Expert industry panel speaks on social distancing, safety and cleanliness best practices for reopening

By | April 27, 2020

GILBERTSVILLE, Pa. — Last Wednesday, Gateway Ticketing Systems held the sixth installment of their Webinar Wednesdays series titled: Optimizing the Capacity Managed Guest Experience Inside Your Attraction. The webinar was attended by 440 industry professionals and the recording was distributed on Friday.

“We had five industry professionals on the webinar, our largest panel to date,” says Randy Josselyn, co-host of the event. “Their expertise ranged from retail management, to food & beverage management, to the operation of rides and exhibits. So we were able to go in depth into best practices for social distancing, safety and cleanliness strategies for when you reopen.”

The panel included Ella Baskerville, Business Development Manager from Blooloop, who led off with a state-of-the-industry update in Europe. For those based in Europe, her insights provide a potential roadmap moving forward. For the majority of attendees, who were based in the US, it gave insight into a region that is handling the pandemic in many ways differently than how it’s being dealt with at home. The key learnings from countries like Sweden in particular, which hasn’t closed businesses as stringently as other countries, provided a glimpse into the future of what visiting an attraction will look like.

Andrea Froehle, VP Marketing and Communications, and Larry Gilbert, CEO, both from Event Network, were on the call to share their expertise in managing the retail at attractions, as well as some of the specific and general plans they are making at attractions to address social distancing and cleanliness at their locations.

Finally, the webinar also included Mark Berlin, Director of Operations at USS Midway Museum, and Kevin Kopeny, Director of Operations at Universal Studios Hollywood. Both Mark and Kevin were able to lend their direct experiences for dealing with these issues at their attractions.

“It’s incredible to hear from professionals across the industry, working at varied attractions, and specializing in different segments of operations,” says Peter Wolf, Director of Sales and Marketing at Gateway Ticketing Systems. “Attractions are coming up with different solutions to the same problems. And the creativity in solving these issues should make everyone in the industry proud. These webinars are one mile in your roadmap back to successful operations in a post-COVID world.”

The webinar was recorded and you can watch it right here.

Gateway Ticketing Systems will continue to work to unite the industry during these challenging times and has Webinar Wednesdays planned for the next two weeks. Their next event will address re-creating trust with your guests and re-training your team. This week, the Gateway team will be joined by the dynamic duo behind The Attraction Pros Podcast, Josh Liebman and Matt Heller. Their combined experience on both the operator and consultancy side will offer invaluable insights as they discuss alongside Gateway experts how to communicate changes with your guests and how to keep a pulse on their opinions. They’ll also dive into how to work with your current, furloughed, or former staff to ensure they understand how important they are to the safety process and how their actions can make or break the experience.

You can register for that webinar on Wednesday, April 29 at 2:00 PM EST right here.