‘Soft Opening of venues help work out kinks’

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Panos Pappas is an effervescent person imbued with the ‘Raiders’ spirit. He believes in providing par excellence experience to the fans visiting the oh-so-bewitching Allegiant Stadium (US) to watch a game of the National Football League (NFL) team Las Vegas Raiders.

A person of jocular nature, Pappas is holding a top-drawer post with the Raiders and affirms that Vegas (Las Vegas) – where the Raiders home the Allegiant Stadium sits – has an aura of entertainment around it enough to send fans into a tizzy.

Panos Pappas is armed with more than 15 years of experience in the sports industry and his areas of expertise are premium sales, gameday management and client support.

In an animated conversation with ‘Coliseum’, Panos Pappas, VP, Premium Sales & Service, Las Vegas Raiders, US, underscores that Soft Opening before the Grand Opening of a venue or any other entity is imperative as it provides room for corrections and helps to work out any kinks before the public launch. He also underlines that irrespective of the fact whether it is the VIP guests or the fans in the stands their in-venue experiences should be equally enriching and enthralling.
 

Las Vegas Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders are a professional American football team based in the Las Vegas Metropolitan area (US). The Raiders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league’s American Football Conference West division.
 

Allegiant Stadium

The 65,000-capacity Allegiant Stadium is a domed multipurpose stadium located in Paradise, Nevada, Southwest of adjacent Las Vegas (US). Opened in 2020, it is the home field of the Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League (NFL).

The Allegiant Stadium was built from the ground up and completed within 42 months, pencils up to hammers down, and delivered on time and under budget. The futuristic features and the plush facilities all combine to make it a jaw-dropping structure that takes its place of prominence on the famed Las Vegas Strip.

Panos Pappas began by informing, “This is our fourth year of operation. In 2020, when we opened, COVID struck the world and it was a sans fans scenario for us. In 2022, we finally got going.”

Today, the Allegiant Stadium is firing on all cylinders and everything about the venue is elegant.
 

Spiff Suites

Pappas narrated that in 2023 they came up with the idea of “adding a bunch of Suites for some of the Premium Season Ticket holders to provide them an elevated experience and make it something really Vegas so that people would like to tweet about these Suites” and also enjoy their ‘Gram moments (Instagram)’.

Pappas and his team took up the challenging task of setting up 16 new Club Suites for the VIP guests and he informed that the Suites hold 12 to 28 people and the menu is “high-end” and has a very “Vegas night club kind of ambience and when the servers bring the desserts they are armed with streamers”. These Suites offer top-notch perks for the upscale gameday experience.
 

Challenges

He said that the biggest challenge was to “sell these Suites, reduce space in the club areas and we ended up going under budget. We had four events coming up that we were scrambling to sell and fill.”
 

Phenomenal Look-and-Feel

Pappas further narrated that the space where the 16 Club Suites have come up was originally an “open-air space and when one walked in one could see straight across the field and you could actually see straight through into the freeway on the other side of the building and it was a really cool experience.”

He added, “But now that entire space is closed-in and wears a phenomenal look. So transformed is the space that one will never know that it was an open-air area originally unless you actually had seats there prior.”

What matters most is selling the Suites so Pappas and his team went in for an aggressive public relations (PR) campaign and “we promoted it in all the three major markets – Southern California and the Bay Area as well and we really tried to spin it as a really positive and exciting area of the stadium that is all-inclusive and exciting and premium to be in.”
 

Open House

They came up with the idea of hosting an Open House and “invited every Season Ticket Member down to the stadium, we invited prospects, past single game buyers, basically anyone that we could find that wanted to come down and anybody who evinced any kind of interest. We held an Open House, we fed them, we had cocktails forum, and we did the whole sort of Vegas hospitality.”
 

Soft Opening

Since Pappas and his team had completed the ‘Suite’ project before time so they turned it into a Club Suite Soft Opening – “No guests were allowed and we just invited the staff, the VIP guests and anyone that could be a part of the experience to give us their feedback starting from the food to the booze. Though we lost out on the revenue of not being able to sell the four events which included concerts and soccer matches but it was kind of a blessing in disguise because the staff feedback which we got following the Soft Opening allowed us to make major adjustments – plugging in the loopholes.”
 

Sum-up

Panos Pappas summed up by stating, “At the end of the day what counts is victory. If the Raiders can win games nobody cares how expensive the ticket is.”

And, the fans would give their right arm to watch a game in Vegas as it is one of the best places on the planet for food, live music and lots more.

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