At the July 17 City Advertising and Promotion Commission workshop, Tourism Director Mike Maloney tossed out several ideas for how to make auditorium rental work equitably, including charging a flat fee or a structured fee based on a scale.
The CAPC spends about $6300 per show, a cost that includes ushers, security, staff, concessions, and equipment. There are 986 seats at the Aud, and Maloney said most shows don’t sell out and tend to average between 200-300 seats.
He suggested that acts pay a deposit, and based on how many seats they sell they may either receive a refund if enough seats are sold, or the CAPC keeps the deposit if enough are not sold.
Maloney stressed that the importance of acts in the Aud is that people who attend stay in town to eat and sleep. He added that there is no way for the Aud itself to make money due to building maintenance.
Commissioner Kolin Paulk said that in 2023, it cost roughly $40,000 for heating and air conditioning, $87,000 for renovations and upgrades, $14,000 for equipment, $1200 for utilities, $7600 in rent, and $4000 for general maintenance.
Acting Chair Steve Holifield asked if any other A&Ps in America also run a theater, and Maloney said he had only heard of one in southern Arkansas. When asked how many big shows on average the Aud holds per year, Maloney said that last year it was around six. He said one strategy might be to book acts to keep the schedule full, but then said there was no guarantee that the acts would come or that it would increase revenue, and even using new projection equipment to show movies would cost $500 per film for copyright fees. Maloney concluded by urging commissioners to look over the information and decide on a course of action.
Applications for one regular position and one at-large position on the commission are at seven. Maloney said they would not be following former Chair Chris Clifton’s idea of discussing each candidate at the meeting, and instead Holifield asked commissioners to research and speak with applicants on their own and make nominations at the next meeting.