It looks like we are going to get some more smoke blown up our butts tonight on Metli-Land TV (are they still calling it that, hard to keep track);
“A lot of the on sales we do, we have some of the highest grossing, out-of-the-gate sale of just about any building around the country of our size,” Torkildson said.
Ever notice when we ever hear anything about the EC it’s always about breaking records, but we never hear how all that record breaking is benefitting the community, in the form of revenue coming back into the town.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some positive numbers somewhere, but why are we not seeing them?
As a tax paying resident of Sioux Falls, sorry to say, I just don’t see much sense on paying the mortgage on a building that I will never use because I still have to pay another $100 dollars for a ticket just to walk through it’s doors. From my perspective, I have to take VALUE in the Events Center in how much it’s existence benefits my community as a whole, and that means in dollars and cents.
We do know some things. The EC’s mortgage is around $9 million a year. The EC operations are covered and then some, a net of over $2 million this past year. We also know that we paid (mostly the state) $1.5 million in taxes.
But here is what we don’t know or only speculate on. Where does the net revenue go? Back to the city to help pay the mortgage or in a secret SMG fund they get to play with for promotions, etc.
If the EC had approximately $20 million in sales last year, how much got redistributed in the community, and how much went straight out of town?
When will the CVB give us an educated estimate of how much money is spent in Sioux Falls by out of town concert goers? And how much tax revenue is generated?
While there are some positive things going on at the EC, I just don’t see how the city is benefitting financially from building the facility? Some would say ‘quality of life’. Sorry, but my life hasn’t gotten any better in respect to entertainment due to the EC, just more expensive.
I think it is time the city and SMG show the citizens just how much we are getting reamed while SMG and it’s associates are raking in the dough which never get’s redistributed in our community.
does government have to MAKE money? last time i checked that isn’t the function of government, as long as they break even all is good and the community gets a service out of it, the thing seems to sell out for almost every event so i don’t see HOW THIS CAN’T be helping local business and such. there are probably too many factors to even consider a calculation on how this EC is helping, consider people coming in from out of town getting hotels and paying taxes and fees for that, chill out dude
Everything about the EC is suspicious. Were they in the black, we’d see numbers instead of bullcrap. What’s true is not anything coming from SMG or the city.
“as long as they break even all is good and the community gets a service out of it”
I think when you factor in the total sales and the impact on local business, the EC ‘could’ be breaking even, BUT my point is that any NET revenue and sales from the facility is going straight out of town and NOT being recirculated in the community, and certainly NOT paying the mortgage. For every citizen in the community that DOES not use the facility, that’s around $9 million a year we are NOT spending on roads and infrastructure.
I also think all this money leaving Sioux Falls is having an impact on our sales tax collection being down. For instance, if I go to Icon to see a show, the money I spend there on beverages get’s recirculated in the community because it is local owners, when you spend money at the EC, besides covering operations, all of that money leaves the community instantly and never get’s recirculated. I don’t find it a coincidence that the sales tax revenue started going down right after we opened the doors to the EC.