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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1.a. 2015-09-02 CSE Minutes DraftCSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 1 of 7 MINUTES: DRAFT COMMISSION ON SPECIAL EVENTS MEETING Vail Town Council Chambers Wednesday, Sept 2, 2015 @ 8:30am CSE Members Present: Barry Davis Jeff Andrews Mark Gordon Rayla Kundolf Shenna Richardson Marco Valenti Alison Wadey Town of Vail Staff Present: Sybill Navas, Special Events Coordinator Kelli McDonald, Economic Development Manager Others Present: Laura Waniuk, Event Liaison Margaret Rogers, Vail Town Council Laurie Asmussen, Eagle Valley Events Todd Wallis, Vail Centre Ross Iverson, Vail Centre Missy Johnson, Highline Corinne Hara, Vail Centre Bobby Bank, Vail Info Sondra Perrig, VVP Brooke Skjonsby, Vail Resorts AGENDA: Meeting materials can be accessed after August 28 at the following link: http://65.38.144.10/WebLink8/0/fol/321730/Row1.aspx CSE Chair, Barry Davis, called the meeting to order at 8:32am Administrative Items a. Approval of the Minutes of the CSE’s Meeting on August 5, 2015  Motion to approve the minutes of the CSE Meeting, August 5, 2015, as presented. M/S/P: Kundolf/Gordon/Unanimous The motion passed 7-0 CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 2 of 7 b. Financial/Contract Overview: There was a recommendation by McDonald and Rogers to add attendance total for all events combined under attendance estimate column, in lieu of the average. Also add the median numbers for all columns, instead of and/or in addition to the average. Andrews suggested leaving the NPS column in, but not averaging or totaling it. Navas mentioned that the final payment has not been released to the GoPro Games due to outstanding sales tax owed by vendors. c. CSE Invite: “Thank You Luncheon” to honor the contributions of Rayla Kundolf and Margaret Rogers: October 7th following the CSE Meeting- Admin Conference Room, lunch by Yellowbelly? (Victory Lap Lunch) d. Application Deadlines and Interview Dates for CSE applicants: Interviews at Town Council Work Session on Tuesday, Dec.15th. Deadline for letters of interest due to the Town Clerk, Patty McKenny, by Friday, December 4th. CSE members whose terms expire on December 31, 2015 are: Rayla Kundolf (term limited), Jeff Andrews and Shenna Richardson. e. CSE Allocations for 2016 to be presented to Town Council at the evening meeting on Tuesday, December 1st. Please see revised meeting schedule in packets. f. Feedback on CSE’s memo regarding recommendation of a Cultural/Education Facility Rogers talked about the CSE facility center memo discussed during the “Information Update” portion of the Council meeting. The plan is to set up a work session with the CSE to identify what this project entails. Rogers continued that it was important to work on supporting evidence to provide to the Town Manager’s office. Also, the question came up about who are users, as well as frequency and type of use for a facility. There is a need to identify consistent users and what their financial commitment would be to the facility. McDonald stated that the Town Manager’s office would like further data that staff could compile. The project includes review of previous reports and studies identifying Vail Valley venues and comparative analysis of peer resort properties. Davis asked about how to proceed from the current plan. Rogers stated that it’s important to use the information provided by staff and to figure out what is feasible. Davis stated that the CSE needs to improve the narrative in terms of a community/multi-use facility. Andrews suggested that a 1, 3 and 5 year plan is a good solution. Andrews stated that the CSE would like to continue to be part of the conversation on this topic. Rogers said that Vail facility research needs to be conscious of the scale of the town vs. other facilities and locations. Navas referenced the history of the Ford Amphitheatre, which was reluctantly embraced by the Town of Vail when it was first built. There was general opinion that it was too far “out of town,” and would be too expensive to maintain, etc. Today we recognize that it is a major anchor of our summer economy, even though it is underutilized during some of the summer months. Historical data needs to be presented, including CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 3 of 7 existing facilities, such as Grand View and Donovan. Andrews mentioned that the CSE commitment to the Educational and Enrichment Events category shouldn’t be overlooked. g. Update on Council’s input at first TOV Budget Review on September 1st Navas provided a review of the decisions made at yesterday’s Town Council Work Session on the 2016 budget. • America’s Opening: Expanded Birds of Prey Vail Valley Foundation (VVF) Request: $175,000 Add Concert @ Solaris and Legends Race @ Golden Peak on 1st weekend in December (week before Snow Daze) Council Comments: $175K too expensive for a concert More impact for Beaver Creek Bruno and Bugby suggest: asking VVF to come give a pitch Final vote 3-3 – ends up as a “NO” but may change at a future discussion (Andy Daly was not present) • CSE Budget: 3% Increase Bugby comments that there are many in the community that believe we already have more events and more crowds than we need. Others in favor- looks like will pass. • Education/Enrichment Event Budget Request: $150,000 (Council members still referred to as Tier IV)Finance Director, Kathleen Halloran, explained how that number was derived, stating that she had been criticized for the original budget that was solely based on the amounts that were requested in year one. CSE was asked what they would recommend. Moffet says they would be better served to task CSE with “What would you do if you had the amount of $$ needed to attract/create a product consistent with the Vail Brand?” $150,000 isn’t going to deliver much impact. 1. What are we missing? What are our peer models? - a “World Class Think Tank” i.e. Aspen Institute example 2. CSE was requested to come in an explain what they have done with this category and to include: a. 2014 and 2015: Programming History b. History of funding c. Add memo on the EEE Development and Criteria d. Identify: What can $150,000 buy? CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 4 of 7 (Tuesday, September 15- Sybill and Kelli to prep documents for submittal by September 9th) Rogers expressed that she was surprised at the pushback by the Council on the Educational and Enrichment Events category programming budget at $150,000. Rogers continued that this category has never been clearly defined in the past. The Town of Vail Mission Statement includes educational reference and thus the town should follow through with it. She suggested that there is a need to market the Educational and Enrichment Event funding opportunity to get more applicants. For the next review on the budget in October, Rogers volunteered Davis to come in and speak to the council about clarifying the how the fund has been utilized. This will help council to feel more comfortable with allocating $150,000 to the fund. McDonald stated that staff has been tasked with what was funded and what was the programming and results. Staff will pull those from the recaps from 2014 and the ones from 2015 thus far. This reports needs to be completed in time for the September 15 council meeting. The request is to identify peer models that the CSE could emulate or use as an example. McDonald said that the VEAC meeting was confusing for some of the attendees because the communication wasn’t clear about what the facility could potentially become. Rogers stated that the council delegated to the CSE to work through some of these questions. McDonald said that it’s important to show the council the successes of the Educational and Enrichment Events category. Rogers said that leadership is the key to the success of the organizations that have been funded. Davis wants to review an action plan to meet with staff to identify information needed for the next council Work Session on September 15, between 1:00-4:00pm. Rogers mentioned that the funding to the VVF Birds of Prey America’s Opening event for $175,000 did not get approved by the council by a vote of 3-3. McDonald stated that the main concern of the council was the concerts on back to back weekends when Snow Daze tried it in 2014 it split attendance and didn’t increase visitation numbers, and that Beaver Creek, as the host community of the World Cup races, stands to gain the most benefit. Event Liaison Marketing Update: Laura Waniuk • Vail Valley Cup – please see presentation in the supporting documents Event Recaps – please see documents in Laserfiche for detailed recaps. Vail America Days- Highline, Missy Johnson There was a strong focus on tradition for this year’s event. Volvo came on board as a sponsor. There was lots of youth involvement and relevancy with the parade theme, anchored by the participation of Mikaela Shiffrin. Pepi and Sheika Gramshammer were well received as Grand Marshals. Operations were enhanced by working with the ERC closely. There is opportunity for more sponsor partnerships for the events. Working with local retailers will be a focus next year. Gordon said he thought that the event was great and fireworks were fabulous too. Timing of the fireworks show was good and well-received. Gordon stated that there are some public safety issues with candy distribution. He was concerned that the kids were CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 5 of 7 going to get run over by floats because the candy was dropped or handed off the floats. Kundolf missed the Stomp kids this year. Navas said that candy is really tough to clean up; public works has to take care of this. Vail Arts Festival- Eagle Valley Events, Laurie Asmussen Asmussen was pleased with the attendance, which was up 8% over last year. They are identifying which categories that compete too much with LH businesses, such as fiber, and will limit that genre in future festivals. They increased the number of artists to 95, but LH is at capacity. They want a great experience for everyone; feel that 75 to 80 is a better number of artists at that site. New configuration of bus stop opened up more space. Navas asked about the possibility of using part of LH Circle towards Dobson Arena. Asmussen replied that she does not like to take the buses out of LH, and that there are challenges with traffic accessing the condominiums along that section of road. Andrews suggested that there might be an expansion to the top deck of the LH parking structure. Wadey reported receiving feedback from guests who would love to have that event time extended to later in the afternoon/early evening. Rogers commented that she thought the improvement in artists was great. Andrews recommended identifying the concerns with the survey. Navas noted that since the Vail Arts Festival received just $10,000 in funding, Asmussen’s survey was not conducted by RRC, the contractor hired by the CSE to survey all of the events that received more than $10,000 in funding. Asmussen contracts with a different company, which explains some of the incongruities reflected in the results. She explained that they had been conducting surveys for her event for 5 years and didn’t want to lose the continuity of the data. Vail Leadership Institute: Applied Leadership Series Hara gave an overview on this first year event. There are 6 events in this series with diverse programs. They build on events that bring speaker and audience together. Speaker perspective is to make it more of a storytelling format. There were 428 participants at the 6 events. There was some inconsistency with the survey results as the VLI had used their own survey at a couple of the early events, and then sent out the RRC survey for the remaining events... The questions in the RRC survey were not targeted to the type of audience that participated, as it was almost exclusively local residents and employees. Navas noted that in the coming year, we may want to look at revising the survey questions for the Education/Enrichment Events to reflect the difference in funding criteria from the Cultural, Recreation and Community Events. Navas added that several of the Town of Vail staff attended the events and enjoyed their experience. Local businesses are affiliated, as are CMC and other educational organizations. Hara reviewed the marketing tactics and how they are split between digital and traditional media. Kundolf asked about venue use and the budget for the rentals of the venue. They held 5 events at Donovan and one at the Grand View. These were provided at a reduced rate by Town of Vail in-kind contributions. Vail Valor Races- by email Staff did not receive this recap in time for inclusion in the meeting documents. CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 6 of 7  Motion to approve the final funding disbursements for Vail America Days and the Vail Leadership Institute: Applied Leadership Series M/S/P: Kundof/Wadey/Unanimous The motion passed 7-0 NPS discussion Andrews reviewed the definition of NPS and how the numbers impact the overall perception of the event performance. NPS scores drop about 20% if the surveys are distributed over email post-event and not in person. Andrews asked to have RRC come discuss their process and methodology for the surveys at next month’s CSE meeting. McDonald confirmed she would request that. Valenti stated that it should be noted when the survey switches from an in person to email survey in order to understand methodology changes. Review CSE procedures for evaluation of RFP’s for 2016 events: Staff • Wednesday, November 4th: 8:30am-5:30pm at the Antlers in Lionshead • Wednesday, November 11th: 8:30am-3:30pm at the Antlers in Lionshead Navas explained how the process works and expectations for the CSE. Scoring sheets will need to be returned to staff by noon on Thursday, Nov. 5. The score sheet results from Nov. 4 meeting are not final at that time, but rather will provide a base line for sharing of opinions and debate that leads to the final decisions which will be made on November 11th. A spreadsheet combining everyone’s input will be provided as the worksheet for that discussion. Gordon stated that the point total is just one data point, along with subjective process and historical experience that also contribute to the final decisions. Andrews asked if there could be time on the agenda in October to discuss the methodology and tips for the funding process. Davis said that it’s a good idea to be polarizing when scoring RFP’s in that first meeting, as it stimulates productive discussion. Navas added that there is one application form for both event categories and the producer will self select which category they believe that they belong in. The CSE will have the ability to move them into a different category if they feel the criteria is a better match, however the budget for funding cannot be transferred between the Entertainment/Enrichment events and the Cultural/Recreation/Community events. Review of strategic points from VLMDAC and how to apply to the CSE’s RFP review: Staff Please see presentation provided in the meeting materials. Navas and McDonald reviewed the marketing objectives of the VLMDAC and CSE. McDonald explained in shift of age group to 25-54, which will also capture ages 55- 65. Kundolf stated that it’s important to include information about off peak seasons and lower ADR which could also support a multi-use facility. McDonald stated that it shows the alignment between the CSE and VLMDAC. New Business and Community Input Iverson from VLI said they are expanding on the brand Vail Centre. He also asked if the CSE could move the event from Recreation and Cultural to Education and CSE Minutes Regular Meeting: September 2, 2015 Page 7 of 7 Enrichment category. The answer is yes. The VLI 2016 event will be incubated and be a step in between the larger event in 2017. VLI plans to focus on investor events in the next few months and they are still interested in purchasing Treetops.  Motion to adjourn meeting at 10:25 M/S/P: Kundolf/Valenti/Unanimous The motion passed 7-0 Next CSE Meeting: Wednesday, October 7, 2015 @ 8:30am Vail Town Council Chambers