President Lynn Walton presided over today’s meeting. Mark Killingsworth provided the opening prayer. Lynn led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four Way Test. The meeting was held at the Hattiesburg Zoo. Lynn thanked everyone in attendance.
Lucy Sanguinetti brought her employer Chris Robinson as a guest to today’s meeting. Mark Killingsworth introduced today’s guest Rick Taylor. Rick Taylor is the Executive Director of the Hattiesburg Convention Commission and currently operates a convention center, a visitors’ center, a performing arts theater, a museum district, a zoo, and the pocket museum.
Rick explained they are adding on to the civic center. Because of COVID, they started having events outdoors in the back and the Lawn at Lake Terrace Convention Center was born. They are planning on a covered stage area, creating a green room adjacent to the stage, creating a VIP box seating area and more bathrooms.
Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American global entertainment company that promotes, operates, and manages ticket sales for live entertainment in the United States and internationally. They are helping with the ideas of the Convention Center expansion, and also are feeding us with the marketing and booking the venues.
Hattiesburg Convention Commission’s Lake Terrace Convention Center has received a 2021 Readers’ Choice Award from ConventionSouth for the 15th consecutive year. Rick then informed us we were the first group to use Lana’s Overlook and gave a few facts about the Zoo. The train that runs through the zoo is leased and they spend roughly $17,000 a month for it. So now they are in the works of having their own train made that costs around $600,000 and hope to have it completed by 2022.
They did research to find numbers coming into the zoo. People are driving from a 100-mile radius to attend our zoo. They have school field trips coming from Jackson, and Jackson has their own zoo. The zoo doubled its income last year even with the pandemic. The revenue is $3 million a year and we are in the 11% of zoos worldwide that operate in the black.
They are building a water park on the other side of the zoo, where the baseball field is. The Fusion Fortress water park. The city is in negation with the City Boys baseball team. They will get a new baseball field. The water park will be 4 stories high and will have a 4,000-person capacity and will be open 7 days a week during the spring and summer. They hope to have it open by the Spring of 2023. With parking being a problem, they will probably do a multi-parking garage system. The price tag on the water park and the train is roughly $12 million.
Lynn reminded everyone of the wine tasting and silent auction coming up. Everyone is required to bring in at least one item for the silent auction.
Lynn thanked Rick for his informative remarks. There being no further business to come before the club, she adjourned the meeting with our motto: “Service Above Self.”