VenuWorks of Evansville, the firm that manages the Ford Center & Victory Theatre, is expecting the One Millionth Customer to walk through Ford Center doors tomorrow night during the IceMen Hockey game. The facility opened its doors just two years ago in November of 2011 and will soon have entertained One Million people. According to Executive Director Scott Schoenike, “VenuWorks has a unique prize package to recognize the one millionth customer.†Schoenike went on to say that the economic impact for Evansville has been calculated to exceed 82 million dollars over the first two years.
Ford Center continues to play a vital role in increasing the quality of life and it’s as important to VenuWorks mission as Evansville’s economic impact.
Icemen attendance has been consistently impressive the two years they’ve been at the new arena. Thank you Mr. Ron Gehry & the Icemen and thank you Mr. Scott Schenike & Venuworks. The success of ECHL (and CHL) hockey in a town like this has opened up enormous opportunities for the sports industry moving forward.
yes thank you Mr.Gehry….the icemen are the only entertainment at the center that keeps the taxpayers from suffering even more of their hard earned money while the city crumbles……..
Spot on. The Icemen are constantly filling up the FC and a lot of the time even selling it out. Their attendance dipped a little bit here DOWN to 5,200 fans but should/will go back up well over the 5,500 mark and I would say over the 6,000 mark by the end of the season. I think eventually it’s going to land right in the 7,000/game range which is a full 2,000 less than Fort Wayne (the leader) but good enough to be in the premier ECHL’s top 5.
Going in the opposite direction is the purple aces who should have stayed at Roberts (bought it as a matter of fact) and moved all their indoor sports there after making the simple down size renovation to roughly 5,000 seats.
Men’s basketball attendance last year dropped to an all-time low last year that was never seen at Roberts. Here’s this years (source: Gopurpleaces.com box scores)
Note: The NCAA doesn’t count exhibition games in official attendance figures
Men
Trevecca Nazarene (Ex) 2865
Illinois-Springfield (Ex) 3534
Martin Methodist 3874
Mercer 3607
Valpo 4018
Anderson 4131
It is unthinkable that the women are drawing the following numbers while playing in the 9,480 seat Ford Center
Women
USI (Ex) 639
Eastern Illinois 399
Murray State 302
Ball State 784
IPFW 3085 (* Education Day)
UE’s saving grace this year will be the Butler game which will inflate figures a little higher for an average season. And there’s no reason UE couldn’t have played their bigger games at the FC anyways while using Roberts as their campus arena. Villanova, among many others, does this very thing.
As bad as the UE attendance figures are, the GLVC Tournament last year takes the cake. Playing the GLVC Tournament there while sending the Icemen, your number one asset to market to tourists, on the road was an epic failure which is why I don’t support the sports corp.
I think the Icemen are doing well because people enjoy going downtown to the Ford Center. Whenever we go to the Icemen we get dinner before and a few drinks somewhere downtown afterward. Makes for a nice evening. Much nicer than driving all over the eastside eating at some crap chain restaurant.
Has there been an artist to play the Ford that didn’t play Roberts?
Does the $82 million economic impact estimate consider the loss of revenues from closing down Roberts and running Mesker into the ground? Lets get an average of the annual revenues over the final 10 years of operation from both of those facilities, add them together, multiply by two, and see the real “impact” of the Ford Center.
Not a chance they subtracted off what would have happened anyway. Weinzapfel even claimed to have created jobs that were just moved from Roberts to Ford. This is a very disingenuous way of reporting job creation and economic impact. The only act I am aware of that anyone even claims could not have been at Roberts was Cirque de Soliel.
Here’s what the difference in Roberts & the Ford Center were…
Roof Support: The FC has roughly 180k lbs of roof support vs that of 60k lbs for Roberts: This roofing structure was needed just to maintain the status quo on getting premier musical bands to keep the city in the rotation. Multiple bands turned down SMG for this reason. Yes, some of them played here in the past but that doesn’t mean they would come back.
Roberts’ roof capacity is more than sufficient for the small bands that play here locally as well those who draw sparse crowds here and want to play in a smaller facility (Happens in every city of all sizes that has been lucky enough to have two facilities of two different sizes).
Square Footage: This is the biggest reason why the two would not and did not compete with each other. The FC has hockey dimensions while Roberts had bball/ field house dimensions. As a result the FC is better for hockey (which couldn’t even be played at Roberts with the floor raised) while basketball games and tournaments were better for Roberts (no horrendous light blue tarps behind the goals).
Amenities: FC has premium seats, loge seats, mini suites, and probably club seats. Roberts had 17 sky boxes. Because of this, the Ford Center is the only way top notch performing acts can stop in Evansville and produce enough revenue to make it worth their while.
On the flip side, small minor league teams like indoor soccer, minor league basketball, indoor football, and large trade shows like the boat show, auto shows, and heck even dog shows don’t need those amenities and they certainly can’t afford them. Thus, you don’t see them at the FC even if there were additional dates available.
So long story just a little bit shorter, comparing these two facilities always has been and always will be an apples to oranges comparison. For a size this size to have prominent city leaders claiming these two would compete (a belief that is not held by anyone I can think of in the sports industry) is/was simply unacceptable and has caused a split in this city that I don’t see healing any time soon.
Geez! That horse is dead! Stop beating it!
Evansville still won’t draw 1st tier artists likeU2 or the Rolling Stones despite roof improvements; but that wasn’t my point. My point was the $82 million “impact” figure is misleading.
Artists adjust their shows to accommodate venue limitations all the time. The roof isn’t the reason these artists won’t come here. The roof has nothing to do with the fact we keep getting the same pool of 20 or so tired acts again and again.
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