Background
The Ranch, Larimer County’s Event Complex, located in northern Colorado, has a long history of serving the local community. Each August, The Ranch hosts about 140,000 people over five days for the Larimer County Fair. Throughout the year, the complex is home to 4-H events, competitions and education. But The Ranch also draws crowds for concerts, semi-pro hockey games and music festivals, and has a reputation as one of the premier event and entertainment complexes in the region.
Making the switch
The Ranch used other CMMS and asset management software programs in the past, but leaders were unhappy with the results. In 2023, the maintenance and operations team switched to Asset Essentials because of its customization options.
“Asset Essentials allows you to push preventive maintenance tasks and adjust your schedule based on actual data,” says Chris Brodzinski, Procurement Specialist at The Ranch. “We’re running 3,000 events a year, so we need a maintenance schedule, but we also need to be able to adjust it based on which facilities are available. Asset Essentials allows that flexibility.”
Tracking upkeep
Blue Arena at The Ranch Events Complex is a 6,800-seat multipurpose venue home to the Colorado Eagles, a semi-pro hockey team, that hosts sporting events, family shows, rodeos, concerts and trade shows. While Larimer County owns Blue Arena, a third-party event manager is contracted to manage the building. “As the building owner, we want to be able to track the event manager’s work and keep track of how they are maintaining the building,” Brodzinski says.
Asset Essentials has provided an ideal way to keep track of the maintenance conducted at Blue Arena with just a few clicks. Brodzinski’s team set up the outsourced management team with their own Asset Essentials login, so the work can be kept separate from The Ranch’s main page but allows Brodzinski and his team access to review.
Forecasting necessary maintenance
In addition to Asset Essentials, The Ranch also purchased Predictor to help its team better plan for potential outages and forecast temperature fluctuations.
“If we have multiple repairs on one HVAC unit, we want to be able to catch that and implement that repair or replacement in advance, so we won’t have down time during an event,” says Brodzinski. “In our industry, it’s crucial to have the right temperature, whether we need to freeze an ice rink or make sure a classroom is the right temperature. For us, having a unit down is losing money.”