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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-04-23 Tourism Commission MinutesTOURISM COMMISSION RIVERSIDE, MISSOURI, Monday, April 23, 2012, 6:00 p.m. At 6:00 p.m. on March 19, 2012, the Tourism Commission for the City of Riverside, Missouri, met in the Board of Aldermen Conference Room at City Hall, 2950 NW Vivion Road, Riverside, Missouri. Answering roll call was Jerry Pietsch, Jason Rule and Deana Winter. Meredith Hauck, Director of Community Relations, was also present and served as recorder. Dirk van der Linde and Alderman Aaron Thatcher were absent. Motion to approve Commissioner Rule moved to approve the minutes. Commissioner Pietsch minutes of March 19, seconded the motion. All voted in favor. Motion carried. 2012 Tourism Fund Update Hauck provided the Commission with a copy of the FY12 budget. Summer Events Update Hauck updated the Commission regarding three, summer 2012 City - sponsored /produced projects: • Shakespeare in the Park will be May 25, 26 and 27 at EH Young Park. Heart of America's TEAM Shakespeare is putting on Romeo and Juliet. This event was formerly part of the Village at Briarcliff's summer event series. • BLAST 2012 will be July 21 in Renner Brenner Park from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will feature Radio Disney "street walkers" — people on stilts, mimes, etc. — and food trucks. • Battle of the Bands will be on August 11 at EH Young Park from 5 to 10 p.m. The City is exploring a partnership with Argosy on this project. More details will be presented at the next meeting. Other Tourism Projects The City received grant funding from Platte County Parks and Recreation Update Department to assist with the Trail Signage project. Hauck is working with Trozzolo and NSPJ architects on this project. The signs will likely go up sometime this fall. The Girls on the Run 5K will be May 19 at Horizons. Riverside is a presenting sponsor along with BlueKC. Two thousand runners are expected to participate this year. Motion to Approve Hauck presented an $8,500 proposal to advertise in the Northland Lifestyle Funding For Summer Magazine over the next 12 months. N2 Publications, who the Tourism Event Advertising Commission advertised with last year, is no longer in business. Northland Lifestyle targets affluent households in the Northland and has a similar layout to N2. Rule stated that he is not in favor of advertising in this manner and would like to focus on getting the word out via more grassroots methods including: billboards, PTA and church publications, outfields at baseball games, etc. He also suggested a targeted mailing list for event updates be created. The other Commissioners agreed with Rule's assessment and asked Hauck to explore billboard options instead. Commissioner Pietsch made a motion to approve $7,600 for billboard funding. Commissioner Winter seconded the motion. Commissioners Pietsch and Winter voted in favor. Commissioner Rule was opposed. Motion carries. Hauck will only move forward with billboard advertising this year if acceptable boards can be obtained. She explained this might not be possible based on the short time frame. Motion to approve Commissioner Winter motioned to table and Commissioner Rule seconded revised Tourism the motion. All in favor. Item tabled indefinitely. Commission Guidelines Adjournment — 7:34 p.m. Commission was adjourned. Holly Phillips Riverside Riverfest Development Corporation 2950 NW Vivion Road Riverside, MO 64150 Riverside Riverfest Committee: On Monday, February 13, the Tourism Commission approved $44,347.50 for the 2012 Riverside Riverfest. We feel this event is one of our community's defining festivals and are excited to once again be able to help sponsor it. One of the challenges we have imposed on ourselves is to ensure we are getting the greatest "bang for our buck" from tourism dollars. On events we fund, we break them down into their respective components to ensure that each component is contributing the maximum benefit to the overall event. We are very critical even of our own sponsored events such as Blast. For example, we have changed major elements of Blast in an attempt to make it as successful as possible. This year we have chosen to move in a completely different direction and sponsor three smaller events during the summer. I bring this up because I want to make it clear that our intentions are to be good stewards of tourism dollars and we attempt to make honest assessments of each event and its components. Riverfest is one of our major annual sponsorships. Each year when we review the grant for Riverfest we struggle with the amount of funding we provide versus the draw in attendance for this two -day event. Riverfest is the highest "$ per attendee" event we fund. Some components of this event are very successful and provide a tremendous draw and garner goodwill and positive word of mouth from attendees. Some examples include the inflatables, headliner entertainment, and Saturday night fireworks. Other elements of the two -day event do not appear to provide a good return on dollars spent. Some examples include Friday night activities and fireworks (compared to Saturday), parade and other Saturday morning /afternoon events with low attendance. We would like to see Riverfest expand on its top 2 or 3 draws and become an event that sets itself apart from all other events in the northland. We believe a greater focus on doing a few things exceptionally well vs. doing many things in an average manner would be a greater draw and provide an even greater opportunity to present our city in a positive light. As we discussed with Riverfest committee members last year, we are interested in seeing this event become a greater tourism draw to Riverside. Although we have discussed a number of suggestions on how Riverfest could do this, we know that the decision on how the event moves forward is ultimately up to the Committee. However, as Riverfest's largest sponsor, we will take a closer look at how well the event aligns with our goals during the 2013 grant process and strongly encourage the Riverfest Committee to consider how the event can be a better tourism draw in the coming years. We propose the Riverfest Committee takes an honest assessment of the overall event and seek ways to improve attendance vs. dollars spent. The Tourism Commission remains a strong supporter of Riverfest and we would welcome the opportunity to meet with the Committee to provide additional feedback on the event. Respectfully, Jason Rule, Chair On behalf of the Riverside Tourism Commission