Kids mill about the Queen's University Science Rendezvous; (Below) Children learn about the skeleton. (Photos by Queen's University)
Creating and supporting community events like the Bike Rodeo and the Science Rendezvous have greatly enhanced the community-service profile of Rogers K-Rock Centre, Kingston, Ontario, at the same time those events undoubtedly generate incremental sales for ticketed events.
One of the most recent special events that Lynn Carlotto, general manager of the five-year-old arena for SMG, has already booked again for next year is the Science Rendezvous produced by Queen’s University. It will return May 3, 2014, after a successful first-time event last May.
The university organizing committee covered the $4,000 in expenses incurred by the arena, she said. Those expenses were mainly labor, setup and cleanup. It was an all-day event.
The free event drew 2,000 kids with families and basically introduced them to science as a fun potential career path. Carlotto said the university professors were awesome to work with and made science, from robotics to geology, very interesting to attendees. “They create tabletop demonstrations that will showcase a particular science at work,” she said.
“There is a way to integrate higher education into entertainment,” Carlotto added. “We talked about ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ as edutainment. Another way to do it is to bring in a university and have them do a fair showing how much fun science is.” Soft benefits include the discovery of future events coming to the arena. Who knows how many ticket sales originate with a community event attended free.
Events like Science Rendezvous are a community giveback. Fortunately, Kingston, the first capital of Canada and a tourist destination location, is a “very altruistic city,” she said, having just moved there and discovered a Shangri-La.
The Bike Rodeo is another example of a free community event that is a giveback and an introductory event to the arena. Kids learning to ride and adults who never learned the rules of the road bring their bikes to the arena. Lanes are chalked off and instructors work with them on riding technique and the law regarding bike riders. Partners in Kingston’s First Annual Bike Rodeo included Kingston Police, KFL&A Public Health, Cycle Kingston, and City of Kingston.
Rogers K-Rock Centre is also the community’s Hall of Fame, and induction ceremonies are held there annually. “Having the concourse look like it belongs in the community is something any venue manager can do,” Carlotto said of the Kingston District Sports Hall of Fame.
Procuring and producing special events is very labor intensive (they have one event coordinator who specializes in special events), but the rewards are numerous, Carlotto said. Securing recurring community events is another base of business. Growing them is the challenge.
A partial list of community events so far this year includes:
• Tallman Truck Company 40th Anniversary Gala for 600 guests
• Empire Life 90th Anniversary Community Skate
• Keys Job Fair
• Hosting Public Skating on two consecutive days during spring break
• United Way Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast
• Sustainable Kingston
• Kingston District Sports Hall of Fame Induction Luncheon
• Limestone Learning Foundation Crystal Ball Gala Press Conference
• Frontenac Community Mental Health Services Fair
• Heart and Stroke Big Bike-a-thon
• Kingston Extend-a-Family Walk n’ Wheel Kick
• Sirens for Life (emergency services familiarization)
In other news, Rogers K-Rock Centre added “Rogers” to the title two months ago in a remake of the original 10-year deal with K-Rock, which is now owned by Rogers. This makes the Kingston arena the third venue in Canada with Rogers in the name, the other two being in Toronto and Vancouver.
“This building is arguably the most highly regarded venue in the entire country because it’s the only building which has won the Canadian Music & Broadcast Industry Award for four of the last five years [for a live-event venue under 8,000 capacity],” Carlotto said. The award is voted on by live music users of the building and Rogers K-Rock Centre has lots of users. They hosted 18 concerts in 2012 and have 21 concerts on the books this year..
“It is a really busy building,” Carlotto added. “Everything works here — size, routing, location.” The population of Kingston is 125,000 inside the city.
The renamed street outside Rogers K-Rock Centre.
Kingston also has a strong music background. In fact, this year the road outside Rogers K-Rock Centre was christened The Tragically Hip Way for that locally-grown group.
SMG renewed its management contract through 2018 and part of the new deal involves capital improvements. “We’re about to install an exterior digital billboard from Daktronics and we just installed midtier signage,” Carlotto said. “We’re also renovating a concourse concessions area and turning it into a pub.” Savor, a division of SMG, is the food concessions company.
And six weeks ago, Rogers K-Rock Centre transitioned over to Ticketmaster after five years with Tickets.com. Their first onsale with Ticketmaster was Reba McEntire, which sold out last week.
Rogers K-Rock Centre hosts 120 events annually, roughly one-third hockey, one-third concerts and one-offs and one-third galas and special events. The arena sports the biggest ballroom in Kingston and also hosts a lot of community ice rentals, “but I’m not even counting those,” Carlotto said.
Interviewed for this story: Lynn Carlotto, (613) 650-5079