By R.V. Baugus

If someone was not out of a job due to COVID-19 and the inevitable job layoffs that followed, then one was still employed and working way beyond intended human hours. For the sake of discussion at VenueConnect this July in Phoenix, Dr. Matt Huml will share in a University Sector keynote session, but one truly geared toward every attendee, the angle of the intentional workaholic and tips on how to get out of the work rut.

Dr. Huml, Assistant Professor in the School of Human Services at the University of Cincinnati, was gracious to give us some time in advance to share more about his background as well as the topic matter he will present. Again, this is suitable subject matter fitting for every attendee at VC22.

The presentation will discuss the relationship between work engagement and workaholism drawn from recent research on the experiences of college and recreational sports employees.

Topics will include:
(1) balancing work and family responsibilities,
(2) tipping points between work engagement and workaholism,
(3) the benefits for employees living a calling,
(4) employee coping abilities,
(5) remote work strengths and weaknesses,
(6) and detriment effects of an overwork climate, among other topics.

Dr. Huml will provide recommendations on how venue managers can minimize employee challenges and cultivate strengths to improve employee satisfaction.

Share with our readers some about your background and then bring us up to speed about your current role at the University of Cincinnati.

I’m originally from the far West suburbs of Chicago (if any of you are from that area, say hi after the presentation and I’ll share the name of the really small town where I grew up!) and grew up a big fan of University of Illinois athletics and all of the professional Chicago sport teams. I started my college experience at Kishwaukee College (community college) that is near Northern Illinois University. After that, I transferred to Grand Valley State University in West Michigan (go Lakers!) where I completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees. I was fortunate to play baseball in college at both Kishwaukee and GVSU. I met my future wife at GVSU, as she played soccer there (was a much more successful athlete than I was). After completing my masters, I worked at the University of Tennessee for a year as an academic advisor before leaving to take an advising job (and start my PhD) at the University of Louisville. After four years at UL, I completed my PhD and accepted my first faculty position at Texas Tech University. My wife and I lived there for three years, had our first child in 2019, and then moved on to the University of Cincinnati in Fall 2019. I am now about to start my fourth year at UC in the fall and we also added to our family a second child in 2020. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati in our sport administration program.

Your presentation will be on Insights into Workaholism & How Venue Managers Can Avoid It. Without giving away the kitchen, what will be some of the things you will share with your audience?

Workaholism is an issue across all labor forces, but it’s especially pervasive within sport and facility sectors. I am going to be talking about what is workaholism and identifying it within yourself and others. I will also talk about how workaholism is activated through environmental factors, family factors, colleagues, etc. Finally, I will address limiting or overcoming workaholic tendencies for employees. But we’ll also go beyond workaholism, as we’ll also talk about work engagement (think of it as a good version of workaholism), how employees apply coping strategies within the workplace, the involvement of occupational calling for venue managers, insights into remote work, and the push-and-pull between work and family.

Has work/balance become just a cliche? We hear so much about it, but have you found in your studies that most people actually try to find that balance?

It is definitely not a cliché, but you can make a great argument that there is no perfect balance and its individual dependent. My focus will be on a couple different, more accurate concepts for the push-and-pull between work and family, called work-family conflict (when those two areas clash) and work-family spillover (when one of the areas has a positive or negative effect on the other). More importantly, my research is going to talk about how the presence of work-family conflict/spillover can actually create a POSITIVE effect on work, even though most folks think of these as negative workplace issues.

Workaholism sounds like an addiction or disease. Is it that or can it become that?

Absolutely, workaholism functions as a behavior addiction. Some folks can become so passionate about their work that they consume our other identities. I’m also sure many of you have heard of people “throwing” themselves into their work when dealing with grief in another area of their lives. Work can become a crutch for us as we seek out validation, desire for micro-managing others, or a distraction from other responsibilities. We need to seek out ways to help employees break from this addiction and create an environment that doesn’t cultivate it from our workforce.

How about a main takeaway you would like people to leave with and take back to the venue where they work?

My hope is that attendees will think about all of these concepts are related to workplace culture and the characteristics exhibited by organizational leadership. If supervisors are working 70+ hours a week, have expectations for prioritizing work over other components of their employee’s lives, take advantage of people’s passions, it’s going to create an environment that can breed these workplace traits. I’ll recommend easy fixes but there will be others that require more effort from leadership to cultivate good workplace practices. It will create huge dividends down the road to implement these changes, as you’ll have less people leave their organization or even profession, increase work engagement, and reduce negative behaviors like workaholism, among others.

New Orleans CityBusiness, a weekly business newspaper, has named Tim Hemphill, CVP, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Events, to their annual “Power 20.” The “Power 20” represents the most influential people in the New Orleans Hospitality and Tourism industry. Hemphill was chosen for this honor through an anonymous nomination process and was ultimately selected for his long list of contributions to the New Orleans hotel & tourism industry as well as his contributions to the local New Orleans community.

A veteran of the conventions and events industry of more than three decades, Hemphill is a Certified Venue Professional who has been at the cutting edge of innovation at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, including the acquisition of an in-house UPS store franchise which provides critical support for visitors to the facility as well as the local community. Hemphill has received numerous awards for excellence in sales, marketing, and public relations and serves the industry on a variety of boards and committees.

A graduate of Texas A&M University, Hemphill has spearheaded many initiatives designed to utilize the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in new and innovative ways, including the founding of a department to produce tradeshows and conferences that are owned by the facility itself. This includes ResCon, a global summit on resilience, and NOLA ChristmasFest, a year-end family-focused holiday themed festival.

“Tim Hemphill has been at the top of his game ever since he assumed his current role in 2008,” said Convention Center President Michael J. Sawaya. “Tim is a trailblazer of this industry and is always forward-thinking about how we can better serve our internal and external customers. His inclusion in this year’s Power 20 is a testament to his ability and impact on New Orleans tourism, and we are grateful for his hard work as a part of our facility’s executive team.”

By Blair Cardinal

Parking industry veteran Joe Leung has joined OVG360 as vice president of its new Parking & Mobility division, which will help client-partners develop operational strategies to optimize the guest experience, generate revenue for the venue, reduce environmental impact, and support the surrounding community.

Beginning his role immediately, Leung is based in Denver and reports to Chris Granger, president of OVG360, which is the third-party, venue management, venue services, and hospitality division of Oak View Group (OVG), the leading global venue development, advisory, and investment company for both the sports and live entertainment industries.

Under Leung’s leadership, OVG360’s Parking & Mobility division will engage clients in one of three ways: one, exclusively run parking operations for a venue that does not already have a dedicated manager or third-party operator in place; two, manage a venue’s contracted parking operator; or three, act as a third-party consultant who evaluates/audits existing operations and makes recommendations on parking strategy. Regardless of the client-partner relationship, OVG360 will use methodologies and industry best practices to evaluate each venue’s unique parking process to help identify opportunities for operational efficiencies and revenue generation. Because parking interacts with every department within a venue, the new division will work with clients to identify business goals and enable a parking system to support those goals – whether sponsorship wants to explore activation opportunities and elevate the premium ticket-holder experience, or the general manager wants to implement programs to get their guests to and from an event more efficiently.

“OVG360 is well ahead of the game in recognizing the significant strategy that goes into an effective and efficient parking and mobility program,” Leung said. “Many venues gravely underestimate the importance of parking and mobility, often saddling the head of security or some other manager with parking as a secondary responsibility. In reality, each guest’s experience starts and ends with transportation, a journey that begins when they’re still on the couch planning how they are going to get to the venue for an event. If venue managers focus on parking – just like they would on hospitality or any other element of the guest experience – they can decrease a guest’s frustration and confusion, and eventually increase their Net Promoter Score (NPS).”

Leung joins OVG360 after spending two decades with some of the most well-known parking companies, experience which spans ballparks, arenas, theaters and a variety of other live events facilities. He was senior director of customer success at FLASH, vice president of parking at Olympia Development of Michigan, and regional manager at SP+, where he oversaw parking and mobility.

With sustainability as one of OVG360’s guiding principles, Leung will focus on reducing the environmental impact of the more than 330 venues the company owns and/or manages. Through efficient parking operations and traffic management, guests will spend less time idling and circling, which will cut carbon emissions. “If a guest knows ahead of time where they are going to park, you reduce their time with the car running on the way in and out of the parking garage – say for 100 cars times 150 events, it starts to add up.” Leung said.

Throughout his career, Leung has also focused on how parking impacts a community, especially when a new venue is being built in or around an existing neighborhood. While a venue typically results in an economic boost for communities, he has worked with community leaders and neighbors to understand and minimize the impact, such as with increased traffic. To optimize parking and mobility, OVG360 will leverage technology, review staffing, generate purposeful marketing campaigns, enable selling through all venue channels, and address a wide range of mobility solutions, for example: electric car charging stations, scooters, ride share drop-off/pick-up stations, public transit access, shuttles, and more.

“I worked closely with Joe during my time overseeing operations for the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers, and it was clear that he seamlessly balanced sustainable operations, community relationships and innovative revenue generation,” Granger said. “Parking is part of the holistic guest experience. It can either be a non-factor or put negative bookends on what would have otherwise been a great event. We’re excited to have Joe guide OVG360 in making parking part of the complete guest experience for the 330-plus venues we own and/or manage.”

Blair Cardinal is VP, Communications for OVG360.

By Chrissy Deal

Last month, while planning its annual Heart Ball, the American Heart Association paid for 75 more meals than they needed. But they never received any food.

Instead, they became the first organization to participate in the “Share Your Meal” program by purchasing “extra meals” to donate. Through the program, the monetary value of any extra meals is then matched 100% by the Raleigh Convention & Performing Arts Complex and their caterer, Sodexo Live!, with the total amount going to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

That donation resulted in 6,000 pounds of produce being delivered to the Food Bank to share with 500 families in the region. That’s 30 cases of local sweet potatoes (approximately 2,250 potatoes), 30 cases of large local cabbage (480-500 heads), 20 cases of tomatillos (about 1,800), 30 cases of Roma tomatoes (2,250 tomatoes), five cases of jalapeños (1,800 peppers), and 60 cases of strawberries (480 clam shells)!

“The American Heart Association is truly honored to be the first organization to participate in the ‘Share Your Meal’ program, in conjunction with the Raleigh Convention Center. Sadly, it is estimated that about one in seven households in the Triangle experience food insecurity. The American Heart Association believes in the right to healthy food for all people to live their best lives. By taking part in this important program, it’s another way that we’re working to improve nutrition and food security for our neighbors right here in the Triangle,” said Anne Miller, regional executive director in the Triangle and Eastern N.C. for the American Heart Association.

Once the food was delivered to the Food Bank, it was distributed to the NC Fields program, a Food Bank recipient that serves farmworkers and their families. According to the program, some 75% of those served in 2021 were people of color in historically marginalized communities.

“It’s a privilege to be able to support such a wonderful organization as the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, and we are honored to join the American Heart Association in making this donation,” said Kerry Painter, CVE, director/general manager of the Raleigh Convention + Performing Arts Complex. “When we give to the Food Bank, we know our dollars are going to help families right here in our local communities. There’s no question that our donations make a difference, and we hope others will join the American Heart Association in choosing to share their meals.”

“Share Your Meal” is the latest in the Raleigh Convention Center’s efforts to bring more sustainable and socially conscious practices to its operations. The venue boasts a 40% average landfill diversion rate by composting with Raleigh-based CompostNow. That compost is then donated to Camden Street Learning Garden, operated by the Inter-faith Food Shuttle, a local nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger.

Chrissy Deal is Communications Director for Clean: Advertising & Design.

Karen Swan, the founder of the Event & Arena Marketing Conference (EAMC), an industry legend, a Gigi Award recipient, and an EAMC Hall of Famer, has died. The news about the death of Karen Swan was confirmed in a tweet made on the 25th of April 2022 by Event & Arena Marketing Conference. The Event & Arena Marketing Conference (EAMC) is dedicated to the talented professionals that cross the scope of the live entertainment industry: marketing, publicity, promotions, group sales, live touring shows, and arenas.

It deals with networking, educating, and sharing trends and ideas across these disciplines through various industry leaders. Karen was at the original conference in 1980 in Minneapolis and has been instrumental in its growth and development ever since. The cause of death is unknown at the moment.

Event & Arena Marketing Conference said in a tweet, “It is with deep sadness we mourn the loss of an EAMC founder, industry legend, Gigi Award recipient, EAMC Hall of Famer, and all-around beautiful soul, Karen Swan. It’s hard to think of EAMC and its history without thinking of Karen, who was at the original conference in 1980 in Minneapolis and has been instrumental in its growth and development ever since. Karen was a huge champion for the group sales side of the industry, often moderating sessions each year. As we look ahead to this year’s conference and a return to her city where it started, we will miss Karen’s warm hugs and big smile, but look forward to celebrating her life and sharing stories about such a wonderful person. We send our condolences to Karen’s family, friends, and many colleagues she worked with throughout her impressive career.”