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Billboard Enhances Miller Park’s Sun And Snow On The Field Below Moscone Makes Haste With Waste Prestigious Award Goes To Comcast-Spectacor Facility
Red Rocks Rolls On Venezuela Concert Crush Kills 11, Mostly Children Major League Baseball To Teams: Let’s Slay Two |
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Billboard Enhances Touring
Coverage Billboard magazine
announced an enhanced weekly touring coverage section that will be devoted
to the live music business. The coverage starts with the January 2002
magazine. The new reach will include coverage of tours, venues, promoters
and related services. In addition to the expanded coverage, the magazine
will publish four quarterly spotlights featuring an in-depth look at
regional venue meetings, global touring and security, as well as analysis of
Boxscore results and important industry issues and trends. Ray Waddell and
Linda Deckard of sister publication Amusement Business will oversee the new
section. The move also means that Amusement Business will no longer be
covering these topics. Miller Park’s Sun And Snow On The Field Below Miller Park in Milwaukee, home to the
baseball Brewers, is still open despite the fact the baseball season is long
over. Literally, the retractable roof stadium is open. After its first year
in operation as the home of the Brewers, the roof will stay open for one of
those bitter Wisconsin winters to help the field get as much sun as
possible. But that’s not the only reason why the roof will be open.
According to Scott Jenkins, Milwaukee’s vice president of stadium
operations, a closed roof with snow on it would actually delay the regular
movements of the fan-shaped structure. Said Jenkins: “If the roof is shut
and we get a lot of snow, we cannotopen it. We want to get as much sun on
the turf even late in the winter and we can’t be stuck shut waiting for the
snow to melt.” Miller Park, which replaced aging County Stadium as the
team’s home, was not without its problems in opening. A worker was killed in
a crane accident prior to the venue’s opening, which delayed the team’s move
to the stadium. Here’s to wishing lots of bright sun to the stadium, even if
a little snow gets in the way. It’s one thing that cannot be blamed on
September 11. The 2001 summer concert season saw a decrease in attendance
for the first time since 1997. The culprit for the lower numbers was
actually the country’s economy, which had already become a serious concern
before the terrorist acts. That, combined with a general rise in ticket
prices, kept many from attending gigs. Ticket prices rose an average of $3
from the previous year, and the average cost of a concert ducat for the top
50 touring acts stood at $46.69. The period from January to June of 2001 saw
ticket sales dip 12.3 percent compared with a similar period in 2000. Then
came September 11, and counts fell anywhere from 25 percent to 80 percent.
Needless to say, the year 2002 is going to be a crucial one for the touring
acts industry. Moscone Makes Haste With Waste
Ballantyne of Omaha’s STRONG™ Xenon
spotlights were quite literally in the spotlight when they were featured in
the October 2001 issue of National Geographic magazine. “The Power of Light”
article chronicled how Ballantyne’s unique lighting products help
distinguish the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas from other hotels on the famous
strip and affect night-time air traffic around McCarran International
Airport. Ballantyne installed 39 STRONG 7,000 watt spotlights at the resort
in 1997 to project a powerful beam from the peak of the pyramid-shaped
Luxor. “The story, which highlights the amazing qualities of light and its
variety of uses, truly captures the spirit of how this universal resource
enhances our daily lives,” commented John Wilmers, chief executive officer
of Ballantyne. Prestigious Award Goes To Comcast-Spectacor Facility Comcast-Spectacor, Philadelphia, PA, owner
and operator of the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Class A affiliate of the
Baltimore Orioles, has been awarded the Bob Freitas Organization of the Year
Award for all of Class A baseball. The Shorebirds took home the award, the
most prestigious award in all of Minor League Baseball, out of a possible 50
Single A teams eligible for the honor. The award recognizes long-term
business success and franchises are only eligible for the honor in the fifth
year of operation. “It’s great to see the staff recognized for their
outstanding work ethic,” said Peter Luukko, president of Comcast-Spectacor
Ventures, owners of the Delmarva Shorebirds. “This is a true testament to
the hard work that each and every one of our personnel put forth for our
fans each and every day.” Red Rocks Rolls On With New Agreement
Congressional investigators say
it will cost $1.9 billion to stage the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, six times
the adjusted cost of the 1980 Lake Placid games, the last Winter Olympics in
America. The Lake Placid games cost $363 million when adjusted for
inflation, with $179 million from the federal government. However, three
times as many athletes will compete in nearly twice as many events in Salt
Lake City. In conjunction with the Olympics, Salt Lake will also host the
Winter Paralympics, which is larger by itself than were the Lake Placid
Olympics. The General Accounting Office said that taxpayers will pay 18
percent of the cost, or $342 million, nearly twice as much money as they did
in 1980. That figure does not include an estimated $50 million that will be
spent on additional security after the 9/11 attacks. Venezuela Concert Crush Kills 11, Mostly Children Eleven people, many of them
children, were crushed to death at a bull ring in central Venezuela on
October 21 when excited crowds tried to force their way in to see a music
show, police and officials said. At least one witness said people fled in
panic after police officers fired shots in the air to try to control the
crowds attempting to enter the stadium in the city of Valencia, 100 miles
west of the Venezuelan capital Caracas. “We were just waiting normally to
get in and the municipal police started to fire into the air to try to get
the crowds to go back.... People weren’t doing anything,’’ one injured
teenage girl told Venezuelan television from a hospital bed. Around 30,000
spectators, including hundreds of children, had already packed into
Valencia’s 25,000-capacity Monumental Bull Ring to see the show organized by
the Venevision private TV channel and even more people tried to push their
way in. Nine of the confirmed deaths were children. “There was a riot; there
were shots from the police to try to control things, and people got more
agitated and pushed more and some of them were crushed,’’ a local radio
journalist said.
By the time this issue of
Facility Manager lands on your desk, the ongoing issue of Major League
Baseball contraction will ... well, heck, we hate to venture just where this
sticky issue will be at this time. Besides, since the scenario seems to
change on a daily basis, it’s unlikely we could give you an accurate
prediction anyhow. But we do know this: in an era when professional sports
has seen expansion after expansion into the next willing market, the issue
of subtracting a couple of teams is an area heretofore not chartered. The
Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos seem to be the two leading (non leading?)
candidates, with the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays on the bubble.
All four teams have had an almost apathetic fan base, which is partly why
baseball’s leadership says it must cut back in an effort to stop the game’s
financial bleeding. What this means for facilities like the Metrodome
(Minnesota Twins) and Olympic Stadium (Montreal Expos) is not knowing if
baseball will be taking up 81 event dates in 2002. All of this uncertainty,
of course, has ended up in the courts, where more time and money can be
expected to be spent before the issue meets a final resolution. The Suite Life ... Half The Time You are familiar with the
concept of purchasing season tickets in a variety of different plans,
including half-season and mini-plans to go along with a full season ticket
purchase. That concept has now found its way to the executive suite area,
where the Georgia Dome in Atlanta is serving up split-season packages for
the first time. The idea was hatched as a way to give fans more ways to
enjoy the suite life while arming sales reps with more tools in their
arsenal in selling ticket packages. Whereas full season suites go for
anywhere from $24,000 to $140,000 a year for Atlanta Falcons games, the
split-season offering runs from $12,000 to $40,000 a year. The packages
apply to at least eight executive suites in the domed stadium. In addition
to being able to utilize the suite for half of the home games, buyers can
also attend a variety of other sports and entertainment events. CIC To Examine Impact Of Rising Ticket Prices Just how healthy is the concert
industry? We’ll find out some answers to that question when the 2002 Concert
Industry Consortium (CIC) takes place from February 7-9 at the Renaissance
Hollywood Hotel. Professor Alan Krueger from Princeton University will
deliver the keynote speech on Long-Term Impact of Rising Ticket Prices.
Professor Krueger is currently researching concert ticket pricing trends and
will announce his findings at the much-anticipated event. In fact, it was an
article he wrote about the economics of Super Bowl ticket pricing that
helped lead organizers to pursue him as the keynote speaker for the CIC. He
is noteworthy for being the first non-industry professional to deliver the
keynote speech at the annual event. |
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© 2002
International Association of Assembly Managers |
State
and federal governments awarded the Moscone Center for environmental
leadership, making it the nation’s first convention facility to
consecutively win state and federal honors for a recycling program. In
November, the San Francisco, CA, facility diverted its four millionth pound
of tradeshow trash from the landfill. The California State Integrated Waste
Management Board presented the Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) Top 10
Annual Award to the Moscone Center in a ceremony on December 7. The Board,
which is responsible for managing California’s waste stream, has recognized
Moscone as one of the 10 best waste reduction examples in the state. Prior
to recycling, the facility disposed of more than 2,000 tons of waste at a
cost of nearly $525,000. 
A
multi-year agreement has been reached between the City of Denver and local
concert promoters, Clear Channel Entertainment, Kroenke Sports Enterprises,
House of Blues Concerts and Nobody In Particular Presents (HOB/NIPP) that
will guarantee an annual number of concerts at the city’s historic Red Rocks
Amphitheatre. The facility will continue to be open to all promoters, but
the agreement will guarantee a certain number of dates to the entities
involved. The facility remains owned, operated and managed by the city and
county of Denver Division of Theaters and Arenas. “Red Rocks is an
historical venue unique in the world,” said Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.
“This is a new era for Red Rocks that creates a partnership between the
promoters and the city to protect and preserve the future of Red Rocks. The
citizens of Denver have many concerts under the stars to look forward to.”
