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By Kim Bedier, CFE
Arena
managers who made the trek to this year’s Arena Management Conference were
royally welcomed by the Queen City of Charlotte, N.C. The enterprising
Arenas Committee had worked all year to put together the 2007 AMC. A lot of
thought, time and effort went into the programming, from sessions to social
events and everything in between. Is it tough coming up with something
exciting and new each year? You bet.
This year, led by Darius “Capt. Kirk” Dunn, the
committee gazed into our cloudy crystal ball and determined to seek out the
future frontier of our arenas. We elected to boldly go where no arena
manager has gone before — to the source of all future ticket revenues, to
encounter that strange and incredible alien race: young people under the age
of 25.
We began with an insightful panel discussion — a
conversation, really — with our arena patrons of the future. A group of
young people age 14 and up bravely assembled at the podium, including
students from Johnson and Wales University, as well as a couple of “arena
rats” — a.k.a. children of arena managers: Bridget Bechtold (Marty) and
Aaryona Schilling (Mark).
Arena managers actually got to ask them burning
questions like, “What do you like about our arenas?” Perhaps more
importantly, we also asked them, “What would you change about our arenas?”
and, “If you could build an arena from scratch, what would it look like?”
Those of you who were there know the answer to that
question involves architecturally fascinating features in men’s restrooms,
and iPod docking stations. Not surprisingly, to a person, our arena patrons
of the future told us, “Have your staff treat us like they want us to be
there, and keep the restrooms clean and the popcorn affordable, and we will
keep coming to your events.”
We were able to understand everything the students were
telling us because in the opening session immediately preceding, Kwain
Bryant of the Empowerment Exchange had taught us how to “Speak Their
Language.” By inspiring us with his HYPE (Helping Young People Excel), Kwain
got us “off da chain.” We also learned that “stacking cheese” has nothing to
do with cheddar, and were introduced to the term “ephebiphobia” — the
persistent, unwarranted fear of teenagers. This had even the logical Dr.
Spock quaking in his Starfleet-issued footwear.
Kwain and our group of students caused us to LOL, KWIM?
AFAIK, and FWIW, we not only need to learn the alien lexicon of 21st century
youth, we must also decipher their favorite form of communication, text
messaging (Laugh Out Loud; Know What I Mean — or
in Chris Bigelow’s case, IYKWIM; As Far As I
Know; For What It’s Worth). Only then will we truly connect with our arena
patrons of the future. And we must boldly go where no veteran arena manager
has gone before — to MySpace.
If your arena doesn’t send out Facebook flyers yet, you
are missing a great connection. Developing and maintaining a presence on
Internet-based social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook is easy
if you know how — and who knows how?
Why, the young people already working in your building,
of course. At the Comcast Arena in Everett, Wash., our MySpace page was
started by an enthusiastic intern, before we really even knew how
far-reaching it could be. Based on what we heard in Charlotte, we will
become even more focused on this newfangled cultural phenomena.
Our young people told us they looked for the total
experience at our arenas — fun inside and out, “tons of stuff” going on in
the parking lot, on the way in, around the concourses. They want fan
involvement and constant entertainment. They also notice the creativity
going into facility design, and commented on how important aesthetics and
even art were in the arena setting.
These enthusiastic teenagers and college students
helped convince us that the dreaded ephebiphobia really is unwarranted, and
we won’t need to call in Dr. “Bones” McCoy to cure us. Like generations of
arena managers before us, we need to keep listening to the sounds from outer
space; but our future, and that of our arenas, appears to be in very good
hands.
Perhaps in celebration of having successfully
mind-melded with tomorrow’s arena patrons, a group of courageous and
unflinchingly noble arena managers headed out to the U.S. Whitewater
Training Center later that week; perhaps the true definition of boldly going
anywhere is getting dumped headfirst out of a raft in Class 5 rapids.
Survivors of this mission are already talking about how we could possibly
top this for next year — your Arenas Committee accepts this challenge.
If you weren’t one of the record breaking attendees at
this year’s AMC, stop reading and go immediately to your handheld
communicator; slot in Sept. 13- 16, 2008, and be sure to teleport to Kansas
City, Mo., for another voyage to strange new arena worlds (the Sprint
Center) to seek out new life, new civilizations and events — and to boldly
go where no arena manager has gone before. It will be XLNT.
fm
Kim Bedier, CFE, is
general manager of the Everett Events Center/Global Spectrum in in Everrett,
Wash.
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