THE NEWS BEHIND THE HEADLINES : SPORTS : MUSIC : FAMILY SHOWS : CONVENTIONS : FAIRS

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1 THE NEWS BEHIND THE HEADLINES : SPORTS : MUSIC : FAMILY SHOWS : CONVENTIONS : FAIRS SEPTEMBER 2013 VOLUME 12 NUMBER 9 The World According to Taylor Swift How a globe-trotting, genre-jumping superstar rewrote the rules and helped save us from ourselves Social Media Power 100 Arena Spotlight Canadian Venues

V T S P O T L I G H T A DECADE OF SUCCESS Fans are treated to $10 million in upgrades to help CenturyLink Center celebrate its 10th birthday in Omaha by DAV E B R O O K S Outside Omaha s CenturyLink

2 V T S P O T L I G H T A DECADE OF SUCCESS Fans are treated to $10 million in upgrades to help CenturyLink Center celebrate its 10th birthday in Omaha by DAV E B R O O K S Outside Omaha s CenturyLink Center Ever since opening in 2003, CenturyLink Center has turned Omaha into a worldclass entertainment town, building a nice business of concerts, major conventions and collegiate championship sports. And starting this season, CenturyLink Center has another reason to be proud of its many major accomplishments its tenant men s college basketball team, the Creighton Bluejays, has joined the prestigious Big East. Creighton is no longer a midmajor program. They are officially a major now, said Roger Dixon, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority, which manages CenturyLink Center and Omaha s TD Ameritrade Park, home to the NCAA College World Series. When you re playing teams like Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette, it means you re going to have a whole different atmosphere, Dixon said. It can also mean higher expectations of the 14 VENUES TODAY SEPTEMBER 2013

3 fan experience, and CenturyLink Center has invested over $10 million in major improvements to the facility, including a superhigh resolution scoreboard from Daktronics that will give the facility one of the best center-hung displays in college sports. One of the reasons we did these renovations was because we were in negotiations with Creighton and this helped convince them that another 10-year agreement was the right thing to do, Dixon said. And it has also caught the eye of major sport organizers including USA Swimming, which will be hosting its third Olympic trials at the building in The NCAA is also eyeing the building and agreed to host the second and third rounds of the 2015 Final Fours Men s Championship at CenturyLink Center. What Dixon and his team have done with the arena has been incredible, said Mark Burgers, associate athletic director for Creighton. NOT JUST A COLLEGE SPORTS TOWN Omaha is home to the annual College World Series of Baseball and popular volleyball and basketball programs at Creighton and has been the location for major collegiate events like 2010 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships and the 2006 and 2008 NCAA National Championships for Volleyball. But Dixon noted that college sports aren t the only area where CenturyLink Center excels. We are great at collegiate sports, but the overall support we get from the community for all our events is huge, he said. They buy into it, they support it and they like to be entertained. Dixon added, Omaha as a community is fairly affluent. When I came here 13 years ago, I heard over and over I m tired of driving to Ames, Iowa or I m tired of driving to Kansas City. I want concerts here in town. They also want to be well fed and comfortable, and the latest round of renovations includes $4 million for improving concessions. We ve got concession stands being remodeled throughout the building, he said. Our club section is being totally remodeled and we re finally 100 percent done replacing our video scoreboard. Daktronics provided the $6-million center-hung scoreboard the only non-nba and non-nhl scoreboard in a U.S. arena with 4mm video displays and 4mm and 6mm pixel configuration. Dixon said the resolution on the board is 2,700 percent better than their last board. They also installed new ribbon panels on the seating board, along with scoring table panels and the outdoor marquee network, he said. In the past year, Dixon s team also replaced the entire wired infrastructure for CenturyLink Center, boosting the network bandwidth from an average of 100 megabytes to 10 gigabytes, an increase of nearly 100 times. They ve quadrupled the number of WiFi access points throughout the building, allowing hundreds more users to get online at once. And finally, construction crews have upgraded the building s Lexus Club with a $1.3-million makeover, adding additional points of sale and a side bar for enhanced beverage service, along with a TV wall usually tuned to area sports and teams. The Lexus Club is for club-seat holders, suite holders and major donors. CHAMPIONSHIP QUALITY While the Creighton Men s Basketball Team is expected to do a brisk business with their switch to the Big East, Omaha is still first and foremost a women s volleyball town and CenturyLink Center has hosted major regional NCAA tournaments in 2005, 2009 and 2012 as well as national championships in 2006 and Women s volleyball is huge in this part of the country, he said. In 2005, our regional outdrew all other regional tournaments combined. We even outdrew the national championship in San Antonio, he said. While it helps to have a powerhouse program like Nebraska nearby, Dixon said fans will buy tickets whether the Cornhuskers make it to the finals or not. Another big draw collegiate wrestling, which Dixon said makes for the the most intense spectators I have ever seen. As soon as the door is open, they don t move the entire day. They do eat and drink a lot, but they never leave. They don t want to miss a single bit of the action. Dixon said one of his strongest assets while bidding to host collegiate sports championships is the adjacent convention center. We ve used it as a press and media center. In volleyball, we ll set up practice courts and load-in areas. You never know what the weather is going to be like in March and the building creates a comfortable place to work, he said. V T S P O T L I G H T MARQUEE EVENTS Since 2013, CenturyLink Center has hosted a number of world-class events including championship-caliber collegiate sports, major conventions and world-class musical artists. Below we asked Roger Dixon to describe some of the most memorable bookings his team has brought to Omaha. NCAA MEN S BASKET- BALL FINAL FOUR We did the second and third rounds in 2008 and 2012 (respectively), and both sold out. The 2012 run had the best upsets in the tournament and the arena was always packed. Our hotels did an amazing amount of business that weekend. CONVENTIONS We have two major conventions at the building. John Deere holds its annual conference here every couple of years, and Warren Buffett and his company Berkshire Hathaway hold their annual shareholders meeting here every year. Each show takes several weeks to build, and when the John Deere guys are here, they turn the city into a sea of green. And Berkshire Hathaway puts more people in the building each year than any other event. They use the arena for their main board meeting and the convention center floor for all of their companies, everyone from Dairy Queen and Justin Boots to See s Candies and Fruit of the Loom. There s even a homebuilding company that brings in a modular model home. CONCERTS We ve had everyone from Paul McCartney to The Rolling Stones and The Who. We ve done some incredible business with Prince, and Taylor Swift likes to come here. We ve done multiple dates with her on her tour, as well as Kenny Chesney and even Billy Joel. You name it, we ve had them. SEPTEMBER 2013 VENUES TODAY 15

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2015-16 MEN S BASKETBALL SEASON TICKET PRICES Creighton Ticket Office (402) 280-JAYS; cuticketoffice@creighton.edu * Options 1 through 6 were sold out last year contact the CU Ticket Office regarding availability