Portneuf Wellness Complex to host 6-8 concerts this summer
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POCATELLO — The Bannock County Event Center expects to have a concert and movie schedule announced and tickets on sale by April 1.
Portneuf Wellness Complex/BCEC spokesman Guy Patterson told EastIdahoNews.com that contracts are already in the works, and the licensing process has begun.
“We want to do a minimum of six to eight concerts,” Patterson said. “We are working on — you have to get license rights to play movies. Anybody can just go stick a sheet in their yard and turn on a projector, but if you get caught they’ll fine you a million or two.”
But the process of creating a schedule goes beyond booking acts and acquiring licenses, Patterson said.
Just re-opening the event center for spring is a month-long affair. It includes de-winterizing the sprinkler system, prepping lawn mowers for a long season of busy work and consulting the last decade of weather data.
That data comes in handy, both when scheduling an event and planning the re-opening.
“With the internet age that we live in and we love, we can go back and look at the historical weather patterns for the last five, 10 years,” Patterson said. “If we’re looking at booking a concert, or something like that, we go through and we pull a minimum of five years of data.”
The crew of four full-time employees also draws from their own experience to make calls on the best time to plan events.
Patterson is confident the re-opening process will take no longer this year than it has in years past. After all, COVID-19 was unable to stop activities at the event center last summer.
“Our park was open during COVID, so our shutdown and reopening isn’t substantially different than a non-COVID year,” Patterson said. “We did eight, nine movies in our amphitheater last year; we had a trunk-or-treat. … we tried to stay open as much as possible so people could get out in the sun and catch a little Vitamin D and feel better.”
The full schedule of events is expected to start this spring. Schedules and tickets will be available in just over four weeks.