Thanks to Cameraman Bruce for finding this ridiculous video, ever notice it’s always about the sports or country music in Sioux Falls. If you like neither for entertainment, you might as well roll up in a corner and cry yourself to sleep.
Of course the stories continue about all the econ impact of the Brooks shows. I don’t deny there will be a slight sales tax and local business bump, but let’s truly look at what goes out the door. Fortunately, the Brooks camp monitors their sales, so they KNOW who is purchasing the tickets, so here are the numbers we ‘are being told’;
While roughly 60 percent of the tickets sold were from the region, Semrau says more than 40,000 attendees will be visiting Sioux Falls specifically for Garth’s shows.
So it is not the other way around, like our mayor claimed.
Let’s start with what Garth will be taking directly from Sioux Falls area residents (I’m assuming his $75 fee does NOT include taxes or Ticketmaster fees) If you assume 60% are from the SF MSA, that would mean Brooks takes $4.5 million from the community that will never be recirculated or spent in SF (this money left our town in one week).
Now let’s take the visitors, who spend all their delicious cash in our hotels and restaurants;
“You have to think about the indirect impact of those people working in the hotels, working in the restaurants, working in the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center, they then roll over that money because they’ve been paid because of the concert to work, so it rolls over in the community three to five times,†Schmidt said.
Not really. First off people who work in the hospitality industry in SF are the lowest paid in the community, basically poverty wages of $14k to $20K a year. Besides the wages that will be recirculated most profits leave Sioux Falls because a lot of the businesses are national franchises.
How about that 36,000 gallons of beer, SMG and Ovations who handle operations at the EC are national companies, that money leaves Sioux Falls also.
While I agree there may be a $20 million dollar impact, only a small portion of that actually goes in the pockets of SF residents and even city hall.
The proof is in the pudding, since the EC has been built, sales tax revenue has actually gone down. Like I have said in an earlier post, we can make some ordinance changes and other changes at the EC to make sure more of that money recirculates in Sioux Falls, but that will take some leadership.
One of the reasons I support local restaurants and shows by local promoters is because I know most of the money I spend at these places will recirculate in the community. Maybe there should be a new push by the CVB to support local entertainment.