In 1965, Don Rankin of Pritchard Sports was a rookie cop in Baltimore, walking a post. “I knew I had a known police fighter on my beat. He was pointed out to me and I was told to be cautious.” At 8 p.m. one night, Rankin walks into the P& M Lounge on North Avenue […]
Venue managers are not usually the focus of attention. So when Russ Simons was opening what was then called Nashville Arena on Dec. 18, 1996 — a night he will always remember as magical in every possible way — that moment attention focused on him stands out. The opening concert was Amy Grant’s Tennessee Christmas. […]
Experience comes by doing. Expertise follows. In Maureen Andersen’s case, the two were almost simultaneous. “You settle the show. You’re ready.” Those were the instructions that threw Andersen into the thick of things at a young and still inexperienced age at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Robert Garner, Garner Attractions and later Center […]
Richard Andersen was frozen in place for what seemed an eternity. Everyone at Candlestick Park in San Francisco for Major League Baseball’s World Series that day eventually realized they’d just experienced a major earthquake. But there was no information; no way to communicate. It was 5:03 p.m., Oct. 17, 1989. The San Francisco Giants were […]
Photo: Legion Park, Greenwood, S.C., in 1976. Home of the Greenwood Braves Single A team. (Courtesy of digitalballparks.com) When you spend baseball season working with 30-40 guys on a Single A minor league team, and you’re the newbie, initiation into the culture is an eye opener. Richard Andersen, who became general manager of the Greenwood […]
Lee Zeidman was calmly watching load-in of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2000. He had this. Staples Center had been open eight months. AEG, venue owners, sold their site to the DNC when it was a hole in the ground. It was built to handle two National Basketball […]
The Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, circa 1975. Legend has it that when Denzil Skinner privatized the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in 1977, he faced extreme dangers probably unknown to venue managers today. When David, Denzil’s son, and Mike Noah, his son-in-law, first toured the stadium, they opened every door, and found people’s living rooms […]
As told previously in Based on Truth, Brad Mayne, CEO of Center Operating Company, found it challenging to negotiate the ins and outs of building and running American Airlines Center for the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars. Answering to two team owner groups, one hockey and one basketball, can make every decision an exercise in […]
Only a few venue managers have been challenged to operate a company that doesn’t exist for a building that hasn’t been built. When Brad Mayne arrived in Dallas to create a company to build a new $412-million arena for hockey’s Stars and basketball’s Mavericks, a strong business acumen and an appreciation of good lawyers that […]
It was the late ‘70s and 27-year-old Frank Roach was assistant director at Hampton (Va.) Coliseum. Hampton was a very progressive city and had secured a huge piece of business for such a small town – Garner Ted Armstrong’s Intercontinental Church of God Feast of the Tabernacles. It was a 10-day convention in October, drawing […]