The wildfire destruction that swept across eastern Tennessee near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park has left 13 dead with the number of damaged buildings in Gatlinburg standing near 1,000.

As the fires started early last week and had been burning for several days mostly in the heights of the popular national park, firefighters had difficulty reaching the remote inferno. Soon thereafter, the winds picked up and as of last Monday afternoon, the fires were spreading at a furious pace.

Gatlinburg has borne the brunt of the devastation, but public assembly venues to the north in Pigeon Forge and Sevierville have also been impacted. Pigeon Forge is located five miles north of the national park and is a huge tourist attraction featuring Dollywood and a vibrant music scene. The Sevierville Convention Center north of Pigeon Forge remained open while many in the public assembly venue industry checked on both sites.

“I am happy to report that our facility avoided any damage and none of our staff or their immediate families suffered any losses,” Phil Campbell, facility manager at the LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge, told IAVM. “The same cannot be said for our overall community as you may have seen from national press coverage. The current number of fatalities stands at 13 with numerous homes and businesses completely destroyed in the area, particularly in the neighboring city of Gatlinburg. On Monday evening, some previously contained wildfires were quickly spread by 80 mph winds and raged uncontrolled until much needed rains finally moved in.

“We opened the LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge as an emergency shelter at 7 pm Monday evening and quickly began to see displaced residents and visitors arrive. The American Red Cross joined us around 10 pm to provide assistance in sheltering around 400 people whose homes, cabins, condos, and hotel rooms were in danger and mandatory evacuations were issued. By Tuesday night our number of displaced evacuees had been reduced to 44 as people were allowed to return to certain areas, find other lodging, or stay with friends and family. We remained an active shelter until 5 pm Wednesday afternoon when the decision was made to consolidate those remaining with us into another shelter nearby.

“It has been an experience neither I nor our staff will never forget. The outpouring of support from food, water, personal hygiene items, blankets, and clothes was overwhelming. We were blessed with an opportunity to provide safe shelter, medical assistance, and care to many distressed and hurting people. We have now transitioned back into normal operations and actually welcomed in the next event which started on Friday. Pigeon Forge lost no businesses and we are trying to ensure that the everyone knows we are open for business. One of the best ways they help is to visit and support our local economy that employs many of the very people affected by this tragedy.”

Farther north, the Sevierville Convention Center remained a “business as usual” venue, according to venue General Manager Martha Norris.

“The Sevierville Convention Center is doing well as we have not been affected directly by the fires,” Norris said. “We were not a shelter as we are located about 15 miles from the Gatlinburg area and there are large venues closer in than us. It is amazing that during this disaster we have been so blessed with the outpouring of prayers, love and donations from our surrounding states. I must say what a great area to call home.

“The Sevierville Convention Center as well as the LeConte Convention Center are still going strong as will our neighbor the Gatlinburg Convention Center soon.”

When Wenger Corporation acquired the assets of 45-year-old SECOA, it did so with an eye toward the future.

Chris Simpson

“What we can benefit from this acquisition of the assets is that we have an opportunity to grow and pick up sales and their book of business, as it were,” said Chris Simpson, president and CEO of Wenger. “We have an opportunity to really leverage better resources. That’s an important point to this purchase. We’re adding some of their key team members and their related experience. We are able to take on a couple of their products that fit into our portfolio. That’s really a key element to what we’re doing.”

Simpson came on board at Owatonna, Minnesota-based Wenger five years ago, and has led a dynamic growth spurt for a company that provides innovative, high-quality products and solutions for music and theatre education, performing arts and athletic equipment storage.

“The genesis of even thinking about this goes back to what our base strategy is and what our vision is,” Simpson said. “It comes back to Wenger Corporation’s overall vision, which is to be a leading provider of products and services for the performing arts and education businesses on a global basis. That’s a big, broad vision. We understand what we have to do to go out there and do that. One of the things you have to do is grow. We clearly have a very aggressive growth strategy for the performing arts business.”

Wenger, which started in 1946, acquired J.R. Clancy five years ago, which put the company in the rigging business.

“Our product portfolio has expanded significantly with where we were pre-J.R. Clancy,” Simpson said. “We have audio, seating, acoustical, rigging and I could go on and on. The point is we have a broad and deep range of product offerings in the industry.”

Simpson said that while he has looked at what might make sense from an acquisition opportunity, the SECOA deal happened when he was approached by that company’s owners.

“I thought the similarities of business models was strikingly similar,” he said. “Therefore, we looked at how buying the assets of the company might make sense. That is one of the things to be clear about in that we didn’t buy SECOA, per se, but bought the assets of SECOA. That said, SECOA as a separate entity really will no longer exist. We have the rights to the SECOA brand and in fact we plan on using that on some of the select products that transferred over, but the business will be rolling up into the Wenger/J.R. Clancy business model.”

Simpson believes that the combination of retaining some talented individuals along with the business model he has purchased means only a positive future to build upon.

“There are some talented individuals we have coming on board who have long-term experience,” he said. “They are actually going to help us accelerate some of the abilities to really project manage and be a total integrator of more solutions for the performing arts space. SECOA has a business model that they’ve been running forever that we have had just over the last couple of years. That will help us jump-start even faster. But we just feel that the assets that we are acquiring as part of this deal clearly fits very well with what we’re doing.”

Mayor Marilyn Strickland and the Tacoma City Council recently approved US$21.3m to renovate the iconic Tacoma Dome – Washington State’s largest indoor venue – in the 2017-18 Biennial Budget presented by City Manager, T.C. Broadnax.

The City-owned facility will be revitalized with new seating, exterior beautification, renovated restrooms, modernized backstage areas and upgraded loading docks and security systems.

City of Tacoma Director of Tacoma Venues & Events, Kim Bedier, said:

The Tacoma Dome is an icon, a ‘must-play’ venue hosting world-class events for more than 33 years. We are looking forward to this exciting transformation and setting the stage for the Dome’s continuing legacy as the premier arena for live entertainment in this region.

Mayor Strickland said:

Investing in the infrastructure and long-term future of the Tacoma Dome is vital to the continued growth of arts and tourism in the region. The sustained economic vitality of the Dome will continue to advance Tacoma’s reputation as a destination. 

City Manager, T.C. Broadnax, added:

The City of Tacoma is committed to excellence and high standards in service. The revitalization of this legendary venue will not only impact the skyline but also boost community pride.

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Industry icon Vince Egan, best known as the founder of VEE Corporation and a kingpin for the touring show industry, passed away on Wednesday, November 30 following a lengthy illness. He was 74.

Kevin Kulas, SVP Marketing/Booking for VStar Entertainment Group, the name of the company following Egan’s retirement and selling of his company in 2015 to Blue Star Media, issued the following internal statement as more details are gathered to share concerning Egan’s passing.

“We are saddened to learn today that Vince Egan passed away early this morning from complications after a long surgery earlier this week. He was a part of our family for over 35 years and an icon in the industry. His vision, many years ago, touched the lives of millions of families around the world. He will be greatly missed and our thoughts are with his family in this difficult time. We will update you when we know more about services being held and we will accommodate those that would like to attend. 

Among his many contributions to the industry, Egan is best known for creating the Sesame Street Live! touring show.

“Vince was a pillar of this industry for decades,” said Randy Brown, executive vice president and general manager of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, IN. “He was one of the early developers of family entertainment. It was his concept creating Sesame Street and a few other productions that followed that. You could call him old-school with his work, but at the same time he had a huge costume shop not just for what they do there, but they have outfitted Super Bowls and so many other huge events.

“He is surely one of the gentlemen of the industry. He was always very well dressed and just very dignified. In may ways you would say Vince was a visionary with kids and family entertainment. Somebody had to be first and he was right there.”

We will update this story as more information is gathered.

AEG Ogden, part of the world leading Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), has overnight added to its growing network of entertainment arenas and theatres.

AEG Ogden, part of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), announced it will manage the new, state of the art 20,000 seat Dubai Arena when it opens in 2018 for Meraas, a Dubai-based holding company with operations and assets in the United Arab Emirates, and would provide experienced operator input into the design of the venue.

Company Chairman and CEO Harvey Lister said AEG Ogden was excited to be working with Meraas to deliver an innovative world class, NBA standard arena that will put Dubai on the international entertainment touring circuit and make a major contribution to the Emirate’s continued development as a major tourism destination.

“Meraas has established itself as a key innovator in the UAE and is to be commended for strengthening Dubai’s global position through redefining industries in the property, hospitality, retail, healthcare, leisure and entertainment sectors,” Lister said. “Dubai is strategically positioned to capitalize on acts coming out of or flying to Europe via AEG’s established network of venues in Australia and Asia. 

“Dubai Arena joins AEG Ogden’s growing network in the Asia Pacific region which includes arenas in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Newcastle and three in China, convention centres with entertainment theatre inclusions in Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Kuala Lumpur and Oman, plus the 52,000 seat Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane and will be a valued addition to AEG Facilities’ family of 130 plus iconic venues worldwide.

“It will also strengthen AEG’s position in the Middle East where stage one of the US$1.5 billion Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre opened last month and work is proceeding on stage two which includes a 3,200-seat theatre.”

Dubai Arena will be the only all-purpose indoor air-conditioned arena of its size in the region and will boast an advanced infrastructure allowing it to accommodate mega-events.

The venue is designed to have automated malleable seats which enables the arena to transform according to the scale of the event being held, no matter how small or big it is. It will also be able to host large scale weddings requiring extremely grand decorations and unconventional set-up which cannot be accommodated elsewhere. The project will attract distinctive and unique events that will appeal all audiences and will allow Dubai to be included alongside other key international cities such as London, Sydney and New York in hosting major touring events.

The project management contract for the destination was awarded to DXB Entertainment PJSC, who are responsible to oversee the design and construction of Dubai Arena.