By: Diane Benjamin
If Bloomington wanted to be transparent, ALL costs pertaining to shows would be on the event reports. They believe booking future shows would be affected if bookers knew how much was paid for previous shows. Therefore, if any of the below is incorrect – blame the City.
A new fiscal year started May 1st, only two shows at the Coliseum are listed for 2027. The only future concert listed on the arena website is the Beach Boys October 9th. None of the below look like deposits paid for that show. https://www.grossingermotorsarena.com/events-and-tickets/calendar
Even though these events are labeled BCPA, they took place a the Coliseum (Arena). They don’t appear on the BCPA show list: https://www.artsblooming.org/events/all-events-list-view/-toggle-all/-npage-2
They do appear under Event Reports for the Arena: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/government/transparency/venuworks-executed-agreement/coliseum-event-reports/-folder-2260#docfold_14_1561_1440_2260
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If you’ve been a reader for long you already know the Profit/Loss isn’t close to accurate.
Start with the show on the left:
Both of these bills are date 8/6:
This one is also dated 8/6:
So is this one:
This is an advance deposit:
These total $100,000 in expenses that aren’t included on the report.
That show lost $31,744.
How did the Goo Goo Dolls fare?
This payment is dated 8/6 but the performance says 8/9/26
These expenses total $395,158. That means this show made a:
Profit of $34,526
The net from 2 shows is $2,782.
That doesn’t come close to even paying the electricity bill which hovers around $30,000 a month.
Don’t miss the ticket numbers in the middle of both reports. People who received free tickets didn’t show up. Instead of “tickets distributed”, tickets sold used to be reported.
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This is typical government behavior. Over complicating a very simple situation to create multiple scenarios.
1. Make the bureaucrats appear to have a superior intellect, in their ability to decipher the gabble-gook of figures presented in a manner that would otherwise cause them to be terminated at any private institution or corporation, let alone berated and reprimanded and possibly demoted in a military setting for their failures of plain ineptness.
2. Deception. Attempt to create financially indecipherable spreadsheets in attempts at achieving citizens lack of attention, confusion or understanding at first glance. Through the use of unique, unnecessary, unprofessional, chaotic, (inaccessible) using on standard forms or apps/non-formatted for portable devices/using licensed proprietary software inaccessible to private citizens/or by purposefully creating formats and fonts too small to easily read.
3. Purposefully over obscure and complicate information.
4. Make every attempt to make the information irrelevant through delaying release of public records, releasing portions, release a title of an internal SOP, Training Guide/Book or Procedure but not the contents. Knowing that the public has no access to those documents or procedures. Thus causing more delays.
5. Mislabeling and/or vague descriptions or details. Etc.