TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

Thursday, February 9, 2023 – 9:00 A.M.

Minutes

1. ROLL CALL*

Present

Commissioner Sachs, Chair

Jim Bronstien, Vice Chair

Roger Amidon

Jim Mostad

Commissioner Adam Frankel

Don Dufresne

Davicka Thompson

Commissioner Christina Lambert

Staff

Verdenia Baker, County Administrator

Liz Herman, Assistant County Attorney/Videoconference

Joan Hutchinson, Tourist Development Council

Emanuel Perry, Tourist Development Council

Patricia Ramirez, Tourist Development Council

Vannette Youyoute, Tourist Development Council

Dave Lawrence, Cultural Council/Video Conference

Jennifer Sullivan. Cultural Council/Video Conference

Lauren Perry, Cultural Council

George Linley, PBC Sports Commission

David Fontanarosa, PBC Sports Commission

Michelle Hillery, Film & TV Commission

Jorge Pesquera, Discover The Palm Beaches

Milton Segarra, Discover The Palm Beaches

Kelly Cavers, Discover The Palm Beaches

Erika Constantine, Discover The Palm Beaches

Sergio Piedra, Discover The Palm Beaches

Evan Lomrantz, Discover The Palm Beaches

Deborah Drum, ERM

Matt Mitchell, ERM

Absent

Daniel Hostettler

Dave Anderson, Convention Center/Spectra Venue Management

Kathy Griffin, Convention Center/Spectra Hospitality

Nicole Hughes, PBI Airports

2. MOTION TO APPROVE AGENDA ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS*

Motion to approve TDC Board Meeting Agenda was made by Davicka Thompson and seconded by Jim Mostad. Motion carried 8-0 with Daniel Hostettler absent.

3. MOTION TO APPROVE JANUARY TDC MEETING MINUTES*

Motion to approve January TDC Meeting Minutes was made by Jim Mostad and seconded by Roger Amidon. Motion carried 8-0 with Daniel Hostettler absent.

4. MOTION TO RECEIVE AND FILE CONSENT ITEMS FOR FEBRUARY 2023*

MARKETING AGENCIES REPORTING

A. DTPB ACTIVITY REPORT*

B. CULTURAL COUNCIL ACTIVITY REPORT*

C. SPORTS COMMISSION ACTIVITY REPORT*

D. FILM & TV MONTHLY NEWSLETTER*

E. FILM & TV PRODUCTION REPORT*

PBC CONVENTION CENTER OPERATING REPORTS

F. CONVENTION CENTER INCOME STATEMENT & FINANCIAL OPERATIONS ANALYSIS COMPARED TO BUDGET & PRIOR YEAR*

G. CONVENTION CENTER MARKETING UPDATE*

H. CONVENTION CENTER “PACE” REVENUE REPORT*

OTHER TDC-SUPPORTED AGENCY/DEPARTMENTS REPORTS

I. ERM PROJECT STATUS REPORT*

J. PBI TRAFFIC REPORT*

K. CONTRACT TRACKING REPORT*

Motion to Receive and File Consent Items for February 2023 was made by Roger Amidon and seconded by Commissioner Adam Frankel. Motion carried 8-0 with Daniel Hostettler absent.

5. OLD BUSINESS – DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. TDC TOURISM PERFORMANCE METRICS

1. TDC DASHBOARD CURRENT MONTH & FY2023* a. Bed Tax Collections* b. Report Out Metrics*

Perry

Bed Tax Collection – December 2022 collected in January was $8.2M compared to the same month last year at $7.9M, a 4% increase. Actual December was (5%) below budget and 31% above the prior month at $6.3M. Actual December was 47% higher than 2019, a new record for any December since reporting started.

FYTD 23 Collections at $24M, was higher than last fiscal year to date of $21M by 14%, reflecting a strong recovery from the pandemic. FYT collections at $24M are pacing 5% ahead of the Approved Budget and 56% higher than our record in 2019.

The Rooms sold for December were 407,308, 2% higher than last year. Rooms available for December at 586,055 are 3% higher than last year. Hotel Rooms Active today in the County

18,905

Occupancy for December 2022 was 69.5%, (1.4%) lower than last year. Occupancy for December 2021 was 70.5%. December 2018 was 73.7%. The average daily rate for December was $284.98 4.7% higher than last year, and 36% higher than in 2019. The Revenue/Available Room for December 2022 was $198.05 higher than the prior December by 3.3%.

Hotel room net sales FY23 year over year December increased 5% at $112M compared to $107M. Non-hotel room sales FY23 year over year December increased 13% at $25M compared to $22M. Hotel room net sales FYTD 2023 increased 17% at $334M compared to $285M. NonHotel room sales FYTD 2023 increased 15% at $64M compared to $56M. FYTD 2023 Taxable Revenues Fiscal Year over FY2022 increased 17% at $399M compared to $341M. FYTD 2023 Taxable Revenues Fiscal Year over FY2019 increased 60% at $399M compared to $250M.

Airport passengers for December 2022 were 679,545, 8% higher than in December 2021, and the Total Estimated Seat Capacity at (2%) lower than last December 2021 with 791,906 seats. PBI Passenger 12-month rolling is a 26% increase at 6,640,043 over last year.

Leisure & Hospitality Employment for December, at 98,700 increased 10% over the same month last year. Accommodation employment went up 12% higher over last year at 10,900 employees. F&B was up 16% at 67,400 employees. Arts & Entertainment employment is (6%) lower than last year at 20,400 employees.

B. PBI UPDATE – Nicole Hughes Hughes

In October 2022, we had 507,644 total passengers which was 8% above October 2019. Our seat capacity was less at 5,660,348 which was 5% below 2019.

Air carrier operations were 3,824, which is 4% below October 2019. General aviation was 9,112, which was 26% above 2019. Our total operations were 12,936, which was 15% above October 2019. We had an 8% increase in total passengers. General aviation operations were consistent compared with 2021.

In November we had 592,505 total passengers, which was 2% above 2019. Seat capacity was 680,677 which was 6% below 2019. Air carrier operations were 4,586, which was 4% below 2019. General Aviation was up again at 10,834, which was 47% above 2019. As a result, general aviation increases our total operations by 27% above 2019 at 15,420.

Weather and staffing shortages account for the travel decrease in December. We had cancellations and a 4% decrease in carrier operation, but in general aviation, for December we had 79,545 total passengers, which was 6% lower than in 2019. December 2019 was one of our highest travel years in recent history. Seat capacity in December was 906,000, which is 11% below 2019. Air carrier operations were 5,306, which is 9% below 2019. General aviation was 95% above 2019 at 11,900 and again, our total operations increased by 43% at 17,031. December passengers were 6% less than in 2019.

Avelo will be providing service from PBI to Raleigh Durham beginning on February 17th. Allegiant will be returning to Indianapolis starting February 16th and will be on a twice- weekly flight schedule. Jet Blue is returning to LAX and that starts on February 16th with nonstop daily flights Most likely it will be seasonal.

We are going to be issuing an RFP for new concessions. We will be surveying to find out what kind of service people want. That survey should be up on our website tomorrow. We encourage all of you to take part in the survey so we can revitalize.

Dufresne

Why are we using 2019 at the base?

Hughes

It was our pre-pandemic numbers. Next time, I can use 2021.

Bronstien

As peopleleaveon aplaneto leavetown it seems likewe could do abetter job ofmarketing when you are going through the concourse to a plane about upcoming activities and events that are going on. Maybe people would think, we should go book another trip, if we were to report events, and do some marketing, use all that extra money that we just talked about to promote departing passengers, not arriving passengers, they are already here. That is a huge opportunity to give people a calendar.

Pesquera

We've had discussions with Laura on several initiatives that are happening, particularly as it pertains to new flights that are coming in and how we are promoting them.

Anything is possible, and Ithink that is a great idea. Many gates are not used because there is no flight and there is a board, those boards could be converted into a selling opportunity, whateverfestivalishappeningatMorikami,etc. Wecancertainlyexploreusingtheunused idle boards at all the gates as a communication device and work with the airport to make that happen.

There may be other places in the concourse where we could have regular activation to promote activities that are coming up in the future like SunFest, the boat show, and Honda Classic

Anderson

You use a third party to sell space. Are there any restrictions on that company?

Hughes

Clear Channel is our vendor for advertisements, but they do offer a rate.

Anderson

Are there any restrictions on putting additional screens in?

Hughes

I do not think the gate screens would be under Clear Channel, I am not sure about that. I'd have to check into that because they may be specific to that airline, and we may not have access to those as well.

Commissioner Sachs

We would like a report as to what we can and cannot do inside the airport.

Baker

I will reach out to the agency, along with Laura, and legal, and sit down and do a powwow and report back to the board in our next meeting.

Bronstien

Just to be clear specifically about departing people, advertising them about the future.

C. SUCCESS CONTINUATION PLAN* – Jorge Pesquera (5 min.)

Pesquera

Fromthe broadcast TVpoint ofview, we areoffto theraces since January16th,inChicago, Boston, Washington DC, and New York. We are talking about 1,200 DDIs, a lot of them on primetime slots, in shows like Jeopardy, which we are going to be on during March Madness and PGA Tour events as well.

The community outreach tool which was announced at our state of tourism event is to empower our community, our residents, and community leaders to use the power of a personal invitation and invite friends and family to visit, which is the number one reason people come to Palm Beach County. That toolkit includes many opportunities on social media, and so forth.

With TDC collaboration, we are already working on the Ultimate Week of Sports. As George mentioned before we are going to be working with Dave on the DEIA Summit as well. With our friends at Film, we now have a new videographer on staff. He has started to regroup on Studio Buildout. We've shared co-op marketing plans with PBI for these digital buys. And they are reaching out to us to do more on the social media front.

We are working with Avelo to launch the new Wilmington and Raleigh Durham flights, and also talking about LAX with online travel agencies. We've done this through a forecasting tool that Gustav developed, and we are pinpointing need periods within the next 90 days and zeroing in with special offers for those particular sets of dates. We are seeing some very positive early returns on the use of that tool and with international strategies moving forward. We are determining opportunities in the UK with something called the Henley Regatta and in Toronto with the Apollo Club in Canada. On the digital side, we've launched phase one in Mexico, Colombia, and Toronto, and phase two will be in Montreal and Brazil, in French and Portuguese.

We've signed a contract with a company called Relic for the production of a unique, first group-related destination podcast, which will use thought leaders in the industry paired with local individuals to communicate that we are the cutting edge in terms of hosting meetings and events, and that should be launching in mid-March.

On family activation, our agency of record is exploring and approaching viable partners to work with us on launching a full-fledged family-related campaign. We are working on brand activations. In the Metaverse, we are exploring several proposals and RFPs, so we can secure the resources and the expertise to use that towards the end of the year.

Accessible travel. We've had calls with WheelchairTravel.org and Travel Mobility. We are just exploring how we can use this new very important effort to welcome everyone to enjoy the Palm Beaches.

On the sales side, we were just at PCMA, and we reaffirmed our availability to support qualified groups with additional incentive funds, particularly for need periods in the summer and fall. And the meeting planner community is getting the message that we now have incentive dollars. We've started the planning process to enhance participation in multicultural trade events and marketing partnerships.

We had in town this past week all our international representation firms from the UK, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. They made presentations to the industry, and we talked to them about expanding their repertoire of services to include the groups and meetings market as well, which was part of what we presented.

We are working on a couple of important transformational events that we can't talk about yet but would be targeting special needs periods. We will include this information as part of our regular monthly report and suggest that if there are any questions from the TDC board we can answer them so that we don't have to do this necessarily all the time.

Thompson

With the community outreach toolkit and those residents How are we selecting residents?

Segarra

The fact is that between 30% to 50% of our visitors use a resident as the final source to decide I'm going to go to the Palm Beaches.

We are providing openly through social media efforts, our digital tools, like photos, copy points and videos. They can enhance their social media when they target their family and friends. We are going to have it available through our social media which is going to start first. So, people will maybe click on a QR code, download it, or through our website and access all the digital kits and assets that we have.

It is not selecting this one or the other. It's going to be open to everybody that wants to follow us and be part of this effort.

Thompson

As a resident, then I have to know that I should go to your social media pages or to the website to participate.

Pesquera

Exactly. But we are going to promote it locally through community events.

We might do certain things to get the word out. Maybe billboards, I do not know. We have not gone to that level doing how we get the message out there to the people. But, in collaboration with our other agencies, I think we can get the message out to the residents.

Segarra

And at this point, we are just in initial conversations with one of the largest TV stations or newspapers in the area so they can join this effort and promote it.

Pesquera

One of the things we are using the special stimulus of the $5M for is the use of a mobile visitor information center. We will have, for example, at Sun Fest at the boat show, and the Honda Classic a visitor information center that we open up, and that will be another vehicle to tell the public that we have this toolkit whereby they can use their power of a personal invitation to bring their relatives from other states.

Segarra

The other option is that we are trying to do a partnership with the local chain of restaurants from our county, and we will provide a tent card at those tables. When locals go and have dinner, they just click on the QR code, and they can add all the information. Right now the initial launch will be through the database that we have in our social media feeds.

Thompson

Is there an update on the Tourism Master Plan? Where are we with that?

Pesquera

There was a meeting on the 27th of January with all the agency heads where we developed a first draft and a scope of work. There were excellent recommendations from the agencies and Ms. Baker as it pertains to the scoring mechanism for the selection of the consultants. The changes have been put into the RFP and we are almost ready to talk about this as an official launch at the April meeting.

Amidon

For accessible travel under marketing, do we know who has the best destination for maybe that segment?

Segarra

Tampa is at the cutting edge in this regard. There was another destination, one of the top destinations in the nation Mesa, AZ. They have one and they have created a certification program for the suppliers in the destination, plus certain guidelines on how to provide the solutions to the needs of this particular traveler. We spoke with them, and they said we are going to help you to move forward.

Tampa has a good program on this. Orlando has a very good one as well We want to make sure we are going to do this to the level that we think we can. When you have more than 50 million people with a disability who want to travel, we want to make sure we have it right and we present the destination at the same level as regular travel there as well.

Amidon

I know the Dive Association gets involved with wheelchair populations, they get out there diving.

Segarra

This is one of those opportunities, but that also requires a level of responsibility from the destination to provide the right type of access and services to this population.

Lawrence

Just an update for everybody regarding cultural organizations and accessibility Most of our Cultural organizations receive state funding. They have to complete accessibility assessments of their organization to receive those dollars. The organizations are ready and abled and are happy to welcome guests with mobility issues.

Commissioner Sachs

Are those Federal or State funds?

Lawrence

It is a combination of both, primarily State funds.

Commissioner Lambert

Is this report in response to the additional funding that we recently approved?

Pesquera

Yes.

Commissioner Lambert

You said that this will be included in a monthly report

Pesquera

Yes.

Commissioner Lambert

That then includes financial reports as well.

Pesquera

Every month, we are reporting on the activities that we implemented utilizing the funds. If there is an ROI component, I think that would come at a mid-year or end-of-the-year basis because you do not see the immediate effects of some of these actions until sometime later on. The impact has to be looked upon on a more long-term basis.

Commissioner Lambert

I appreciate the follow-up of what the activities are., but when we talked about the approval of it, we talked about ROI to make sure we have a plan for when we will see those financials

Pesquera

Do you want to include numbers?

Perry

They can include numbers going forward to identify what the ROI is.

Commissioner Lambert

Maybe at the six-month mark or the annual mark.

Amidon

They presented us with an approximate amount of investment of $250,000. That is when the discussion came up about the ROI

Commissioner Lambert

Maybe it is not the ROI yet, but at least the expenditure amount.

6. NEW BUSINESS – DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. ERM

1. Two Minutes Update- Deb Drum Drum

A quick follow-up on the accessibility point. Beyond Parks and Recreation, we do have certified autism-friendly trails. We have hiking opportunities and more nature-based experiences beyond the playground.

Palm Beach County received about $4M of damage, from the hurricanes in November. Half of the money will be reimbursed by the State, we expect reimbursement of about $2M. Our emergency dune restoration is complete at Coral Cove. We restored a mile of the dune from the county line to the south of the park.

And then the second of our two emergency dune restoration projects are underway on Singer Island. We have about 48,000 tons of sand being used to reconstruct 1.25 miles of the dune. Restoration will be complete and beaches ready for the next storm season and before the sea turtles’ nesting starts.

We had a very successful community planting event at Tarpon Cove with more than 70 volunteers and visitors. Planted 600 mangroves and 400 Spartan seedlings on the two newly created islands in Lake Worth Lagoon.

The Lake Worth Lagoon Fishing Challenge starts on February 11th. It is a free citizen science fishing tournament aimed at collecting fisheries information from our largest estuary here in the county.

I hope all of you will consider joining us at the Palm Beach County Natural Areas Festival. It will be held Saturday, March 4th at Winding Water's Natural Area. It is free, unless you want to sign up for the 5K or a 10K run the morning of that event, there will be guided hikes and kayak tours, a wildlife presentation in the kids’ zone, food trucks, and environmental exhibitors.

Amidon

Just a reminder clarification, do beach restoration and dune restoration have the same funding sources?

Drum

The same funding source, and the same protections. It is given based on how much space you have on the beach and what opportunities you have. Sometimes we can only do dune restorations. It is the best we can do given the different permitting challenges that we have on the beach.

Amidon

This is just to clarify, around public money, but taxpayers’ money now is tourists’ tax dollars paying for it, or is there a mix?

Drum

It depends. We try to leverage our funds. There are some pots of money from the State, we go for every single dollar that we can get. I can bring back to you the breakdown of the sources of funding for dunes, but it's a mix. But we bring as much money from the federal and state government as we possibly can.

Commissioner Lambert

I was out at Tarpon Cove last weekend. I wanted to share that it was a phenomenal experience. The coordinators from the county who were there were fabulous. And the other thing I noticed was I was talking to some of the other volunteers there, and some people who came had a two to three-hour drive to be there at 7:30 in the morning.

Drum

As part of the strategic planning discussion, we have been talking about those opportunities and that is part of the reason why some of the folks around the table are coming out to our event next week to kind of feel it and experience it firsthand so we can figure out the best way to market that sort of the environmental service sustainability part that Jorge just talked about. We think there are opportunities there. It is a special group of people that like to give back in that way. It is not everybody, but there are quite a few people that if they knew about the opportunities, I think would come here to do that.

And our Natural Areas Festival is one where we talk to people who attend. We have you know many thousand people attend and they come from far away and stay at hotels to go to this festival. It's a start.

Commissioner Sachs

Do you work with Mr. Pesquera on getting the word out, or how do you promote these activities that are special to Palm Beach?

Drum

We have a very close partnership with The Palm Beaches, and we work with them, also we have our own very active community on social media. ERM has social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook, and we get a lot of interest from that. It's a community of people that follow what we do at ERM.

B. DISCOVER

1. Two Minutes Update – Jorge Pesquera Pesquera

I want again to thank Emanuel and Joan for the progress on the Tourism Master Plan. We've had productive discussions and we are closer than ever. We are looking forward to the next discussions with the Facilities team on the hotel.

But I want to share some great news. We were at PCMA just a couple of weeks ago. It is one of the largest events in the meetings industry. We were there in full force, with 4,000 attendees. We used a local thought leader and artist, Amanda Perna, who I think is a fashion person. 500 attendees went to her session. She was a speaker that we sponsored. We raised $4,000 for the PCMA Foundation, from the items that Amanda Perna donated. PCMA likes us now, and that is an important thing because that's the community of meeting planners.

The Above and Beyond Foundation of which Kelly Cavers is one of the board members awarded 15,000 to three frontline workers during the event. We had an Orange Theory hit workout in the morning that was also sold out.

And the most important thing, 221 leads and 142,000 room nights were developed in the month of January, 80% of those leads emanated from this event that took place in Columbus, Ohio. You can see the impact that a well-orchestrated invitation to meeting planners can have, getting the word out that they come to a booth or activation with an attractive hook, really makes a big difference.

We hosted Visit Florida's Huddle. This is their big event of the year where they have one section of the trade show floor. Thank you, Dave, for a wonderful job. The Convention Center did a fantastic job, and all our friends here supported us 660 participants, representatives from all over Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, the UK, Germany, and Ireland 1,400 contracted room nights, three contracted hotels, and 40% of the attendees booked their hotel outside of the room block why is that? Visit Florida said to us, we can't come back until we have another hotel. They've been here a couple of times. We hosted them six years ago.

They did a fantastic job at the closing night, which is usually very poorly attended, and it was packed. We did it at the Croquet Center, with the support of our friends at the Cultural Council with the music, etc The comments were over the top. These people were impressed, and I think we have a great opportunity to bring a lot of that business back.

Finally, there is an events and publications company called Dispatch and I want to share that we are now up for several major awards. Best City to Host a Meeting, for something called the Pink Retreat. Which is a group of ladies that get together and talk about all things Lily Pulitzer that has grown from 50 to 800 people. There might be some men who like that too. We are up for Best City to Host an Incentive Program, for the way we hosted the Site Classic last year at the Boca Raton. Thanks to Dan Hostettler and his team, they did a fantastic job. We are up for the Best Convention Center, congratulations Dave for hybrid events and experiences, and that was a recommendation by Permissionless by Blockbusters, which was the cryptocurrency event that was here, 6,000 people using 22 hotels around the county, and we've grown that event as well. I think we are going to get one of them at least. This tells you a little bit about how we have been able to grow the brand and get out there in a much bigger way.

Commissioner Lambert

You mentioned the closing night of the Huddle was packed. Is there anything that prompted that change in attendance?

Pesquera

I think the attendees saw the level of service and sophistication that was displayed throughout the event from the beginning, and they just opted to linger and see what it was that we had in store for them for the end. The comments from Visit Florida organizers were extremely positive.

C. SPORTS COMMISSION

1. The Category “G” Grant Agreements* - MOTION TO APPROVE f. USTA Girls 12’s National Clay Court Championships (July 9-16, 2023) – Polo Club of Boca Raton

USTA Boys 18’s & 16’s National Clay Court Championships (July 9-16, 2023) – Delray Beach Tennis Center, Boca Swim & Racquet Club, Delray Swim & Tennis Club, Boca Grove Country Club, Boca West Country Club, The Oaks, Palm Beach Gardens Tennis Center

$8,000 840

$15,000 1,000

$30,000 1,200 Total $271,000 25,009 Average Historical ADR - $185.29 ROI

-

2. Two Minutes Update - George Linley

I want to just bring to your attention the December event above. It will be an inspiring event, called the Miracle League All-Star Game in Palm Beach County's home, the two Miracle League fields. One in Palm Beach Gardens, and one in Delray Beach. It allows children with severe disabilities, and youth who are mentally challenged and physically challenged to participate in sports through the game of baseball. The Miracle League is an incredible organization, it's designed to allow kids to enjoy the game. We are hosting, and we've always been partners with the Miracle League. This was always a local effort, but there is an All-Star game that was launched four years ago, and it's called The Miracle League All-Star Game. We will host it from November 3rd through 5th, it will attract 600 youth from across the country. You have 600 kids, but there will be family and friends that come to watch these kids and they are coming from around the country. In addition to that, there are 300 miracle leagues around the nation, and there will be representatives from those Miracle Leagues coming here. There will be a significant hotel impact. There will be an opening ceremony at the Ballpark of The Palm Beaches, and there will be the Wellington International Palm Beach Equestrian Center as they are working with us to create a display and expose these kids to equestrian sports.

The Sports Commission from October through December 31st hosted 47 events, represented 14 different types of sports, and generated over 84,900 plus room nights. When you look at the average daily rate that was over $1.1 million in revenue

It was a big first quarter for us. We were up about 14%, which is about 10,000 plus room nights compared to that same timeframe last year and we hoped to continue to ride that momentum throughout the rest of the year.

We have a big event coming to Palm Beach County this April. A major international tennis event. It was formally called the Federation Cup and we hosted that in 2005, 2007, and 2013. But this is the first time that we are hosting it under the rebrand of the Billy Jean King name. She is arguably not only one of the greatest tennis players, but an iconic athlete both on and off the field. It is the United States vs. Austria. There is a rumor UTA has asked Serena if she would play. All I can tell you is she hasn't said no, doesn't mean she's going to play, but it was the Post that even did a little article on that. If she was to say yes and join Coco Gauff, then it would be quite a spectacle in Palm Beach County in April. Hopefully, we will see you out there.

Commissioner Frankel, I appreciate your help with all this and your enthusiasm. The City of Delray Beach is also putting in a significant amount of money, and in-kind services to allow this event to happen.

Commissioner Lambert

As you were talking about all that is coming up, we could advertise at the airport. It is impressive what we are doing here, and I hope that we can find space there other than the pictures of it.

Amidon

Is The Senior Baseball coming back?

Linley

Yes. The Men's Senior Baseball League is coming back. It was here this year, this past November. It was compromised severely during COVID until last year. That is the one event that is not high school age or college age. You have ages from the ’30s to 65, 70 plus.

Commissioner Frankel

Delray Beach Open Starts tomorrow, it is the only 10-day combined Champions and ATB tour event. We have the Brian Brothers this weekend, and then for the regular ATP draw the top eight seeds are all top 40 in the world. One of the strongest draws they've had. Hopefully, we will see you all in Delray in the next few weeks.

Lawrence

The grant applications have been released today, for category B and category CII grants for our cultural organizations. I want to give a big thanks to Emmanuel and Joan for helping us.

We've honed the application materials and focused on marketing. These are going to be very impactful grants for cultural organizations. We've got several workshops lined up and Vicky Jackson, our director of grants, is doing a phenomenal job with that.

I will just point out that to support The Ultimate Week of Sport, our marketing folks came together with our other agencies to create a brochure that has all the cultural activities that are happening around the sports venues for the great 10 days of sports activities. This is a great example of collaboration at work between the agencies.

Our giant shades of culture are at Arti Gras, for the next weekend. There is a great selfie opportunity up there to promote culture. Finally, I just want to talk for a moment about our Art Basel campaign. All of the ads contain the logo that includes The Palm Beaches and our tagline, Discover Florida's Cultural Capital. This is an aspirational campaign designed to just make sure that people are aware of and hoping that they will come to attend arts activities in the Palm Beaches.

We worked very closely with Brightline. It included Brightline Station Digital Billboards, car wraps on ride-share cars, and co-op advertising with the Boca Museum of Art and the Norton Museum of Art in Miami. The team did a remarkable job of giving a lot of visibility to The Palm Beaches during the very busy weekend that happens with Art Basel every year. Congrats Jennifer and Lauren and the entire team on that.

Finally, the information about our legislative agenda. We participated in the Legislative Delegation Meeting on January 12th . I provided some testimony about the importance of arts and culture. We will be going up to Tallahassee for Palm Beach County days. We also worked with several cultural organizations to be there and share testimony as well. We've put together a legislative platform. We want to make sure that the grants are supported at the state level. These are important operating support grants outside of the marketing grants that the cultural organizations get through the TDC, these operating support grants help them stay afloat so that they can provide all the programs and services that they do, provide education, and opportunities to our county.

You have the legislative platform in your packet. I will say that it is not just because of our Cultural Council, because is a statewide effort, but last year the grants were fully funded, which is very important. These were major increases to cultural organizations, and I am proud and thrilled to say that the County legislative platform has included cultural pieces in the legislative platform for the first time. We will be having a strong show for us in Tallahassee during Palm Beach County Days.

Commissioner Lambert

I will be going to Palm Beach County Days, I will review what you put in here. But if you would like to meet and discuss this so that we can coordinate efforts, I would be happy to meet.

Lawrence

I'd be happy to do that. We are working with some cultural organizations that are also going up. We are getting ready to start setting up meetings.

E. FILM & TV

1. Two Minutes Update – Michelle Hillery

Hillery

We just had our board meeting yesterday in which we are kind of following Jorge's lead and Visit Florida’s lead with record-breaking numbers.

Our team takes on a very big survey at the end of the calendar year in addition to all the numbers that we collect every month, which includes our permits and projects that shot here in Palm Beach County that did not need a permit, but in some way, we touched, we also survey our indigenous production community which we know we have 168 identified production-related companies that live and work here. Of those 168, we were able to touch base with 98 of those. We had a pretty success rate and from that, we are very pleased to report a 17% increase over last year in production revenue. That's how much money was spent here in Palm Beach County as a result of Film and Television activities. We are at over $9M last year that was spent here in Palm Beach County as a result of those efforts. We handled 500 projects over the course of that year. That breaks down to 42 projects a month that our staff is facilitating and working with and these can be very complicated shoots. Sometimes it is a walk and talks down the street, and other times we have to get a little bit more involved with off-duty officers shutting down roads, etcetera. I want to thank our municipalities at Delray Beach and West Palm Beach and others who work with us every single year to facilitate and coordinate these very complicated permits at times to make sure that these activities happen. We work as a liaison between persons, organizers, these production companies, our clients, and our local municipalities. We want to make sure that they are handled, but also, we are protecting our community at the same time. It is a balance for sure.

Right now, we've got 15 projects on the table that the staff is working with. We just hired a new production coordinator that is going to help with those efforts and just a quick update on the Palm Beaches TV We are focusing on and growing the distribution of Palm Beaches TV, not only are we streaming on the Palm Beaches TV channel, but now we have a partnership with Channel 10, which is our education network. Many of the shows are now streaming on Channel 10 and we are also on a new app called Three TV, which is an additional distribution platform for those programs.

Speaking of the airport, we are very pleased with our collaboration at the airport. We too are inquiring about additional space and additional TV monitors that could be placed there. We've created a new drive that better markets The Palm Beaches TV. When people are watching a program, they are not just watching a fishing show, but they see the branding of The Palm Beaches TV throughout. We are also meeting with the Cultural Council, and we are going to be meeting with the 12 visitor center coordinators and hopefully handing them that USB, which is a two-hour loop, and if we need to, we will even purchase some additional monitors if they don't already have a monitor.

Commissioner Sachs

How many visitor centers are there?

Hillery

12, if I am not mistaken.

And my last piece of business, I hope you will all reserve the dates of April 21st, which will be our 28th Annual Palm Beach Student Showcase of Films, which is the largest statewide film competition for high school and college students. We've given over $1.6M in scholarships and awards. It will be at the Jupiter Maltz Theater, which is a brand new renovated, beautiful theater, and again, record-breaking numbers in the number of student submissions that came in this year.

F. CONVENTION CENTER

1. OVG Venue Management a. Two Minutes Update- Dave Anderson

2. OVG Hospitality a. Two Minutes Update – Kathy Griffin

Anderson

Serena Williams, the latest Gatorade commercial was filmed in my back hallway. When you see her walking, you see this hallway behind her. It is just our back hallway where our tables and chairs are stored because they wanted it to feel like she's walking back house onto the court. That was filmed I think in November.

We are at 50 straight days of event activity to kick off the year. Amazing pieces of business. We started with Connection Live, which was a huge technology conference. Modernizing Medicine right after that. We hosted our first Art Show of the season It was a beautiful show, very well attended. Had several vendors from Los Angeles's Art and then some vendors from this show are being shipped to LA to do that show. Now there is this back-and-forth that we are going to start doing every year. It is only going to continue to grow.

Then right into February, as Jorge mentioned, we went right into Florida Huddle, which was fantastic. Hats off to Discover, very well received, as it relates to the building, the community, and the planners.

Right off of that, we went into Thermo Fisher. It is one of the leading producers of medical instruments in the world. We run them through Friday, and then starting tomorrow afternoon as they move out of the hall, our second art show of the season, Palm Beach Jewelry & Antiques starts to move in. This is the 20th year of the show. When they did the first show, they had never done a show before and now they are one of the leading producers of art, antique and jewelry shows in the United States, and it all started here. It runs over President's Day weekend

Then, Mark Splunk, who hasn't been with us for four years, they're coming the first week in March. They are doing a major event in our ballroom for multiple days, and it is great to have them back. And then we go into our third art show, which is Palm Beach Contemporary.

I know she just walked out but thank you to Verdenia and the County Facilities Department. As I mentioned before, we are trying to update the building in the middle of all this event activity. The County Facilities team has been so flexible with us because we pretty much are asking them to work with us during nights, weekends, and odd hours to replace systems. We are trying to replace a lot of our air conditioning flow units after 20 years, and we are doing it in the middle of peak season, but they only can work at specified hours in specified parts of the building. It is going well, but again, a thank you to Isami and the Facilities team.

Finally, Jorge, I know Kelly's not here, but again, between Kelly's team and Maria on our side, the leads that we are generating and the business that we are closing not only for FY24 but 25, 26, and 27.

I don't know if this is the management company or the county, but who oversees the garage?

I hosted an event for 150 people at the Hilton in January and I had people waiting in valet for 45 minutes who missed the whole beginning of the event. I know this is an ongoing discussion about the use of the garage, but the event started at eight o'clock in the morning and nobody was in the garage.

Anderson

No, the valet for the Hilton cannot use the garage. But we've had an agreement with the Hilton for three years now, where the Hilton, all they have to do is call us when they need the garage and we will open it for attendees. They should have more parking. But they don't, so the Hilton calls us, and we work on a per-show deal that let's say the hotel is sold out because they only have 275 spots in that flat lot across Rosemary. If the hotel is sold out, their parking lot is sold out, then if they have event traffic like yours, basically they have nowhere to park, they typically call us. We work it out, we open a lot for those events. My apologies if there was an issue. But again, we've been doing that with them for probably two or three years.

Commissioner Lambert

My concern wasn’t as much about the valet’s ability to use it. Because I thought that they could, or I don't know if they contracted it for that event or not, but it was just that individual attendees were going over there and being frustrated saying, this garage is empty. I can see in there, but they won't let me in, and it is not open to individuals

Anderson

All the Hilton has to do is call us for any event, we have a deal, we work out, and we open the garage for them. We've done it for individual guests, we do not allow valet parking in the lot, because of liability concerns.

Baker

The deal they worked with the city was that any overflow would go to their garage, to the north, because we tried to work with them early on and I want to put this on the record early on. They did not want to buy into the garage. That opportunity was given. They turned it down and they went back to the city to have the number of parking spaces reduced and they were going to stack cars on their flat lot because they were also supposed to build a two-level parking garage, and any overflow would go to their north garage Right now, we are working with them when they call us in advance and we are dark, but we can do it, some people are asking us for yearly contracts. We can't do that because we can't afford to impede the business that we're bringing in. We do work with them.

We want the business to come downtown. But again, we've been doing this all along. I am just wondering if your person is new.

Anderson

The protocol is really simple. The Hilton just needs to call us. The Hilton Operations Director calls us whenever they have an overflow potential situation and then we either open early or stay open late. All we do is bill them for labor to do that. We've been doing that for several years.

Pesquera

Every week for the last probably two or three months, the headline in the industry newsletters is that the meetings industry is back. It's exploded. The company Zoom announced that they were laying off 7,000 employees. It is for the reason people are not doing Zoom anymore. They want to meet in person. These issues with the garage and the facilities are going to continue to happen because the number of meetings is going to continue to increase

Anderson

I asked the head meeting planner for Thermo Fisher, “Where are you at on virtual”? She just looked at me and said, we are not anywhere on virtual. We are back to in-person and that is where we are staying. That is good for us and that is what I am hearing from the majority of the planners.

7. BOARD COMMENTS

Dufresne

I would like this board to consider renaming the two-minute update.

Bronstien

I presume the next meeting is on April 13th , not the 14th .

Perry

Yes. It is a holiday on the 13th April 14th which is a Friday.

Baker

Just for the record, this board can change the days if it wants, but for our calendars, we tend to avoid those days.

Commissioner Sachs

Do we have the authority to vote to change the date of the next meeting?

Motion to change April 14th TDC Board meeting to April 13th was made by Don Dufresne and seconded by Commissioner Adam Frankel. Motion carried 8-0 with Daniel Hostettler absent.

8. PUBLIC COMMENTS

No public comments.

9. ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 10:50 A.M.

The is NO meeting in March. The next Meeting will be on April 13, 2023.

*Attachment included.

Tdc/tdcmtgs2023/Minutes