Dressing Up Tennis: Premium Lessons, Events and Experiences

In this episode I go over the fundamentals of a great tennis event and how to specific guests a more premium tennis experience whether it be lesson or event.

This can start from something as simple as a grip service pre lesson to iced drinks, demo racquets through to $150-$350 per ticket tennis days with full hospitality and entertainment packages.

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Transcript

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The art of tennis. The art of tennis, art of tennis. Coaches, Rick from the Art of Tennis here. This is episode 13. Today we're going to talk about how we can dress tennis up, or we can have tennis at its very basic bare bones sport. Now, what do I mean by dress tennis up? Well, what I'm talking about is tennis is just a product and you can make it a more luxury version, or you can make it a more simple version. So for example, if I was to have a bottle of Corona beer, alright, and I have a bottle of Corona beer, and if I get a bottle of Corona beer at a cheap bottle shop in a cheap suburb, and I buy it, it's going to be maybe five bucks for the Corona. I drink it outside in the car park, right? Or take it home. Now if I buy that same Corona beer and I buy it at a nice restaurant, let's say a nice Thai restaurant, not top-end, but you know, decent restaurant, I'm gonna pay maybe ten dollars for the beer. Okay, why am I paying a little extra? Well, there's service, there's the environment that you're in, uh, there's the the the atmosphere, which is the environment. Um, and then let's let's take that corona beer up now. If we're having a corona beer in let's say um let's say on the French Riviera at a beautiful high-end restaurant in the French Riviera, that same Corona beer, it may cost you $20. Okay, $18, $20, I'm not really sure. But the point being that maybe this French Riviera restaurant has views, has phenomenal service. It's probably served in a nice ice-cold uh glass. Um you've been served with a little bit of extra, you know, a little bit of extra uh attention on you, and you're paying a premium for the environment and the service that you're in and receive. So, how do we apply that to tennis? So I'm gonna take now take this back to an old story of what I did in 2012, 2013, was looking at looking at golf corporate days and looking on why does golf own this corporate day space? Okay, because people play their golf, maybe they've never played much golf before, but they they have fun, they play, and you know, they get a nice gift bag, they get some team bonding while it's happening, um, they normally have snacks and drinks all day and a fancy dinner. So it's um that's always been a mainstay for golf is the the corporate days. But tennis, the odd corporate day here and there, it's pretty rare, especially while I've been coaching, it hasn't happened much. But in 2012-13, myself along with a friend of mine, Brad, another tennis coach, we decided that we wanted to make give tennis a chance to be at that level, and so we started looking at creating a business for basically unique tennis experiences. Now we had different names. We ended up calling it Aussie Tennis Getaways, which was really it was both going away on holiday to play tennis and having that experience. We did a trip to the Australian Open and Kuyong Tennis Club doing that. Um, but what ended up being the most popular product was a day called Taste of Wimbledon. Now, Taste of Wimbledon was a day that we made up that was as it sounds, it was a tennis tournament or tennis event called Taste of Wimbledon, but it was you know it it was it was done uh at the highest level of finish. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that Taste of Wimbledon included uh gourmet food snacks that come around every round, um, ones that were more inspired by you know uh Wimbledon or English dishes. We obviously had pims and lemonade being served, which is the traditional Wimbledon drink. Um, the strawberries and cream come out after the fourth round. Uh, everyone's in white wearing you know nice Wimbledon whites. We had an exhibition match that happened at the end of the tournament. So when the players got their strawberries and cream enjoying their Wimbledon, um, they got to enjoy exhibition match. Now, those exhibition matches we had Paul McNamy fly across for our first one in 2013, and he did a did a speech to all our players, and Paul was fantastic. Um just a great speaker, a great great guy. Uh, so he spoke, played an exhibition match. We got some of our best state league players and WA legends to join in, and really we just made this day the best possible tennis day we could. Um, people also enjoyed when the jazz uh was a jazz band, we had a jazz band. We wanted to make it classy and and to go with the Wimbledon thing. We had a jazz band playing, and on a you know, on a setup stage, you got jazz band playing, you got delicious food being delivered, which as the years went on, this became a yearly event, but as the years went on, we ended up serving them on wooden tennis rackets, had little makeshift servers so people would be served. So basically, every touch point they're getting was a fun, uh cool, quirky little tennis, uh had a tennis touch to it. So that might have been the way the food was served, um, it may have been uh you know the the classy jazz music, the exhibition, the special guests such as Mac and me. Um, this all made the tennis experience more premium. Now people play social tennis at clubs, um, and they might put two dollars in in a can or two dollars, which includes their tea or coffee, uh, for a whole afternoon's tennis. Now that two dollars has gone up a little bit, but my my point stands that people can play tennis, four rounds of tennis, no frills, and pay almost nothing. All right, pay two dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars, maybe thirty dollars. Um, for this Taste of Wimbledon day, we were charging $150 a head. $150 for an afternoon's tennis, is it expensive? Maybe it's more expensive than paying $2 or $10. But what are you getting in return? You're getting a premium experience. So by dressing tennis up, now obviously there's food costs. Uh there's you know, there's a lot of expenses for us to hire the facility to pay for the jazz band, to pay for MacNamie to come across as a special guest. So we did have a lot of expenses, so we obviously had to charge a certain rate. But for $150, these people we certainly attracted a certain type of clientele, but for $150, they're having an amazing day, right? And the memories are gonna last a whole lifetime. Getting to see Paul McNamy speak for $150, $200, $250. You can't really put a price on that if you're into tennis and you get to meet him and chat with him and everything that goes along with it. So this particular Taste of Webwolden Day we worked on year after year. Uh, we had uh Matthew Ebden uh two two different years. Matthew Ebden come along. Uh John Pierce, the the doubles champ, also had come along. So we had these special guests uh along with all of Western Australia's best players and tennis industry sort of legends. So we had people come in, uh whether they were joining in the exhibition, or we even invited some of them just to just to come along and be a part of the day, so that really we were we were just promoting WA tennis at the same time as putting on this this grand event for people. So the Taste of Wimbledon was a way we could dress dress tennis up. Now look, the target market for this wasn't kids, the target market was you know business type adults or socializing, you know, socialite type adults. Um, it wasn't a junior event, it was a you know it was a senior event. There's there's obviously you know, we've got top-end uh you know Verve French champagne, and and look, it was really uh we didn't cut corners on anything, the invitations were done in a really fancy way. So everything was done at a premium, and then we could charge a premium, and people enjoyed a premium experience. So these are how memories get made. Okay, memories get made by people having these premium experiences. We just happen to use tennis as the product, right? So, what makes a good event in tennis? Okay, what how do you dress tennis up? And you need to think in in terms of events, it's your senses, okay. So, what what do you what do you hear on the day? We'll start with the ears. What do you hear on the day? Okay, you hear, well, we had we had a nice chill out playlist until the jazz band come on, and then you hear um, you know, classy jazz played by uh whopper whopper graduates here in Perth, so you know uh high-end classy musicians and singers. So that's your hear. What do you hear? Um perhaps you hear some laughter and tennis shots as well. What do you what do you see? Okay, what do you see? Well, at this at this particular event, we had balloons, yeah uh purple and white balloons, swim wooden colours, tied on every net post. Um, we had old wooden rackets crossed on fences, so it sort of created this uh this little bit old school old school uh feel to it as people walk past the fences. There's old wooden rackets there. Um we had different other tennis displays there as well. Um so what are they seeing? They're seeing balloons, they're seeing the old wooden rackets, uh, these little props, right? Props that you can use for an event. Uh they're also seeing uh we're seeing everyone in white, which is always the nice. Okay, so people are in wooden whites, and so that they're seeing these things. Now, what's next? What are they smelling? Well, okay, apart from maybe we could argue the new can of balls, we are smelling nice food. We're smelling uh perhaps it's the drinks, the pims and lemonade, or the champagne, or maybe it's the you know, the the salmon, the salmon crackers and other food, which I don't remember the name of all of them come out. Um, but that's your that's your smells, smells of the event. Okay, now what else? We've got sight, we've done sound, we've done smell, taste. Well, that obviously transfers to the to the drinks and to the food that they're experiencing. Okay, and it's important to link the taste with what they see. So while they're watching the exhibition match, they're enjoying the strawberries and cream. So this is a multi-sensory experience watching world-class tennis while they're literally courtside at an exclusive uh exclusive event, and they're eating their strawberries and cream at the same time. So that's a nice sensory experience. So that's our taste. So I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything. So what we've seen, what we've smelt, what we've tasted, what we've heard, what we feel, what we touch. Okay, now that one might be a little bit tricky. Um, we'll just go with what we're feeling is well, we're feeling the grass on our feet on the grass courts where we did it at Peppermint Grove Tennis Club in the western suburbs of Perth. Beautiful spot, very sort of quintessentially Wimbledon. Uh, so you you could argue you're feeling the grass courts, you're feeling the tennis shots, um, maybe you're feeling the glasses and anything else that you're having during the day, you could say that that's part of the sensory experience. So, this is how you make an event is to go through go through your senses and go, do we have that? Do we have that? Do we have that? Do we need that? Do we need that? So, this Taste of Woman event we dressed up um each year. We even tried a taste of uh Taste of France, where we we did it as a French thing. Um, and again, we just replace all those sensory experiences with more French-inspired, so French-inspired food. We had a gentleman who was a restaurateur at a French restaurant, he provided the food, French wine, um, French flags, we had an Eiffel Tower prop. Um, so these are different things that you can do, and we had, you know, what was old French music? Uh, I can't quite explain what it was, but very sort of old-fashioned uh I'll say Baroque, but I think I'm wrong on that. But old, old style French kind of instrumental music. But this is how you how you get all the senses, and this is how we dress up what really is a social tennis match or or a social tennis tournament. So if you if you're wanting to, you can always make tennis more premium. Now that might not apply to where you are if you're at a community club, if you're at a high school, if you're um just organizing a group of players at public courts, this is not the time to dress tennis up. That's where you're just going a very basic, uh, you know, just your basic drink bottle, tennis racket, let's go play. But it's very easy if you're running tournaments and events to dress it up. So that's a little bit of a story on our taste of Wimbledon and and what we did there. Um, as I said, we were Aussie tennis getaways and we did a trip to Melbourne. Um, and look, we went through the same type of process on making sure they had a great experience as they went. Now, going to Kuyong Club, beautiful old club in Melbourne where the Australian Open used to be. Um, you're getting, I guess, exclusive access to a place like that. It's not easy to get into. Again, we actually brought Paul McNamy into chat then because he's in Melbourne, um, and so he did a speech there as well. So we we've made that quite an exclusive experience. It was a group of eight people. We went and watched the final of the Australian Open. So obviously, that was dressed up. We were training them as well. We were doing some coaching there, it wasn't just a tournament, so that was the that was a training side dressed up a bit. So we'll go to a different story. Now, around the same time uh when Brad and I were starting this this side business, which we did for several years, we had some guys, um, it was actually coincidence, they didn't know what we were doing, but they inquired uh about doing some doing some a week's tennis training. They were from Dubai, uh, doing they wanted to do weeks tennis training in Perth at Burzwood, which is where our state tennis center is, and they wanted um, yeah, they just want a tennis lesson each day. Now, first day we did the lesson. I think I did the first lesson. Um, you know, make sure had nice new balls and all this stuff, and soon realized these guys really great chaps, but these guys were wealthy. Okay, these guys were from money, uh, they were business guys, semi-retired from Dubai, all right, from around the world, American English, uh, maybe Nozzie in there. No, I don't think so. American English and uh a couple other guys, and they they just put little requests in. So there were requests like, oh, is it you know, do you have some chairs, you know, chairs? We didn't have anywhere for them to sit on the side of the court. We're doing two-hour sessions, and I mean maybe there were some chairs, but there was no shade. And they put little requests in say, Oh, well, you know, normally we would get this and this. They weren't being fussy because they knew they were just paying for lessons, but I quickly realized that what we were trying to do with these tennis events was almost applying in a private lesson sense to these guys, they wanted something a little bit more, so we quickly pivoted and we just started stepping up our game a bit on what we were providing each day. So soon enough, we were we were we brought eskies with drinks and ice and you know parades and waters, and um I don't think we had snacks, it wasn't quite right for that setting, but it was you know powers and waters in a nice cold eskey, and we made sure we had an umbrella set up with chairs. So this is how we we started to, I guess, on the run, we started to increase the level of dressing up the tennis lesson. All right, so dressing it up, making it more premium, making it a better experience for these guys who were happy to pay higher money. We didn't talk about paying higher money, we just said, well, let's make sure uh we look after these guys. Now, as the week went on, we made a decision to do the last day at Scarborough, which is where my tennis club is. Um, Scarborough's got really beautiful grass courts, um, and it's different from they're in the city, so we we got them out to to come to Scarborough um and play on the grass courts, which I really enjoyed, and then we surprised them and we said, Okay, so guys, we've got a um you've got a uh a limousine coming, all right, a chauffeured vehicle, and they will be driving you after your tennis along the coast all the way to Cottersloe, um, where we'll be having having lunch. Okay, so we made sure there were some drinks in the in the chauffeur vehicle. Um, these guys like to play tennis, but they they liked a good time, they're on holidays and good mates and and liked good time. So we made sure we paid for this out of our own pocket, uh, this chauffeur vehicle drive. They got to see more sites of Perth. Um and then we got to the restaurant. Now the restaurant, um, again, we were we were prepared to to uh pay for their pay for their meal. Uh we just wanted to put on a big a big finale for these guys. Okay, we wanted to impress them so that they would come back another time, right? But each day we went from you know no shade to shade to an esky to um putting new groups on before they play, just a little bit of extra service. Basically, anything they needed, they wanted us to, you know, they were encouraging us to have that there for them. Now, the fun part of the story was we had this big lunch, you know, lots of lots of beer and wine and amazing food overlooking the the ocean in Coteslo, chatting, chatting, chatting. We started talking to them about our plans with these corporate events and tennis events, and you know, they were obviously really helpful business guys who who gave us some you know helpful advice and said said to stay in touch, and we ended it all and we felt good, we felt like we'd we'd really given them a great week. Um, and then they prepared the tip for us. Okay, so obviously tipping is a is a is more of a thing, not so much in Australia, but tipping's a thing globally, and I don't remember what the tip was, but I remember that it paid for everything that we had done times three, so it was a big tip, and we you know, and we were just like wow. So, what was nice for us is because we had to do this on the fly, they didn't book a premium luxury tennis experience, they booked a tennis training every day, but we just built it up each day to make it better and better and better, and it paid off in the forms of a tip, but it also paid off in forms of what we learned about what someone like that wants out of tennis, right? They don't want just the bare bones, they want everything that you need that might pop up plus more in a tennis experience. Then they told us about where they'd previously gone, which would have been some you know really exclusive uh country clubs and and resorts all around the world. So I'm happy we did what we did because it probably was a bit of a letdown for them just to go and have a two-hour tennis lesson with no no frills, um, and we built it up to something really quite special for them. Um, and they had a great experience, and we got a great tip at the end, and everyone was happy. So that's a um just a fun look at how how you can dress tennis up. Um and this can apply to tournaments, club level tournaments, it can apply to coaching if you're coaching a certain type of demographic, and um it obviously can apply to events and holidays, which apply to tennis. So um that's it, a little bit different today, talking about how we dress tennis up. Um, and I will see you next time. Cheers. The art of tenant the art of tenant, the art of tenant.