If an ordinance that will be introduced Wednesday to City Council is enacted, the price of a ticket for an event for sports or live entertainment could go up.
Or the profit margins for providers could go down.
The legislation would increase the user fee for most events at the city’s Downtown sports and entertainment venues, with the exception of the Florida Theatre and Ritz Theatre and LaVilla Museum.
Council member Bill Gulliford’s ordinance proposes increasing the current fees to $2.50 per ticket for events at The Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, Veterans Memorial Arena and the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.
The ordinance also proposes a $3.25 user fee per ticket sold for each Jacksonville Jaguars game at EverBank Field and a $2.50 fee for other commercial events in the stadium and at the new amphitheater and flex field facility.
Currently, the city levies a $1 per ticket fee at the arena and the Times-Union Center, 50 cents for baseball games and $1 for other events at the ballpark.
The Jaguars would continue to pay the city $3.25 per ticket, the fee established in the team’s 1993 stadium lease agreement.
Use of the fee revenue would be limited to maintenance, repairs and improvements at the facilities.
According to the city, ticket fees haven’t increased since 1994 for the arena and Times-Union Center. They were increased in 2003 for the baseball park.
The proposed ordinance also calls for a 3 percent annual increase in the user fees, which is not currently in place.
Gulliford said in view of how long it has been since the fees were increased, “it’s time.”
The proposal would provide funding for maintenance and improvements at the venues that would be provided by the users, rather than through the general fund, which creates a burden for all taxpayers, he said.
“And it needs to be consistent. We need to charge the same fee for all the venues,” Gulliford added.
The $5 general admission ticket price for the Jumbo Shrimps would be most affected by the proposed increase, since the team currently absorbs the 50-cent fee.
If the $2.50 fee is enacted, it would increase the price of the team’s $5 general admission tickets by 50 percent or the team could net $2.50 on each ticket if the fee were to be absorbed.
The Jumbo Shrimps and the Jacksonville Armada Football Club, which also plays its home games at the Baseball Grounds, said Monday they hadn’t had enough time to review the proposed legislation and therefore could not comment.
Robert Massey, president and CEO of the Jacksonville Symphony Association, said after reviewing the legislation a 150 percent increase in the city fee per ticket is “something the community should look at.”
The symphony currently absorbs the $1 per ticket fee, but with 90 performances this season and total season sales of about 100,000 tickets, absorbing another $1.50 per ticket might not be possible for the nonprofit arts organization, he said, and the additional charge might have to be passed on to the audience.
Tickets for Friday’s performance of The Dream of Gerontius range from $27-$77.
“What seems on paper to be small,” he said, “could be a barrier to access to entertainment.”
Massey also pointed out city support of the symphony in the form of cultural grants has been decreasing for the past several years.
“It’s a fraction of what we were getting,” he said.
And Massey said he’s disappointed because the stakeholders weren’t advised of the proposed fee increase before the legislation was written and ready for introduction.
Gulliford said the proposed fee is less than what is collected at venues in other cities. For instance, Orlando charges a $3 per ticket user fee at Amway Arena for tickets up to $99 and $3.50 for tickets more than $99.
As for discussing the proposal with the symphony association, the teams and other venue users, Gulliford said “that will be availed during the process.”
The legislation will be introduced Wednesday and then assigned to standing committees where public hearings will be scheduled before the ordinance goes to the full council for a vote.
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