A resolution approving a proposed contract between the City and County of Denver and AEG Presents--Rocky Mountains, LLC to promote and book live concerts and events. Approves a commission contract with AEG Presents -- Rocky Mountains, LLC for $8,550,000 and through 12-31-22 to promote and book live concerts and events at Denver Arts & Venues facilities, including Denver Coliseum and Red Rocks Amphitheatre (THTRS-201952921-00). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 4-20-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 3-18-20.
No items have been called out and under pending. No items have been called out. All right. I'm secretary. If you please put the first item on our screens. And Councilmember Gilmore. Please put Council Resolution 2 to 4 on the floor. I move that council resolution 0224 be adopted. It hasn't been moved. Can I get a second from somebody who has a screen? Thank you. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council. Council member CdeBaca. I think before we vote. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. For the next three contracts, I'm specifically calling them out because I believe that at a time like this, we need to be recalibrating and digging deep into our budget to reallocate dollars, more appropriately to meet the needs of this crisis. And I do not believe that these entertainment promoter contracts are relevant at this point and should absolutely be something that we're considering after we've had an opportunity to recalibrate. It's also important to note that these two companies, one in this contract and one in the next, are the competitors on the National Western Triangle projects and are also slated to receive a $5 million stipend just to compete for that project. And so I think these are dollars that we should be holding on to for now until we figure out how to absorb this crisis. So I just wanted to make sure to go on record as a no for this contract tonight. Thank you. Council member council member Kasich. Thank you so much. I appreciate my colleague pulling this out. I think that we do have a limited pool of ticket promoters in the city, and we had a pretty long explanation from our department about that. You know, these two individual companies have got a corner on the market, so to speak, and are very difficult to work with. But we also have major entertainment venues in the city like Red Rocks, which we hope will be up and running again. I just want to clarify, though, this $8.5 million contract, the source of the funds, I do not believe it is general fund dollars. So it is not something that we could repurpose for the virus. So can the administration just speak to these are revenue contracts? I believe so. In terms of these these are not dollars we can free up. I certainly share some concerns about these companies. But I just want to make clear on what where the source of the funding is. Sure. Sky sought mayor's office. Thanks for the question. Arts and Venues operates as a special revenue fund, so the dollars come out of that special revenue fund. These are also commission contracts, so they only pay out in the case that the promoter actually books the show and the city receives revenue from that show. The intent of these commission contracts is actually to increase city revenues with concessions and ticket sales associated with these large events that get booked in those facilities. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to share in the spirit of Councilmember City Barker's comments and that pretty much all the comments that we've received from our constituents have been frustrated with both vendors and their customer service or lack thereof. Unfortunately, it does sound like these are the only vendors that have the the kind of infrastructure and size to to support a an operation as big as the city county Denver bite. But I would love to take this opportunity to say for both of these vendors, we would love for you to to improve your customer service so that you can service everyone in the city and all of your, you know, all of your customers. But particularly we're frustrated as as a as a district office, as a council district office, with the with all the comments of lack of customer service by both of these vendors. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Sandbach you back up? Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. It would be helpful if you could come back up, Skye. I do have a question about how contracts that were booked or performers that were booked, how we're handling that. A lot of artists that I know are recognizing that their contracts didn't allow them to get out of scheduled performances without a cost to them. And so I'm wondering how these concert bookings that we've had through these companies are being dealt with when they're canceled. Sure. Again, Skye Stewart, mayor's office. We did not have subject matter experts here tonight. We were asked to keep attendance low and didn't and weren't prepared to have questions asked of us. We were just told this was called out for a vote. So I'm sorry, I cannot answer that question. I can certainly have arts and arts and venues follow up with you to provide some information, but I don't know that off the top of my head. Is do you know what other things special revenue funds for arts and venues are spent on? So arts and venues itself is a special revenue fund. Their entire budget is encompassed in a special revenue fund, so that's all available in the budget book and again, can have them follow up with you if you'd like some more detail. So so that means that all the dollars there can be spent on. Any of the components of their operations as needed, correct? Their their entire budget is a special revenue fund or actually multiple special revenue funds. So yes, that goes to all of their operations and they are divided up in different buckets associated with that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Clint Skye, stay there for a second. Thank you. Just to clarify, so that I'm that I'm certain about this, this is not an expenditure contract. This is a contract that pays a commission to these two, in this case, AEG. And then in the next resolution, live nation from the from the amounts of revenue that they derive from staging the event, this pays them a commission on that. So it's not funds that are coming out of a city fund as such. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. All right. Madam Secretary, roll call. I don't. See tobacco. No black flame. I Gillmor. Herndon Times. High. Cashman by Kenny Ortega Sandoval Torres Council President. I am secretary. With our convoluted voting process here, give you a second to get them all registered. Please close the voting. Announce the results.