UNSCRIPTED: Selling Fort Wayne
Stephanie Coleman talks about the business of bringing major sports and big revenues to town
UNSCRIPTED
By Keith Edmonds
Of Fort Wayne Ink Spot
Visit Fort Wayne – Fort Wayne/Allen County Convention and Visitors Bureau – is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to expand Fort Wayne’s economy by attracting convention and leisure visitors. Each year, millions of dollars from visitor spending generate increased commerce, sustained jobs and enhancement of Fort Wayne's image.
One of the components of increased commerce is sports and the revenue that can be obtained by having quality events come into our city that peaks visitor interest in attending, and allows our city to prosper financially. Stephanie Coleman is the Group Sales Manager for Visit Fort Wayne, and recently I had the opportunity to speak with her about what she does, and what exciting events that will be coming from her offices in the very near future.
Q: Stephanie, tell us what you do to promote our city as the Group Sales Manager for Visit Fort Wayne?
A: Well, my job is to find sporting groups NOT from Fort Wayne, and share information with them about our venues, and city and why they should bring their events to Fort Wayne and allow us to host them.
Q: What aspect of your position “intrigues” you and you find most interesting?
A: I enjoy getting to interact with the people, and really getting to know our city and what makes us a “good fit” for events. I’ve been able to form some great relationships, present company included, and I have found that I don’t have to be the “expert” on any one sport, which is great because I’m definitely not a sports expert. My strengths are listening to clients and listening to venue operators to hear what’s most important to them. I love it when I’ve built a relationship with them, and they’re telling me about their event and the picture starts to form in my mind as to how our city would be a great fit for them. It’s at that point that I try to convince them as to why they really need to consider Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a potential spot for their event. That process is exciting to me! People that are not from here see a different side of our city when they visit that maybe those of us that live here take for granted.
Q: With Fort Wayne being such a dynamic city in terms of sports at the local level, how does Visit Fort Wayne go about finding large-scale events for our city to host?
A: Great question! There are a couple of ways that I go about it. Where I spend the most time in this process is going to national trade shows where there are other cities comparable to ours that are there to find business. That includes event owners, or Olympic committee representatives who are looking to place their events. What happens is that you get matched up with different event owners and you ‘re set-up in a “speed dating” format where you get 7 minutes to sell your particular cities “best attributes” and why we should strongly be considered for that particular sporting event. I leave information with them and then move on to the next table to begin sharing again. We share some educational aspects as well, but the key is establishing connections and leaving a great “first impression”! Another way is that we really get to know locals who are active in a particular sport. A great example of that would be our pickleball organization, Fort Wayne Pickleball Association. They have a strong club and knew about a regional (tournament) that they wanted to host, so they came to me with their thoughts about collaborating with Visit Fort Wayne. My role is to handle all of the “bidding” for events, and since I don’t have much to do with the actual “hosting” of the event, I rely on the experts of the club or national organization to handle that aspect of it. The final way that I find prospects for Fort Wayne is to search out events through Google. I’ll hear about an event that someone has played in, and if it peaks my interest then I find out the particulars and see if the tournament moves around regionally or nationally and begin working on it for our city.
Q: Through the efforts of yourself and the team at Visit Fort Wayne, you were recently awarded the opportunity to host a huge event here in our city, tell us about that.
A: Back in 2016, we decided to go after NCAA Championships in a big way. The Memorial Coliseum and Visit Fort Wayne had a strategy to bring another marquee event here. We hired a consultant out of Indianapolis that helped us determine what events would be a “good fit” for our community. The way that the NCAA does their “bid cycle” is four years all in one cycle. This means that cities are bidding for championships in over 90 sports and so Fort Wayne decided to go BIG and bid on a lot of events in 2016. Fortunately, our efforts lead us to being awarded five events. It was exciting to attend our first symposium down at the NCAA headquarters along with much larger cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Las Vegas with the sole purpose of attracting NCCA events to your particular city. Fortunately, our efforts led us to being selected to host five events. The breakdown: four years of Men’s Division III basketball and one year of Women’s Regional Championships at the Division I level. We hosted the Men’s NCAA DIII event in 2019; unfortunately, were not allowed to host these events in 2020 due to COVID-19. This again led to us losing the women’s event for this season with nothing on the horizon as far as the women are concerned. We were awarded the Men’s tournament from 2023-2026, so we’re excited to showcase Fort Wayne and what we have to offer in this city. We haven’t given up on hosting women events, even though their format is changing, so look for that to come back in the future soon. Right now, we’re just a little too small to host the larger NCAA events that we’re looking for on the women’s side.
Q: To conclude, what are three things that you would like to leave with us about Visit Fort Wayne and your organization’s mission statement for our city?
A: Visit Fort Wayne is about celebrating our city and spreading the word to others that may not know about us so that they will come and explore our attractions and restaurants. We have always said that we put people in our places, feet on the streets, and heads in the beds. We want to generate that new money into our economy to circulate. That may not be three things, but it is truly, what we’re all about here at Visit Fort Wayne.