Anyone looking for good news in the report from Greensboro Coliseum Manager Matt Brown at the City Council work session on Tuesday, Jan. 19 was disappointed.
Brown who is always upbeat and full of ideas, reported that the estimated deficit for the Coliseum Complex including the Tanger Center for the Performing Arts would be about $7.5 million.
Brown said the Coliseum had to cancel or postpone over 1,000 events since the pandemic shut down started in the middle of March, 2020.
He said that included 250 events at The Tanger that “we would have loved to have happen.”
The shut down came a day before The Tanger was set to open, which means not a single full scale event has ever been held at Greensboro’s new $90 million performing arts center.
And Brown had more bad financial news, because The Tanger has never been open and has no financial history to prove that it has lost revenue because of the pandemic, it is not eligible for any of the federal COVID relief money that has been made available.
But he added, “We have a team committed to pursue any and all relief we can get from the federal government.”
Brown reiterated that it did not make financial sense to open The Tanger or the Coliseum before they could operate at full occupancy.
He also noted that while they have been closed both The Tanger and the Coliseum have been outfitted with state of the art air filtration systems and that expenses had been restricted to maintaining the physical plant, security and service contracts.
Brown said the Coliseum Complex was currently operating with over 24 vacant positions.
Brown said that the Coliseum was still holding dates in April, May and June for state, regional and national youth sporting events that have traditionally attracted a large number of participants as well as families and friends.
Brown said that despite the pandemic that Broadway season ticket sales for The Tanger remained extremely strong with over 16,000 season ticket holders and a 99 percent retention rate.
I’m sure they’re also writing off a huge in-kind contribution for using the space for Covid-19 related lectures, testing, and vaccine distribution. Mama didn’t raise no fool.
What do you expect? They couldn’t have events there by law. The Coliseum isn’t the only one that lost money this year….so did tons of businesses. This shows how critical the Coliseum is to the tax base. It also shows why Matt Brown is valuable to the City. We’re it not for Covid, the Coliseum would be as usual, the largest money maker in town and one of the reasons they don’t raise our taxes. Look for a big tax hike this year. Our elected officials don’t have the foresight to plan for future needs.
bingo!
The largest money maker in town did you say? The coliseum loses money EVERY year. We should rename the street in front of it Bendover Avenue!
I’m glad Trump was not in charge!!!!!! If he had been all we would be hearing was what a big Liar he was and how incompetent he would have been .But since we have one of the good Dems running the colesieum there will no chastisement of not making money at this time.Sometimes it makes sense to keep your mouth shut or open it and remove all doubt.The Dems went after Trump for 4years to destroy him Then when it’s time for Trump to leave office the go after him again.How stupid can one group be.The Dems cannot remove him from office anymore.Just what can those folks do??????
Yes. Have you noticed the about face of CNN the past few days? The same things they have berated Trump for are all of a sudden a Biden miracle. What a bunch of lies they intentionally feed the sheeple. Most media platforms banning free speech and make up their own truths.