take short breaks of one or two minutes throughout the day, it could provide me with refreshment to do my job.”

Kim had 72 full-time employees from various industries install an app on their smartphones that measured usage during work hours. The app also divided the usage into categories, such as social media or games. Kim discovered that the employees only spent an average of 22 minutes out of an eight-hour day playing on their smartphones.

“By interacting with friends or family members through a smartphone or by playing a short game, we found that employees can recover from some of their stress to refresh their minds and take a break,” Kim said.

Smartphone breaks are similar to other breaks, such as walking, chatting with colleagues, or eating a snack. These breaks help people refresh their concentrations and cope with stress.

“These days, people struggle with a lot of different types of stressors, such as work demands, time scheduling, family issues, or personal life issues,” Kim said. “We need to understand how we can help people recover and cope with stressors. Smartphones might help and that is really important not only for individuals, but for an organization, too.”

(photo credit: Passetti via photopin cc)

Let’s talk about Taylor Swift and her insight about the fan experience. Swift’s viewpoint is credible—she is one of the music industry’s most popular acts (her recent Red Tour grossed more than $150 million)—so the Wall Street Journal published an article by her about what it’s like to be a recording artist today in a world with dwindling album sales. It’s an interesting perspective, and I recommend you read it.

The part, though, I want to focus on is Swift’s thoughts about fans.

“I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say ‘shock;’ I said ‘surprise,'” Swift wrote. “I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can’t this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?”

She continues with examples of how she uses the element of surprise to satisfy her fans.

“In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online,” she wrote. “To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me.”

Her generation, she suggests, is easily bored and demands to be delighted and surprised.

I think that’s a fair assessment. For example, promoting a “special surprise guest” is a lot more enticing to me than the latest tech advance offered.

On Vox, Nilay Patel wrote a reply article to Swift’s article, and he makes a great point: “…figuring out how to value art in a world without scarcity is a problem unlike any other in human history.” While Patel takes apart Swift’s arguments one by one, he does agree with her about the fan experience.

“That’s exactly right. People will pay to go have experiences they treasure, and they’ll pay for spectacles like a Taylor Swift show,” Patel wrote. “And they’ll pay to get a piece of someone they’ve connected with—that’s why there are hundreds of teen YouTube stars you’ve never heard of selling out shows around the world.”

Patel concludes his article with a clip of Jimmy Iovine, Beats co-founder and former Interscope Records chairman, talking at the Re/code conference in June. In the clip, which I’ve embedded below, Iovine points out what people really pay for.

With that said, the question is on the table: How do you sell experiences?

(photo credit: pennstatenews via photopin cc)