Special Feature: Quicker, Faster & More Fun Arenas — Execs Face “Trickiest of Gigs” in Satisfying Fans & Artists
In the broadest of contexts, an arena is a business — if a very complex one — and must be run as such, taking care of its employees, serving clients and making bottom-line numbers work.
To even begin the task of public assembly, arenas must first function as highly flexible, multifaceted and operational office buildings, where employees come to perform their jobs, and those employees are compensated.
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Beyond that, arenas have two client pools: the fans who live in the market, entering the venue seeking entertainment and a positive experience, and the touring entertainment that rolls into town expecting satisfactory revenue and a relatively easy day.
Both clients can be unforgiving, and if either leaves unhappy, chances are they won’t come back, as myriad choices exist for both.
The program at the Arena Management Conference, set for Sept. 8-10 in Toronto, often reflects common business challenges like customer service, negotiation strategies, public relations techniques, social media and marketing campaigns, eco-friendly operations and issues specific to market size.
But other topics reflect the challenges that are entirely unique to public assembly and the sports and live entertainment industry from a facilities point of view: ticketing, promoter relations, security and what’s happening in the world of EDM, for example. These are the topics that most likely won’t arise in the world of widget retail.
Being an arena manager is one of the trickiest gigs in live entertainment. Billboard asked several of them about the biggest challenges they face, and their responses are both unique to this industry and typical of any business today. And that includes customer service.
“Our primary challenge is always about, ‘How do we better serve our guests? How do we make it quicker, smarter and more fun?'” says Hugh Lombardi, senior VP/GM of the TD Garden in Boston. “The experience has to be painless, and that’s where we’re always striving to do better.”
The focus on customer service for arenas isn’t limited to inside the building, Lombardi says. “It’s door to door, from the time they buy their tickets until they leave the event. There’s a lot going on there, and we have to do our very best to make sure they have a lot of fun throughout the whole experience.”
Thankfully, Lombardi says — in a sentiment echoed by several arena managers — content abounds in both quality and quantity for a market like Boston. “There are a lot of good shows out there,” he says, “and they’re bigger and better, they’re fan-friendly, and fans are really paying attention to that. Fans are talking to fans, we’re talking to fans, and they’re talking to us. We have to listen, and fans will tell us what they want.”
Allen Johnson, director of facilities for the City of Orlando, Fla., which includes the Amway Center, the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre and the Florida Citrus Bowl, agrees that some good events is out there for arenas to book. He’s particularly pleased with the development of new touring acts at the arena level.
“Every arena manager would tell you that it’s good to see Bruno Mars become an arena act,” Johnson says. “It’s good to see Maroon 5 come back and do strong business. You love to see those artists that weren’t previously arena acts start headlining, like Florida Georgia Line.”
Johnson is one of many who appreciates the strength of artist development in country music. “A good story for us is Luke Bryan,” he says. “Luke has been in my building three times: first as a special guest, then as support for Jason Aldean and the third time he’s headlining and sold out. Country’s strong right now, and it’s looking good for next year.”
Even so, it’s almost an embarrassment of riches for the genre, particularly in secondary and tertiary markets where country is historically strong. “For us right now, the challenge is managing all the traffic that’s out there on the country side,” says Todd Hunt, director of the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Miss. “That can be a good problem to have, but the challenge is about trying to keep everybody spread out enough, and not trying to play within a week of each other. We’ve got great development of new headliners. We’ve just got to figure out how to keep the traffic where it needs to be.”
David Kells, director of bookings at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, says the wealth of touring content, particularly for a market like his that doesn’t have a large amphitheater, creates issues with giving each on-sale space, even if the market can support a lot of shows. “With the strength of today’s touring talent, the promoters, the artist marketing teams and the support of the fans in Nashville, plenty of shows can be successful,” Kells says. “That being said, we still work to keep enough separation between the on-sales.”
Content issues aren’t relegated to smaller markets — they also affect major markets with multiple venues. The biggest challenge for the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the highest-grossing arena in North America, last year? Feeding the machine. “The challenge is a crowded market in terms of venues to play and whether there is enough content to feed them all,” says Lee Zeidman, VP/GM for the Staples Center for AEG. “And, as venues, how we can help in developing and breaking new talent to feed our venues.”
Scott Mullen, GM of the iWireless Center in Moline, Ill., says competition comes from not only fellow venues but also fairs, festivals and others who book talent across a region. “It seems that every community in America with over 100,000 people has built an arena, and everyone is desperate for content to fill them,” Mullen says. “There are probably three times as many venues as there were 20 years ago. There are less shows touring, and most are playing fewer dates. There are so many entities out there competing for events, and everyone’s success or failure is measured by how many quality events you can bring to your venue.”
That fierce competition for events leads to what Mullen sees as yet another challenge that arena managers face: whether to take risk in buying shows, and how much skin they can put in the game. “In most cases, if an arena manager sits around waiting for a promoter to call and book a show, they probably have a lot of dark days on the calendar,” Mullen says. “When it comes to talent, it’s a seller’s market, and there is always some other arena out there willing to pay more than the next guy to get a show.”
Arenas often have a tougher nut to crack in making offers, and often aren’t on a level playing field when they’re in a position to take some risk. “There are countless fairs, festivals and casino venues paying inflated guarantees because they can make the money elsewhere,” Mullen says. “When managers and agents see this, the price goes up and it becomes increasingly difficult to make a profit. For most of us, losing money on a show is not acceptable, so the decision to take on risk and become promoters needs to be carefully weighed, and sometimes ‘no’ is a better alternative.”
Matt McDonnell, assistant director of the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, wants to see more of the elite touring acts make their way to his city, and his challenge is communicating the idea that his market can support such acts, provided the deal isn’t too tight. “Tertiary markets right now have been squeezed more than ever before in trying to maintain touring talent,” he says. “There’s a lot of tours out there, but they seem to continue to gravitate to the big markets. I understand the economics of all that but, still, there are tertiary markets that can generate positive results, and they don’t need to be forgotten. We’ve shown that for 35 years with people like the Eagles, Elton John and Luciano Pavarotti.”
That’s right — Pavarotti. “We did Pavarotti in Biloxi, and people were going, ‘Wait a minute, Pavarotti is coming where?'” McDonnell recalls. “And we grossed $1.4 million on that show. Those numbers are real, and they can happen. You just have to believe that venues in tertiary markets can produce results.”
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