On the Aud

People are saying the auditorium is there anyway, so if we’re losing money letting people come, why shouldn’t we just do that. The auditorium isn’t just there anyway. It is heated and cooled and lit, even if nobody’s there.

Do we need to make big bucks on the auditorium? No. Is the auditorium going to break even? I served on an auditorium review commission in Ft. Smith back in the 80’s, and “No.”

Generally speaking in cities under 100,000 auditoriums lose money.

Sure, the Walton center is subsidized by the University of Arkansas. But I’ll say this. I think we can be innovative.

The usage policy [that sets the Aud's fees for performers] is only a guideline. It’s not going to work for everybody every time. I’ve already lined out a bunch of stuff and I’m re-lining for the B. B. King concert.

In my experience in Fort Smith, at K Rogers Park for three and half years as Special Events Chairman, when we rented out the arena, if we rented it out for a big ticket item—an expensive ticket performer—we’d lower the rent, but we’d take a percentage of the ticket sales over a certain amount.

We’ve got be innovative and figure out ways that we can make it possible for people to use the facility, and not gouge them, but still try to lower that deficit.

I’m not saying “try to make a profit” because that implies you’re going to charge ‘em a whole bunch of money.

Let me tell you what we did in Fort Smith about supporting local community groups in the auditorium because I would use the same type of thing here.

If a promoter was going to come into a city and take a ton of money out, we tried to get what we could get that was fair, that would still have them come, but was fair. We had set fees…

But if the Game and Fish Commission called and wanted to have a Gun Safety Clinic for kids, it was free. We just opened the building and let them use it. We didn’t do a whole lot of set up or anything. We told them where the chairs were and told them if they wanted some chairs to sit around in a circle, go get some chairs and set them up.

My daughter was president of a high school sorority and she called me and said they wanted to have a charity Thanksgiving dance, and she couldn’t find a place to have it. Could she have it out at K Rogers? They were going to have everybody bring two cans of canned goods, and were going to give those cans to the food bank. Sure.

Our neighbor across the street was with American Can. They wanted to have some employee meetings to explain some new stuff. And we told ‘em if they’d pay enough to cover heat and electricity, they were welcome to use the building.

Fee schedules to me are only a guide. I think you have to say, “Okay, what’s the need of this group? What’s the resource of this group? Is the group going to charge, and are they going to make a profit? You know, I can see if a local theater group that’s a non-profit wants to charge $5 a ticket, I might say something like “Hey! Give us a buck for every ticket you sell, and we’ll let you use the auditorium.”

I’m just using this as an example. We’ll find ways to do this.

My only comment on who should run the Aud [the City or the CAPC] would be that they should hire an executive director that at least has had some experience in leasing facilities and that sort of thing.