CASPER, Wyo. — Visit Casper CEO and Natrona County Commissioner Brook Kaufman asked the Casper City Council on Tuesday to contribute $50,000 to Visit Casper toward celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Casper Events Center, which was re-branded as the Ford Wyoming Center at the start of 2021.
Kaufman said that ground-breaking to begin construction of the Events Center began on May 7, 1980 and doors opened on April 17, 1982.
“The roof was red back then too,” she said.
The construction of the facility cost around $22 million and was one of the early projects funded by the “one-cent” optional sales tax dollars. One-cent was first instituted in 1974, according to Kaufman.
Kaufman said the Events Center has been an economic and quality of life driver since it opened.
“It really is critical not only to our quality of life but to tourism and for people having things to do while they are here or recruiting businesses,” she said.
While the city subsidizes operations of the facility, Kaufman said the Events Center leads to economic impacts for the community as a whole. She said that the College National Finals Rodeo, which will be held in Casper at least through 2027, generates about $1.9 million per year for Casper’s economy.
Hosting high school state athletics tournaments at the facility generates about $13.9 million per year. Kaufman approached the city council in January with a request that they contribute $50,000 a year to the “Proud to Host the Best Committee” who work to help organize the tournaments in Casper.
Council member Kyle Gamroth asked what the $50,000 the council was being asked to contribute toward the Events Center celerbrations would go toward, noting that $50,000 was the same amount Kaufman had asked the council to contribute toward Proud to Host the Best.
Kaufman said she had initially wanted to ask the council to contribute $200,000, but that after speaking with City Manager Carter Napier, she agreed to limit the request to $50,000.
Kaufman said that the Natrona County Commissioners will contribute $15,000 toward the anniversary celebrations, Visit Casper will contribute $15,000 and Spectra Venue Management, who manage the Ford Wyoming Center are attempting to raise $20,000 for the celebrations.
She said that the Economic Development Joint Powers Board declined her request to support the efforts. Council member Amber Pollock, who was in attendance at the EDJPB meeting, said the nature of the request didn’t really fit the EDJPB’s mission.
But Pollock said Visit Casper’s plans fit Casper’s mission for the facility, which the city owns, calling Kaufman’s request an “amazing marketing opportunity that we are not going to have for [another] 10 years.”
“To me, you seize this type of opportunity to highlight the history but to also tee up some excitement in the community and beyond the community to market this facility,” Pollock said.
Kaufman said the two main purposes of the year-long campaign that is being envisioned are to “continue to improve sentiment around the facility” and to drive people to engage with the Ford Wyoming Center.
She said that some people don’t understand the value the facility adds to the community and the campaign aims to highlight that. Kaufman said she couldn’t promise that the campaign would increase ticket sales this year since the area is just coming off of the pandemic.
Pollock said that the campaign could be a good way to help kick-start a post-pandemic rebound of the area’s economy.
Vice Mayor Ray Pacheco said it was his understanding the city could use federal CARES Act funding to meet Kaufman’s request.
City Manager Carter Napier said he recommended that CARES Act dollars be used if the council wanted to meet the request. He said that some of the CARES Act dollars the city received had to be spent by the end of 2020, but that a larger chunk was funding the city was provided as reimbursement for costs incurred during the pandemic.
Napier said that in his understanding, there is no timeline under which the city must expend those CARES Act dollars. He said that in general he wanted to resist spending CARES Act dollars as much as possible until it becomes more clear in other communities how those dollars can be used and what types of auditing challenges communities may face in the use of those funds.
Council member Bruce Knell said that if CARES Act funds could be used, it was a “no-brainer” to him that the council should meet Kaufman’s request. “No-brainer” is a phrase he also used when Kaufman requested $50,000 for Proud to Host the Best since the events generate millions of dollars for the local economy.
While the term “Events Center” was frequently used during the work session on Tuesday, Knell said: “I think we need to get off the Events Center and start calling it the Ford Center…They paid a lot of money for it.”
Kaufman said that the funding would go toward things like video and digital story-telling about how the Events Center has impacted people in the community. The campaign would also look to partner with other organizations in the community for special events such as pop-up art shows at the Nicolaysen Art Museum.
Council member Lisa Engebretsen asked if the funding would be used to bring in concerts, specifically “acts that played in the early ’80s?”
Kaufman said that Visit Casper has discussed concert possibilities but planning is not at that point.
Pollock said the campaign could benefit not only the Events Center, but all of Casper.
“While we’re marketing this facility, we are marketing our whole community,” she said. “As we know, when people come to an event there…they don’t just come there and depart.”
Council indicated they would like to contribute $50,000 in CARES Act dollars to Visit Casper to support the campaign. They would need to vote in a regular meeting to formally approve this use of the funding.
