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I'd love some genuine insight as this is something I'm very curious about. You can skip my below thoughts on the matter as it may just be very limited/ill educated insight on my end.
Anyway, it is another little day dream I have that I think about every so often. It seems like if you ever want to run an event venue the best method to go about doing this is to buy it outright. However, unless you're a multimillionaire, you'll have a fat chance of doing this in a lot of states. I'm in Massachusetts for example and even spending $2 million+ will be a tough time buying even a fairly small venue in a desirable location. Even a roller rink that went out of business in our much cheaper neighboring state of Rhode Island sold for $1.3 million in Narragansett recently.
However, Massachusetts has some of the most expensive real estate in the country. The Northeast in general can be very expensive. I've looked around on some other websites and some places that look interesting are West Virginia (The Clarksburg area) and parts of Texas. That second one is about as specific as saying parts of the Earth, but recently a listing in the outskirts of Houston, Texas caught my eyes.
In particular these two listings look interesting:
$300,000 sure is a far cry from $2 million. Whether either of these two venues would actually sell for $300,000 is another story. Also, even if they did sell for that relatively cheap amount both venues have many, many problems.
I think the best strategy for making a venue profitable would not just be to leave it to the events to generate profit, but have the venue serve as a multipurpose facility. Have at least one store either nearby or in a section of the venue that keeps regular business hours and is selling goods and/or services. Preferably give that store and the venue itself a strong online presence so if you're selling goods for example, you can be just about anywhere since you're just shipping the goods out. Anyway, zoning could prevent that in either or both of these venues.
Then there is of course things like both buildings looking like they're in incredible states of disrepair, the Lumberport location being in a town with less than 1,000 people, and the Baytown location being prone to floods. These are just some of many, many problems that could be found with these.
I have a friend who provides catering and onboarding services for many events across the USA. He’s done huge (15K participants) events — overseeing and planning event registration, packet pickups, food and entertainment. He is well known in this business. Has also put together private 50-people gatherings and brought in performers like Keith Uban and other for the ultra wealthy private parties. He says the best place to hold an event is a city that has many other attractions and those events are popular and profitable. In addition, he says, local resources are really important including a talented local population that has many service oriented workers. His favorite place to hold an event is Las Vegas.
Baytown, TX is not a wealthy area and is close to the Gulf. Hurricanes are a major threat. Not a whole lot of folks live out there. Houston or suburbs are a better bet but they still get hurricanes and flooding.
IMO, you might want to run your business plan past your accountant.
there's many similar types of businesses that customarily lease facilities rather than own them for the tax and cost of operations benefits. Ownership may be the most expensive way to have them available, which can lead to much lower profits out of the incoming cash flow.
Thanks for the comments so far guys! Like I said this is just daydreaming on my part and nothing planned. On the slim possibility I ever endeavor in something like this it would be good to know. In the mean time learning information from this thread would never hurt to know. At the very least if I meet someone in event planning at a dinner party I would have a conversation starter.
In regard to this one:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdieBelle
Is there a huge demand for events in a place like Lumberport, WV?
Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's a good buy. You want to be where there are people wanting to do things.
Also ... when you say "event venue ..." do you want to host weddings or be a concert venue? High school graduations?
Is there easy access? Plenty of parking? What is it zoned? What's allowed there?
What do you have experience with?
I was thinking multipurpose, but to narrow it down more entertainment based. So concerts, standup comedy, plays, maybe small sporting events, etc. Although I've been to weddings at venues that have hosted these kinds of things before so that goes back to multipurpose.
I suspect that you need easy access to your building in a town with a large population that has a lot of disposible income to play with. That means either lots of high paying jobs or else a popular high end retirement area.
Large commercial real estate in that sort of place isn't going to be cheap. Plus, you will have the expense of buying and maintaining a large parking lot.
I don't have any suggestions. Eastern part of the USA has large cities with real estate that is less expensive than the west coast cities. Try looking on that end of the country.
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