Empire Polo Club, Indio, Calif.
Home-Field Advantage
Last year, Empire Polo Club, Indio, Calif., hosted the National Hockey Festival with USA Field Hockey in November at their well-manicured fields, with over 200 teams participating and 10,000 people attending in total. The Sandstorm Lacrosse Festival also brought 300 women’s lacrosse teams and a total of about 20,000 people to the club in January.
Taking the Reins
With a decline in the number of touring events playing at Citizens Bank Arena, Ontario, Calif., they promoted four of their own shows for the first time in 2014. The Katt Williams, Rick Springfield, Espinoza Paz and LYAO! Comedy Tour shows ended up being pretty successful and something they will probably try again in the future.
Comedic Goldmine
2014 further established City National Grove of Anaheim as a successful comedy house with a lineup that included big names like Louis Black, Rodney Carrington, Lisa Lampanelli, Jerry Jeffries, Ron White, John Oliver, Angela Johnson and Adam Carolla. The venue’s size and marketing strategy give them a unique advantage in the comedy market.
Planning Ahead
Most venues are thinking long-term when it comes to programming, infrastructure and outreach. Here’s what a few California Top Stops are up to going forward.
SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. hosted the gymnastics Olympic trials in 2012. The event was met with great success, so much so that the U.S. Gymnastics Association is bringing the trials back to the facility again in 2016. NCAA basketball will also be returning to SAP Center with the NCAA Men’s Basketball West Regional in March 2017.
”There’s a long lead time on these events,” said Jim Goddard SAP Center
executive vice president of Business and Building Operations, “so while they’re not current, they are events we’ve worked to book in the last six months or so, and based on the success of our marketing efforts, those events are returning to San Jose and SAP Center.”
Since the start of Coachella 15 years ago, Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. has planted new trees every year. Currently, there are around 1,000 trees around the concert grounds, and they’re not stopping there.
“We’re looking down the road,” said owner Alexander Haagen III. “This isn’t just, what can we do next year? Right now, we’re set up to go ahead and do this with the city up to 2030. That’s a long-range plan.”
Santa Barbara (Calif.) Bowl’s education outreach program is one way the venue invests in their community’s future. The outreach program provides funding for artists, schools and nonprofit arts programs to advance performing arts education, with $1 of every ticket sold to events at Santa Barbara Bowl being donated to the program.
“Our education outreach program is a way to give back to arts education in the schools and community and protect this important aspect for future generations,” said Executive Director Rick Boller. “It’s sort of taken a back seat to construction, but now that’s finished, so we’re excited to start focusing more on that again.”