SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — There’s a gap in the concert schedule at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center the center is working to fill, director of marketing and public relations Doria Drost said.
The concert schedule includes 11 concerts from Aug. 9 through Nov. 5. But when Casting Crowns leaves the stage on Nov. 5, there isn’t another concert until March 22 when Rage Against the Machine is set for a re-scheduled concert.
“We’ve got one confirmation per month in that (time frame),” Drost said of Nov. 5 through March 22.
The PREMIER Center is working with the promoters to set dates to announce those concerts, Drost said.
Promoters and venues don’t often announce a concert the same day they are booked for a venue.
Drost said promoters want to make sure the announcement is made at the most ideal time.
Concerts won’t be announced on holidays, for example, because concert-goers may miss that announcement during holiday activities, Drost said.
“So like on July 4 when people are in and out of town, we don’t want to announce,” she said.
If another concert starts to sell tickets on one day, a concert will not usually be announced on that sales day, Drost said.
The goal is to generate as much excitement as possible on the day of the concert announcement, she said.
The waiting-to-be-announced concerts will be a variety of music, just as the PREMIER Center already has booked.
The already released schedule includes pop artists the Backstreet Boys, Christian artists Casting Crowns, country music artist Thomas Rhett and hard rock band Iron Maiden.
“We’re a very attractive market,” Drost said. As the largest city in South Dakota, Sioux Falls draws an audience from across the state as well as from Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska.
“It’s helpful that if an artist has booked shows in Minneapolis and Omaha, we are halfway between them,” Drost said.
“We work hard to get as much variety as we can,” Drost said. The community is interested in different musical genres.
The April concert with rapper Snoop Dogg and country artist Koe Wetzel is an example of how broad an audience member’s taste can be, Drost said.
The concert was successful, she said.
Drost expects more of those types of concerts to be part of tours. “A lot of artists are opening up to more crossover genres,” she said.
The pandemic may have also encouraged audience members to explore and listen to music they had not been familiar with which helps create interest in concerts such as rap and country artists combined, she said.
Although Sioux Falls is in a good geographic location that interests artists and promoters, some artists may be too difficult to book, Drost said
Big artists such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga and similar “tend to gravitate toward those super huge markets,” Drost said. Still, “we reach out when those artists go on tour.”
The PREMIER Center “wants to book as many shows as possible,” Drost said. A goal is 20 to 24 concerts a year, she said.
