Wichita’s entertainment scene is about to kick it up a notch. It’s good that Sedgwick County officials are negotiating with a proven national company, SMG, to manage the downtown arena. Its track record suggests it will deliver more major acts to Wichita than ever before.
Of course, the arena naysayers won’t want to go. But most Wichitans will welcome more big-name excitement in our city.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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48 Comments
Exactly what type of “big names” are we going to see. People are engaging in alot of wishful thinking to try and justify this whie elephant but it won’t make it so, I fear.
V.L.R.B!!
I wonder what the actual cost of a ticket will be to see the equivalent of a Roman gladitorial contest?
Take the number of acts and events and divide it into a quarter billion dollars.
“I would not cross the street to watch the world blow up.” Henry David Thoreau
Read an article about this company last week in the Eagle. It sounded as though there experience with booking and connections would be an enhancement of getting quality acts into town. This company planned to retain county employees currently working for the colliseum.
It sounded like a good public/private cooperative venture. I hope it works out as planned.
Here we go again…people predicting total failure before the place is built. Ignoring what entertainment might show up. Deciding in advance that it will be a failure.
Sounds really ‘open minded’ to me.
Oh, that’s right..the pasttime on this blog is to attack and belittle everything…be negative and condenscending.
“there” should have been “their” - hate it when I do that…
Yes they will!
Well, I think to assume SMG can wave some kind of magic wand and make act appear is…. well, wishful thinking. Why? Because concert promotion is based on a capitalist model! Promoters WILL present shows where they have a reasonable chance of making a profit. *Who* manages a facility has little to do that.
In the past, Sedgwick County has partnered with promoters to bring show with more dubious profit potential (as well as more certain ones, too); usually in the form of sales guarantees or outright purchase of seats. SMG might be willing to take bigger chances with “their” money than Kansas Coliseum management was willing to take with taxpayer funds.
I think it’s important to remember that everyone involved in concert promotion, theatrical presentation, and athletic events are in it for the money. It would be disingenuous to think otherwise. Hence, other than taking bigger promotional risks, private management has no more inherent “pull” with Live Nation, Beaver Productions, Little Wing, DCF, AEG Live, or any other promoter… unless there’s somthing funny with the money that we won’t see because it’s all “private.”
The big question I have remains to be: How will this new arena function? Will there be a loading dock and how many semi trailers can be accomodated at once? How much parking will there be for those trucks and the motor coaches that are the “homes” for the road crews and entertainers? How high above the arena floor will the structural steel be (for rigging)? How much storage area for dead cases and empties?
I dont’ give a rat’s ass about sky boxes, VIP lounges, or the way those are furnished. I don’t really care about concession stands unless they are incapable of handling the public’s needs… I’m more interested in HOW THIS BUILDING WILL *WORK* and that, boys and girls, is something we still don’t know and it’s getting awefully late in the game to be looking at that.
I have a vested interest in our BraveNewArena® being a success. The more events that are held there will directly impact my income. My personal fear is that our county government and Ron Holt have been taken in with pretty pictures and lots of “vip talk” without giving sufficient consideration to the operations aspect of the facility… sadly, most public performance spaces are that way. How did Century II originally get built without a loading dock? Why as the Concert Hall built without direct access to the stage from the audience area? Why was there no wing space? All of these very basic things went by the people who ‘bought’ the building. Somehow I have little faith that the County will do any better than the City did 35 years ago.
Parting shot: Architects don’t actually USE the buildings they design; they don’t work in them, they don’t mount productions in them, they don’t hold conventions or concerts or play hockey. Architects make pretty pictures to sell to committees with the use details falling through the cracks in most cases.
I’m hoping we do better, but I’ve yet to see any indication we will.
LTB (Lions, Tigers, and Bears)
Oh boy, I’ve been trolled by a sockpuppet! I HAVE ARRIVED!!!
Dear Troll-
I have been earning my living doing the work of planning and mounting productions for over 25 years and have done so internationally as well as right here in Wichita. I’m personally acquainted with the regional representatives of Live Nation and other promoters/presenters. I call your credentials for examination. What have you done in the entertainment industry beyond buy a ticket?
LTBp.s. my email address is copyrighted, so don’t make me have the Eagle release to my lawyer the IP address your comment was posted from. That info IS logged by the TypePad servers, and between the IP address and your ISP’s logs, you can be identified. In fact, the missuse of another person’s email address is a violation of federal law (and you Clinton haters can blame that on him).
Actually LTB, it is the leftist on this blog who hijack people’s identity. It’s annoying, I know. It happens to me quite often.
They are attacking you because you make a living off of your own hard work and not a off the government, unemployment, or disability.
Ding Dong, Joe, Ding Dong.
(For the newbies, Joe Williams makes so many patently false and ridiculous posts that we don’t bother to call him out and refute him on it anymore . . . we just ring the “Joe Bell.”)
Ding Dong! CapnAmerica is probably the asshole that takes over people’s identity. He is also a complete leftist shumck!
I rarely attend events at the Colosseum. I hate the drive up there and the traffic, both coming and going. Does that mean I’ll attend more at the new arena? I doubt it. Not with the astromonical prices charged these days.
One of the first live concerts I attended (without my parents) was at the old Forum. It cost me $3 to see the Beach Boys back in late 64/early 64. The last concert I attended at the Colosseum was $20 to see Garth Brooks in 97. And HE kept his ticket prices low.
$35 or more to see someone in concert? Not likely in this lifetime.
Wrong again on both points, Joe.
But keep trying . . . by sheer law of averages someday you’ll accidentally say something that’s correct.
A 15,000 seat arena won’t be big enought to attract anything that the Kansas Coliseum or Koch Arena can already attract. And you can forget about an NCAA first round game being played there, since they are already going to the 20,000 seat arenas.
It should be abundantly clear to one and all by now that the arena will never make money or break even. Shame on the Sedgwick County Commission and its news media accomplices for portraying it as such to the voters. Vote “yay,” indeed!
I’ve long suspected that there are not enough people in the Wichita market area with enough disposable income to make the arena profitable. My suspicions were confirmed in yesterday’s Eagle in which a story said Oklahoma City subsidizes utility bills for the Ford Center and an adjoining convention facility to the tune of some $3 million a year. That’s over and above the $125,000 management fee to SMG and Heaven only knows what other items the story didn’t mention. If an arena can’t pay for itself in OKC, it certainly can’t pay for itself in Wichita.
Sedgwick County taxpayers will be saddled with subsidizing this arena for decades to come and the Coliseum right along with it. The sales tax that is supposed to “sunset” after it pays for the arena will come up for a vote again. If it is not approved, property taxes WILL go up. Kansas is has a cash-basis law. The money has to come from SOMEWHERE. Unfortunately for the hapless citizens of Sedgwick County, “somewhere” is not over the rainbow but out of their pocketbooks.
RRH, as I have posted before, I wonder about the number of people in the area with sufficient disposable income to support the arena.
Thanks for the information on the Ford Center.
Finally, I’ve been trying all sorts of games to get into the NCAA web site with a view towards finally reading, for myself, the requirements NCAA imposes on siting a bball (sub)regional. Needless to say, I’ve not been successful. However, IIRC, it is more than the size of the arena; there also must be a certain quantity of “first class” hotel/motel accomodations within a relatively close distance to the site. Again, from memory, when the NCAA games were at the Coliseum, I recall discussions that by virtue of its location, the motels between ICT and Newton, including the ones in Newton, were able to be counted; and if the games had been at WSU, the Newton motels would have been too far away. Does anyone have any link, personal knowledge, etc. on this factor?
PROPOSED EDITORIAL FOR THE WICHITA EAGLE by Jerry Winkelman, citizen.
“But, of course, arena naysayers won’t want to go” to the downtown area. By Randy Scholfield, Wichita EAGLE opinion staff.
Randy: You must be getting desperate to call your readers names in your editorials. I resent that, considering I have paid subscriptions to Knight-Ridder, now McClatchey company, almost continuously since 1960 … for the Kansas City Times/Star and Wichita Eagle newspapers. That should be worth a little respect.
Also what makes responsible civic improvement debaters and downtown property-owners and taxpayers like myself any less eligible to attend any public funded activities in the future? Randy, please answer that in an EAGLE editorial for everyone to read. The 150,000 Sedgwick Countians who are now opposed to paying for the downtown arena will be interested.
I consider you pro-arena people to be the “nay-sayers” because you favor spending $250,000,000.35 for ONE unneeded, unwanted, white elephant, albatross downtown, ice hockey arena … with parking squirreled away in the dark labrynith of downtown alleyways.
This is to the detriment of solving hundreds of desperate problems in Sedgwick County. As I said previously, Wichita’s needs should be prioritized by the people of Wichita and then decide how to spend that gigantic load of cash.
Randy, I suppose you see sales tax money as “easy come, easy go.” If so, you are the one who needs to move on to California or somewhere that taxpayers money might not be considered important.
THIS ARENA WHITE ELEPHANT NEEDS TO BE VOTED ON AGAIN BY THE VOTERS OF SEDGWICK COUNTY BEFORE ADDITIONAL MILLIONS ARE WASTED. THERE IS A BETTER WAY.
” it is the leftist on this blog who hijack people’s identity.”
So, Joe, tell me why the leftist would be doing it to me? Is it because I make my money through my “own hard work and not a off the government, unemployment, or disability.”?
Oh and Joe - since I largely agree with LTB whywould this ‘leftist’ troll him. Strikes me he was probably trolled by a CFSMW like you.
Thank you LTB for your input. While I hope this whole thing works I have my oubts that are similar to yours. What you are running into is that, as you say, the promoters out there are capitalists; the CFSMWs apparently do not understand capitalism.
If they bring in shows I want to see at a price I will pay I will attend. I went to the Stones concert - it was a blast. I have done Wheatland Jam - that too was great. So, there IS demand. Question is - how much? Only time will tell.
I, too, wish to thank LTB for his input on the issue; as he is in the business, the insight provided is valuable to me.
And Randy; even though I am one of the “naysayers”, should there be an event, the admission to which I wish to pay, I will attend. However, I cannot say I’m looking forward to strolling past the WRF from my parking place.
LTB’s post above about setting up for a major performance reminded me of the Hillary Duff show a couple years ago. Early that Saturday morning, I happened to visit the Kansas Coliseum for a horse related activity in the arena buildings.
On arrival, I noticed a hundred workers and probably five 18-wheeler trucks gathered near that cavernous south frieght entrance to the Britt Brown arena. So I stopped to ask questions and joined them at breakfast in the parking lot … hot cakes and coffee.
Turns out they were setting up for the Hillary Duff concert that evening. Can you imagine? Hundreds of young workers and five 18 wheeler trucks with sound and mechanical equipment to be set up for the show. Some were food and refreshment trucks, costume change trucks, etc. I think there were also a couple large buses or RV’s. It was a major operation.
In answer to my questions, I was told Hillary Duff, the teenage star, would fly in to Wichita’s airport shortly before the show that evening. She would then be whisked by limosine to the Coliseum where she would enter to perform her show and exit even before the show concluded to California.
The workers would work most of the night breaking down the equipment, load it on the trucks and jump on the buses. All would be gone from Wichita by sunup on Sunday morning … along with the $250,000 gate receipts for the performance.
As I recall, and John Nath at the Coliseum could confirm or deny, the Coliseum’s remuneration was only the food and beverage receipts for hamburgers and soft drinks, etc.
A person with the Duff contingent told me that typically some 10% of the attendance at shows and athletic events are “freebies,” that is stage hands, security, medical, food handlers, arena management, FRIENDS OF PARTICIPANTS, etc, etc. These people of course sit in the arena and park outside from early in the day. The delivery entrance must be large enough to allow the buses and 18 wheelers some entrance space.
Is this kind of space provided in the design for the downtown arena? I doubt it. All the better reason for a PRIVATE COMPANY to build a new arena adjacent to the Kansas Coliseum and then demolish the present Britt Brown arena or remodel the Coliseum.
DO YOU AGREE?
Hi JWink-
The Hillary Duff show was one of the smaller ones WRT trucking and motorcoaches. The last big Reba McIntire show at the Coliseum had over 35 semis and 14 motorcoaches. The WWE Smackdown event brings over a dozen semis, plus a generator truck, video truck, and satellite uplink truck… Oh, and a personal vehicle/limo for every name on the card.
A showday for something like the Duff show begins at 8 or 9am (sometimes earlier), with local crew unloading trucks, doing the rigging, assembling the lighting, sound, and video gear, putting together the set and musicians equipment.. all under the supervision of the performer’s road crew. Most of the local stagehands will be done in 4 or 5 hours, with a few working all day. Spotlight operators and other show crew report and the show plays. A hord of local stagehand come back to reverse the load-in process. A show like Hillary’s can be out in 4 hours or less. Also, stagehands *typically* do NOT get comp tickets to shows and are not allowed to occupy a seat if they report early for load-out.
I’m not privy to what income may have been realized from the Hillary Duff show. Perhaps the county waived the rent to make the Wichita show more attractive to Disney. The Coliseum also gets a percentage of all merchandise/souvineer sales, probably in the 20% range, but that could have been negotiated away by Disney. Or none of that could have happened and the county made full rent. Or somewhere in between.
Trivia: The Kansas Coliseum charges $5,000 for a full day of climate control in Brit Brown Arena, $3,000 for a “half day.”
LTB
Question, what is CFSMW? and WRF?
WW, “WRF” is my abbreviation for the Department of Corrections Work Release Facility on South Emporia.
The money that each person spends for big event shows plus your share of the taxes that you have to pay out for this arena.Man, I’ll tell you what you are getting, a very expensive ticket price that has absolutely no returns, money wise for the average person.The whole damn mess is pretty shoddy, let’s see if you can get any values or your money back on this.
CFSMW:
CommiesForSpendingMoneyWildly
I figure since they like name-calling (CAVE people) we should reciprocate.
thanks Ben. I’m just trying to keep up. : )
Personally, I don’t think folks realize that the Coliseum WILL be updated anyway so that expense has not gone away. There’s plenty of parking, and one can get there (and back home for that matter) within 15-20 minutes.
The tow truck operators will love it when their monthly collection goes up with all the cars parked “illegally.”
I can think of no event or performer that I would pay more then $10 to see.
Arenas are a thing of the past. They were useful before cable and the internet. But who wants to walk 10 blocks and pay $35 for bad seats when you can see the same stuff on TV?
Junior,You’re in the minority on that issue.
numbnuts let’s put it to a revote why don’t we? I say that the arena would fail about 58 / 42 in a re=vote.
I voted no the first time. My opinion of the arena project has only fallen since.
The “new note” stands at2 Nay! 0 Yea!
Junior,You can nay-say all you want, but the arena is coming. If you don’t wanna pay for it, shop in..uh..Augusta.
Golfnut- I didn’t want the arena and was not allowed to vote on the issue because I don’t live in Sedgwick County. I do work in Sedgwick county and at the time of the vote worked in downtown Wichita. I stopped shopping in Wichita when I could to show my displeasure and shoppped in Harvey County - well lo and behold Harvey County has since instituted a 1 cent sales tax to help build revenues. Now I have to spend the extra money anyway. I would spend more than what it’s worth to drive the extra 30 plus miles to shop in a surrounding county.
I vote “NO”3 nays! 0 yeas!
NO then; NO now.
The Wichita Business Journal did a poll on this that showed a lot of people switching from YES to NO. But, as pointed out above, this is a done deal. We will just have to hope for the best.
I will presume Julie’s “new vote” as nay
Arena new vote stands at4 Nay! 0yea!
JR -my vote has ALWAYS been nay
Julie
Hence my presumption. : )
Is there anything you all are in favor of that the general population is?I’m really starting to think this blog is populated with nothing but the lunatic fringe.
But in all seriousness, if you aren’t happy with the idea of your arena now, bitching about your $3 parking upcoming at the KS Coliseum, you sure as heck aren’t going to be happy with SMG. They are not the most population and/or customer friendly organization out there.You’ll have to trust me that I have more than a little experience there.
KIA - The Wichita Business Journal poll indicated that a majority of the general population is opposed to the Arena. It passed (after many failed tries) narrowly but the poll indicated that a significant number have changed views against it.
They asked a two-part question: How did you vote and how would you vote today. Very few NO-YES but quite a few YES-NO.
As for the parking fee I think it is a good idea. I don’t like folding it into ticket prices since that favors solo drivers at the expense of group drivers. I think we need to encourage grouping. And, parking (or other transportation) must be paid for.
I am not all that familiar with SMG; I hope they do a good job. I hope that the people who did the Stones concert are ‘in the loop’; I think they did a good job. Considering the number of people they moved the traffic well.
The unofficial revote on the arena currently stands at
5 Nay! 0 Yea!
Junior,It can be 50-0 on here, and they’re still gonna build it. =)
I vote yea (obviously).
Yes they may build it. And as we are seeing here, it will fail badly.
Yes, they will build it. And I hope they find a way to make it work. However, my prediction is that it will fail. I hope I am wrong.
Junior,This board is loaded with pessimistic liberals who know nothing about running a business - yourself included.
I project the arena will be a huge success, and we’ll soon be wondering why we didn’t do it earlier.
golfer - here’s hoping you are correct. Sometime after 2010 we will find out.