ICYMI: The Savannah Bananas and the Surprisingly Serious Business of Fun

We break down how the Savannah Bananas build a fan experience by doing the exact opposite of “normal” and keeping everything anchored to entertainment. We hear from co-owner Emily Cole on the behind-the-scenes planning that turns a baseball stop into a fan-first trip people schedule a year in advance.

• The Savannah Bananas’ philosophy of rejecting normal to create standout sports entertainment 
• What “holistic fandom” looks like in real life through merch, lotteries, and travel planning 
• Touring new communities weekly and learning fast through real operations constraints 
• Why communication across security, food and bev, groundskeepers, and entertainment makes or breaks the show 
• How site visits and years-ahead planning reduce friction and win trust in someone else’s venue 

Listen to the full episode with Emily Cole: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2449648/episodes/18327072

Transcript

Doing The Opposite Of Normal

Emily Cole 0:00

We try to say whatever is normal, do the exact opposite, and how can we entertain these people in

Meet Emily Cole And The Bananas

Emily Cole 0:06

a different way?

Heather Gault 0:06

That's Emily Cole, co-owner of the Savannah Bananas. And here's the thing about the bananas. Yes, their fandom is passionate and committed, and dare I say, a little bananas.

Building A Holistic Fan Experience

Heather Gault 0:20

But what the bananas team does particularly well is make their fan experience holistic. The kind where people are buying merchandise, entering lotteries, and planning family trips across the country a year in advance. More from Emily.

Touring New Venues And Learning Fast

Emily Cole 0:36

We're in a new community, a new venue every single week. And so we have learned by doing. We have jumped in and had a new relationship with a new group every single week over the last couple of years. And so we've learned a lot about how different operators operate and the pros and

Communication Across Every Crew

Emily Cole 0:53

cons. I think that it all comes back to the communication and being on the same page. We are so intentional about going ahead of time on site visits and working with these people and making sure that the security team is on the same page as the food and bev team. They're on the same page as our team and our entertainment. We're on the same page with the groundskeepers. There's so many different players

What Holistic Fandom Really Means

Emily Cole 1:14

in this to make one of our events work seamlessly,

Site Visits Years Ahead For Trust

Emily Cole 1:19

right? We're going into somebody else's home and we're bringing hundreds of people and we're doing things on a ball field that have never been done before. And so there can be a lot of naysayers. There can be a lot of, hold on, what's gonna happen? This is our home. You're coming onto our tour. And so we try to do site visits years ahead of time. We try to talk to these groups years ahead of time. I mean, when people realize, or if people realize, that when we announce our schedule, we've probably been in communication with a lot of these groups for years because a lot goes into this. And we do have to make sure that it's a fan's first decision to go to these places.

Heather Gault 1:54

That's what holistic fandom actually looks like. And it's definitely far from normal.

Where To Find The Full Conversation

Speaker 1 2:00

Full conversation is linked in the description. I'm Heather, and this has been Fandom Unpacked, in case you missed it.