Things are going very well for Spectra Venue Management, according to Owensboro Convention Center and Owensboro Sportscenter General Manager Laura Alexander, prompting Mayor Tom Watson to question whether the company should take on management of the RiverPark Center and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in the future.
At Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, Alexander said the convention center and Sportscenter achieved their lowest operating subsidies and highest gross revenues in five years.
When subsidies are low, less taxpayer money has to be spent, and Alexander said this shows there is efficiency in the management of both buildings.
“You have shared expenses, shared personnel, and it also gives us the opportunity to book both venues,” she said. “If someone is looking for space one day, and the convention center is booked, we can offer them the Sportscenter so we don’t miss out on those opportunities.”
Alexander said the convention center ended the year with an operating subsidy of $87,239. The Sportscenter came in at a loss of $108,614 versus a budgeted loss of $117,076.
“Concerts are a very risky business, and we have a generous risk pool we can pull from in case those concerts lose money,” she said. “We did have two concerts that lost money this year, but we did not have to pull from that risk pool. We decided to go ahead and forward that to our operating budget, and that was the first time we’ve ever done that.”
Both buildings beat their budgets last year. The convention center beat its budget by $88,454, while the Sportscenter beat its budget by $8,462. Together, both locations exceeded their budgets by $96,916.
“That’s the largest variance we’ve ever had in the budget, so we’re very proud of that,” Alexander said.
It was a good year for self-promoted events as the convention center and Sportscenter saw $515,230 in gross revenue, $224,492 in net revenue and 15,721 in attendance.
“Our self-promoted events had a 190 percent increase over the budget this year, which was phenomenal,” Alexander said. “They also brought in a record-breaking $515,230 in gross revenue. More importantly, it added almost $225,000 net to the bottom line, so that’s really big and important to us.”
The Owensboro Air Show brought in $58,000 in gross revenue to the convention center alone, meaning $31,000 in net profit went straight to the bottom line, Alexander said.
“Don’t you think it’d make it better for our community if one group was trying to book all these events so that they couldn’t step on top of each other?” Watson asked after hearing the numbers.
Alexander agreed that having one group manage all the properties would make it easier for Owensboro to book events.
“It does make everything a lot smoother, especially when you’re working with some of these booking agents and promoters in Nashville,” she said. “When they’re calling and saying, ‘I want to book something in Owensboro, they don’t have to call four different people just to get an answer. They can call one person who’s managing that part of it.”
Watson said he thought everyone should take a closer look at the potential benefits that could come from having Spectra run all four locations.
“I think it’d be to our benefit,” he said. “You’ve got different venues for different things. It seems illogical that all four of them are intertwined with the City, and you’re competing with the City from the City’s side, and it doesn’t make much logical sense from the private sector’s side.”
A five-year snapshot of the convention center’s numbers between 2014 and 2019 shows that the net income/subsidies have decreased from $338,339 in the 2014-2015 fiscal year to $87,239 in 2018-2019.
Gross revenue has gone from $2.5 million to $3.2 million over those five years — an increase of $714,000.
Food and beverage numbers have increased from $1.5 million to $1.7 million.
At the Sportscenter, which has only been managed by Spectra for two years, gross revenue increased from $558,000 to $675,000 — an increase of $117,000, Alexander noted. Food and beverage numbers grew from $143,000 to $193,000 in two years.
As for the upcoming 2020-2021 fiscal year, Alexander said Spectra is already ahead of the budget by $22,224. More concerts and events have been booked at both locations than in past years, she added.
“We’ve already contracted $454,405 [in events] at the convention center for 2020-2021,” she said. “That’s five times more than we had this year.”
Even more, the Sportscenter will be undergoing a makeover that should increase its numbers even more. The hospitality room will complete its renovation by the end of this month. A new roof will be installed, along with a new, portable stage that will replace the current one. The parking lot will undergo a complete redesign, while one of the men’s restrooms will be gutted and fully renovated as well.
