Category: Music

There’s been quite a bit of neighborhood angst in North Park about Observatory North Park – a historic theater in the heart of the neighborhood converted to a concert venue a few years ago.  Recently the City Councilmember for the area hosted a Festivus-style Airing of Grievances about the venue.  I live a couple of blocks from the venue and other than an occasional bit of noise haven’t had any complaints about the venue or patrons.  My thoughts generally align with this piece by Jeff Terich of CityBeat.

I was curious about the overall impact of the venue on the neighborhood in terms of patrons and dollars – how many people are attending concerts and bringing energy, liveliness, and money to North Park.  I live a couple of blocks away and it seems to be quite popular but I hadn’t seen any numbers about the average attendance, etc.  Here’s the response I got from an Observatory representative (received on 8/11/2017) on this topic:

“Our capacity is 550 seated or 1100 standing. We do between 12-25 shows per month with the average of most shows being about 80% sold.”

Let’s do a bit of math to get a monthly estimated total of attendees:

Average capacity: 825 [(550 + 1100)/2]  (assuming half seated shows and half not)

Average shows per month: 18.5 [(12 + 25)/2]

Average attendance per concert: 660 (825 x 80%)

Total attendance per month: 12,210 (660 *18.5)  ———>> In a year that would be an estimated 146,520 attendees.

What does this mean for the larger North Park economy?  As a rough estimate, this infographic from event organizer / platform Eventbrite is what a quick Google search yielded.  It’s a bit dated, from January 2015, but as I don’t currently have a data analyst on staff I’m going to run with it.

Based on the above, the average non-ticket spending (snacks, drinks, transportation) would be $47 per person, in addition to the average $35 ticket. Multiplying the annual attendance by this $47 per person in spending would yield a direct economic impact to North Park of $6,886,440.  A good portion of this, especially the drinks category, may occur inside the Observatory venue or attached West Coast Tavern.  The wide variety of restaurants, cafes, and bars in North Park would also receive some of this money.

Prior to Observatory opening there wasn’t a major concert venue in North Park and I’m glad there is a place where music lovers can attend a wide variety of performances.  (I’m not much of a concert goer myself and haven’t attended a performance at Observatory other than the Christmas program for Jefferson Elementary, for which the venue donated the space and support services.)  I see Observatory as the type of place that most neighborhoods would pay lots of money or tax breaks to attract – a place bringing money, jobs, and attractions.  Hopefully Observatory will continue to listen to neighborhood concerns as well as operating as a top-notch place to enjoy a night out in San Diego.