Feld Entertainment introduced a two-year guarantee on all its merchandise 15 years ago.
“We were very customer-service oriented. We thought, we might as well make that official. In the scale of what we sell, that’s a very minor point, but it’s a feature — we stand behind our products,” said Graeme Burman, SVP, chief logistics and merchandising officer who started with Feld in 1981.
Associates tell customers about the guarantee and hand out cards with an 800-number that is open 24/7, Burman said. “We use it as an icebreaker.”
Feedback shows him people are incredibly pleased with Feld’s customer service, he added. “In this day and age, customer service is something people don’t invest in the way they did in the past.” Feld Entertainment does.
But the biggest change in merchandising is the growth in the number of shows and the accompanying product lines, he said.
“We’re upwards of 5,000 items now across all the brands and shows we support,” he said.
The goal is to make merchandise participatory and live-event specific.
“Items we sell enhance the experience,” Burman said. “People enjoy them at the show. Program books, cotton candy, snocones and popcorn are standard items; they enhance the show. The concept is to have a premium item that is experiential, like cotton candy in a hat.”
Feld Entertainment also has a robust licensing program, particularly for Monster Jam. There are 400-plus licensed products in the marketplace, he said.
For the past two years, they have also produced souvenir cups for venues specific to the shows and are open to producing cups nonspecific to Feld shows, according to Kenneth Feld, Chairman and CEO.
As of now, the top five venues for souvenir cups on Feld Shows are: NRG Stadium, Houston; MetLife Stadium, E. Rutherford, N.J.; Allstate Arena, Rosemont, lll.; United Center, Chicago and Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y. Altogether these venues have sold over 100,000 event cups for Feld shows. They are currently talking to SMG, AEG, Spectra Management and others about the souvenir cup program.
Burman said the Feld creative staff does extensive research on trends in the markeplace and the show theme to determine deliverables. “It’s rare a product goes from initial concept to production without a lot of mix and match,” he added. Ideally, it takes a year to 18 months to develop a new line.
Licensed product, like the Disney on Ice brands, is a well-honed science. “We’ve worked with Disney so many years, we have a good understanding of their needs,” Burman said.
For the hit ice show based on Disney’s Frozen, for instance, it was important Elsa look like Elsa and Anna like Anna, but the actual merchandise was specific to the live event. Fortunately for ice show sales, Frozen retail merchandise was so hot that the ice show was the only place in some markets fans could find any.
For the circus and Monster Jam, Feld Entertainment also takes merchandise to retail. The goal is to expand that portion of the business, Burman said. A lot of that goes to the influence of Feld Motor Sports, which joined the fold in 2008.
Burman agreed with his fellow Feld-ites that motorsports has had a major impact on the way Feld Entertainment does business. “We’ve added some of our best practices, such as customer service, to the motorsports side and also learned some things from motor sports and put it into practice on the Feld side.”
Merchandise logistics for motorsports were handled differently than on Feld, for instance. Burman said the acquisition stimulated Feld Entertainment to do an analysis of that supply chain and logistics piece. “We realized the motorsports model would work for the Feld side and be more efficient. Specifically, motorsports was doing more hub-and-spoke distribution to events and Feld operated on a tour basis. Now, we do more hub and spoke on Feld than previously and eliminated some trailers or merchandise space on tours that was going from one place to another.”
Technology has impacted merchandise along with everything else. One change is the green screen for the photo op, allowing customers to choose from a menu of backdrops for their digital photo, delivered through an Feld Entertainment app.
And the lighted merchandise this year has a Bluetooth component so people can control them with their phone or other Bluetooth device to participate in the show.
Burman’s department includes 25 fulltimers at the corporate office, plus people travelling with every tour. Those are augmented with professional sellers acting as independent contractors. One train car carries circus merch and each tour has from one to three trailers of merchandise and equipment.
“We make a commitment to putting a lot of locations out so people don’t have to wait in line and don’t have to search for it,” Burman said.
One of his most unique events is Monster Jam World, the biggest single event merchandise wise that Feld does, involving probably a dozen trailers and 2.5-times the normal arena show’s 20 points of sale.