Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412120016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WHAT PRICE does Roanoke pay to have ice hockey? You probably will recognize their names.
Sorry, music fans.
Next March could have been special. Instead, it will be just another dreary winter month of ice hockey.
Not that there's anything wrong with hockey. Hockey is fine. But let's face it, the Roanoke Express is no Tom Petty or Amy Grant.
Both of them had to be turned away from Roanoke, however, because of hockey.
"That's the nature of our business," explained Bob Chapman, manager of the Roanoke Civic Center, where the Express will play all 37 of its home games this season.
When the civic center already is booked for an event - like hockey - and a concert promoter calls wanting to book a show on the same night, well, that's tough luck.
Hockey comes first.
The concert goes elsewhere.
And cha-ching, Bob Chapman sees potential revenue going to another city.
That is what happened with rock act Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and with pop/Christian contemporary singer Amy Grant.
Both are superstars in their respective genres of music. Arguably, Tom Petty, who has never performed in Roanoke, would have been the biggest concert act to come here since Guns N' Roses played here in 1993 or The Grateful Dead stopped here in 1987.
Petty typically would not play a venue like Roanoke's because of its relatively small seating capacity of 11,000. But occasionally, marquee names like Petty or Guns N' Roses will look to secondary concert markets like Roanoke for so-called "fill" dates. These fill dates often are added to a concert tour when a performer has an empty date to fill between stops in larger markets.
For example, maybe Tom Petty had concerts booked for Friday in Washington, D.C., and for Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., and needed to book a Saturday show somewhere in between.
Only he ran into hockey.
"I hate to turn down any concert that's going to bring a lot of revenue to the city," Chapman said.
Big concerts, like Petty or Grant, can generate $20,000 to $35,000 for the civic center through the rent on the building, a portion of the ticket sales, parking fees, concessions and T-shirt sales.
"The concert business is our bread and butter," Chapman said.
By contrast, a good hockey night generates around $10,000 for the civic center.
Not that Chapman is knocking hockey. "Obviously, I think hockey is a good piece of business," he said.
Attendance is averaging about 4,500 people per home game. Plus, hockey guarantees 37 nights that the building is in use when it could just as easily be dark, particularly during slow concert years or during the middle of the week, when there usually are few bookings anyway.
The trade-off always is a tough issue, Chapman said. There are approximately 250,000 people living in the Roanoke Valley. But for large events, the civic center draws people from a 100-mile radius, a population area of 3 million people.
What events best serve such a large number of people? Is it hockey, with its small core of fans? Or is it more concerts, which also appeal only to specific audiences? That is the tough question that all municipal civic centers face.
For music fans, the answer is easy.
"Oh no. Oh no. Oh my God," said a shocked and dismayed Sam Giles when told that Tom Petty passed Roanoke because of hockey. "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Giles, morning host on rock radio station WROV-FM, is a big Petty fan.
"I wish he was my dad," he said.
He echoed the sentiments of many rock fans. He fears now that Petty never will consider playing Roanoke again.
``He's probably like, `They blew me off for hockey? Please!''' he said.
"This a faux pas of catastrophic proportions.
"It's horribly disappointing."
Giles was on a roll.
"Come on! Couldn't we freeze the parking lot and let them play out there?
"If I owned the Express, I'd take an L in the loss column to see Petty."
Roanoke Express owner John Gagnon apparently wouldn't sacrifice a win for "Even The Losers" (one of Petty's songs) as Giles suggested.
"He can run his radio station. I'll run the hockey club," Gagnon said.
Tom Petty and Amy Grant can come the other 328 days out of the year.
And although hockey may not bring in the revenue like concerts, money isn't always the bottom line, added hockey booster and City Councilman Mac McCadden.
"The civic center is there to serve everybody. It's not a money-making facility. That's why it's a civic center. The reason it's there is to serve the entire citizenry of the area."
Besides, McCadden said, the Express competes for open dates at the civic center like any other event - on a strictly first come, first served basis. The only advantage is that hockey can start scheduling dates a year or more in advance.
Most concert acts do not have that luxury.
In the end, Chapman said nobody should blame hockey completely. He said there are dozens of potential concerts the civic center turns away each year because some other event is already booked, such as trade shows, even other concerts.
Or professional wrestling.
For example, remember the World Championship Wrestling match at the civic center back on Sept.18?
Well, sorry, Eagles fans. A concert promoter for the Eagles reunion tour had inquired about the same date. It was taken.
"It would have been lovely," Chapman said dreamily, the dollar signs lighting up his eyes. "It would have been lovely."
Cha-ching.
by CNB