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The digital revolution has opened the universe of possibilities for marketers. You can reach as much as tens of millions in a few seconds with a few clicks. But in the world embedded on the screen, people want something deeper: a real connection.
“Compared to the digital marketing campaign, live events can reach a smaller number of people,” says Lance Fensterman, general director of Fanatics Events. “But digital is shallow. It’s fast scrolling and go on. Live events are deep and addictive. They allow you to really interact with fans and give them experiences that they will never forget.”
Fensterman introduced this philosophy in his first 12 months on Fanatics, running Fanatics Fest NYC in 2024, a three -day festival that mixes sport, culture and entertainment into one personal experience. The inaugural event attracted over 70,000 participants last summer.
This weekend Fanatics Fest returns to the Javits Center, and Fensterman once again amassed over 500 athletes, celebrities and artists – including Tom Brady, Lebron James, Travis Scott and Kevin Hart – on June 20-22.
Fanatics Fest is an ambitious undertaking, but it is in experienced hands. Before joining the fanatics, Fensterman was the president of Reedpop, where he helped to rework area of interest meetings into the principal events of popular culture, equivalent to New York Comic Con, Complexcon and Star Wars Celebration.
“If you think about the early days of Comic Con, they were people who had no place,” recalls Fensterman. “We built the world in which they were not only safe, but were stars.”
Focus on fans
The sports world brings its own set of challenges, but Fensterman’s mission stays the same: connect people around a common passion.
“A consistent topic in my whole career was to give fans of what they want,” he says. “When you can do it, you create moments and experiences that they will never forget.”
This first way of considering of fans is particularly necessary when navigating after a diverse and often divided landscape of sports culture.
“Sports fans are tribal,” says Fensterman. “They group around specific teams or leagues.”
Self -proclaimed Cion compares him to Harry Potter’s homes, compact communities with clear identities. For example, WWE fans are very loyal, but they might be less more likely to get involved with fans of other sports.
“When you look at other sports events, they are largely organized by the team or sport,” he says, pointing to the NBA All-Star and Super Bowl NFL weekend. “We tried to enlarge and show people that there is a whole world where sports, entertainment and culture intersect – regardless of tribe.”
Think about how about a music festival. You can appear on the headliner, but ultimately discovering two acts in which you fall in love with-love summer later, boast that you simply saw a breakthrough team before they made him big. Fensterman desires to create any such atmosphere at Fanatics Fest.
“We hope that someone comes because he wanted to see the Panel of New York’s great, but then he again discovers his love to collect cards, or catch a simulathe from the club’s club’s World Cup and realize that European football is really cool,” he says. “These kinds of moments in pollination are exciting-when fans come to one thing and end with something completely new.”
Control chaos
The opposite side of planning something that is versatile to know when to stop.
“Fanatics are the most ambitious organization I’ve ever been,” says Fensterman, noting that he is still making corrections to the morning schedule of our interview. “But at some point we have to go down pencils because we have to physically build it.”
After completing the Fensterman and crew schedule, they face the discouraging challenge of escorting A-Listers by a noisy crowd of avid sports fans without incidents.
“The point is to provide fans with a frictional impression to gain access to things they love,” says Fensterman. “We don’t want talents or athletes to slip through the rear corridors – we want them to move through crowds. But the challenge is how you do it, without someone like Lebron James?”
No matter how fastidiously Fensterman and his team plan, the only approach to understand the logistics of such a giant is this experience. And after last 12 months they know what to anticipate.
“I focus on making new mistakes,” says Fentterman. “It’s about constant innovations – determining what did not work last year, trying brave new ideas and creating a culture in which people feel safe to experiment, take risks and cross boundaries.”
Lift your experience
This 12 months’s Fanatics Fest will be 4 times larger than last 12 months’s event, twice as much as the staff – and with this increase there is a small increase in ticket prices. But Fensterman claims that the additional cost is value it.
“This year we slightly raised prices because we felt that there was a place for it,” he explains. “Even during the deterioration of the economic situation, this is a great value. Compared to the cost of the film per hour, 10 to 12 hours of addictive entertainment is an inexpensive way to spend the day doing something special.”
One of the largest additions this 12 months is Fanatical gamesWhere a pleased group of fans will receive a probability to compete with 50 biggest names in sport and entertainment in a series of skills challenges, with prizes as much as $ 1 million in money. The star consists of Lebron James, Tom Brady, Kevin Durant, DJ Khaled, John Cena, Joe Burrow, Kai Cenat and many others.
Fanatics Fest 2025 is not like anything that the sports world has seen. From its star offer to the mission of uniting fans in all sports, to unique offers, equivalent to Fanatics, Fensterman and his team, they are introducing a latest era of sporting events.
The only query now is how they may achieve this next 12 months.
The digital revolution has opened the universe of possibilities for marketers. You can reach as much as tens of millions in a few seconds with a few clicks. But in the world embedded on the screen, people want something deeper: a real connection.
“Compared to the digital marketing campaign, live events can reach a smaller number of people,” says Lance Fensterman, general director of Fanatics Events. “But digital is shallow. It’s fast scrolling and go on. Live events are deep and addictive. They allow you to really interact with fans and give them experiences that they will never forget.”
Fensterman introduced this philosophy in his first 12 months on Fanatics, running Fanatics Fest NYC in 2024, a three -day festival that mixes sport, culture and entertainment into one personal experience. The inaugural event attracted over 70,000 participants last summer.
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