Tahoe Blue Event Center reports strong first-year bookings and growing conference business; commissioners seek more fiscal detail

Officials from the Tahoe Douglas Visitors Authority (TDVA) and the Tahoe Blue Event Center told the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners on March 12 that the venue completed a challenging first year and that conferences and youth sports are driving weekday and shoulder-season demand.

Carol Chaplin, representing TDVA, and Kevin Boriski, general manager for Oak View Group (the venue operator), said the center opened in September 2023 after construction and permitting delays and delivered about 10 months of first-year revenue while still incurring startup costs. Kevin Boriski said the center hosted nearly 100 events in its first fiscal year and highlighted sellout concerts and national conferences.

“We had our first big conference and we had representation from 50 different states here in town,” Boriski said of a September event. He added the center’s conference business, which tends to occur during weekdays in shoulder seasons, is delivering the kind of midweek hotel nights the project was intended to attract.

TDVA and the operator said conference and youth-sports bookings have generated tracked room blocks totaling almost 10,000 room nights in fiscal year 2024. Boriski said that number excludes many concert-driven room nights that are difficult to trace to a single hotel block and that TDVA conservatively estimates total room nights are 25–30% higher than the tracked total.

Commissioners pressed for clearer fiscal reporting. “It would be nice to know what it's bringing in and also what the expenses are,” Commissioner Tarkanian said. Boriski and Chaplin replied that audited financials are available through TDVA and that the authority is under contract for an updated economic-impact study that will use actuals and is expected later in 2025.

Commissioner Gardner asked for ZIP-code attendance data to show where visitors are coming from; Boriski said TDVA can provide ZIP-code breakdowns and that those reports also inform operational decisions (for example, postponing a concert ahead of a forecasted major snow event based on ticket origin data).

Boriski also reported the center’s new tenant, the ECHL’s Tahoe Night Monsters hockey team, is contributing to weekday and weekend activity and is projected to produce about $750,000 in net revenue to the venue, according to the operator. He said the team has had seven sellouts and that youth tournaments and cheer competitions have doubled year over year.

TDVA noted a recent settlement with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) that changes how the venue’s vehicle-miles-traveled mitigation is measured: the venue now has an attendance cap expressed as annual attendees (250,000 per year) rather than a fixed event-count limit, and four larger summertime events are permitted under defined caps. Chaplin said TRPA accepted parking-gate counts rather than Bluetooth counters as a more reliable way to measure in-and-out traffic for mitigation purposes.

Commissioners and staff also discussed micro-transit revenues tied to the venue: Boriski said fiscal-year 2025 projections showed $736,000 in micro-transit funding driven by event activity, with most of the revenue supporting Lake-Link micro-transit services.

TDVA and the operator committed to return in the future with the full audited financial statements, a complete revenue-and-expense picture for the venue and ZIP-code reports so the board can assess whether the center is meeting its objective to raise off-season occupancy and visitor spending.

Ending: TDVA said it will bring the completed economic-impact study and audited results later this year; commissioners asked for follow-up reporting showing revenue, expenses, and the venue’s contribution to off-season room nights.