Tank: Saskatoon’s TCU Place struggles to stay viable in new landscape

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Most of us have resumed the lives we were living before the COVID-19 pandemic.

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But Saskatoon’s TCU Place event venue and convention centre is still struggling with the fallout from the health crisis. TCU Place has gone from a perennial money maker prior to the pandemic disruption to an annual deficit that started in 2020.

TCU Place CEO Tammy Sweeney explained at this month’s city hall budget talks that cities the size of Saskatoon are getting squeezed out of the marketplace when it comes to hosting conventions and events. That’s particularly true for the national events that result in the highest economic impact.

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“The live event industry has fundamentally changed,” Sweeney told the newly elected city council.

Two trends have emerged, she added. Large conventions used to be booked as long as five years in advance; that’s dropped to one year to 18 months. That creates issues for a city like Saskatoon, where flights from elsewhere can be challenging.

It’s also costing more in both cash and concessions just to bid to lure these events or “pay to play,” as Sweeney called it.

The venue is still managing to register an impressive impact despite these challenges. It’s projecting 200,000 visitors this year and an economic spinoff of $40 million.

TCU Place, which opened 56 years ago downtown as Centennial Auditorium, is expected to generate $13.3 million in revenue next year, which includes a grant of $500,000 from the city.

Notably, the venue is raising more revenue than it did prior to the pandemic, Sweeney said, but costs have risen, meaning it is expecting to run a deficit of about $538,000 next year after deficits of $597,000 this year and $560,000 in 2023.

TCU Place is covering these deficits from a reserve fund built up prior to the pandemic, when it posted annual surplus revenues as high as $1.2 million.

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“When we were getting nine or 10 national events a year, there’s an extra million dollars,” Sweeney said. “We have one (national event) on the books for 2025.”

Sweeney forwarded a list to the StarPhoenix of 40 national or international events that TCU Place tried to bring to Saskatoon over the last three years, worth an estimated $3.8 million; 27 of those chose a different city, including one that selected Red Deer, Alta.

Currently, as Sweeney told council, 19 of 33 bids from Saskatoon, which includes efforts by Discover Saskatoon, have been lost.

“(Events are) going to other cities and that’s hard for our city right now,” she said.

Sweeney noted the subsidy for TCU Place has not changed in 30 years, making it much lower than similar funding in other cities. The Remai Modern art gallery, meanwhile, is getting city hall support of $6.7 million next year, which is far larger than most cities’ funding for art galleries.

Sweeney stressed she was not seeking more city funding for next year or any new employees, but that the strategy for TCU Place needs to be revised.

Regardless, the future of TCU Place remains unclear. A revamp of the aging and outdated venue is included in plans for a $1.2-billion downtown arena district.

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The cost of renovating TCU Place alone is estimated at $273 million, but the funding plan for the mega-project can be charitably described as tenuous. Even so, city hall has purchased the adjacent YMCA building for $8.5 million to facilitate an expansion.

This continues the legacy of uncertainty for the venue, which was almost abandoned by a former city council when bids came in $2 million higher than estimated in the late 1960s.

Centennial auditorium and the convention centre were originally built for just under $7 million with a reduced scope, which sounds similar to big projects battered by inflation today, notably the new downtown library.

Meanwhile, four kilometres south of TCU Place, Saskatoon’s other convention centre, Prairieland Park, which operates as a non-profit corporation on city-owned land, seems to be doing fine. But Prairieland faces nothing close to the accountability required of TCU Place, which is a controlled city corporation.

According to Prairieland’s 2023 annual report, it hosted 401 events last year, an increase of 8.7 per cent over the previous year, and generated $23.6 million in revenue — more than $10 million higher than TCU Place has budgeted for next year.

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There appears to be two distinct narratives about the convention business in Saskatoon, and both must be considered when the future of TCU Place is determined.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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