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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-01-16 Regular MeetingCITY OF GRAPEVINE, TEXAS GRAPEVINE CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING Thursday, January 16, 2014 — 8:00 a.m. CVB Headquarters 636 S. Main Street Grapevine, Texas AGENDA I. CALL TO ORDER 11. OATH OF OFFICE III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES IV. INTRODUCTION OF STAFF V. LIAISON UPDATES A. HERITAGE FOUNDATION ACTIVITIES B. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ACTIVITIES VI. OLD BUSINESS A. CHRISTMAS CAPITAL OF TEXAS REPORT B. MARRIOTT COURTYARD AND TOWNEPLACE SUITES VII. NEW BUSINESS A. MAIN STREET DAYS THEME REVIEW B. CAPITAL PROJECT REVIEW VIII SALES & MARKETING REPORT IX. HOTELS / ATTRACTIONS ACTIVITIES X. ADJOURNMENT IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND THIS SPECIAL PUBLIC MEETING AND YOU HAVE A DISABILITY THAT REQUIRES SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE MEETING, PLEASE CONTACT THE GRAPEVINE CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU AT (817) 410-3185 AT LEAST 24 HOURS IN ADVANCE OF THE MEETING. REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS WILL BE MADE TO ASSIST YOUR NEEDS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE, CHAPTER 551.001 et seq, ACTS OF THE 1993 TEXAS LEGISLATURE, THE GRAPEVINE CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU ADVISORY BOARD MEETING AGENDA WAS PREPARED AND POSTED ON THIS THE 8TH DAY OF JANUARY, 2014 AT 5:00 P.M. —1. -e4 -96L----' Eloise Koehn Director of Finance and Administration State of Texas County of Tarrant City of Grapevine MINUTES The Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau Board of Directors met in Regular Session on Thursday, January 16, 2014 at 8:00 a.m. at the Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau Headquarters, 636 S. Main Street, Grapevine, Texas with the following persons in attendance: Paul Slechta Tom Cherry Gracie Vega Lance Marrin Joe Szymaszek Mark Terpening Dan Weinberger Debi Meek Chairman Board Member for Board Member, John Imaizumi Board Member Board Member Board Member Board Member Alternate Board Member Constituting a quorum, with the following liaisons and staff members present: Absent: Sharron Spencer C. W. Higgins Paul W. McCallum Michael Woody Eloise Koehn Shawna Barnes Jennifer Hibbs Pat Stinson Council Liaison Chamber Liaison Executive Director Assistant Executive Director Director of Finance & Administration Assistant to the Executive Director Assistant City Manager Heritage Foundation Liaison CALL TO ORDER Chairman Slechta called the meeting to order at 8:00 a.m. He introduced Gracie Vega, sitting in for John lmaizumi and welcomed new Board Member, Debi Meek and new Chamber Liaison, C. W. Higgins. OATH OF OFFICE Laura Simmons administered the Oath of Office to new Board Member, Debi Meek. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion by Joe Szymaszek, seconded by Dan Weinberger to approve the minutes from the December 10, 2013 meeting prevailed by the following vote: Ayes: Slechta, Cherry, lmaizumi, Marrin, Szymaszek, Terpening, Weinberger Nays: None Board of Directors Meeting January 16, 2014 Page 2 of 6 INTRODUCTION OF STAFF Mr. McCallum introduced new staff members: JoAnn Webster, Sponsorship Sales Manager; Wesley Lucas, Communications Coordinator; and Shellie Johnson, Accountant II. No action taken by the Board. LIAISON UPDATES Heritage Foundation Activities Michael Woody reported for Pat Stinson that the Foundation Board of Directors met yesterday afternoon to discuss plans for 2014. There are 2 new Heritage Foundation Board Members, Frances Jensen and Ron Hewlett. This weekend at the Palace will be the movies, "Annie Hall" and "Dial M for Murder". Nash Farm hosted their first Farmhouse on the Grape Vine Prairie. A program is scheduled for each month to correspond to chapters from The Little House on the Prairie and Farmer Boy books. This weekend at the Farm will be the annual Butchering and Curing program. No action taken by the Board. Chamber of Commerce Activities Mr. Higgins reported that the Chamber has a busy year planned. The Annual Awards Banquet is tonight at Austin Ranch and the next Board meeting is on January 28th No action taken by the Board. OLD BUSINESS Christmas Capital of Texas Report Mr. McCallum reported on the many activities of the Christmas Capital of Texas (CCOT). The parade was rescheduled due to the weather and 90 of the 110 entries were able to participate. Palace Christmas Movie attendance was 2,090 at 13 movies, one a sell-out. The Texas Tenors had 2,172 in attendance with five sold -out shows and attendees from 20 Texas cities, 14 states and British Columbia. The Grapevine Opry had 1,226 in attendance. Also at the Palace was the Elvis Kind of Christmas show and the Nutcracker Ballet. Tractor drawn wagon rides raised $1,200 for Nash Farm. The Marionette Show sold 1,838 tickets. The North Pole Express public runs carried 23,436 passengers and 2 special runs carried 687. The school runs carried 4,302 passengers. Both of the Christmas Wine Trains were sold out. Board of Directors Meeting January 16, 2014 Page 3 of 6 OLD BUSINESS cont. Christmas Capital of Texas Report cont. The Victorian Christmas event at Nash Farm had 100 attendees and 89 volunteer hours. At Gaylord Ice! Attendance was down slightly from last year due to the storm. They had 227,126 visitors to Ice! Great Wolf Lodge Snowland was up 3.5% over last year. Santa's Wonderland at Bass Pro Shops saw an increase in both attendance and profits. Holly Jolly Holidays at Sea Life went really well. There were 227,859 visits to the website in December, making it the busiest month ever in our website's history. Mobile visits were 25% of total traffic. Total page views were up 5% over last year and the average time spent on the site was 10 minutes 57 seconds. Print publicity was $1,432,888. TV/Radio publicity was $661,725, and online publicity was $6,525. No Action taken by the Board. Marriott Courtyard and Towneplace Suites Mr. McCallum reported that this 301 -room, dual flag property is the first in North Texas and third in the state. It is owned and operated by NewCrestlmage and the General Manager is Michelle Strong. The property opened in December and is located in Silverlake on ten acres overlooking Cowboys Golf Club. The property has 12,674 sq. feet of meeting space including a 10,183 sp. ft. ballroom. The property includes a resort -style swimming pool, state-of-the-art exercise facility and a restaurant and lounge. No action taken by the Board. NEW BUSINESS Main Street Days Theme Review Mr. McCallum reported that the Main Street Days name launched in the '80s and it has worked exceedingly well for us. This year the festival is increasing the role of craft beers and that we did some testing with craft beers this past year. To ramp up the idea at this year's Main Street Days staff is considering dinners with beer pairings, cask openings etc. There is consideration of taking the "Days" out of the title and possibly using Main Street Fest — A Craft Brew Experience. Other thoughts put forth included the idea of it being the kick off to summer, the back yard experience, keeping it family friendly, and including foods that mix with beer. No action taken by the Board. Board of Directors Meeting January 16, 2014 Page 4of6 Capital Project Review Mr. McCallum reported that renovations on the Ice House have been in progress for about a year. This CVB portion of the project is about 98% complete and will go to punch list in about a week. This project includes the exterior of the building and the interior walls. Museum Arts is doing the exhibits and they are about 65% complete. The Historical Society is about 80% complete on preparing the artifacts. Laminate flooring in the walkways and the back of the house finish -out will take place after the rest is completed. The potential soft opening is this summer. A storage facility for the Grand Hall in the CVB Headquarters building was lost during the "value engineering" phase of design for this building. The new storage will be off the north wall of the south wing of the building. The entrance to the storage area will be across from the service elevator on the second floor. Staff is preparing an RFQ for a museum design group for the Vineyard and Winery Museum which will be located on the lower level of the CVB Headquarters. General timeline includes design in 2014, acquisitions in 2015 and opening in 2016. Another capital project is the railroad platform and spur lines. Tex Rail will pay to move the entire GVRR infrastructure (support systems) to the east side of Main Street. This would include such things as the storage track, sewer system, shore power, oil separators, round house, fueling station, turn table, repair tracks etc. The first phase is to have a design/engineering study done to determine the cost for such a move. No action taken by the Board. SALES AND MARKETING REPORT Mr. Woody reported that convention sales had 45 leads with 55,000 potential room nights. Tourism distributed 117,170 brochures and sold 11,972 tickets at the Visitor Information Center. Destination services assisted two groups with over 1,800 delegates. The visitor shuttles carried 3,300 passengers during the month. The Palace Arts Center had total sales for the month of $102,758. The Grapevine Vintage Railroad had a strong month with North Pole Express. For marketing there were seven print trade insertions, 85,000 online impressions, 38 print consumer publications insertions, 233 TV and radio insertions and 4,172,638 online advertising impressions. Public relations highlights included the Houston Chronicle article with an ad value of $29,900 and WFAA-TV "Santa's Helpers in Grapevine" with 668 seconds of coverage and an ad value of $30,060. No action taken by the Board. Board of Directors Meeting January 16, 2014 Page 5 of 6 HOTELS 1 ATTRACTIONS ACTIVITIES • The first large conference for the dual flag Marriott was held last week for the United Negro College Fund. Mayor Tate presented the welcome address and several state officials were in attendance including Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst. • Ken Broom returns to the Great Wolf Lodge as General Manager. • Benjamin Premack is the new Director of Sales and Marketing at the Grand Hyatt. • In the Dallas Business Journal, Grapevine captured four placements in the top 25 largest hotels in North Texas. Place number three went to Gaylord Texan, number six to Hyatt Regency DFW, number seven to Great Wolf Lodge and number 21 to Hilton DFW Lakes. • Faith Christian School is opening its doors to facility rentals. They have a 600 -seat amphitheater. • Dream Big Productions with President, Lani Bartley Stacy, will take over the new "Grapevine Opry Show" beginning February 15tH • Three new businesses have gone into the 520 S. Main Building. They include Dr. Sue's Chocolates in Suite 208, Stork Visions in Suite 311, and ID90 Technologies in Suite 300. • Four new brochures include; Art & Sole, Nash Farm 2014 Events and Programs, Day Out With Thomas and Historic Downtown Walking Tour. • Current show in the Tower Gallery is Gail Cope — Connections. The exhibit features 26 mixed media works. • Bill Ganzel — Dust Bowl 1930's photography will be in the Grand Gallery starting February 7th • Mail Call — Treasured letters and care packages received by our Military Personnel will be in the Tower Gallery beginning February 10tH No action taken by the Board. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to come before the board a motion by Tom Cherry, seconded by Joe Szymaszek to adjourn the meeting at 9:45 a.m. prevailed by the following vote: Ayes: Slechta, Cherry, lmaizumi, Marrin, Szymaszek, Terpening, Weinberger Nays: None Board of Directors Meeting January 16, 2014 Page 6of6 PASSED AND APPROVED BY THE GRAPEVINE CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE CITY OF GRAPEVINE, TEXAS ON THIS THE 20t" DAY OF FEBRUARY, 2014. APPROVED: Paul S echta Chairman ATTEST: Eloise Koehn Director of Finance & Administration