After reporting yesterday that ACC commissioner John Swofford was ‘surprised’ that the Greensboro Coliseum wasn’t full for this weekend’s NCAA tournament openers, today the N&R reports (unposted) slack first-year attendance for the taxpayer-financed ACC Hall of Champions:
The attraction sold about 7,000 mostly discounted tickets during it first year.
That’s well under the 26,000 visitors that coliseum Director Matt Brown had hoped for when the hall opened last year.
And it’s a fraction of what organizers had projected when they envisioned the hall as a much larger structure. Plans unveiled in 2005 called for a $23 million facility that would bring 170,000 people through the doors annually.
Brown is for spillover traffic from upcoming high profile swim meets at the taxpayer financed aquatic center, saying he hopes swimmers and their parents will be looking for something to do between events.
Lack of marketing dollars is cited as the main reason for low attendance numbers, as if it’s not already hard enough to market G’boro as a destination. Charlotte’ having the same problem, so what their answer? A taxpayer-financed downtown Uptown baseball stadium.
Update: Triadwatch reports the Greensboro City Council will consider an $11,000 disbursement to the HOC for an ‘interior renovation project.’
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