Super Bowl 52 will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, just down the road from our offices in Shoreview, on Sunday, February 4th, 2018. It will be on one of the largest events hosted in Minnesota in decades.
In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Senior Consultant Jennifer Otremba talk through our experiences with planning for major events like the Super Bowl. Topics discussed include private sector planning for major events, threats and risks, getting connected to intelligence and law enforcement resources, contingency planning, physical security, and how to handle the general disruption in downtown Minneapolis during the week of the game.
Bryan Strawser: Super Bowl 52.
Jen Otremba: Super Bowl.
Bryan Strawser: Coming soon to Minneapolis’ US Bank Stadium.
Jen Otremba: Yeah, this is a really big deal for us.
Bryan Strawser: This is a huge deal.
Jen Otremba: Minnesota, huge.
Bryan Strawser: For the state.
Jen Otremba: Absolutely.
Bryan Strawser: Huge.
Jen Otremba: Yep.
Bryan Strawser: Not only that, but there’s crazy excitement here because the Minnesota Vikings are actually favored to win the NFC and represent in the Super Bowl, and that would be crazy.
Jen Otremba: That would be crazy, and we’ll see.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, we’ll see.
Jen Otremba: I’m a little pessimistic about that thought, but we’ll see.
Bryan Strawser: So is my wife, who is a lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan. It’s weird for me living here in Minnesota, because I am a New England Patriots fan.
Jen Otremba: He is, it’s ridiculous.
Bryan Strawser: Yes, so, I have had, as a Boston sports fan, I’ve had a pretty good decade and a half. We’ve won everything in all four major sports.
Jen Otremba: Yeah, I know.
Bryan Strawser: And five Super Bowl titles.
Jen Otremba: I know.
Bryan Strawser: I’d like to point out.
Jen Otremba: I want you to know I hear about this, endlessly, and I’m not really even a football fan, really. I shouldn’t even say that out loud here in Minnesota, surrounded by Vikings people, but, I do watch the Super Bowl every year, and I think that that is a really fun and exciting event to have, so.
Bryan Strawser: If it’s New England against Minnesota, my marriage may not survive the night.
Jen Otremba: Oh, gosh.
Bryan Strawser: My wife has told me I may have to go watch the game at the office.
Jen Otremba: Well, I think we all should be watching the game at the office anyway.
Bryan Strawser: Yes, because we have clients that we were protecting that day in many ways.
Jen Otremba: I know.
Bryan Strawser: But, we’re not here to talk about the Vikings or the Patriots, we’re here to talk about how do you deal with a major event like the Super Bowl? I mean, we’ve done an earlier podcast episode where we talked about major event planning, but we’re going to drill in to just the Super Bowl here in the Twin Cities, and what that means.
Jen Otremba: Yep, and this is specifically a big deal because we have clients that are right down town.
Bryan Strawser: We have clients that are next to the stadium.
Jen Otremba: Right next to the stadium, exactly. Things we’re kind of looking at here are disruptions to the businesses and patrons, and I saw a Star Tribune article came out, what was it? Last week.
Bryan Strawser: Yes.
Jen Otremba: About this, specifically.
Bryan Strawser: Right, about how businesses are going to be impacted. I think that was actually on Sunday or Monday.
Jen Otremba: Was it? Yeah.
Bryan Strawser: That that came out. Yeah. The Super Bowl is a big deal, and has been. I mean, it always has been.
Jen Otremba: Right.
Bryan Strawser: But it’s been a bigger deal in the seventeenth year since Nine-11, because it’s a national special security event, so, for the department of homeland security, it is the highest level of event that they support. It’s considered a high-[targetive 00:02:47] opportunity, and it will come with an enormous amount of law enforcement, security presence, and procedures in disruption that is going to be caused by that. At the same time, it’s an enormous business opportunity for businesses in, really, the whole region here.
Because there are events that are happening in Bloomington where the Mall of America is. At the Minneapolis Convention Center, which is totally being taken over by the NFL. On Downtown Minneapolis, on Nicollet Mall, which is in the central business district, a few blocks from the stadium will be NFL Life, which is open to the public, and is taking a huge amount of downtown. Then, the stadium itself is going to be in the biggest security zone that you could imagine for a massive building downtown. So there is a lot going on.
Jen Otremba: Totally, and there is some specific, I would say, challenges here having it in Minnesota, because, the stadium, for those that don’t know, or don’t that live here, that it’s right Downtown, Minneapolis.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, it’s in the central business district.
Jen Otremba: The traffic, the businesses, the crowds, the people are already there without having a big event. When there is a big event downtown here, it’s gridlock everywhere.
Bryan Strawser: It’s also, in this particular case, it’s also complicated by the fact that one of the major ways to get into downtown, coming from the eastern part of the Twin Cities Metro Area is on the street that goes right by the stadium, which will not be open in the days leading up to the game. Then, the transit line, and we have Lightrail here, so it’s a subway on the street level, goes right by the stadium, and so that line is going to be closed, I believe, is the final decision they’ve come up with. There’s also a transit terminal that’s a bus station that’s right by the stadium, which is also going to be closed. That significantly kind of disrupts transit, and there’s a lot of transit riders that go into Downtown Minneapolis.
Jen Otremba: Yeah, and to make matters worse, obviously, we live in the, they’re calling it the bold north right? We live in the north, right? So that means cold. I mean, bitter, bitter cold that we’re experiencing right now, as is the rest of the country, but when we talk bitter cold, we’re talking 20 below zero it was the other day when I woke up in the morning. Cold, cold, and then also the risk of snow. Snowstorms.
Bryan Strawser: Right, right. The weather, it’s a totally unpredictable factor.
Jen Otremba: It absolutely is.
Bryan Strawser: Although we have sky ways, which are like indoor walkways between buildings on the second floor.
Jen Otremba: Some of which may be closed.
Bryan Strawser: Some of which could be closed, but they don’t connect to the stadium.
Jen Otremba: They do not, no.
Bryan Strawser: Right? You can get to the convention center from a downtown hotel, but, you know, some of the attendees for these events are staying in Saint Paul and Bloomington and, you know, other suburbs, because there’s not enough hotel space downtown.
Jen Otremba: No, it’s very limited.
Bryan Strawser: To accommodate this. So there’s a lot of challenges in terms of getting around; traffic and transit are going to be big challenges. The second one is just the security situation. If you’ve never been to this kind of an event … Well, let’s talk about the stadium for a second. The stadium will have a hard perimeter, so there’s going to be a point 300 feet or so from the stadium that if you’re not ticketed, you’re just not going to be able to get into, and, you’ll go through a security check at that particular location in order to get into the hard perimeter, right?
This is the security standoff zone, you can figure where the 300 feet comes from, it’s the blast radius. They’re keeping all of this out, 300 or so feet. Then there is a soft perimeter, which really won’t be a perimeter, like, you’re not going to see walls or things like that, but there will be a point where you start to notice a significant security/law enforcement presence, and they’ll really be doing things like watching for behavior, and trying to determine a threat prior to them reaching the security checkpoint, where there will be crowds, obviously, waiting to enter the stadium for various events.
You’re going to see the same thing at the convention center, because the NFL is taking that over for special events, and then for NFL Live in Downtown Minneapolis, which is totally open to the public, and it’s totally free.
Jen Otremba: Super Bowl Live, yeah.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, Super Bowl Live, whatever. I keep saying NFL Live, but I think it’s Super Bowl Live.
Jen Otremba: Super Bowl Live, yeah.
Bryan Strawser: That’s also going to be totally open. There will be no hard perimeter. You can’t check for weapons or things like that, but there will be security and law enforcement who have been trained in behavioral observation who are looking for people that, perhaps, could be up to no good.
Jen Otremba: Yes, and it’s designed that way for a reason. They’re really advertising it, wanting it to be one of those events where even if you don’t have tickets to the game, you can come and enjoy some of the events 10 days prior.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Jen Otremba: Which is really cool, but again, we have clients who have businesses right on that Nicollet Mall, downtown district area. There’s a lot of concern as to how do I get my employees into work in the morning? Where do my employees park? Are they able to go out and find lunch at lunchtime? Are the crowds going to be so bad that they’re not even going to be able to get around?
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Jen Otremba: How do we continue running our business during this time period?
Bryan Strawser: You know, we’ve got in a number of clients and some others that have been involved in some planning efforts that we’ve been a part of. I think we’ve started all of this advice with the first thing you’ve got to do is get connected.
Jen Otremba: Yes.
Bryan Strawser: There are groups that are working on this; the chambers of commerce, the downtown business council, we are a part of a Super Bowl planning coalition that we lead for major employers in the downtown area, because they really haven’t gotten much support from the city and others. It’s been finding this information on their own, until recently, when the host committee has gotten better about communicating the security please and the traffic plans, and the things that are going on.
Jen Otremba: Yeah, I mean, I think it was all still in planning, so, it was all still tentative up until, what? November?
Bryan Strawser: Until the middle of November.
Jen Otremba: Yep, exactly.
Bryan Strawser: But get connected, and I think getting plugged in with the host committee and others is important, talking with the police about what their plans are, so, if you’re in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Police, but talk to your local law enforcement. They’ll have some indications. I think it’s important to stay connected with your peer organizations, the other companies, to find out what everyone’s doing. Because when you talk with your executives about plans and about work, and about things that you might want to do to make this easier for everybody, and still get the work done, I think everyone’s going to ask, “Well, what is X doing?” What are our neighbors doing? What are other businesses doing?
Because that, I think, drives more of that kind of behavior, and gives, kind of, some social credibility, social proof to the efforts that you might want to be talking about.
Jen Otremba: Well, and, I think it’s important to stay away from the rumor-based information, right? If you go right to the sources, and actually talk to people, you can learn what’s actually happening versus rumors.
Bryan Strawser: First, get connected, and we can help with that, we can guide you. If you’re in Downtown Minneapolis, and you’re a bigger company, we can kind of pull you into the planning coalition that we’re a part of. Second is that you really need to build a plan. I don’t think this has to be anything complicated, but, I think, first, if you don’t have a crisis plan on how you would get together and make decisions and communicate decisions, and communicate with your team, when something bad happens, you need to start there. Like, how are you going to do that? Who are the five, six, seven people that need to be your crisis team, and just keep it simple, start there. Use it for the Super Bowl, and then figure out what you’re going to do elsewhere.
Planning-wise, before you even start saying, “I’m going to do X, Y, Z that week.” I think it needs to be if you don’t have a way to make decisions during a crisis, start there.
Jen Otremba: Yeah, it does not need to be complicated.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Jen Otremba: Do not over-complicate this.
Bryan Strawser: Yes, it’s not rocket science.
Jen Otremba: No, it is not.
Bryan Strawser: The second thing is, you have to think about what are your particular risks. If, for example, your business abuts Nicollet Mall, where Super Bowl Live is going to be. Well, you’re going to have a lot of people wandering around. So, do you need to do something different with your perimeter? With your front door? With your sky way entrance? You will have people looking to use the bathroom, and even though there’s going to be, I can’t remember how many porta potties they said they were bringing in downtown. There were hundreds. But those are all things that are going to happen. So, think through how you’re going to handle those things. If you’re a larger company and you’ve got a reception desk in your lobby, but anybody can walk into your lobby, maybe you don’t want that during Super Bowl Live. Maybe you want to put a security officer, you know, out by the lobby entrance, and if an employee is coming in, cool, they can get in, you can see their ID badge.
Jen Otremba: Properly credentialed.
Bryan Strawser: Properly credentialed folks. If it’s somebody just coming into your lobby, maybe you don’t want that during the Super Bowl, because I will guarantee they’ll be in there looking to use the bathroom.
Jen Otremba: Well, and think through your sky ways, too. If you have sky ways that you own/operate yourself, you might want to think about what that looks like.
Bryan Strawser: Keep in mind that there is some city ordinance and stuff around sky ways.
Jen Otremba: There are, yep.
Bryan Strawser: That you’ll want to talk with your legal counsel about what that means.
Jen Otremba: Make sure to do your research.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Jen Otremba: Absolutely.
Bryan Strawser: Or do it anyway.
Jen Otremba: In some cases, yes.
Bryan Strawser: The other part of your plan, I think, needs to be, you know, what can you do to accommodate your employees? Like, where are they going to park? A lot of the downtown parking space is going to be taken for other purposes. There won’t be street parking in a lot of areas, because street parking is how vehicle-borne IEDs are delivered. One of the ways they’re delivered. I think you’re going to see large swaths of downtown where street parking is going to be prohibited, ramp parking will be more limited, they will want people to take transit, at least until they close that.
Jen Otremba: And understand what that changes could be to the public transportation, because there are some transit changes during that time, as well.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Jen Otremba: Which, I believe is up on their website, now. It’s just a matter of doing your research.
Bryan Strawser: Yep, so, Metro Transit, or the Metropolitan Counsel, either way, will get you there.
Jen Otremba: Yep.
Bryan Strawser: In the Twin Cities. If remote work is a possibility, particularly, as things get busier the closer to the game later in that week, maybe that’s something you want to consider. Because then you avoid the whole issue of crowds, building protection, ramp space, and et cetera. We understand that not everybody can do remote work. That many companies have operation centers and call centers and things where people have to be there to do the work. But if you don’t have to have them there, they can work remotely from home or whatever, that is a very solid strategy that lots of companies are going to use that week.
Jen Otremba: At least as a consideration for sure. Then, also, communication. How are you, if something happens, how are you communicating to your employees? How are you communicating to your leadership? How are you communicating to the media? How are you … What is your plan around communication?
Bryan Strawser: How will you communicate quickly to your team if something happens? Like, if you’ve got to evacuate, there is a threat, or a risk for something that’s going on, what do you do?
Jen Otremba: Yep.
Bryan Strawser: Then, lastly, I think, just in terms of general awareness, the Super Bowl, cold or not, it’s going to bring out the criminal element. Things like pick-pocketing, human trafficking, people that are drinking more, I think we’ll see more intoxicated behavior in downtown in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, and the night of the game, and all of those great things. Not just in the area around the game. Like, there are bars open until three or four, I can’t remember what they … Exemptions they’ve done.
Jen Otremba: The bars have extended hours, and I think, and I’m not sure what the end result about this is, but there was discussion about allowing drinking on the street there, Super Bowl Live. I don’t know what the end result was with that, but, that is also another factor to think about.
Bryan Strawser: Yep, it needs to warm up for that to happen. No one is going to be outside watching concerts.
Jen Otremba: I don’t know, you’d be surprised. I mean, warming houses and things like that, people come out.
Bryan Strawser: Not enough alcohol to get me to do that.
Jen Otremba: No, but people do, definitely.
Bryan Strawser: I know.
Jen Otremba: I mean, think about the other outside events in the wintertime, what, crushed ice? Crashed ice? The Red Bull.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, the thing we always call the [inaudible 00:14:41].
Jen Otremba: Yeah.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah. During the time around the Super Bowl, as you get closer to that event, I think it’s a good time to … You’ve got your plans in place, you’ve done all this preparation we’ve talked about. Now, I think it’s in that week of the Super Bowl. I think it’s a good time to use your crisis process, to have a daily call about what’s gone on, and what’s happening that day, and maybe even twice a day, about what’s going on, what events are coming, what your posture is, what’s happened in the last 24 hours, where you might need to adjust your strategy. Then use that to inform your senior executives about what you’re doing.
Find out what they are concerned with during this, and make sure that you’re kind of alleviating their fears, or it’s driving a change in your strategy as you go through that. I know we will be having daily calls with a group of clients and others as we go through the week of the Super Bowl, and I think once a week, in a couple weeks prior to the game, just to touch base with everybody. Those are some ideas. You know, between Jen and I, we’ve managed, I can’t remember how many major events like this, Super Bowls, political conventions.
Jen Otremba: Many. Yeah.
Bryan Strawser: Many of these.
Jen Otremba: Shareholder meetings.
Bryan Strawser: Shareholder meetings. These are the lessons that we’ve learned that we think will really help you as you go about this. Certainly, if we can help with Super Bowl LII, don’t hesitate to reach out and give us a call at 612-235-6435, or [email protected]. Go Pats!
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