The time for a new events center in Sioux Falls is now. With a new events center comes income for area businesses, more jobs and more opportunities for a variety of events that are educational and entertaining.
What opportunities? What jobs? What events? Like I said, I support a new events center, but if you are going to win over the public you better start giving us details.
As a group we have met twice a month for more than a year, gathering information and public opinion. We are getting closer, but a decision has not yet been made.
That part of the letter confuses me. If you haven’t made a decision yet what point are you trying to make?
The Arena is full for about a four-month period with our local sports teams and other annual events.
That statement alone is very telling. How are we going to fill a 15,000 seat event center then? I have often suggested we should just refurbish the Arena and add another 2,000 seats if we think the solution is to make us bigger. We can also expand the convention center at the same time.
So far we’ve been leaning toward keeping all of our facilities at the same site. We’re going to need places for people to park. I have learned that regardless of your opinion about Howard Wood Field, moving it opens up 1,400 parking spaces at the site.
Silly. Tearing down a very useable stadium to build parking spaces is dumb. Sioux Falls is relatively small, we don’t need to concentrate the facilities. I prefer we build it downtown, but I really don’t care where, just as long as it is not at the current location of the Arena. By building the EC in it’s own location, we create a unique business infrastructure around it. Putting the EC by itself will truly be good for new businesses.
The best thing about the Mayor’s Events Center Task Force is that we’re open-minded.
BAHAHAHAHAHA! You mean like when you hired a consultant and then said he didn’t know what he was talking about? A professional in the business of giving sound advice on building entertainment facilities?
We want to do the right thing, and we’re willing to look at a lot of options.
You may THINK you want to do the right thing, but you are going in the wrong direction, may I suggest instead of opening your mind you start listening to the professionals and public in our community instead of ‘telling’ us what is best.
Opportunities/Events: So the city can compete for economically beneficial events such as larger tournaments like NCAA or All Star Games, Pre-Season Games, National Championships from Indoor Football, NBA-D, USHL, or a larger league. By having a facility that could accommodate larger events in that category, we could be able to bid on and get those events, and by attracting the groups that put on those events, it would automatically bring in revenue to the city because of increase in sales tax revenue from visitors into the city (as long as there are businesses around the center for people to spend money at. Task Force???). So opportunities are increased Sales Tax Revenue, increased support for having the event in the future, increased business development around the Arena (only applies to Downtown site), increased value of the areas around it (only applies to downtown site), and an increase in the amount of visitors to Sioux Falls, hence back to the Sales Tax Revenue. The reason why it would increase the amount of visitors to Sioux Falls, because Sioux City would no longer be successful, and events I guarantee you would come to Sioux Falls instead of Sioux City.
Jobs: Depending on where you put the Arena, it varies. By putting the new Arena out by the Convention Box, you would create 300-450 Jobs in construction of the building, then about 400-500 Jobs once the center would open (Arena Office, maintenence, reservations, etc.). By putting a Center downtown you would create about 500-1,000 Jobs because you wouldn’t be building just the Center, but developments around it. Plus 400-600 Jobs once the center opens.
That doesn’t sum it up, but thats my take at it. My god, Im a teenager and I do better at telling about this project then they do.
There’s a lot of dreaming and wishful thinking in that reply.
I’m just surprised the “we can steal concerts from Omaha and Minneapolis” wasn’t in that list.
Good Job Scott. That is one truth behind it that they wont tell you. Even though I am a huge supporter, we aren’t large enough no matter what size center we have to steal from Omaha and Minneapolis like the Task Force Wants to do.
We are large enough to steal from Fargo, Rapid City, and Sioux City, but can also ‘attract’ (not steal) MSP and OMA concerts.
Maybe not today, but if our population and economic growth rates keep outpacing neighboring cities at some point we will become a viable option.
Hell, Green Day just went through Fargo and is coming back later through Omaha. Meanwhile we gotta beg to get Night Ranger.
Carter & L3wis are right, the place belongs downtown where it will create the most impact.
From the LTE
We could have more concerts here. Sioux City told us that 45 percent of its ticket sales for major concerts come from Minnehaha County and Lincoln County residents.
That is a very telling statement. So lets say SF gets it’s very own “Events” Center. Are BIG time acts like Carrie Underwood going to make a stop at both places? Likely not. Sioux City needs our numbers for potential ticket buyers as much as we need them. And having TWO McArenas within a short drive of each other will only spell doom for both.
Still have not gotten an answer to this one. How many “Events” has the Tyson “Events” Center had since it opened it’s doors six years ago that our own arena could not handle… attendance wise?
Carter- You bring up a good point about the sales tax. The task force suggests we pay for the place with an additional 2 cent retail tax increase. They ‘claim’ that once the place is paid off the tax will go back down. Taxes NEVER go down. I have often felt that the 2 cent tax idea isn’t for building the EC it’s for other stuff. The tax will simply go in the general fund and be used as a slush fund, that is why the only way I support a new EC is if we build it with a bed and booze tax.
Warren – I agree with the booking situation, it is a matter of having better booking. Like I said above, a better approach would be to remodel the Arena and add 2000 seats and we would be good for another 20-30 years.
Still have not gotten an answer to this one. How many “Events†has the Tyson “Events†Center had since it opened it’s doors six years ago that our own arena could not handle… attendance wise?
The point is moot. Acts will perform where there is the best potential to sell more tickets. The Tyson center has more seats, so they win. Big acts will always go to the larger, nicer facility.
“The point is moot.”
The point is moot? No… I do not think it is. Nor would a vast majority of SF citizens who will end up paying for this largely empty center think the point is moot. Maybe you’d like to see that “moot” point swept under a rug, but when it comes time to decide at the polls it will be VERY much a topic of conversation.
GoD is right: Size does matter.
Carter is right: Build it downtown.
L3wis is right: Fund it with B&B.
LTE writer is right: We need this now.
WP is right: That statement is telling.
We also don’t know what percentage the Fargodome sucks out of here, but my bet is maybe about 10% lower than SC. Nor do we know how many folks travel up to Tyson from Omaha or vice versa. But since those two facilities are just over and hour apart, that kinda blows the idea that two big, new places can’t coexist in that proximity.
The problem with concerts is we simply aren’t even thought of by promoters and booking agents of the “big time” acts. Instead we are thought of by the geriatric, mullet-laden, butt-rocker bands that love our demographics and would be thrilled if the sold out the Arena like they did back in 1973. Therefore, there is a generation of concert-goers, with the discretionary income to spend that has been trained to hop in the car.
We need to change that dynamic altogether.
and L3wis, adding seats to the Arena is a near impossibility and ungodly expensive. That’s why no one has proposed that even 25 years ago when we started to lose business.
Next time you are in there, take a peek at the steel arches that hold the roof up that run north/south. They can’t be moved. That’s why Weckwirths plan is to demo.
I think there is a tad too much focus on concerts considering there is rarely more than one per month.
Meanwhile we have have multiple sporting events in a single week. Last I heard the event that requires the most seats is the high school basketball tournaments – but even those are under 10,000.
The Events Center Task Force keeps telling us what they want us to believe and keeps ignoring studies that say less is more, and therefore we continue to spin our wheels on the issue.
Put it to a public vote – if the thing passes then get it built within 30 months. Ask the public where to build it and accept their decision without bitching about it for the next decade.
If the vote fails quit talking about the damn thing for five years which means by then we can have a new administration with (hopefully) some new ideas.
How would the public be able to vote on a location? I would definetly be up for that (of course, If I could vote). I can definetly persuade many into voting for this one location that I have always had on my mind :-).
I can definetly persuade many into voting for this one location that I have always had on my mind :-).
~Carter
If it’s not Cherapa Place, I’d be interested in hearing where and why.
Warren Phear:
“If it’s not Cherapa Place, I’d be interested in hearing where and why.”
Really? I thought the place will be sitting empty no matter where we build it since we simply can’t compete with big, bad Sioux City or Fargo.
The fact the place would sit empty because every other prarie town has one has nothing to do with hearing Carter out.
But you clearly don’t want to hear Carter out or you wouldn’t have thrown in that little caveat about it not being at Cherapa.
Your whole opposition seams to stem from your concern about parking. if parking was truly a concern in DT areas around the country, you wouldn’t see some of the best venues in the country right in the middle of their respective cities. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
After reading Carters post, I was thinking he was talking of something other than Cherapa. If it is, I’d like to hear about it. If it is Cherapa, then we have ALL been down that road before…the pie in the sky walking distances and all.
“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
~GoD
I guess we’ll let the voters of SF decide on that one.
“The point is moot. Acts will perform where there is the best potential to sell more tickets. The Tyson center has more seats, so they win. Big acts will always go to the larger, nicer facility.”
I agree with you on the point that acts will be booked where they have the biggest potential to sell more tickets. But that’s not necessarily the facility with the most seats, and that’s where the mindest of the task force is so off base. 8,000 tickets sold in a 10,000 seat facility is very healthy; the same number of tickets in a 15,000 (or 18,000 if that idiot Dykhouse has his way) is a failure.
Let’s also not act like Sioux City and Fargo are the standards that prove we need a similar building. Lots of shows in Sioux City have been failures or been cancelled. Fargo’s attendance has also had their problems. The Stones record-setting late 90’s tour was only half full, and Springsteen’s E-Street reunion tour appearance was their lowest grossing show of the tour. Weezer played to a couple of thousand at the heights of their popularity. And they even have the advantage of hosting a “real” university that’s necessary to fill the seats. In fact, the very existence of that building is because their football and hockey teams needed the seating capacity, unlike any of our C-level minor-league sports teams.
Let us not forget that if a show rolls into Sioux City, they most likely won’t make a stop in Sioux Falls. The inverse is also true, so just because we have a new shiny events center doesn’t automatically guarantee we will get all the big shows.
Sometimes it boils down to simply a matter of geography. Rapid City tends to get a few shows that we would love to have, but that is because they are the entertainment epicenter of their region with no other options. People from Sioux Falls can (and do) drive to Fargo, Sioux City, or even Omaha for a concert and promoters know that.
Will a new EC bring in more and larger shows? You bet… but all these dreams about us stealing everything from Fargo or Sioux City is just comical.
I feel a detailed report needs to done on what percentage of events will be at the new EC using data from regional facilities over the past 5 years. Obviously a few concerts and basketball games a year won’t float with the voters.