CRDA Contracts With AEG To Pump Up Entertainment Scene

June 24, 2015 / Larry Sieg / Uncategorized

ATLANTIC CITY (June 24, 2015) – The town that boasts it is the “Entertainment Capital of the Jersey Shore” is putting up a lot of money to let tourists know that it means (show) business.

AEG, known for promoting recent concert tours involving A-list performers such as Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Kenny Chesney and Bon Jovi, will book acts for Atlantic City’s 14,000-seat Boardwalk Hall entertainment and sports arena. No shows have been announced yet.

Major concerts at Boardwalk Hall are a centerpiece of Atlantic City’s efforts to diversify its tourist attractions beyond casino gambling and rebrand itself as the “Entertainment Capital of the Jersey Shore.”

“Historic Boardwalk Hall is a critical asset in our strategy to bring nongaming attractions to the city, and the positive results of our efforts to date are evident,” CRDA Executive Director John Palmieri said in a statement Tuesday. “The CRDA welcomes AEG to Atlantic City and we look forward to working together as we continue to diversify our destination.”

Prior to the CRDA agreement, AEG had already established a long history of booking concerts into Boardwalk Hall, including Elton John, The Who, Justin Bieber, Usher, Carrie Underwood and Barry Manilow.

Mark Shulman, vice president and general manager for AEG Live Northeast, said the company will look to bring a diverse lineup to Boardwalk Hall beginning this fall through the CRDA pact.

“We’ve had fantastic discussions with the CRDA in their efforts to bring world-class entertainment to Atlantic City,” Shulman said. “That is something we want to assist with.”

The AEG deal piggybacks on a $1 million agreement between the CRDA and concert giant Live Nation to promote at least 12 big-name shows at Boardwalk Hall this year. The Live Nation pact is initially for one year, but includes options for a second and third year.

On Monday, Live Nation announced it will produce a concert by Maroon 5 and Nick Jonas on the Atlantic City beachfront Aug. 16. Live Nation also promoted two beachfront concerts last summer by Blake Shelton and Lady Antebellum that drew about 120,000 country music fans to town.

Atlantic City hopes to transition into an entertainment, dining and shopping destination to offset the dramatically shrinking casino market. Four casinos closed last year, taking 8,000 jobs with them. Palmieri predicted the CRDA’s relationship with multiple concert promoters will rejuvenate the city’s tourist-based economy.

“Atlantic City, with the commitment from the CRDA, is open for business and the Tourism District is alive with new amenities and many event promoters that want access to our marketplace thanks to the investments we are making,” he said.

AEG Live, the live entertainment division of Los Angeles-based AEG, promotes concerts, festivals and special events, including the King Tut exhibit that has attracted more than 7 million visitors since 2005.

The company also has developed a relationship with casinos. Its casino productions in Las Vegas have included Shania Twain at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through the Hits at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

While the AEG and Live Nation deals are designed to bring top concerts to town, the CRDA has also approved about $313,000 in funding to help promote a series of special events through the summer. They include the city’s annual airshow, a seafood festival, a triathlon, cultural events and music and ballet.

DONALD WITTKOWSKI

Contact: 609-272-7258

DWittkowski@pressofac.com

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Bass Pro Shops: An unconventional retailer doing well in A.C.

May 18, 2015 / Larry Sieg / Uncategorized

Suzette Parmley, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Monday, May 18, 2015, 1:08 AM

ATLANTIC CITY – Bass Pro Shops opened here April 15, and the outdoor gear and apparel retailer surpassed expected sales by “40 percent” for its first month.”It was outstanding,” said Eric Clements, the store’s general manager, whose Springfield, Mo., firm doesn’t release specific sales numbers.

The Bass store sales represent a hopeful blip in this ailing gambling town, where four casinos closed last year, snuffing out 8,000 jobs.

Retail is expected to play a bigger role here. “A key metric for tracking value of retail is the asking price per square foot – up 8 percent, year-over-year in Atlantic City while the rest of Atlantic County is down,” said Israel Posner, executive director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality, and Tourism at Stockton University.

City-owned land ripe for redevelopment, including Bader Field and Gardner’s Basin, is expected to add more retail shops and restaurants to attract tourism.

The Bass Pro Shops “Outpost,” as the Atlantic City store is known, is one of 100 stores within the Tanger Outlets at the Walk, a sprawling outdoor mall.

“Part of what’s driving our gift and apparel [sales] is the visitor is not our typical customer,” Clements said. “A lot are walking the Walk, and coming to us and seeing us for the first time. They’re not our core shopper, but a shopper we are happy to have.”

The Bass shops are an unusual retailer. Gov. Christie attended the Atlantic City store’s opening last month. It features a display 13,000-gallon aquarium, along with boats, guns, camping gear, and even a pistol range.

“There are very few companies in the world that are more sought-after than Bass Pro Shops,” Blake Cordish, vice president of Cordish Cos., which owns the Walk, said at the April 15 grand opening.

Clements said the fishing department – which offers all things fishing, including lures and baits – was the largest draw, followed by the marine department with its array of boats and accessories.

Meanwhile, apparel – which includes footwear for men, women, and children – and gifts (anything from toys to home decor and food) also performed surprisingly well, he said. The shop offers a lot of technical apparel for the outdoors with brands such as Columbia, Under Armour, and North Face.

The proximity of wildlife is also a factor. He ticked off a few examples: a quarter-million acres of wildlife management areas, more than 50,000 deer harvested in New Jersey last year, a world-class saltwater fishery, and one of the best bird-watching sites in the country.

Car license plates in the Bass parking lot, especially during weekends, tell the story.

“We’re getting customers mostly from points west, from all of New Jersey,” and at least a third are from the Keystone State.

The nearest Bass store is in Harrisburg. Competitor Cabela’s opened a store in Hamburg, Pa., in 2003.

Dr. William Byrne of Holland, Pa., who has a second home in Brigantine, stopped by Friday looking for docking rope so he and his wife could launch their boat. “We shop at the [Walk] outlets all the time and we’ve been waiting for this to open,” he said.

The average Bass Pro Shop attracts 1.2 million visitors, who travel on average more than 50 miles to get to a store, and spend more than 2.5 hours on average shopping.

“It has brought tremendous visibility to Atlantic City, which is only adding to our non-gaming mantra for this summer,” Mayor Don Guardian said.

The company has grown rapidly in the last decade. A dozen Bass stores have opened in the last 18 months. Eight more will open in the next year, ranging from Tampa, Fla., to Bridgeport, Conn. It all started in the early 1970s when owner Johnny Morris, a professional bass fisherman, couldn’t find the baits and lures he needed to fish competitively.

Morris drove a U-Haul truck all over the country and bought bass fishing lures, lines, and other fishing equipment from manufacturers, and took them back home to Springfield, Mo. There, he set up a section in his father’s liquor store and began selling the lures.

The start-up did well, but Clements said people didn’t want to drive all the way to Springfield, so Morris started a catalog business in 1974. Four years later, he put together the first boat-motor-trailer package – Bass Tracker – marketed at one price: $2,999. That exploded his business and Morris began building his own boats and motors. He started opening Bass stores in the 1980s.

“We look for areas that visitors drive through on their way to outdoor destinations,” Clements said.

Bass stores range in size from the 85,000-square-foot Atlantic City store – the normal size for many of its stores – to the company’s largest, the half-million-square-foot Bass emporium that opened this month in Memphis, featuring a hotel and water staging area for boats.

Morris and his visual team are involved with the design of every store, tailoring each to its region. For instance, the back wall over the fishing department in Atlantic City depicts the Mullica River, while an image of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Galloway adorns the camping department.

Alysha Martin, 25, of Cape May, was looking at camping gear and women’s apparel Friday with her best friend, Eric Hewitt, 23, also of Cape May.

“It adds variety to the stores in the area,” said Martin, a real estate agency secretary. “It’s something different.”

sparmley@phillynews.com 215-854-4184 @SuzParmley

Convention strategy paying off for Atlantic City

May 12, 2015 / Larry Sieg / Uncategorized

Posted: Monday, May 11, 2015 5:40 pm

Convention strategy paying off for Atlantic City By DONALD WITTKOWSKI, Staff Writer The Press of Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY — Hotel bookings and the number of conventions have jumped so far this year as Atlantic City makes a bigger push for more corporate business to help offset the loss of four casinos in 2014.

In addition, the number of conventions and meetings held at the Atlantic City Convention Center and the city’s hotels has climbed 33 percent this year. Musich said 80 events were held in the first four months of 2015, compared with 60 last year.

“We’re pretty happy with the results after four months,” Musich said in a report during the Meet AC monthly board meeting Monday.

In addition to the increased convention activity this year, the booking of the Meeting Professionals International conference at the Harrah’s Resort Waterfront Conference Center in June 2016 will be another big boost for the city’s economy and image, Meet AC officials said.

“It legitimizes us as a first-class meetings and conventions destination,” Meet AC Chairman Jeff Albrecht said.

About 2,000 meeting planners are expected to attend the MPI gathering at Harrah’s new $126 million conference center. Atlantic City officials, while announcing the MPI conference last week, said this is exactly the type of corporate business the resort is looking to draw.

Atlantic City currently grabs just 1 percent of the $16 billion convention and meetings market in the northeastern United States. By attracting more conventions and corporate meetings, the city will replace some of the gambling business that was lost when the Atlantic Club, Showboat, Revel and Trump Plaza casinos closed last year.

“It was a significant coup for Atlantic City to land this show,” Jim Wood, Meet AC’s president and CEO, said of the MPI conference.

Meet AC was created in 2014 to increase the meetings and conventions trade. It is targeting more regional conventions, sports events and bus groups as part of its strategy. A bigger convention sales staff, advertising blitzes and a heavier use of social media are key components of its campaign.

Contact Donald Wittkowski:

609-272-7258

DWittkowski@pressofac.com

In Time for Memorial Day, Atlantic City Attempts a Turnaround

May 12, 2015 / Larry Sieg / Uncategorized

MAY 8, 2015

By EMILY BRENNAN

Since it arrived in 1978, casino gambling has been the engine driving Atlantic City’s economy.

But with casinos and slot parlors cropping up in nearby states like Delaware and Pennsylvania, the city’s portion of the Northeast gambling industry has gotten smaller, from a high of $5.2 billion in revenues in 2006 to $2.5 billion this year.

Last year, four casinos, including its newest and largest, Revel Casino Hotel, closed, resulting in thousands of job losses and leaving many to ponder the future of the resort city.

Jeff Guaracino, executive director of Atlantic City Alliance, offers a remedy: attract leisure visitors interested in entertainment and dining in addition to gamblers. “The real trend, right now, is non-casino hotels,” he said.

Last year, the Claridge, formerly owned by the gaming corporation Caesars Entertainment, reopened as a boutique hotel, and on May 15 it unveils its newly renovated hotel lobby, ballroom and guest rooms.

The 500-room hotel, built in 1929, once welcomed the likes of Frank Sinatra and Nucky Johnson, the Prohibition-era political boss and racketeer immortalized in the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” Indeed, the television show, which ended in October, has renewed interest in the few historic spots that remain in the city, like the restaurants Knife and Fork Inn and Dock’s Oyster House. Visitors can also take a 90-minute walking tour by the company A1 Tours, which traces the history of the boardwalk.

In February, Atlantic City’s dining scene received a boost, with the opening of Gordon Ramsay Pub and Grill at Caesars. The British pub, which features menu items like Scotch eggs, shepherd’s pie and ale-battered fish and chips, is a welcome alternative to the kind of food courts that populate casino hotels.

Atlantic City is also striving to make a name for itself in entertainment. The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, whose arena regularly hosts big-name acts like Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (July 24), is opening an outdoor concert space called Festival Park, which will feature acts like the Killers on June 20 and Willie Nelson on Aug. 16.

Though Atlantic City will remain a destination for gamblers, Mr. Guaracina said he hopes these kinds of events will attract a greater variety of tourists.

“The casino experience is unrivaled. We’ll still be that destination for folks,” he said. “But a more well-rounded experience is where our future is going to be.”

Atlantic City getting lights, cameras, pizzazz from CRDA

May 12, 2015 / Larry Sieg / Uncategorized

Posted: Tuesday, April 21, 2015 10:45 pm

Atlantic City getting lights, cameras, pizzazz from CRDA

By DONALD WITTKOWSKI, Staff Writer The Press of Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY — The state agency overseeing Atlantic City’s tourism and redevelopment projects approved new attractions Tuesday that promise to elevate the entertainment scene, add some sparkle to the Boardwalk and improve public safety.

Also approved were a new outdoor concert venue and a new nightclub at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. In another vote at its monthly board meeting, the CRDA approved $1.3 million to fund two major beach concerts this summer as well as live entertainment at the Boardwalk’s Kennedy Plaza. No performers have been announced yet for the beach concerts.

Taken together, the new lights and entertainment attractions reflect Atlantic City’s efforts to diversify its amenities beyond casino gambling. Casinos are adding new conference centers, glitzy light shows and other nongambling attractions to tempt customers.

In particular, the city and the casinos have begun taking greater advantage of the beaches and Boardwalk as a tourist hub and focal point for entertainment.

The CRDA is looking to make the Boardwalk more aesthetically appealing and safer by funding the installation of 164 LED light poles between Albany and Rhode Island avenues. The lights will illuminate what have been some darker, more foreboding sections of the 4-mile-long wooden promenade caused by four casino closings last year.

Mayor Don Guardian noted that the high-tech light poles will include interactive, theatrical and decorative features to add some “pizzazz” to the Boardwalk for tourists.

Amid a week of major announcements concerning the future of Atlantic City, business and government leaders at a conference Friday outlined an array of major projects they said would transform …

In addition, the lighting project includes plans for 72 new security cameras on the Boardwalk and at street ends — something the mayor and others characterized as a “huge” boost for public safety. The cameras will be linked directly to a police surveillance center through a fiber-optic network.

“I think it’s going to do wonders for us,” police Lt. Jim Sarkos said of the impact of the cameras on public safety for tourists and local residents. “I think we’re going to be the envy of many other places.”

CRDA officials estimated the first batch of lights and cameras will be ready for the Fourth of July, but it will take four or five months before all of them are installed.

In a final part of the project, nearly 190 existing, Victorian-style lamp poles will be removed from the Boardwalk, converted to LED technology and then placed in public parks and other parts of the city.

Separate from the $12.5 million in CRDA bonds, private contractor Impactivate Networks Inc. is spending $20.8 million for 110 digital display screens on the Boardwalk that will feature advertising, movie trailers and promotional programming. Some of the programming has a local flavor, including a live broadcast of the Miss America Competition taking place inside Boardwalk Hall in September.

Under the terms of a lease agreement, Impactivate — which already has some screens on the Boardwalk — pays the city 10 percent of all gross revenue generated by its lighting displays through advertising, sponsorships and other money-making ventures.

Meanwhile, the CRDA hopes the $1.3 million in funding approved Tuesday for summer entertainment will help the city duplicate the success of two mega-concerts on the beach last year by country music stars Blake Shelton and Lady Antebellum. Although no names have been announced yet for the beach concerts this summer, CRDA Executive Director John Palmieri indicated they will be major shows like the performances by Shelton and Lady Antebellum. Those concerts each drew 60,000 people to the beachfront.

“It’s a great resort experience,” Jeff Guaracino, executive director of the Atlantic City Alliance, said of the beach concerts. “It gives the Boardwalk more excitement.”

The Atlantic City Alliance, the city’s casino-funded marketing arm, underwrote the Shelton and Lady Antebellum shows. However, funding cutbacks at the ACA, as well as the possibility the private organization may go out of business altogether, prompted the CRDA to provide more money for the city’s summer entertainment lineup.

In yet another CRDA vote Tuesday, Borgata received final approval for a new nightclub inside the casino and an outdoor entertainment venue for music festivals. Borgata plans to tap the reinvestment contributions it makes to the CRDA to finance both the nightclub and outdoor concert venue, which will have a combined cost of $15 million.

Borgata will team up with show promoter Live Nation to bring top performers to the concert venue. Dubbed Festival Park, the complex will open June 13 with a daylong music celebration headlined by several bands.

Borgata’s expansion project includes construction of a new nightclub that will open by the end of the year. The new attraction will take the place of Borgata’s MIXX nightclub, a fixture at the casino since it opened in 2003.

Contact Donald Wittkowski:

609-272-7258

DWittkowski@pressofac.com

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Heavyweight concert promoter AEG Live will be brought in to pump up the Atlantic City entertainment scene through a three-year, $1.9 million deal with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, the state agency that oversees tourism and redevelopment projects for the resort.

Suzette Parmley, Inquirer Staff Writer

Hoping to improve the appearance of one of the city’s premier tourist attractions, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority approved $12.5 million in bonds to finance new LED light poles on the ocean side of the Boardwalk.

Amid a week of major announcements concerning the future of Atlantic City, business and government leaders at a conference Friday outlined an array of major projects they said would transform …

Under the terms of a lease agreement, Impactivate — which already has some screens on the Boardwalk — pays the city 10 percent of all gross revenue generated by its lighting displays through advertising, sponsorships and other money-making ventures.