By: Diane Benjamin
Yesterday we all learned the Coliseum lost a lot of money. See this story: http://blnnews.com/2015/06/12/lap-dog-media-falls-for-coliseum-report/
The City of Bloomington put out their own version. The below was emailed to anybody who signed up to receive their News Update.
Notice anything funny? Like the meat of the story is buried behind a link? Any casual reader might believe the Coliseum is doing great. It gets even worse if the link is clicked: http://www.cityblm.org//index.aspx?page=18&recordid=2165
The almost $500,000 loss isn’t mentioned until the FIFTH paragraph.
The Bart Rogers bull is in the 6th paragraph.
I’m sure the City knows a LOT of links are never clicked and, even if they are, a LOT of readers never read to the bottom of anything.
Burying the truth?
Maybe this masterpiece of deception is the work of the Communication Director that doesn’t communicate.
Vladimir? Vladimir? Is that you?
(Stop laughing!)
This is the handiwork of Nora Dukowitz. She is programed to deceive.
Numbers can be manipulated to show whatever results one desires. The $500,000.00 are operation losses; nothing to do with capital expenditures which add to the overall cost to the taxpayers. All of those figures were not included in the mix. Only 2 of the 232 events were ALMOST sold out. Most of the events were not ticketed. Those that were ticketed had less than 50% capacity. If I’m reading the report correctly, 174,000 attendees at 230 events is about 740 people/event. More smoke and mirrors.
And the auditors report will show a loss of $1 million the outlook is bleak if you look at the downward spiral over the years of suites, club seats (which they don’t seem to sell anymore) sponsorships and concessions. Naming rights are in the last year. The teams struggle to stay afloat. This facility will be at the mercy of concerts to try and stay above water. Yet the city continues to pay two managers. The 25 percent reduction in events due the parking deck is an absolute joke. On a given night you might be able to park 150 cars in the deck as they share it with the Pepsi Ice Center. The Home Show was grossly overcharged and mistreated and they were not coming back no matter what. Too many levels for patrons to walk around the facility. Keep flinging the BS Ciam. Apparently the City Manager believes it
Seems to be quite a few negative comments posted on the firewood starting paper website. Now if they only came to this website and got the full truth they would be even more outraged.
I suspect a lot of people feel there is nothing they can do so why try to do anything. Apathy is a real problem in the city of Bloomington as well as Normal.
Not sure about apathy. People know they can’t do anything and no one will listen so I think it is more about being disenfranchised. If everyone that posts negative comments emailed their Alderman with the same comments and showed up at the Council meetings, (even if all of them couldn’t speak) there might be a slight chance of making an impact. Outrage made a difference with the McGraw Park incident and the Mayor’s nasty behavior. If there really is hesitation among the staff with the hotel project, now might be the time to act.
I’ve got more info on downtown for tomorrow.
What bothers me most is there is no mention of… what will be done to fix it? They like to give excuses for poor performance and predict great things for the future, but they don’t show us a plan for how this will be achieved or how they will hold those that fail accountable.
Instead of accepting excuses and handing them more of our money, how about a few management shake-ups and a plan to hold them responsible for how they waste our money?
The Council hears the bad news, smiles, hands them a check, and a pat on the back for ‘stimulating the local economy’. They weren’t hired to stimulate the economy, they were hired to turn a profit at the Coliseum. I don’t get it.
The fix is pretty easy. Fire Rogers and Butler and hire a professional management team that is already managing other arenas. They have access to the acts and can back them for multiple venues. Next, create a contract that incentivizes success, not one were management gets paid first and the citizens make up the losses.
I get it. Failure is the agenda that the potted plants have been programmed to follow. Consensus with the crazies, absolutely no independent thinking is allowed. That is why the 9-0 vote is so important to the puppets, Renner and Hales.
The city DOES deceive. That’s how they roll.
I’m curious how many readers experienced any of the supposed 12.5 million in injected into the local economy. I for sure did not experience any. I’m sure Renner and Hales could find some way of explaining how I benefited.
I think your headline is spot on. Ready through this BS report….93 pages of fluff. Note page 24…Bloomington Flex basketball was reporting 19,541 in attendance…that is what CIAM reported on page 24. Add up the actual event tickets of who came into the Coliseum and the Flex had crowds for 10 games of 356, 248, 199, 624, 575, 166, 187, 246, 324, 264 with a whopping attendance of 3,189. 16,352 off. Not very accurate reporting . Would love to see the auditors report in a few month. abysmal.
The down spiral trend for revenues is bleak for sure. If you look at the City web site and pull CIAM (not the auditor’s report) for 2013….I couldn’t find 2014….and compare it to 2015, it is bad.
2013 Revenues 2015 Revenues
Club seats – $66,229 Club seats – $37,000
Concessions- $259,559 Concessions – $155,000
Suites – $370,000 Suites – $263,000
Sponsorships – $608,000 Sponsorships – $583,000
Parking Fees (not deck) – $82,000 Parking Deck – $64,000
Total Revenues – $3,675,000 Total Revenues – $2,685,000
$1,000,000 !!! of lost revenue but payroll only dropped by $100,000!!!
Salary and Regular/OT Salary and Regular/OT
$907,485 salaried $858,000 Salaried
$1,367,000 Total $1,268,000 Total
Hopefully, they can resell the naming rights that expire in 2016 because we might see another drop of $270,000 in naming rights revenues. Who are/is the sales people/person there?
Shouldn’t sunstantially less revenues mean substantially less compensation or a reduced staff? Crazy