Editorial featured in 12-4-09 Ojai Valley News by Scott Eicher, Chief Executive Officer of the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Sound Investment
My friend Alan Rains wrote in this space recently about the importance of Libbey Bowl to the cultural well-being of the Ojai Valley and the need for public support of the current $1-million community fund-raising campaign to replace it.
Alan’s point is unassailable. We cannot afford, after more than 50 years, to turn our backs on an investment – a gift, really – that an earlier generation made for our enrichment and pleasure. I believe we have a responsibility to keep this cultural resource alive and well for the generations that will follow us.
But there is another significant point about Libbey Bowl that Alan did not mention in his editorial. In addition to being a source of community pride and enjoyment, Libbey Bowl – by staging events that attract thousands of visitors each year – has been a significant contributor to Ojai’s economy.
Each year, these visitors patronize local merchants, occupy beds and rooms at local inns and dine at local restaurants, spending an estimated $3 million in the process. These revenues translate into an estimated 75 FTE local jobs for many local residents and tax benefits for the City of Ojai and all of us who live and work here. Especially in difficult economic times like these, we cannot take these benefits lightly.
If there were no Libbey Bowl, the events that take place there would move elsewhere, taking their economic benefits with them. In fact, we have seen in recent years a steady decline in the use of the Bowl because of its structural deterioration and outdated audience accommodations. Total annual attendance has declined by almost a third in the last decade, from 35,800 to 26,500.
On the other hand, when the new Libbey Bowl is completed, with better seating, state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems and improved accommodations for the artists, we can certainly look forward to greater use of the Bowl – and larger revenues. Current projections place annual attendance at more than 42,000 in 2011.
Where will these new users and audiences come from? Certainly many past producers of Bowl events – the Shakespeare Festival, the annual blues festival, and many local school and holiday events – will be eager to return to an enhanced Libbey Bowl. Plus, new users – perhaps the Playwright Conference, Food for Thought and others – will step forward to join them.
To make this vision come true, the community must – as Alan Rains suggested in his recent editorial – “step forward” and help raise the third million dollars now budgeted for the new Bowl’s construction. The city of Ojai and the Ojai Music Festival have already stepped up with $1 million apiece.
A fourth million dollars may also be in play, according to the Save Libbey Bowl Committee, which is spearheading the fund drive. If this anonymous gift comes through, it will provide a major hedge against any construction overruns, as well as endowing a maintenance and management program for future Bowl operations.
There is no denying that saving Libbey Bowl is a major financial commitment for our community. But it is an investment that will pay many times its cost in future pleasure for all our citizens – and a hefty economic return as well.
