From these articles in the Portland Press Herald, here and here, it's clear that spending $33 million to renovate the Civic Center is going to be money wasted unless they try to substantially expand the seating of the place. As Steve Crane, general manager of the civic center, states:
"The first thing that happens is, I get a call from the promoter, somebody who buys the talent and takes the financial risk," Crane said. "The first thing they want to know is if we have that date open. The second thing they want to know is how many seats we have."
The civic center has a maximum concert capacity of about 8,000, as compared to about 11,700 for Manchester, NH and 20,000 or more concert seats at Boston's TD Garden. With all its gambling money, even Bangor will soon have a very modern $65 million civic center with a similar seating capacity.
So capacity sells. So, you might ask, what are the planned renovations for the Cumberland County Civic Center? As stated in the article:
The civic center renovation will not significantly increase seating capacity, but will add premium suites and special seating opportunities to patrons. It also will expand the concourse to improve concessions and rest rooms, and rebuild the loading docks and staging areas.
In other words, the $33 million will be window dressing that will not significantly do anything to increase business at the Civic Center.
What a waste.
Comments