This industry like many others breeds a language of its own, it enjoys jargon. For those that are familiar with jargon, it’s a language that is used to stop outsiders having any degree of understanding of an industry, which I find irritating.
Moreover, in a country with a very wide streak of social conscious about it, as the Kiwi’s have, there are laws about disclosure therefore all the more reason for jargon. Over the last few months, our small and dedicated team has come across some jargon that has amused us.
So, indulge me for a moment and let me take you through some of the ones that have caused us to smile.
- Let’s start with our building roof, it is made of ETFE, which is Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene, a clear plastic film molded (in China in our case) into inflatable pillows. The roof has air pipes that inflate or deflate these pillows to ensure that the roof is sealed. The reason I say deflate is if there is too much snow the pressure reaches a level it will automatically deflate to stop it fracturing, but generally for most of the time, these are inflated to form a water tight roof. So ETFE is our roof.
- We have bleachers, which is a term for the steps that the seats are attached to in the stands. The term bleacher, as I understand dates back to wooden seats in America which were ‘bleached by the sun’. Of course, these days, the bleachers are concrete, so to some they are called ‘concrete risers’. This is not to be confused with water risers which are different and can be a real devil.
- The Bleachers are accessed and egressed through areas called ‘vomitaries’. This phrase dates back to the Romans and it is all to do with the fast and explosive outflow. At this point I will leave the similarities to you, dear reader. However, this phrase when used properly is common within the stadium and arena trade. However when used in Council meetings, it has been known to cause offence and may hence forth be known as gangways…go figure!
- In our catering function our kiosk on our main concourse are either ‘belly up’ or ‘grab and go’. “Belly up” is the normal kiosk where you walk to the counter, collect and pay for your goods simultaneously; as distinct from ‘grab and go’, which is not to be confused with ‘wash and go’, which is hair shampoo. ‘Grab and go’ you walk in and collect from racks or fridges and go to a till and pay. This has always struck me as slightly odd, but I have been brought up in the UK where ‘grab and go’ is less common, and of course once you get to the counter, as most of us do now is pay with our ‘chip and pin’ card. Remember dear reader, the UK is a country where we drink our beer warm and have mustard on our hot dog hot enough to make your eyes water, so no accounting for taste.
However, down here, we have a thing called eftpos, which is, as you guessed it ‘chip and pin’ – you swipe it, put your pin in, get a receipt and then leave. It is, in my experience, a good system that rarely fails, but it is the assimilation to this market that is so complete that cash has almost become obsolete.
When the quake hit Christchurch last week, one of the big problems was that the electricity supply for eftpos terminals and cash points failed to the extent that people were unable to complete whatever transactions they needed because they didn’t have any cash, ah what a tangled web we now lead!
These transaction could of have been handled by ‘tap and go’, as advised earlier, this is not the same as ‘wash and go’ or ‘grab and go’. ‘Tap and Go’ is a card that has a proximity reader within it that simply deducts from a ‘prepaid card’ or debits accounts attached to the card, you following so far? This is an exciting development; however these cards are not currently available in NZ, so we have the technology and no cards, that is some progress, I think!
- Some of you who are on the event side of our business will know what an IV is. This is not an intravenous drip, having been in hospital in April I am fully aware of what they are. IV apparently is a short piece of jargon for interview. So if you have a flash IV, no, it doesn’t involve a flashing ambulance, it is when someone thrust’s a microphone in your face while on the field for your immediate reaction. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, they did this for a player in Wellington at the beginning of the season and yes they got a mouth full of expletives! My surprise was that everyone was surprised, the public all know players have the capacity to swear like a troupers and giving them control of a microphone, while full of testosterone, is only going to result in one thing.…..no surprise there then!!
I know it doesn’t sound quite as sexy, but I wish we would debunk it otherwise my belly is going to ‘tap and go’ elsewhere.