Unique Venues
By D. Fran Morley
Want to add a little excitement to your event? Be creative. Move a traditional outdoor event inside; hold an event at a theme park, on board a ship or in a parking lot; search for unique or new facilities; or adapt a non-traditional venue to fit an event.
Music Tours Unlimited holds cheer and dance competitions at theme parks, including Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa.; SeaWorld in San Antonio; Universal Orlando (Fla.); Celebration City in Branson, Mo.; and Six Flags Theme Parks in Dallas/Fort Worth and in Springfield, Mass. Ron Simmons, executive director for Music Tours Unlimited, said using a theme park for the company’s cheerleading and dance competitions gives competitors and their families more entertainment options.
“With all of our programs, we try to provide an option for after the competition. When we hold events at a school gymnasium, as we do in Hershey, we follow that up with the awards ceremony at Hersheypark. It’s optional, but most competitors and spectators choose to go to the awards ceremony. When we use a venue like SeaWorld in San Antonio, everything is taken care of, and we’re there for the whole day. The stage is great, there are big changing areas (as opposed to school locker rooms), and we have all the extra amenities of the park. We love it.”
Fran Stephenson, director of communications for SeaWorld San Antonio, said planners should keep in mind that even when a park or attraction is closed for the season, it might still be open to special events. “For more than 10 years, we’ve partnered with the American Lung Association for an annual 5K walk in February, when the park is closed. Last year, 1,200 walkers and runners started at our main entrance and ended at one of our stadiums for a wrap-up and private show. We assisted with admission, setting up the route, and special event support. It worked out great for all of us.”
Ballrooms, Boats & Parks
This winter, Simmons’ company will hold a new event at Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn. “Normally a ballroom isn’t good for dance competitions because of carpeting, but we requested a special wood dance floor in the ballroom, and they can do that for us.” The resort location also gives competitors more reasons to attend. “The Radio City Rockettes® will be performing in the group’s annual Christmas show at the Grand Ole Opry at that time, and we’ve arranged for our competitors to see the show and also to have a dance clinic with the Rockettes,” Simmons said.
Music Tours Unlimited also steps out of the box with dance clinics on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ships. “These are smaller groups, and the cruise clinics are popular with the whole family.” Simmons said in addition to clinics, the students usually put on a small show for the cruise passengers, “and they enjoy that.”
New venues and smaller boats are making a splash with planners in Oklahoma City. Regatta Park, located on the city’s recently revitalized Oklahoma River, offers 35-passenger Devon River Cruisers and the nearby Chesapeake Boathouse as the perfect combination for hosting special events and water-related sports events, according to Elizabeth Buckley, director of sports business development for the Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB). Recently, the CVB co-hosted a reception at the park during the USA Canoe/Kayak Olympic Trials held on the Oklahoma River.
“We could have selected any number of venues for this VIP reception,” she said. “We chose Regatta Park because of its location and beautiful setting. Regatta Park is just a few hundred feet from the racecourse, which enabled the guests, spectators and athletes to attend the reception immediately following the awards ceremony.” Buckley said guests were able to take rides and tours on the Devon River Cruisers, which added more excitement to the evening.
Planners in the San Diego area can hold receptions on the basketball court of the San Diego Hall of Champions sport museum. Robin Redfearn, events director at the museum, said the museum provides built-in entertainment for events. “We have nice areas for banquets, but our Center Court, an actual basketball court, is fun for groups of up to around 400 people. Guests have access to the entire museum and can explore the exhibits before or after the reception.”
Redfearn said the museum is particularly popular for high school awards banquets. “We have two huge screens where we can play highlight reels, and the kids really enjoy seeing themselves on the big screen.”
Non-Traditional Locales
Planners can put a new twist on events by creating a venue in non-traditional locations. Meg Bruno, senior vice president of marketing for the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, said the sport got a big boost when the tour was expanded to cities without a natural beach, such as Boulder, Colo., Dallas and Atlanta, and created beaches in parking lots. The past three years, the AVP Tour has played to thousands of fans in Atlanta’s Atlantic Station, a retail, entertainment and residential development. “We set up regulation courts and have at least four courts, which means that we have to truck in nearly 1,000 tons of sand to create our playing surface.”
It takes four to five full working days to create a beach in a parking lot, according to Gary Stokan, president of the Atlanta Sports Council. “We use about 250 railroad ties to frame up the courts and keep the sand in place.”
The Atlanta Sports Council works closely with Atlantic Station and AVP officials to cover all the details. “We want to ensure that our guests have a high-quality, first-class experience with regard to guest services, concessions, parking, security, etc.,” Stokan said.
Bruno said AVP players and fans love the urban environment of Atlantic Station. “Atlanta has a fantastic indoor volleyball community that comes out in droves to see these games. In an inland city, you don’t get the opportunity to see beach volleyball every day, so the crowds are very enthusiastic. Plus, the players and crew love the proximity of restaurants, shops, and even a movie theater at Atlantic Station.”
Places With Room For Big Crowds
Sometimes an outdoor event gets to be so large that it’s necessary to move it away from its natural location to someplace that can accommodate huge crowds. That’s the case with many of the fishing tournaments put on by FLW Outdoors, which has partnered with Wal-Mart since 1996 to hold tournament weigh-ins at Wal-Mart parking lots. The organization’s larger events have even outgrown the parking lots and are now held at convention centers.
“The focal point of any tournament is the weigh-in, and there’s only so much space lakeside. We get thousands of spectators who want to meet the pros and get autographs, so a parking lot or a convention center is what we need now,” said Dave Washburn, vice president of communications for FLW Outdoors. “We have a Family Fun Zone with kids’ trout ponds, and we have cyber cafés set up at the convention center events for our Fantasy Fishing Tournament, which offers the richest payout in any fantasy sport.”
On Jan. 1, the National Hockey League (NHL) held its 2008 Winter Classic between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins outdoors—converting the Buffalo Bills’ 70,000-seat football stadium into an ice rink. It was only the second time the NHL had staged a regular- season game outdoors.
“Everyone involved was on board from the start,” said Michael Gilbert, director of public relations for the Buffalo Sabres. “When the NHL approached us, obviously we were interested. We have a good relationship with the Bills, so we helped with the agreement to use their stadium.”
Don Renzulli, senior vice president of events and entertainment for the NHL, said the biggest concern was working around the Bills’ schedule. After the Bills’ last game, the NHL had a little more than a week over the Christmas holidays to turn the 70,000-seat football stadium into a hockey arena, which required building up the field to a level surface and installing the equipment to create the ice.
Conditions in Buffalo on New Year’s Day were perfect for hockey, said Pete Harvey, manager for sports development for the Buffalo CVB. “We got light snow during the pre-game festivities and the visuals were beautiful. We loved it. Having the opportunity to host the largest outdoor NHL hockey event in the country was great, and because NBC carried the game live, millions of people around the country got to see a great hockey game in a great city.”