Planning mega-events is certainly a team affair, and one DMO that has plenty of experience facilitating these high-profile happenings that register on a global scale—think Super Bowls and NCAA Final Fours, among other mega-sports showcases—is Visit Phoenix, where Director of Destination Services Jane Vukovich is that key conduit to help planners facilitate the dream and make sure the servicing of it is not a nightmare.
“It's a great collaborative effort,” Vuckovich said. “We're really good at it—we have a monthly meeting with our downtown stakeholders where we review every convention that's coming in; we review all of the events happening in the city, anything that's of interest in community. What are they facing? What are our downtown partners feeling? And how can our police members join us—and our community outreach people—so we're there to discuss all of those items.”
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The regularly scheduled communication—and how that schedule reinforces to all stakeholders the mutual benefit of conventions coming into town, creates a cohesive environment that results in community buy-in as well as excellent service and a congenial atmosphere for attendees.
“That really binds us all together on a monthly basis, whether there's a mega-event in our city or not,” Vuckovich said. “And that prepares us for every convention that comes through the convention center and keeps us as a tight unit.”
This spirit of civic cooperation also facilitates the most important element of all—and one that goes unnoticed unless something goes wrong—risk management and the safety of attendees.
“Since we have had quite a bit of experience with Super Bowls, Final Fours and all of that, we have a really good crew of our emergency response team that all works together—and I think in a pretty unique way from what I've heard from other destinations—when we have a major event,” she said. “Everyone is together in one command center, so if something happens—gosh forbid anything bad—everyone is in the room together, figuring out the solutions and reacting. Working between different entities can be difficult, but we've really found a way to work together, and that's also pulling in all of the people from our surrounding cities that help in these mega events.”
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A Collaborative Environment
Having community buy-in, especially in Phoenix’s downtown convention core, is a tangible benefit for groups convening in the Valley of the Sun.
“We are blessed to have a very collaborative downtown core of businesses, as well as our city partners, that all work together and understand the importance of these groups that are coming in and how we can best show Phoenix to all of these visitors that we're capturing in our destination,” Vuckovich said, adding that the destination is going full throttle in the post-pandemic era.
“Post-pandemic, it was about building that attendance but also building up our business community back to staffing levels, back to having the resources that they need,” she said. “We're happy that we're now able to contract these groups about 18 to 24 months in advance and have conversations with them: What do they need for their meeting? What are they looking for? How can we connect them with the correct people in our community, the thought leaders that we have? How can our biomedical campus enhance that medical meeting? Can they get a speaker?
“So, those are all the types of things we're trying to integrate; whatever we have that lends to making that meeting a success—that's really what my team focuses on,” she continued. “We also use a convention profile that we put out for every group that comes into downtown that explains how many people; when; where; what type of group it is. What are their hot buttons? When are they going to be available to go to have a glass of wine and get something to eat so our restaurants are prepared? We never want them to be surprised that there's a group in town and they're not ready.”
Vuckovich and her colleagues are not afraid to go straight to the top, either.
“Our mayor is fantastic: Mayor Kate Gallego,” Vuckovich said. “She's very involved and she loves to go and meet these groups and speak at their meetings if it's a good fit.”
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This story is sponsored by Visit Phoenix.
