Mr. Smith’s marketing class recently went on a field trip to the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. The class learned about how the Coliseum markets its services. The tour was led by Nathan Dennison, the Vice President of Sales. The class toured one of the luxury suites that overlook the arena and learned about the premium seating offered in the arena and how businesses will rent the suites for their employees to enjoy hockey and basketball games, as well as other events.

Then the class was given a tour around the food court level to learn about the way Coliseum does business with sponsors and advertising. The class then learned that the Coliseum tries to rent as much space as it can for events and advertising; even the Zamboni has space that can be rented for advertisements! The class then was taken to the Expo center, where they learned about how many different types of events will rent out parts of it. The Expo center offers 152,000 square feet of space, and several events can take place at the same time because of portable walls that can separate the main area into separate rooms. The Expo Center had housed many different events ranging from concerts to banquets.

When asked about what she learned about marketing, senior Samantha Williams said she learned about “how big the marketing industry is, publicity matters, how much money is put into the Coliseum when they only make $65,000 a year, and it is owned by the government of Allen County.”