[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Addick

You are making two assumptions:

1. People are choosing the most expensive and time-consuming alternative.
2. People have a set budget for entertainment.

I make no such assumptions

If people choose to attend concerts elsewhere, it would be difficult to imagine them going every week. It would be just as difficult to imagine travelling concert goers doing absolutely nothing locally in terms of entertainment between trips. Would they go out less than before? Most likely. Do nothing at all? Doubtful.

At no time did I ever suggest 'every week'. No idea what your point is there. And at no time did I ever suggest they would do nothing locally at all - you answered your own point when you realized they would do less (that is the whole point).

When you start to consider how many people can actually afford to attend concerts elsewhere and the fact that not all concerts bypass Calgary, does the cost benefit still look as good? At that point, does funding micro-initiatives to increase the supply of local entertainment options begin to compete?

Again, impossible to quantify. But the fact that there were only 41% as many seats sold at the Dome as at Rexall (thus referring to the big-name, big dollar concerts) suggests there is substantial demand being missed. And can not all people afford Vegas or whatever? Of course. But the problem is that the people that can afford it are people who have larger entertainment budgets. In other words, you're losing the customers that can spend the most money.

If after considering all of this it is determined that Calgary needs a new facility and it cannot be built by the private sector, the City should step in a fill a role that the private sector cannot play. A local company like CSEC could then manage the facility for a percentage of the revenue generated by the public investment.

Not everyone will go to another city to see concerts. Obviously, some people will simply spend their entertainment dollars here, doing something else.

But anything who thinks there isn't a bleed on the economy - and a pretty substantial one - is just ignoring the facts.