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CASE Committee Meeting Minutes 12-15-22 FINALCASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 2022 HYBRID FORMAT IN PERSON AT AVON TOWN HALL AND VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES, 15 DECEMBER 2022 PAGE 1 | 4 1. ROLL CALL Present: Committee Member Thomas Walsh (virtually), Pedro Campos and Committee Chair Lisa Mattis (virtually) Town Council: Mayor Amy Phillips and Town Council Member Ruth Stanley Staff: Culture, Arts &Special Events Manager Danita Dempsey Special Events Coordinator Chelsea Van Winkle Absent: Committee Member Justin Chesney, Doug Jimenez, and Town Council Member Lindsay Hardy The meeting was called to order at 12:31 p.m. 2. PUBLIC COMMENT No public comments were made. 3. MINUTES Committee Member Thomas Walsh motioned to approve the minutes from November 18, 2022. Committee Chair Lisa Mattis seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. Committee Member Pedro Campos joined the meeting at 12:34p.m. and left the meeting at 1:34p.m. 4. STAFF UPDATE CASE Manager Dempsey explained the budget update and changes from the events calendar for 2023. Included in the committee packet (available at Avon.org). Special Event Calendar Adjustments CASE Manager Dempsey reviewed the changes to the 2023 events calendar. She noted that Winter Fireworks have been added on January 14th and explained the layout of the event. She then went into the other calendar changes which included, Ultimate Après Avon moving to April 1st, a week earlier than last year, the removal of Art Around Avon Art Walk on June 9th, AvonLIVE! on June 14th will be a Battle of the Bands format and that Vail Valley Brew Au’ moved to August 19 th due to Block Party in Eagle moving to August 12-13. She also stated that Dancing in the Park has reserved two dates and still has not decided which one they would like. Also, a new event, Farm to Table dinners are in flux for Fridays in July and August. The event producer is Ren Productions and has a long history of producing events in Vail and will be a great addition to the calendar. The Committee commented/inquired: A. The winner of the Battle of the Bands could come back for the opener of our strongest headliner. B. Many local bands bring their crew and that helps draw crowds. It is a great local music investment. C. Is Battle of the Bands Eagle County only? D. Highlighting local bands is key for our community. CASE Manager Dempsey responded stating that the bands are only Eagle County, and that the winner will play AvonLIVE! in 2024 due to the fact that we want synergy with the opener and the headliner, and the 2023 lineup will be announced prior to June 14th. CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 2022 HYBRID FORMAT IN PERSON AT AVON TOWN HALL AND VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES, 15 DECEMBER 2022 PAGE 2 | 4 Art Around Avon Program CASE Manager Dempsey informed the committee that both the Art Around Avon applications were launched and open to the public. The 2023 call out was released two months earlier than last year in hopes artists can create pieces specifically for Avon’s program. Knox Galleries Bronze Sculptures CASE Manager Dempsey told the committee that all Knox Bronze sculptures are to be removed but there is not a timeline yet for their removal. She stated she would inform the committee when they are scheduled to be removed. CASE Committee Members and Terms CASE Manager Dempsey detailed the committee members’ term start and end dates. She explained that Kim Hannold had accepted a full-time position with the Town of Avon, so she is no longer able to sit on the committee. In addition, Ruth Stanley has been elected to Town Council, so her term has also ended. With the current committee member status, there will be five open seats which include Thomas, Justin, Lisa, Kim, and Ruth. The Committee commented/inquired: A. Are there term limits for committee members? B. Will applications and interviews be able to be virtual again? C. Can we schedule the second Town Council meeting in January for applicant interviews? It would be helpful to get ahead of the curve with all the seats. D. Will Kim’s seat be a one- or three-year term? A one-year term doesn’t give people time to get their feet wet and it is recommended to push Kim’s seat to a three-year term. E. Will you be advertising for the positions? F. Encourage all current members of the committee to find more committee members that are diverse and would be good additions to the committee. G. There is a fear that past community members may not apply again this year since we were not able to bring on the applicants from before. H. When looking for committee members, Council may prefer registered Avon voters which may make finding a diverse group difficult. Case Manager Dempsey replied that, no there are no term limits on the CASE Committee and yes there will be a hybrid option for interviews. Dempsey explained that she will be delivering the application to current members via email and then send out a press release, post it on the website and potentially do additional advertising if needed. The application timeline will be short due to the request to schedule interviews at the second January council meeting and will likely close Thursday before the meeting to get into the council packet. Committee Chair Lisa Mattis stated she wanted to make a motion for Kim’s seat to be more than two-year terms stating that the terming needs to be tiered. The rest of the committee agreed. Town Produced Event Recap Process and Emerging Trends CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 2022 HYBRID FORMAT IN PERSON AT AVON TOWN HALL AND VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES, 15 DECEMBER 2022 PAGE 3 | 4 Special Events Coordinator Van Winkle explained the event recap process and discussed that the review process has been happening for two years, so it is hard to define any emerging trends. Council inquired about the growth in events and Van Winkle noted that event details were broken down in the October council packet (available at Avon.org). Van Winkle called out the biggest takeaways from each event series which included number of attendees, weather, talent, etc. The Committee commented/inquired: A. Is weather included in the recap? B. Increased spend on AvonLIVE! – what is the data? C. We own Wednesday evenings now, we have brand recognition, and they prefer our venue over others (parking, ease of getting here, not congested, family setting) D. When did we launch AvonLIVE!? Seven or Eight years into launching a brand, this is the benchmark year and really shows AvonLIVE! is a signature event. E. A factor in the great turnout could also be the sales of alcohol and keeping it at a responsible price. F. We were building, building, building and then COVID kicked us in the teeth. We have met the ori ginal goal of owning Wednesday’s and now we need to continue to tweak not reinvent. G. Did the approved budget for 2023 have a higher budget for AvonLIVE! talent? H. The number of AvonLIVE! concerts also plays a factor as they are now most Wednesdays in the summer. I. Does the continued increase of spending and number of guests determine if bathrooms and infrastructure are built in the park. J. Leveraging the mural and handing out bags when guests were coming to the event, people really appreciated it. K. My favorite thing was handing out the bags, it tied our art program and performance program together. Brought residents and guests together. L. Were the vendors for AvonLIVE! different or the same? Personally, as a consumer, I like to have consistency. M. 50% increase in AvonLIVE! in attendance use a ratio for next year with spend on bands and the more in attendance. Ratio is crucial. For the first time we have that information, good job! Case Manager Dempsey explained that we did not increase AvonLIVE! budget in 2022 over 2021 but we had synergy with appropriate Openers and Headliners as well as the same number of AvonLIVE! concert. This year the increase in attendance could also be attributed to increased brand recognition, better weather and investing the marketing dollars differently than last year. For 2023, AvonLIVE! talent budget has increased by $33,000 for eleven events. Dempsey agreed that the boilerplate has been homed in and now it is about small tweaks. She stated that the value of the incremental spend is huge and now that we have two years of data with can create that ratio. 2023 Proposed Meeting Schedule CASE Manager Dempsey explained the meeting schedule that showed keeping meetings on the 3rd Thursday of the month with exceptions and opened it up for the committee’s feedback. The Committee commented/inquired: CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 2022 HYBRID FORMAT IN PERSON AT AVON TOWN HALL AND VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM CASE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES, 15 DECEMBER 2022 PAGE 4 | 4 A. Lunch works well to be able to schedule it in people’s workday. B. Overlapping with lunch is helpful. C. Will there always be a hybrid option? That is important and it is a big -time savings. D. Do we have monthly meetings, or do they need to be less frequent? You have a mature program and are tracking to a high-performance level, the kind of recommendations and level from the committee may be different. E. As the role of the committee progresses in the future, at certain times we may need to have more meetings based on what is the goal of the committee. F. This current list of meetings for next year makes sense for the five new members and we can always cancel if we do not have enough data. Use judgement as they progress. G. Due to having so many new committee members, February – May will be crucial. This new committee will be important for La Zona. Recommend changing the October meeting to just the one with the council, in lieu of a full committee meeting. H. October is the appropriate time for the combined meeting with council when the focus is a recap and future budget. I. February 16 – Meet New Member, March 16 – On Boarding, April & May – Normal Meetings J. Candance would be March meeting is onboarding meeting. K. Strategic plan needs to be brought to the forefront again. The strategic plan has not been flushed out all the way and caused some disconnect with the council. The strategic plan could lessen the likelihood of the council taking a different turn. The plan needs to be lead. L. The weeds are less important, we need this committee to focus on the larger strategic plan. Onboarding needs to include what level of information needs to be discussed. Where do we need to get to for everyone to follow the strategic plan. M. The metrics will really help. This committee it is hard to have criteria that council is looking for. Both Case Manager Dempsey and Special Events Coordinator Van Winkle said yes, this meeting time works well for them and that almost always we should have a hybrid option. Dempsey stated that we removed summer from this schedule due to the business of the events team so once again, there will not be meetings in June, July, and August. Dempsey agreed with the point about the strategic plan and that the work will look different for the new committee. The committee all agreed that the 3rd Thursday of the month at lunchtime works best. Dempsey then explained about the La Zona project that will be on the agenda for January and she anticipates we will be discussing the infrastructure and facilities CASE recommends goes in the old fire station location and how it connects the library, rec center and the mall. This will be CASE’s chance to say what we would like to see in that space. 5. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 1:38 p.m. Respectfully submitted by: Chelsea Van Winkle Special Events Coordinator