HomeMy WebLinkAbout3. 12-02-2014 CSE Memo to Town Council
To: Vail Town Council
From: Commission on Special Events
Date: December 2, 2014
Subject: In the meeting packets, the CSE has provided a spreadsheet outlining Special
Events and Tier IV proposals that were approved for funding in 2015.
Action Requested: The CSE requests the Town Council’s approval of the 2015 Special
Event Funding and Tier IV Category: Life Long Learning allocations, as presented.
Overview of Event Effectiveness – Measurement Tools:
In 2012, in response to questions with respect to the validity and/or methodology of data
presented by each individual event producer an Economic Impact Study of all 2012
events was undertaken. The results were felt to fall short in the area of event
attendance – a key variable as it relates to bottom line economic impact. This is
because different event producers utilize different methodologies to report attendance,
thus rendering the data not comparable, and in some cases not reliable. The CSE
requested funding from the Town Council in 2013 to contract for a follow-up evaluation
that would develop methodology to measure this function ourselves, and provide the
CSE, and therefore the Town of Vail, accountability for this key data. It will have the
added benefit of allowing our producers to focus entirely on event development,
marketing and execution, both operationally and financially. The results of these two
initiatives continue to provide an excellent base measurement of the economic impacts
contributed by special events.
The fundamental on-going tools now consist of monthly and bi-weekly DestiMetrics
reports, Sales Tax data, the on-going Intercept studies providing both qualitative and
quantitative data for individual events, the two year Economic Impact Study conducted
by RRC, parking data, as well as keeping our finger on the pulse of the
merchant/hotelier/restaurateur community.
In addition, the ‘scorecard’ and its support tools such as the ‘marketing ch ecklist’ are
now structured to be more dynamically employed tools. Less obviously, quantitative
measures such as brand strength, marketing expertise, media leverage, and
community integration continue to be monitored and measured against established
objectives.
12/02/2014 CSE 2015 Funding Summary Page 2
Independent, 3rd Party Surveys:
All events receiving public funding are required to submit a post-event recap
summarizing the event’s strengths and weaknesses, contributions to the Vail economy
and community benefits. The CSE continues to be challenged by data that is
inconsistently reported from one event to another. As a result, the board has decided to
take over the collection of recap data for all events funded at greater than $10,000 and
has set aside $50,000 of the event budget for that purpose. The CSE proposes to
contract with RRC, as an extension of the event evaluation analysis described above.
This will provide ongoing, independent 3rd party research based on a common
denominator methodology.
The funding process for 2015 events continued to be based upon the more structured,
rigorous and objective strategies developed over the last two years. Hard decisions
were again made utilizing refined criteria and supported by measurement tools as
described above and under-performing events were eliminated.
The CSE believes this is a strong calendar of events that will continue to drive
increased results.
2014 Successes:
In light of the CSE’s continuing commitment to provide additional consideration to
events proposed for Lionshead, the Colorado Grand stood out once again as an event
that delivered strong economic benefit to the Lionshead business community. The Vail
Summer Bluegrass Series will return in 2015 following its enthusiastically received
debut season that established a new Wednesday night series based on the successful
Thursday night Jazz at Vail Square series. A significant cost benefit was realized by
sharing the tent in Arrabelle over both nights. The Top Shelf Harvest event,
highlighting Colorado spirits and local chefs, debuted to rave reviews and kicked off the
2nd highly successful year for Vail/Beaver Creek Restaurant Week. Working with the
Vail Valley Theater Company, it created a fun speakeasy atmosphere on a late
September afternoon in Lionshead.
New and Exciting for 2015:
FIPS Mouche World Youth Fly Fishing Championships will make their American
debut in August, and are the preview to the World Fly Fishing Championships
that will be hosted in Vail in 2016.
Capitalizing on the new Ford Park athletic fields, the annual Kick-It 3 v 3 Soccer
event will double in size from a “regional” invitational event to a National
Championship.
Vail Outlier MTB Festival: An enduro mountain bike race in late September will
take place on Vail Mountain and will be accompanied by a weekend long world
class cycling expo and demo village.
Major Road Bike initiative for 2016
TIER IV Category- Life Long Learning: In their first year of reviewing this new
category, CSE members were uniformly impressed by the potential of this group of
12/02/2014 CSE 2015 Funding Summary Page 3
applications. They noted that the budget for this new initiative seemed somewhat
arbitrarily set at the amount that was requested in 2013, and felt it to be inadequate to
deliver the ambitious programming that was proposed.
CSE members noted a strong synergy between several of the groups and observed that
there exists opportunity for them to work cooperatively to provide the community with
extraordinary opportunities focusing on mind, body and soul that contribute to a higher
quality of life and experience for both guests and residents.