The revival of SEAT, the longtime conference for the stadium technology community, continues its progression with its second event under the direction of new CEO Josh Barney. Scheduled for late June in Las Vegas, this year’s gathering will incorporate some new twists, including new panel topic categories, and some only-in-Vegas participant experiences tailored for the stadium technology crowd.
Join us as we speak with Josh Barney to hear about the continued new path for SEAT — only on the Stadium Tech Report podcast!
The revival of SEAT, the longtime conference for the stadium technology community, continues its progression with its second event under the direction of new CEO Josh Barney. Scheduled for late June in Las Vegas, this year’s gathering will incorporate some new twists, including new panel topic categories, and some only-in-Vegas participant experiences tailored for the stadium technology crowd. Join us as we speak with Josh Barney to hear about the continued new path for SEAT — only on the Stadium Tech Report podcast!
If you’ve been around the stadium technology marketplace for any number of years, it’s likely that you remember a conference called SEAT which stands for “Sports and Entertainment Alliance in Technology” — but everybody just knows it as SEAT. Along the years it’s been a great gathering place for the tribe, for everybody to get together, share stories have a laugh and have a few cold beverages.
SEAT took a little bit of a hiatus during the Covid pandemic like many events but it’s back now, and we recently discussed some of the changes to the event as it heads into its second version under new CEO Josh Barney, in Las Vegas from June 23-26.
The roots of learning from others at SEAT
Barney, like many others in the industry, first heard about and attended SEAT while he was working as a stadium tech professional, in his case with the NBA’s Utah Jazz.
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“In Salt Lake City we really didn’t have other people who I could turn to for advice on things like large stadium Wi-Fi,” Barney said. At SEAT conferences, Barney said he found the professional community he needed.
“This was a place that I wanted to be a part of, because of the peer networking that kind of came out of it,” Barney said. Barney particularly liked my use of the word “tribe” in my description of the event because he agreed it was a community of people who had been coming together for years and years, and built their careers off being part of that community.
When SEAT founder and former owner Christine Stoffel-Moffett sold the event rights to Barney in 2022, Barney said he felt like he wanted to “be a steward for where this is, and to help it move forward to keep helping people along their paths.”
Just like how technology keeps changing, Barney said that SEAT will also change to keep pace.
“What [technology] looked like yesteryear is not the way it looks today, and it’s probably going to look a little bit different in the future as well,” Barney said. SEAT, he said, will also change “as we adapt to what the industry needs, which is really kind of the fun part about this.”
Rebranding and new content tracks
To that end, this year Barney said the SEAT conference schedule will include some rebranding of traditional content tracks, as well as a new one designed to get people from different disciplines talking together.
One track, Barney said, will now be titled “digital sponsorship and ticketing,” with a focus on revenue generation. Another new track will be around “fan experience,” which Barney hopes will help break through the organizational silos that were sometimes reflected in SEAT panels, with wireless technology people in one room and business intelligence and marketing people in another.
“The experience of being able to sit alongside of your team members, maybe from different internal teams, and hear some of these amazing stories that we get told is something I’m really excited about,” Barney said.
Building the community
While SEAT conferences traditionally have had a stadium tour as an integral part of the after-hours schedule, Barney said this year the sponsored events will have a bit of a new spin, such as a tour of a neon art museum and a discussion at a casino sports book. In the end, he said, such post-panel gatherings are the kinds of things that can help turn a conference into a community.
“What we’re trying to do is have all of these cool little moments in time where people can have ‘their moment’ being at SEAT, having a place to interact with other folks,” Barney said.
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