Arena crowds 'spillover' to boost downtown bars and restaurants

“From the beginning, it was ‘Come Early and Stay Late,’” said Tom Lorenz of SMG-Lincoln, the arena manager. "People are coming down, going out before and after to the restaurants and bars. It really seems to be working.”

The arena has held 22 music and comedy concerts, dozens of sporting events plus a handful of events like WWE wrestling, Cirque du Soleil and Life in Color.

So what kind of concert has the biggest “spillover” to nearby bars and restaurants?

“Classic rock does really well,” said Lorenz. “But with most everything, it seems like the entire Haymarket has a pre-event bounce for concerts, and with some shows there’s a post-event bounce too.”

That observation was confirmed by Eli Mardock, who runs Vega, the only West Haymarket venue that consistently offers an entertainment lineup.

Vega and other Haymarket-area bars are generally full before concerts. The size of after-show crowds, however, depends on what’s on stage at the arena.

“The Fleetwood Mac thing was great for us,” Mardock said. “Generally the older concert crowds go home when the shows are getting over at 11. When they only played an hour and a half, we had a lot of people come in and have a drink or two before they went home.”

The biggest hits for Haymarket bars, however, are country shows. The Single Barrel, 10th and P streets, line up a Cactus Hill concert following Florida Georgia Line's arena show.

“They party hard before, and they party hard after,” Mardock said. “It’s amazing. It’s great for everyone. It’s the reason everyone wanted to be in business down here.

“Jay Z was a big one, we did the official pre-party for that. But the Zac Brown Band was the craziest thing I’ve experienced. It was shoulder to shoulder not just inside but in the streets. Even Nebraska football games are not that packed.”

Vega also serves food and, like most Haymarket venues, gets a crowd in for dinner before arena shows.

“We get a huge rush,” Mardock said. “I know all the other places down here do too. The restaurants are all full before every concert.

"I’m not sure that a music venue serving food works all the time. But on those nights, it’s great to have.”

The arena spillover has, in recent months, started to affect the older area of downtown with pre-show crowds increasing, particularly at restaurants.

“There was definitely a period where everybody wanted to try everything new down in the Haymarket and West Haymarket,” said the Bourbon Theatre’s Spencer Munson. “But when you’re bringing 10,000 to 15,000 people downtown, it’s going to spill over eventually.

“People going back to their favorite Yia Yia’s pizza or to The Dish. I see Dempsey’s doing well, sort of in between the old downtown and the Haymarket.”

Family shows, obviously, don’t bring big crowds to bars and not as much to restaurants. But Lorenz said other events, like the two-day Women of Faith, spill crowds over into restaurants, as do the state high school basketball and volleyball tournaments.

The impact of Nebraska basketball games can be measured by arena concession sales.

“With basketball, there are so many different game times, we can see that if the game starts at 3:30, people go out and eat and our (per capita concession spending) is down. If the game starts at 5:30 or 6, they come from work and eat here and the per caps are up," Lorenz said. "The 7 p.m. games are usually in between.”

There’s one other verifiable effect of the arena on nearby businesses.

“I know that any time there’s a major concert, the hotels around here all fill up,” Lorenz said. “We worked with promoters to try to find a couple rooms in the area for Florida Georgia Line and had a hard time finding any. I’m not sure how far out that goes, but it definitely happens down here.”

Munson said he thinks the spillover from arena events will continue to spread across downtown.

“The arena has been helpful for downtown in all aspects,” he said. “It's just going to take awhile to get everywhere.”