A HISTORY AND STATEMENT OF SERVICES
ArenaNetwork was formed in 1999, initially comprised of thirteen venues, with the stated purpose of increasing the number of live entertainment events in member facilities. There are now over thirty venues in ArenaNetwork, all across North America. ArenaNetwork has evolved into a growing entity that is constantly exploring new initiatives including cooperative sponsorships, creating our own unique events to fill our venues, and TheaterNetwork, our newest division giving performing arts venues the same level of benefits received by our arena members.
ArenaNetwork has as members many of the leading venues in North America. In order to become a member of ArenaNetwork a facility must be independently owned/controlled and not managed by a national facility management company. The venue must also have a full time marketing staff in place to execute a marketing strategy for events.
Sharing information among the member venues is one of the cornerstones of member benefits. That has helped get many major recording artists and other attractions to play more ArenaNetwork venues than any other facility group. ArenaNetwork presented a majority of the dates on the “Tour of Gymnastics Champions” following the 2000 Summer Olympics and promoted the entire tours in both 2004 and 2008 after the Athens and Beijing Olympic Games, respectively. Dolly Parton has toured ArenaNetwork venues exclusively. ArenaNetwork also partnered with the producers of “Walking With Dinosaurs – The Live Experience” to launch the tour in North America in 2007. The tour was a major success through 2008 while ArenaNetwork continued its partnership involvement. ArenaNetwork contributed significantly to the launch of the “Star Wars In Concert” tour that played in virtually all of its venues during 2009 and 2010. Today, ArenaNetwork continues to work in lockstep with major promoters and producers throughout the music and family show live entertainment space to direct live touring traffic to all of its venues.
During the early years of ArenaNetwork there were very few venues with infrastructure to allow a full arena to be esthetically downsized to a capacity of 4,000-6,000 seats. ArenaNetwork encouraged its members to invest in that infrastructure…full floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall curtains, carpeting, upscale room lighting. The majority of ArenaNetwork members can now present many events in their “arena theatre” configurations allowing acts to play in a proscenium environment to larger capacities than are available in traditional theatres. Many acts have played in ArenaNetwork’s “arena theatres” and have enjoyed the experience of relative intimacy and expanded earning potential. They include Bruce Springsteen, Dolly Parton, Sarah Brightman, Rascal Flatts, Sheryl Crow and Barry Manilow as well as non-musical events such as seminars and motivational rallies, religious events, Sesame Street Live, Barney, Disney Live, and Yo Gabba Gabba.