INDUSTRY INSIGHT Ɏ For 44 consecutive days during the pandemic, Johnson partnered with AdventHealth as the Amway Center became a distribution hub of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies for the state and beyond. The arena floor was stocked with all sorts of critical supplies, including face coverings and face shields, surgical gloves, hand sanitizers and ventilators. Ɏ World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) established a four-month residency at the Amway Center to produce and televise 35 live shows without fans. The first show aired August 21 and the last one wrapped up December 7.
Allen Johnson
Ɏ Camping World Stadium has been used as a site for COVID-19 drivethrough testing and for staging numerous food drives. Ɏ Leu Gardens converted to a cashless system and featured a number of outdoor events that drew strong numbers.
“We’ve been doing this for 40 years. But there’s no class for this,” Johnson said of the pandemic. “There’s no book. There are no professors. In our lifetime, there’s no example of how to deal with this. I mean, hurricanes disrupt you for a week or two. Other things that come are small disruptions, but not on the scale of this.” Like any effective business executive, Johnson is good at improvisation. And this pandemic certainly has challenged him to think outside the box in many ways. He also made sure to take care of his own, so to speak, when opportunities like the WWE partnership came along. Like everywhere else, people were concerned about losing jobs. Johnson had their backs. “You need to give our employees first crack at it,” he told WWE executives. “They used our audio guys and our ribbon boards. It was a godsend as far as revenue coming in because I can safely say I don’t know of another arena in the country that had commercial money coming in.” There was work to do at other venues, specifically Camping World Stadium. The stadium is in the midst of a $60 million
City of Orlando staff at COPA America Centenario 2016 at Camping World Stadium
Allen Johnson (center) and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer (right) at 2015 Rolling Stones concert announcement at Camping World Stadium
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