Highlights from Council update on April 4

The Arena Task Force provided an update to Council on April 4. Here are the highlights from that update. You can read the full report in the Documents Library.

Arena Task Force Council Update Highlights

• The Task Force achieved its first milestone confirming that Penticton needs four arenas in order to provide existing services and programs to the community.
• These findings are based on a review of the Arena Needs Analysis (2016) that showed Penticton arenas are at or near capacity for prime-time use during the regular season and that bookings have increased 7.63% between 2013 and 2015.
• The analysis also showed that the closure of Memorial or McLaren Arenas could result in a need to re-allocate up to 80 hours of ice per week into our other facilities which is not possible with the current level of programming and services booked into the other three facilities.

• In response to questions from the user groups and the community, the Task Force also reviewed commercial use of municipal arenas by the Okanagan Hockey Group (OHG).
• This analysis showed that OHG books approximately 35% of total ice usage in Penticton’s four arenas (4,561.5 hours).
• Out of that 35%, approximately 87% are non-prime hours and only 13% prime-time. (Prime is defined as after 4 pm on weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday.)
• The review also showed that OHG pays a commercial rate for both its prime time and non-prime time bookings.
• Without OHG, the City would only gain an average of 8-10 hours per week of prime time ice.
• Due to the high booking of non-prime surface time when most arenas sit empty, the presence of the Okanagan Hockey Group is an important source of revenue for Penticton’s arenas.
• The Task Force also explored the opportunity to use more time in the South Okanagan Events Centre (SOEC).
• As the SOEC hosts a wide variety of events in the evening and can only confirm bookings 60 days out, the facility can’t reliably meet the needs of the user groups during the prime time demand.
• The SOEC is still a significant source of surface time and currently books approximately 1,700 hours per year.
• The Arena Task Force is now looking for more detailed information about costs to help narrow down the options for Penticton arenas and outlined the need for two additional studies.