- Consider this, a young man in South Carolina earns his Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, he goes on to earn his master's thinking he's going to be a basketball coach, seven states and 12 years later, he ends up as the head of the Peoria Civic Center.
How did he take such a winding road to get where he is today?
We're about to find out, I'm Yvonne Greer and my guest is Rik Edgar, General Manager of the Peoria Civic Center.
Next on Consider This.
(upbeat music) I should begin this program with full disclosure, I am a current sitting member of the Peoria Civic Center Authority, the board that oversees all of the actions that happen at the Peoria Civic Center but in the three years that I've known my guests Rik Edgar, we haven't actually had a one-on-one long form conversation about you, so it's my pleasure to welcome you to Consider This - Thank you for inviting me.
- How are you?
- Doing fantastic, thanks for asking.
- That's great, so take me back.
You have a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science?
- Correct.
- And you think you're gonna be a basketball coach, what's happened from there to there?
- Well, it was a little crazy path, I actually thought I wanted to change the world and then really was involved in politics and then I got a job when I was working on my master's degree, because I thought going through the media would be well best way to go there and do movies and all this cool stuff and while I was there I got a job, working as the video coordinator for the University of South Carolina basketball team as a grad assistantship.
So I was studying game films and thought that's where I was gonna go and the path that I've led from there, there's all these things that didn't seem connected that became interconnected in the short version of a very long stories during that break in between I left the basketball team, worked for Department of Commerce then managed a Children's Cancer Center business which was nothing to do with anything I've done and I always had this drive of wanting to be part of entertainment and so I took a job on the side while I was working at the cancer center, selling tickets for eight bucks an hour and they offered me a job that said if you wanna be in the business, you can't work here because we have all these students willing to work for low wages, so they go, if you're willing to move to Des Moines in Iowa, you can get into career doing the new management.
So that led me to Des Moines in Iowa and then over a 12 year period, I lived in Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio, West Virginia which then led me here to Peoria.
- Wow, have you always had such tenacity?
- Well, I think, you know, some people will say, you know where your plan is, your five-year plan, ten-year plan, I've always been kind of a variable person like what's there and I can see like a couple years, three years and what really helped is I have a phenomenal wife who supported me, so we were able make these moves and she left her job and started independent writing at home and allowed me to make these moves and every time it seemed like a good move, we moved and really in our industry the best way to move up is to take on new challenges, so every couple of three years, so it would be like, all right, it's time to move and do something else.
So we literally started at overnight changeovers, making very little money to working a very small venue in Wisconsin to getting my first arena gig in West Virginia and that led me to this phenomenal property here Peoria.
- Wow, so it's surprising to me just a bit that you would go from ticket sales to venue management, was it about entertainment that intrigued you or did you really love all aspects of it?
- Well, I think it was one of those things you kind of get pushed into If you wanna have a career in this business could do this and I loved numbers and I love box office and again, it all kind of interconnects when you get to the end of the story but they said if you wanna be a general manager, there's not a whole lot of general managers or people that move in upper management who are in box office, so they go, but if you're willing to learn how we make the sausage, so to speak, the overnight changeovers, that's a great way to move up.
So I took that, literally knew nothing about that side of the business and got a crash course at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, which was one of the busiest buildings in the country, so, you know, if you work 70 hours a week for a whole year, you kind of learn some skills and then I was transferred up.
So today I still love the box office reports and that's a real big part of my job.
So, I know a little bit about everything which makes me a general manager but I'm not really good at any one thing.
(Yvonne laughing) - I beg to differ, I haven't seen you at work, however, I want to go back to that point about changeovers just for our audience at home.
That's when you have to say, for example at the civic center, go from a Bradley basketball game to a Rivermen hockey game and then turn around and have a concert the very next night.
How does that work?
Because I think the average person would be amazed.
- It is organized chaos, you do it well after you get some repetition, so my experience was at the Iowa Events Center, so we had two arenas and 200,000 square foot convention centers, they were all part of the same complex, so you have folks that come to work at 10:00 PM at night and go at home at three in the morning and you just have to make it happen and it's a grind and that particular business in Des Moines was so busy that you are forced to learn skill sets because most people wouldn't choose that life and I still remember one of my favorite nights, I literally had Ozzy Osbourne in one building, I had Arenacross in the other and I had Hillary Clinton in the NRA in the other building at the same time, so you kind of balance, you just see the variety of events, so that was the best trial by fire could have asked for.
I wouldn't do the job at my age now but at that time it was the best experience I could've ever asked for.
- And it really does take a special kind of hunger to want to put in 70, 80 hours a week and go through those swift turnovers.
Was that a part of you growing up?
Take me back to South Carolina.
- Unfortunately am uber-competitive, like I, the kind of guy that doesn't like to lose a goldfish, so I think that was a little bit of it and it was, I just knew, I didn't know why but I knew that this was gonna be lead to something.
So you just kind of pick up those things and you know at two in the morning when you've done 10 days in a row and you don't want to do it again, you just kind of make it happen and seeing the crowds that's the, you know, I hate to say it it's the Jones of the thing, you know, when we have it and you see that pop.
So one of the things I've learned a long time ago for myself and I do now with my staff, when we're tired and you can kind of tell when it's been a grind, I always try to kind of put my arm around one of my guys and go, you made this happen because if those guys aren't doing their job at two in the morning, you don't get to have fun the next day and I think that's, you just have a certain pride and I wouldn't recommend this industry to people who wanna work nine to five because it's not that type of life but during this pandemic, I have weekends off and I don't know what to do with myself.
- Wow, so you're sort of restless on the weekends without having all the events to go to.
- Yeah, I think my wife was always saying, we'd love to have you home, but now that I'm home, she goes, I wish she could go back to doing sales.
(Yvonne laughing) - You hear that from people who recently retired all the time, go back to work.
So, you go through your seven States in 12 years and you come to interview at the Peoria Civic Center.
How did you find out that the position was available?
Did Peoria come to you or did you come to Peoria - Sort of, so I actually had a really enjoyed my time in West Virginia was a really great little market but I felt that I wanted to go one more step further and the big driver for us is I have children and we wanted really strong schools.
So and I know you've heard this story but I was literally in the car with planned trip to go to a venue in Wisconsin kind of almost back to where we were and on the way there, one of my senior VPs called me on my cell phone and said, what do you think about Peoria?
And I said, I've know of it but I've never been there, he goes, can you please stop in here, we think there's gonna be a gig and we think you'd be a good fit.
So I was like, all right and truth is we kind of came in very stealthy, drove around town, drove through a neighborhood and we saw a sign out front for rent and before I even walked in the building, we called a realtor who happened to be in the neighborhood, showed up 15 minutes later, went into that home, came down to the building and my feeling was that it was a really good venue that maybe needed some outside influence to take it to the next level and we made basically a verbal deal that day that if I was interested, I could move here and that house that we drove and looked at, that's where I live today.
- That is a great story.
Sometimes you just know, I think, do you find that a lot of what you do is intuitive because you're the guy that has the say on which concerts come, which, how, who gets what night?
All of those sorts of things.
- Yeah - A little bit, you know, I found out a long ago, it's your gut, you know and I had a promoter who I have a great admiration for and he would call me all the time in West Virginia which was a little bit of a challenge market and he would always go, Rik, what's your gut saying, what's your gut say, he don't look at it.
I actually do this with some of my staff members now, if there's a show coming up that I'm on the fence on, I say, don't ask any questions, I'm gonna say a name, I want your first reaction and that's led to some of our best big bookings in the buildings, so you're gonna be wrong but you know, if you don't take parts at the pledge, you can never be right.
- So give us an insider's look.
How does one go about booking events for a venue like our Peoria Civic Center?
- Well, it's really relationships and what it is, is I think promoters know that I try to be honest to a fault and we'll get a call like, hey would you like to do the work for this artist, you know, we can maybe get this and I'll go, it's not right for Peoria but you know one of my favorite stories and it's prior to coming here and this is where that trust built, I was calling about a Dolly Parton show and I was more or less begging the promoter to bring him into my building and he said, Rik, I'm not taking Dolly Parton to your building, it's not gonna work.
Yes but I'm working on this other thing and I go, what are you working on?
He said, kiss and I kind of exclaimed and I said, yes, absolutely, we need to make that happen and he goes, well, you answered pretty quick, I said, that'll be a home run.
So it was a 2016. and that was the number one kiss show out of 40 shows in the entire country in Huntington, West Virginia.
So once that gut reaction happened and you get that, like we kind of helped make that happen that led to here and happy to say that we were able to get kissed to Peoria in 2019.
It was a lot of fun.
- Yes so popular.
(Yvonne laughing) - When you were choosing shows, I know you've got a lot of voices in your ear, you got us as members of the board, you've got and what people may not realize is the Peoria Civic Center is a quasi-governmental agency and so technically you work for a company not for the city of Peoria but the city of Peoria owns the building.
- Well, the authority actually owns the building, that's where it gets a lot of complicated, so I have lots of bosses and that's okay and there's a joke kind of in the industry that I've never met anyone who can't book my venue better than me.
You Know, they've always got a better idea.
So, you know, you kind of live with your decisions and I often go to here for, I'll give you an example, we had Bob Seger and we had a shot at it and it was a high risk show, you know, high risk, high reward and I usually use my wife as a soundboard 'cause she could care less about what I do for a living, so she's perfect and I said, well, this is either a show, this gonna make me a hero or probably gets me fired but I'm gonna take a risk with Bob Seger and it worked out wonderfully, thankfully it's still the highest grossing show the venue has ever had.
So sometimes it's a little bit of sweat equity wrapped in with luck - To the general public that says, why don't we have, I don't know, some of the major top pop or hip hop artists coming in, - Right.
- A lot of it has to do with the size of our venue, correct in our community?
- Yeah well, it's the size, it's the demographics in the area, so it's a very, you know, the folks that are making these decisions aren't Rik and Peoria, it's LA, New York and they pull out your demographics in your charts.
You know, what's your, the income level of the community?
Can they support a bigger show?
And you know, I heard, you know, names like Beyonce, I'd love to work with Beyonce but she's too expensive and deserves every dime she gets to play a 10,000 seat arena but there are other acts that we fit in, so, and we can also lose a lot of money if we pick wrong, so we have to be very careful with what we choose but part of what we're looking forward to doing here in the next year or so is we're gonna try to have more opportunities for more people to enjoy shows at our venue.
- That's a lot of inputs, so how does Rik the man contend with all of the entities that contribute to this job that you do as general manager?
- I, as much as I'm very positive about things, I do use the word no a lot.
It has, you have to have a point where you go, that doesn't make sense, we can't do that and you know, and we understand that people have their favorite band, like for me my favorite artists almost of all time is Tori Amos, I would love to work with Tori Amos.
She doesn't really fit the Peoria demographic, so I will go buy tickets and see her somewhere else.
So you just have to kind of put that in place but sometimes it all comes together and I know you've heard this story that I about jumped through the roof When I heard about Weird Al Yankovic and we were able to bring Weird out to this community because it was a bucket list show for me and I got to take my teenage daughter like a fan, it's the one show that actually sat in the audience and it worked out financially and we sold the house out, so what a win-win-win for everybody.
- Absolutely, do you get to be a participant very much, there's so much that goes on under the roof where you work.
Do you get to enjoy a basketball game?
Do you get to enjoy a concert very often?
Or are you always working?
- I try to make a point of it, it's infrequent but every once in a while, you know, I'm still a fan, I'm the kid who listened to his 45s and his albums with his headphones on, that's how I got drawn to music.
So when Allison Chainz was in my venue, I made a point of stopping and watching the show for 15, 20 minutes but a lot of times, you're just doing things behind the scenes, settling shows, doing things with promoters but if you don't take a few moments to smell the roses, what's the point of having a great garden.
- Yeah, so you mentioned a little bit ago that because of COVID you have your weekends free now because of the Peoria Civic Center by and large outside of a few events and Bradley basketball has been shut down for a year now.
- Yes, it's almost the anniversary as we do tape this.
- Yeah, it is crazy to think that a whole year has gone by.
What have you learned about you with all of this extra time?
- I think more even about me but I, we had to, unfortunately we had a lot of folks lose their jobs, you know, it was, we couldn't maintain a staff of 51 full-timers and 350 part-timers when we're not open.
What has been one of the empowering things is watching, we went from immense sadness for about 60 to 90 days to a rallying of the staff around each other, the ones that we were able to build a core with and I couldn't be more proud of what they've been doing during this time than I can even express.
So I think for me, it's made me appreciate the hard work that those guys do overnight, getting snow removed, things that, you know, we always refer to the stuff that is not sexy stuff about the business, not about ticket sales or the shows but the nuts and bolts in the background, so I'm blessed with a phenomenal staff that allows me to, you know, get some undeserved pats on the back when it really should be going to them.
- As a small business owner that was also, had my business closed for a few months during COVID.
It allowed me a moment to sink into my family, if you will and recognize how much time I'd spent away.
Did it bring you guys closer, you and your wife and two daughters closer as a unit?
- Well, I think we're also different, so I have a second grader, I have a sophomore in high school and then my wife and I have been married almost 20 years, so yeah, we're starting to, you know, we find ourselves bingeing shows together, doing things but we've been uber-cautious during this time.
So we've been one of those families that have been at home, so we've kind of carved out our little niches but - We call it going to our apartments, was it just (indistinct) - Yeah, I mean, you know, if I can get the devices away from them, it's a big win but I think it's allowed me to appreciate them and then those little things, so yeah, I think it's, we we've always been pretty close knit, so, I don't think it's changed, it's just the world around us has been a little different for the last year.
- When you came to Peoria, what was it, summer of 2018?
- Yep.
- You had this vision that Peoria could be and I wrote it down to be the economic epicenter of Peoria.
- Yes.
- And in 2018 and 2019, the civic center had back to back profitability for only the second time ever.
- Correct.
- And then the pandemic.
- Yes, I am believer that if you can build excitement around the venue and a lot of it went into so many people's investment, not even just Peorians but folks from outside the community whether they be promoters, agents, my company, ASM global, you know, just to build excitement and what was really great is we were having people go, I haven't seen the building working like this before, so a lot of it was, you know, trying to get really cool stuff and try to get a little something for everyone and you know, the economic impact on the venue and again, numbers guy, we kind of did a research that was done up in Chicago and we took their numbers by half and found out over a five-year period that the venue generated half a billion dollars in the community in ancillary income.
- Wow.
- Ticket sales went from 7.8 million to 14.9 million, so we pay taxes, so a lot of that we were talking about but as we got going, the hotel started filling up, the restaurants were full on those nights and then it even spilled out to neighboring communities like East Peoria in Washington, we were doing events.
So it's one of those that we're excited because we think that the inventory is gonna go up that's acts and talents and shows in 22 because there is a pent up demand and we're hoping to pick up where we left off because it sure is a lot of fun to see the downtown life.
- Yeah and that's what I was gonna say, what can we as a community hope for as vaccination start rolling out and people start getting more comfortable about going back and being in larger groups once they have been vaccinated, what are we looking at?
Can you give us any?
- Well, I think a lot of it is we've had really good support from the local health department and we've very big supporters of them because the more we do this right and not take shortcuts, the quicker we can get back to full house because the reality is there's an economic engine in our industry and half house doesn't really work.
We have to be able to sell out a show to bring the larger talents like our Reba McEntire show that we're still hoping will happen in August, but the community, you know, where mask, social distance, wash your hands, get vaccinated.
The quicker we can do that, the quicker we can go back to doing full house shows and having fun again - What is the greatest comment question, suggestion that you get from the community because I know you garner so much input.
- You know what, actually the community has been pretty supportive and I think after the initial part, it was like, you know, just leave them alone, we like what's going on.
So, I rely on my staff a lot for advice and thoughts and just kind of input but I think usually we get, I sure would like it if you would bring this our act or you'd bring this show but as far as the business, we've got a very supportive board which you had mentioned earlier on and I think as long as we get the community support, I really think we're on an upward trajectory.
- The Peoria Civic Center, I've been remissed has been the spot for testing for so many of us here in Central Illinois, I've been in that line myself a few times, what has that partnership been like?
- I'm not - I shouldn't say partnership, I should say, what has it been like to have all of that going on outside the building when it's usually (indistinct) - I'm sorry, I misunderstood, yeah, they call it testing site, perfect, yeah, that was really, that was an easy one for us, they go, we need a large space and we said anything to get us back to normal sooner we're in.
So we set that up and that's been there, it's almost a year, I think it opened up in April of 20.
So we've seen the numbers of testing going down and the positivity rates, so we're hopeful that the community's getting closer, closer to being back to be able to do things as we used to.
- What are you hoping to accomplish personally, professionally at the Peoria Civic Center?
Is there a feather in your cap that you really like to achieve?
You said you're a year or two out guide, what do you see coming for you in the next year or two?
- Well, it's less about me and I mean that sincerely, there's certain acts I'd like to work with and I always refer to them as my secret bucket list and I usually don't reveal them and then when it happens then I become a fan again, so I totally fan point on Weird Al, you know, it was one of those things that doesn't happen often, I spent the most incoherent sentence when I got to meet the guys from Allison Chainz and they probably thought I was an idiot and that's okay, you know, we have fun, I think really we'll wanna do is I love creating jobs, I love having excitement, I like having people in the venue enjoying themselves, so there will be little nuggets as we go through but there isn't like one thing that I really want there's one or two bands that I kinda keep to myself but outside of that, it's just about, we really wanna get back to where we work, so it was such a happy place.
- And outside of the concerts and entertainment things that happen at the civic center, there are lots of conventions and sporting events that happen as well, how would you like to inform the community about how they can best use the civic center because it offers a lot of possibilities outside of go and do a show.
- Yeah, I think that my focus is usually on ticketed events but both Sutherland who's my partner in the building really handles those things and I think where those are kind of the underground type events because when we have like a library union come to town and they have 500 people in our building for a couple of days, those are the non-recycled dollars that come into the community, they live somewhere else and they stay in our hotels, so that's where we see the economic impact and they're usually here for a couple of three days, so it's really about numbers, I mean, we get really excited when we get my director team together and we know that we're making budget, we're beating budget and we're seeing the impact on the community, so I think in the next two to three years, I mean, our goal is to try to get the building as close to paying for itself and also filling up our four points hotel that just opened and filling up the Pere Marquette and bringing back some of those restaurants that unfortunately have closed during this pandemic.
- There was a point where the civic center was quote and quote in financial trouble because monies that were to have come in through grants from the State of Illinois had not come in, the building still needs to be maintained whether or not anybody is in it and the City of Peoria appropriated $4 million in bonds around the same time as they were closing a couple of fire stations, - Right.
- There was a lot of talk in the community and it looked on the face of it like, the fire departments losing and the civic center is winning.
Would you clarify how?
- Yeah, I appreciate this 'cause it was a little bit of a misnomer, the reality of that situation is we had an existing debt from the, when they raided the building and they added on the additional convention space, so all we did was borrow money on that same debt and extended it for two years and we're still paying back that loan, so we're paying it back through our HRA taxes, so it was two very separate pods of money, it wasn't that the city just gave us $4 million as a bailout fund, it was literally like, you refinancing your house at the, you know, hey, you know what, I've got a little bit of equity in the place, let's refinance that and we'll just pay it off over an extra year.
So - So there was no trade one for the other?
- Absolutely not and in fact, we have a revenue source to pay for those things and it just extended our debt a year and a half.
- Your path here has been really traverse as we discussed as we opened the show.
and there really is or is there a blueprint for managing venues?
- No, (laughs) I think there's different management styles, so there's some folks that we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that.
I kind of try to be more in tune with the variables and kind of reading the tea leaves, what's coming down the path, I think what we were looking for is, we saw a explosion and a growth in ticketed events.
We more than doubled the amount of shows we were doing and they were being supported, we also learned during those times that there are certain nights that we don't do as well, we always hear, we want things on Fridays and Saturdays but we found out really quickly Friday nights during high school football and the falls really hurt some of our top shows, so we have that in mind as we book further, so you learn about the market things that are going on, to answer your question, there is no right way to do this job but I've been very fortunate in that my venues and my teams have been successful and we take a lot of pride in creating memories and making budget and those are the two things that we really focus on, I think here, we would like to see more unique usages of our convention space and in our meeting rooms.
So we're actually behind the scenes and we've taken this year to start sound-boarding some of those ideas and hopefully soon we'll be able to bring them out to the community and see how they feel about it.
- How does that work?
How does a convention end up at the Peoria Civic Center?
- Usually they do a bid process, if it's a large convention and then the CVB will get the lead and then they will work with our team to offer the best proposal and so there's really, you need three main cogs to the wheel to make that happen so there is a structure and I like to call it 1/3 of it is the CVB influence, 1/3 of it is the hotels usually rebate back the folks to welcome them to the community and 1/3 of it is us just counting our rents or giving a package, so it's because we're competing, not with the hotels or things in town, we're competing with Springfield or Chicago or other regional events, so it truly is a competition and you there is no right or wrong way but you put your best foot forward and hope for the best - But when things do work out well, it really does create a buzz throughout the whole community because downtown is so busy and the restaurants are busy, certainly there's a little bit of, Oh my gosh, I can't get a seat at my favorite restaurant but there's an energy that comes with all of that as you mentioned, sort of the trickle down effect.
- Yeah and I are the music educators who come to town with an event that is a perfectly, Darcy and her team, we just love them and it's become more or less of a, we always wanna get away from landlord tenant 'cause nobody likes their landlord but if you can become true partners and you develop win-wins and one of the things that I feel very proud of doing and I give a shout out to Matt Bartolo and Bob Gates and the folks that were on our negotiating team.
We had a lot of landlord tenant relationships when I came to the account and they've evolved into partnerships, so there was some cultural issues that we wanted to address and now those same folks that we may have not have had saw eye to eye with, we like to feel like we're best friends and we're got the same goals in mind.
- Well, that sounds like a very promising way to build into our future once we get through this Corona virus pandemic.
Rik, we're just about out of time, is there anything you would like to add that I have not asked you about?
- No, I just think that, you know, we really appreciate our Broadway subscribers, I will give a shout out to them.
We have actually had all of our almost every Broadway subscriber only three people have asked for refunds for the season, so if they're watching us tonight, we absolutely love you guys, we appreciate your support because we're gonna have phenomenal Broadway shows in the future when it's safe and it's just great to know that that fan base is stuck with us and we're hopeful that when Bradley and the Rivermen in our other tenants and our events that our fans will come back when it's safe and we're gonna try not to come back a minute sooner.
- All right, I will certainly be there (laughs) when we can.
Rik, thank you so much for being with us here on Consider This, thank you for being with us as well, I'm Yvonne Greer and we'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
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