Yulman Stadium-Glazer Family Club View, Tulane University, New Orleans
Homes pummeled to rubble.
Streets awash in floodwaters and debris.
A battered Superdome presiding over a seemingly abandoned downtown New Orleans.
Photos of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath show a city upended by disaster. In 2006, one year after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would pronounce the storm the “single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history,” the agency’s website reported.
Fast-forward more than a decade, and it’s a very different picture for many New Orleans venues.
“The market down here has rebounded very strongly from 11 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina just about wiped us off the face of the world,” said Alan Freeman, general manager of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Smoothie King Center and Champions Square. “The number of shows that we’re doing is strong. The attendance at the shows that we’re doing is strong.”
The stadiums, arenas and theaters that survived the storm have rebounded, many with renovated facilities. Still, there are always challenges, like keeping pace with an increasingly wired fan base and evolving security needs.
After the storm
Recovering from a Category Five hurricane takes time and money. Take UNO Lakefront Arena, for example. The 8,700-seat multipurpose venue at the University of New Orleans suffered significant damage during the storm, and it was closed for almost three years afterward. Damage estimates totaled almost $26 million, General Manager Marco A. Perez said in an email.
The silver lining: The arena “received a substantial facelift both inside and out, rejuvenating the 33-year-old venue,” he added.
Saenger Theatre was also severely damaged during the hurricane. The venue reopened in September 2013 after a $53-
million renovation, said David Skinner, general manager of Arts Center Enterprises.
The company manages Saenger Theatre and the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, which was also battered by the storm. It reopened in January 2009 after a $27-million renovation by the city of New Orleans, he said.
Restoration was only part of the battle. The city’s demographics shifted in the wake of the hurricane, and shows that had sold well before the storm weren’t faring as well, he said.
The world had changed in other ways. Before Katrina, the venues had relied heavily on regional promoters to bring in business. But in the eight years that Saenger Theatre was closed, many regional promoters had “dried up,” Skinner said. Bigger companies like Live Nation and AEG, which focus primarily on large acts bound for stadiums and arenas, weren’t an ideal replacement.
Venue officials invested in focus groups in New Orleans and the nearby Northshore area to home in on its target markets and pinpoint which shows would work best for the venues. They also adopted a more self-reliant promotional strategy. It now does up to 80 percent of business with in-house promotions, Skinner said.
Self-promotion can be risky.
“It’s all you,” he said. “There’s no promoter there. You are the promoter. You have to be sure you’re analyzing your target market right in order to be successful.”
But for the Saenger and the Mahalia Jackson, the strategy has been successful, he said.
STAYING CONNECTED
With Hurricane Katrina’s devastating aftermath largely behind them, venue managers in New Orleans are free to focus on more routine challenges. For Freeman, that includes keeping pace with evolving trends.
Technology is one of the biggest drivers of change in the sports and concert industries, he said, and it impacts nearly everything, including how fans purchase their tickets. The popularity of electronic ticketing has surged in the recent years, and Freeman and his team are adapting to the change.
“We’re moving toward more electronic ticketing that allows customers to move their tickets to their friends or other family members or on the secondary market, if they choose to do so,” he said.
The tech revolution extends beyond the virtual box office and into the venues themselves. Management invested roughly $30 million to upgrade video equipment the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and Smoothie King Center. The project included installation of high-definition video boards at both venues and a control room to feed them. The two new boards at the Superdome each measure roughly 330-feet wide by 45-feet tall. In contrast, the old boards were about 15 percent the size of their replacements, he said.
“It’s been a real game-changer at the Superdome,” Freeman said. He added that the new equipment allows sports teams to program more entertaining content.
In professional and collegiate sports, entertainment isn’t limited to what happens on the court or the field. Fans want to engage with the action using social media platforms, apps, and other smartphone gadgetry.
“Whether it’s at home or at a game, that other screen is a part of the experience,” said Scottie Rodgers, the associate director of athletics for strategic communications at Tulane University.
To that end, Tulane partnered with AT&T in fall 2016 to upgrade the network at Yulman Stadium. The new system, which includes more than eight miles of cable and 80 antennas, is designed to improve the venue’s wireless service, according to a news release from Tulane University.
The system upgrade is among a raft of improvements at the university’s athletic venues. These include putting down new turf at its baseball venue, Greer Field at Turchin Stadium, and installing branding elements throughout athletic department facilities, Rodgers said.
Fans aren’t the only ones using their mobile devices. Smartphone apps can also be an important tool in the venue manager’s arsenal, Perez said.
Thanks to data provided by Ticketmaster, he can glance at his smartphone in the moments before a show and know where patrons are entering the venue and where they will be seated. This data allows him to make real-time decisions, like mobilizing more ushers to a crowded gate or asking the show to wait for a few moments until everyone is seated, he said.
It’s not just numbers for numbers’ sake. This information allows venue operators to provide better customer service, he said.
‘A LANDSCAPE THAT’S EVER-CHANGING’
Venue managers must also contend with another significant change since Hurricane Katrina: The increased need for security.
“I think all public assembly venues today have had to re-evaluate their policies and look at strengthening their security measures,” Skinner said.
That’s been the case at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts and Saenger Theatre. Officials have re-evaluated all the venues’ security policies. Backpacks are no longer allowed, and every bag that comes through the door is checked, he said.
Sports venues are also responding to the increased need for security. The Mercedes-Benz Superdome and Smoothie King Center follow the lead of the NFL and NBA, respectively, with regards to entry gate security. Starting next season, the NFL will require all entry gates be equipped with walk-through magnetometers, a measure the NBA enacted last season, Freeman said.
Security measures at collegiate sports venues are also evolving. UNO Lakefront Arena has added a private security company to its roster, Perez said. At Tulane, university officials coordinate with groups within the athletic department, as well as university police and city officials, “to make sure that the venue and the surrounding areas are as secure as possible” on home game days, Rodgers said.
Skinner believes keeping pace with security needs will be an ongoing task for venue managers.
“It’s a landscape that’s ever-changing,” he said. “What security measures we had a year ago are different today. I dare say that what we have a year from now will be different than what we have today.”