State Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park in Atlanta got a big renovation and a longer name. (Courtesy Live Nation)
The Southeastern markets in the Carolinas and Georgia have been booming over the past year, much like the broader U.S. economy. While this next year may prove more challenging in the wake of Hurricane Florence’s widespread destruction and tour disruptions, especially in eastern North Carolina, insiders say the outlook is still bullish for the region as a whole.
Cities throughout this part of the Eastern Seaboard are experiencing downtown renaissances from Atlanta to Charleston and Charlotte, not to mention many of the communities in between. This has not gone unnoticed by the entertainment industry, which is booking an ever-widening array of acts to stand out in what’s become a very crowded and competitive market for venues.
Crowded House
Many venue operators say the recent venue-building boom has made it more difficult to book tours and has created nontraditional competitors in the process. In fact, a number of the region’s top venue operators said the buildout is one of the few obstacles in the marketplace right now.
“The heavy competition is the biggest issue. We can’t all have the same content,” says Kate Dordick, director of arena booking for Hornets Sports & Entertainment, which operates Charlotte’s Spectrum Center. “We’re now competing with football stadiums that have roofs (Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium). We don’t always have the ability to just say, ‘You can have air conditioning (in Spectrum Center), because now they can, too.”
Indeed the competition is perhaps even more heated in Hotlanta. Allan Vella, president and CEO of that city’s Fox Theatre, reels off a number of venues they are competing with: “We have two full-fledged arenas, two legit theaters, we have multiple amphitheaters and a few small ones (and) the Tabernacle and the Roxy — a huge contingent of venues vying for the same acts, and that makes it tough on everybody.”
Vella pointed out the city’s civic center was mothballed in recent years, but says the market is still too crowded. He added, “I would prefer there weren’t so many venues, as long as the Fox was still standing at the end. We have a lock on the Broadway market and have a unique and rich history. We’re fortunate we have those attributes and no competitor head-to-head.”
Live Nation Atlanta President Peter Conlon echoed these sentiments. Conlon works with more than half a dozen venues owned or operated by Live Nation in and around the Georgia capital. He said this year started slowly but is already tracking stronger than a successful prior 12 months.
Still, Conlon also brought up the plethora of stages as the biggest issue in the market. “The issue is content. It’s getting competitive. I wonder how (some venues) will be sustainable in a lot of communities. Some of them don’t understand the business; it’s a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude. Just because you build it doesn’t mean it will be successful.”
The Fox’s Vella summed up the situation, saying what many venue operators don’t want to think about in boom times: “A major downturn would hurt us all.”
The Best of Times
There are, however, few signs of a slowdown on the horizon.
Dordick says Spectrum Center’s entertainment business is in great fiscal shape: “We are trending to have the best year ever this year. Last year was a record year — we had 20 shows of 10,000-plus in attendance. We’re hoping to beat that this year.”
Meanwhile the Peace Center Concert Hall’s president and CEO, Megan Riegel, said business is so healthy in their Upstate area of South Carolina that the facility may be a victim of its own success: “Our biggest challenge is having avails. I got a call about Leon Bridges. He’s on my bucket list, but we don’t have the avails” to book him.
In Atlanta, Live Nation’s Conlon described the business as “very healthy and robust.” He did see one possible chink in the armor, though, pointing out that the general consumer is still cautious despite overall economic growth, “I’ve noticed sensitivity to ticket pricing. People are buying more near the end, (and) we’re seeing more buying right before the show.”
Conlon adds it’s a different story for the higher-end consumer: “Growth is more along the VIP range. They are more interested in the VIP experience (and) depending on the package, the ability to charge more is there.”
Up on the Roof
In keeping with the trend for enhanced fan experiences, Vella said the Fox has reaped nice returns on its recently added premium club: “We wanted to create a ‘grand sense of occasion’ and didn’t feel like we had a premium space. You can’t build suites and change the historic fabric of the building, but (reclaiming) the retail space adjacent to the theater property gave us an opportunity to create a building within a building.”
The theater allowed the lease on the adjacent retail space it owned to run out and then rebuilt it to create the Marquee Club. Vella said the five-year, $10 million project is paying dividends. The Marquee Club offers dinner and hand-crafted cocktails and features a roof deck as well as an air-conditioned area.
“We reimagined that terrace and the space beneath it and created a private entrance. The experience we’re offering rivals any of the facilities that we have in town,” Vella said. “If you’re coming to see Nine Inch Nails, Widespread Panic, ‘The Nutcracker’ or ‘Hamilton,’ it’s a great way to have dinner, watch the sun go down, walk to your seats, come back at intermission, then see the rest of the show.”
State Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park in Atlanta underwent a “massive renovation,” Live Nation’s Conlon said. The company produces the shows there.
“We raised the steel on the stage, put in new cushion club seats, razed the buildings on the hill, built new bathrooms, concessions, and a plaza. It made it a lot more convenient for the patrons and easier productionwise for rigging shows,” he said. The $6 million refresh included the venue’s first naming-rights partner, State Bank, a relationship the Live Nation executive said is off to a good start.
The Room Where It (Still) Happens
The “Hamilton” juggernaut’s record run has helped sell season tickets and sell out venues in the Southeast this year, and theater operators are optimistic its effect will be long-lasting on their markets as touring Broadway has gone more mainstream in recent years, attracting a broader audience.
Vella said the Fox grossed more than $15 million and sold 52,000 tickets to the show in a mere 2 1/2 hours, which he thinks is an unofficial record. He said the theater’s season-ticket base doubled to 26,000 ahead of “Hamilton’s” three-week run since it guaranteed a ticket to the show.
“We’ve hung onto a majority (more than 80 percent) of those new subscribers (for this season),” he said. “We have ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Dear Evan Hanson,’ ‘Waitress’ and other great, approachable contemporary programs this season, and I think that’ll keep people coming.”
It was a similar story for the Peace Center, said the nonprofit venue’s president and CEO, Megan Riegel. Riegel said Broadway remains the venue’s cash cow: “We had 50,000 people online waiting to buy ‘Hamilton’ tickets. The bread-and-butter demo for us is 45 to 65 years old. They’ve got discretionary income and some time, kids either in college or out. They’re having date nights again.”
But Riegel says they’re not resting on their laurels coming off their best year ever. They’ve just hired the facility’s first programming vice president, a key role since the Peace Center does not work with promoters and handles bookings soup to nuts. “I want to make sure we’re always connecting with younger audiences, so we need to program for them,” Riegel said, noting a need to keep expanding both their offerings and the fanbase.
The bottom line for both Carolinas and Georgia is that venue operators don’t see the music stopping for the good times even in the face of unforeseen challenges such as Hurricane Florence. And it looks likely to remain a patron’s and entertainer’s market given the density of competition, variety in bookings, and unique tiers of service now being offered in most markets.
The Fox Theatre’s Vella considered all of those factors in the outlook for the region’s venues and said simply: “Everyone has to raise their game.”