By R.V. Baugus
Daniel Malandruccolo, director of guest services at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, and Amber Watts, senior director, guest services at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, are two of the champions and creators of a session at the February 17-19 GuestX in San Diego touching on the important topic matters of accessibility and inclusivity for guests at public assembly venues.
We caught up with Daniel to discuss just some of what attendees can expect to learn at GuestX.
GuestX is of course about the guest experience. Why should folks plan to attend GuestX?
We are revolutionizing the way guests think about guest experience. This conference and the panels surrounding it 
center around total inclusion. This is not only inclusion for our guests, but inclusion for all departments to work as one with the goal being AMAZING guest experience.
Help some of our attendees out who may not know you about your experience and expertise in the area of accessibility.
I am proud to say that our arena was the first NHL arena to be sensory certified. After working with Kulture City, we have made giant strides to make all our guests feel welcome. All on our guest services team are sensory certified and go through a full ADA inclusion training. I got my first taste of true inclusion during the 2015 World Series when I was working with the Mets. We had to build many temporary ADA locations in under 48 hours and when that happens, you learn laws and regulations real quick!
What are just a few of the things you can share as a “sneak preview” for what you expect to speak about at your session?
Nursing pods, sensory inclusion, the tough questions for legal councils and more! Come ready to learn a lot about ADA inclusion.
Speaking of accessibility, what do you see as the biggest change in that area today as far as what guests expect and encounter when they go to a venue?
The needle moves every event for guests. The experience on the ice or field is not the only thing that brings a guest to your venue any more. Every day we are thinking about ways to keep our guests entertained. Whether that is better concourse activations, give-a-ways, in game experience or just the overall customer service. A guest is comparing their experience at their venue to what they can have at their house in front of a big screen T.V. We have to ensure we can always provide a better experience than that. The term Driveway to Driveway experience means a lot to us. We try to make sure from the moment a guest pulls out of their driveway to the second they pull back in, they have a good experience along the way. This includes ticketing, parking, security, guest services, etc.
Any takeaways you hope to leave attendees with for them to go back home and implement or execute?
We are hoping to build a network of resources for all attendees. This will be useful for having real contacts in the industry to either bounce ideas off of or learn from.
