Within our first year of operations at the Nashville Convention Center, Ovations, through a series of programs and creative management focus, has increased revenues in the convention center by 24% year over year. Our team, working closely with the Nashville Convention Center management team, has set the course to leading the facility towards future success as the City considers replacing the venue with a new convention center.
Service upgrades at the Convention Center include the addition of new “action” carts that serve both concession and catering needs. Our catering clients like them so much that we receive requests in advance for the addition of our Everything’s Fresh™ signature reception displays. Most recently we hosted more than 4,000 guests for the Dollar General reception – the result one very happy client and significant revenues generated through our approach to serving this group. Our upgrades have not stopped there – now all break services are paired with creative themes that meeting planners have fun choosing from and each break has been standardized to ensure that quality levels are always being met.
Ovations is pursuing better and more creative ways to serve our guests and clients. We have noticed a general shift from the traditional concession stands for tradeshows to custom thematic services. At the Nashville Convention Center we have “gutted” all of the traditional stands and added egresses that allow for a street style environment where our mobile carts are grouped to create dining stations such as sandwich building, Italian, Asian and Mexican stations. Patrons have the option to graze and build their lunch from a variety of choice. When stands are covered due to show management’s desire to maximize the floor, our concessions team relocates our carts to the show floor to create movable theme concession stores.
Ovations commitment to small and minority owned businesses is highlighted at the Nashville Convention Center. The SBE program at the Convention Center consists of specialty contractors. One great example is the Cinderella story of our commitment to minority employees. We were approached by an employee who desired to become an entrepreneur. Ovations saw this as a great opportunity to launch a Quizno’s national concept at the Center and assist our employee in transiting into business ownership. Today we have succeeded in helping an employee with their dream and we have added a valuable quality addition to our line-up of concession concepts at the center. Some of our other minority success stories include work with local minority and small business entrepreneurs who provide the following service:
- Coffee A La Carte – provides espresso, cappuccino and various international coffee specialties in the concession area.
- Donut Lady – provides specialty donuts made at her cart as guests watch in the concession area.
Ovations is also in the process of finding a local florists to provide support for large catered functions as well as a local dessert vendor to upgrade dessert selections for private affairs.
Ovations also has a sales manager whose sole purpose is to work with the local community to develop new business for the convention center to help fill gaps between larger shows. In our first year of operations we have hosted multiple client entertainment events, developed and distributed a sales brochure piece geared to generate corporate and social interest, our sales and chef have gone “on the road” with building staff to sell the center to prospective groups and we have created signature theme event opportunities for groups to choose to enhance their events at the Center. Our sales teams are active members of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Tennessee Meeting Planners International, and we have arranged for the Center to host the upcoming Tennessee Hotel Lodging Association Summit in order to showcase the Center’s meeting and catering services.
