The International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM) has joined in a strategic partnership with Venue Solutions Group (VSG) to present/produce the Venue Operations Summit (VOS) beginning in 2020. Building upon five years of success, VSG and IAVM join together to upgrade and enhance the educational offerings at VOS.

The Venue Operations Summit is the only industry conference dedicated to public assembly facility operations/engineering professionals. VOS remains dedicated to providing the highest quality educational, practical, and networking experiences for public assembly facility operations and engineering practitioners. VSG Managing Partner, Russ Simons said, “Our collaboration with IAVM will allow us to offer even greater opportunities to conference attendees from all facility types, we look forward to welcoming attendees to the 2020 fall conference.”

“IAVM is honored to partner with Venue Solutions Group to provide an education and networking program for hands on Director/Manager of Operations, Engineers, Technicians, Tradesmen, and others that get their hands dirty in fulfilling their role in the operations of public venues.” stated Brad Mayne, CVE, IAVM President and CEO. “In most of IAVM member venues, the operations department is the largest department and the summit is aimed to serve this portion of our membership.”

The Venue Operations Summit will be held August 24-26, 2020 in Indianapolis, IN, at the Westin Hotel.  Space will be limited.

For more information, please contact Amy Fitzpatrick, IAVM Director of Marketing, at amy.fitzpatrick@iavm.org.

The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), owned by the City of Los Angeles and managed by AEG Facilities, recently collected and donated 14.1 tons of remaining event items and 12 tons of carpet to several Los Angeles-based nonprofit organizations. The recent donations underscore the LACC’s commitment to zero waste management and service to the community.

Organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army L.A. Red Shield Youth & Community Center, St. Francis Center and EduCare Foundation received furniture, art supplies, tote bags, fixtures, water bottles, lanyards, clothing and more. Additionally, the LACC donated 72 four-stream recycling bins to The Salvation Army Red Shield Community Center in Downtown LA to be used to educate students at schools and camps about how to responsibly dispose of waste.

“The Los Angeles Convention Center has been an outstanding partner for our community,” said Irene Lewis, Director, The Salvation Army Red Shield Community Center. “Their dedication has provided impactful services for the children and adults that walk through our doors.”

In addition to donating thousands of hard goods per year, the LACC continues to give back to the community through numerous volunteer opportunities. In 2018, more than 25 employees from the LACC and in-house vendor teams participated in a service day at The Salvation Army Red Shield Community Center in the Pico Union district. The volunteers worked with students in an afterschool program by completing arts and crafts projects, tutoring, participating in sports and playing games.

During the LACC’s third annual day of service in 2019, the LACC teamed up with the Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) where 30 LACC and Taste of LA by Levy employees prepared and served home-style meals and sorted donations for the Made by DWC retail store and women in need.

This spring, a team of LACC volunteers visited the Hope Street Margolis Family Center to give back to the neighborhood, and a group painted part of the Shaping LA mural by Portraits of Hope that is currently displayed on South Hall’s curved wall facing the 110 freeway.

“The LACC team takes AEG’s mission, ‘giving the world a reason to cheer’ and applies it to the heart of our business approach,” said Ellen Schwartz, General Manager, LACC. “We are a facility committed to impacting the community for the better, continuously seeking ways to reduce our environmental footprint and serve those in need.”

Michelle Riehle-Ludtke is Marketing & Community Relations Specialist for the Los Angeles Convention Center

By Lisa Nagele-Piazza, J.D., SHRM-SCP

Employees who make less than $35,568 are now eligible for overtime pay under a final rule issued today by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The new rate will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.

To be exempt from overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employees must be paid a salary of at least the threshold amount and meet certain duties tests. If they are paid less or do not meet the tests, they must be paid 1 1/2 times their regular hourly rate for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek.

The new rule will raise the salary threshold to $684 a week ($35,568 annualized) from $455 a week ($23,660 annualized). A blocked Obama-era rule would have doubled the threshold, but a federal judge held that the DOL exceeded its authority by raising the rate too high.

To read the full story, click here.

Lisa Nagele-Piazza, J.D., SHRM-SCP is Senior Legal Editor with SHRM

Sports & Entertainment General Manager Barry Geisler will retire after 34 years at EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, at the end of the year.

Geisler began his career in 1982 at the Oakland Coliseum and subsequently became an event coordinator at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in California from 1983-85.

He moved to the Washington, D.C. in 1985 to work for Centre Management at the then-Patriot Center as the director of arena administration working for Gary Handleman. Geisler was named Patriot Center GM in 1987.

“It has been a great run and I’m looking forward to working these final three months, making a seamless transition to my successor and then cheering on EagleBank Arena’s continued success,” Geisler said in a release.

“A huge thank you to the many agents, promoters and family show producers who have placed their acts in our venue and have made EagleBank Arena one of the most successful mid-size arenas over the past 34 years.”

By Andy Weiss

Bluefin, the leading provider of payment security technologies and PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solutions for retail, hospitality, healthcare, and higher education today announced its partnership with Ungerboeck, the world’s leading event software, to provide PCI-validated P2PE to Ungerboeck clients.

Ungerboeck’s event technology platform is trusted by over 50,000 event professionals in more than 50 countries. Customers include top shows from across the world; universities; performing arts venues; global convention centers; some of the world’s most visited museums, professional sports arenas, and stadia; plus, other unique events and venues of all shapes and sizes. Ungerboeck also allows customers to accept a variety of payment types, from cash to credit to ACH, and process payments within one system.

Ungerboeck has partnered with Bluefin to provide the company’s PCI-validated P2PE solution directly through the company’s software platform. PCI P2PE secures credit and debit card transactions by encrypting all data within a PCI-approved point of entry device. This prevents clear-text cardholder data from being available within the device, or in the merchant’s system where exposure to malware is possible. Data decryption always occurs offsite in a Bluefin hardware security module (HSM), ensuring the highest level of security.

“Data security is an utmost priority for our customers,” said Manish Chandak, President and CEO of Ungerboeck, “especially for the ones who deal with credit card transactions. With Bluefin, we can now offer those customers a way to remove credit card data from their network and reduce their PCI compliance burden. Ultimately, our customers get an even more secure solution.”

Bluefin enables PCI-validated P2PE on partner platforms using their Decryptx® Decryption as a Service (DaaS) product, which allows gateways, ISV’s, and processors to connect directly to Bluefin for the P2PE service.

“Ungerboeck is a true technology pioneer in events software – and as we know from the myriad of data breaches, hackers do not discriminate between industries, whether event venues, stadiums or convention centers,” said Greg Cornwell, Global Head of Sales, Bluefin. “We are excited that Ungerboeck will be providing PCI-validated P2P2E to their global customer base to devalue sensitive payment data and protect cardholders.”

The benefits of the Bluefin and Ungerboeck P2PE solution include reducing PCI scope from 329 to 33 questions on the P2PE self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ), which in turn provides significant cost and efficiency savings; online management of the P2PE device process with Bluefin’s P2PE Manager®; and seamless integration with the Ungerboeck platform utilizing the P2PE-validated ID Tech SREDKey payment terminals.

Andy Weiss is vice president of marketing for Ungerboeck.