At Mann Center, concertgoers get a good kind of charge
Show-goers at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts will be getting a charge from more than the music this summer.
Show-goers at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts will be getting a charge from more than the music this summer.
As opening-nighters discovered Thursday, there's a tent full of ChargeItSpot kiosks just inside the main entrance. There, visitors, up to 48 at a time, can plug in and replenish the battery in their mobile phones, gaining a decent dose of talk and text time while hanging out in the beer line or answering nature's call.
"Give us 15 minutes and we can charge a previously dead phone up to the 20 percent mark," said ChargeItSpot founder and CEO Douglas Baldasare.
"Concertgoers who've inadvertently burned their battery out - easy when you're shooting and sharing show images - are going to love this. Now they'll be able to replenish the phone's charge at intermission, so they can then reconnect with separated friends after the show and get that ride home."
Philly-based and recently boosted with a $5.26 million infusion of Class A financing, ChargeItSpot has been fine-tuning its tech and marketing strategy for five years.
Then and now, the company works mostly with retail chains and malls that lease and place the kiosks "as a customer amenity, to keep you in the store longer and gather some useful information about you," said Baldasare, who started working on the concept as a Wharton M.B.A. candidate. "But we'll also be expanding to some sports stadiums in the coming months."
Although there's no fee for the charging, users do wind up spending "double the time and 30 percent more money at the store," said Baldasare. And they always leave their paw prints. To securely lock that phone inside a charging bin the first time, users need to share their mobile phone number, which now becomes the charger door's unlocking combination and email address.
Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, the locally based owner-operator of shopping malls, has taken on sponsorship of the Mann installation, ChargeItSpot's only full-time concert hall location.
"As a company with strong roots in the Philadelphia region, it just made sense for PREIT to sponsor the Mann, the city's favorite outdoor music venue," said Bil Ingraham, vice president, property and partnership marketing.
To connect the dots, Mann users are also asked to specify on a ChargeItSpot kiosk touchscreen display their favorite PREIT property, choosing among the malls of Willow Grove, Plymouth Meeting, Springfield, Exton, Cherry Hill, and Moorestown. (The under-construction Fashion Outlets of Philadelphia, formerly the Gallery at Market East, is also a PREIT venture.)
SMS messaging will likewise underscore the connection and remind users that there is no such thing as a free charge. "We can send you an alert when your phone battery is running low, indicating the closest ChargeItSpot location," Baldasare said. And the system can message "when Cinnabon and Godiva are giving away goodies" at your nearest mall unless you've "opted out" of receiving such promotions.
Each ChargeItSpot cubby offers three varieties of phone connector cables with Lightning and 30-pin plugs for newer and older iPhones plus Micro-USB for "the vast majority of other phones," said Baldasare. "We're also looking to add cables with USB-C connectors, now showing up in a few new phone models."
What happens if, at the end of a concert, a show-goer is too blitzed to recall a phone number needed to free the mobile from its ChargeItSpot?
"We've got that covered, too," said the inventor with a laugh. "A kiosk camera took a picture of you when you first put the phone into the charging compartment. After entering three wrong 'combinations' when you return, the system takes another picture of you. A live agent at our support center comes online, talks to you, compares the two images, and then unlocks the door, as long as you haven't wandered away."
215-854-5960 @JTakiff