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10,000 Seats, No Waiting
All quiet at new Bridgeport arena - too quiet
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Business New Haven
6/24/2002
By:
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BRIDGEPORT - In damage control mode over a dearth of summer event bookings, officials at the nine-month-old Arena at Harbor Yard say they are operating at a competitive disadvantage relative to their Connecticut competitors.
According to a story in the June 9 Connecticut Post, the city's new $58 million, 10,000-seat arena had just three event-days booked for the summer and fall at the time the story went to press. Officials of Volume Services America, which manages the facility, blamed the lack of business in part on a special ten-percent tax on each ticket sold. That tax was a condition of the state's $35 million investment to build the arena.
No other competing state facility - including the Hartford Civic Center, Wallingford's Oakdale Music Theatre, the Meadows in Hartford, the Mohegan Sun's new 10,000-seat arena in Uncasville and Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven - pays a similar tax.
Even the 30-year-old Coliseum - which New Haven Mayor John DeStefano has indicated he would like to see razed in favor of a new, unspecified use - had seven events scheduled for June and July, including a July 25 concert by Barry Manilow and a June 30 visit from erstwhile Presidential candidate Ralph Nader's “People Have the Power” national tour.
By contrast, the Bridgeport arena is scheduled to host the Republican State Central Committee's nominating convention July 12-13, plus a hip-hop concert headlined by Lil' Bow Wow and B2K August 9.
But there's more to the Bridgeport picture than just those two events, says Volume Services Executive Director Harold Bannon. For one thing, Bannon notes that his building hosts home hockey games of the AHL Bridgeport Sound Tigers, which begin play in October. Also, Fairfield University men's and women's basketball squads play home games in the arena beginning in November.
In addition, says Bannon, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has booked the Arena for a visit October 22-27, the Bridgeport Regional Business Council will host its annual Business Expo at the building November 19-20. Bannon says he also has “hold” dates for a number of concerts, as well as a “tentative” WWE (formerly the World Wrestling Federation] date in November.
Nevertheless, Bannon acknowledges the competitive disadvantage his building faces, due in large part to the ten-percent surcharge unique to the Arena.
“If you were [an event] promoter and you saw ten percent of the gross receipts taken off the top to pay the state of Connecticut,” says Bannon, “versus three other venues that don't have it - where would you play your act? If you're selling 10,000 tickets at $40 that's a $400,000 gross. That's $40,000 off the top that's not going to the promoter.”
Bannon says that eliminating the tax would go far toward attracting events to the Bridgeport arena. Doing so, however, would require an act of the state legislature.
“That's how the New Haven Coliseum and the Hartford Civic Center got the exem
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