Verizon Arena in North Little Rock has exceptional year so far as stars fill seats

Information about Top attendance for 2016 events at Verizon Arena
Information about Top attendance for 2016 events at Verizon Arena

The year 2016 is shaping up to be exceptional for attendance numbers at North Little Rock's Verizon Arena.

After drawing superstar acts like Paul McCartney, Def Leppard and Carrie Underwood, a midyear attendance report for the arena shows totals at 338,164, on pace to approach the 668,670 record set in 2006.

Arena officials attribute this year's numbers to acts like McCartney, who sold out the arena with 15,624 tickets, country pop stars Luke Bryan and Dustin Lynch, whose double-billed concert sold 13,731, and Underwood, who sold 9,944.

[Click here for an interactive graphic on attendance for 2016 shows at Verizon Arena.]

"Our big concerts, when we bring 15,000 people in the building, those are our bread and butter," said Jared Lillard, the arena's finance director.

According to General Manager Michael Marion, 2016 is on track to bill roughly 28 concerts in total, eight more than the arena's yearly average.

Popular family-oriented shows, like Monster Jam, Disney On Ice, and the Harlem Globetrotters, also have helped bolster total numbers. This year's Disney On Ice megahit Frozen drew 41,642 attendees across five days and grossed $1.1 million -- a record for the Disney shows, which are performed every year at the arena.

But the high mark set in 2006 -- what arena officials describe as an "anomaly year" -- remains the untouched record since the arena opened in 1999.

In January of that year, George Strait set the record for most tickets the arena has ever sold -- 18,004. That March, 125,000 fans filed into the building for shows including the Rolling Stones, R. Kelly, Nine Inch Nails and Kid Rock.

"We had a huge first quarter of 2006. In March, we had like two days where we didn't have something going on," Lillard said.

The arena's strong attendance records, and equally strong annual revenue totals, display the healthy operation of a venue that once housed several short-lived professional sports teams: the Arkansas RimRockers, a minor-league NBA team that folded three seasons after it was founded in 2004; the Arkansas Twisters, an indoor football team that changed its name to the Diamonds before moving to Texas for the 2011-12 season; and the Arkansas RiverBlades, a minor league hockey team that disbanded after four seasons in the arena.

Each of the franchises cited low attendance that couldn't pay the arena's expensive lease.

During the arena's record-breaking year in 2006, sporting event-related attendance accounted for 16 percent of total attendance.

But despite losing three professional sports tenants in the past decade, revenue generated by concerts and events keep the arena's operation strong.

Thanks to changes in food and beverage prices -- which accounted for 33 percent of total annual revenue in 2015 -- box office fees and other sources, annual revenue increased by more than 12 percent between 2006 and 2015 to $7.2 million.

Pollstar, an industry magazine that collects ticket data from promoters, ranked the arena No. 32 in annual ticket sales nationwide in 2015.

"Our market has proven itself to be a market that sells tickets," Marion said. "And when you sell tickets, artists want to come back."

Depending on artists' popularity, the Verizon Arena's market can reach from Memphis to Dallas to Fort Smith, Marion said, leaving the Northwest Arkansas market to Tulsa, "so we don't advertise much in Fayetteville."

"Memphis has a pro basketball team, so they don't have a lot of dates available. So we get some things that they don't because they're tied up between the University of Memphis and the Grizzlies," Marion said.

Acts that arena officials hope will boost attendance past 2006's benchmark include Dolly Parton (Aug. 13), Journey and the Doobie Brothers (Aug. 17), Dixie Chicks (Sept. 9) and Tool (Oct. 28).

The year's flops so far include comedians Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy and the band Smashing Pumpkins, whose disappointing ticket sales hovered between 2,200 and 3,000.

Originally christened Alltel Arena, construction began on the $71 million venue in 1997, funded in part by a one-year, 1 percent sales tax approved by Pulaski County voters in 1995. The arena received more than $30 million from the county tax, while the state chipped in $20 million and additional funds were pledged by private contributors.

The arena changed its name in 2009 after Verizon Wireless bought Little Rock's Alltel Corp. for $28.1 billion.

As a department of Pulaski County, the arena is exempt from income taxes, but no revenue goes into county coffers.

Metro on 07/23/2016

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