The Carson City Culture and Tourism Authority Board of Directors meeting.

Today is Monday, June 8th.

It is four o two PM, and we are at the Carson City Community Center, Robert Bob Krawl Boardroom.

Can I get a roll call?

Andrew Reno.

Eric Matt Todd.

Here.

Stacey Giome.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right, thank you.

Everybody, if we could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

At this time, I will open it up for public comment.

Hearing none, we will move on to item five possible action and approval of minutes from the May eighteenth, twenty twenty-six CTA board meeting and FY two seven budget hearing.

Does anyone have any changes or additions to the minutes?

Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from the May eighteenth, twenty twenty-six CTA board meeting?

So moved.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, the motion is approved.

Next, we will move on to item six.

Okay, all in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none.

We will move the motion passes and hearing none, we will move on to item nine, possible on action.

Discussing regarding resolution to augment augment the CTA physical year 2025 and 2026 budget.

And with that, I will turn it over to Chris Kip.

Thank you.

So the first resolution is 2026-1.

For this will be for the general fund.

We are going to additional unanticipated resources of 245,350.

Of that 138,170 was the difference between what we budgeted we'd end last year with and what we actually ended last year's with.

And then the next three items I'll go over on the next page.

So we'll be on page three of 16.

These are the changes in the revenue for just the general fund.

In the intergovernment governmental revenue, we reduced it by 5,109.

We ended up getting an America 250 grant for additional 25,000, but our rural marketing grant, we did not receive 30,000 of it that we were planning on getting it.

So that's the difference for that one.

Under miscellaneous, these are reimbursements for FAM expenses we've done with Reno Tahoe Territory and RSCDA.

And then $2,200 of that is donations from the caplins who are the building owners.

And then the biggest jump is in the investment income.

I always budget really really low, and the treasurer's office that the city has been doing fabulous with their investing because that's where 102,000 additional in revenue comes from there.

So on page four of 16, this is just totaling up those revisions and adding them to our originally budgeted fund.

Then on page five of 16, these are the changes we've made to the expenses.

Under general government, we have additional salaries and wages.

Those are due to a couple of things.

One is the change in the salary for the executive director that you guys made, and the other is we have two positions that are not salary, so they get to choose whether they're they pay their PERS or we pay their PERS.

So there I budgeted them as we pay their PERS, but so you can see there's a reduction in the benefits instead of an addition in the benefits, and it's that way in both general government and the culture and resource.

We have one in each one, and then in services and supplies for general government, we just reduced our expenses down so we'd end up with a zero balance in the changes there.

In culture and rec the wages are the same as I just talked about, and then in services and supplies, most of this is savings.

Uh this well it's not really a savings, it's for the arts and culture for the 3D grant.

A lot of these expenses are being carried over to wrap up in fiscal 27 because they'll all have to be done by October.

So do you guys have any questions on the general fund?

Okay, then the next one is page seven of 16.

This is the resolution number 202602 for the capital projects fund, and then we're changing we're at um additional unanticipated resources of 65,827.

First is 38,000 from the beginning fund balance versus what we budgeted.

So we came in the year 38,000 ahead, and then 27,000 for um the interest in the income, and that's the only change that we have for that one.

So the next four pages are just the form to lay it out, and then the last one is 202603 for VNT Capital Projects on page 12.

This one we're gonna increase 5,735, 3,679 of that being a beginning fund balance difference, and then 2,056 for interest.

You guys have any questions on any of those?

Okay, thank you, Chris.

Does anybody have any questions or comments regarding?

Okay, I move to approve resolution number two zero two six-one, two zero two six-two, and two zero two six-three as presented.

Can I get a second?

I'll second, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, the motion passes.

Next we will move on to item 10, monthly non-action items and presentations for discussion only.

And with that, I will turn it over to the executive director, Mr.

David Peterson.

Thank you, Chair for the record, Dave Peterson, executive director with Visit Carson City.

We'll take on 10A.

I just have one thing on my executive director update.

And uh it's it's a it's positive.

It's a good thing on the grants front.

So uh with great thanks to Mr.

Eric Brooks, uh, we were able to secure.

Yep, uh he's raising his hand, Stacey.

You probably can't see him uh and the audience there, but uh we were able to secure an additional 7,141 dollars in America 250 and the grant money to do a mural on the front side of the Eastgate Depot building, which is really cool.

Uh so Jesse Rock is is going to be uh doing that.

Uh, we're we're all excited uh about that.

Uh so we did not have to have an additional uh match on that, which also helps us uh as well very late in the game, but there was some additional funds left over uh within Travel Nevada's uh 250 program, and we were one of uh three uh projects to be awarded with some of those dollars.

So I think this is great.

It'll tie in nicely uh with the 12 footer, the the spike sculpture that's gonna go in up there with the Dust and Wonder project.

We'll have some other uh murals on some of the buildings as well.

Um so that's a that's a good thing.

And then uh Commission on Tourism meets later this week.

So next month I'll be able to give you all an update on where things stand with our fiscal 27 rural marketing grant uh application request.

So that's all I've got for you uh this month.

So quick simple easy.

Any any questions on anything uh grants related?

Okay.

Uh thank you.

With that, we will move on to 10B, Transient Occupy Tax Actual Versus Forecast.

That's the big sheet in your packet.

Uh very happy to say after our March, April was fantastic.

Uh huge month for us.

Uh, that'll be a record all time for the month of April.

Um I think we had a lot of great events, and the properties just turned it on, honestly.

And so I took the liberty of projecting some increases for May and June just to keep things rolling uh to complete the fiscal year.

And so if you go all the way over to that far right column, I've got us at about 30.15 million uh in terms of the projection, still a little bit behind our budget uh from you know a year ago, but that does put us just under 2% ahead of last fiscal year actual.

So I think if we hold for May and June, it's gonna be a great turnaround, quite frankly, from a couple of bad months there with February and March.

So if there are any questions on fiscal 26 projection, I'm happy to answer anything on that front.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Uh with that, let's move on to 10 C, events and sales update.

Mr.

Wexler, take it away.

For the record, Stu Wexler, Visit Carson City.

I am going to go over uh some of the May recaps and a couple of the events that are going to be coming up.

We are going to start with um the wild west shootout soccer that we just had at Livermore Sports Complex.

Uh this E soccer tournaments turning out to be pretty big.

They had 98 teams uh coming for this tournament for uh two-day weekend, and it was it was pretty impressive.

They had 15 out of the 19 clubs that were there, uh, were from out of state, including California, Oregon, Southern Nevada.

You had uh some from Winnemuca, Ely, um, and actually uh California.

So we are seeing a lot of the out of state teams coming to play on our field.

And they're actually looking to possibly expand that next year because they they have such uh they had such a huge response this year as compared to previous years that they might have to uh do a couple tournaments for uh next year so which is is really great um then we had the California Youth Shooting Association tournament in May as well they had a hundred and thirty seven competitors plus the family members for the one-day shoot these are all from California so everyone that is coming to shoot is uh in the tournament are is from California so this one is a one-day tournament and that was the first one they had so we are seeing a lot of the California the youth association coming to our area they love our uh trap range and it's uh getting really good feedback as well so we're seeing a lot of that uh a few of the uh clay uh the youths uh the shooting association so we had right after that the Nevada State Sporting Clay Championship uh that was over three-day weekend that was really impressive they had 150 competitors from all over the state of Nevada and a lot from California coming over that uh it was really impressive they did a great job and and everyone was uh static about the uh staying here in Carson City the the gun range itself was pretty impressive so we did get very good feedback I'll get a little bit more detail as to uh where they were lodging and information as we go forward usually takes a few weeks after a tournament like that so I will be getting more information and then we did have one the Rock and Reno challenge we did have the first challenge that had to be canceled because our fields weren't ready exactly in time for the first one so we didn't start till the second weekend which was about the 26th they had to play at lower centennial field which only has two fields they have three fields one field is not ready playable and the two fields uh don't have lights so they had to cap what time and how long they could play at these two fields but uh in that uh second one they had uh they did have about 23 teams coming from California which was on the May 26th time frame playing on the lower centennial field so next year they there was no problem they will be back for the full uh two tournaments two weekends and obviously the fields are going to be completely done by 2027 so and then after that we just had the California youth associations shooting association state junior association where we had 140s competing for that from California and plus their family members so that one they they just had um and so they're like I said they're getting really incredible feedback they love coming up to our area for these tournaments uh from California and we will go to the Battleborne Blades we did have um this is held at the community center here in the gym uh we did have 80 fencers that participated from 10 different states uh the event coordinator Michael Forrest is getting me the information as to what some of the states are so I will have that uh coming forward uh and I did uh stop by there it was a three uh the two-day weekend they did have over 150 spectators, which is one of the bigger ones in spectator wise that they had over previous years so um it is getting more popular.

And what they want to do is one of their tournaments they want to cancel and expand this tournament to a three-day uh tournament to even market it more.

So they have one in September usually.

This one is in May.

So they're going to expand the one we just had to a three-day.

So it'd be like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tournament on that.

So and uh as I said, uh the senior softball, uh, they did like the lower fields, even though it wasn't our new turf.

Uh they were uh actually commenting on how well it was maintained.

Uh like I said, it is capped.

They did have 20 23 teams uh coming for that, and next year they will have the two tournaments again uh going forward at the new field.

And we had our 775 off-road and recovery.

They had close to 200 vehicles uh registered for that show uh at Fuji Park.

Um they did have about a hundred leaving uh there was another event uh which usually happens up at Lake Tahoe, so they come all in the morning.

Um and I'll have the information as to what areas uh the ri uh registered vehicles are coming from.

Uh they do want to have a goal, they are trying to do a safety uh off-road event for younger drivers that are just getting into driving and off-road.

So they are working on uh on that as soon as they have the confirmation and details.

I'll get that to everyone as well.

And we just had over the weekend was the prison rumble.

Uh Tasmanian boxing, Cisco and Maribel both put it on.

Um I unfortunately was not able to attend this one.

I had to be out of town, but I did have uh a few board members that attended, so uh maybe David might be able to expand on that a little bit.

Chris would like for me to let Andrew speak first before I speak.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair.

No, I well, I would j I would just say they far exceeded the 300 people out there because there were 300 chairs set up, two bleachers, um Moe said were each sat 84 people.

Uh it was very well attended.

I I thought it was such a cool atmosphere, you know, the way that they kind of plugged everything in.

I know it was a little windy with a little sand going around, but they were trying to water uh water down the sand just to keep some of the dust from blowing.

It was it was really cool.

Uh, people were genuinely I think having uh having a great time and just watching the youth uh box each other was fantastic.

I I still stand behind the fact that I'll take any seven-year-old on, not an eight-year-old, but a seven-year-old and under, uh, to give myself a a chance.

I think you'd be pushing your luck with the seven-year-olds too.

All right, six it is.

But it was a great event, and I just atmosphere like they've said out there was unbelievable.

I mean, it's just such a is it was such a like joyous celebrating experience for everybody out there.

The sport they support they get in the family atmosphere is just amazing to watch.

I did uh actually talk to Mirabel today.

Uh she came by to drop off some stuff, uh, material, and she was very, very happy.

They and also uh the prison uh administration was very happy.

They were uh very excited, they want to do this again next year.

They had a lot of tours aside from the boxing events, so obviously they're gonna be happy about that.

So uh they will look to put on another uh prison rumble.

Um they'll work that out, but they are having another uh Mac event uh battle and sears in August.

So we'll I'll have more information on that as well.

Um they did give us a belt as well if we didn't bring it uh for helping them and sponsoring them.

We gotta bring that next month, yeah.

Well, it's so cool.

Yeah, that they were giving out to each of the winners.

That was that was awesome.

And can I just um add one thing?

I know Chris will be happy if if I add this in uh legacy sports.

We had a softball tournament on Saturday.

So this is the first outside area, non-league uh tournament to use the new fields.

My goodness.

The fields look amazing.

I've never seen a ball roll so smoothly out there.

It's probably been you know 40 years uh to see a ball roll nicely like that.

The people loved the fields.

So I I told Scott Chapman and the parks team, uh I think we are front and center, you know, in terms of our softball uh product up there at Centennial.

So hats off to that whole Jen and that whole team uh for getting those fields completed because they look wonderful and the players genuinely were excited to be beyond those fields, so yeah.

The ball was all over the place because it was very windy.

I saw a lot of dropped fly balls while I was there, but just watching the the wind take a ball and move at 15 20 feet, you know, uh was really really something else.

But uh it was it was really nice.

So I'm really looking forward to the tournaments that we have coming for the rest of this year for sure, and then as Stu said, uh our Rock and Reno folks are are not gonna leave us, and you know we'll have both tournaments next year.

It's just a timing thing, but uh rather, you know, get the fields done, you get safety and the back stops and all that stuff, you know, in place.

And uh yeah, very nice.

I did hear from the event organizer today for Legacy Sports just touching base with them, and they were very, very happy with the fields.

They actually said it was some of the best fields that they have played, and they play all over California.

So uh, you know, we the parks and rec uh department should be very proud.

It's it's gonna be uh really a uh an addition to Carson City, especially for me going to some of the sports trade shows that we can now showcase our fields uh so uh they have a few more tournaments coming up as well.

And we also have the Carson Cruisers coming up, which uh has been around for a very very long time.

They uh approximately have 200 registered vehicles now.

They do keep the registration open, so they will see more registered vehicles coming from all over the area as well.

They they've uh been told they come away uh far away as from Washington, Arizona, of course, California, and uh Nevada, all over the state.

So Southern, Eastern Nevada.

They they will come up here to one day uh event.

It'll be um at Mills Park.

The registration will be uh they register at the hotel uh gold dust uh the day before, and then they get everybody going on Mills Park the next day.

And then the last one um is uh Rancho Uva Blanca or Horse Dancing.

Um I did I am looking in to see the updating on as to how many horses he is planning at this point in talking to Maribel there.

He is looking to bring about 30 horses to this event, uh possibly a little bit more.

He's not sure about that.

And uh Billy Rodriguez, the owner of the event, is actually bringing close to 200 people of his own staff, and um some of the contacts he has from Southern California as well that will be at this show.

He and he wants to expand this to have it uh a couple times a year, not just the one time.

This is the first one, so we're gonna see how this goes.

Uh I think it's gonna be uh and fantastic show uh that he's gonna have and uh we'll see how it goes from there and have more shows.

So if there are any questions, I have one quick question.

You said the Wild West shootout.

Yeah.

This year.

How many were there last year?

Just out of curiosity.

How much of an increase have we seen over the last couple years?

If I remember, I'm just ballparking.

They had it um about s in this mid-70s as far as team-wise.

So we we did see an increase.

Because we gotta remember right before that we have the com stock shootout.

Right.

So that kind of takes away a little bit, but this one seemed to be a little bit more popular, the wild west than actual the Comstock shootout uh shootout that we have in May.

So it's 93 teams.

We I believe I can get you that exact number, but it was in the mid-high 70s that we had the year before.

So there is an increase uh that we're seeing with the wild west only, not the Comstock.

Yeah, going from the mid-70s to the mid-90s.

That's a that's a good jump right there.

That's that's great to see.

Any other questions for Mr.

Wexler?

Thank you, Stu.

Oh, good stuff with with the events for sure.

Uh, yeah, we're kicking butt, so I love it.

Uh with that, let's move on to 10D arts and culture update.

Mr.

Brooks, take it away, please.

Good afternoon, Eric Brooks.

For the record, uh, we have a few fun things to talk about.

Cinco de Mayo recap, the Nevada Arts Council Conference, the American Folk Art Museum, which I was able to attend while I was accepting the award for Lydia's project, which she'll talk about, and then the Winnemucca murals and music festival happened last month.

The image of the chucker on the front was by Andrea Holmes out of McKinney, Texas.

This piece is was the winner.

That's the bird piece on the other slide.

Uh we had her here last year, uh doing a Carson piece.

Two two birds that are local to Nevada that was also part of Audubon, so we're on the Audubon site now as well for that.

So this piece was uh of this deer here.

I ran into it walking back from the folk museum to the hotel.

It was just a pop-up in an empty building.

This artist is phenomenal.

Any guesses on what that deer cost.

So this piece goes for 120,000.

I was hoping to get something for the park, but they're out of our range at the moment.

Uh, but I also wanted to bring that up when we're talking about driven the 69-foot railroad spike, and keeping in mind that what we're getting for the money we're spending is an absolute deal.

You know, it's amazing that we're able to do this for between 200 and we'll see what it ends up being with the foundation.

But uh, you know, this piece is maybe 12 feet tall.

So it's incredibly beautiful, but it is very expensive.

So that's why I wanted to throw that in there.

So we have our Cinco de Mayo recap.

This was the third year and third year with events is when you know whether you should keep doing them or not, and it was amazing.

We had well over 1200 people in attendance.

I got there around noon and it was just packed.

There we had the dance, the way it was laid out this year with everything being outside instead of inside, was much much better.

The vendors were all packed, they were just non-stop people all the time.

Uh even when it started raining, we had over 50 people in line for tacos that stayed in line through that little bit of a hail storm and then end up shutting down a little bit early, but uh overall huge success.

Kids' games, activities, wagon rides, we had the music, we had dancing, um visitors and residents had a blast, and this event is going to continue growing next year, so we're excited about that.

And the best taco this year was Church's Tacos, which is a fundraising group uh that do a lot of the events at the Brewery Art Center, and the judges deliberated for over an hour on this best taco.

So it was a really fun um to watch them do that.

So I was able to attend uh thanks to Dave and Chris, the intersections 2026.

It was down in Vegas this year.

Art lives at intersections, it connects creativity with community, culture with economy and expression with impact.

It shapes not only how we see the world, but how we care for it and how we care for one another.

The big focus this year was on health in the arts, and I think that's gonna be the trend that continues.

It's going to be the biggest topic uh moving forward in the next few years of how mental health uh can be and our physical health is affected positively by in integrating the arts into all sorts of different areas of our life.

They did a little attempted to do it, but 431, we're not gonna do it right now.

Uh the doctor who gave the keynote did a humming exercise and had everyone just hum and then go those who could go higher go higher, those who go lower go lower, and in less than 30 seconds, there was this just magical hum, and everybody felt their blood pressure go down.

It was just so instantaneously of how something so simple can affect us in a positive way.

We are also had a the chamber gallery at City Hall.

They've spent tons of money in it.

It is impressive as can be.

They did a really good job with that.

The Neon Museum, we had a tour of that as well.

Um FYI, the Neon Museum will be opening in Reno.

In the near future, I'll be doing a behind the scenes tour, hopefully, next week of that.

That's Will Durham's project that we were trying to get here.

Uh, he ended up going into the bowling stadium.

Uh he doesn't love the space, though, so hopefully we'll see if there may be uh opportunity down the road to move that collection.

He has over 300 signs and they're all in working order.

It's gonna be completely different experience than the the bone yard in Vegas.

Um, oh yeah.

Yeah, that would be perfect.

Uh so it was two days of just great uh entertainment and activity.

Uh the picture on the far right.

The Nevada Arts Council has a new logo as well, so that was the rollout of that.

And then we ended uh the day with a Slonina Art Space Tour.

It's a little local co-op gallery uh there in Vegas.

So before you turn the page and before you do the slide, if everybody just put yourself in a different place, you can close your eyes if you want to.

And I'm gonna read you.

This is from the folk art museum, and I'm gonna read you a description.

And in your mind, try to picture what this piece of art in the museum looks like.

When Jimmy Lee Sudeth created this self-portrait, the soil and sugar pigment that he applied with his fingers became both an image of himself and the frame that encased him.

A consummate inventor, Suddett divides his own materials at night after working days in factories and on farms.

He used walnut holes for brown, blackberries for red and purple, and burnt ash for black.

Sutta's self-port was formulated from an alchemy that he developed at age nine.

He recalled, I was up there with a man making syrup, and he dropped the syrup in the mud.

I picked it up and felt that mud and put it on the wall and it wouldn't come off.

That's where I got started.

I wanted to make things after that.

Produced from Earth, the brown pigment contains traces of grasses, crystal, and stone, recording a sense of place within this image of his body.

He depicts himself himself in sturdy boots with his hands on his hips, meeting the viewer's gaze, and he readies himself to step beyond the frame.

So if you can compose what this self-portrait might look like.

And there you go.

So if you were to see this piece, at first glance, you might think this is not a piece of art that has any value or reference to where we are, where we may be going.

But I think to hear those words and to have someone who's curating this and the folk art, it was a really interesting museum.

I enjoyed that.

I was very thankful to be able to experience it.

Lots of the work there could be considered not worthy to be in a museum.

But the way they spoke about it and presented it, it really shaped, it flipped a switch in my mind of how we can look at things, not just in a gallery, but in our everyday lives, uh, how people may present themselves and the opportunities we have to see them in a different light.

Um, so I was definitely a moving experience to be in that museum for an hour.

And then the second annual Winnemukka murals and music festival.

That is a piece at the old firehouse.

Um the top left picture is based on a photo of the Winnemucca hotel burning down, and then you've got the historic fire truck on the right-hand side, and in the middle of C Piatone piece that's also based on a historic photograph.

This is Joe C Rock, that's why I wanted to put this in here.

He'll be the artist that's putting together a historic tell storytelling piece for the Eastgate Depot.

So really excited to get that design next week.

Uh, if we were so we've talked about this a little bit in the last board meeting and also over the past couple years, how these festivals in small town rural communities make such a huge difference, and this was another example of just complete success.

Twenty eight new murals in 13 locations.

Um, last year when Michelle and I were talking about doing a little bit of the walls underneath the the end dot property under the freeway and we thought maybe we'll do two a year and this year we finished the first eight.

So we did six we did two last year and we did six this year.

And it has just completely changed everything.

It's placemaking at its finest.

They also upped the music they had music Thursday to s to Sunday 18 bands, two open mics, bass dancing groups, Hispanic dancing groups, vendor fair, food trucks, and with the help of our staff it made a big difference of what they've been able to do uh there and they are planning on doing a third one as well.

So if you had a chance to drive through there, make a stop and just drive Mullarkey and Bridge Street and you'll be amazed at what you found.

Here's just a couple more pictures uh this is a piece on the Martin Hotel Basque artist Laida Urbeltz who's painted here three times she's getting her doctorate in Reno right now and she invited two other Bas artists.

So this is based on the true story of a woman in 1959 who as a single mom brought her eight kids from Spain to Winnemucca.

And so the background you can't tell this picture all the way down but there's a train theme and then the bodies and there's three suitcases and the suitcase imagery was painted by the other two Basque artists and then the whole piece was done by Leda.

So super fun piece she worked really well with the community we can go to the next slide.

This is Bryce Chisholm on the far so these are some of those end dot pillars we were talking about so last year we did two animal pieces and two Hispanic uh children dancing and so we did two more Hispanic dancers so the four Hispanic dancers are facing each other four Native Americans and then two Basque uh dancers so super color film fun far left is Bryce Chisholm who's painted here a bunch the middle piece is Autumn Harry who did the piece of the museum last year and on the far right is Eric Burke who did the east facing wall of the Winnemucca convention center.

That's just a third of the piece and this is the building that used to be on that corner before the convention center building was built.

So we can go to the next mic and that's it.

Thank you very much.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Eric I would just say this is I think been great crossing over you know the the county the community lines because Eric is really at the forefront of this mural highway you know with I don't know six six hundred or six hundred or whatever it is in something murals and but the idea that everything can start and end you know in Carson City but you can get out and about and go all over the rest of the state and um I just I this is really cool.

I I think this is this is a great benefit yes for for all of rural Nevada but if we're able to set this thing up where people are starting right here in Carson City or they're ending or starting and ending in Carson City I think it's going to be a really cool um opportunity for people to see some really unique art throughout rural Nevada so seeing the support you're getting connecting all the different communities together it's been fun to watch.

Good job to you and the work that you've put into this I mean it's definitely been noticed.

Yeah.

Yeah I just wanted to say too that you know I think and this is comes off of kind of what Andrew was saying is you know doing this in all these other communities I don't know how many you know not having a lot of tourism experience I don't know how many visit X city groups do this kind of thing where you know they kind of reach outside of themselves to both help develop other areas and also by extension you know help themselves in their own communities and I think it's uh kind of a a brilliant strategy so kudos.

Yeah seeing all that synergy with what you're getting too.

I mean, there is a synergy going on that's not just with I mean you really see it with art, but it's taken off into other directions too.

So it's kind of bringing everything together.

We appreciate you for that.

We really do.

And I'll just jump in at the for the creative economy.

That's great as well.

And we uh have been in behind the scenes helping to facilitate a mural that will be painted in two weeks all fall things go right at Stuart Indian school, the water tower, which we're bringing Greg Deal back to do that piece, which will be really interesting.

Uh we'll get his design next week, and that's being funded through Nevada Arts Council 250 money and Stuart Indian School itself, and then visit Carson City as the facilitating agency to help make that happen.

So yeah, I appreciate your comment, Matt, because I think we're on to something.

And you know, happy to say that the Eric really is uh been a pioneer.

Um the arts and culture side of things to do exactly as you said.

It's one thing to work with in the territory, but we're outside of you know, we're in a totally different uh territory, right?

Or arguably in a couple of different uh territories beyond the Reno Tahoe territory, but ultimately it ends up benefiting uh the Carson City area for sure.

So uh I'm I really appreciate this.

So thank you.

It's a lot of travel on his part too, you know, back and forth and back and forth.

Uh so bless you for for running the mural highways out there.

So we have a lot of yeah, for sure.

Um okay any any other questions for Eric.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Um, with that we'll move on to 10 E marketing and PR update.

Lydia, take it away.

For the record, Lydia Beck.

Sorry, Eric had the fun presentation this time.

Uh, but we have some important things to go over on the marketing side.

We'll go through our our typical monthly updates, but then we're gonna present the uh FY27 media plan, so our plan and strategy for this coming year starting July 1st, and then we're also gonna recap a couple of our paid media wins from the last two years, including the winter campaign.

So we will start with the digital growth summary for May.

So overall our website traffic decreased from last month due to our decreased paid media spend, and it also decreased our direct traffic, but we just see that in direct correlation to the spend.

However, despite this, our lodging referrals increased four percent from last month and nine percent from last year, and our email and organic search traffic are the top contributors for that.

Also, we had a 170% increase in lodging referrals with an image of the Gold Dust West that we have on a meta that's been running for a while.

Um promise we did not do that on purpose.

But uh it is a great image and a great hotel that we haven't highlighted in a while.

We do rotate the hotels that we feature, but um this one did exceptionally well in comparison to many of the other.

You're welcome to continue to not do that.

I thought you might appreciate that.

Um so additionally, we also decreased our spend in May for remarketing than we had in April, but that's just our typical um decline that we have in our in our cyclical spend that we have.

But overall, lodging referrals from paid search increased six percent month over month, despite the thirty-four percent decrease in spend.

So we're really happy with what we're seeing.

Our vacations and getaway campaign contributed most significantly to that increase in lodging referrals.

And as always, here's the hard numbers for you to check out.

If you have any questions on that, I'm happy to take them.

But otherwise, we will pop over to public relations for May on the PR front.

We had some really nice features, especially the mentions of the Nevada State Museum and the Railroad Museum and the decor hint piece.

We also had Michael Patrick Shields who came here on behalf of the Reno Tahoe Territory, did a really wonderful article in Go World Travel Magazine.

We also hosted four influencers this month, one through RTT American Travel Archives, and the other three were done internally here, highlighting Brewfest and just general travel in Carson City in June, which is just a uh a wonderful time to do it.

Sometimes when we get into the warmer months, the the travel kind of works out where they get grouped together in June before our our budget runs out for the next fiscal year.

So sometimes you'll see more in June than than normal, but we do try to spread them out over the year.

We do anywhere from five to seven internally with within Visit Carson City outside of of the Reno Tahoe territory.

And with that, we'll jump into the FY27 media plan.

So this is something that KPN KPS3 and myself and Dave collaborate on, and we were gonna go, we are gonna go through the media approach, our goals and strategy, what's new and different, the channel plan, and then we'll break down the budget for you.

So let's start with our goals first.

They haven't altered a whole lot.

First and foremost, we're always here to attract new visitors to Carson City, convince more people to choose us for their upcoming trip, therefore, driving overnight stays.

We're here to increase visitor spending overall and increase their length of stay with additional nights or just inspiring day trippers to stay just a little bit longer in the destination, maybe one more meal or one more activity or one more attraction in our destination.

And then we want them to see.

Well, I already went through that note, so I'm gonna end there.

But yeah, we wanted to just stay a little bit longer.

So that's something that we added was that that day tripper inspiration just to get them here a little bit longer.

For our media approach, we always look at the full marketing funnel strategy, connecting travelers at every phase from inspiration all the way through booking.

Our FY27 budget though will focus a majority on the dream and the plan phase.

We still have a lot of legwork to do to get people to know about Carson City.

We're not a household name quite yet, so we still need to inspire that inspiration and to be top of mind while that booking state will encourage the action to actually book that trip.

So here's our strategy at a glance.

We are sunsetting Winter's Charm campaign after an amazing two-year run.

I'll recap some of the wins from that at the end of this presentation.

Uh, we really feel like that concept has run its course, that trend has run its course and it's on its way out.

So the majority of the media dollars are going to be promoting the new winter campaign, which we are in the process of establishing.

And we will extend that campaign a little bit longer than we did the winter campaign.

So the winter campaign, the first go-around, we didn't launch till mid-December because we had to shoot it and build it.

Um, and we usually sunset it in March because that's when uh you know the winter kind of phased itself out, but and this campaign will be extending it all through all of November through all of March, which is what we did for the winter campaign this fiscal year, and it served us really, really well.

We're also adding a couple new media channels like YouTube advertising, which we've done in the past, but we took a pause from, but we are seeing a resurgence in YouTube shorts as well as just general YouTube advertising being an affordable, really effective uh place to advertise.

So we're gonna add that back in for more upper upper funnel brand awareness, and we'll have a lower funnel re-engagement with remarketing to drive more lodging referrals using display through Google.

We're testing a few new audiences through Boosted Organic Post and targeting um, and that one of those is gonna be Salt Lake City, and we'll gonna be leveraging obviously that later data five data to be able to source any other new markets that might pop up.

And we will have a peak spend uh a peaked spend May and June to sustain visitation throughout the summer without wait wasting valuable ad dollars in our peak summer months.

So we're still inspiring booking in those months, but not competing with the busiest time of year with the limited dollars that we have.

And here's our not so much of a bell curve anymore, uh, but this is our monthly spend graph that you'll see uh really focusing on that winter campaign and continuing to drive people in our off season.

So we hit on a lot of what is new.

Um, as mentioned, we are sunsetting the winter campaign and the nostalgia campaign.

We've had our long-running nostalgia campaign that launched in 2021, actually.

So that's really what's been running over our summer months to continue that brand awareness.

Um, but we will end that after this summer and our remarketing campaigns, which are our itineraries and our lodging referrals, and then we have the our outdoor campaign that will replace it.

So once we have our new winter pens concept launch, we'll officially sunset nostalgia then.

And we'll also plan to use boosted organic content to help us get through the summer and the fall before the new campaign launches, and we'll be able to provide the full strategic brief for that before that launches.

So you'll see more of this new campaign before it comes.

We've talked about YouTube and the robust placement opportunities.

We'll be focusing in our key markets of Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, also focusing in on travel and budget travel, and we'll be focusing on reach impressions, frequency, and the video views and completion rate.

We've done been doing remarketing for a while, but it's been on the paid search side and not in the Google remarketing display side.

So that's what's different when it comes to our remarketing.

We think this is gonna be a much more effective way to do remarketing as AI is continually changing paid search.

And again, some new audiences that we're gonna be focusing on will include Salt Lake City, and we're gonna be experimenting with interest-based targeting more and going into the outdoor recreation and more of the family content.

Boosted Organic Social is something that we started doing last year that we have seen incredible results for.

So we're working with local partners like Shelby Holty, who does content creation for us locally.

She does 12 reels for us a year, but we post them on our page.

It is not an influencer kind of contract, but it's just really nice to have another creative outlet.

And some of her stuff is like the mint reel that got a million views.

And she's really just has a knack for hitting on trends.

And uh she did the observatory reel for us, which is done incredibly well.

And then we use her and Zach to create organic content that we went and throw money behind that is going to be more of our strategy in the summer months so that we're hitting what people can do while they're here or try to pull them down from Tahoe, tapping into that audience a little bit more.

So we are excited to see how this goes as we put more money behind it.

And lastly, let's talk about the channel plan, what we're keeping and what's new and different.

We are keeping paid search, paid social on Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram, plus TikTok.

We have native display.

We have boosted influencer content from the efforts that we put in there.

We also have remarketing on Meta too.

Again, what's different is YouTube, Google Remarketing Display, and more of that boosted organic content on Meta and especially TikTok.

TikTok has a really new interesting feature where influencers can go and actually promote hotels now and actually have a booking link through them.

So I'm really intrigued if and when we figure that out, how that will work.

But I would like to test that in this coming year.

And here's our spend by channel.

I'm happy to break that down, but also wanted to show you what our entire FY27 media plan.

So what you all just saw was our digital marketing efforts.

We also have paid uh print advertising that we do, especially in Nevada Golf Magazine and Adventure Sports Journal are our really um major places that we advertise.

We have a couple of really local channels like the Civil Air Patrol that you'll see and the fire preparedness guide that we feel like is a really nice thing to just contribute to in our community.

But overall, we're reaching visitors more than anything else.

Those are very small spends.

And then our bolded ones here are the Expedia Co-op and the Data Fi co-op.

Those are all grant-funded opportunities.

However, we're also doing the travel spike co-op, which we did not apply for for the grant just because we felt like we were pretty maxed out on our ask.

And then we continue to do pride journeys.

We're gonna be sunsetting the Tahoe Blue Event Center advertising after this year.

We felt the spend that it was, um, this is the last of the contract of the $28.

Normally it's a $10,000 buy per year, and we weren't seeing the return on the investment that we felt was worthy.

And then we keep some budget in there just for miscellaneous opportunities, which has already come up.

We've already committed those dollars to a really cool remnant um in modern Western magazine modern cowboy magazine, uh, which has a really great distribution uh that will be launching this summer.

So I will have more on that too.

But that's why we also keep some flexible dollars because those last minute opportunities come up often.

Lydia, can I just uh jump in a couple things?

So I'm very excited about two things.

Uh Lydia mentioned the the links uh eventually with the hotel properties, which is very unique.

I just learned about this myself when we had a meeting with ABS3, and I think this if we can figure this out, we can directly tie back then these potential bookings right to our paid advertising efforts, which I think is really incredible.

It gives us some some great metrics, right?

Some tangible um proof, you know, that that bookings took place.

So we're gonna work on this, and I'm I'm excited about that uh for for us as an organization, but also our properties, you know.

We obviously got to work with each of the property systems and and how all this works, right?

Um, but I'm I'm genuinely excited about that.

And the second thing that we are going to really do is own this idea of being this uh base camp for this region and primarily like Tahoe in the basin.

We have nothing but opportunity up there.

You've got, I don't know, 100,000 or so residents.

I don't know if that's a full-time or the you know part-time or whatever folks that live in the basin, but then you have 15 million, I believe, visitor days right to the basin itself so to tap into these you know two different groups of people those that live those that are are visiting um and initially even if it's getting them to come down the hill and realize we're 25 minutes away right so maybe you're up there you know uh at the lake you know for the weekend or the week but if we can pull them down to Carson City to experience the really cool attractions and the things that we have here in Carson City that are unique that do not exist anywhere in Tahoe I think that's step one.

And so to to work on this um next year and then we can you know figure out long term and getting folks uh to hopefully stay here in Carson City but I think this next year we're gonna test some things and it's you know can we get these folks to come down for a morning or for an afternoon or an evening or or whatever the case might be um I think we we we have nothing but opportunity here.

I feel I'm not gonna say it's low hanging fruit because I know residents are hard to get having lived up there for a few years it's very hard to get the people that live up there to come out of the basin um but we're gonna give it a give it a go and uh get them to do a little bit more than come down and hit Costco, Trader Joe's and Walmart you know and p back up the hill they go so uh anyway those are a couple really really cool things that I'm excited about.

I'm excited about all of it but those are a couple things I just thought I would I would highlight for you all.

So thank you.

All right any questions in the media plan.

Well good job on the winner's charm campaign.

I'm sad to see that one sunset.

I know what success you had with that.

Thank you.

Speaking of that I would love to go through that I have um some recap for for everything that went through there if you would like to segue chair thank you for the setup.

I appreciate that all right we're going through all the paid efforts but we'll in the next slide go through specifically a winter's charm and in the year two highlights but overall for FY26 we had some really strong numbers almost a half a million website visits that was up 61% year over year.

One of the questions I asked was you know KBS are you been doing this for two years for us for almost three now we're going into our third year of them doing our media and buying for us I'm like these are massive year over year numbers um that almost don't feel believable at times but I do think like last year was setting the foundation we really we had a good strategy but we have a great strategy with them and it built a really wonderful foundation for us to even build upon more and more so I think that's where we're really seeing those year over year last year was kind of like year one of something brand new and now we've got a really good we've got the ball rolling so I I've I had a including you guys might feel that way too because it's a massive year over year increase but I I do think that we've we've got a great foundation that we're really establishing and building on uh our lodging referrals were up over nine percent uh we did this comparison beginning in October of 24 because that's when RIPE was removed from our website that was an internal booking engine that we had within our website so people can actually book hotel rooms on visit Carson City dot com and how do I put this in a kind way it did not pan out as we had hoped yeah it it was a bust to say the least um so that's where you'll see some this is the last weird comparison that you'll have from that and then we also had an almost 500 uh newsletter sign ups and then for winter's charm was it was so fun we're so proud of that campaign and uh I mean the results speak for themselves where for year two alone we had 7.7 million impressions 104 thousand clicks the engagements alone of nearly a million were were wild and you can see 820 people shared this with their friends where it really resonated with them and the 1307 um lodging referrals were up year over year as well I think a lot of that new fresh material that we got with revamping some of the ads and doing a second shoot this year in the hot springs and other locations around town really helped give a fresh perspective for year two.

And it was an award-winning campaign.

These are all the awards that we took home for the winter's charm campaign alone.

The biggest one being the Public Relations Society of America's Silver Anvil Award, which is a national award that Eric, thank you for going going to New York City to get.

There were and you maybe you can speak more, but there were some people there's people in that room from Wells Fargo, from just national brands.

Um so to be in that room and to actually take home a silver anvil is a very, very big deal.

Our PR team at KPS3 said it is a career highlight for them, and so um happy to been able to take that home for them and and grateful for Eric for making the trip because I was um I was out of town as well to to be able to get that.

I wasn't France.

I know that's specifically why I didn't say that.

Very grateful to be in France, but hopefully uh see, we've never been to the full I would have never gone to the the full car museum.

So it was meant to be.

It was meant to be.

Uh but thank you for KPS3 and everyone who helped on this campaign because it really took our entire city.

I mean, all of our partners, our restaurants, our museums, our downtown, our uh everyone was really involved in this to make it a really wonderful effort, and we're we're glad it paid off.

I'm happy to take any questions.

So was there a uh a press release on the awards on that?

There were so many people in the community involved in that that I don't think I've seen seen any.

Oh, we haven't done anything about the awards specifically, no.

No, we haven't.

We just have some LinkedIn post about um some of the awards that we've we've taken home.

This uh some of these were pretty recent.

Yeah, the um the communicator award, uh KPS3 had applied for, which I had not heard of, but apparently is is also quite a big deal.

Yeah.

So um between that and the silver anvil, I feel like uh yeah.

If you'd like us to brag a little bit, we can do that.

I think we should, and you know, I'm just so sorry that you couldn't be there to accept it and had to be in France.

I know that you know I think we it's really a shame.

We understand.

Is it any better that I was working while I was there?

I don't know.

Working.

Bring all of these awards to the January board meeting.

We should just to put up there when you guys are talking about how amazing I am.

So we'll bring these to reinforce.

It's all about him.

Yeah.

But those I mean those awards and the fact that there were so many community partners involved in it.

Yeah.

You know, they they should get some of the bragging rights on that too and just be recognized.

I think that's a great idea.

Yes.

I you know we got to invite them to the premiere, which I think was really great, but I don't they don't get to see it because we don't advertise in Carson City.

So many times when our partners do things for us unless we send the the videos directly to them, which we did for the the full the full actual short film, but um but yeah, I think it would be nice to be have a recap of of thing and send them a uh an additional thank you of of making this possible for us.

Let them hold the trophy.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Get that off my desk then.

Jeez, okay.

Yeah, I actually let's figure you're right.

I think that's a good idea.

It is a great idea.

Yeah.

And some of these uh d in our own defense, like we literally just learned about them before the presentation that we were in working on strategy.

Oh, did you know?

That one that you just mentioned communicator or whatever.

I didn't know, right?

So we we barely had you know opportunity just to add them on the slide before we had to post these things, so this is some of this is very recent, right?

So the slide feels very warm.

Like it was just done.

Like astute observation.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm sad I didn't include your your photo.

I forgot.

Eric has the most glorious thing.

Oh, yeah, and the ward arms up with the guy.

And uh we'll include that in the first time.

And I apologize that I couldn't be there either because I was in Napa.

Yeah.

So we were literally all working different angles.

So yeah, I mean, thank you, Eric.

Uh, uh, for stepping into it.

And Andrew and I were actually at work, yeah.

We had one in Napa, one in France.

One in New York.

Hey, I was here at the events.

Yeah.

Stu was here working with us.

Soon Chris, holding it down.

Some of us have to make that extra sacrifice right to go elsewhere.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

Well, you made a comment too about the YouTube resurgence.

And I've noticed a lot of the shorts when you click on them now, they're taking you directly to YouTube.

Is that kind of like by design or not just ours, but just in general?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, shorts are massively growing segment in the social media world.

They're they're not your typical, you know, Instagram reels or TikTok that you think about, but it is their own version of it, and people are spending more time on YouTube than ever.

And so they're in more time on their phone than ever watching.

I mean, I watch most of my TV from my phone.

Um so I think the more that they can deliver short form content, um, it seems to be working really well for them.

So uh we have some shorts that Zach reposted from some of the other stuff that we've done that have gotten 40,000 views doing zero effort.

So um, it's an interesting platform to try to tap into and figure out what I think that the shorts that doing paid advertising behind shorts specifically would be a really interesting angle to to test out.

Great, thank you.

Any other questions for Lydia?

Well done.

Good stuff.

All right.

Uh, thank you very much.

We will move on to 10 F, a future agenda items.

Anything that the board would like to see at a future board meeting.

Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to 10 G.

Next meeting right here in this building, same room, Monday, July 13th at 4 p.m.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to the chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Next, we will move on to item eleven.

Does anyone on the board have any comments or announcements or requests for information?

Great.

Hearing none, we will move on to item 12 and open it back up for public comment.

And hearing no public comment, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.