Wednesday, March 13, 2013

2013 NBA All-Star Event Diary (Day 11)

It’s all finally over. Well, almost over. The 2013 NBA All-Star Jam Session has come to an end for the people of Houston, TX, but FILO is far from calling it a wrap. Today, Monday, is load-out day. Granted, we took some time yesterday after the event ended, to begin what we call a soft tear-down, but the real work takes place today.

We brought in trucks as early as 7am to get as many into the loading docks as possible. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First things first… Our FILO crew works imminently to strike all the NBA owned equipment that must find its way back to the warehouse in St. Paul, MN—the place we call home. You can tell when it’s the last day because people really kick it into gear to empty out the Convention Center as fast as possible. Just when I didn’t think our FILO team could take anymore, I see this wonderful group of individuals step it up, yet another notch. People attack the fence, tearing it down safely and quickly; our hoops crew start striking the basketball goals, backboards and bases; Shaun and his crew get after all the signage to organize it and store it in a standard in preparation for the detailed inventory process it’s about to go through in the warehouse; and the distribution crew begins their process of picking up and organizing all shipments headed to New Jersey, New York or anywhere else around the country. These are only a handful of the last day duties FILO works on for load-out. I didn’t even mention the intense loading of 17 semi-trailers that incorporate a method of precision, patience and a LOT of Tetris-like skills.

The story for me this year, however, was our crew. It sounds cliché and you hear people say it every year, but enough cannot be said about the FILO’s that worked the Jam Session Event this year. Each year, we tend to worry a bit about losing a few names who have worked the Event before, but the rookies really stepped it up this year and helped produce an Event that everyone could be proud of. These are the people that I want to say THANK YOU to, for all their hard work and effort. It definitely does NOT go unnoticed and we appreciate you. It’s important I share how proud I am of our team. Everyone worked together and without each and every one of them, the Event could not have been as successful as it was (and that’s a fact, not an opinion).

The best part of the day was the “Guess What Time We are Going to Finish,” game. It’s an annual, for fun, game we incorporate year-to-year. Everyone selects a time slot (set aside in 15 minute increments) that they think the last door on the last trailer is going to close. It’s a bit of incentive and motivation for everyone and it just makes it more fun.

The final time was 8:30PM. T-Jay from VEE Corporation called it, and the show was officially a wrap (well, sort of—A few of us, myself included, have to come back tomorrow to check up on a few things, get a last couple shipments out and make sure the Convention Center is back to normal. We don’t say “Last Out” for nothing, ya know?).

All 17 trucks were loaded and on their way back to Minnesota, all of the FILO team was wiped out after the longest 10 days of their lives and all of the Convention Center was one step closer to being empty. Other vendors had a few last minute details to work out, but all in all, the 2013 NBA All-Star Jam Session was yet again, a tremendous success. I am extremely proud to be a part of such a prestigious event year-in and year-out, and feel so lucky to have the opportunity to work with one of the premier sports entertainment enterprises in the world.

Most importantly though….I am proud to be with FILO and the team that was at Jam Session this year. We are already excited and looking forward to next year.

Thank you EVERYONE for all your hard work. You are a huge part of the reason we get to keep coming back, year-after-year.

Written by:
Kevin Weinhandl

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