Six months ahead of its expected grand opening, the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center is under roof — and it might get a new name.
How potential concert-goers felt about the venue’s name was one of the many findings that Jane Ellis, executive director of the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau, presented to the Maple Leaf Management Group last week.
Over the winter, 620 people in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville were surveyed to gauge their interest in the 2,000-seat music venue and Brown County, what they thought about the name “Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center,” and whether or not they’d stay the night here if they came to a show.
Seventy percent said they would stay overnight in Brown County either before or after an event at the Maple Leaf. That’s music to the management group’s ears.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“If you have a head in a bed, then you have people walking around either before the concert or the next day, shopping, having breakfast, looking and planning their next trip,” said Maple Leaf Executive Director Dana Beth Evans.
Visitors staying overnight is important because the innkeepers tax is the backup revenue source to pay the Maple Leaf’s mortgage in case it doesn’t make enough on its own. Innkeepers tax is a 5-percent tax paid by any visitor who stays in a rental or hotel room in Brown County.
Sundown at Salt Creek?
One of the biggest takeaways from the survey came in the ranking of possible names and taglines for the venue.
Of those surveyed, 30 percent preferred the venue name “Sundown at Salt Creek” with the tagline “Indiana’s live music destination.”
The second-highest preference was “The Brown County Soundstage” with the tagline “Music is our nature,” which received 18 percent of the vote.
Fifteen percent preferred “Maple Leaf Music Center” with the tagline “Music comes naturally.”
Only 13 percent of those surveyed preferred the name “Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center.” Ellis said some people have told her that it “sounds old.”
Some of the reasons survey participants gave for why they liked Sundown at Salt Creek were that it was the most “catchy” name out of them all; it’s easy to say; and it paints a picture of a beautiful, peaceful setting.
One of the problems with “Maple Leaf” is that online searches for those words bring up maple syrup and the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. “With Sundown at Salt Creek, we have a better opportunity of owning that,” Ellis said.
“We have a reputation for rolling up the sidewalks at night. It (Sundown at Salt Creek) does lend to coming for the evening to do something.”
She said there’s an association with Salt Creek already in Brown County with places like the Salt Creek Golf Retreat, the Salt Creek Trail, Salt Creek Winery and the Salt Creek Brewery.
The marketing company that did the survey recommended that they consider either “Sundown at Salt Creek: Brown County’s live music destination,” or “Maple Leaf Music Center: Brown County’s live music destination.”
Barry Herring, co-president of the Maple Leaf Management Group, had concerns about changing the venue name now.
Management group members have met with a representative from Klipsch Audio Technologies to talk about selling naming rights to the entire venue, and if that happens, the name may be changed again before it opens.
“I start to wonder, will people be thinking, ‘Gosh, are they building three venues down there? Two venues down there?’” Herring said.
Management group member Jim Schultz was in on the meeting with Klipsch. “We would also be irresponsible as a board if we didn’t pursue that, only because of what it does to our overall profitability,” he said.
“I personally don’t think a name change right now would be bad,” Ellis said. “But I think moving forward, we have to decide … unless they’re going to be really, really big naming rights, are we going to change the name or are we going to keep the name with presented by … so and so.”
Herring said other venues, like Ruoff Home Mortgage Center and Bankers Life Fieldhouse, were not able to keep their original name in the sale of naming rights. He didn’t expect this venue to be successful in doing so either.
Herring said he liked the name, “Sundown at Salt Creek,” but he wished the group would have had this conversation six months ago.
“We’re talking a limited (marketing) budget,” Ellis said.
“I’ve heard, ‘Why Maple Leaf?’ We know why; we see the theme of leaves through town. … But when you have to explain that to people where they don’t immediately resonate with the name, that’s more explaining, more marketing dollars.”
Herring asked Schultz if he and Harden could meet with Klipsch again about naming rights and how long it would take for the company to go out and find a corporation to buy the rights.
“If they say it’s going to take a year, well that’s one thing. If it’s a month, that’s another. I would be more comfortable changing the name if I knew that the ultimate corporate naming rights were farther out,” Herring said.
The name change decision was tabled until the board’s meeting this week. Members Diana Biddle, Darren Byrd and Mike Lafferty were not at the meeting last week.
Coming soon
Despite the cold weather and rain, construction on the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center is still on track to be done in time for a grand opening this summer, Schultz said last week. He’s the construction committee chairman.
Crews are working on completing the roof now along with work inside, like installing the timber frame in the lobby.
The tentative on-sale date for the grand opening show in August is April 9, Evans said. The plan is to try to have a three-month window between the show date and the time tickets go on sale “so that you have time to get your calendars, make dates and make hotel reservations then stay the night in Brown County,” Evans said.
The venue plans to have “soft openings” in July, then the grand opening in August. The opening act will be announced about a week or two before tickets go on sale in April, Evans said.
A contract has been signed with national booking agency Live Nation which will provide the venue with a list of 70 national acts. The management group is contractually obligated to purchase 26 of those shows.
Evans said the plan is to bring a variety of genres to play here, including jazz and folk music, which ranked lower in the survey results for genres preferred. There is also a plan to bring in programs for children, too.
Thirty-nine percent of the people surveyed said they’d attended a country music concert in the past; the other top contenders were rock/classic rock, “oldies” rock and pop/Top 40.
Shows will happen in the evening, around 7 p.m., and also during the week, Evans said.
Evans will be allowed to make the decision to book acts that will cost up to $30,000. The financial review committee and Evans will approve acts that cost between $30,000 and $75,000. Acts that cost more than $75,000 will be approved by Evans, the management group’s finance committee and the financial review committee.
The management group also approved job descriptions for a marketing manager, box office staff and the technical director. Evans said she hopes to have a marketing manager on board by the end of February or beginning of March.
The venue will employ four full-time people to start with. When the venue is at maximum capacity, that will increase to eight, Evans said.
Depending on the show, as many as 50 part-time workers could be employed to help put on the show and work backstage. The box office will also employ four part-time people who will work when the office is open.
Evans said she is looking at what other local businesses pay to keep in line with them and stay within budget.
Off-duty police officers will also be hired to help direct traffic before and after shows, Schultz reported at the Nashville Redevelopment Commission meeting last week.
In addition, Evans said around 50 volunteers would be needed to help make a sold-out show happen. Anyone interested in volunteering can visit browncounty.com/mapleleaf and go to the volunteer section to fill out an application.
“Volunteers are always going to be an important part and they will get certain perks, Evans said. Those include watching shows for free and getting extra tickets to shows as they volunteer more.
Despite some unexpected expenses, Evans said the project is staying within its contingency budget.
Now that construction is underway and will soon be wrapping up, Evans said the next step will be to steer the management group toward focusing on operations.
“Barry has done an outstanding job with the budgets, because he had created an operations budget for when the place went in, but it’s not as detailed as we need,” Evans said. “We’re going to be taking that and moving some numbers around and making that work.”
The management group is also expected to sign a contract with Ticketmaster to sell tickets. That deal includes a $110,000 signing bonus that Herring negotiated up from $50,000. It also includes a $100,000 advance on ticket fees that will be replenished once it’s paid back in fees from selling tickets. That money will go into the venue’s operations fund to help pay employees and other expenses.
Local partnerships
Anyone, including locals, who buys tickets at the venue’s box office will not have to pay Ticketmaster fees.
“It’s very important for us to make sure that the local folks get first options and have the best they can have, because we realize this is not an elite community and the local folks live here; they need to be able to go here as well,” Evans said.
Evans said the hope is to work with local restaurants to see if they will stay open after a show lets out.
“(We can say to restaurants) ‘We have this concert on Thursday night. We have 1,500 tickets sold. You might want to stay open later than your regular hours.’ Then I can turn around and announce from the stage, ‘This concert should be over by 10 p.m. These restaurants are staying open,’” she said.
The management group is also talking with three different concession vendors. The concession vendor will hold the liquor license. After that vendor is picked, the hope is to sell the naming rights for the venue’s beer garden, and the goal is to have that company’s beer sold through the concession vendor.
Early in the planning process, it was promised that the venue would not compete with local restaurants, and that hasn’t changed, Evans said.
“This is more of a thing where they can come and a have a glass of wine or a mixed drink and a cheese tray. We’re wanting high-end concessions,” she said.
“We don’t want them to not go out and eat or not go. Maybe they’ll come in, have a cheese tray, and then after the concert, they’ll go someplace.”
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At their meeting this month, the Brown County Council will be asked to approve a resolution allowing the Brown County Maple Leaf Building Corporation to enter into a line of credit agreement with the State Bank of Lizton.
The line of credit is for $200,000. The resolution was read at the council meeting last month and was tabled to allow council members a chance to look it over.
The State Bank of Lizton also is responsible for granting the project a mortgage.
“It’s not, ‘Oh, they need money already.’ No, we don’t. We just need a line of credit in case something happens,” said Dana Beth Evans, executive director of the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center.
“Any homeowner will have a line of credit on a lot of their homes just in case. They’ve already got it, they’re approved and they don’t use it, great. But if they do use it, they’ve got it available already. That’s all that is, a safety net.”
The line of credit, if used, would be part of the mortgage loan the Maple Leaf already has.
“It’s just to have what we call flexible money that we can get to, in case, for some reason, we had an artist who came in and didn’t perform as well as we wanted,” Evans said at the council meeting last month.
“We have a little extra cash we can draw from this line of credit to be able to cover that until we have more income coming in with ticket sales or merchandise.”
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Marketing firm the 360 Group sent an online survey to 620 potential concert-goers in the Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati areas to gauge their level of interest in visiting the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center and Brown County. They had to be at least interested in attending a concert, interested in the arts, or have attended a concert in the past 18 months.
Of those surveyed, 30 percent were between the ages of 30 and 39 and 71 percent worked full-time. Mostly women answered the survey. Thirty-six percent of them earned $50,000 to $75,000 a year; 26 percent earned $75,000 to $100,000.
Overall, the top genres survey participants liked were classic rock, oldies rock, pop/Top 40 hits, country/western and contemporary rock.
The highest percentage of people who said they’d recently attended a concert had gone to a country show. Only 37 percent of those who picked classic rock had actually attended a concert in that genre.
When asked what comes to mind about Brown County, the most common responses included beautiful scenery, variety of shops, Brown County State Park, autumn leaves, and hiking or camping.
One in 4 people surveyed in Cincinnati said they were “very unfamiliar” with Brown County. Familiarity among those living in Indianapolis and Louisville was high, at 67 percent.
Eating at restaurants, visiting the state park or Nature Center, and staying in a hotel, cabin or bed and breakfast were the top three most common activities in Brown County. Hiking, and visiting a winery, brewery or distillery, rounded out the top five.
Only 10 percent of those surveyed said they had seen a concert or live performance in Brown County.
Most of those surveyed were willing to drive up to an hour and a half for a concert.
After hearing a description of the venue, 51 percent of those surveyed gave it a very positive rating. Two percent gave it a negative rating. The description included the venue’s location, “nestled on the banks of Salt Creek and located less than a mile from the largest state park in Indiana”; when it would open; plans for a wide variety of music concerts; and other outdoor activities visitors could participate in while visiting for a show, like bird watching and hiking.
Reasons for the positive ratings included that the venue would be another activity to do in the area; that it will be a beautiful and fun place to see concerts; they have attended concerts in the area before; and that they can make an entire weekend out of it.
Negative rating reasons included that participants thought the venue could get “world-class” artists to play there; they prefer to keep the area about nature and not bring in loud music; that it’s too remote of a location; and they were worried about finding a place to stay.
Of those surveyed, 65 percent said they were either likely or very likely to attend a concert here.
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