Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden Advisory Board met on October 6, 2026, at 12:00 PM to hear the Executive Director's report, approve routine items, and vote on several new business requests including early zoo closures for Boo at the Zoo, a tree removal contract, a veterinary hospital design addendum, a solar panel interconnection agreement, and authorizations to seek quotes for a takin fence and Amazonia flat roof repairs. All new business items were approved unanimously.
Good afternoon, everybody. We'll call the uh October meeting of the Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden Advisory Board to order. Do we have any edits or modifications or changes uh to the minutes from the uh when was that? Uh July meeting. Motion and a second. So all those in favor of approving these minutes. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Minutes are approved. Next up, we have the report by Executive Director Beck. Uh good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for uh coming in today on uh what is it? Uh not a national holiday, but a regional holiday, West Side Nut Club Ball Festival week. Um and beautiful weather outside. Um so uh first of all, I mean the attendance and revenue um report. Uh we saw 17,000 people in September. Um, and then we have to go back to August and 10,389 people. Uh the main difference between this year and last year uh was was the weather. Um if you remember, I think we the longest streak at 90 plus degree days in September that Evansville's seen since like the 1950s, maybe is what I saw on the news. So just a huge long streak, and that just um uh not only is hard to work in, but it's uh it just fries our attendance. Um and so uh our lantern event, which happened during those two months um and finished this past Sunday, October 4th was the last day for the lantern event, was considerably less attended than uh last year. Um and in fact, we've already determined they will not be coming back uh for their final uh contractual year next year um just because of uh their um operational issues with work visas and things like that. So uh they've really down scaled down the number of shows they're doing in the country each year. Um they are on site tearing down, so we're excited about that and getting all that uh out of there. It was a beautiful show if you manage to get out there. Um it was really focused on plants and backyard habitats and egrets and swans, and it was just it was really a stunning show. So I wish you could have shared with more people, but I think we ended up with about nighttime attendance about 15 or 16,000 visitors for that event. So uh considerably. So but for the year, we're at 154,000 visitors uh so far through the first uh first nine months. Uh Bouta Zoo uh kicks off, and we'll see that here in one of our agenda items in uh the last two weekends in October. Um it's just gonna be a fun event. It always is. And we have uh obviously trick-or-treating and decorations, um, and so we're those tickets are on sale now, and you can get them online. So uh always uh another uh West Side Mainstay. Uh revenue uh for the year, we're at 1.16 in gross revenue for the year, and you can see the uh monthly totals for uh September 78,000 and August of $64,000. Uh the gift shop um had a really good month. It looks like boy, what was this in July? That was a record July for us for the past 10 years, and then did okay on those uh Tianu weekends and and the months in a September and October. So we're we're already at a 305,000 in gross sales in our gift shop, um, which is fantastic. You don't have to go back that far to see when we were if it was above 150,000, that would have been something else. So uh the past um five years have just been tremendous in our gift shop sales, and that's all city revenue, so uh we keep that in-house. And then our uh concession stand, this is our gross sales that our uh vendor venue works reports to us. So it looks like their last reporting month was what am I seeing here? Was that August?