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The Pacific Coliseum has had a storied first 50 years, but its prospects in the decades ahead without a marquee sports tenant and with increased competition from new arenas is unclear.
As a sports palace, the arena saw two Canucks Stanley Cup runs, a 2007 Memorial Cup win by the Vancouver Giants and golden glory for Canadian figure skaters and short-track speedskaters in the 2010 Olympics.
The Giants — its last anchor team — departed in 2016, however, leaving Pacific Coliseum a quieter venue and its operators working to attract concerts, trade shows, movie shoots and other events to fill the empty dates.
“This last couple of years have been a transition for us,” said Michael McDaniels, CEO of the Pacific National Exhibition, “but from a financial standpoint, it’s actually been favourable for the PNE.”
The PNE operates Pacific Coliseum as part of Hastings Park on behalf of the City of Vancouver, which owns the arena.
Coliseum use has shrunk to about 75 to 80 event-days a year from 100 to 120 event-days per year when it hosted the Giants and their minimum 36 home games per season.
(That’s compared with 250 to 300 event-days at Rogers Arena, including Vancouver Canucks home games, concerts and other special events.)
McDaniels said the Coliseum is still on a stable financial footing. It brings in about $2.5 million a year in revenue to the PNE, which is similar to what it earned before the Giants left for the Langley Events Centre.
“We weren’t losing money, but we weren’t making money (with the Giants),” McDaniels said.
The PNE has gradually made up about a third of the event days it lost with the Giants’ move, and those events have come with lower cost and higher margins to the PNE, McDaniels said.
The key has been to diversify the events it draws, McDaniels said, which is a lesson the PNE first learned when the Canucks departed for Rogers Arena (then GM Place) in the mid 1990s, taking away $6 million in revenue.
However, not having an anchor sports tenant to drive constant name recognition risks eroding the Coliseum’s value as a civic asset and removing some of the justification to upgrade it, argues sports marketing consultant Tom Mayenknecht.
“It’s a shame that a building with that kind of history doesn’t have an anchor tenant driving that attention on an ongoing basis,” Mayenknecht said.
In the meantime, Mayenknecht said the Langley Events Centre has been the big beneficiary of sports expansion, having drawn the Giants and Vancouver Stealth of the National Lacrosse League.
McDaniel, however, argues the Coliseum has retained much of that recognition with its presence as a key venue for the PNE itself and through other regular events it has drawn, such as Disney on Ice.
Given its success in drawing alternative events, the City of Vancouver is satisfied with the direction the PNE is taking the Coliseum in, said Coun. Raymond Louie, who chairs the board of the PNE.
“I would say what’s important is that the facility’s current economics, given its activity (being leased) for entertainment shows and the film industry, are sound,” Louie said.
The Pacific Coliseum received a $25-million facelift, which included new seating, lighting, ice plant and upgraded washrooms for the 2010 Olympics, Louie said, which stand it in good stead for many years to come.
McDaniel said in the long term, the PNE is still looking for an anchor tenant that will work for the Coliseum and is in ongoing discussions “with every sport, not just ice sports,” to find a replacement.
“These are not quick discussions,” McDaniel said.
It is unlikely a return of the Giants would be that anchor, said team owner Ron Toigo.
“Never say never,” said Toigo, but the team would need a different lease and any team would want an upgrade to the Coliseum’s score clock and video displays.