The North Cariboo Joint Advisory Committee has now agreed to take on the risk of hosting a concert at the West Fraser Centre in Quesnel.
Staff has the green light to negotiate with the Canadian country band “The Recklaws” for the Friday night after Billy Barker Days.
The politicians, City Council and the northern CRD Directors, had cold feet at last month’s meeting saying there weren’t enough financial details to make a decision.
Event Coordinator Charlene Lawrence went over some of the numbers at last (Tuesday) night’s meeting.
“To break even at the tickets being 55 dollars a piece, we’d have to sell 13-hundred and 20. The capacity of the arena is 18-hundred and 45.”
Tickets at 60 dollars each would require 12-hundred tickets to be sold.
That is based on a budget of just over 71 thousand dollars, although the band has yet to accept an offer of 40 thousand dollars Canadian to come.
Lawrence noted that they originally asked for 60 thousand U.S.
Mary Sjostrom, the CRD Director for Area A, noted that it was on a trial basis to try and promote the facility for concerts.
“I think that we’re going to have to look beyond if that’s what it’s actually going to be. I think that after this initial, whether we make money or not, I don’t believe that sub regional rec and joint planning should be in the concert business to be honest. I think we supply the venue and we go from there.”
City Councillor Mitch Vik agreed and felt it was worth the risk.
“I would say in this case we have to look at the intangibles which would be food sales and alcohol sales. I still stand by comments I made at the last meeting which was we have to show proof of concept here, because if we don’t take a risk we may never have a concert here ever.”