Friday, Dec. 18, 2009 | 3 a.m.
Former Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board member Berlyn Miller enjoys telling the story about how Las Vegas roped the National Finals Rodeo away from Oklahoma City in 1984.
Miller was part of a group that would become the foundation of Las Vegas Events, the organization that develops tourism-generating activities — and sometimes commandeering events from other cities.
Michael Gaughan provided a private plane to fly the group to Colorado Springs, Colo., home of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. The contingent included Gov. Richard Bryan. Oklahoma City, which was fighting to keep the rodeo, countered with its governor, George Nigh.
Shawn Davis was chairman of the association and badly wanted to move the event to Las Vegas, seeing the potential of a successful marriage between professional rodeo’s marquee event and the Entertainment Capital of the World. But under the association’s rules, he could only vote to break a tie.
The meeting wasn’t going well for Las Vegas. Oklahoma City upped its bid, and the Las Vegas group had to call home for permission to counter. Oklahoma City promised to build a new arena; Las Vegas responded that it had the Thomas & Mack Center, which had just opened a year earlier, and the Oklahomans would have to pass a bond issue to build their facility.
When it came time to vote, Oklahoma City won 6-4. Davis quickly called for a recess and cornered Chick Elms, the bareback event coordinator and one of the Oklahoma supporters.
Davis, a close friend of gaming legend Benny Binion, told Elms, “Las Vegas can do so much more for this rodeo, the cowboys, the stock contractor and the fans than Oklahoma City can ever think of doing,” Miller said when retelling the story. “You’ve got to change your vote to Las Vegas.”
When the board reconvened, Davis asked for a reconsideration. Elms flipped to Las Vegas and with the vote deadlocked, Davis invoked the tiebreaking procedure giving Las Vegas what would become its signature special event.
Miller said Nigh left the meeting yelling, “You dirty SOBs, you stole my rodeo!” and Davis and his family received death threats.
The National Finals Rodeo coup turned out to be a pivotal move in the city’s development of special events as a means to drive visitation. The National Finals Rodeo, which last week wrapped up another 14 days of sold-out events, national television broadcasts on ESPN and a host of related activities, became the template for special events developed by Las Vegas Events.
“Special events are historically significant drivers of visitor volume to Southern Nevada,” Jeremy Aguero, a principal analyst with Las Vegas-based Applied Analysis, said in a report on the economic effectiveness of special events.
“The LVCVA and Las Vegas Events sponsored 51 major special events held over 220 days in the 2008 fiscal year,” the report said. “These sponsorships were valued at just over $13.8 million.
The rodeo is the largest of the events, drawing an estimated 175,275 people, a quarter from out of town. Other big events include the ACDelco Las Vegas National Hot Rod Association Nationals (113,075, 23 percent from out of town), the Aviation Nation at Nellis Air Force Base (110,100, 17 percent), the National Hot Rod Association SummitRacing.com Nationals (106,175, 25 percent) and the Professional Bull Riders World Championship (90,000, 27 percent).
Aguero said surveys indicate special-event visitors spend 4 percent more in nongaming expenditures per trip than the average visitor to Las Vegas, and the incremental visitation related to special events support 3,030 jobs paying $94 million in wages and salaries annually.
The surveyed event that drew the highest percentage of out-of-town visitors in fiscal 2008 was the Cliff Keen Invitational, a wrestling competition that had 94 percent of its 2,400 participants coming from across the country.
Of course, economic development isn’t the only positive derived from special events. Some activities have a low percentage of out-of-town visitors, but enhance the quality of life in Southern Nevada with activities that locals enjoy. For example, only 9 percent of the 62,250 people who attended the Mountain West Basketball Championships were from out of town. Big League Weekend, which brings Major League Baseball teams to Cashman Field for spring training exhibition games, drew 23,375 people, 11 percent from out of town.
Although those attending those sporting events didn’t stay at a hotel, they still bought concessions, resulting in a different plus for the city — media exposure. Tournament basketball and Big League Weekend games are broadcast to their respective fan bases, giving them glimpses of our city.
So be sure to tip your cowboy hat to the National Finals Rodeo. It’s led to a lot more for Las Vegas than two weeks of steer wrestling.
Changing bases in Orlando
Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air has always used Sanford International Airport for its Orlando, Fla., operation. There was less congestion at Sanford, which catered to charter operations and international flights. Allegiant soon became a big fish in a small pond there.
Next year, Allegiant will switch to Orlando International Airport, which is closer to all things Disney, a move that has some appeal to Allegiant’s loyal East Coast customers.
Allegiant officials think the move will average out to costing the airline $2 per passenger, which means it will have to sell more tickets to make the move financially viable. Sabrina LoPiccolo, a spokeswoman for Allegiant, said Orlando International’s proximity to Walt Disney World and other theme parks should give Allegiant the additional customers it needs.
LoPiccolo said competitors were taking advantage of Allegiant’s presence at the Sanford airport.
“We believe that the fact we were at Sanford may have been seen as an opportunity by our competitor at Orlando International,” she said in an e-mail. “In other words, ‘Hey, if those guys at Allegiant can make those Sanford routes work, we can make the same routes work at Orlando International’ — and maybe take the market away from Allegiant.”
Allegiant doesn’t offer flights between Las Vegas and Orlando.
Strip numbers
The latest visitation and gaming win statistics reflect the way most Strip viewers see things anecdotally — people are slowly coming back to Las Vegas, but they are not opening their wallets as wide as they once did, except for the wealthiest guests.
The latest LVCVA figures for October showed a 3.7 percent increase in visitation to 3.2 million people over the previous year, but convention attendance was down 8.3 percent to 349,383. It was the second straight month with an increase.
Even though room inventory was up 2.8 percent to 141,489 rooms in Clark County, the occupancy level was off just 1.2 percentage points to 82.6 percent. That gap between inventory and occupancy will likely widen further by the December report that should come out in February, with new rooms coming on line at CityCenter, and downtown’s Golden Nugget greatly offsetting the closure of Binion’s.
Evidence that more people are coming to town is reflected not only in the visitor volume, but in the increased traffic numbers on highways into Las Vegas. The average daily auto traffic on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border and on other major highways into Las Vegas were up 1.9 percent in October.
The proof that visitors are spending less is in the average daily room rate and in the gaming win figures released last week.
The convention authority reported the average daily room rate for October was down 13.9 percent to $99.59 and for the first three quarters of 2009, it’s off 23.7 percent to $93.15 — an indication that things are heading in the right direction for the city (or maybe bad news for that bargain-hunting consumer).
The gaming win figures for October from the state Gaming Control Board show Clark County saw an 11.1 percent decrease to $673.4 million when compared with October 2008. Strip win was off 10.3 percent to $426.3 million.
The good news on the Strip was that for the sixth straight month, baccarat win was up. In October it soared 61 percent, an indicator that many high rollers from abroad haven’t been affected as dramatically as others by the global economic meltdown.
King of the Strip
The doors have opened at the newest B.B. King’s Blues Club at the Mirage.
The club features Southern and Creole food, a house band and jam sessions into the early morning. It’s casual dining with an average check of about $35 for one.
B.B. King’s is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. with weekend jams through 4 a.m. It’s the fifth club in the chain; others are in Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; and Orlando and West Palm Beach, Fla.
Extra Mexico flights
Aeromexico has added some holiday flights to complement its existing service between Las Vegas and Mexico City and Monterrey.
Through Jan. 10, the Mexico City-based airline will offer twice-weekly flights between McCarran International Airport and Hermosillo, Mexico.
The airline uses a 50-seat twin-engine Embraer ERJ-145 jet on the route operating Thursdays and Sundays.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy