Creation of Feld Entertainment Studios in Ellenton, Fla., has resulted in a sharing culture beyond anything historically at Feld Entertainment.
“We have seen a huge high in spirit and morale in the company,” said Alana Feld, EVP. “The passion that everyone at Feld has is incredible and having everything in one space is a huge part of that. Everyone gets to see the whole breadth of what we do as a company, whether you are working directly on it or not.”
It’s astounding how many people spend their whole careers at Feld Entertainment, Juliette Feld, COO, added. “We have so many associates dedicated to growing the company into our shared success.”
“We’ve worked hard to cultivate an environment where we challenge people, which is very rewarding and fulfilling and where they feel like important contributors to what we do,” Juliette added. “The most rewarding part of what we do is we get to see our customer enjoy the product. That’s what everyone gets hooked on.”
“What Kenneth and Mike Shannon did masterfully is create a culture of sharing,” said Bill Powell, Regional Vice President, South Region. “Now people get into a room and start talking about the business and don’t just do their specific job. There are a lot of smart people at Feld and you get them in a room and create some structure around that so people can have discourse about challenges and opportunities relating to the show, more than likely something good will come out of it.”
Then it’s a matter of managing that process as it moves forward.
A promoter might not have known the people in operations and now he does, Powell said. “You realize, for instance, the challenge of painting dirt.”
Powell, whose curiosity is limitless, learned the science of moving dirt, proper composition of dirt and painting dirt when he got in a room with wheeled motorsports staff — motocross and arenacross — where he is team leader.
“I know more about dirt than I ever really wanted to but, boy, it’s welcome because now I have a good understanding of all sides of the business.”
“It’s been very good for the whole organization because it’s opened up a whole lot of dialog. We work smarter,” Powell said. “We don’t just spin our wheels and get frustrated because we don’t get an answer. Most of the answers are there if you want to have a discussion with someone.”
Powell recalls an early lesson from Tim Hotz, who used to book the circus. He drilled it into their heads that some things don’t change.
“I may not know what is going to happen tomorrow, but I know Jan. 1 RBBB will open and we better have it ready. Jan. 4 or 5 we open in Cincinnati and Anaheim with Supercrosss and Arenacross, Monster Jams, circuses and ice shows. We’re heavy in the first quarter, January through mid-May. We have to be locked and loaded and ready to go. For me, I just back everything against that deadline,” Powell said.
That said, working at Feld Entertainment Studios opens opportunities as well as communication. “You recognize a need in your meetings and, sometimes, I’ll just raise my hand and say I’ve got some bandwidth, let me look into it,” said Powell, SVP. “Or it’s something they kind of want to do and I’ll say I know somebody and I can get us in the room and we can have a discussion about it.”
Nothing is impossible at Feld Entertainment. That’s the biggest lesson learned for Jeff Meyer, SVP.
“When we first started, it was a blank sheet of paper. Any idea that came up within reason that we could execute was blessed because it was in the spirit of P.T. Barnum. We were able to be incredibly entrepreneurial to sell tickets. That was the mission,” Meyer said.
The same is true today, but technology has changed the trajectory. “It’s a different type of teamwork,” Meyer said. “It’s probably taken even more collaboration and teamwork because it’s so interconnected with everything we do. The communications lines have to be incredibly open. There isn’t a day that goes by now that I don’t have discussions with 10-15 different departments. A lot of it is all in the same meeting because we’re all so connected.”
But still, first and foremost, incredibly entrepreneurial, Meyer said, crediting the Feld family with allowing entrepreneurism to flourish. “Ideas get thrown out on the table all the time and there’s really no bad one. Kenneth and the family have, over time, been terrific about allowing us to take shots and chances. We look at the business as if the financial investment is coming from us personally.”
Meyer especially likes that decisions are made quickly, because this is a private company. “If we think it’s the right move, it’s a discussion with the Felds, and with the facts laid out on the table we make decisions pretty quickly.”
“When you have an ownership group and direct access to the top, you can make a quick decision,” Meyer said. “You may make a million-dollar decision on moving dates from one time of year to another.”
For instance, seeking to boost fourth quarter revenues in 2016, they added Monster Jam stadium dates this winter at University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, and in St. Louis, both traditional one-offs in the first quarter, Meyer said. “We added those two dates in less than a day of decision-making. We ended up putting 70,000 people into those dates, a huge success, and they’ll stay on the route in the future. We’re always making those types of decisions. We have the luxury, as long as we have good facts and figures and good gut instincts. We get a few good ideas on the table and a day later we’re doing it.”
These decisions, even quick ones, are thoroughly vetted, a lot of that coming down to big data today. “It’s integrated into everything we do now. It’s part of our everyday life. The more we learn, the smarter we are in communicating. Understanding the consumer today, we have a much better ability to do that,” Meyer said. It was a lot of gut historically.
Oddly, one of the first data-collection outreaches was a campaign with USA Today in the early 90s called “Baby’s First.”
“I remember the double truck spread in USA Today, in celebration of every baby born in America having the chance to attend their first RBBB free. We registered every baby. That was our first foray into data collection, following the customer cradle to grave,” Meyer said.
“Now we collect data every day, so much data, and append it with every other source we can,” Meyer said. “We now know how many cars they own, where they go, their kids, age, gender, schools, what they eat and where they eat it. We use all that data to be more effective in how we communicate with them.”
It’s all in the customer service vein of the company culture. Consumers don’t want every message; they want the relevant ones. “We may have 20-30-40 different creative messages into any given market depending on the target market today,” Meyer said.
“You know the old saying, half your advertising is working, but you don’t know which half,” Meyer said. “Now we know what’s working and it’s a lot more cluttered today, so it has to be that way.”