The Giants will be seeing another type of ball fly through the air at their ballpark this offseason.
Thanks to Topgolf Crush, fans will have the chance to hit golf balls into targets on the field from where they would normally be eating a hot dog and drinking a beer.
The three-day event will feature 12 hours of open bay times per day, giving the Giants the opportunity to host thousands of fans over the weekend.
Two years in the making, the partnership will see Topgolf and Giants Enterprises combine efforts to handle all of the logistics, operations, hospitality, and marketing efforts, while the Giants take the lead in ticketing infrastructure and sales.
Giants Enterprises, the hospitality, event, entertainment, and sports consultancy arm of the Giants, is bringing the first-ever, full-venue golf event to life in the 18-plus year history of AT&T Park.
This event is particularly unique for both parties because instead of having Topgolf handle the ticketing side as well, the Giants built out a whole custom ticketing interface just for the event.
“We worked with our ticket office to build the platform because it’s not like a baseball game where you’re buying a ticket in a section and you know when the start time is and you know that it will roughly take three hours,” said Rory Davis, the marketing manager for Giants Enterprises. “For this, you have to build out 12 time slots per day across 23 different hitting bays, for three straight days. It wasn’t easy.”
Doing 200-plus events a year, it’s hard to find something that will be a “first” for the Giants Enterprises team. But, throw a driving range with Toptracer Range ball-tracking technology at each bay and you have a first for the team and the venue.
It was also a first for the ticketing team thanks to having to build out an entirely custom platform, a move that was done in part because of the way the deal with Topgolf is structured.
“They (Topgolf) have worked with Ticketmaster before, but we proposed that we build it ourselves alongside our ticketing partner in Tickets.com,” said Davis. “This made sense from a partner perspective.”
SEE MORE: Celebrating Latino Culture, La Vida Baseball Caters to an Underserved Fanbase
Beyond creating a fun atmosphere for those who visit the park, the experience also gives the Giants the ability to have soft touch points with partners, season ticket holders, and potentially future fans.
Starting on Thursday, November 15, the Giants and Topgolf will open the space up to media and VIP influencers, giving them the chance to preview the experience and hit a few balls.
Adding another layer to the event, former Giants players, local officials, celebrities and VIPs are expected to make appearances throughout the weekend in order to create what Davis and the team are calling a “360-degree experience.”
It may not be a party on one of the two Yachts the Giants own, but the event is sure to provide everyone from casual fans and golfers to the most die-hard fans the chance to hit a ball in a park that is known more for its splash hits than its birdies.
