Continuing coverage
The Dayton Daily News has provided in-depth coverage on the Rose Music Center story since we broke the news in December 2012 of the city’s proposal. We will continue to follow this story and bring you the latest updates as they develop.
City officials are projecting a better second season for the $19.8 million Stuart & Mimi Rose Music Center based on lessons learned during the first year of operations.
The music center showed a profit of $23,479, down from a preliminary figure of $160,000 reported last fall, according to city data. But taxpayers still on the hook for $357,000.
That money covered some one-time expenses needed to make a successful destination concert hall this year and beyond, City Manager Rob Schommer said.
“Certainly, we had some experimentation in types of concerts and shows we have,” Schommer said of the Rose’s first year. “You have to test the market.”
Rose's second season began Sunday when the band "Widespread Panic" took the stage as the first of 30 shows planned this summer. A rock band with a southern touch, the band reflects some of the music Schommer said they've learned sells best.
Classic rock and country music are best sellers at the venue. Schommer wouldn’t provide attendance numbers for each show, instead providing overall numbers for the facility. Approximately 61,000 people attended 29 ticketed shows in 2015. One show in the 4,200 capacity venue sold out.
Schommer said sellouts aren’t the best measure of whether a show was successful. For example, he said, a show attracting just 800 people might be a good night for the venue if the genre of entertainment for the night had low per-capita interest in the region.
“Let’s say you have 10 concerts that sell pretty good that are a lower cost concert to hold, versus one sellout that costs a whole lot of money to bring the artist in,” Schommer said. “I’d take the 10 that do pretty good and don’t cost me as much to hold because there’s more shows, more variety, more people coming through.”
Thirty-one shows were scheduled for this season, but one was cancelled due to the death of country artist Merle Haggard. And while Schommer said classic rock and country are believed to be successful shows, one pop singer, Daya, is a featured artist on this week's Billboard Hot 100.
Other artists booked by the venue's Cincinnati-based management company, Music & Event Management, Inc., for this year include Barenaked Ladies, Gladys Knight, The Monkees, Patti LaBelle, Willie Nelson, Wynonna, Goo Goo Dolls, 98 Degrees, Diana Ross and The Beach Boys.
But not enough of the artists are the kind that draw young people, said Mayor Tom McMasters.
“This is nice that I know all these bands, but on the other hand there’s something wrong that I know all these bands,” McMasters said. “I don’t know that’s the business plan that is going to be long standing.”
The mayor contends younger audiences would rather see bands like Paramore, a country act, or Twenty-One Pilots, a Columbus-based pop group with two songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including one in the top 15.
Schommer said the current strategy allows the venue to “focus back on what the goal and purpose of the facility is, which is to cover the cost of its own operation and be a financial catalyst.”
Music center expenses
City records show the Rose brought in less money than projected.
In October, city officials estimated the music center's first-year profit as approximately $160,000. But a reconciliation of the venue's balance sheet decreased the first-year operational revenue after expenses to $23,479. The largest items on that balance sheet included talent expenses of $2.19 million and ticket revenue of $2.84 million.
The facility also brought in $200,000 in naming rights.
The venue had a series of “other expenses” at cost to the city and outside of the day-to-day management of the venue. Some of those expenses were one-time, others were planned and still others - like a $5,000 deductible after a lightning strike - were unexpected.
Those expenses include $225,000 in management fees to Music & Event Management, Inc., $22,654 for insurance, $14,305 in one-time electrical expenses before the facility was handed over to MEMI, and $45,627 in landscaping. Additional one-time start-up expenses include signs and logos manufactured for $19,277, and a host of “various other start-up capital purchases” ranging from bike racks to cash registers totaling $325,706.
The city brought in revenues of $227,824 from the Rose in 2015, and spent a total $585,515 for a loss of $357,691. That loss is covered by an advance from the city’s general fund to the parks and recreation fund totaling $750,000, Schommer said. That money came from the sale of city-owned land.
Now that one-time expenses are dying down in the center’s second year, Schommer said he’d like to see the venue at least sustain itself.
“A lot of times recreation costs money, but this venture being a little different type of venture should at least sustain itself,” he said. “We do want to generate revenue to return back to parks and recreation to help subsidize some of the things in parks and recreation that do cost money.”
Meanwhile the city is still awaiting development of the land around the Rose, which is key to paying off Rose’s $19.8 million worth of construction and financing costs. Because the facility was built using tax increment financing, each day properties within the TIF district sit without development is another day the city has less money to pay off debt on the Rose.
Development plans
McMasters acknowledged that if development comes, “it will probably be because (the music center) is there.” Still, he’s holding judgment on the plans until he sees some results.
“You never know what’s going on in the background as far as that. We haven’t had a lot of building going on now,” McMasters said of the neighboring parcels, which feature a Meijer supermarket and a T.J. Chumps restaurant. “We’re supposed to have a hotel that’s interested in purchasing the property.”
Huber Heights council member Mark Campbell said the city will pay off the debt. He said while development at the Heights is important to that plan, he encouraged patience with the land surrounding the Rose.
“If I told you they were going to build a Taj Mahal across the street there would still be naysayers at the front door burning the house down,” Campbell said. “Honest to gosh, if you were proposing a Taj Mahal there would still be critics at the table.”
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