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'I Don't See Problems, Just Challenges and Opportunities'
SMG's New Haven point man wants to breathe new life into Coliseum
Following years of lurching in fits and starts toward 'privatization,' on July 1 the Philadelphia-based SMG Corp. assumed management responsibility for New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum. On August 4, SMG installed its man in New Haven: (for now) Assistant General Manager John Burnap, 42, a New Canaan native and University of New Haven graduate who now lives in Westerly, R.I. On December 1, he will assume the top job at the facility when the contract of longtime Executive Director James Perillo expires. He spoke to BNH following his first 30 days on the job.
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Business New Haven
9/20/1999
By: BNH
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How long have you been with SMG?
I'm a brand-new employee of SMG; they hired me specifically for this account.
Before that?
For a number of years I'd been an independent consultant and hired gun. But [immediately] before this I was with Radio City [Music Hall] and Madison Square Garden, really more on the show side, running The Wizard of Oz tour with Mickey Rooney and Eartha Kitt. I've been a supplier of events, if you will, to SMG for years. I produced the Nickelodeon tours for six years - I've done shows here in the Coliseum, shows that I was producing on the road.
How has the transition from publicly managed to privately managed facility gone so far at the Coliseum?
Typically, we have a transition team in place for every new facility that we pick up. SMG doesn't always bring in new staff; a lot of times they'll keep the same general manager. But SMG will bring in a transition team [to assist with] marketing or operations, food/beverage, to get the existing staff into the SMG way of doing things. In New Haven, SMG made an assessment, following discussions with Jim [Perillo], that Jim wasn't going to be the candidate to fill the general manager's spot. With my particular background, being local, SMG decided that what the building really needed was sales and marketing [expertise]. Jim is a great operations guy. But as the marketing has become a lot more complex in the last ten years - and a lot more competitive, with the Meadows [Music Theater in Hartford] and with Oakdale becoming a year-round facility - what the building really needed was a much different face on it from a sales and marketing point of view.
When you were weighing this job, what was your honest assessment of the Coliseum and its place in the market?
Having lived in the market as a consumer, and having presented shows in the building as a producer and promoter, I knew that there were some perception challenges. They aren't all building-related. Downtown New Haven had and continues to have some perception issues; the building has had some perception issues that - especially from the New Haven point of view - aren't real.
Examples?
It's been perceived that downtown New Haven and the area around the Coliseum isn't safe. In reality, that may have been true 15 years ago, but it's hardly true now. I look at the city of New Haven and I see that this is really a great city that has a much stronger foundation to draw people. But it doesn't seem that anybody has done a very good job of telling that story to the public in the surrounding communities.
Obviously, you concluded that these issues were surmountable, or else you wouldn't be here.
Everything I've done, either as a small-business owner or as a consultant, has been involved in creating things. I conceived the Nickelodeon Live touring shows; I was part of the team that conceived touring The Wizard of Oz as a theatrical production. Those were starting from people telling you, 'No, you can't do that,' or 'That won't sell tickets.' You're always starting from a negative. When I came to New Haven, I said [to myself], 'I don't see problems; I just see challenges and opportunities.' From a functional point of view, the building is in pretty good shape. Everything works; the seats are in good shape; the paint is fresh. Sure, the bathrooms could use renovation - but that's already been planned before SMG came in. The escalator project just started; that will be finished in the next couple of months.
Just before you arrived it was announced that there was not going to be Beast of New Haven hockey here in 1999-2000. How did you react?
My reaction was, we'll get a hockey team.
Not for this year. And that blows 40-plus event days off the calendar.
Well, the deal that was structured with the Beast wasn't very advantageous to the building financially. It was unusual among [American Hockey League] deals by being much more advantageous to the team. We would have liked to have had a hockey team this year. But what it does is open up a number of weekend dates where I might be able to slide in a concert or another event that, because the [Beast] deal was so unfavorable to the building, I can now strike a more favorable deal for the building [which means] I need fewer than 40 days of other events to make up for the loss of the Beast. I can book a couple of concerts - and concerts are big revenue-generators - and all of a sudden, the [financial] loss becomes much less.
On balance, though, wouldn't you rather have had the security of the hockey dates?
I would always love to have hockey. Our goal is to have hockey for next year, and my goal is to have more than one professional sports team, if possible.
Such as?
We're evaluating indoor soccer; we're evaluating lacrosse; we're evaluating minor-league basketball - we're evaluating everything. We're walking in as SMG, managing a facility that doesn't have a sports tenant. We need a professional sports team. Hockey is the most viable minor-league franchise in the U.S., so we would first go for a hockey franchise - whether it's [the Eastern Hockey League], or [International Hockey League] or AHL. So there's a hole we need to fill as soon as possible. Logistically, you're not going to fill it before the fall of 2000, but we're confident that we will have hockey in here by the fall of 2000. I will also tell you that we support [Beast President and GM] Dave Gregory in his efforts to bring a team in. But our responsibility as SMG is to the city of New Haven and the people of New Haven. I support him, and I hope he's successful in his efforts to attract a team and secure a franchise. But if that isn't the case, we're having ongoing conversations - in the back pocket, if you will - to make sure hockey is here in the fall of 2000.
Let's talk concerts. What is SMG's competitive strategy to get desirable shows in the same market as the Oakdale and the Meadows?
From a producer/agent's side, it's much easier for me to call Mike Evans, who's the senior vice president for entertainment at SMG, and say, 'Hey Mike, I'm touring this show - what's SMG's interest?' And Mike will call me back and give me an offer for 25 cities. He'll deliver the 'A' cities to me that I want, but as part of that he'll say, 'I need you to play New Haven, Pittsburgh, Worcester' and wherever else.
What are the closest other buildings SMG manages?
We manage the Worcester Centrum, the Nassau [L.I.] Coliseum, the Pepsi Arena in Albany.
The Coliseum gets one real convention right now: the Jehovah's Witnesses in June. Are there other conventions on that scale you might set your sights on?
I like to do events for two reasons: to make money, and to generate ancillary revenue for [other New Haven] businesses and all that. And I like to do events that are high-profile. If I can do an event that is high profile - if I can get a major, major rock 'n' roll star to come in and do three days - it's less important to make a lot of money on that event. The same is true of a trade show or convention, or a consumer show that attracts really upper-middle class, high-disposable-income people who may not be coming to downtown New Haven now for any reason - and make them comfortable coming again to the arena where they may not have been for ten years, then we will have broken through that perceived image problem.
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