Business View Magazine | September 2019

144 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 of 20 at the facility, and approximately 200 part- time employees, and that the three venues host about 200 events per year. “Our events are wide- ranging,” he notes. “We do high school proms; we do corporate holiday parties; we do local women’s group’s events; we do job fairs; we’ll do a science fair; a comic book show... a wide variety.” Eckerson explains that as a local venue, the Rabobank Arena, Theater and Convention Center does not have much competition from nearby facilities – Fresno is the closest big city and it’s over a hundred miles away. It also doesn’t compete with area hotels that may have large banquet rooms capable of attracting convention business. “The Marriott is actually connected and we work together to bring events to the complex,” he notes. Eckerson reports that several major upgrade projects are in the planning stages. “We recently received city council approval to convert all our lighting to LED,” he begins. “That will be over $700,000 because it includes the theater stage lighting which is very inefficient and very hot. And you’re not going to be able to purchase some of those bulbs much longer. We think that the payback is going to be three years, so that’s significant.” “The floor of the convention center – much of it is the original from back in the ‘60s – that’s going to be replaced,” he continues. “We’re not only dealing with cracks and gaps, which is a safety issue, it’s also very unattractive. The goal is to bring more events to the facility, so there’s a payback piece to this. The convention center also is where we park buses and trucks for concerts that are either in the theater or the arena. So, the floor has seen a lot of use. That’s a big project. We think that once we make this floor more presentable, we can attract more events. “Also, we’re going to renovate all the meeting rooms – there are 12 and they have not been updated since the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. The rooms need carpets, ceiling tiles, wallpaper, and paint. And there will be some portable AV equipment that we don’t currently own and that has to be rented, so we will have some of our own gear, onsite, that we can offer to clients. Again, the idea is to attract