Pensacola Civic Center gets Top Stops honors from Venues Today!

Venues Today, an entertainment industry publication, has named the Pensacola Civic Center among its “Top Stops” in the U.S. for the fourth month in a row. The April “Top Stops” list puts the SMG managed facility at #12 in the U.S. for the time period of February 16th to March 15th 2009. The building falls in the category of 5,000 to 10,000 seats and ranked at #11 in January, #12 in February, and #8 in March. Metal rockers Slipknot led the charge on February 19th for the latest ranking, followed by a weekend of Hot Rod Thunder Nationals in early March. For the first time ever, event organizers added a 3rd show for the Monster Trucks event on Saturday afternoon. Compared to 2008 numbers, the choice of three shows allowed an additional 2700 fans to get in on the action. It also paved the way for an increase of $39,000 in gross receipts.

Opening the Odysseum in Cologne, Germany

On April 2, 2009, SMG welcomed its newest facility to the SMG Network. The Odysseum, a premiere science center, opened to rave reviews in Cologne, Germany.
“The management of a science center represents a new and exciting area for SMG,” said John Sutherland, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of SMG Europe. “While somewhat of a departure from SMG’s more traditional lines of business, i.e. managing stadiums, arenas, theaters and convention centers, the fundamentals of SMG’s operational and marketing expertise still apply,” Sutherland added.

SMG is also providing food service at the facility through Savor, its food and beverage arm.

The whole concept of “edu-tainment,” i.e. making learning fun, inspired SMG’s approach to the facility. From the search for “Who Will be the Crazy Professor?” to the installation of the resident dinosaurs, SMG wanted to offer the very best in guest experiences.

In just its first ten days of operation SMG has welcomed approximately 14,000visitors. SMG will be involved in the opening of several other science centers in Germany in the near future.
links:
http://www.odysseum.de/
http://www.smg-europe.com/

Welcome to the SMG Blog!

Hello and welcome to SMG's brand new blog! We're going to be keeping things current and keeping you, our patrons and clients, up to date on whats going on around the SMG network in everything from major events like concerts and conventions, to Human Resources and hiring. We'll be providing informational links as well as an avenue for you to participate even more in our SMG community. Check back often!