The inaugural New Year’s Eve downtown celebration was a bigger success than originally thought, according to metrics recently received by the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission.
CAPC Director Mike Maloney told commissioners at their regular meeting held Wednesday, Jan. 29, that at least $2.3 million was spent in the downtown area in the hours leading up to and after the “Bash with a Splash” event according to information received from Madden Media, the CAPC’s advertising and marketing agency.
“We had a couple of different metrics run … and I was looking at some metrics that were done via Madden and realized my metrics were off …,” Maloney told commissioners. “…I was given an estimate of about $600,000 during the four-hour event spent, but actually that’s probably way conservative. It’s way more than that.
“We’re probably in the $2.3, maybe $2.4, even $2.5 million category for that evening’s event just because of the total number of people here.”
Maloney said Madden used a program to estimate the crowd size during the day of the event at 60,000.
“And categorically on the floor of Spring Street at that particular time, it was measured at 5.5 thousand at any given time, just in and around town. So, the numbers are really big.
“New Year’s Eve was a remarkable success for Eureka Springs and a remarkable success for all the people that participated, and even a better success for all the some 60,000 people that showed up for it.”
Metrics also revealed that while residents of Arkansas were the main attendees in the city on New Year’s Eve, residents of Tulsa and Kansas City rounded out the top three places people were from. The number of visitors from Oklahoma City was also “much stronger that I actually had thought,” Maloney said.
“So, what we saw was the amount of marketing that we did prior to the event really came back to us in grand fashion,” he said. “That’s about 60,000 people that showed up in and around the area in any given time at some point based upon measurement sizes from Madden. That’s pretty encouraging because that gives us forward progress into 2025 and how we can do maybe even a bigger and yet a better job.”
Also as part of his director’s report, Maloney told commissioners that Madden’s revamping of visiteurekasprings. com was underway and that the CAPC saw a 38 percent increase in marketing with its search engine monitoring in 2024 compared with 2023.
“When we take a look at all the metrics that are used, one of our key metrics right now is Expedia,” Maloney said. “Expedia suggested we booked about 5,592 rooms during the month of November. That’s about $2.1 million in gross booking for the city, and that’s really a record for us to be able to see those kind of numbers.
“That’s the beauty of having SEM as one of our contributors to our overall marketing strategy and plan.”
Artificial Intelligence is also becoming more prominent when it comes to searches online and will be a part of the CAPC’s revamped website, commissioners were told.
“We saw some metrics the other day for the first time that came out of a program that we subscribe to called Voyage,” Maloney said. “It really breaks down almost everything you would search for online, and even to the point of how the words are phrased and how they are rephrased, and how they can work better for us. It took a look at almost every one of our collectors that’s online with a web page that can be tracked, and what we’re finding right now is that Artificial Intelligence is doing a huge job of driving traffic to our website, bigger than probably we would have ever imagined it would have done.
“Consequently, because of that, as we progress this year with that [website] rebuild, AI is going to be one of the principal features that we’re integrating into the website. So, when you go to visiteurekasprings. com, you can actually just talk to your computer and probably get the result you want. The reason this is fairly significant is that AI will basically do the job that most of us … went to grade school to do. Now AI is doing it for us. It’s either good or bad. I don’t know. It kind of depends on your philosophy of things. But, for the Generation X and Generation Z, this is the way that we do business now. AI will be really the thing that is literally on our desktops. It’s on our phones already, obviously, and it’s the way that we’re going to continue to see our tourism grow exponentially over the next 10 to 20 to 25 years or so. It’s going to be a fairly significant thing.”
Maloney said public relations highlights during November included stories about Eureka Springs in a newspaper in Springfield, and coverage from NBC’s Today Show and on CNN.
“There’s just this long list of things that have been very beneficial to us with our public relations content,” he said. “I think they estimated somewhere around over $2 million in 2024 was attributed just to PR alone — well worth the price of admission. So, we’re proud of Madden for the work that they do for us and we’re proud of our work for getting out there in front of a lot of people.”
Maloney said there are already more than 150 events on the 2025 schedule, including upcoming concerts at The Auditorium, highlighted by three shows featuring well-known artists Marty Stuart (Feb. 21), Robert Earl Keen (March 13) and just-announced Ricky Skaggs (April 5). The inaugural Eureka Springs Music Awards is also scheduled for April 13.
“A plethora of citywide events are being discussed and include Music in the Park,” he said. “We’ve just started booking the first of that series. We expect about 35 events in Music in the Park this year, depending on weather and all the things that factor into having sunshine, and sometimes moonlight, concerts.
Planning is also already underway for the 78th year of the Ozark Folk Festival, the longest continuously running folk festival in the country, Maloney said.
“We’ve got a brand new event coming up this year, the Elvis Presley Festival, which should be interesting, as well as zombies, Jeeps, bikes — both motorized and non-motorized — along with Santas, zombies, you name it.
“… So, the year is really taking off in a big, big way. There’s a lot to be said for the staff that has been working really hard to manage all the stuff. And it also speaks to the fact that people love coming to Eureka Springs. We’re indeed blessed that we’ve got not only a great bunch of people coming to our town, but also helping do the things that we want to do as businesses and entrepreneurs.”
FINANCIAL REPORT
Finance director Ty Reed reported that as of Dec. 31, there was $1,974,513 in CAPC checking accounts with total assets being $2,024,318.56.
“For December collections, cash that came in the door was $158,000 and actual for the year $1,866,000,” he said. “Total income for December was $168,000. For the year was $2,043,000.”
Total expenses for 2024 were $2,141,000, including $219,000 for December, Reed said.
Adding in an $18,000 grant from the State of Arkansas for the New Year’s Eve celebration, December’s net loss was just under $33,000. For year-to-date, the CAPC’s net loss was $80,000 Cumulative total collections through November were $1,850,000 compared to $1,854,000 for the same time period in 2023.
“So, very close,” Reed said. “Plus, there’s still money coming in for 2024. So, these two numbers will potentially go up.”
2025 BUDGET APPROVED Commissioners approved the 2025 budget, including taking $293,955 out of reserves to help with projected shortfalls.
While it was discussed that momentum from a strong second half of 2024 should lead to a successful 2025 and help counteract any budget issues, commissioners agreed that any financial woes don’t need to become a new norm.
“This part of the budget has kept me awake at night a little bit,” commission chair Steve Holifield said. “I don’t think this is something we should just breeze over. This is a decision we’re making to pull money out of reserves to pay for the ongoing budget. Money we’re pulling in is not going to pay our bills, basically. If everybody’s fine with that, that’s OK, but we have to realize this won’t last forever. The money we have in reserves, this will start chipping at it every year.
“We have to think about what does that mean for the commission because I would like to see a big chunk of that money in our reserves spent for something big in town, like a parking garage or something … but in a few years we will turn around and we’re not going to have any money reserves if we keep chipping away at $300,000 a whack.”
Reed reminded commissioners that the biggest increase in the budget is advertising with $225,000 more going to Madden.
“I’m actually really excited for 2025 because Madden started last year with us and we invested a lot with them,” commissioner Bradley Tate-Greene said. “Just think about what they can do for $225,000 more.
“… When you think about the presentation that Madden gave us. They advertise for us and their return on investment was unbelievable. So, I think the ROI on this is going to be huge. And I mean, I’m a risk taker, so I’ll take it.”
Commissioner Robert Schmid agreed, saying 2024 started slow and the $80,000 deficit to finish the year could have been a lost worse if not for a strong finish to the year.
“So, I’m not worried about being behind or putting in any reserves at this time,” Schmid said. “I think we have to look at it during the year, how it turns out. I’m always for adjustments if it’s needed and letting it go if it goes well.”
Tate-Greene reminded his fellow commissioners of the contentious situation the CAPC had to deal with for part of 2024 as well, including hostile meetings and the resignation of two commissioners in June.
“The other thing you’ve got to think about is Steve, Kolin [Paulk], David [Avanzino] and myself went through the big challenges that put us behind that we could have captured probably more if we were not put in that situation to where we had to fight for a lot of things, and it slowed us down for sure,” he said. “…. Then you’ve got the first of the year that Madden was trying to get started, too.”
Commissioner Heather Wilson also said she wasn’t concerned about using the reserves.
“I’m also not too worried about 2025 as long as we do our regular due diligence considering we were months behind due to the June happenings,” she said. “I think it’s prudent of us to go ahead and use the reserves in these circumstances.”
Maloney again stressed the momentum going into the year and how differently 2025 is starting compared with 2024.
“We didn’t start January 1, 2024, in the shape that we’re starting January 1, 2025,” Maloney said. “In fact, if anything, at the tail end of 2023, we were way behind the curve starting November 1 of 2023. We had two months of income that we probably could have captured if we’d done the right thing.
“And point taken about December 31, 2024, it was a big night and we generated a lot of income on one single night. We can’t have a festival like that every other night, obviously, but let’s go ahead and put our best foot forward and suggest that’s something that we know how to do. I think we’re in a much better place than we were a year ago to be able to do that.”
FUNDING REQUESTS
Commissioners discussed funding request regulations, including what marketing support funds can or can’t be used for before approving three requests and tabling three others.
A request for $5,000 was approved for the Arkansas Enduro Series, which is planning to bring back the Fat Tire Festival mountain biking event in September. Another $5,000 was approved for Out in Eureka’s diversity weekends.
A request of $1,500 was approved for marketing for Black Light Ball, an event put on by Escape Room 13 and Chelsea’s as part of Mardi Gras events.
Funding requests for Good Shepherd Humane Society for a “dinner theater” to be held at Grotto were tabled since there was no representative of the organization there to speak on the event, and a request from Gravity Feed for a mountain biking event to be held at Lake Leatherwood was put on hold so event organizers can revise required paperwork.
A funding request from the Western Carroll County Ministerial Association for funding for the Celebrate Jesus event was also put on hold while CAPC attorneys verify whether funds can go to a religious event.
2025 OFFICERS
Holifield was approved to once again be chair of the CAPC in 2025 and Shira Fouste was OK’d to remain as vice chair. Wilson agreed to become the commission’s secretary, taking over for Tate-Greene.
— CAPC Executive Director Mike Maloney
