Pond Emerges as Area’s Big Fish of Music Venues

Now enjoying its best month ever for concerts, the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim has become the large pop music venue of choice in Southern California.

Coming off a record year in which it outdrew its chief Orange County rival by 30%, the Pond is having a remarkable 1999.

Two prestigious dates in February by the Rolling Stones grossed more than $4 million. By the end of this week, the Pond will have staged 10 concerts for the year, all but one a complete or virtual sellout, according to Ken Scher, senior vice president of Nederlander Concerts, the building’s promoter.

Its days as first choice of the glitziest pop attractions, however, may be numbered. When the highly anticipated 20,000-seat Staples Center opens in October in downtown Los Angeles, concert industry observers expect it to replace the Pond as the region’s marquee concert arena.

For now, though, the Pond is on a roll.

This week alone it hosts four consecutive, remarkably diverse shows: pop-classical singer Andrea Bocelli (Thursday), O.C. heavy metal band Korn (Friday), the Hard Knock Life rap tour (Saturday) and teen pop heartthrob band ‘N Sync (Sunday). Last week Grammy-winning rock singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Billy Joel sold out shows at the Pond.

“It’s without a doubt the hottest month in the history of the building,” said Tim Ryan, the Pond’s general manager.

Three additional shows have been announced, including a June 20 date by Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. That ensures at least 13 concerts by midyear. When the Pond hit a venue high with 27 shows last year, only seven had been staged at the same point.

“When Paul Simon and Bob Dylan are predominantly playing [outdoor] amphitheaters and they’re playing the Pond, you’ve got a hot building,” said Ernie Hahn, general manager of the San Diego Sports Arena. “That’s a strong statement right there.”

Arena Easily Tops Its Irvine Rival

The Pond drew 340,337 fans in 1998, according to the arena’s managers. That topped its chief Orange County rival, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, which reported a draw of 260,000 for its 29 shows.

Industry observers say that in an era when most big tours are geared to the low-overhead outdoor “sheds” that have proliferated in nearly every market, an indoor arena does well to land 20 shows a year.

The reasons for success?

Nederlander “books our building very aggressively,” Ryan said. “It’s safe, it’s accessible and we’ve been told by many people that it still looks as good as the day it opened.”

Along with Barbra Streisand’s record-setting six nights in 1994 and the Stones, the roster of headliners since the Pond opened in 1993 includes George Strait, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Smashing Pumpkins.

The Pond also has been attuned to the burgeoning Latino market, with five Spanish-singing headliners in 1998, including Ricky Martin, Mana, El Reencuentro and Luis Miguel.

If the Pond’s management team feels any anxiety about the impending opening of the state-of-the-art Staples Center, whose building cost of $375 million more than triples the $121-million cost of the Pond, they’re keeping it a secret.

Ryan and Scher used the word “complementary” rather than “competitive” to describe what Staples Center means to the Pond, although it’s hard to fathom how a new, ballyhooed rival in a region already loaded with other big venues can add to, rather than subtract from, the Pond’s draw.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if agents and managers target dates at the Staples Center and build their tours around that,” said San Diego’s Hahn. “It’s in one of the biggest sports and entertainment centers in the world. It’s going to be the buzz of L.A. It’s going to be a major statement to play Staples.”

In other words, if Streisand or the Stones tour arenas again, they might opt for Staples over the Pond. Already, rumors are flying that Staples will host such banner events as Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band reunion tour and the Grammy Awards, as well as a stratospherically priced New Year’s Eve concert by the Eagles to ring in the new millennium.

Said Ryan: “We have eight [other] major concert facilities within an hour’s drive. From a competitive standpoint there isn’t anything like it in the country. . . . I don’t focus on the Staples Center. I don’t focus on all the other venues that are so close to us.”

Said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar magazine, a concert-industry trade journal: “When the newness wears down, I think you will see a lot of artists playing both places. The Pond won’t get the attention it did before, but it’ll do OK.”

Additionally, Staples Center’s very strength as a sports arena could limit its ability to book concerts.

It will be home to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Kings--both of which are ending longtime residences at the Forum--and the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. That makes it the nation’s only arena with three major league sports franchises. During the fall-to-spring season that is a peak time for indoor concerts, the pro teams will claim many plum weekend dates.

Forum Will Be Free to Pitch for Shows

That also will give the Forum, which reigned in the ‘70s and ‘80s as one of the nation’s top concert arenas, more incentive--and more open dates--than ever to pitch hard for shows.

About a year ago, Forum President Jeanie Buss says, she won concessions from the building’s stagehands’ union that now put its labor costs on a par with the Pond’s; she cited the nonunion Pond’s lower costs as a reason it landed the six Streisand shows in 1994 and other big attractions.

Other factors, such as the number of dates an act wants to play, how hot its current album is, its preference for outdoor or indoor staging, and its allegiance to a given promoter in the region, determine where and how often it performs in Southern California.

As a rule, some superstar attractions play either Los Angeles or Orange County, aware that fans are willing to drive to see a big draw. But for the most part, major tours stop in both markets--if not during the same time frame, then months later in a return engagement if they have skipped Orange County to play Los Angeles the first time through.

Concert revenue remains “critical to the bottom line” at the Pond, said Ryan, even though it accounted for just 10% of the building’s net earnings last year.

The Pond has brought in an average of $35 million over the past three years, said Greg Smith, the City of Anaheim’s liaison to the arena (the city owns the Pond and has a 30-year lease with Ogden Corp., which built and operates it).

Events Make Money; Loan Payments Linger

So far the facility has lost money for Ogden and cost the city $3 million in contractually required subsidies. Ogden’s losses total $28 million since the Pond opened, according to audits on file with the city; the $6.2-million loss in 1997-98 was the highest ever, and losses for the current fiscal year totaled $3.2 million through February.

Ryan said Pond events themselves make money, but that payments on Ogden’s construction loans--which totaled $9.7 million in 1997-98, according to figures filed with the city--account for its losses.

In the overall picture, a longed-for NBA team--and its 40-plus additional dates per year--would do more to bring the Pond to quick profitability than continued concert domination.

Nevertheless, Pond staffers do everything they can to make musicians comfortable--and more likely to want to return. Towels provided for each performer are monogrammed with their initials and souvenir mugs are given to their road crews. One Pond staffer scrambled to Los Angeles to surprise the Stones with the London newspapers.

“A lot of these things might seem small to the average person,” Ryan said. But in this business, in this market, he said, the small details matter.

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Music Makes Mark

Concerts, attendance and revenue have generally been increasing since the Pond held its first event in 1993. Concerts accounted for about 15% of events last year. Concert activity:

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Revenue Events Attendance (millions) 1993 8 95,626 $1.9 1994 21 269,715 $16.1* 1995 15 202,170 $4.6 1996 21 300,511 $6.4 1997 22 270,569 $6.9 1998 27 340,337 $11.4

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* Includes $12 million from six Barbra Streisand concerts

Sources: Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Nederlander Concerts