We started designing what a reimagined experience would be like for a fan coming to our games because our goal was to create a remarkable experience with every touch point. So we thought, well, what is a typical baseball experience? You buy a ticket, you park, you pull up, you sit in your seat, you wait for the game to start, you may stay for a few innings, and then you leave. Well, what would be something that's remarkable? And it starts before they even show up at the ballpark. And for most businesses, most companies, you think when your experience starts, you're wrong. It starts the first time they interact with you, first time they see you. So for us, we said, alright. What happens when fans go to our website and they buy tickets? What's a typical normal buying ticket experience? You probably all have you buy your tickets and you get a regular payment confirmation. We thought, let's make it special. Let's make it fun. So when fans go to our website and they buy a ticket, they immediately get sent a video. And the video starts with me right here looking at the camera saying, congrats. You just made the best decision of your day. Right now as your ticket order came in, a high priority siren went off on our stadium, and our Bananiacs ran to the ticket laboratory to produce your tickets. And then a Banana Nana slowly walked in and hand selected your tickets and placed them on a silk pillow. We raised the silk pillow up to the air, and we sang na sibena to celebrate the birth of a new fan. And now we walked your tickets down to our vault where they're in maximum security ready for you to go bananas. Outrageous. But that's the confirmation that they get. So first, they are known, wow. This is something different. This is something unique. We wanna prime them for the experience. So after they get the video, we're priming the experience. The next thing, everyone that buys a ticket from the bananas gets a thank you call. Now that's kinda crazy. We're fortunate to sell thousands of tickets, but we spread it up for the entire team. And even myself as an owner will call fans just to say thank you. And And a crazy thing about that is we've been doing that for years. We had an intern just recently start with us, and he said, hey. I love the thank you calls, but why don't we make them more fun? And I go, what do you have in mind? And he goes well what if you did a thank you wrap? I go a wrap? He goes yeah what if you when you thank the fans you do like a wrap and you make it fun? I go that's a great idea. I go, you'll do one by the end of the day. And on his first day I said, I'm gonna challenge you to make a thank you rap. He goes, okay. Well, I'm I'm kind of I'm kind of awkward. I'm not the perfect person to give this wrap. And I said, well, Austin, it's perfect. You'll be Austin the awkward bananas wrapper. He's like, okay. Okay. And by the end of the day, he wrote a rap, four o'clock. He called the first fan to thank them for tickets, and he said, hey. This is Austin the awkward bananas rapper. I'm here to fill your day with fun, joy, and laughter. I hope you enjoyed your amazing perch and have so much fun going. And he went on this whole thing. And the fan was like, Thanks, man. I was like, Austin, wasn't that bad, was it? He goes, no. And so now we took it to the next level, part of an iteration. So you may get a thank you wrap. You may get a thank you call. The next step is that our ticket experience coordinator will send a playlist to you of music to listen to on the way to the ballpark, from can't stop the peeling to other this is bananas music to other fun songs that get you fired up for the game. And this is before they show up at the stadium. And I'm sharing this because we're crafting how the experience works from the beginning to the end. Next, when you show up to the stadium, the first thing you'll see is our parking penguins. Parking penguins are, yes, people dressed up in penguin costumes that are parking your car. Does it make any sense? Of course not. But the idea of getting parked by a penguin, I thought it'd be pretty funny. So now our parking penguins will actually pass out freezy pops to kids and say, stay cool today. As you walk past our penguins, you'll see our players greeting you outside the stadium, signing autographs, taking pictures, passing out programs. And then you'll see our full pep band playing music like Rocky in Final Countdown. And then you'll see our banana ticket takers in banana costumes ripping their banana shaped tickets that are sometimes scratch and sniff and smell like bananas. You know, every company needs to start with the first impression. It's essential. How do you make people feel from the start of the experience with you? But as important as the first impression is, the last impression. We believe the last impression leaves a lasting impression. So what are you doing that last type of experience that your fans have with you? What are you doing? So for us, we map this out. When fans are leaving the ballpark, most times when fans leave a stadium, they just leave. Or, you know, you go to Walmart and Walmart has a Walmart greeter, but do they barely ever greet you? How many times do you leave a restaurant and no one even greets you and says goodbye? People miss opportunities on last impressions tremendously, and for us, we didn't wanna do that. So at the end of our games, we will have a free s'mores station set up where fans can get free s'mores. We'll have the pep band playing sing along songs while the DJ also out there for fans dancing. We have the players lined up thanking the fans. Our staff is out there just greeting fans and having fun, having a good time. That is so important. But it's not just that as the last impression. Sometimes there are, challenges. For us at a ballpark, rain is a big challenge, especially here in Savannah, Georgia. It rains a lot during the summer. And we believe when there's a challenge, that's when you gotta put your show and your experience into full gear. And so for our fans, every game's sold out. If it's raining, they still show up. They come out here, and they are hoping that we play. But a lot of times, we can't because of the rain. And so we challenge our whole team to actually what can we do to create the experience, make it better. So we line up our whole staff with umbrellas, and we walk fans to their cars, including our players, including our staff, our characters. We walk fans to their cars. I remember one night, I'll never forget it. Absolutely pouring rain, huge downpour, monsoon. We had an intern who was with us just for about a month at that point, and I saw her walk an older gentleman out to his car or so I thought. She was gone for over thirty minutes and she came back completely soaking wet and I said, Laura, what happened? Where were you? She goes, I walked to that gentleman home. I go, You walked him home? She goes, Yeah. I walked him to his doorstep. He said his house was just down the road but it was probably about a mile but he was so appreciative. And I go, wow. And she goes, fans first. Right? It's that little attention to detail that created what we think is a raving fan. And the power of that is it was an intern that understood what is fans first. If someone wants a walk a little further, you take care of them. If someone wants a walk and you're getting soaked and you have the umbrella over them facing the whole time, you take care of them and she took care of our fans and it's a story now we tell all the time. It's, hey, what can you do to take that extra step, to take that extra mile, and even take someone to the doorstep if you need to? I often ask, what is the best customer experience you've ever had? And what makes it memorable? So often we think back and we're like, you know, I haven't had anything that's been really memorable or remarkable. But when you do, it's because of a personalization. It's because of a customization. It's because of something that they realize I'm gonna go the extra step. Put more thought into what that looks like. And for us, every game is someone's first game, and we believed focusing on one fan at a time, not focusing on thousands, but one fan at a time, those little touch points.
