The Evolution of Crowd Control
Your Retractable Belt Stanchions Just Started Generating Profit!
How can Sales and Marketing managers team up with the Operations Department to generate revenue AND reduce expenses?
Retractable belt stanchions are everywhere. Especially at major venues such as arenas, stadiums, amusement parks, museums, convention centers, event halls and shopping malls. Traditionally, operations managers utilize stanchions to silently and effectively organize visitor traffic through strategically designated areas. Effectiveness is critical and that’s why it is important to ask the question: should the stanchions actually be silent?
Retractable belt stanchions are used to manage visitor traffic at the busiest locations of a venue: Exteriors, ticket windows, main lobby entrances and concessions.
Wouldn't a soft drink, beer or alcohol producer want to advertise on these buffet belts?
A typical premium retractable belt stanchion extends to approximately 10’ in length and has a 2” width. A major venue arena that is home to an NHL or NBA franchise with event attendances between 18,000 and 23,000 can house anywhere from 200-500 retractable belt stanchions. That’s approximately ½ mile of retractable belts! NFL and NCAA football stadiums that house upwards of 80,000 to 100,000 fans or visitors could double or even triple that length!
This is the entrance to the Strong National Museum of Play. Eye-level opportunity for Nerf, Nintendo, Fisher-Price?
So here’s where we stand:
- Retractable Belt stanchions provide crucial functions at almost every major public venue.
- For reference: Major Arenas use 200-300 Retractable Belt barriers and larger stadiums will use much more.
- Approximately ½ mile or more of retractable belts.
This is a Major League Baseball stadium! How much advertising income is lost here?
This can add up to millions of lost revenue for sales departments and missed opportunities for capital expense reduction by operations departments!
How can these losses and expenses be turned into gains and profit? The answer is Custom Retractable Belt Advertising for retractable belt stanchions.
Corporate sponsorship and advertising programs at major venues currently include:
- LED boards
- Tunnel banners
- Player’s benches
- Courtside, boards, or field signage
- Promotional giveaways
- Main scoreboard
- Radio, internet, and television
- Print media including team and game day programs
- Concourse signage
- Marquee
Here are a few examples. (Try to find Retractable Belt Advertising opportunities):
Until this point, custom retractable belt stanchions have been overlooked by corporate sales and sponsorship departments. Think about it - a stanchion belt might very well be in the closest proximity to customers. They are located where the most people gather, slow down and often stand to wait. This is a target opportunity to sell additional advertising space, in a place where people are known to be, that in turn might very well pay for the functional necessity it provides.QR Codes can be printed on stickers that fit on top of retractable belt stanchions allowing sponsors to direct their content to visitors via mobile devices and QR scanning apps. (Hello? Disney and other amusement parks, are you listening? You should be. Your lines are slower than any other venues. Why not add a little flavor to your crowd management and engage your guests through modern means like QR codes that direct mobile visitors in line and enable them to play park-themed games, or provide amusing advertisements, or convey park updates. The potential here is almost limitless!)
Retail mall Guest Service Kiosk. Retails stores like to advertise don't they?
The perfect design for a Custom Retractable Belt Advertising campaign would include segmenting the areas within a venue to be able to offer different advertising rates contingent on foot-traffic frequency in certain areas. For example, since more people pass through the main entrance lobby than the 300 level concessions, the cost of advertising would be higher for the stanchion belts in the lobby. However, operations managers don’t have time to keep track of what sponsors’ belts are where and which areas they are designated to be used.
A venue’s retractable belt sponsorship program, therefore, needs to include all retractable belt stanchions used in the facility. The belt cassettes for retractable belt stanchions can be easily changed out as sponsorship changes. The new belt cassettes can be ordered and switched without purchasing all new stanchions.
How does Custom Retractable Belt Advertising lower an operations department’s expenses? Belt cassettes endure a great deal of abuse at major venues and need to be replaced for functional and aesthetic reasons. When a new corporate sponsorship is put into place, new belt cassettes will be ordered. The necessary expense of replacing belt cassettes is now removed from the operations department’s budget as the new, clean and functional equipment is being paid for by the sponsor. Custom belt printing is inexpensive and will provide ample opportunity for strong revenue margins.
By working together, major venue operations in conjunction with marketing and sales departments can both grow revenue and reduce expenses through the simple and obvious means provided by Custom Retractable Belt Advertising.
