Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Minnesota Twins' moving sale

Again, I'm sorry for my absence in writing. It's just that I've waited for something to write about. I thought over my next couple entries, it might be fun to analyze the PR of the Minnesota Twins organization in getting ready for their move to Target Field next season. So, I will attempt to do that over my next few entries.

The first PR move that I thought would be good to talk about was last weekend's "moving sale." Not to be degrading or anything, (I think most of my readers will find this funny), do you want to know how to win a Minnesotan’s heart? Tell them there’s a garage sale.

I am technically not from Minnesota. I was born in South Dakota. But, being that I’ve lived in Minnesota since I was 6 months old, I do know that Minnesotans love garage sales. Last weekend, the Minnesota Twins had a "garage sale" – unloading 28 years worth of stuff accumulated during their tenure at the Metrodome.

Call it what you want – garage sale, moving sale, rummage sale (actually all of those terms were used to describe it) – the Twins did something I have not seen another team do before moving to a new stadium. I try to be very on top of who is getting new stadiums, arenas, ballparks; and this is the first time I’ve heard of a team unloading years worth of stuff for their fans’ benefit.

I thought the Twins organized this event very well. I got there early enough to be standing in line in front of Gate D (I’ll admit, the line went further back than that). The entry was Gate F. The Twins offered free parking in their surface lot, which as you can imagine was full. I arrived at the stadium at 9:30 and it still took me until 10:15 to get inside. They also made sure that everyone didn't enter at the same time. They did let people enter in shifts, so as to prevent over-crowding in the 22-foot-wide concourses.

The Twins had everything: pennants, baseballs, caps, shirts, posters, publications, banners…you name it, they probably had it. The strange part was that all this paraphernalia was inside the concourse. I thought, “why not have it on the field?” Well, the tape recording on the outside of the stadium told us why: there was an Augsburg-Saint Johns football game at 11.

Inside, while being crowded, was also very organized. At each table, you told the volunteers what items you wanted, they bagged it up for you, and you pushed your way through the concourse – table after table, until you got to the cashiers in front of Gate H. At least they didn’t make people pay at every table. It was hard enough trying to see over everyone’s shoulder trying to see what was there.

Some of the items were of no interest to me; I’ve never been a collector of bobbleheads. I know collectors love them and they go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, but I was after the “harder to find” things. For instance, I was able to snag a program from the groundbreaking of Target Field – the original date. The Twins had to move the groundbreaking ceremony back three weeks in 2007 in respect for the victims of the 35W bridge collapse. The program I got had the original August 2, 2007 date on it.

There were promotional items from the final season at the Dome I picked up, including plastic ticket holders (which, if you read a blog entry I did about the final Twins game at the Dome, you can understand why I got these). Also in the mix I got a Target Field calendar, a 2009 opening day pennant, a Kirby Puckett Weekend program, and some other small things.

This event was supposed to go from 10am to 4pm. A gentleman I spoke with in the line to pay told me he didn’t think the sale would go until 4pm, the way things were going. The Twins said that anything that wasn’t sold would be saved for other events like TwinsFest. And some items would be placed in a museum at Target Field.

Overall, as impromptu as this event was (I believe the full details were announced only about a week before the actual sale), it was a success; and really was a good PR move by the Twins. It provided a once-in-a-lifetime (for some) opportunity to get items that most teams would probably throw away. If the Minnesota Vikings ever get their new stadium built, hopefully they took notes on how well this event turned out for the Twins.

For November 7, the weather was nice for everyone standing outside waiting to get in. It was probably a major factor in why 15,000 people came. Amidst our ill-conceived idea to build a ballpark sans-retractable roof, it’s possible the weather gnomes will begin to show us favor. Either that or they’re gearing up to pull a real good one on us come April 12, 2010, the scheduled opener for Target Field against the Boston Red Sox, and dump six inches of snow about the same time Joe Mauer steps to the plate for the first time.

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