Lexington, KY - Carl Hall says the philosophy at Rupp Arena is pretty simple. "We treat every show as our own," said Hall, the director of arena management.
Hall schedules all the events that come into Rupp, renting Lexington's premier entertainment facility to promoters of everything from the Black Eyed Peas to the Incredible Food Show.
And while the promoters assume all the risk when they rent Rupp, Hall and his staff "do our best to assist every promoter," he said.
"If the promoter makes money, we make money," Hall said. And if the promoter makes money, "the promoter comes back over and over again."
With the economy and changes in the music industry making it harder for promoters to turn a profit, the expertise of Hall and his staff becomes more essential. The Rupp staff helps promoters with advertising buys and its own promotional resources, such as its Facebook page. The timing and type of act can make a big difference in where and how it is pushed. A country act on a weekend can draw people from Pikeville to Bowling Green. A college-oriented music act will likely draw from a smaller geographic area, but it can draw well even on a weekday.
"You have to know who's your audience and where do you put your money," Hall said.
Hall also knows his competition: primarily U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati and Freedom Hall in Louisville. The buildings are roughly the same size and had been about the same age until the new Freedom Hall opened last year. Rupp is still a little larger, but the biggest difference is the nature of the markets.
"We have the largest building and the smallest market of the three," Hall said.
Hall said there will be a "honeymoon period" for the new Freedom Hall, which will help attract fans and perhaps a few more top acts, but after a year or so, he expects it will be back to "an even playing field" among the three.
Being smaller does have a certain advantage in a rural state such as Kentucky, Hall said. Some Kentuckians look at Louisville and the Cincinnati metro areas as "the Big City," conjuring up images of traffic jams and crime victims. But Lexington is what Hall refers to as "the Big Town," and some people prefer it, even if it means driving a little farther.
Beyond that, Hall called Lexington a "very friendly Big Town," adding that many people will turn a weekend event into an all-day excursion.
"On the weekend, our draw is much wider," Hall said. "People don't mind going to the Big Town. We are a viable, strong market."
But there is no doubt that the economy and shifts within the music industry are making the jobs of arena managers and concert promoters more challenging. As the economy nosedived, the effects were harder on major metro areas and boom states than in Lexington. Hall said the hope was that the Lexington could ride out the downturn and that the economy would pick up before Rupp felt any serious side effects. But the economic struggles have continued, especially in the areas of unemployment, or for those who have found jobs, a cut in pay.
In this economy, Hall said family acts have more staying power, because parents are more likely to cut a night out for themselves before they skip an outing for the kids. For example, this year the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which recently made its annual visit to Rupp, regained what little drop there was in 2009. In contrast, major pop concert tours have been taking a beating.
Live Nation, the largest concert tour promoter in the United States, lost $36.4 million in the three-month period that ended June 30. The number of concerts staged by Live Nation in the second quarter fell by 2.7 percent to 5,553 from the same period a year ago, and attendance was off by 5.7 percent. The company's revenue - including from Ticketmaster operations - was down $135.6 million.
Rupp has been a stop for major Live Nation concerts in the past, but Hall said one prevailing theory in the industry is that Live Nation and AEG, the second largest concert promoter, will concentrate their efforts on the top 40 U.S. markets, likely leaving out Lexington and Rupp Arena.
The concert attendance drop also means fewer artists out on tour, which also will make it harder to bring in as many concerts as Rupp has had in the past. Hall said the artists that typically play clubs such as Buster's in Lexington are more likely to stay on the road.
"While club acts will tour just for the exposure, the arena industry is dropping off," Hall said.
But Hall is confident that the versatility of Rupp Arena and the expertise of the staff will keep it competitive.
Rupp uses drapes to cut down the size of the arena, so acts that expect to draw smaller crowds will still have that festive concert feeling. And when an act draws better than expected, Hall can start pulling drapes to make seats available without having to move the stage and change the location of seats already sold. One show went from offering 3,500 seats initially to selling 7,500.
He also has flexibility in being able to book different types of acts on consecutive nights. One Rupp weekend had country star George Strait on a Friday night, then tons of dirt trucked in for a monster truck show on Saturday, only to truck the dirt out again before a University of Kentucky basketball game on Sunday.
"I can book them as tight as I want," Hall said.
Speaking of UK, the university has a lease to play in Rupp Arena until the end of the 2017-18 season. A plan for a new home for UK basketball neighboring Rupp Arena was floated about the time the economy started to tank.
Cecil Dunn, chairman of the board of Lexington Center Corporation, which oversees Rupp, said plans are "basically all within the studying area," and that the economy "put a damper on everybody's going forward."
But he said there is still plenty of time to makes those plans happen by the end of the lease. Hall said he looks forward to working with UK until the end of the lease and in "the long term." And UK basketball is a great rock to lean on in tough economic times, accounting for about 50 percent of total Rupp attendance last year.
"We are very proud to be a part of UK basketball," Hall said.
But as Hall pointed out, even if UK plays 20 home games in a season, "there are 345 other nights we do stuff here. You name it, we do it."