Arena Venues – Not Just For Sitting & Watching

Over the weekend I went to the Great Northeast Home Show in Albany NY.  The show was so large that it was housed in two venues; the Empire State Plaza Convention Center and the Times Union Center arena.  As I walked around the show I realized we should be using arenas more often for these types of events.

As arena marketers and bookers we are always looking at traditional touring shows and events that we can book into our venues.  What about other events?  There are 365 days in a year.  Most venues are not booked 365 days so this means there is capacity to fill.  Convention halls seem to have the lock on consumer trade shows.  The show I was at proves that arenas can do a fine job of hosting consumer trade shows too.  I am looking to produce a food show in the next year or so.  I will now look at an arena venue to possibly host it.

As I was walking around the arena concourse and looked at all the trade show booths it reminded me of when we offered our sponsors at the IHL Atlanta Knights, sponsor tables.  What if you took that idea to the next level?  What if you sold concourse booth space to create a trade show?  If you are an arena sports team you know your demographics.  Why not produce a consumer trade show on your concourse during a game or two?  This may work better for a minor league team but why would it not work? This could be new found revenue.  Find exhibitors that believe your fans are their customers.  If the match is right you will have a win-win for all.

As I have discussed in the past, our business is changing and we need to change with it.  We need to find new sources of revenue and offer our customers new and exciting opportunities.

Weekend Of Working & Sipping Wine, Life Is Good!

So I spent my weekend at the Boston Wine Expo.  Now that’s a trade show!  I grew up in the trade show business and understand everything that goes on.  So when I go to one it always seems like work.  I am so entrenched in the event business that most shows and events feel like this.  I bet many of you feel the same way.    But not this time, I enjoyed working and hanging at the wine expo.

The show is an annual event here in Boston.  It is one of the big wine expos like the NY wine expo which opens this week.  The Boston event was both Saturday and Sunday.  It included the main floor with hundreds of wineries offering free tastings.  The cost of the event is not cheap.  A full price ticket is $85 per day.  They did offer a two day combo price.  I bet there were a lot of free tickets out there too. 

The cue line to enter the event was very smooth and orderly.  They used lots of space and stairs to break up the crowds entering.  When we first got in the line on Saturday my first thought was “oh great how long is this line”?  But I was very happy to see it move quickly.  On your way in you pick up your real wine glass.  Wow a place that gives thousands of people real glass.  Then you go down a set of stairs, they take your ticket and you are in.  That’s it.   I guess only a wine fest can give thousands of people a glass, unlimited alcohol, and everyone stays calm and civilized. 

One of the most interesting observations was the age of the crowd.  The majority were 20 and 30 something’s.  This just tells you where our society is in the drinking of alcohol.  When the recession first hit, I thought beer sales would go up because of price vs. other adult beverages.  However, the latest sales reports show the opposite. 

I was at the expo for two reasons: (here comes the shameless plug) I am working on a project to help market and sell the Gary Vaynerchuk Thunder Cruise http://www.garyvthundercruise.com/.  This is a seven day wine cruise featuring Gary.  If you are looking for a cruise and you like to drink wine, this would be the right place.   

Based on the demo of the wine expo, Gary really has the right marketing brand.  He is today’s wine drinker.  He is 30 something, drinks wine everyday, owns one of the most successful independent wine retail stores in the country and his daily video blog gets 90,000 hits a day http://tv.winelibrary.com. What started as a true mom & pop store is now a $50 million plus business. 

Gary was the keynote speaker at the expo.  He ran two blind wine tasting seminars that expo patrons could buy tickets for.  His talks are “real”.  No typical wine snub stuff here.  Where can you go to a wine tasting and the speaker asks if you smell a “sheep’s butt” in the wine?

The other reason I went to the expo was to try wine. Thank God for the spit buckets.  If I drank every wine I tried, they would have to carry me out of the expo.  I am blown away that I didn’t see any really drunk people.  That is impressive!

 It will be a long time before I buy another bottle of the “big brand name” wine.  There are so many different wines out there at really low prices.  No, you don’t have to drink “2 buck chuck”.  You can drink “great” wine for $12.  Gary pointed out in his seminar that when you pay big bucks for a wine, you are paying for the brand.  All of us in marketing can understand this.  This is part of what is getting our shows and events ticket sales in trouble during this rough time.

This event got me thinking.  If you are looking to create events, you might want to look at more of these lifestyle type shows.  The key is to stay ahead of the trends and have your event ready to go when the trend is peaking.  I will keep my eyes open for this stuff and let you know.  My guess is that some kind of big web 2.0 show might be it.  Now I have to figure out what and how.