HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-10-23 - Minutes -Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission
Minutes October 23, 2023
Fayetteville Town Center
Commissioners
Present:
Commissioners
Absent:
Staff:
Todd Martin, Chair Tourism & Hospitality Representative
Andrew Prysby, Commissioner at-large
Mike Wiederkehr, City Council Representative
Chrissy Sanderson, Tourism & Hospitality Representative
Katherine Kinney, Tourism & Hospitality Representative *Via Online
Sarah Bunch, City Council Representative
Elvis Moya, Tourism & Hospitality Representative
n/a
Molly Rawn, CEO; Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance; Sarah King, VP of
Marketing and Communications
I. Chair Martin called the meeting to order at 2:00 pm and declared a quorum and
thanked Commissioner Sanderson for chairing the September meeting.
II. Old Business
A. Chair Martin presented the September minutes and hearing no additions or
corrections, he stated that the minutes stood approved as presented.
III. New Business
A. CEO Report.
Rawn opened by stating we have two full-time positions available at the A&P, one
being the Tourism Sales Manager position at Experience Fayetteville and the other
being an Event Coordinator 1 position. These positions are both on our website.
She also stated that she is very pleased with the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition –
in addition to a great Falltoberfest event, Kelly Rich also announced a generous gift
from the Tyson Family Foundation to the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition in order
for the coalition to begin a strategic planning process and governance update.
A committee met to review Agency of Record proposals and we’ll have an update
for you later in the meeting. In November, we’ll have our first meeting with Coraggio
Group to begin our Tourism Master Planning process and we’ll bring an update to
you on that.
We invested $16,000 through incentives for events in the month of September and
combined those events brought in an estimated economic impact of $2.7 million
dollars.
We submitted a bid to host the 2024 NICA (National youth interscholastic cycling
association) conference.
The Visitors Center welcomed over 1,500 visitors in September, and we welcomed
a new spotlight artist, Roxy Erickson. Brannon Pack is currently at UCI’s annual
mobility and bike city forum which is taking place in Belgium. He will be presenting
at the forum with city officials on the CycleRAP project. We are the only city in the
US to participate in this cycling safety project.
We wrapped up a great First Thursday season earlier this month. The First
Thursday events averaged 4,500 attendees per event, raised more than $24,000 in
sponsorship and more than 100 vendors and nonprofit organizations participated.
The 30th annual Lights of the Ozarks planning is underway, and we hope you can
join us for Light Night on Friday, November 17th.
Since our last meeting, the town center has hosted 20 events with Suits and
Sneakers being a great success.
There is very little availability to book an event at the town center throughout the rest
of the year. We are hosting the quarterly NWA Meeting Planners in November at
the town center with a focus on sustainability.
Looking ahead, we’ll have three football home games in November as we only had
one home football game in October, and we expect that to be reflected when we
review both October and November HMR activity and collections.
Rawn shared some upcoming cycling and running events and ended with sharing
HMR tax collection information which showed that that September collections were
down slightly, almost half a percent. This is not any cause for concern for her as we
are still up 9.7% compared to last year.
B. Financial Report. Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance
VP Walker stated that the financial report is in the packet with a P&L through
September and a Balance Sheet. The target revenue and expense percentage is
75% and our revenue is at 73% with expenditures at 70%. Our seasonally adjusted
budget shows we are .04% above budget and leaves us with net operating income of
$462,212.
Our balance sheet, including our cash and investments are approximately $4.7
million dollars. Town Center unearned revenue for the rest of 2023 is $200,000.
Commissioner Wiederkehr asked how often we made the town center an in-kind
donation versus having them pay the amount? Tyler said that he didn’t have the
number of donations at hand but many of the nonprofits either received an in-kind
sponsorship or in-kind space in exchange for sponsorship. Rawn stated that we also
acknowledged that nonprofits are a large portion of our business and that we had all
sizes of nonprofits, some of whom didn’t necessarily have affordability as an
important a factor as some smaller nonprofits.
Chair Martin asked VP Walker if she could share more in depth at our November
meeting about cash and investments listed on the balance sheet so we could better
understand our priorities and needs.
C. Marketing Report. Sarah King, VP of Marketing and Communications
VP King began by reviewing the slides and shared our first project utilizing NIL
agreements with student athletes at the University of Arkansas to promote the
ArtCourt. She also shared photos from the latest photo shoot held and also our
updated authentic branding for social media. We also visited City Park, PinPoint and
several places on Dickson Street to update our photo library.
Commissioner Moya thanked King and her team for including diverse audiences for
the photo shoot. King then showed a couple videos about cycling options that begin
and end in Fayetteville.
Mike Sells with Sells Agency said they are working on a 30-45 second cycling video
more geared towards recreational cycling. He also stated that the longer video is
getting really high video completion – close to 50%.
He then shared data on Arrivalist with points of interest insights. He shared that the
Razorback stadium was by far the most visited attraction for both day and overnight
visitors. You can see that Bud Walton is noted as #6. He also shared some
visitation observations such as local day trip visitors are significantly less likely to
visit Dickson Street, Mill District and downtown than overnight visitors.
Another interesting item for day trip visitors are high number of visits to Northwest
Arkansas Mall and Malco Cinema.
Chair Martin recognized the over 21 years of service Mike and Sells Agency has
served as the A&P’s agency of record.
D. Agency of Record Update
Commissioner Prysby gave an update on the Agency of Record review and stated
that they received 4 qualified proposals, and the committee has selected one and
we are working to finalize a contract and plan to bring it to the commission in
November.
E. Vote. Contract with Music Cities Events Unlimited.
Rawn stated that Experience Fayetteville submitted a bid to host the 2025 Music
Cities Festival. She gave some background on this festival, sharing that she first
visited a festival as a guest of Folk School Fayetteville in 2018. She stated that by
hosting a festival like this, we are not only look at ROI but we also realize that this
conference is mission driven as it helps strengthen the music economy, which is
important to our mission.
She shared that there’s not a budgetary impact for 2023 but there is a $50,000
impact for 2024 and $50,000 for 2025. It is hard to know the net impact as we will
also be seeking sponsorships such as asking Arkansas Tourism for support.
Commissioner Moya asked about the attendance numbers at both Tulsa and
Huntsville AL events and Rawn stated approximately 300 each. Rawn stated that
this festival brings people who are deeply engaged in the music industry and this
festival will highlight Fayetteville on a global music stage.
Commissioner Moya asked questions about sponsorship costs and options. He
also asked about those in NWA in the music industry and what their thoughts are
and Rawn stated that she has talked with Brian Crowne with George’s and also the
Hembrees with the Folk School of Fayetteville. Rawn also talked about the work
that happens at the conference such as conversations about music economy and
the music infrastructure including policy and practices.
Commissioner Bunch stated that what was appealing to her is that the work on
crafting policies and procedures around music is very important. Commissioner
Kinney asked if we would be able to participate in the conference and Rawn said
that yes, we would be able to attend and also involve our music industry partners
and share programming recommendations with the organizers.
Commissioner Moya clarified if the commitment was $100,000 without knowing if or
what the commitment from Arkansas Tourism might be. Rawn stated that we have
been invited by the state to apply for sponsorship and she would like to do that once
she knows if we are the host.
Rawn stated that she looked at this similar to an advertising buy. She stated that
this could be a catalyst to help music become a tourism pillar.
With no other questions or comments, Chair Martin asked for a motion made by
Commissioner Sanderson to permit the CEO to authorize an agreement with Music
Cities Events Unlimited with the cited budgetary impacts. Commissioner
Wiederkehr seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
F. Folk School of Fayetteville Presentation.
Bernice Hembree presented an update on Folk School of Fayetteville since it’s
move to Walker Stone House just five months ago.
Since opening, it has held 41 jams, 15 varying workshops and 4 teachers using the
space regularly with 3 new teachers who have signed up.
Some of the regular Jams held include Irish Sessions, Soldier Songs and Voices,
Dad’s Night Out and more. Some of the workshops presented are beginner guitar,
Harmony Singing, Low Waste Events.
She shared that those who want to do concerts in the space also have to host a
workshop on whatever topic they choose. She then shared some of the music
lessons that were being offered. She gave the budget timeline which included a
matching grant.
She shared the fund distribution which included workshops which are paid directly to
artists and other expenses such as payroll.
Her presentation also stated that any program generating income will be split 75%
with the artist and 25% with the school. She also shared the amount of savings that
artists have realized by not having to rent space to do their craft. Hembree talked
about the instrument donation program that has been growing. She ended with a
short video that was created to highlight all that the school is offering out of its new
home at Walker Stone House.
Chair Martin thanked both Bernice and Bryan Hembree for the presentation and
said he is very proud that the commission has utilized the house in this way.
Commissioner Bunch stated that she felt so positive about the interactions the
school has had with the community. Commissioner Moya asked if there are some
touch ups to the exterior paint we can do, and Rawn stated that we could consider
some of those esthetics along with the safety items we must take care.
G. Vote. Distribution of the final budgeted installation of $15,000 to Folk School of
Fayetteville.
Commission Bunch made a motion to release the additional $15,000 of funding to
Folk School of Fayetteville per their lease agreement. This was seconded by
Commissioner Sanderson and passed unanimously.
H. Budget Preview.
VP of Finance Jennifer Walker shared the budget timeline with the budget to be
distributed November 13th to each of the commissioners. November 27th will be the
commission meeting where we’ll present the budget and we will either vote on it or
finalize it on December 11th if needed.
Rawn presented some of the budget big pictures items such as:
• Revenue is projected to be 5% over 2023 at $5.2 million.
• Town Center revenue will show 5% growth over 2023.
• Big projects will be EF Office Renovation and Coraggio Group
Master Tourism Plan.
• Year 2 Downtown Fayetteville Coalition support
• TheatreSquared funding.
• Increase retirement match to 5%.
• No projected changes to headcount.
• Plan to have a new marketing agency contract.
Commissioner Moya asked for a staff organizational chart and Rawn stated we
would be sending one to the commission.
I. Announcements
Chair Martin had two announcements. One was to recognize Kelly Rich, Executive
Director of Downtown Fayetteville Coalition who did a great job with Falltoberfest.
Chair Martin also wanted us to talk about the two Southern Living online articles on
Fayetteville. VP of Marketing and Communications Sarah King showed us the
online story and said there would be a print article in 2024. She stated we could
send out the link to both articles to the commissioners.
IV. Adjourn
With no further business, Chair Martin called for a motion to adjourn the meeting.
Commissioner Sanderson made the motion which Commissioner Prysby seconded
and the meeting was adjourned at 3:35pm.
Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville