- October 12, 2024
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Could more live entertainment be coming to the Ocean Center in the near future?
The Volusia County Council voted 6-1 at its meeting on Tuesday, April 4, to let staff implement different booking model for events at the Ocean Center. Councilman Danny Robins voted against.
“I’m really excited about us offering something more at the Ocean Center than what currently is there, especially for our residents and then our visitors alike,” said Councilman Troy Kent, who brought the issue to the council after including it in his campaign platform.
Staff presented the council with four booking model proposals, with the first being its current “virtually zero risk” model, where the event promoter receives only the net proceeds from the ticket sales while the Ocean Center keeps other revenues generated from the event, such as food and beverage sales and ticket fees.
“This model, again, is not getting a lot of traction out there in the live entertainment world,” Ocean Center Director Tim Riddle said. “That’s why we’re here before you to talk about other flexible options, if you will, or options that will give us more tools in our tool belt as we seek to broaden our horizons and bring more concerts back into the venue.”
The second option adds a promoter rebate, where the promoter would receive a negotiated amount of money per ticket sold.
The other two options presented to the council were co-promotion models, where all revenues would be split between the promoter and the Ocean Center. One option would dictate that the promoter would bear any losses after revenues, while in the other co-promotion model, the Ocean Center and the promoter would share the losses, with a negotiated $25,000 cap, as proposed by the County Council.
Riddle said that the promoter rebate has gained more interest in conversations with promoters “because it’s clean,” but that staff would like access to the other booking model options.
“You have to more than just dip our toe back in that world,” Riddle said. “We have been told consistently as well, it’s not a one-off kind of game. If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to be willing to do this several times to let the world know that Ocean Center is back in the concert or the live entertainment business.”
