Cosmic Baseball is a sold-out sensation. Keeping it staffed is the real challenge.
If you haven't heard of the Tri-City Chili Peppers, you've probably seen them — glowing neon uniforms, black-lit stadiums, and a baseball experience featured on ESPN, CNN, the Today Show, and MLB Network. Based in Colonial Heights, Virginia, the Chili Peppers are a college summer team in the Coastal Plain League that became a cultural phenomenon when they debuted "Cosmic Baseball" in 2024: full games played under black lights with glowing balls, bats, bases, and uniforms. Over 50,000 fans hit the waitlist that first season, and by 2025 the team launched a national Cosmic Takeover Tour across minor league stadiums from Durham to Louisville to Worcester.
Behind the neon glow? A staffing challenge every live event operator knows: when crowd size swings from a few hundred to 5,000+ on any given night, how do you keep concessions moving and the fan experience tight?
A small team with a not-so-small operation
The Chili Peppers' core team is around ten people. But on Cosmic nights, Fireworks Fridays, and Thirsty Thursdays, concession lines, beer garden demand, and event support all spike at once. Traditional temp agencies were too slow, too expensive, and too rigid for the night-to-night variability of live entertainment.
On-demand staffing that moves at game speed
The Chili Peppers turned to GigSmart's G-Flex platform to post shifts, find qualified workers and keep their operation moving. With no contracts, no minimums and no agency overhead, GigSmart was a perfect fit for the scrappy operation. The Chili Peppers could post a concession shift Tuesday for a Friday game and have workers locked in within a few hours. If ticket sales surge midweek, they could easily post more shifts and fill them before the gates opened. Light crowd or bad weather on the horizon - GigSmart's cancellation policy made flex staffing an easy win.
Why on-demand staffing fits live entertainment
Attendance is unpredictable and seasonal schedules don't justify full-time hires. And more importantly, the fan experience — how fast the beer pours, how short the lines are — directly impacts whether people come back. On-demand staffing platforms like GigSmart let event operators match labor to actual demand, night by night, without the overhead of overstaffing or the risk of being caught short on a sold-out night.
For a team growing a national entertainment brand while keeping the hometown experience dialed in, that kind of operational agility is how you keep up with your own momentum.
