Moose Jaw native Corey Nyhagen spent more than a decade promoting the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors, but he now has a new role promoting Mosaic Place and its future events and activities.
Spectra Venue Management Services, which oversees operations at Mosaic Place, recently named Nyhagen the new director of marketing and business development. He will manage all aspects of the building’s marketing initiatives, including stakeholder engagement, sponsorship contract negotiations, new building initiatives and client experience.
Nyhagen will also handle the City of Moose Jaw’s new SaskTix ticketing brand and business development program and promote it throughout Saskatchewan.
“I’m really excited to be working with Spectra Venue Management. I think we have a little jewel here in the city with Mosaic Place, and there’s so much opportunity here,” Nyhagen told the Express. “I know we’re currently in the middle of COVID-19 and the closures and everything, but there’s a lot of work to be done for when we do get a chance to reopen for all the fans and patrons and users of the facility.
“I’m just really excited to be the facility-side of things and getting ready for that day.”
Spectra is working on a reopening plan and continually adjusting how that looks, he said. This includes creating messaging and what it wants to communicate to fans, users, and residents when the building starts offering again sports and events.
Nyhagen has been working with the building’s major tenants as part of the reopening plan and noted he is crossing his fingers for the Warriors to return in September. He has also spoken with promoters about booking shows and tours at Mosaic Place.
Spectra is also determining how to provide a new experience for people who attend an event in the venue.
“The closure has given us a little bit of an opportunity to take a step back and say, ‘What can we do and where can we improve on the overall user experience?’ So that’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck for that right now,” he added.
Nyhagen has more than 20 years of experience in business operations. This includes 12 years with the Warriors, first as the director of marketing and sales when the team was at the Civic Centre, followed by the role of director of business operations when the team moved to Mosaic Place.
He pursued the director position with Spectra since he is a “Moose Jaw guy” who has experience working at Mosaic Place essentially from its opening day, he explained. He worked for the City of Regina as manager of sponsorship, naming rights and advertising this past year when he was approached about working for Spectra.
To enhance the entertainment at Mosaic Place and promote the venue were opportunities that Nyhagen could not pass up, he added.
Nyhagen started working for Spectra on April 26 and has been learning about the organization, helping with behind-the-scenes work, and is working with other Spectra business directors across Canada about how reopen plans could look.
Working at Mosaic Place again has been interesting for Nyhagen, who joked that the halls are much darker than what he’s used to. However, “it almost feels like coming back home,” while it has been exciting to work on other business aspects in the building.
Spectra’s reopening preparations are “almost like rekindling when the building was first being built and getting ready to open that first day,” Nyhagen added. “That’s kind of that same mindset I’m in right now … .”
Being Moose Jaw-born, Nyhagen is involved in the community, including with the Moose Jaw Health Foundation, the chamber of commerce, and high school and club athletics.
