(bright exciting music) (music fading) - A 100-year-old entertainment venue in Central Illinois just had its busiest month ever.

We're talking about the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

It's not the biggest venue in our area, but it might be the most diverse in terms of entertainment.

Anthony Nelson is the Arts and Entertainment Director with the City of Bloomington.

He also oversees the Grossinger Motors Arena.

Good to see you.

- Thanks for having me on.

- Congratulations on a big month.

Tell us more about it.

- Thanks.

So yeah, November was our busiest month in venue history.

Had about 11,000 people through the venue, about 11 different shows, from Josh Gates Live to singer-songwriters nights to "Menopause 2: The Musical", so it was a diverse month, different shows for everybody, and it was packed in there good, so I'm kinda glad staff gets a little downtime, down between here and the holidays.

- Absolutely.

Well you know, it is great, all the different variety you have, like you said, comedians, rock and roll, I know you just had Night Ranger, all kinds of good stuff.

How do you determine when you're booking what kind of events that you wanna bring to the BCPA?

- Yeah, so we try to be data-driven a little bit, but we also, you kinda gotta know your market too a little bit, so you can see a show may sell 5,000 tickets in Chicago or Boston, but how will that do in Central Illinois?

So do a lot of research from promoters to agents to figure out what other bands, shows, comedians they sell in markets that are similar to ours as we can find, but sometimes it is a coin flip.

But we kinda know, I mean, especially since COVID, standup comedy for us has been a home run.

So anytime that we can book a comedian, we do it.

"Menopause 2", kinda get the best of both worlds.

You get that comedy and that theater, so Night Ranger again, kind of no brainers.

The name brand bands, the name brand comedians, have done really well for us.

But we still try to have a diverse enough audience that there's something for everybody.

- Let's go back to that Night Ranger example.

Since you run Grossinger also, how do you determine which venue you're doing?

Because obviously the Arena's a lot bigger.

Again, is it looking at numbers from other cities?

- Correct, yeah.

It's a little more cost, too, to put a, especially a show, in the Arena.

Hockey, obviously, the ice is already there.

But for Night Ranger to go into the Arena, gotta put the pro deck down over the ice, we gotta build a stage.

So that 1,100 seat venue at the BCPA, about perfect for Night Ranger.

Sell about 900 to 1,000 tickets.

But anybody who sells between 1,500, 2,000 tickets, it's a little bit harder of a determination.

So our theater setup at the Arena, which is as small as we can get it, is 2,800 seats.

But if somebody's selling between 1,500 and 2,500 tickets, that's about the right size venue for us, so we'll book some of those acts that aren't quite big enough for that full size Arena, but too big for the BCPA, we'll put 'em in the Arena.

- Even going back to the beginning of this year, you guys had a lot of success.

On your Facebook page, you said "Almost 15,000 guests January to March of '04."

A 335% increase from, I'm sorry, January to March of the previous year.

What do you attribute that to?

- Yeah, a lot of it is kinda success brings success.

So we have a lot more promoters and agents, and now we don't have to do quite as many phone calls.

They're kinda reaching out to us.

"Hey, we see you've had a good crowd for this type show.

I have an open date.

You guys available?"

So some of that's just getting the promoters to come to us.

And kind of finding what works in our market.

So we've had a lot more success of maybe spending a little bit more for an artist, knowing that they'll move some tickets.

Like Lee Brice came through and sold out.

Three or four years ago, I don't know that we would've been like, well, it's kind of an expensive ask.

Are we gonna move enough tickets?

Now we know Central Illinois will show up for the right artists.

So we just get a lot more shows, 'cause we have a lot more people coming to us 'cause people have been going to shows.

- That's good.

And I think a lot of people aren't too familiar with the way the process works.

They say, "Hey, why don't you get so and so?"

- Yeah.

- "Why don't you get Person X or Band Y?"

How does it work in terms of going after a band, or a band coming to you, and how does it work with rent, and all that fun stuff?

- Yeah, so usually there's a pretty good list of who's going on tour, so usually the first thing we do is email the agent and say, "Hey, we're interested."

Usually most of those are Arena-sized shows.

"Hey, is there a date in the Midwest that you're looking to route?

Here's some information on our Arena."

You kinda hear some of the costs, either for rent, or what the operations cost might be for my IATSE, we're a union house, so they build the stage, do the sound, do the lights.

"Here's what a show might look like.

Are you interested?"

And that's kinda how the conversation starts, and then they, you know, "How many seats are you?"

We say, "Well, we can do up to 7,500."

And they're like, "Well, we're looking for 10,000, but we'll keep you in mind in case we can't find that perfect date."

A lot of us just keep kinda bugging agents until they either tell you yes or no, but you're just keeping your name on the radar.

Almost every artist does it a little different.

Sometimes it's just they pay rent to your venue, and then they take the proceeds.

A lot of the times, it's a promoter coming in, and basically, you split the cost and the profit 50/50.

So food and beverage, parking, kinda all that, might go into the pot, to be able to get an artist.

So every deal is a little different, and we try to get as creative as we can to get as many people to come give Bloomington a shot.

- So if a certain band is playing Chicago on a Monday, and then St. Louis on a Thursday, you might say, "Hey, Tuesday and Wednesday, you're gonna be going through here anyway."

- Correct, yeah.

We're always checking websites and saying, "Hey, there's an off date between Indianapolis and Des Moines.

We'd be perfect if the artist is playing that day."

Now sometimes they have something going that's not on their website.

It might be a private event, or whatnot.

But a lot of that's just trying to get creative and find some routes that might make sense.

You know, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Des Moines, even the quad cities a little bit, all of those kinda make sense for us.

Now some of those are different.

Like Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Sometimes those artists, if they play Lollapalooza, they won't let them play within like 200 miles for six months, which means they play Lollapalooza, we're out, so we always check that lineup too to see hey, is somebody we're looking at getting, are they gonna be on that lineup?

We kinda hope not for our own sense, but it also makes Lollapalooza a little more fun to get a bunch of good artists.

- Sure, but man, that's 200 miles in six months.

- Yeah, that's a big, Lollapalooza has one of the bigger radius clauses out of all the festivals.

- Wow.

- Probably, I mean, is somebody from Springfield really driving up to Lollapalooza?

And if they were to see a certain artist, wouldn't they still probably drive 45 minutes to see them again in six months?

So you know, some of those, they can be negotiated out, too.

It doesn't mean we don't not try.

But Lollapalooza does have the biggest radius clause that we've seen.

- Interesting.

And is it up to you to abide by that clause, or the artist?

- A little bit of both.

If we don't know about it, which occasionally does happen, where we're like, well, we didn't know that show was on your radar, but usually the agents do a pretty good job of checking their maps, and saying, "Ooh, I told you we couldn't do that show.

I didn't realize that this town was so close to you."

Because I mean, if the agent's from New York or LA, some of the Midwest towns, they just don't, they don't know how far they are from each other.

And we just kinda keep 'em in mind, hey, St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, they're all two hours away, so we're a good fit between all of them.

- You've been in this position about two years, you said?

- [Anthony] Yeah, just over two years.

- So, what kind of an effect did COVID have on the entertainment business in Bloomington, and have we recovered?

- Yeah.

Now we're back to all of our ticket sales, our gross sales, our average ticket, is all way up from where it was before COVID, so as far as the entertainment industry down there goes, I think we're pretty much fully recovered.

Those first couple years after COVID, some of the shows, it was just a coin flip.

You just really didn't know okay, is that audience comfortable coming back out, leaving their house?

We did see a trend kinda move towards people waiting a little bit longer to buy tickets, just because I think there was some hesitancy, well, you know, if I buy this $50 ticket, and what if I get sick?

And that seems to have kinda gone away, but that trend, I think, with people buying tickets closer to show dates is probably something that's gonna stay.

- What's competition like in terms of we've got, obviously, Peoria close by, Rockford, Quad Cities, I mean, if people like an artist enough, they're gonna drive.

- [Anthony] Yup.

- You got Champaign.

So what's it like competing with all those midsize cities?

- Yeah, so probably the three big competitors that we always are bidding shows against, Peoria, Champaign, and Springfield, kinda all fall within that radius of each other, so they've kinda gotta pick one of us to play.

So those are the ones you're kinda competing against.

Obviously the Civic Center is almost apples to apples, just slightly larger, but they have the theater and the Arena space that pretty much match ours.

So almost every show that comes through, if, you know, we're usually competing against Peoria.

But sometimes, we'll have the same shows.

They just might be six or seven months apart.

Peoria had Josh Gates, I think, last April.

We had him in November.

Lee Brice, we had last year, and I think they have him here in a couple of months.

So sometimes the shows will still come back 'cause they just enjoy this area, and all four towns, and even Decatur, I mean, they all tend to come out and enjoy live entertainment.

So artists know that if they come here, they're usually gonna move some tickets.

- I'm surprised Springfield is competition considering their venues and lack thereof.

- They definitely don't bid as much as everybody else in the area, but their venue does five, seven concerts a year, so you'll see their name show up on something, but definitely Peoria's the busiest.

They're the ones that we're always kinda chasing.

Peoria does a great job at getting entertainment in both their venues, so they're probably the biggest competition.

Champaign, I've got to know John who runs that venue down there.

He has Illinois men's and women's basketball, so they only have so many dates during the winter to fill up.

Now that we have Bison hockey again, we're always, we have a few dates that we're trying to fill, but there's so much entertainment all three cities that there's fewer and fewer dates to book.

- Let's talk about the hockey team, and they obviously have a set amount of dates that they need throughout the season.

Does that ever get in the way of booking other things?

- No, the Hallett family and the Bloomington Bison staff have been great to work with.

We've even bid a couple shows saying, "Hey, if we get this show, can you move this hockey game for us?"

"Sure, no problem.

Just let us know enough in advance."

We actually had one that we'd moved, we knew we were in the final two to try to get the show, moved the date, and then ended up falling through, and they moved that route elsewhere.

And we moved the date back.

But they've been great to work with.

They're not gonna inhibit us from getting shows.

They understand that concerts are a little harder to get than a hockey game, they're happy to work with us and move a date around.

They're gonna lose a Saturday, they wanna get a Saturday back, but they've been great to work with.

- And how has attendance been so far in this early season?

- Yeah, it's been ramping up.

Every weekend, I think the excitement around town continues to build with the level of hockey that people are seeing.

Even some people I know who aren't hockey fans, they came, and they're like, "Oh, I can tell the difference between size and speed and power with some of these guys."

And having an NHL-affiliated team always kinda helps it get some buy in the community.

But you can kinda see people in town, the word of mouth is going around about how good the product is.

- Yeah, and you mentioned ownership.

They seem to be doing a very good job of promoting the team, and getting the team ingrained in the community, like we were talking about off camera, how the Rivermen have done it.

- Yeah.

You know, you kinda got to get your pro sports teams in towns, everybody's in town's gotta love 'em, whether you're a fan of that sport or not.

So Teddy Bear Toss was Saturday.

That's always a fun one.

You're getting teddy bears out to kids at hospitals.

Last week, a bunch of the players were at the youth practices, skating with the kids, things like that.

Going to read at schools.

That kinda gets that community buy in, because mom and dad go, "Oh, a Bison player came and read us a story today."

Those kinda things go a long way.

And word of mouth's always your best friend, so getting out and doing what's right in the community, I think, is really gonna help them in the long run.

- And again, with the hockey team, I think a lot of people assume that concerts come, sports come, and you're making money hand over fist, but a lot of times, these events are just here to benefit the community, not necessarily for the city to get rich.

- Yeah, I mean, each game, you can make a little bit of money, but the economic impact that concerts and events have, that's really where the money's at.

You know, you have 2,500 and 3,000 people coming down for a hockey game, a lot of those people are gonna go downtown and either go out to eat before, or have a drink after, get gas on their way out of town, that's where some of that longterm impact is, is those people visiting town who come from outside of town.

We can track in Ticketmaster where they came from.

Saturday's game, for example, we had five or six suburbs represented, we had people from St. Louis, people from Toledo came over for the game to watch their team, so you know, that's kinda where the real longterm impact is, is people traveling in to enjoy what else Bloomington-Normal has to offer.

- The Arena, several years ago, had a bunch of problems, mismanagement, financial things.

Has it recovered from that, you think?

- Yeah, I mean, I think there's always gonna be a few naysayers in town, but it seems like throughout the community, there's been a lot of positive momentum of what we're doing.

People see the Arena getting used more.

I think what a lot of people don't realize is how many youth hockey programs and figure skaters we have in Bloomington.

If we don't have a game or a concert that night, our ice is being rented from five p.m. to 10 p.m. almost every night, just 'cause there's not enough hockey space, and not enough ice for everybody to get their practices in.

So again, another way to, yeah, it helps offset the cost of running the Arena, but it's giving a space for those kids to be able to do the sport they love.

- Yeah, and youth hockey really has exploded in the last decade.

I've seen it myself.

I mean, Peoria, Bloomington-Normal, so and it's good that, we have limited rink space in this area, so it's good to have a facility like yours that can rent out space.

- Yeah, yeah.

Us and the Bloomington Ice Center, we're connected, but if one sheet of ice is open, you wanna get somebody out there using it, and see those kinda kids grow their skillset.

Girls hockey is actually where the biggest growth has been, and they hold what they call the March Meltdown, where they invite girls teams from about six neighboring states to come in, and it used to be when our girls would play the Chicago teams, you'd look up after the second period, it's 10 or 11 to nothing, and now our girls from Decatur, Bloomington, Peoria, they all seem to be kinda holding their own, so the skill, just with the number of girls playing around here, has continued to grow.

- When you're looking at bringing shows in, whether it's the BCPA, or the Arena, you know, you see on Facebook, you announce somebody, or one announces somebody, they say, "Oh, I hate country music," or, "Why do you always bring country people?"

Well, they obviously sell really well.

What other kinds of things are you thinking about when you're bringing in these folks, and again, I mean, you can't bring in just country, even though it sells well.

You gotta bring in other things.

But is it okay, maybe, on a show or two a year to just say, "You know, we're probably not gonna make a huge profit on this, but certain aspects, certain people in the community really want the show like this"?

- Yeah, or just to try something.

So last year, we had a Worship Live Show, which is something we've never had in the Arena before.

It was in the theater setup, so not a huge setup, but it was just a little too big for the BCPA.

Had just over 2,000 people, and about 1,200 of the 2,000, a lot of them who we'd talked to had lived in town their whole life, and had never been to the Arena before.

So trying to show something different that brings them to the Arena to try it for the first time, which hopefully keeps them coming back to both of our venues.

Family shows are another one.

Usually they're not huge money makers, but usually you at least break even on those, but that gives something for families to do.

Sesame Street Live is coming May 15th to the Arena.

Those aren't shows, the ticket prices start at $16, so it's not a show where you're gonna make half a million dollars on, but they're also not very expensive, so you can give an opportunity to families to come out on a lower ticket level, and be able to be entertained, which sometimes, the theater shows, you know, the Peppa Pigs, the traveling shows like that, the tickets have to be 50 or $60 for us to break even, so you look for those shows a couple times a year where you can get families to come out, and then go out to eat, and go to the show, and have a snack at the Arena, and keep everything under $100.

You'd like to get a couple of those a year, just to get people out of the house.

- My daughter asked me why Taylor Swift hasn't come to Central Illinois yet, and she understands economics to a certain extent, but when you have, forget Taylor, even like an AC/DC, they're going on tour.

I mean, when they're looking at their route, they're looking at all the big cities, for a secondary market, I mean, would you totally have to take a bath on that to get a band like that?

- Yeah, unless there's just a date they just can't fill to get, you know, The Eagles did their tour last year, and I reached out, and I was like, "Hey, I know I'm gonna be told no, but I'd kick myself if I didn't ask."

He's like, "They're not playing anything under 20,000 seats."

And I was like, you know, never hurts to ask.

Because you never know.

And they're like, "Well, we have this Wednesday we're trying to fill.

We'll do it for this amount."

And then sometimes you can get lucky, and the worst thing they can tell you is no.

So you always ask.

But most of those big bands, I mean, Taylor Swift's not playing anything under about 50,000 seats now.

I mean, if she'd come, if we can get the average ticket price to about $10,000, you know?

We might be able to make something work.

So our best bet is we had a Taylor Swift Tribute at the BCPA that sold out super fast.

We can do things like that so that families can still get the Taylor experience at a little more affordable rate.

- Yeah, talk a little bit about tribute bands, 'cause I know the BCPA has a lot, and there's a lot that playing other venues around the area.

Are people willing to shell out the money for that, to see not the real person?

- Yeah, and it really depends on the tribute.

There's so many tributes.

You really have to do your homework to make sure you're getting a quality act to come to your venue, so that's part of it.

But you know, people love what they know.

So the tribute acts, where you kinda know what you're getting, you're hearing the hits.

And sometimes, to be honest, some of those tribute bands are just as good if not better than the actual band themselves.

But you just have to make sure you know which ones move and which one sells, 'cause I bet you Google it, and there's probably 1,000 tribute acts in the US.

So you know, like Queen.

We use One Night of Queen.

There's two Queen tributes that are phenomenal.

But there's also seven or eight others that you wanna make sure, you know what you're getting, 'cause if you book one of those, and people are paying 35, 40 bucks, and they show up, and they're like, "Well, that was karaoke."

So you do have to make sure you know who you're buying.

- You talked about Queen, The Beatles, Pink Floyd.

So many tribute acts.

I guess you do really have to do your homework, check out YouTube, and see if these guys are any good.

- Yeah, same thing with The Beatles.

There's two really, really good ones.

We had the show last summer, and they do a terrific job, but you also pay a little more for the tribute acts that are traveling nationally.

We had a Chris Stapleton tribute outside.

We have a First Friday concert series we do at the BCPA, and I mean, if you closed your eyes and didn't look onstage, you would think it was Chris Stapleton up there.

So they have some really, really good ones, so for the people who can't afford to go see Chris Stapleton at $150 a ticket, for $5 a person, you can come see the next best thing.

So it just gives people a chance to get out and still listen to their favorite artist, even if it isn't their favorite artist.

- Sure.

Well, the New Year's almost here.

Any big announcements coming up that we can look forward to?

- Yeah, we probably don't have any announcements.

Sesame Street was our last one of the year.

Kinda everybody goes on hiatus at the agencies between now and New Year's.

So we have Halestorm is doing an acoustic show at our theater on January 10th coming up.

That'll be the next show at the theater.

That one's sold out.

And then we have country star Ashley McBryde on the 23rd, a Thursday night.

There's about 200 tickets left to that one.

But we have a few more at the BCPA and a couple more at the Arena, kinda probably sometime mid-January we'll start announcing a few more.

- Dwight Yoakam's coming?

- Dwight Yoakam and Brantley Gilbert are both coming in March to the Arena.

So yeah, 49 Winchester is opening for Dwight Yoakum, and I've heard, I think, just as many people who were excited about them as Dwight.

But that's gonna be a fun show.

Brantley Gilbert always puts on a good show, and it's the Tattoo Tour, so all the tattooed people out there, if they drive by the billboard, I've had a bunch of females in the neighborhood ask, "Is he gonna wear his shirt onstage?

'Cause I like the picture on the billboard."

I said, "I can't comment one way or the other."

But the advertising's working.

- Yeah, the billboard's a good place for a selfie.

- Yeah.

- For sure.

If people had, do you take, in the music business, do you take requests?

Like if someone out there in the community says, "Hey, I'd love to see this person."

Do you?

- Yeah, I mean, there's always blind spots, right?

There's so many artists and entertainers that you just can't know 'em all.

So yeah, if you have an idea, shoot me an email, or drop by and say, "Hey, how about this person?"

Now sometimes, I do get about one Taylor Swift email a month.

You know, that's just not realistic.

It's not happening.

But you know, there's other artists that might be up and comers that you just haven't heard of yet.

Red Clay Strays, they ended up playing the Castle.

We kinda were bidding against them, kinda right as they were popping, and they just blew up on social media, and we both bid 'em.

But by the time they played the Castle, as soon as they were done, I got back to the agent, and was like, "Hey, they were awesome.

Would love to have them at the Arena."

They were like, "Well, now they're only gonna play outside standing room, and it looks like 10,000 seats or more."

And they went from the Castle to 10,000 seats in basically three months, 'cause social media's kinda changed the game, because artists and agents, they don't have to open for somebody for two or three years to get heard of.

They just, a few Facebook Reels or some TikToks, and they can blow up overnight.

- What acts, realistically, would you love to have at either the BCPA or the Arena?

- So kinda the one we've really been chasing is that big comedian who can do a full stage, 7,000 show at the Arena.

We've put in a lot of bids that kinda fit that realm, because comedy has sold so well, we think that would go great at the Arena.

At the BCPA, kinda looking for some of those medium sized comedians, or some traveling Broadway, that we might have a couple off dates where we can make an affordable Broadway show at the BCPA.

Those are ones we're always looking for.

- I'm a little surprised that comedians are doing so well considering all the streaming services have almost unlimited comedy acts.

Do you think it's because people really want that special moment with other people?

They wanna laugh with other people, not just their dog?

- Yeah, I think, yeah.

After COVID, I think everybody maybe listened to everything they had in their playlist, and they're like, I wanna see something new.

And with comedy, you get a different show, even if you've seen that comedian before, it's something you hadn't heard before.

Every show's a little bit different, and that interaction with other people sitting around you, is you can talk about, oh, that joke he or she told there, you can talk about that for months or years to come.

And I think just that engagement you get at a comedy show, I think people just kind of have yearned for that after COVID, where everybody listened to their playlist for two years at home.

They wanted something different.

- Yeah.

In recent years, both facilities have had improvements done.

We mentioned the BCPA's over 100 years old, and the Arena's, what, 15-ish?

- So yeah, in 2006, so getting on 20 years.

- 20 years, okay.

- Yeah.

- Any improvements that you see on the horizon that are gonna need to be made, or that you would like to see made?

- Yeah, so at the Arena, the HVAC, almost all those parts now are outdated, so a new system is starting to be installed.

The Bloomington Ice Center got their unit basically last week, so they're kinda finishing that one up, and they'll install the new units on the arena over the next, about, four to six months.

Just one of those needed things.

There's no parts anymore, and with people playing hockey in a big sheet of ice, you can't have it get too hot in there.

And then the ribbon boards have been out for a couple years.

Those hopefully will be installed here in the next two to three months.

At the BCPA, obviously 100 year old building, and it's a flat roof.

We have some roof improvements that are coming soon.

- Very good.

And just to wrap it up, again, these events come to the area, and we wanna make people happy, we wanna get them the shows they want.

Is there anything that the public can do besides purchase tickets, and support the events that are coming to make this a better thing for everyone?

- Yeah, I mean, probably the easiest thing everybody can do, even if it's a show you may not go to, like, I get it.

Not everybody has a thing for country, or comedy, or theater.

But sharing the events on Facebook, or bringing it up at your neighbor's house, and say, "Hey, I saw a show at the BCPA."

Or "Have you been to a Bison game yet?"

Just kinda word of mouth, and getting it out there that you don't have to travel to Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis.

There's plenty of good shows that either in your own town, or only 40 minutes away, and kinda support live entertainment.

- And save a little money, too.

- Exactly.

- On the ticket, the gas, food, everything else.

Well Anthony Nelson, again, is the Arts and Entertainment Director with the City of Bloomington.

Congratulations on the continued success with both venues, and we hope it continues.

- Thank you very much.

- All right, thank you.

And that is our time right now.

Thanks for joining us.

"You Gotta See This" is coming up next.

Check us out anytime on Facebook and Instagram, and at WTVP.org.

Have a good night.

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