GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Progress is being made toward announcing the next concert to be held at Lambeau Field.
The Green Bay/Brown County Professional Stadium District Board met in closed session Wednesday about the topic for over an hour.
“I think our board has made some progress in negotiating with the act and we see it as a real possibility at this point in time,” says Executive Director Patrick Webb, who declined to name the act being discussed. “Well it’s really not our place to do it, it’s really a team event, so it’s really up to the team to do it, and it’s not really part of our decision-making.”
Webb says the talk of possibly hosting two concerts over a three-day span or on the same weekend next June is still up in the air. He says their main focus is on negotiating the 10 percent ticket tax.
“I think we’ve come pretty close to doing that with Live Nation,” Webb says, adding it likely will come down. “We want the act here, we want the economic development for the importance to the community. Everybody knew what it was like to have the LSU game here, what it was like to have a (Kenny) Chesney concert here and things like that. So, we want to facilitate those types of events.”
Webb admits he’s not a concert aficionado, but said that the promoter thinks whomever the performer or performers are that it’s, “going to be in the neighborhood of a Chesney concert.”
In June 2011, Kenny Chesney played Lambeau Field for the first time and drew about 45,000 fans. Four years later, Chesney and fellow country music star Jason Aldean brought in 53,363 people for a more than 6 hour event.
SCHMITT EMAIL SNAFU
After Wednesday’s meeting, Webb addressed a mistakenly sent email to the media in response to the release Friday of the board’s agenda.
The reply came from Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt and read:
“While we cannot make this meeting please add Kevin Vonk and myself regarding a presentation with a $500,000 request regarding the redevelopment of the ShipYard.”
“Word is out here about the potential of doing some work with The Shipyard,” Webb said. “We want to work with the city, we want to send them a grant obligation, and we want to get through all of the economic impact analysis of a project like that.”
Webb says once that paperwork is dealt with, they will bring the item up for consideration at a future Stadium District Board meeting.
