Here is an absolutely fascinating bit of reality from CRVA honcho Tim Newman on the topic of the France Family Convention Center Annex aka the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I have to assume that because it is ESPN doing the reporting, we get an altogether different spin on the sputtering HOF than we have gotten locally:
“I admit we were wrong,” said Tim Newman, the chief executive of the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority that headed the city’s effort to get the shrine. “We should not have been talking in those numbers. Because it was a public competition you had those numbers out there. We were trying to win the business.”
“I was not as concerned about the validity of those numbers at that time.”
Newman and the CRVA are in the process of re-estimating attendance for the fiscal year that began in July. He hopes attendance will be between 250,000 and 300,000 on the low end, significantly higher if the economy turns around.
In other words Newman knew that the 800K number was pure BS and didn’t care — and now he is back where we are with reality, a figure of 300,000 attendees at most. But there is more:
There also are several local promotions in the works that, if successful in increasing local attendance, could make the budget cuts less severe, Newman said.
“The fact of the matter is, if we had a poor product I’d be very concerned,” Newman said. “We have a great product and people love it. We just have to get the right number coming.” … the NASCAR Hall research company that helped come up with the 800,000 estimate was hoping to come closer to the approximate 1 million the Country Music Hall and Rock and Roll Hall drew in their first years.
Both have since dropped to 350,000-450,000 annually, with the Rock and Roll hall drawing 373,604 paid in 2009.
Newman said those figures were used because the NASCAR Hall wanted to promote itself as an entertainment facility as much as a museum.
“The best way to characterize it was deal envy,” Newman said. “When you’re in competition with somebody else for an attraction you start talking about numbers that are just projections and before the facility is designed.”
Charlotte was contending with Richmond, Daytona Beach, Atlanta and Kansas for the Hall. According to published reports, Atlanta estimated 1 million in first-year attendance and Daytona Beach 500,000.
Charlotte’s estimate when the search was narrowed to three cities was down to 400,000, with officials calling the number conservative.
“Bottom line, all were guesses,” Newman said. “You can’t change things in the past. If you could, [estimated attendance] is the one thing we would.”
Unbelievable. He just admitted that once ATL went to 1 million, the Uptown crowd jumped to 800K without any factual basis to do so. This means that every financial statement the HOF has produced up until this point is wholly fraudulent.
Several questions suggest themselves:
- Did Newman tell the Charlotte city council that he was using an inflated, PR generated number all these years?
- Can the HOF operate on annual revenue of $5m. to $6m. — the projected take from a 300K audience?
- How will other CRVA-operated venues be impacted by this newly revealed reality?
This bit of truth must represent some sort of closure for the Uptown crowd. There must be no more Uptown attractions on the Uptown wish-list, certainly nothing that requires making any kind of performance claims. They must have thrown in the towel on Uptown baseball.
In any event, know this for certain, from this point forward there is no reason to believe a word Tim Newman says.
