The International Association of Venue Managers’ 2018 Venue Industry Award winners were presented in Toronto, ON, Canada, on July 25, at the 93^rd annual VenueConnect Conference and Trade Show. Each year, IAVM recognizes several venues and individuals who have demonstrated leadership and innovation within the industry.

Venue Excellence Awards (VEA)

The Venue Excellence Awards recognize five IAVM venues, across all sectors within membership, which demonstrate excellence in the management and operation of public assembly venues. Award applicants must demonstrate distinction in the management and operations of a public assembly venue including: operational excellence, safety and security, team building/professional development, and service to the community. A committee of IAVM members chooses the finalists, and winners are approved by the IAVM Board of Directors.

The 2018 Venue Excellence Award Winners

BOK Center – Tulsa, OK

Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts – Orlando, FL

INTRUST Bank Arena – Wichita, KS

Minneapolis Convention Center – Minneapolis, MN

Shaw Conference Center – Edmonton, AB, Canada

 

Education & Service Award

IAVM also announced the 2018 winners for the Education & Service Award. This prestigious award recognizes member involvement through community outreach, educational opportunities, mentorship, and internships that demonstrate excellence within our industry, as well as giving back to the community. This award is open to university staff, professional members, faculty, allied companies and individuals, as well as retired members.

The 2018 Education & Service Award Winner

Sporty Jeralds, CVE – University of South Carolina

Des Moines Performing Arts – Des Moines, IA

 

IAVM congratulates each of the 2018 award recipients for outstanding community outreach and demonstrated leadership within the industry.

It was a loose and lively crowd that filled the room as Tim Arnold presented an Executive Keynote on The Power of Healthy Tension — Overcome Chronic Issues and Conflicting Values. By the end of the powerful presentation, it was an even looser and happier crowd that drifted out of the room ready to take some new principles back to their home venues and businesses.

By nature, tension tends to be a negative word.

“Tension is not a positive word,” Arnold said. “If at home we were eating dinner and it got tense, we wanted to move away from there.”

In other words, avoidance, which is also not a good thing.

Arnold gave the audience nuggets on how to make tension an actually good thing, a positive thing.

“We will embrace good tension in this discussion,” Arnold said as he warmed up the crowd. “Tensions can drive us crazy or it can be something we can leverage and lean into to our advantage.”

Arnold cited four key steps to healthy tension: identify your crux tension (seeing is relieving); mind your bias (embrace your opposite); learn the language (there is wisdom in resistance); and make informed decisions (go slow to go fast).

“Tension is just part of life,” Arnold said. “I worked for the United Nations for three years and it was clear when everyone was in the room to meet there was so much division. We wanted agreement on who’s producing, etc. You would have countries who said we need decentralized freedom. As a group we had to accept the fact it was not going away. But there is something innate in us that we want solutions. Tension is not always to solve but to manage it well and make it healthy.”

Arnold used an example of when his wife was six months into her pregnancy of how the couple sought advice from those with children on how to raise the new child. Feedback came from having structure to having flexibility.

“It went from encouraging to discouraging,” Arnold said. “Here we were told effective parenting was either structure or flexibility. Oh my gosh! What do you choose? We were done with reading books and getting feedback.”

Arnold noted that there are at least 25 tensions that leaders manage. One such example is a meeting room of staff could be settled by diverse individuals or a unified team. Managing those tensions and get everyone onto the same page without an either/or attitude is the end goal.

An all-star panel of experts took the stage to discuss The State of EMSSI: A Hands-on Approach to Safety and Security with the Portal.

The portal? IAVM, in partnership with Simpleview, is preparing a portal for those in the convention center sector to enter valuable information regarding safety and security measures and protocols at their venues, all designed to eventually help create guidelines that will bring the sector closer in alignment with their brethren in the arena and stadium world where such security measures are mostly already in place. Such compliance and certification will also be recognized by the Department of Homeland Secyurity Safety Act Office.

With IAVM Education Director Mark Herrera setting the stage for the panelists, a room full of attendees soaked up the knowledge and participated in a lively Q&A session following the session. Herrera noted that 47 terrorist plots have been foiled since 9/11. That in itself should give any public assembly venue cause for concern and the desire to make sure their facilities are as safe as possible for the thousands of guests who enter each time.

“The premise is that if there is one attack against a convention center that it affects us all,” said Bill Flynn, president, Garda Risk Management. “Convention centers lack the consistent industry-wide guidelines and best practices that we find primarily in the sports leagues, which are at the front.

“We helped write guidelines for this industry, but it has to be by the industry and for the industry to be successful. Your industry has to have buy-in. It can’t just be the convention center’s responsibility, but your vendors and your partners as well.”

Flynn noted that while stadiums and arenas largely have known events that repeat themselves, convention centers are unique in that different events move in and out. While there might be a floral convention at one end of the building not posing much of a threat, another end of the facility might have a more charged event taking place.

John Gonzalez, George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, and Brett Mitchell, Overland Park Convention Center in Overland Park, Kansas, discussed their respective participation as test pilot venues for the portal that represented a major city convention center versus a small to mid-size convention center.

Gonzalez showed a slide at his facility’s labor check-in and noted that while employees must have an ESCA badge, there are now also different colored wristbands that expire each day at midnight and a new color must be worn the next day for entrance. Magnetometers are also part of the admittance.

Mitchell said that his venue’s guidelines must be flexible and realistic and added that although he has been at the facility since 2001 he only recently discovered a very important need to partner with an emergency response team.

“I had no idea of the resources available to us,” he said. “Now we have monthly meetings. Invite them to lunch. Build those relationships.”

Matt Dimmick, security and emergency readiness specialist with STV Inc., served as a third-party reviewer for the two pilot venues and said that good work was being done as the gap between the guidelines at the venues and the Safety Act Office was being closed.

Speaking about the portal, Andrew McLeod of Simpleview noted that there are seven domains or courses that those with access to the portal will see that include questions such as do you do this, how do you do this, and why do you do this? All questions and answers are obviously important in helping build the eventual guidelines that will benefit all in the sector.

The first full day of VenueConnect started on an upbeat note as three major awards were presented to three deserving individuals as recipients of the IAVM Foundation Legacy Award, Charles A. McElravy Award, and Joseph J. Anzivino Distinguished Allied Award. In addition to that celebration, those honored as in the 30 Under 30 were also recognized.

Steve Peters, CVE, was named recipient of the Legacy Award for his efforts and contributions

over the years in relationship to the IAVM Foundation. Peters was acknowledged for his leadership and as one of the early advocates of diversity and inclusion.

Jack Hagler, ASTC, received the Anzivino Award as a true friend to the performing arts community dating to the 1990s. Hagler even took time to credit the bankruptcy of a past employer with placing him in a theater consulting role that he has come to love and cherish and given back so much to. Hagler thanked everyone in his comments, something noted by IAVM Chair Doug Booher, CVE, who called it “quintessential” Hagler to shower praise on others even as he is being honored.

Robyn Williams, CVE, received the association’s most prestigious award when she was selected to

receive the Charles A. McElravy Award. In a distinguished career in which she has accomplished about all there is, Williams called her most recent work with the Diversity & Inclusive Leadership Committee her most “important” to date.

“It is deeply personal for me,” she said. “When I look around like in this crowd, I see diversity in a room, but not in leadership roles. This seemed really wrong to me.”

To that end, Williams asked the audience to hold her accountable as she continues to promote diversity and inclusive leadership, and thanked her colleagues on the committee for their passion.

The History of Theatre in Toronto was completed in a world-record 75 minutes on Monday morning at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre under the astute leadership of presenters Robert Long, ASTC, principal consultant, Theatre Consultants Collaborative, and Scott Crossfield, ASTC, design principal, Theatre Projects.

OK, the actual history of theatre in a world-class city such as Toronto cannot be covered in such a short time span, but Long and Crossfield kept the session moving in their seventh installment of presenting the history of theatres of the host city in which they present. This one was no different, and a crowded room that had people standing at the back was only too happy to be a part of the proceedings.

Cue the first slide to reveal the topic of the session: History of Theatres in Toronto. Jump

immediately to the second slide to reveal: As Told By Americans.

Once the laughter subsided, it was off to the races for a most informative morning of education and enlightenment.

The duo spend countless hours on researching the history of theatres, something quite evident as the slide show moves along and helps attendees understand not just how and why venues were built, but what has happened to many of them along the way. Some were gutted by fire, some faced the demolition wrecking ball, and in the case of Toronto, four long-standing theatres still stand.

Long and Crossfield covered the turf in parts: the first part originating in 1825 with the city’s first theatre performance at the Franks Hotel. From there, it was a menagerie of examining some other local venues of the day, along with a footnote of how a great fire wiped out city hall in 1849.

The second part covered legitimate theatres in the city beginning also in 1849 with the Royal Lyceum, which was renamed the Prince of Wales in 1860, something that happened many times over the
years with local theatres.

Cinema debuted in 1896 with the first motion picture shown, and in 1910 silent movies popped up. Shea’s Hippodrome opened in 1914 at a cost of $245,000 as the “Home of Vaudeville, and in 1920 it was the Pantages Theatre opening as a combination vaudeville and motion picture house.

Finally, the third part examined performing arts centers, beginning in 1960 with the O’Keefe Centre and carrying forward to many of Toronto’s well-known venues of today.

Throughout Toronto’s rich history, the survivors include the Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre, Royal Alexandra Theatre, St. Lawrence Hall, and Massey Hall.

Do not think of the session as a hum-drum history lesson only. Long and Crossfield paint a true appreciation of performing arts theatres that is evident in their delivery and discussion. It was enough to send a full room to the exits with much to ponder and discuss and hopefully go see while in Toronto.