Not sure if you caught the story in the AL today about the Pavilion’s financials in 2012, but it didn’t paint a pretty picture about entertainment facilities in this town. Normally, the Great Hall at the Pavilion is a good money maker for them. Not so much last year. Ticket sales were down $290,000 in 2012 compared to 2011. Remember, this is a 1,900 seat facility, not a 12,000 seat facility.
My concerns about building a new Event Center has always been about how much we will have to support it. The Pavilion gets a $1.4 million dollar subsidy from the city each year. Can you imagine what kind of subsidy we will have to throw towards the Event Center?
I was talking to a local ‘journalist’ the other day about the possibility of Huether’s 2nd mayoral term (I still think he is running for governor, or at least exploring it). The one ‘good’ thing about a 2nd reign of terror by Huether is that when the subsidy numbers start rolling in, he would be in the middle of his second term, and he will have to do a lot of explaining about the profitability of the Event Center.
Can the EC do better then the Pavilion? Sure. But the Pavilion has been around for 12 years, and when your ‘money maker’ within your facility takes a hit like $290,000 in one year due to low ticket sales, you have to start questioning if the ticket sales will be there with the EC.
I felt all along we should have just dumped $20 million into the existing Arena and remodel it to look like a new facility instead of building an over-sized new facility.
You also have to factor in all the other competing sports entertainment facility that are popping up around town like pimples on a teenagers face. This will take sales away from the EC to.
We should have seen this a mile away.