Mitchell officials on Sept. 3 reviewed the Corn Palace festival’s post-event profit-and-loss, saying the event drew roughly 2,500 people and produced total revenue of $370,005.68. Speaker 1 told the board the festival “went well” overall but noted two incidents during concerts that police addressed: “we had a couple of incidents during concerts with people, in fighting or grabbing each other and, but... our police stepped in and... took care of the situation.”

The board discussed ticketing and pricing. Organizers said presale tickets were down after Gold Star increased presale prices (from $49 to $52 and day-of prices from $55 to $60), but total dollar receipts were the highest in five years. Speaker 1 explained organizers could not publish new prices earlier because the vendor released them late: “we literally just didn't have that information to put out there that they're going to be... $52 instead of $49.”

Ticket-entry logistics also drew scrutiny. Board members and staff described long lines and phone-scanning problems at the Scotty McCreery concert and recommended clearer party-pit markings or stamping to speed entry. A staff suggestion: “if you're gonna do a separate entrance again, I would stamp something on the front of the party pit tickets that's big, that just says party pit or pit.”

Concessions and alcohol sales were a focal point. Speaker 1 reported alcohol sales for the McCreery show totaled $25,434, and another attendee presenting year-by-year figures said this year's alcohol dollars were 25% higher than the best prior year. Board members pointed out that gross sales do not equal profit because of labor and cost-of-goods: “there's also a cost of goods sold, but there's labor that goes in with that that would not be shown in the expenditures,” Speaker 8 cautioned.

Organizers flagged vendor impacts: some food and retail vendors said they saw lighter Sunday traffic after an extreme-heat warning. Sponsorships were expected to total around $23,000, with a small number of invoices still outstanding. Organizers said outstanding bills and late invoices may change the net figures when final expenses are tallied.

Speaker 1 said staff will circulate detailed financials and ticket-sale breakdowns to the board. The board did not adopt any immediate pricing changes at the meeting but discussed bringing more detailed concession and pricing strategy to a future executive-session review or the October board meeting.