The numbers are in, and a handful of venues ranked No. 1 for Top Stops in the Pacific Northwest in 2017, giving them clout and bragging rights as they continue to work toward a strong 2018.
Booking entertainment groups from the 90s, hiring local artists and bringing big hip hop names to stage were some of the trends throughout the region last year.
Top Stops are ranked by tickets sold and broken down into categories based on capacity sizes: more than 15,000; 10,001-15,000; 5,001-10,000; 2,001-5,000; and 2,000 or less.
The Abbotsford Centre ranked No. 1 in 2017 among venues with the capacity of 5,001 to 10,000.
The venue sold 91,766 tickets and rang in more than $4.02 million in gross sales last year.
“It puts a cap on a great year,” said Andrew Nash, general manager of the Abbotsford Centre. Last year “was overall a phenomenal year for us. This ranking is the icing on the cake for all the blood, sweat and tears that went into it.”
It all came down to diversifying shows for fans, especially since the venue doesn’t have a main tenant team, Nash said, highlighting that the Abbotsford Centre had 10 sellout shows last year.
The venue hosted the “I Love the 90s” tour, featuring Vanilla Ice and Salt-N-Pepa, which turned out to be a record-breaking show. “We broke our all time record for tickets sold at that show,” Nash said.
Six months later Jerry Seinfeld broke the “I Love the 90s” record, Nash said with enthusiasm.
The 90s theme continued at the Abbotsford Centre when the venue hosted a 90s weekend with TLC as the headliner.
The demographic of the area bodes well for the Abbotsford Centre, as there are a lot of families in the city that grew up loving 90s music, Nash said.
“With these type of shows, it doesn’t work like it did in this market in every market,” he said.
In fact, Nash and his team have to be smart about what to book and what not to book due to the venue’s size and due to the fact that the much larger Rogers Arena is only 45 minutes away.
The size of Rogers Arena is better for huge headlining acts that wouldn’t see the value in stopping at Abbotsford on the same tour. Nash and his team have opted to book smaller shows to get various entertainers to stop at the venue along the way.
“We have to think about different ways of doing things,” he said. “In some cases this venue was just too big. There are only so many stops for those big seat shows. With the capacity that the venue’s got, we were really able to cut the venue down and look at those 2,500 to 4,500 seat shows.”
That means the Abbotsford Centre now focuses mainly on half-house shows, which allows acts that are too small for an arena stop at the center.
“You can cut your expenses, your staff, and your cleaning staff for those types of shows,” he said.
Rogers Arena also got Top Stop in its class in 2017 for venues 15,000 capacity or more, ringing in $36.9 million in gross sales, up from the $26.2 million in gross sales from 2016.
In Seattle, KeyArena logged roughly $22.9 million in gross sales, down from $26.4 in 2016.
Regardless, Deborah Daoust, the director of communications for KeyArena, touted last year as a great one, with thousands of events circulating the arena and Seattle Center in 2017.
“For KeyArena, we had a business plan that we’ve followed since the (NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics) left in 2008. We co-partner with Live Nation and AEG,” she said, noting that such partnerships keep their entertainment roster full of big acts for fans.
The 55-year-old arena also will undergo a multimillion-dollar rebuild in 2019. Last June, the city of Seattle announced that the Oak View Group would rebuild the arena after the NCAA men’s basketball tournament games at KeyArena in 2019.
The goal is to open the new arena by 2021. OVG is also the owner of VenuesNow.
The OVG proposal includes a 660,000-square-foot venue. It is set to have 18,350 seats for basketball, 17,100 seats for hockey and 17,100-capacity for concerts.
Companies such as Amazon and other high-tech businesses in Seattle keep the area extremely viable economically, Daoust said.
“We have a lot of people relocating here to work,” she said. “There are many different cultures in the region from Africa to Southeast Asia … from Japan to China.”
KeyArena is located on a 74-acre entertainment complex called the Seattle Center that also has a number of smaller venues on site.
With nearly 40 acres of open space, many people stop by the center to hang out with friends or walk their dogs, Daoust said.
“I would say the trend is that people are using Seattle Center in ways they haven’t in the past,” she said. “With the Space Needle and the museum near us, it’s a popular gathering.”
Smaller venues in the Pacific Northwest, such as the Roseland Theater in Portland, Ore., also have a few bragging rights.
Roseland Theater came in as number one in its class for venues 2,000-capacity or less. Gross sales rang in at $4.2 million with a total of 141,109 tickets sold in 2017.
A number of things helped the theater log a successful 2017, including catering to musicians who live in Portland.
“We don’t just focus on national acts. We also focus on local artists and entertainers,” said Moe Lincoln, the venue’s head of marketing. The 1,500-seat theater also tries to keep its ticket prices reasonable, he added.
The venue strays away from sticking with one genre, featuring funk and soul music some weekends and UFC fight nights the next.
“We’ve also done fashion shows where we have maybe close to 200 people in attendance,” Lincoln said.
When touring acts do make a stop at Roseland Theater, venue officials usually have to reconfigure the stage to fit artists’ needs.
“When Miguel played here, we had to put two stages on top of the stage. He started the show on the third stage which is way up top,” Lincoln said. “That was really cool. We’re very accommodating to all the people passing through and make sure they get what they want.”
Lincoln also likes to pair national acts with local artist.
When Gramatik came through town last year, the musical group opted to play with a local DJ at the show, Lincoln said.
The Cuthbert Amphitheater, an outdoor amphitheater in Eugene, Ore., ranked second among venues 5,001 to 10,000 capacity, tallying more than $3 million in gross sales in 2017, trailing roughly $1 million behind Abbotsford Centre.
“It was kind of a myriad of good bookings and happenstance that came our way last year,” said Cami Thompson, ticketing manager of the venue. “For our venue we saw an uptick in electronic music, and hip-hop.”
Snoop Dog and Travis Scott performed at the Cuthbert to sold-out crowds. “We haven’t had any rap concerts at the venue in the last couple of years, so it was a nice change,” Thompson said.
The venue was built in 1982 and the season runs from May to October.
“We’re really nicely situated. We’re in a city park with a creek right behind the stage, so it’s a very tranquil type setting,” she said.
The amphitheater has a heavy-hitting lineup for its spring and summer concerts with artists like Michael Franti, a two-day show with The String Cheese Incident and Jackson Browne, among others.
“We’re extremely pleased with how last season came off. We’re just looking forward to putting on another great season this year,” Thompson said.
ANGEL BRINGS NEW NAMING RIGHTS TO EVERETT ARENA
The signs are up and the rebranding is done for the 10,000-seat venue in Everett, Wash., that’s now called the Angel of the Winds Arena, named for a nearby casino resort.
The Angel of the Winds sponsorship for the building, formerly Xfinity Arena, rang in at $3.4 million under a 10-year naming rights contract.
Xfinity’s contract with the venue ended last year, prompting officials to find a new partner, said Ryan Hart, the arena’s director of marketing. “We canvassed the market for a naming-rights partner. Fortunately, we already had Angel of the Winds on as a building sponsor.
The venue, managed by Spectra, is roughly 25 miles north of Seattle and 20 miles south of the Angel of the Winds Casino Resort, owned and operated by the Stillaguamish Tribe on tribal land.
Arena General Manager Rick Comeau said in a statement that the venue feels “truly blessed” to have found a local partner in the tribe and resort “who are as committed, and invested, as we are in bringing big-name acts to Snohomish County,”
The venue does roughly 150 shows a year, and is rolling out its lineup for the spring and summer seasons. Alice Cooper will be at the arena in August, and the venue will announce other shows in coming weeks.
“We’ve got two or three more that would be of the same variety,” Hart said. “If we can work with other properties like the casino to get other big-name acts come to Everett, then that’s great.”
The venue was built in 2003 for $83.3 million as a multipurpose complex funding by the public. Recent upgrades, Hart said, include a redesign of the in-house restaurant and premium seating in the Octane Lounge, he said.
The venue has a new LED scoreboard paid for by the new naming-rights partner.
“We’re also getting a complete new set of dasher boards and glass for our hockey team,” the Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League, Hart said. “Hockey is a big component of our day-to-day operations.”
The venue also hosts Disney on Ice each year, and it welcomed a drone racing event in March.
The arena has 11 food stands, including a specialty nacho stand and Beers of the World. Spectra also is the food provider for Angel of the Winds Arena.
“It’s a competitive market in the Pacific Northwest,” Hart said. “We’re just super excited to have a long-term partner that’s engaged with the venue.” –Noelle Riley