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Create a POSITIVE
Splash When Opening a
New Facility

By Brad Mayne, CFE

Opening a new facility is a unique experience. Anytime I’ve worked on new projects that I was not familiar with, I had some hesitancy in our plans and actions, while attempting to visualize the outcome.

Steve Casad is a good friend of mine who helped us open the American Airlines Center in Dallas and is now the general manager for Sportservice at PETCO Park in San Diego. He explained the experience as, “Opening Day is like the final exam, and then once you experience the first event you begin to learn, it’s all backwards.” Of course, a lot of work, planning, training and preparations go into opening a new facility, but until you open the building, all of your plans and ideas are just that, plans and ideas.

Marketing and sales for a new venue is the most enjoyable time you will ever spend opening a new facility. You are selling an idea, you are selling something new and exciting, something that no one can see, touch or experience until the doors are opened. You have the license to create excitement for something many people want to be a part of. But you also have an obligation to be realistic so your organization can deliver this exciting product you’re creating.

The first and most important item is creating a brand that defines your facility and presents the venue in a positive light. You want people to know what function your venue will play in the community. You don’t want the community questioning or defining your brand for you.

I know from experience that no matter how positive your project is for the community you will have your detractors, naysayers and those in public opposition to your facility project that must be dealt with. You will also have many people attempting to take advantage of your venue to further their own cause, obviously to their benefit. These issues will greatly affect the brand you will achieve in the market.

Your first event, or series of opening events, will have a major impact on your brand, as well as the venue’s viability. If you have parking problems at the first event, your venue will be perceived as a place with parking problems. If you run out of product in Food and Beverage or the sound in your venue was noticeably bad, then you stand a good chance that your facility will always be labeled negatively, no matter how many other things went right. You really only have one chance to get it right! Make sure you have input into the type of event(s) you will first host in the venue so you have the greatest chance of creating the right impression in the community and the industry.

At the American Airlines Center, we had great success reaching our community through a structured marketing plan that allowed for input from the community on how the facility was to be designed. We asked the public some simple questions that our designers were able to incorporate into the design of the sports and entertainment facility. We accomplished this through the local newspaper using an insert that we controlled. We asked questions like:
1. Should the exterior of the facility be modern, contemporary, or timeless;
2. What is the most important feature in the interior of the facility:
    a. The number of Toilet/Urinal Fixtures,
    b. Cup Holders,
    c. Wide Concourses,
    d. High Quality Finishes.
We were able to tell the community what to expect at the same time we were asking what they felt was most important (the number one answer on all of the returned surveys was “cup holders on every chair”). Of course, we made the survey results public and went on to explain that all of the features in the survey would be included, as we had heard the public loud and clear.

The other thing we did for successful branding of the facility was the creation of a list of items we felt were newsworthy, to take advantage of the media and their coverage of our progress. Simple things like the groundbreaking, the first brick laid, the first basketball game on the Mavericks practice court (complete with Mark Cuban and a lucky listener playing against two radio personalities), and the opening of the streets surrounding the facility.

Each of these stories ended up with additional interest such as a NASCAR vehicle driving the streets, sponsored by our facility sponsor at a time when a NASCAR event was in town receiving a lot of media coverage. When asking the media to cover multiple stories, coverage will include both positive and controversial issues. We felt that media coverage of any type was good, whether the stories were good or bad. The challenge was mitigating the bad stories with information that told our side of the story.

When designing and constructing a new facility, you don’t have a product to touch and feel. You will be dependent on collateral, graphics, drawings and the like to educate your buying public about your product. I would suggest you figure out ways to get people to the site so they can see that the facility is a reality. If you are selling luxury suites, you should build a luxury suite that the public has access to. If you are selling convention space, you should have samples of interior building materials that you will be using. If you have something unique in your venue that sets you apart from other venues, make sure you have the proper collateral and marketing plan to define that item as part of your facility. And, always figure out how you can get community involvement in everything you do.

When you get close to opening the facility, use the community to help you condition the facility with the creation of media events. Hold a “Flush Out” to flush all of your toilets and urinals at the same time for multiple minutes to insure your plumbing works. Host a “Sit In” by having people sit in every chair of the facility, to insure that all of the furniture is in working order. You get the idea.

Most of all, cherish everything you do, as it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a brand from the very beginning, using the paint brush on a clean canvas, insuring your painting is a pleasing and useful brand that will set your venue up for continued success in your community..

About the Author:
Brad Mayne, CFE, is president and chief executive officer of the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, and can be reached at bmayne@americanairlinescenter.com.