I still haven't heard an answer to exactly what the city has screwed up so far (beyond tweets after the fact)?
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Originally Posted by monkeyman
Why is it hard to believe that a new event centre would attract more and bigger events and concerts?
They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading and expanding the BMO centre for the very same reason. To attract bigger and more conferences and exhibitions that would never consider coming to Calgary previously. We're the 4th largest city in Canada, we host a world famous event every July, we have an international airport that services over 15,000,000 passengers a year(pre-pandemic), and we're at the doorstep to a world famous national park.
A new event centre and the redevelopment of that area is the final piece. I think it has the potential to transform not only the area, but the city and truly make Calgary a more desirable destination.
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A new arena doesn't significantly change the calculus for most promoters beyond removing a * on Calgary (weight loads).
Most of the wonderful new features that help CSEC optimize their revenue generation (suites/concessions) don't really trickle down to a promoter - they are booking the non-revenue generating aspects of a facility (building ops/utilities, ushers, custodial, security, medical, local crew, etc). There is a lot of nuance here and some variation on agreements, but the two main margins to identify are:
- CSEC could theoretically charge a bit less for the venue to entice more bookings, since they should make more on ancillary items and might have slightly reduced variable costs like staffing and utilities
- The ticket tax (which was going to be higher for non-sporting events after the CMLC buyout negotiation) would actually make the market a bit less attractive for promoters, as it reduces their cut of total ticket transaction
Touring is all about optimization and risk mitigation. And it's heavily data driven. Calgary may prove itself to be a golden-goose over some time, but there are some weird anomalies where great markets on paper don't actually sell that well, and vice versa (though this can become a bit of a reputational feedback loop).
Ultimately we'll get a few more 'heavy' shows. But they may still skip one or both of CGY/EDM. Hell, sometimes it makes more sense to do two 70% shows at one city instead of selling out both towns.