Canada celebrated its 150th birthday this year. Most of the venues on our Top Stops chart left the celebrations to established community events, but the rest of the year was filled with a lot of hockey, big-name concerts and local events that filled the facilities.
Some had a great year; others had an even year; none had a bad year.
The weak Canadian dollar was cited by almost every venue as the culprit for the less-than-stellar returns. Even so, the venues on our chart were up a combined 26 percent.
“It was a strong year,” said Dean Clarke, GM, South Okanagan Events Centre, Penticton, British Columbia; Penticton Trade & Events Centre; and regional VP for venue and hospitality/food services for Spectra, Western Canada. Clarke stressed that the two tenants, the ECHL Penticton Bees and the on-site Hockey Academy, made up most of the dates and revenue for the venue.
Clarke also said they had “good numbers, quality and quantity” of non-hockey events. “We’ve sold tickets and everybody’s had a good year. We’ve worked hard on our market.”
“Our strength comes from getting shows on-sale for a long enough period of time,” explained Clarke. “We dial for dollars everyday and can sell a show and get close to sell-outs if we have the time.”
Clarke said the sweet spot for getting a show on-sale was longer than three months but not more than nine months, and that about 70 percent of the shows fall into that category.
Dipping into heavy metal was a good move for the center and bigger shows were Bryan Adams and Blue Rodeo. Ticket prices ranged from $12 for hockey to $200 for a hot concert ticket.
Food and beverage (F&B) is handled in-house by Spectra, which did “great this year,” said Clarke. The venue uses a lot of F&B specials to promote various events and also uses dynamic pricing and premier pricing strategies to increase sales and the bottom line.
Examples of drink specials were “Gin It to Me Baby,” a drink special at an Offspring concert; “Plinko Drinko” for a Price is Right Live show; “Somewhere on a Peach” for a Dierks Bentley concert; and “Dirty Laundry Lemonade” at the Don Henley concert.
Ticket and F&B packages offered at tenant hockey games included, “Take another PIZZA my heart” and “You Lucky Dog.” Another promotion saw special stickers left on hot dog boats — Willy Wonka style — for fans to win prizes throughout the season.
Another big hit this year was a new Craft Beer Lounge, which was set up as a ticketed pre-party before the show.
“Our mission is to attract conventions and events that create profound economic impact,” said Clarke about the convention center business. “For 2017, we’re projecting to welcome over 118,000 people through the building, sell over 10,800 tickets for special events and drive 79,900 room nights from our diverse event mix, which includes conventions, meetings, banquets, special events, trade shows and consumer shows.”
The largest conference hosted in 2017 at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre so far was World Financial Group Eastern Conference last March.
Clarke said even with the winter blues that hit the venues after a long winter, the buildings didn’t go over the preset and expected $1 million deficit.
Improvements are underway, which include $300,000 in HVAC replacements, $200,000 worth of suite upgrades and $100,000 in IT modernizations. The work will be completed by the spring of 2018, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the complex.
Kevin Donnelly, with the newly renamed Bell MTS Place, formerly MTS Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Senior VP, Venues & Entertainment, said the center was, “slightly down” this year. He attributes most of the revenue loss to the weak Canadian/American dollar exchange rate. “Our dollar went as high as CAD $1.40 (to US $1.00) and we pay out a lot of acts in USD. It’s quite a difference and really changed the financial landscape.”
Less rock traffic was another reason for the weak year, according to Donnelly. “We’re a strong rock market,” he explained. “Less rock equals less revenue.”
Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Kanye West and Red Hot Chili Peppers were all good shows for Bell MTS Place this year. Ticket prices were $25-$200. “People respond to reasonable ticket prices,” said Donnelly. “We see promoters working with us to keep ticket prices down for the economy tickets. The upper prices for big acts have good traction; a good mix works best.”
F&B was strong. “We added a lot of premium offerings,” he said. “The spend continues to grow on our hockey products and the country acts per caps are really, really healthy.” Donnelly said adding craft beer and imported beer was a big bonus. “The beer market for the premium beers is getting bigger every day.”
Bell MTS Place is in the third year of a four-year renovation. This year $13 million was spent on a complete overhaul of the public spaces. “We’re getting a new front atrium; new ceilings; new flooring; new walls; new art; new televisions and new digital displays,” he said.
Security is a big concern in Canada, as it is everywhere since the Manchester (U.K.) bombing. “We’ve changed security procedures and now use our own bomb dog, Daisy, and some of her peers at every event,” said Donnelly. Daisy lives with one of the security employees when she’s not on duty.
“We’ll have a record year,” said Wayne Zronik, SVP, music & live events, Air Canada Centre (soon to be Scotiabank Arena), Toronto. ”It was an amazing year. The traffic was very strong.” Zronik said they were up 10 percent and attributes the bump to “multiples, comedy and a tremendous music schedule.”
Highlights included Louis C.K., Amy Schumer, Jeff Dunham, “Game of Thrones,” Bon Jovi, Kendrick Lamarr, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Coldplay. Tickets range from $40-$300 for VIP packages.
F&B was up 10 percent as well. “We added new Toronto-centric local flavors in the form of local food truck offerings like Fidel Gastro and local craft beers,” he said.
Improvements to the venue included upgrades to the suites and activations that tell the story of the building that create a narrative for the fans about our history of sports and music, said Zronik. “We thought they did that really well at Madison Square Garden (New York City) and thought we’d emulate it.” The budget was about $10 million.
Ryan Maclvor, Encana Events Centre, Dawson Creek, British Columbia, said, “It was a great year. We were a little down because of the CAD exchange rate. It made coming to Canada more expensive for the artists.”
Luke Bryan, Slayer, Megadeth, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Dwight Yokum and Florida Georgia Line all did well this year for the 5,500-capacity arena. Tickets ranged from $30-$120.
Creating in-house events like the Health and Wellness Expo, Octoberfest and other business-to-business events also drove revenues and kept the building busy.
The venue runs on a $1.4 million deficit, which the building has been beating. Revenue was in the $6-8 million range. “We brought $9 million to the community last year,” he said, “and that’s really our goal. This building was built for quality-of-life for our residents and to drive revenue to the rest of the community.”
F&B is provided by Spectra. “Our concession program was very strong this year,” said Maclvor. “We’ve been upselling dinner packages and pre-show parties like the “I Love the 90’s Totally Rad Party” and the “Laureate Lounge” for our Bob Dylan show. The events are not just to drive revenue; they are also to provide memorable fan experiences.”
Capital improvements include $500,000 to “define our event spaces” and for a new 10x20 highway digital marquee sign.
Maclvor also mentioned that the center sends one to two employees to the IAVM management school every year. “We think it’s really great training,” he said.
“We had a good year,” said Brian Ohl, GM, Budweiser Gardens, London, Ontario, for Spectra. “We had a great run-up to the hockey playoffs with our London Knights.”
A week in March when they hosted Chris Stapleton, Green Day and The Lumineers was a standout for Ohl. Ticket prices ranged from $30-$150.
F&B, run by Spectra, had a good year with drink specials leading the way. Ohl said that country artists like Eric Church and Dierks Bentley did especially well on the F&B side. The venue also added a local restaurant, Wich is Wich, that serves specialty sandwiches.
All of the lighting has been replaced by LED lighting, which cost around $400,000.
The facility also added 16 new metal detectors. “We had been working on this prior to Manchester,” he said. “After that event, it reinforced that we were doing the right thing.”
Andrew Nash, GM, Abbotsford Centre, British Columbia, said the venue had, “a record setting year” with 29 percent more events and about 15 percent more attendance. He credits the increased numbers to “the diversity of events.”
Blink 182, Slayer/Anthrax, “Mama Mia,” Blue Man Group, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Harlem Globetrotters, who set the venue record in February, were the standouts. “Typically, we are a country/Christian/South Asian market, but we kicked it off in 2016 with the Five Finger Death Punch/Papa Roach/Sixx A.M. tour, which did really well. The surprise of the year was the ‘I Love the 90’s Tour’ with Salt N’ Pepa and Vanilla Ice, where we broke records for largest crowd and highest F&B per caps in the facility’s nine-year history.” Tickets ranged from $29-$99.
Nash said that “F&B did our best numbers ever this year” and credited the great returns to “the explosion of craft beers and new covered beer stands.” Their concessionaire is Spectra.
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CROWDS CHEER AS CANADA TURNS 150
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