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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcoa.cclc.min.03172010COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 17.2010 Chairperson, Terry Butler called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. Commissioners in attendance: Andrew Kole, Bill Dinsmoor, Mark Zitelli, Fred Ayarza and Mark Goodman. John Starr and Don Sheeley were excused. Staff: Kathy Strickland, Chief Deputy Clerk Gram Slaton, Wheeler Director Gram said his role is to create tourist traffic. Three festivals are proposed. We need to fill a need in our art and entertainment mix. Roof top Comedy festival is in June Mountain film week end of August Singer song writer festival-John Oates, middle of September. The intent is to partner with the community to make it work. Create opportunity for people to have a launch pad to drive people into the hotels and shops. We want to fill the beds and shops. We want to do customer discounts and businesses etc. can let us know what they need. The Wheeler is investing''/z million into the three festivals. The Roof top Comedy will be its third year. We have a national media contract. We want to make it a commercial event. Mountain film in Aspen focuses on endangered species. There is a couple out of Africa coming and their goal is to preserve lions. John Oates and I have been working for six weeks. Who do you want to play with who you never played with before...that is john's approach. It is during Ruggerfest. There are 600 to 1200 rooms that won't be used and we are looking to fill those rooms. Andrew asked if the ACRA is using Outside magazine? Gram said he thinks they are moving forward with that. Gram said we do our own marketing. We will up the marketing budget to $120,000. COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 17, 2010 Terry thanked Gram for the e-mails from the Wheeler which are done very effectively. Terry suggested sending the a-mails out ten days before the event and then do it again the day before the event. Terry said she would do rooms for people coming into town. Andrew asked with the $120,000 investing will you re-coop it with ticket sales. Gram said they are having trouble getting the information out of the valley. We hope we will re-coop but you don't know. We hope people in town will get rooms filled and stores filled. Mark asked about advertising the front range and other places outside Colorado. Gram said they are working with USA today and San Francisco on advertising. We do market the front range. We did limited advertising in the LA area. Mark asked about cross promotion. Gram said he would be glad to add links etc. Gram said the Wheeler invested into new ticketing software April 20`h and they are also launching a new website. Mark said with marketing dollars how many people come to town and what is the tax revenue. Gram said he would love to know the amount coming in during events but it is impossible. Maybe finance could figure it out. Gram said they have 503 seats. During the John Denver event we are full. 2/3`d of the patrons come to town during that event. Bill complimented Gram on the theater events coming to the Wheeler. We have struggled trying to figure out the marketing process during events. How does the Wheeler measure success? Bill said years ago a few businesses reported sales tax weekly. 2 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 17, 2010 Gram said we can use zip code numbers. We would like to be more of a visitor attraction. We want the shows to bring in visitor. We have offered free events this past year for locals to attend and enjoy. Bill said he sat on the group deciding special events. What is the process for the Wheeler to say this is important and we want to take a shot at it. Gram said we want to have a free stage on the mall and use Bellyup for the singer song writer event. Bill asked how the singer song writer progressed to the Wheeler. Gram said they worked with John Oates last year and people liked the idea. Gram said he knew working with John Oates was something he wanted to do. The Wheeler is the entertainment venue for the event. The money is spent out of the RETT funding and not the general fund. We have had some experience with this in the past. Gram pointed out that roof top festival has a lot of sponsors on their end and so does the mountain festival. Mark said he has been to the wheeler and is looking forward to the Mountain Festival. Bill pointed out that there isn't one entity trying to come up with plans. The overall coordination of special events isn't fully generated. Gram said he has worked in New York, PA and this is a problem in every City. 200,000 update Barry Crook -One of councils top ten goals was $200,000 allocated from the general fund. Mining for ideas campaign - we received 30 ideas. $140,00 was allocated. $50,000 was for the oncore aspen idea which will not happen this idea. That funding will be held over to 2011. 9 ideas have come in since. Exhibit A -allocation table. COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 17, 2010 We have given out three of the awards already. Andrew said the seed money is no longer a part of the project. It is a loan and if the event makes money the City wants it back. Example - Barry said if the event makes money we would get back 1.5% of the profit. Bill said if someone hit the gram slam the City would get their money back. The return is so much greater if the event was great. It would be a great community event. Barry said we are not giving tax dollars to a private entity. Andrew said they did a disservice not knowing what they wanted upfront from the events. Bill agreed. Barry said he will execute the agreements next. Bill asked about spin fest. Barry said Craig Cannon submitted his event and will go through the special events committee process. Fred said when you talk about biking, it is incredible for Aspen. If done correctly it can be one of the majors every year. Mark asked how the process of success is measured with the $200,000 events. Barry said he will have a public benefit report and there will be a metric of success report. Bill said possibly a report from the 44 hotels to see who stayed there during that event. Barry said we will have a work session with council after the events are over. Fred said to measure the events is very important in the reporting. Meeting adjourned at 10:30 a.m. Kathy StricklOnd, Chief Deputy Clerk