It’s been a tough couple of years for the entertainment business but the operator of the Avenir Centre believes the facility is now trending in the right direction.
Pandemic restrictions forced the cancellation of many events and reduced capacity for others.
During that period, the City of Moncton deferred minimum payment guarantees to ASM Global over three years and provided the operator with repayable financial assistance of $1.4 million.
To date, the company has accessed just over $1 million.
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Moncton deputy treasurer Gregg Houser told a Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday that it will likely be the maximum they need given that concerts and other events have resumed.
In an update to Moncton Council, Dave Saldanha with ASM Global noted how 2021 was about trying to operate through provincial regulations with about 45,000 attendees.
“We still had a half decent attendance at Wildcats games albeit reduced. As we headed into 2022, we started to get back to business at the beginning of spring.”
So far this year, Saldanha said 68,000 have attended 30 ticketed events.
He says the facility is branching out to include community events like graduation ceremonies for NBCC and Oulton College.
“We’ve also had the Canadian Baton Twirling Championships, Canadian Weightlifting Championships, Capital Foods trade show, we work hand in hand with the City of Moncton to do the newcomer job fairs and we’re trying to branch out to do catering in and around the Greater Moncton area as well,” added Saldanha.