Tips From The Pros

SPRINKLER PALOOZA: FUN IS GOOD BUSINESS

Modern professional sports stadiums are often publicly funded to some extent. Because of that, they have obligations to taxpayers and communities to create access for events. Financially, they also need non-sporting revenue to help make the numbers work.

That includes large public events like concerts and similar acts, along with smaller public, private and corporate events of almost every kind imaginable.

You’d be amazed at the variety and frequency of special events at modern stadiums. There are proms, weddings, hamburger cook-offs, movie nights, sleepovers, kickball, ultimate Frisbee, television commercial shoots, golf-style target events, company picnics, charity events, rehearsals, running race finishes, dirt track monster truck and motocross shows, school field trips, military ceremonies, team practices, marching band competitions, tennis matches, hockey games, and the list goes on.

When the playing surface is under stress, the field manager is under stress. There is no way around it.

One of the most fun and challenging events we had at Denver’s football stadium was a Broncos fan appreciation event called Fan Fest. Every year, for two days in early June, we opened up the entire stadium to fans young and old. There were field games, autograph tents, coaches’ clinics, inflatables, face painting and all kinds of fun ways for fans to interact with coaches and players.

As usual for every event, the field was the big draw. It is the most popular part of any stadium by far. Locker rooms are probably a distant second.

As a professional stadium field manager, your job for these events is to participate in the planning meetings and be on the field to babysit that most valuable team asset: the playing surface.

The challenge with Fan Fest was two-fold.

First, it sometimes fell on a weekend where we either had a professional soccer or lacrosse game on the same field on Saturday evening. In 2005, we did not have a game conversion, but we did have the Colorado Rapids playing their last season at the stadium before moving into DICK’S Sporting Goods Park. We also had the MLL Lacrosse All-Star Game the following weekend. The Denver Outlaws inaugural season would take over as the off-season tenant in 2006.

The second challenge was the time of year.

Early June in Denver can bring weather that reaches 100°F temperatures or snow, depending on the year. In 2005, it was a particularly hot weekend, with near-record temperatures in the low 100s°F.

The stands are made of metal. When 76,000+ Broncos fans stomp their feet, they create “Rocky Mountain Thunder.” But when it is 100°F, those same metal stands turn the entire bowl into what feels like a giant roaster.

People were not the only ones cooking. So was the grass.

There are two basic categories of turfgrass plants based on differing metabolic pathways. Oversimplifying it, cool-season grasses prefer the cooler temperatures of spring and fall, while warm-season grasses prefer the heat of summer.

On that weekend in 2005, our perennial ryegrass/Kentucky bluegrass mix field, both cool-season grasses, was under two days of physical stress from event traffic and heat stress. Temperatures were well past the point where the grass really starts stressing. We hit the low 100s°F both days.

Most importantly, the fans were under heat stress too, especially children. They do not have the same body-cooling capacity as adults and can be more prone to environmental heat illness. The staff was well prepared with ice-water stations and cooling fans around the perimeter of the field.

It was about 8 a.m. on Saturday when we finished the field setup. Fans were already lining up for autographs. We had hoses out for the inflatable slides so kids would not burn their skin.

We also had to be very careful and quick getting the inflatables on the field. If we left one out on the grass uninflated for more than 10 minutes, we would severely burn the turf from heat buildup. Once air was circulating through them, that risk was gone.

By noon on Saturday, it was sizzling.

Everyone knows about Denver’s Mile High altitude and how it is harder to breathe until you acclimate, but just as challenging in the summer months can be the intensity of the sun. You are a mile closer to it, with less atmosphere to filter and diffract it. It can get intense.

The autograph lines were getting long.

One of the tools turfgrass managers use to combat heat stress on a stand of grass is a process called syringing. This involves spraying a small amount of irrigation water over the grass. Usually, it is just one or two turns of the heads, maybe a few minutes per zone at most.

The idea is to apply just enough water to wet the grass canopy, but not really wet the soil. As the water evaporates off the canopy, it cools the grass plant several degrees. It may not last long, but in the right conditions, every bit helps.

If nothing else, the field manager feels like they are at least trying to relieve the stress.

On this weekend, the conditions were right for using this management tool. We had very low humidity. Syringing does not work well in humidity because the water does not evaporate and cool in the same way.

You also do not want to syringe unless the soil is on the dry side. It is basic groundsmanship. You do not want cleated traffic on wet soil and grass if you can avoid it. If you water too much while syringing, you wet the soil, which can make things worse.

It really is an art form to know when and how to use syringing, because you can easily make things worse.

I knew I could not syringe with guests on the field.

Or could I?

I kept thinking about how much I wanted to wet the grass and cool it. The kids would love it, I thought.

That is when Teresa Petronavich, the Broncos’ director of gameday entertainment at the time, and I came up with the idea for “Sprinkler Palooza.”

The idea was simple: get the parents off to the sides of the field and let the kids run through the sprinklers while I syringed the stressed grass.

There was a 20-minute break in the field event schedule at 2 p.m. Perfect.

But what about all the inflatables, electronics and other event elements set up around the perimeter of the field?

I told Teresa I could turn on only the three middle-field zones. This would hit a majority of the grass, but miss the perimeter area. We also figured it would be best to put staff out on the field with the kids to keep anyone from getting too rowdy and risking injuries.

Teresa discussed the idea with the higher-ups and got approval. She quickly arranged a script change for the PA announcer so the kids and parents would have time to get down to field level. She also had a new notice put up on the scoreboards.

Meanwhile, I quickly tried to figure out how to disable the irrigation lock-out controls I had for this and every event, and do it without making any mistakes that would spray all the event elements and people around the perimeter.

To be sure, I pulled the hot wire off all but the three middle zones in the irrigation controller.

Fortunately, when we designed the field irrigation system five years earlier, I had insisted on relatively large valves and pipes. I wanted the capacity to irrigate two zones at a time when needed and still get the pressure and flow required for even water distribution.

But when I turned three zones on at once, there was a noticeable drop in pressure at the heads.

Perfect.

We did not want large commercial rotors blasting kids at full force anyway.

The local news stations covered what we now called “Sprinkler Palooza” and ran video during the evening newscasts. We ran it for 10 minutes, more than what was needed for syringing. By wetting the soil, I may have made the heat stress worse on the grass.

But that weekend especially, who cares?

That is why they paid me. Let them have fun, and use my skills, along with those of our turf team, to bring it back.

Sprinkler Palooza went on for many more years before Fan Fest got some buses and took the event on the road all around Colorado and Broncos Country.

Teresa had a very tough job as director of gameday entertainment, managing a hundred moving parts with few or no rehearsals for pre-game and halftime entertainment, as well as planning and managing marketing events.

From cheerleaders to galloping stallions leading the team onto the field, to 12-minute concerts including setup and strike, there were all kinds of fun programs, too numerous and varied to list.

Just like her field manager, if she messed up, she could be laughed at on national TV.

In the middle of all that structured chaos, she always kept her cool and worked toward solutions, not blame. That broiling June day in 2005 was no different. She made lemonade out of lemons on a very hot weekend and created fun stories for years to come.

In the end, everyone working in the vast recreational and professional sports industry is in the business of fun.

It should be the first bullet point in everyone’s job description “’Build and promote fun.”

That day, Teresa showed us all how fun is just good business.