Venue Management with Centennial Tours 

WHAT:  RMGA Familiarization Venue Management


WHERE:  Corvus Coffee Roasters


WHEN:  March 22, 2017


ORGANIZER:  Michael Pearl, Ph.D., C.I.T.M. 


SEMINAR LEADER:  Rick Tyson, Centennial Tours, 1525 Yates Street, Apt 108, Denver, CO 80204

centennialtours.rick@gmail.com, 202-699-1131 (voice & text)


9:00 Registration & Morning Brew (on your own) Corvus Coffee Roasters

Creating the Tour & Venue Relationship
DISCUSS THE PROCESS OF CREATING A TOUR, HOW TO DETERMINE THE PROPER VENUES, AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, HOW TO CREATE THE RELATIONSHIP. THIS REQUIRES PERSISTENCE AND A SHOW OF VALUE.  DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING YOUR INDUSTRY, CALCULATING PROFITABILITY, AND THE NEED TO STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN THE VENUE AND THE TOUR COMPANY.

9:45 Ride the Whiskey Wagon

10:00 Denver Central Market 2669 Larimer St, Denver, CO 80205

Getting Creative
DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF MAKING LAST-MINUTE ADJUSTMENTS ON THE FLY, AND DOING SO WITHOUT LETTING THEM SEE YOU SWEAT. IDENTIFYING CONTINGENCY VENUES.  MERGING TOURS FOR PROFITABILITY.

10:45 Ride the Whiskey Wagon

11:00 Mile High Spirits 2201 Lawrence St, Denver, CO 80205
Tasting (included) & Discussion
Renegotiating Rates/Accommodations
AFTER 3 – 6 MONTHS – DEPENDING ON THE SUCCESS OF THE PARTNERSHIP – RATES AND ACCOMMODATIONS SHOULD BE REASSESSED AND ADJUSTED

12:00 Ride the Whiskey Wagon

12:15 Lunch Black Sky Brewery 490 Santa Fe Dr, Denver, CO 80204
Scratch-made pizza and a beer tasting (on your own)

1:15 Ride the Whiskey Wagon

1:30 Cheesman Park 1599 8th Ave, Denver, CO 80218
Follow-up Venue Management: Fine-Tuning, Failures, Solutions
CONSISTENT MONITORING OF CUSTOMER AND VENUE SATISFACTION. GOOD COMMUNICATION BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE VENUE. UNDERSTANDING THEIR NEEDS IS KEY. MAKE THE BUS THE VENUE, AND IDENTIFY PUBLIC VENUES.

2:30 Ride the Whiskey Wagon

2:45 Corvus Coffee Roasters
Closing

3:00 Dismissal​

FAM – March 22, 2017

Venue Management


This FAM started at Corvus Coffee Roasters (1740 S Broadway, Denver, CO 80210) which is a “pick-up” or meeting spot for Centennial Tours. Corvus Coffee has a really large parking lot – which was full when we gathered. Rick is allowed to park/load his “Whiskey Wagon” here when he gathers his groups for his Craft Distillery Tour. Rick’s arrangements here are not formal and no money changes hands. The coffee is great, the service prompt, and the prices reasonable. They also have a patio with many seats at the “bar” around the edge. Corvus are local coffee roasters using South American and African beans. They make a non-alcoholic cold-brewed coffee using beans that have been resting in used whiskey barrels. So, the whiskey theme of the tour carries through.

Rick’s reasoning is to use local boutique businesses for your “partners”. You are more likely to make a good connection and become “partners” in your tour business. He noted that you need to establish a starting and ending or a meet-up place for your tours.

To invent your business, look for trends, learn from your guests and their requests as to what works for a tour and what doesn’t. Time your tours to off-peak hours at each venue, then the venue can accommodate your group without losing any of their real “paying” customers and you can maintain your schedule. Start out by making a connection with any venue you might want to visit on your tours – this might involve cold calls, cold visits, emails, texts and/or social media contacts.

Rick’s business also involved getting a common carrier license – not easy to obtain. His bus (the “Whiskey Wagon”) is a 15-passenger converted bus. You will need to have a limo driving license – this is pretty easy, just pass the written test at DMV. The key to a tour vehicle is that it must have a working handicap ramp. This allows you to use/convert an older vehicle which can help you with PUC regulations as well as lower your start-up costs. He commented that his start-up costs were around $60,000.

David Hanan gave us a lecture and demonstration of how technology can help you in getting your guests to “capture the moment” with photos, etc. Force opportunities to use their phones for photos, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter to connect and send positive reviews to all their contacts. Or you can go through Google photos and forward to your contacts.

David feels that Facebook is a great venue for building a personal brand. And, if you have a photo you forward to your friends while on a Centennial Tour, it encourages all the guest’s friends to sign up for a tour, too. This is called “destination tagging”. If you use the @ symbol, you are added and gain more information. You can add a “live video” to your Facebook page and a status update for dissemination to all your friends.

David commented that the Denver Public Library offers free classes on how to use Facebook and Twitter. The demographic for Rick’s tours runs to younger guests (20s-30s) and the technology is very important to this group.

We arrived in RiNo and walked through an alley that is covered in “graffiti art” – these murals are painted by paid street artists (“taggers”) who then come around once a month to touch up their mural. These murals are paid for by block grants to help revitalize the neighborhood, which has become a “happening” place to live.

David used this short walk through the alley to demonstrate a possible solution to being denied entrance to one of your scheduled venues. While the guests are “oohing and aahing” over the artwork, you are busy on your phone trying to find an alternate venue or rearrange timing. Some of the possible reasons for having a last minute venue change would include an equipment failure at the venue, closed (wrong day), your group is a little late in arriving – throwing off the venue’s schedule, or even double booking at the venue. So, David’s answer is to expand your horizons, make use of the street art, people working in the neighborhood – we chatted with a local Norwegian part-time welder a few minutes – taking time so that David could deal with the next venue or how to recover from a “closed’ venue. David texted our next venue, Mile High Spirits, to let them know of our coming arrival.

We arrived at the Denver Central Market (2669 Larimer St, Denver, CO 80205). The building opened in 1928, developed by H. H. Tammen (owner of the Denver Post), and this type of market was the precursor to malls. This venue does not need a “call ahead.” There is lots of seating both inside and out and many vendors. There are small market stalls inside –a concept reestablished in the current market building. The offerings include a coffee shop, ice cream shop, bakery, and fantastic candy maker (trained in Paris) – the chocolates were gorgeous. The bakery offerings are delicious, and there is café seating for the sandwich bar. The exterior is original, some of the tile flooring is original, but the rest is rebuilt. This area (RiNo) was once an industrial district and is becoming gentrified.

Rick talked about using his Whiskey Wagon on mountain tours – using snacks, water, pre-packaged lunches (King Soopers), or catered box lunches, which could eliminate a lunch break (restaurant partner) or taking time away from touring places in the mountains. Having a lunch break could add greatly to the cost of your tour without the same Return on Investment (ROI). Help your guests find food they can buy, if you aren’t providing.

We then moved on to Mile High Spirits (2201 Lawrence St, Denver, CO 80205) where we toured the distillery, sampled Moscow Mules (a “cocktail-in-a-can” made of vodka, lime juice, sugar, and ginger beer) and various types of other liquor Mile High Spirits makes. The origin of a Moscow Mule is reputed to come from Smirnoff in 1939, and they used copper mugs because they were cheap and the mug vendor was handy. There seems to be a great flavor relationship between the ginger beer and copper and so Moscow Mules are traditionally served in copper mugs.

We also got to see the glass still, which is used to make small batch clear alcohols like gin, vodka, and rum. If it has color, the alcohol comes from a barrel.

Mile High Spirits is the place to go on Friday and Saturday nights to see the yuppie, beautiful 20-30-somethings. Mile High serves only distilled spirits, no beer! Rick says they have been great partners for his tours.

Mile High Spirits recently added a $200,000 canning line for their various infusions. Cans are much better than glass for preservation. Moscow Mules are sold in cans as a four-pack for $17.25. Mile High also has a $250,000 bottling line, and a $300,000 copper still – this is not a cheap business to get into!

Mile High Spirits has been in this location for about 2 ½ years, moving from 28th and Larimer. Mile High was concerned about moving to this location because there are many homeless in the area – the Mission is just across the street. However, it has been a great decision – with upscale apartments nearby renting for $2,000/month. These renters are Mile High’s steady clientele. The distillery attracts popular culture and they are jammed on Friday and Saturday nights. Hip-hop artist Ludacris was here recently for a block party. Just an aside – the chandeliers are fantastic – look like huge pieces of coral.

Mile High has indicated that they may start their own tours – this gives them control of the situation and the timing. Rick commented that, if a venue drops you, don’t take it personally, it’s just business. He was dropped by a venue that was high-end expensive – because his guests didn’t buy anything.

After leaving Mile High Spirits, we headed off to lunch at Black Sky Brewing on South Santa Fe Drive (490 Santa Fe Dr, Denver, CO 80204). We had beer tastings here while we waited for our lunch – most ordered pizza slices. The first beer was called “Petal to the Metal” and had flower overtones, the second was a rye pale ale – and then I gave up. Lunch was great, the venue is very industrial in its décor and also busy. We returned to the Whiskey Wagon and went to Lincoln Park (not Linkin Park) at 10th and Osage and sat outdoors in the sun for our round-table discussion about venue management.

Rick commented that venue management can be a grind – you have to keep up the relationship with the current ones while trying to engage new venues. Rick’s tours are most often younger people because they don’t like organized “tours,” but they do want the experience. So, you are constantly looking for unique things to do. Our visit to Lincoln Park is an example of a non-call-ahead venue. Other parks might be Cheesman – use the Cheesman Memorial – it has steps and a roof of sorts. If you do an evening tour and go to a park, you might add glow-in-the-dark games, team building. FYI – 3.2 beer is legal in parks – this type of activity appeals to younger groups. David has also created a Craft beer/comedy tour.

Rick stressed that venue management is the most important and most difficult part of your tour itinerary. You will need to send each venue a weekly update of what tours you are bringing, then call just before you arrive, do a follow-up to try to increase your margins. One of Rick’s venues is Renegade, they give Rick $1.50/person. Rick’s most popular tour – The History and Whiskey Tour at $35/person is all profit for the company. Rick’s prices are lower than some other companies in the area; i.e., Aspire Tours where Rocky Mountain National Park tours can go as high as $140/person.

Rick has no minimum quotas for the number of guests with his venues, though the Whiskey Wagon seats only 15. He has dropped venues that don’t treat him well – Pints Pub wanted to charge him more for bringing in groups and didn’t treat him well so he no longer takes his groups there.

Rick noted that, in general, people do not book tours on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Each of his tours tends to be a custom tour that he has created for his group, individual or corporate client – based on their requirements. There can be problems as well as benefits from a detour or itinerary change – be ready to take advantage of these opportunities. David talked about having to change an itinerary or make other changes that might cost your company money – he suggested Venmo (similar to PayPal) that instantly charges your client’s credit card and you can instantly deposit it to your bank – eliminating possible stop-payments by your client. If you have to add charges for itinerary/venue changes or length of the tour, these additional charges could mean the difference between break-even, losing money, or making a profit.

Insurance – the city requires $1.5 million liability on the bus, but otherwise he has no additional insurance.

Rick provided each of us with rack cards and a brochure promoting his business. These promos were created by David. David is an expert with technology!!!!

Our day ended with a return to Corvus Coffee to pick up our cars – this time there were spaces in the parking lot. Rick and David gave us a great oversight to how to start your own company and what it takes to stick with it.  Really a well worthwhile FAM!  Thanks!!!

 

Contact information:

Rick Tyson
Centennial Tours
1525 Yates Street, #108
Denver, CO 80204

352.256.0899 or 720.432.7646
www.centennialspecialtytours.com
centennialtours.rick@gmail.com

An aside – Red Rocks is installing self-serve drink kiosks half-way up the stairs so you aren’t climbing all the stairs to refresh your beverages. This will mean more money for the concessionaire.

Suggestion was made that a 2018 RMGA program be dedicated to technology information.


Written by Nancy Brueggeman