Scott Radley: How a new Ontario Place might affect concerts in Hamilton
When FirstOntario Centre gets renovated over the next few years and serves as the centrepiece of a glitzy $400-million-or-more downtown entertainment district, the hope is that more shows will come to town to fill it.
But you wonder if a recent announcement from Toronto about the future of Ontario Place is about to complicate things.
To get to the issue, ask yourself a question. If you're a band or singer who's not from around here and you had the choice to perform in either Toronto (which you know about) or Hamilton (which you might not), which would you choose?
Be honest.
Scott Warren used to run FirstOntario Centre and do many of the bookings. He says there were times bands sold concert T-shirts on the concourse that listed the date of the show but said Toronto instead of Hamilton. Which might hint at the answer for at least some acts.
But the big city down the QEW has only so many indoor venues for large concerts. Scotiabank Arena is the obvious one. Rogers Centre for massive shows. After that it drops off to places the size of Massey Hall. So if you're bigger than that latter option but the Leafs' and Raptors' building is booked and you want to play southern Ontario, what do you do?
Hamilton has often been the answer.
Here comes the complication. When the province recently announced that private groups were working together to reimagine Ontario Place, one of the key points was the redesigning of Budweiser Stage. It'll still hold as many as 20,000 fans for outdoor events in the summer. But when it's finished it'll also hold 9,000 indoors for year-round events.
And the group behind the project is LiveNation, the world's largest promoter which will surely have an interest in putting acts into its own facility.
Will this not affect the number of shows coming to Hamilton?
The man in charge of the FirstOntario Centre rebuilding project for the Hamilton Urban Precinct Entertainment Group - who says he was aware the Bud Stage project was coming - insists he isn't concerned.
Not only do we believe we'll do fine in an expanded, growing market, the Ontario Place project could actually add opportunities," Jasper Kujavsky says.
More venues should mean more promoters looking to Toronto, he says. If a band is on tour with a tight schedule and a desire to come through here but can't get into one of those places, Hamilton will be an obvious answer. It's like a performer who wants to play New York but can't get into Madison Square Garden. They don't just skip New York, they choose one of the other venues a little further afield like Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.
Plus, the new FOC will be up and running well before the new Budweiser Stage opens in 2030 which will give it time to establish itself as a desirable place to play. Plus, some acts want to do Toronto and Hamilton. And HUPEG will be working with LiveNation and all other promoters so there are multiple options.
The president and CEO of the Canadian Live Music Association shares Kujavsky's view that more facilities will mean more artists looking to the area. Erin Benjamin says the huge success of London's downtown arena has shown it can be done. And Hamilton has a great reputation in the industry as a music city.
But if there's another large venue in Toronto, won't that simply open more dates there? Meaning fewer reasons to come here?
It's not an apples to apples argument, Kujavsky says. FirstOntario Centre is still going to be considerably larger than Budweiser Stage. So they may not be chasing the same acts.
It's 9,000 seats," he says. It's bigger than (the Coca Cola Coliseum on the Exhibition grounds). It's not as big as our place."
This is undoubtedly true for huge shows like Garth Brooks or Paul McCartney. But an Ernst and Young report that was filed to the city when discussions were ongoing about what to do with the arena - before HUPEG took control - looked at 2018 (which was a great year for the facility and one that it anticipates is a good predictor of future demand) and said only 13 of 98 events required the upper bowl.
Meaning 87 per cent of events required 9,000 seats or fewer. The same size as the future year-round Budweiser Stage.
It sounds like a challenge. We'll see.
Warren acknowledges being in the shadow of Toronto can make things tough but Hamilton's proven it can attract concerts. In the future, HUPEG may simply have to get creative and work even harder to fill the building.
But once you renovate the district and build up everything around it, it's going to be an area to look at," he says.
Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com