Grand Forks' Alerus Center broke record in 2022 for ticketed events, tickets sold

May 20—GRAND FORKS — Last year was one for the record books at the Alerus Center, which set records for total number of tickets sold and the number of ticketed events.

Of 376 events in 2022, 23 were ticketed. For comparison, 2019 is ranked second, with 16 ticketed events, and 2018 is third, with 13.

Additionally, 2022 ranks first for the most tickets sold — excluding UND football — with a total of 100,052.

Alerus Center General Manager Anna Rosburg said 2022 was a full return to normal for the facility. She described the numbers as a "post-pandemic boom."

"For the most part, all of our shows sold very well, too. I think that also played into people wanting to get back to events, which was definitely a benefit coming out of the pandemic," Rosburg said.

The last record year for tickets sold at the Alerus Center — which is owned by the city of Grand Forks — was in 2018, when 65,403 tickets were sold.

Rosburg doesn't expect 2023 to reach the same levels as last year, but she and staff are optimistic for 2024.

"Booking is cyclical, so we're going to have years that are great years and we're going to have years that (are) average years," she said. "Our goal is to just win more than we lose and I think 2022 was just phenomenal, which was great. And '21 was pretty phenomenal as well."

A highlight of 2022 was the

Morgan Wallen

concert. It was the highest grossing concert of 2022 and ranks No. 3 in the facility's all-time attendance records. The 2021 Luke Combs concert is still ranked No. 1 for attendance. Wallen's concert broke records for gross ticket sales, gross food and beverage sales and food and beverage sales per capita.

Two months after Morgan Wallen performed,

Hank Williams Jr.

shattered the food and beverage per-capita record set by Wallen.

The Alerus Center hit another milestone in September, when three concerts — B.o.B., In This Moment and Thomas Rhett — were held in a single week, Sunday through Thursday. The UND homecoming football game immediately followed.

Also, 2022 was the first year the facility hosted three major concerts in a year with attendance figures that topped 11,000. The last comparable year was 2018, when the Alerus Center hosted three major concerts with attendance topping 9,000.

Of the 50 specific events the Alerus Center and Visit Greater Grand Forks tracked, the economic impact for those events alone came in at more than $22 million.

Among the events that had notably high economic impact expenditure was the Junior Grand Am Basketball Tournament — Rosburg said the direct spend and economic impact from the event is similar to a major concert. The Junior Grand Am had 750 day attendees and 6,750 overnight attendees with a direct expenditure of $2.3 million.

The Morgan Wallen concert had a total of 3,671 day attendees and 14,683 overnight attendees directly spending $2.1 million.

The First Robotics-Great Northern Regional competition

had a total of 560 day attendees and 2,240 overnight attendees.

Roughly 95% of the attendees for many of the big shows the Alerus Center held last year live outside of Grand Forks County, according to ticket data.

"That's obviously very important for our mission, (which) is to bring people here and fill hotels and restaurants," Rosburg said.

Of those who live outside of the county, Rosburg said the number of Canadians attending events has increased as COVID-19 restrictions at the border were lifted.

"We're definitely seeing more Canadian traffic than we had. With the restrictions being lifted, that helps," she said.

In addition to the five major concerts and nine minor concerts held in 2022, the Alerus Center also hosted 105 small meetings, 43 small banquets, 37 wedding receptions and 21 conventions, along with a number of other events.

Rosburg said the number of non-concert-related events last year was about average, though being consistent is a priority.

"It's always our goal to have the least amount of dark days that we can on the calendar," she said. "So I would say we were very consistent in 2022 in the conference center."

So far for 2023, 385 events are budgeted, with 271 of those events having either been already held or contracted. They include comedian Bert Kreischer, who performed in February; the Toughest Monster Truck Tour and the PBR Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour, both of which took place in April; a concert by

Kenny Chesney

, held earlier this month; and an upcoming concert by Whiskey Myers, planned for July. The Alerus Center will be hosting six UND football games in 2023.

The facility ended the year with an operating profit of $417,704.51 after budgeting for a loss of $9,250. The facility's 2022 revenue was approximately $5,257,543 — including $618,105 from the city's quarter-of-a-cent hospitality tax — and expenses were roughly $4,839,839.

Last year marked the second straight year the Alerus Center was in the black.

In 2021

the facility ended the year with an operating profit of $190,775 after budgeting for a loss of $253,000.

Rosburg said whenever the facility has a net profit, that money typically goes into the facility's operating reserve account for the years when the facility doesn't make a profit.

"We work really hard to try to have more win years than loss years so that we can continue to take care of the years that are down," she said.

A number of renovations either were made in the past year or are underway now.

Metal detectors inside the facility were upgraded to improve traffic flow during busy events. Crowd Cushion barricade sensors were installed to alert security staff in the event of a crowd crush.

This year, renovations on the

Happy Harry's Suite Level

are ongoing. In January, members of the Events Center Commission awarded the project to Diversified Contractors, the lowest of three contractors that submitted a bid, in the amount of $1,331,800.

So far, two suites are nearly completed, and work on the rest of the suites and suite-level bathrooms continues.

Another project underway is replacing the facility's roof. Rosburg said the work will be the largest capital project completed in the city-owned facility's 22-year history, at a cost of $9.1 million. Members of the Events Center Commission approved awarding the project to Herzog Roofing last year.

Both the suite remodel and reroofing project are funded by the Alerus Center's long-term capital budget, which is funded through a city sales tax. Of that, the three-quarters-of-a-cent tax is dedicated to fund payment of bonds for the construction and capital needs on the facility. The sales tax is set to sunset in 2029. If it were to be extended, it would need to go through a citywide vote.

Rosburg said the renovations are important, not only for maintaining the facility, but also to continue serving the community.

"I think it's really important for us to be able to continue to serve our mission and provide the services we do for the community. To continue to invest in it and make sure that people want to come to Grand Forks and that we have a great asset to sell," Rosburg said. "And so I think seeing these projects come to life is definitely really important to the future success for us. It's kind of fun to walk around right now and have all this action. It's not necessarily a ton of events going on right now, but it's a ton of progress being made on the building in general. That will help it be more sustainable in the future."