The Cesar Pelli-designed BOK Center has revitalized downtown Tulsa, Okla. (Courtesy BOK Center)
BOK Center, Tulsa, Okla., is the “perfect example of what an arena is supposed to do in a community,” says Jeff Nickler, general manager there for SMG. The 19,000-seat, $189 million arena which opened in 2008 has literally transformed downtown Tulsa to an arts and entertainment mecca.
Nickler, who was assistant general manager there when the venue opened and became GM in 2014, said the arena has been the catalyst for $1 billion of private development downtown in the past decade and there is another $1 billion to come.
Jeff Nickler has been GM of BOK Center since 2014 and was assistant general manager when it opened in 2008.
“It is dramatic,” he said of the new Tulsa. Once the city saw the success of BOK Center, which was considered too big for the market at the time it was conceived, leaders approved construction of Oneok Field, home of the Tulsa Drillers minor league baseball team, downtown. At the same time, the arts and entertainment district blossomed.
“We’re talking hundreds of restaurants and bars plus nine new hotels in downtown Tulsa since we opened,” Nickler said.
Three years ago, the light dawned at city hall and at the arena that they were no longer striving to be the next Nashville or Austin, both music cities. “We’re the next Tulsa,” Nickler said.
Tulsa has a very rich music history, starting with Cain’s Ballroom (1,200 capacity) and the Brady Theater (2,500 seats), both legendary plays. The new builds have created an “authentic, cool vibe, all locally developed themes and authentic Tulsa brands,” Nickler said.
Through the recent change in a bunch of Oklahoma laws, craft breweries are now legal, “so we have had 10 pop up just in the last 18 months in the city,” he added.
Included in the next billion-dollar makeover is a $40-million pop culture museum called OK Pop, which will house collections of famous musicians, actors and actresses with Tulsa connections, like Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Flaming Lips and Kristin Chenoweth. It opens in 2020.
TELLING THE STORY WORLDWIDE
The local community has embraced BOK Center wholeheartedly, taking ownership so to speak.
Ticket sales are top of the charts, making BOK Center perennially in the Top 15 venues in the world in its size category in Pollstar rankings.
Premium seating is a big seller as well. Capital investments over the past decade have totaled an additional $70 million, adding an additional 16 suites and more hospitality areas, bars and lounges. “All of our inventory sold out when we opened the building so we had this giant waiting list,” Nickler said.
Now, they are in the process of installing $5 million in technology upgrades that will add a free public WiFi system from Cox Communications, and a new outdoor marquee and new video boards from Daktronics. Improvements are funded by operating profits of the building.
Nickler said the operating budget for BOK Center is approximately $15 million. There are 109 fulltime SMG staffers who also manage the Cox Business Center for the city.
“First and foremost this is a concert venue,” Nickler said of revenue generated. “We promote it as such. This is the place in Oklahoma for concerts. Profits for the city of Tulsa are driven by concerts, advertising and sponsorship and premium seating.”
The community’s desire and support for live music is critical. The city has an elaborate and diverse musical history and “Cain’s Ballroom has cultivated a lifestyle where people embrace and support live music in this community. It’s a unique thing,” Nickler said.
Now, BOK Center is adding new chapters to that rich musical history. Whether it’s Cain’s Ballroom or BOK Center, it is the same message, Tulsa is live music.
“In a perfect world, artists grow through our venues. With Twenty One Pilots and Imagine Dragons, that has happened. They first played the 1,200-cap room, then the 2,500-seat theater and now are playing the 19,000-seat arena,” Nickler said.
His three-pronged message to promoters and agents when booking the venue has been the same for awhile now:
• Track record of ticket sales. This is a top 15 market for ticket sales, even if it’s 47th largest in terms of population. “No other venue, no other play within 200 miles sells more concert tickets. That’s been a fact since we opened in 2008,” Nickler said.
• Exceptional hospitality for touring shows. “Because of that a lot of tour managers have chosen to rehearse and launch tours here. U2 launched in May and Fleetwood Mac will launch in September,” Nickler said. (see related story)
• An open calendar. With no professional sports team, BOK Center’s calendar is wide open, more or less, with a lot of time to host tours for rehearsals or launches.
A wall displays the breadth of big acts that have played the Tulsa arena. (Courtesy BOK Center)
With 150 event days on the books, there is something for everyone, but SMG is cognizant of the fact some cannot afford to attend concerts at BOK Center. As part of their mission to get community buy-in, BOK Center has activated the outdoor experience of family-type events at a price point everyone can afford.
The marquee outdoor event is Winterfest, which means closing the streets for 50-plus days and building a 9,000-sq.-ft. outdoor ice rink. Winterfest features live entertainment, a giant Christmas tree, horse and carriage rides and ice skating and draws, on average, 135,000 people a year to the venue.
In-house outdoor productions have grown so big BOK Center has a two-person department dedicated to special events. That was John Bolton’s vision when he was GM prior to Nickler. Bolton has since moved up to VP of Entertainment for SMG Worldwide. The program has grown to include 68 outdoor event days annually.
For example, two sold-out nights of George Strait, June 1-2, as part of BOK’s 10th anniversary concert series, were accompanied by two free outdoor street parties with live entertainment, food trucks, party tents and bars. “We welcomed 14,000 people a day to outdoor street parties for five hours prior to the concert on both days,” Nickler said.
All special events are sponsor driven. Nickler said they do five or six major parties a year and “it’s not just shutting down the street and putting a beer truck out there.” Budgets range from $75,000 to $250,000 for an elaborate event like Winterfest. “We’re talking about closing a city block and putting giant tents and infrastructure out there with a mobile stage and sound and lights. It’s a full-scale production outside.”
For the 10-year anniversary, BOK Center has gone big with its 10-for-10 concert series, featuring 10 blockbuster artists for 12 sold out shows, resulting in ticket sales of 135,000 grossing $23 million. The series, which runs through January, started with Blake Shelton, Pink, Justin Timberlake, U2, the Eagles, Imagine Dragons, and two nights of George Strait. Coming up are two nights of Bruno Mars, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and Elton John.
“That’s quite a lineup. We worked hard to tie these into a yearlong celebration of the building,” Nickler said. Each announcement, all done separately, has served to increase the media coverage and the excitement in Tulsa.
Panic! at the Disco took the BOK Center stage for a recent show. (Courtesy BOK Center)
It’s no accident BOK Center is one of SMG’s top performing venues in North America. “They have made it a must-play market through hard work and attention to detail,” said Jim McCue, SMG’s senior vice president of entertainment. “They were the leader in the new generation of Midwest arenas. They set the tone for buildings like Pinnacle Bank Arena, which opened in 2014 with Jason Aldean, and Jason again in Sioux Falls [Denny Sanford Premier Center]. Tulsa kind of led the way for some Midwest markets that became must play markets because they sold tickets.”
Most striking about BOK Center, though, is that the community takes ownership, not a sports team or the mayor or SMG, McCue said. “Everybody is proud of that success,” he said. “That community engagement is something we try to create in every new building that we do.”
“We were so well prepared with a plan and system when we opened; you only have one chance to make a first impression,” Nickler added. “We operated well from the beginning and enjoyed this success. The expertise of SMG being here long before the building opened to make sure it went flawlessly was important.”
Nickler credits the promoters and agents who support the arena, including Live Nation’s Bob Roux and Doug Clouse.
“Bob believed in the market 10 years ago,” Nickler said. “He uses Tulsa as an example of what could be. You can’t tell a story about us without talking about Bob.”
Clouse booked Celine Dion at BOK Center in 2008, when he was at AEG, before it even had a seating map. She was the arena’s first announced show.
No one has forgotten that when they were talking about a 19,000-seat arena in Tulsa 10 years ago, people thought the city was crazy. “That’s what we had to overcome. People thought ‘Why Tulsa?’” Nickler said.
Now they know.