Jason Rittenberry on Why You Should Attend ISMC
Our International Stadium Management Conference takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, May 7-9. This is a great opportunity for stadium and racetrack managers to meet together, learn from one other, and make new connections.
Over the weeks leading up to the conference, we’ll have many of the presenters and organizers offer their thoughts about the event and why you should attend. This week we feature Jason Rittenberry, CFE, president and CEO of IRG Sports + Entertainment.
Why do you feel it’s important for managers to attend this conference?
I am a strong believer in face-to-face interaction and networking with our colleagues and other leaders in the industry. While the Stadiums Committee has provided a knowledge base through webinars the past two years, there is no replacement for personal interaction with your peers when it comes to learning. The return of ISMC after a few years marks a resurgence in interest from our members in the stadiums sector. Whether you are an executive leader or a young professional, this conference will have something to offer everyone with educational sessions and panels, opportunities for networking, and fun social events.
What’s one topic or session that attendees will benefit from and why?
While I feel all of our sessions are strong, I am looking forward to the session on managing legal issues. Insurance and legal issues are sometimes topics that stadium managers want to avoid and hope they don’t have to deal with. In this session, we will hear from the experts in the insurance and legal fields on some easy things we can do to minimize our risk and make things easier for us when something does happen in our stadium.
The ‘Unbooth’ is Here
This week, Trade Show News Network reported on EXHIBITOR2014, a trade show held in Las Vegas, and tailored to its own—trade show and event industry professionals. So with our own planning and preparations well underway for IAVM VenueConnect Annual Conference and Trade Show, taking place July 26-29 in Portland, Oregon, we thought it would be a good time to remind our Allied members, current exhibitors, and potential exhibitors about how much fun it can be to put on a great show for the attendees.
The stars of the 2014 EXHIBITOR show:
A giant Earth Harp by William Close, an artist from the Elan Artists Group, created the biggest buzz and drew huge crowds (most holding their iPhones high to catch the spectacle) inside the Global Experience Specialists booth. Since the instrument took up pretty much the entire exhibit, the GES booth became an ‘unbooth,’ with staffers equipped with iPads working around the perimeter.
The theme of an ‘unbooth’ continued at IQ 3D. Initially conceived to explain projection mapping, it turned out that it can also work well for exhibit designers as well. The company created a completely white exhibit sporting the sign “Where’s the booth?” Attendees were invited to put on a Google Glass and voila!—a virtual exhibit appeared all around them.
A ‘selfie on steroids’ was gathering a crowd at the Pixe Social space, where attendees could get their photo on the cover of Exhibitor magazine, even if just for sharing on Facebook.
And finally, at Kaon Interactive, the booth sported a 3D display application with animations and a badge scanner that instantly sends an email with a link to the company’s webinar.
We are excited to see what our own exhibitors will be unveiling at VenueConnect 2014 in Portland. There are still booth spaces available, and we’ll be recognizing the most creative and informative booths at the show.
Read the full TSNN ‘Unbooth’ story here.
Reserve your booth now to exhibit at IAVM VenueConnect 2014 in Portland, OR.
(Image: From Exhibitor magazine’s Facebook page)
Japanese Soccer Club Punished for Racist Banner
Fans of the Urawa Reds hung a “Japanese Only” banner in Saitama Stadium during a March 8 match, and it stayed up until the game was over. Because of this, the football (soccer) team was forced by the Japanese Professional Football League to host a game in an empty stadium on Sunday, March 23. The league’s chairman, Mitsuru Murai, said that Urawa’s failure to take down the banner made the club just as guilty as the fans who put it up.
“At first we only thought that the banner ‘could be construed as a discriminatory message’ but we were too lenient,” a Reds team official told the Japan Daily Press. “We now consider it as definitely ‘a discriminatory message.’’’
The 63,700-seat stadium, which is one of the planned football venues for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, had advertisements taken out of the stadium on game day and replaced with signs promoting the United Nation’s Sports for Peace program. And even though they played to empty seats, the athletes supported the league’s punishment.
“One thing I can say is that sport is not something to bring discrimination into,” Reds player Tadanari Lee told the Japan Times. “I’m a football player and all I want to do is play football. I’d really like this kind of thing to stop. Through the media, a lot of people know what this game was all about and why it happened. We wore the Sports for Peace T-shirts and we were happy to play our part. Hopefully we can keep doing so.”
How do you think people would react to punishment like this in a U.S. venue?
(Image: Japan Daily Press)
Fairness is a Double-edged Sword for Managers
Being fair is exhausting. That’s the assessment from a study out of Michigan State University (MSU), which shows how fairness in workplace decisions can mentally and emotionally wear down bosses.
“Structured, rule-bound fairness, known as procedural justice, is a double-edged sword for managers,” said Russell E. Johnson, an assistant professor of management at MSU. “While beneficial for their employees and the organization, it’s an especially draining activity for managers. In fact, we found it had negative effects for managers that spilled over to the next workday.”
Eighty-two bosses were surveyed twice a day for a few weeks, and the researchers found that those who reported mental fatigue from procedural fairness situations were less cooperative and socially engaging with employees the following day.
“Managers who are mentally fatigued are more prone to making mistakes, and it is more difficult for them to control deviant or counterproductive impulses,” Johnson said. “Several studies have even found that mentally fatigued employees are more likely to steal and cheat.”
The reason procedural justice is mentally fatiguing, Johnson said, is because bosses have to conform to fairness rules (e.g., suppressing personal biases, being consistent, and letting employees voice concerns).
“Essentially managers have to run around making sure their subordinates’ perceptions remain positive, whether the threat to the atmosphere of the workplace is real or imagined. Dealing with all of this uncertainty and ambiguity is depleting,” Johnson said.
Burnout will always be a challenge for fair managers, Johnson said, but they should create situations that allow them to cope with it better. Suggestions include getting enough sleep, taking short mental breaks throughout a workday, eating a healthy diet, and completely separating work and home life.
If you’re a boss, how do you overcome burnout? Please share your ideas with us in the comments section.
They Like You, Now Pay for It
The era of Facebook likes equaling free wall space is about to officially go away. Posts from businesses will no longer appear on the walls of users that have liked your page—unless you have payed for that privilege. In a report from Will Oremus with Slate, declining organic reach along with over-crowded user feeds has Facebook looking for significant ways to ensure users stay happy and using. Branded messaging from advertisers and promotional clutter is low-hanging fruit.
“Brands are going to have to be more strategic in their use of Facebook, and think carefully about the content they are creating, when they post, and how they promote that post across Facebook’s network,” says Ewan Spence with Forbes.
The shift from free to premium is in motion, and this brief summary from Mashable is a great glimpse at how small changes to algorithms on the back-end have already been steadily decreasing organic reach.
The days of Facebook being the default, free channel are coming to an end. Great content will still be shared, liked, and passed along, but it might require a bit more thinking and paying upfront. For venues that have worked hard for those 50,000+ likes, figuring out how to stay in front of that audience is going to require some fresh thinking … and funding.