TD Place is home to a wide variety of events, with many different concerts, sports, and other shows rolling through its doors, sometimes fewer than 24 hours apart.

When you buy tickets to an event, you likely don’t consider the gargantuan effort behind the scenes to switch from a concert to a hockey game, but that’s because Patricia Tippett, OSEG’s Event Production Lead, has it down to a science.

She is responsible for all of the event’s logistics, especially for Ottawa REDBLACKS and Ottawa Charge games, and all of the concerts, ensuring everything is in the right spot, and everyone has exactly what they need to make the event a successful one.

“I am the one-stop person for the promoter,” Tippett said. “I take care of all of the logistics of them coming in, make sure the staffing is correct, the dressing rooms, things like spotlights. I connect them with catering and merchandise. I’m also the contact for everyone internally to pass on all of that information, so there’s a lot of organization.”

Recently, Tippett was charged with a pair of big events in a tight window of time, with the Charm Offensive Tour with Jim Jefferies and Jimmy Carr on a Friday night, before the REDBLACKS took on the Toronto Argonauts at 1 p.m. the very next day.

The Friday night show was the first in the round at TD Place in a number of years, and required extra attention, but the sharp turnaround made for a long night, and a wicked amount of coordination.

“At the same time the show is coming down, we’re setting up for football,” Tippett said. “There’s a lot of timing on our side to work with all of the events, and we do a lot of checklists and double-checking with people. It can get a little overwhelming sometimes, but our team is amazing and collaborates really well.”

Everyone can see the big things. If the stage is there, and the show is entertaining, everyone goes home happy, but Tippett sees the tiny things no one else notices. It took some time and experience to get there, but now, she takes pride in considering things that, if all goes according to plan, would never be utilized.

“I came in knowing what goes into an event, but not quite all of the minutiae of everything,” Tippett said. “I’ve learned a lot about fire exits and pinch points, and making sure we’re not in the way of anything. Every year is getting a lot better.”

Into late August, ice has once again returned to The Arena at TD Place, serving as a reminder that the schedule is about to get busy, but that’s not a bad thing, Tippett says.

“You look at the calendar [and a lot is going on], but having that experience over the past 10 years [gives me confidence], like yeah, we’ve done this before, we’ve done it for 10 years,” she said. “It’s exciting, actually, it’s good stress.”

That’s because there’s nowhere else she would rather be.

“This is my dream job, it’s the job I worked for going through school,” Tippett said. “I’ve worked in corporate events, and that was fun, but it was always my dream to go into sports. I love it here, this is in my blood.”

In the past 10 years, Tippett remembers a handful of great events, whether it’s REDBLACKS’ playoff games, hosting an outdoor NHL game and the Grey Cup in 2017, or stadium shows with AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses, but those aren’t necessarily her best memories of being an OSEG employee.

“It’s not just the events,” Tippett explained. “I get to hang out with and get to know so many amazing people that are good friends now.”