Good morning everyone.

I'd like to call the meeting of the capital movement for the parent board of managers at Mary County at order.

Welcome everybody.

Approval of the minutes from February 15th member.

Chairman of K notion?

Any more questions or discussion?

Any abstentions?

Well, all those in favor say aye.

Well, I got reasonable.

Roll call.

Marcy.

Yes.

David C.

Yes.

Nick.

Hi.

R.

Hi.

Bob.

Jamie.

Maggie.

Aye.

Jim.

I.

Thank you.

Excellent.

I stumbled a minute because I wanted to mention we had sort of a comment from Bruce last month or Bob last month.

He had not been at the previous meeting, didn't vote.

We weren't able to capture that.

So if you aren't going to vote on the minutes because you missed the previous minute and can't verify that it they're accurate, then just tell me your extent so we can have it reflected accurately in the record.

So thank you.

Okay, the next item on the agenda is for voice and the CIV financial report.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you.

So I may jump back and forth between the two, whichever one is more relevant to compare to.

So comparing January 26 to January 25, there were two small groups that we had in January 25 that we did not have in 26.

The rest of the groups were pretty similar.

So that can that is relevant or when you compare the two, you can see that in operating revenue and expenses.

Total 12 million dollars.

It was only 12,000 less than 2025.

So it's right in line with it.

Largest unfavorable variance there was an emissions tax line.

They're down this year versus 25.

So I think that's the reason.

Both the balance is down about 59 million dollars from 25.

That is mainly due to that 70 million dollars that we paid for hotel.

And then also the interest rate is down in 2025 in January.

We were at about 4.4% interest rate.

So the combination of those two cause that interest rate or the investment income to be down.

And that is due to in 2025 Monster Jam hit in January, but it hits in February in 2026.

So that's just a timing difference there, but that offsets investment interest.

So the month came out pretty similar.

But looking at the expense side, personal services, it's under uh prior year about 135,000 or 6%.

Largest variance there is in the part-time temporary labor, um, where we just didn't spend as much, and I think those two um groups that we didn't have hit in 2026 is the main reason there.

Um supplies um was over prior year about 98,000.

Um that unver unfavorable variance is mainly due to the parts and supplies line.

Um there we have two um large ticketed items that we purchased.

There's an $862,000 hotel emergency radio system that we purchased, and then also $311,000 for an open gate open gate system for Lucas Oil Stadium that we purchased.

The rest of the items are normal supplies that we buy on it for operating such as toilet paper, paper towels, soaps, cleaners, mops, tools, light bulbs that we do all the time.

So those two items really put that over the prior year.

Looking at other services, totaled $8 million, which is only $26,000 more than prior years, so it's right in the line.

Some of the line items that just to note that were different from the prior year.

Security expenses and Colts game day expenses were both down because we didn't have a Colts game in January this year, but last year we did.

Repairs and maintenance line is up due to snow removal that we have this year.

DPS payment line is down, and then it's just calculated it's a 25% of the additional emissions tax and additional auto rail taxes.

So that's a calculation directly of those taxes.

Capital outlays totaled 1.3 million dollars, slightly less than per year.

At the bottom, we I always list exactly uh breakdown of what items, uh capital projects that we had in the spend that we have data.

As you can see, the Western Drive and also the build house flight control with the large ticket items there.

Um the amount is 571,000, 375,000 respectively there.

Um debt service total 1.2.

Um this is one item that is better to compare it to the budget because uh every year the debt service changes, the dollar amount changes, so um it's better to match to the budget because we budget exactly for the amortization schedule.

So pretty much uh all in all, it's a good start to year.

Both tax and operating revenues are very similar to last year, uh slightly higher supplies uh costs, um, but other than that, very similar to probably uh maybe questions.

Okay, thank you.

Next item on the agenda, excuse me, is the JC.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

The uh we have a couple of things.

We're gonna go through the stand report and then uh Marcy had asked me late last year to kind of give you some more insights into how we set goals and what those goals mean.

Uh so we have a couple slides on that.

They're both in here and we're gonna pop up up on the screen.

Um January uh hotel report was not good, uh, not surprisingly.

If you recall, Snow Lageddon hit us about uh uh three-quarters of the way through the month, and so uh we really lost about 25% of our ability to uh to get any sort of decent um hotel business, uh if not for the quick work of Andy and Monique and Chad and um Kobe as well, I believe, because of the two contractual things we're dealing with, and then maybe Susie and Nicole Perry and Brett Sanford on our team.

Uh, we were able to save a small portion of the volleyball tournament that was happening during Snow Begin.

Much of the folks couldn't even get in because the plane flights were canceled.

Um a lot of car drivers canceled because of the roads.

Um I think we pulled off maybe a third of that shelf, if I remember right, about a third of the teams managed to get in, which was about a third more than a lot of other places that were within the snow belt.

And so uh the fact that we were only down uh downtown um by about uh 2.9% for the month at occupancy wise uh is a testament to the fact that we actually got some business done uh even during the worth that snow.

I read at some point that Indy was behind Pittsburgh as the second most snowed-in city, 20 inches, I think was the total for that for that one particular storm.

So uh in that context, it wasn't that bad.

Um, in the context of a typical January wasn't good.

Um, but uh we'll we got we actually have more group business on the books this year than we did last year.

Last year was pretty good.

It was over 800,000 rooms.

So we still expect by the end of the year for for the Aquacity would be solid numbers.

The um year to date on the visit indie goal is pretty meaningless as of February.

Uh we're behind pace on the bookings and we're at 90% pace on the leads, but it is not um uh it's you really don't start to get an idea of how the year is going until around the July report because then you have the first reporters in and then you have a pretty good idea.

Last year we were behind for 11 months, and we wanted 107% because uh salespeople do that as well as customers where you in the last month of the year you're getting all sorts of contracts in.

I did want to note we have uh you don't see Darren King in the room.

Darren informed me in early February that after 41 years with Hilton with Marriott with us, 17 at Hilton, 12 Marriott, 12 us, he was retired on March 1st.

So Darren is now doing some combination from what he told me of surfing, playing music, and getting to know a lot of his global families of Maori descent right now.

So good news for us is Chris Gaulle on January 1.

We'd already promoted Chris to EVP and chief business officer.

So Chris in January 1 has been running sales, marketing, partner relations, pretty much everything that James doesn't run, which is operations.

And so with Darren's change, what we decided to do is just have Chris do a deeper dive.

He instead of just managing what Darren was doing, Chris is on the road, going on the trade shows.

Joyce Russell has an elevated role as our VP of sales.

He's running the day-to-day sales with the able help of Diane Witsu, who's our A VP of sales operations.

And so we're actually gonna use Darren's head count, which we didn't expect uh at the beginning of the year to have to hire a couple of different positions.

One who's gonna be directly involved in another senior sales manager, basically, with the senior coming on board, so we have more opportunity to actually vote groups, and then some additional marketing support as well.

So we're able to do that with by not having replacing a cheap sales officer.

So uh excited for Chris and excited for uh the team where we're heading with that.

Um couple other things I wanted to note.

I I pulled just last night the 2025 data for day of the week and quarter by quarter occupancy.

Um we had again a pretty good year, surprisingly, in 2025, considering that it's coming off of 24, and we thought there's no way you're gonna be Taylor Swift and Eclipses and uh swimming in stadiums and all those sorts of things that we did.

Uh we continue to have four days a week that are over 70%.

Tuesdays we're at 71% occupancy downtown, Wednesdays at 70, Fridays 72, Saturday is 73.

So that 70 is a magic, really 65 is a pretty solid number for most uh markets, but having 70 is a really good number.

Except four days a week we we crush it.

Um Sundays are terrible, and they remain terrible, they're 45%.

Mondays and Thursdays are okay, 61% on Mondays, 64% on Thursdays.

It's a reminder we don't have that kind of seven-day a week drive, and we're very event-driven.

Um, and so when we have events, we're great, and events typically uh combined with um uh transient business uh benefit on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and then on the convention side and the leisure side on the Fridays and the Saturdays.

And uh my quarter, the second and third quarters, not surprisingly, with our weather second and third quarter, 69.8% downtown occupancy, and second quarter, 67.9 third.

My first quarter is 60.7, second and fourth is 62 and a half.

And so it's it's very much the nature of uh our weather, uh, how our quarters go typically.

I will say that my uh counterpart, Melbourne Tannant in Minneapolis is quite envious of how well we do in Q1 and Q4.

They have they have uh skywalks as well, but their skywalks really don't connect their hotels and convention center, they connect business buildings to business buildings, and so there's really no benefit from you know what we do, and they don't uh do real well in those quarters.

And so that is that for that, and I wanted to go through now.

Let's not see if there are any questions on this monthly report.

Okay.

And it's probably no surprises to any of that data, the days of the week of the quarter by quarter.

And Pam, are you able to pull up?

There we go.

Yeah, I think I've been on this board for 15 years, and I think I've probably done three PowerPoints.

So thanks for giving me the opportunity to share more about this.

Um our goals are set by our uh visiting the executive committee.

Michael Browning's on board chair.

Uh typically um all 15 years I've been here, the mayor's chief of staff has always been a part of that executive committee.

Um, examples of other folks on the executive committee, Mel Reans from the Facers, Juan Gonzalez from Key Bank.

Um, so it it's uh it's a number of folks like that.

Um they um the the staff makes recommendations based on some pretty good um uh industry best practices about how we set our goals and what those goals should be.

Uh, the first the top five KPIs that we actually get uh primarily measured on are these on the screen.

Uh convention booked room nights, that's what I record every month as to what we're up to at lead room nights.

I also report that every month.

I don't report this number, but we track uh Friday and puts for uh marketing programs that benefit Friday, Saturday non-group.

Why is it Friday, Saturday, non-group in Marion County?

Well, that's um the best way to measure leisure from our perspective, uh, because we um can take out the business transient from earlier in the week, and we also obviously take out the group rooms by measuring just the transient.

And so um that number uh is an important metric for us to kind of track how we're doing year over year.

Uh web user sessions is another um kind of uh secondary way to figure out leisure because the more interest on the family website, the better, more likely that's converting into leisure travel.

And then we try to supplement as much as we can with the revenue you guys give us with private revenue.

That's particularly important because there's certain things that we don't like to spend tax error taxpayer money with, so we don't want to spend taxpayer money once if a customer wants a bottle of wine at a dinner on a site inspection, then we're paying them to try to revenue or not gonna do CIP one, for example.

So those are the top five.

I'm gonna dive a little bit deeper into the top three now.

The next one there we go.

Uh so this is the same slide that our own board would have gone through uh before they approved uh the only difference is it would have said proposed at the time for before actually um uh determined.

Uh so the methodology, uh here's a couple key things to know.

Uh first of all, we're measured on contracted room nights.

What's a contracted room night?

So when we send when we book a piece of business like the truck show that's in right now, they will sign contracts with gyms hotels, with white lodging, with properties, if you have bigger conventions, sign contracts into the donut counties, um, and that's what we count.

We have to have something that we can show to an auditor at the end of the year where that auditor says, Okay, I believe that you got 9,000 room nights out of group eight, uh, because we have actual written documents to show it.

So uh a contracted room night is what we measure.

Now, a contracted room night does not necessarily reflect the the full value of every show, and in fact, it can wildly vary as to how many more room nights you'll get out of the show that are not contracted versus others.

Some are pretty close to one to one, others are close to two to one.

Gencon, for example, contracts eight thousand room nights on a peak night.

Gencon's 72,000 people, even as many people as they pack into a room, it ain't nine per room.

So um, so you're getting uh probably 1.7 to 1.8 rooms for Gen Con for everyone you actually contract.

And that's a good question.

Yes.

Um contracted room guides, because I'm not a professional in your field.

What does that mean?

Is that like booking?

And they will sell make sure some people take those, or how does that work?

Yeah, so they so they will typically have a housing company, and if they don't, they will often use visit Indies housing service.

Where you know, if you any of us in this room go to a convention, they'll submit your room block available.

Hey, do you want to be in the block?

You want to be in that the hotels closest to the convention center, etc.

With our bigger ones, um they net they tend to want to contract all of them or as many as they can get their hands on.

Uh most hotels, gym's hotels, JW, etc.

will give us somewhere between 70 and 80% of their rooms.

Some you even have to go higher than that if you're an NCAA type of bid or that sort of thing.

Um, but that uh you know that leaves the hotels some amount of rooms they can sell on the open market at a much higher rate than they contract for, uh, but they're trying to protect their attendees for paying seven, eight hundred dollars a night.

So they're discounted room loss.

They're they're not necessarily discounted, they're just they're um they're at a pro they're at a typical average daily rate.

Um, but but if you're gonna if you're gonna sell out downtown, normally they'd be much higher than every daily rate, right?

So you're typically getting uh they're discounted relative to what the free market is playing pay that week.

It's a guaranteed rate though.

It's a guaranteed rate, right?

Other rates can go up and down, right?

Right.

Usually and and they might even pick up 95% of their block but still sell out downtown.

So why is that?

Somebody will come in and go, well, I don't want to be in that block because I want to get my points at Marriott.

The only thing left in the block was something at uh Hilton Garden Inn.

Well, I'm not Hilton person I want Marriott room.

They book outside the block at a higher rate in a and that happens all the time.

We've uh our industry association destinations international has done a study on this, and it varies by group, but over the course of a year, a contracted room generally means 1.4 to 1.5 actualized rooms.

Okay, so that's so when we say something like 8,000 on peak uh for peak means the highest night for like a Gen Con, it often will mean about 11,200 from somewhere in that room.

Gen is actually typically higher than that, but over the course of all the conventions uh in the course of a year.

Uh we actually booked about 550 events a year.

Uh 500 of them or so are in the hotels and 50 or so are just building.

And of the 50, about uh 20 to 25 of them are super big, and the other ones are a couple halls there and there.

So that's that's the um that's the contracted room guide definition.

So that's your counting that 1.4 to 1.5.

Are you only counting within your service area?

So only Marion County, or are you counting?

We don't we don't count the 1.4 to 1.5.

We only count the contractors.

I'm just kind of trying to give an impact of what the real impact is in terms of hotel.

Yeah, but does it go outside your county?

Oh, absolutely.

Gen Con.

Yeah.

That encompasses anything for Gen Con.

There is uh about a dozen shows that end up um having rooms outside of Marion County.

Yeah, the biggest ones.

Uh so that's how we do the room that's that's what the auditors are looking at at the end of the year.

Then we to set a goal, you say, well, how do you set a goal?

I mean, some people will just pull the number out of thin air.

Hey, you booked this much last year and increase it by 5%.

But we have a fixed amount of widgets we can produce in any given year.

That's the number of rooms that will give us contracts.

It's not the number of rooms total, it's the number of rooms that are willing to do contracted blocks.

So typically the inventory in downtown Indy has more or less been the same since the JW opened in 2011.

Some have closed, some have opened.

Those others that have opened won't give us contracts.

They want to sell off the market.

They're they were, they weren't you know, uh filled with any sort of incentive, so they can do whatever they want to do.

Um so we created something, well, we didn't create it.

Actually, Price Waterhouse Cooper's years ago, working with us before we built the JW and expanded the convention center, gave us a consumption benchmark number.

They said, here is how much group business we think you can put into Indianapolis with the inventory of the JW coming on board.

And that number wound up being 725,000.

So uh they basically said in any given year you ought to be able to fill 700, you ought to be able to contract 725,000 rooms in a calendar year, um, so that will ultimately uh you know, ultimately actualize at some point.

So um, Dave Sibley, some of you know Dave, Dave's a senior executive with White Lodging when we were building the Sydney and starting to think about how do we adjust the consumption benchmark with the Sydney and said, I get the PWC gave you 2725 with your number beginning in 2011.

I think you actually outperformed now.

What was the real number?

So uh we went back and looked at every year uh from 2011 except for 2020 and 21 and averaged it out.

It actually came out to 764,000.

So we outperformed uh from 2011 to 2024, the PWC number pretty significantly actually, because that was considered a real stretch to get to 725.

Then we looked at the Signia and said, how many rooms can we get credit for?

Again, this is this is the key key thing here.

That doesn't necessarily mean how many rooms will actually be generated in the CD as a result of Indian business, but how many will we get credited for?

Uh a challenge with groups like Gen Con and FFA and some others is in some cases they'll actually the senior rooms will be added to the block, in other cases they will replace rooms that they don't want now in another county, which is great for the CIB.

Because the CIV now gets that 600 extra rooms per night as opposed to a red roof in plain field, right?

Uh that wouldn't have a red room.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'll make to uh the embassy suites in play fields.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um they'll probably keep the embassy suite rooms actually, but there's a lot of uh select service properties uh that are outside of this county that they'll go, okay.

I got 600 more rooms now in downtown Indy.

I'm dropping 600, 50 there, 100 there, 120 there, etc.

A lot of our bigger groups, their their number is their number.

Some of the bigger groups are giving us some extra rooms.

They'll take the Signia and then they'll keep their other ones as well because they'll take everything they get.

So in doing that math, we went back and we looked at the pro forma that the actual investors who bought the bonds looked at and said, hey, we're supposed to get to 74% occupancy in that pro forma.

So let's base it on 74% occupancy over the course of uh an entire year, and 35%, a little more than a third of that 74 will be booked by Visit Indy that we get credit for, that we actually will get a contracted room night out of, either self-contained with the new ballroom space, or as part of the citywide.

That added up to 75,628 room nights.

Surprisingly, much to my surprise and delight, it was very close to the number White Lodging could already come up with on their own because they wanted to know what we were what we were added to the consumption benchmark, and Dave was like, I can live with that number.

We were a couple thousand short of theirs, but not significantly off.

So you add that number up to the 720 to the 764, not to 725.

We threw that number out, and we said, let's go with the number that was actualized for all those years.

And you came out to 873,600.

Um you came out to uh 840,000.

You come out to 840, the the six 764 and the 75 is closer to 840.

So then you look at 840 and you say that's the new when we do pace reports uh for our board meetings and for hotel meetings every Tuesday and things.

We say, how are we pacing in any future year to this 840 number?

But our goal is set higher than that because we need some buffer above that.

Um historically it's been about 2.5% above that consumption benchmark.

This last year, because we've had two good years in a row, the board said two and a half percent is not enough.

We want your goal to be 4% over this consumption.

That's why you get a weird number like Common 600, 873, 600 is our new goal.

Now, salespeople are incentivized to hit goal and then some.

If they really want to make any money, they got to go as much as 120% of goal.

For us to do 120% of the goals a team, we're gonna have to hit a million and forty-eight thousand three hundred and twenty.

It's probably not a realistic number because we have a booking policy that's essentially a governor on our ability to take credit for business.

For example, you see the first note there.

FFA that we announced a big extension last year.

Congrats to us, 2034 to 2040, seven more years of FFA, not a single contracted room night from that booking counted toward last year's numbers.

The first year we will get credit for that particular deal, 2029, because that'll be five years.

Our booking policy says five years out is when you start taking credit because there could be a cancel between now and then.

We don't want to have a bunch of liability on incentives we paid for salespeople too far out, that sort of thing.

And so there's a number of things like that.

On top of that, last year we hit 107% of goal.

I mentioned we were buying goal for 11 months.

Well, we had a uniform group, the uniform of all uniforms.

If you're at the state of tourism, you heard me talk about it.

Focus, the fellowship of Catholic University students meets between Christmas and New Year's.

They actually meet over the years.

That's especially the Fold Weather City.

There's two groups like that, we booked one of them.

Um I mean, of that size, certainly.

And so we got 66,000 contractor room nights out of the focus booking.

Without it, we would have been at 959% of gold.

Without one single booking, you go from 99 to 107 like that.

Um, we also really benefited last year because Dallas and Salt Lake City have are closing for major renovations or have closed for major renovations.

And so they kicked out a bunch of their groups.

Um there's other cities that did that too.

Austin did that, and Austin was like, there's no way I'm giving Indy business because they're they feel more direct threat from us, I guess.

Uh, but they wouldn't send any of their groups on our way.

We did get some groups from Salt Lake City in Dallas to meet in Indy while and and basically in a situation like that, Dallas was like, hey, you're supposed to meet in Salt Lake in 2029, or I mean in Dallas in 2029.

Um turns out we've talked to Indy, Indy's got page for you, um, and we'll move you to 2032.

And so they're happy that they get them in the future.

We're happy that we got them in one of those years.

So that's kind of a benefit there.

So that's how we got to the 873600.

That's the most detailed part of this uh deck I wanted to go through for you because you know that.

If you get to the lead number, if you want to go to the next one, Michelle.

The leads is a really simple formula.

You can't back into it based on the booking number.

So if you're gonna be, if you need to get to 873600, you look at what we typically convert.

Um, if you include our annuals, which are close to 100% conversion, you can always lose them, but if you take care of them like the building does and like our hotels do and others, uh, you generally are gonna rebook them.

So if you could we're typically a little over 20% of non-annuals closing, but overall we're about 31%.

So that would tell us our goal ought to be 2,818,000.

Well, we crushed the lead goal last year.

And so the the board came back and said stretch out by 15%.

So our lead goal uh this year is um 3,240, not 2,818, which is comparable to a conversion rate of 27% rather than 31.

So there's plenty of buffer there where we could, you know, if we if we can if we hit anywhere near 3,240, we're probably gonna be able to continue to hit our booking goal moving forward.

Um last year's numbers were a little bit uh disproportionate because of those focus um lead room nights put into it, and plus we do take credit for the lead room nights as soon as the lead comes in.

So even though we couldn't take credit for the contracted rooms for FFA, we did take credit for the lead room nights, so that really skewed that data.

Go to the next one.

Here's the Friday Saturday.

Um, the big concern was Friday, Saturday this year.

Uh so Chris on its marketing team side, um, they do a great job of looking at the convention calendar uh a full year out and go, what's a bad Friday, Saturday?

What's a bad weekend?

Uh or what's an average weekend in from Memorial Day to Labor Day?

That's kind of the two criteria.

If we have a bad weekend for conventions, or it's not a particularly great weekend memorial to labor when people are traveling for weekend getaways anyway, uh, then his team will put together uh a digital marketing strategy.

Um, Marcy and Andy and uh and the board you've given us a million extra dollars the last couple of years, most of which has gone into the leisure campaign.

Uh, and um that's what we do with that that money is we'll fit 18 weekends out of 52 and hammer Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, and Champagne Urbana and Louisville uh and Fort Wayne and South Bend.

Uh markets that we know produce Friday, Saturday room nights for us, and about what is it, 11 days out now, Chris?

The 13 days out.

Yeah, so we'll look whatever how far out are people planning?

How you know when you do think about your own getaways, it's typically a week and a half to two weeks out, you're going, oh, I got nothing going on in two weeks, I'm gonna go somewhere.

Um, and so um that's how we drive this number.

Um, we tip uh the methodology we use the last couple of years is a three year average plus three percent.

Um, this is a challenge in a year because when you get Taylor Swift and you get um uh eclipses and things like that, uh, even the USA swimming, most of those rooms weren't contracted, you get a lot of transient room nights out of that on Fridays and Saturdays.

And so this year is really gonna be a struggle.

We really didn't take the cygnia uh or the Kempton into account for uh for this.

There's not uh Cygnia maybe will open in December, Kempton may be around the same time.

That's you're really not selling that for Friday, Saturday this year.

You'll still start seeing that in the next year's numbers.

This year was supposed to be a big year.

Um, when we were looking at this about two years ago with the World Cup and USA 250, uh, there was expectations that this would be a huge travel year driven by international demand.

Um Jamie, yeah, Jamie just reacted the way if you're on the U.S.

travel board like I am, uh uh you know, Jamie DI and things like that.

Um, all of the U.S.

forecasts are down significantly from where they were two years ago.

Um just the reality of the fact that we're in the middle of a war right now.

Um last year um in the United States uh was one of the few major countries in the world to have year-over-year downturns in international, everywhere else was up.

We've had double-digit downturns from Canada, from Europe.

Um, and the the good news, bad news for Indy is that does affect us, but it doesn't affect us as much as Orlando, Vegas, DC, and New York.

So we're actually gonna gain market share, but we're gonna still see a drop.

We're gonna drop, you know, who knows, 5%, but you may have cities dropping 10%, 15%, 20%.

So the leader number is gonna be a challenge.

I think this will be our hardest goal to hit this uh coming year, uh, just because there's so many unknowns on that.

And then the last two I'll just note on here is uh we did the compression analysis um before the pandemic with Smith Travel Research SCR.

Um what does that mean?

Well, that's basically we I think it's a good question, a fair question.

Jim has asked this before what are we doing for hotels outside of downtown?

The number one thing we can do for hotels outside of downtown is to fill that down.

The compression analysis basically says that when you get to 1,179 room nights on peak.

Well, we put 1,179, very odd number, but that's the number that to their analysis they came up with.

Um with the current inventory now, the cygnia, we're gonna have to do a new one of these in a couple years once we have some couple years of signia data.

You put 1179 rooms downtown Indianapolis, combined with the national demand that adds to all of a sudden rates and occupancy go up at the airport, at the north side, at Marriott East, all that sort of thing.

They go that and it's it's kind of exponential, but you'll see it in a graph here after this slide.

But you can see the main findings.

This is the six bullets from their executive summary of the last time that we did this report pre-pandemic.

Um basically for every 400 rooms we put downtown, there's a revenue per available room gain of two and a half, 2.4% for the market as a whole.

So it's really critical.

It's kind of I always joke uh to people, the old Jack Nicholson uh few good men line.

You know, you want us on that wall, you need us on that wall.

Every hotel wants and needs downtown rooms to be filled because it compresses demand outside of downtown.

I was somebody set you know, trucks in town, somebody who's here for a you know, meeting with Lily looks and goes.

I normally go to the downtown Marriott, but they're asking, they were asking for $700 this week.

Um so they're not gonna pay if somebody looking at their corporate expense report.

I can't do 700, I'm gonna go to Jim's hotel by the airport.

And so he gets a room that he may or may not have known with generated by truck because it's not a contracted room night, it got compressed out.

I would just add that's the same in other cities too.

It's not just an Indianapolis phenomenon.

I mean, I was talking to an executive from uh Boston Logan Hilton yesterday, and she was exactly talking about how their rate and occupancy is driven by downtown Boston, right?

Even though they're you know 600 rooms at Logan Airport in Boston, they look at the compression, same exact compression numbers, and I imagine that's the same across the country.

I was at the downtown area's 25th anniversary event last night, and I met their revenue manager, which uh, if you know Jim's world, um there's a lot of people who don't like the revenue manager because the revenue managers are very savvy of when to raise a rates, when to drop them.

Uh sometimes our people will get into a debate and you know, hey, we're talking about January of 2031.

Why are you asking for this rate?

We think we need to be this rate to close this business.

Um because last night, and often we think revenue managers are affected by last night's audience.

Hey, we sold out last night.

Well, that doesn't affect a Sunday in January of 2031.

But the whole point is they have very sophisticated models and algorithms to figure out what rate should be that on any given night.

And rates should have been higher in January during volleyball, but they weren't because everything was canceling.

And um uh that's an example of that.

Whereas, you know, again, this week, because downtown more or less all the big hotels were sold out for truck equipment association, the airport, Marriottes, Sheraton, Marriott up north, they're all getting, and we get reverse compression too.

We'll get compression from Grand Park.

So when Grand Park has huge events, that's a relatively new thing for us.

Historically, everything compressed from downtown.

Now you compress from downtown and from Grand Park if they've got a big event.

That'll help share.

In fact, sometimes there can be a real battle.

Grand Park will book something.

We will book a citywide, and then we find out hey, we need rooms outside of downtown, we need Marriott North Sheraton, etc.

And those hotels will come back to us and say we're already sold all our contracted rooms to a Grand Park event.

And then that customer is going to playing field and going to some other places like that.

So those are the main findings.

Go to the next slide, Michelle.

I just showed visually what this looks like.

This is the draft that prepared for us that shows you the greenish one that's the highest is the revenue pervailable room change.

The bottom bar there, you'll see like right around 1200 rooms, everything starts going up.

When you get to say 3,000 rooms, right between that 28 and 3200, you can see the airport's the next benefit beneficiary.

They have the next deepest red far increases.

Then the North Loop, which is again that Sheraton, Marriott up there on the 465 loop, the rural areas and Southeast.

And so again, the best thing we can do the Friday, Saturday potentially benefits everybody that loses leisure room nice, but the better we do, and we don't we don't have an unlimited supply of dollars, so we concentrated on building downtown to benefit everybody.

There's your deck.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Any questions about any of that?

Threw a lot at you.

I do have a booking note.

I just want to say thanks to visit Indy and the CIV.

We are hosting the Indiana Tourism Association coming up Sunday through Wednesday.

So Sunday night group.

Last Sunday, well, they're tiny sending.

Yeah.

But they are sending.

But uh worked with Chris and James, James's family IT board for decades prior to Jeff Argentine stepping on.

Um but two years ago, Chris and I had a conversation in this room.

Uh ITA has not been in downtown Indianapolis for over 10 years as the industry's um leaving conference.

Uh we had not been able to return downtown uh for a variety of reasons.

So we're happy to be back down to Indianapolis thanks to Chris, uh Leonard, James, Jeff.

Uh so very excited to do that, and also thanks to the CIB.

When we took the tour of the Pacers with uh Mel and Gain Bridge, and we saw the backstage, we're hosting a uh pre-conference workshop uh with Game Bridge and the broadcasting team.

Okay.

Um, and so thank you for letting us backstage because we were able to add that to our conference.

Um, and so we have I think 50 people uh attending that and getting an opportunity to experience Game Bridge from me being able to see that.

So uh we're getting out in the community and sharing downtown with them, and so thank you, visiting, thank you, CID, and I'm excited to share with people the downtown.

And one other note along the line, Jamie, we just had the advanced team for the ASAE show with very exciting association executives, the huge, very important show that we'll host in August uh on the ground about two weeks ago, looking at all the different places we want to have their big events, and um that's super exciting.

We can't wait to have 5,500 people, 2,000 of which are decision makers for their own associations here.

Well, thank you, Jamie.

We're not come back to the capital city without you, so thank you.

Yeah, yeah, we only have 375, but it is our largest attendance in over decade.

So very exciting.

Leonard, thanks for the detailed presentation, but a lot of information that um didn't know.

A lot for five slides.

Yes, right.

Right.

Quick question.

So um I'm just interested in the logistics behind how our market operates and anything that you're willing or able to share.

Um, you know, we've got Jim's hotels, airport downtown, we've got Planesville.

How in real time do they receive the information to adjust to the market?

I'm just curious about how all that works.

Well, Jim can answer that better than I can from how the hotel revenue managers operate, but um uh you know, in general, uh we track, for example, group pickup, uh, some groups will pick up um the biggest challenge we have with group pickup recently is universally, not just Indianapolis, but other cities they're picking up later.

So you're making a decision on your own at a much later decision to come to that conference.

Groups that were were booking into the root block six to eight weeks ago are now booking in the room block two to four weeks in after blocks have been closed, and so now blocks are being half-filled, and then you find out occupying was fine that week because everybody was booking after the block already closed.

Um, but Jim can answer that question better about the revenue managers.

Yeah, just wondering how so you you all have revenue managers, and we're you're kind of looking at what's happening on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, and so you're always kind of trying to manage what's the right rate to get people to book.

So you know, uh visit Indy will send us a contract, or will know of an upcoming group, and historically it's been X at our particular hotel, and so we will then start to look at those dates and start to set rates based on that particular set of volume, knowing that you know it's one category in our stack of rooms, and then we'll make adjustments accordingly, and then you look at weather, like you know, the capital sports volleyball was it just blew everything up that day when when people started to cancel or they started to move downtown, etc.

Uh, you know, so it's just again it's like the airlines.

You're you're making some educated guesses, you're making adjustments, something will be announced, you have a concert gets announced, and you try to make a quick adjustment because people will jump on that and book rooms quickly, things like that.

So it's you're just constantly monitoring information and making adjustments.

Yeah, and the the all the different hotels have have their own accounts and access to the SCR data, and right more and more they're developing their own data, you know, the Hilton's Marriott's the you know the uh the doors, the the white lodgings, they all like it's all analytics and you know it's an art.

It's I was just gonna say it's it's really no different than the airlines.

The airlines are a little bit more sophisticated just because uh they're probably tighter on tracking you know web uh traffic and things like that.

But the the practice is the same.

Our products are one-day shelf live, sell it today or never sell it again, so you're constantly adjusting because on a slow night, some revenues better than no revenue, and so we we are always kind of gambling to uh set the right.

The airline, if you talk to an airline person, they will tell you hey, we invented revenue management of the hotel solid, but that's a Jim's point.

Um, but yeah, the algorithms are pretty sophisticated.

The the um the check the biggest challenge they have sometimes is the the holidays that move around like Easter and Jewish holidays, they don't always know that until we point out to them be like, hey, that's a Jewish holiday folks.

We you you you want that group rate, not the rate you're offering, otherwise we're not gonna book this.

We have a different situation in Henderson County and some of the surrounding counties, so Marion County is fortunate in the fact that uh they have sophisticated whole hotel owners uh that have revenue managers.

Uh I deal with a different set of ownership, and so uh we have a problem with with holding rate.

So uh we'll have a situation where like at the exit at Plainfield, we have a thousand hotel rooms, and so uh most the majority of our owners are are managed, managed hotels.

Um they have an owner, they have a management company, and they are looking at that sophisticated data.

Um, but then when you have about 30 to 40 percent of your hotel rooms out there that are single owner occupied, um, they panic and they drop rate.

And so you run into a situation where that's very difficult because now you have an owner like Jim who's you know trying to maintain uh 112, 115 on a Tuesday night, and the guy across the street's running 39.

Um so you have a Holiday Express and a hands in, both equivalent at an 80 dollar difference.

Um and that's difficult, right?

Um it makes the market um difficult, makes the exit difficult, and so that is that is where things really mess with your ADR and um can cause problems in the community.

Absolutely.

I'll add up to a report by Tim about it.

So you know, I I've always looked at visit Indy on the sales side, and that that's a communication we receive, and not really understanding the impact on the daily rates that are charged not only in this market but in the surrounding markets that rely on Indy.

Yeah, and those daily rates are very much affected by groups that so later this fall, for example, we're gonna have um Asha that is the um the it's uh an audiology society, and um we booked them in 2014.

So they're gonna meet in 2026, 12 years later, right?

But what we did in 2014 is going to affect the rates that week in 2026.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you all.

I have one more question.

So out of your 873,600 goal for this year, did you were saying that that does not include the signal rooms because it's only so much.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, that that oh the signal was the um on the leisure side.

Okay.

Yeah, so the A73 definitely includes ignorant rooms.

And we've already gone to the 840,000 new consumption benchmark and then stretch that on the group side on the leisure side, since they weren't open until December, more than likely, we didn't we didn't consider that within setting the leisure goal.

Because they can't get any rooms until December, right?

Right.

It'll be like maybe two or three weekends of December.

But they will have started booking into the future on the group side.

We're already taking their working on that.

We're already taking credit for some of those rooms.

Yeah.

And that's where we've already found that some of the citywide.

They took signia rooms and then they canceled the deal with another place.

Um the airport rooms, the new airport groups you were there.

Well, as soon as they we have first of all, we have to find out how many rooms we think that operator is willing to give us because they're not, you know, the city had to play ball based on what the the city and CIB requirements were for for the uh for building it.

They're the only ones that have yeah, right.

They're the they're actually the only one that has uh something like that in their agreement.

So it's just a matter of talking to the operator going, hey, you think we'll get 20%, 40%, 50% of the big citywide.

And again, then factoring in whether or not those will be incremental or just take away rooms that will get dropped somewhere else.

Okay.

That's a new operator.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We don't know.

Yeah, they don't know.

They don't know that's the thing.

So that'll be an interesting conversation because they their their studies suggest it's pretty and and this is really a challenge for Jim and other operators, the shock it comes in uh in the in that airport market that there's definitely a good amount of demand for people who don't want to leave the terminal.

Okay, well see, I flew in the other night at 7 30, and there was nobody in the terminal, so I don't know where they're going, but they're not staying.

Well, I think people though going someplace, like taking our flight to Ireland.

You know, if they live in Fort Wayne and if there's an early flight, they may want to come early.

Yeah, stay all night and have a place.

I'm gonna need to see it from that.

A lot of it's out of the ground right now.

It's they'll finish it.

We'll see what happens.

Well, I didn't I want to see the flag again.

Oh, it's a western one.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's gonna be a challenge because I guarantee you there will be people checking in there that are there, and there are people who are checking in there that are there.

Oh just like with the Marion.

That's yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's easier.

At least we just cross the street.

But when you've got uh two Westons in the market, those cloth that close to each other, and somebody's not paying attention, the airport versus downtown.

I guarantee you every single night there will be people doing that.

Okay.

Okay, well, thank you all.

It's been a great discussion trying to be mindful of time.

We have probably go over 10.

Okay.

So next item on the agenda are more reports for the convention center, Marie.

Thank you.

All right, our February occupancy and attendance this year kind of look a lot like February of last year, which is a good thing, but just a little bit better.

Um, our February occupancy last year was 59.4%, this year 60.1%.

Uh, our attendance last February was 34,500 this year, 37,724, so a little better.

Very pleased with those numbers.

Um, the biggest highlights for the month of February for us were two long time customers.

Of course, the annual wet show was here, uh, FL Combine, the ancillary events that we host uh every year, and then we did have several small to meeting size events I think really helped push us over that 60% hump uh occupancy.

We had a lot of great annuals in the garden show, Indiana Health and Safety Conference, Indiana Green Expo.

We also had two new meetings that busy maybe helped us with core expo, a core mark expo rather, and that's a trade show for convenience store food items, so pretty cool.

And then also a show called Forte, um that's like an IT tech um AD design uh conference.

Um March kicked off for us with NTEA work truck show, they're still in house.

Probably notice that everything since March 3rd.

That's a pretty long show, 13 days total this year.

Um we'll get them out on Sunday, and then on Monday, we're gonna have our first dark days since January, so looking forward to letting the building rest just a little bit, but it'll be short-lived because the next day on Tuesday, we're gonna start moving for an IT-bit east qualifier.

That's our annual volleyball tournament we have each year.

And um, and every every year um you're always expecting a little over 40,000 for that tournament.

So looking forward uh to having them again.

And then um we're gonna end March with a bang and CAA final four friend cast will be here at the convention center.

We're also gonna have the National Association Basketball coaching.

I mentioned that before.

Uh that's the annual convention.

They're always held simultaneously with the final four, so we'll have them too.

Um NCAA will be with us all the way until April 9th, so uh a good stretch.

First quarter was really good for us, looking forward to the second quarter being the same, so very busy, non-stop.

Um, in fact, our next dark day after Monday is not until September.

Sorry, it's hot.

Um so it'll be really busy.

Really nice uh spring, really busy summer 2026 is really really turned out well so far.

Thank you, next is uh Eric with Lucas.

Good morning.

My list is short, but the events are impactful.

So since we last got together, uh we did spend um a few days where we didn't have others in the building to get ahead on some rigging for final four.

So we actually have a lot in the area now.

Um support the on display, the lighting, the sound, all that.

Um so we got ahead of that.

That gives some breeding room for others uh as they come in uh in the symphony that puts all of the uh pieces together for the big event coming up.

We had the wet show in LucasOil Stadium as well.

It's great, and of course the NFL Combine, um, thanks to um partners of Disney Indy and Chris in particular who um has really helped um make this event continue to grow.

We were uh very full with people from all over the country, but um particularly locally getting a chance to see some of the nine IU athletes who were in uh the combine this year.

So really excited about that and how that all turns out we see it on TV.

Um great great event.

And then we had Supercross last weekend, uh pushing um high numbers, not not a record, but getting close uh to some of the recent records for attendance at Supercross.

Um very popular, it's long, it goes all day, so there's a lot of people in and out, a lot of people spending time downtown, um, very passionate fans of that circuit.

So uh really really good to see that.

And then this weekend we have the Indiana State Robotics Championship.

So much like uh the IHSA plays their football championship at Lucasoil Stadium or the basketball champion of Gainbridge, the Indiana Robotics um state change is at Lucas Will Stadium where there are stages set up all over the field.

Um high school students from around the state are descending on Indy, and you know there's there's uh tens of thousands of um people who are coming to watch that as well.

So that's pretty interesting.

And then next week is all final floor all the time.

Um so by the time we meet next, that's that's what we'll have done, hopefully.

Um, and we will uh have success with them.

It's huge.

It's a huge lift for our team and for our staff, but we've been working on it for years.

Um I I started in 2017.

I think this event was awarded in 2018.

Um I got here.

So now it's finally here um in 2026.

So really looking forward to um putting on a really good show.

The city's gonna come along and great.

So that's all I've got for you today.

A couple quick notes, I know we're running late, but um, this is the first full final regular final full we've had since 2015.

And it has division one, two, and three.

So there are events happening in Gambridge in addition to Lucas on Saturday and Monday.

There's events happening in Gambridge on the other night, and the natural invitational tournament in the NIT is happening at in Haple Fieldhouse.

No city's ever done any of that.

So we're gonna go from a no city's done what we did in 21 to what no city's doing in 2026.

So the next time we meet, that will all have happened.

And by the way, with the combine, we have two more years, 27, 28.

Uh that got announced by Pat McAfee at our state of tourism.

We're working on 29.

There was at least one other city that was among the guests Eric is talking about that was here sniffing around again quite a bit on a future year.

So we're still trying to hold on to that.

Great.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you, everybody.

Yeah, I guess that is the update of Andy on the current construction project.

Sure.

Um a month from today, we will start moving in uh furniture into our hotel.

Um 400 rooms at first, um, we'll be ready to go, um, and we'll start moving in really all of the the hard uh the hard furniture, which is the cabinetry, the desks, the bed frames, uh you know uh the mount all the all the mill work and everything.

Uh it's all furniture and piecemeal, so it's really great progress.

We are on track to start that.

Um the important part about that is we're doing it as we're finishing the rest of the building.

Um, so that the it will abbreviate the amount of time necessary after the building's finished to to get it ready to open.

Um Leonard mentioned uh the opening date of the hotel, and it has it has moved, you know, a month ago is November 11th, then we moved it to December 6th.

Yesterday I heard it's December 2nd.

Um so and we're gonna continue to try to open as early as we can in order to get as much revenue in 2026 as possible.

And it's kind of hard to open in December.

Um especially the later you get in December.

So that is important, and um things are going things are going well.

Um we did have you know obviously some Snow Mageddon is as Leonard said.

Um we've had cold weather, we've had lots of wind.

Um, and those have been challenges, especially um, you know, some things you just can't help.

We had a broken pipe that uh flooded an elevator shaft and has set us back.

So um that that'll be fixed.

It's all it's all covered, but that's um that's just part of the deal.

So um that is that is going well next month.

We will have a report from um uh on the uh Pan Am Tower to let you guys know what's happening um with the Panam Tower and and progress we've made, which is pretty pretty great actually.

So um we'll have the folks from Colliers who are managing that space for us uh come and give a report.

Um just also want to emphasize um this is our first final four.

Um please, if you can participate in whatever you have time to participate in.

Um, you know, there are our our brothers and sisters, our neighbors um who work at the NCAA.

We have a very close relationship, but we shouldn't, and we can't ever take it for granted.

Um everybody needs to show up and uh enjoy the uh the the amenities uh the activations that they've um I'm not worried about selling out the the building's gonna sell out and we're gonna crush you know both the fan fest and the the basketball game.

Um what's special about the final four is just all the other activations throughout the rest of downtown, and we've seen that in a lot of places, but it's on steroids with the final four, it's like the super role of that, like it's just so passive.

Um and they need numbers.

Um we've broken records in the past and we need to do it again.

So in particular, they're doing a music festival, multi-day music festival on American Legion Mall, which is I think super exciting.

You could potentially draw tens of thousands of people.

Zach Brown, 20 pilots, Megan Moroni, um Zach Brownman sells out Rua two or three nights every summer, so uh it's it's it's incredible.

And free.

And it's free.

And tip off Tailgate, which is on Georgia Street, and you'll see the progress on Georgia Street.

Um that will be um free as well.

Uh if you can't get a free ticket to the fanfest in here, um you haven't looked hard enough, but uh it's only ten dollars otherwise, so it's it's not uh not a barrier to access it.

Thank you.

Any questions?

We say that we fixed any of this entirely.

I'll get you out of here.

Okay.

Um the next item on the agenda.

Now we're down to three voting items of bad debt write-off or two.

Yes, um, so included in your package uh proposed list of um bad debt that I'm asking write off.

Um we write off inactive and delinquent accounts um after our F moves to you know normal collection.

Um we also turn it over to a collection attorney.

Um I can go through the list if you want me to.

Um our write-off for 2025, that list is 0.13% of our uh rent and labor income.

So that I mean very small, less than a quarter percent.

Um historically, uh since 1994, we are 0.19% is our bed debt, so very small bed debt uh percentage.

Um actually that list has some 2024.

We didn't um write anything off last year, so there's some 24 and 23 in there.

So actually that percentage is actually smaller for that 25.

But um the collection of pest um due accounts must have board approval, so then um therefore requesting authorization to write off those bad debts, um, totaling 56,311.50.

If there's any questions on any of them, I can give you a little more background on them.

Are these any of these still active?

Um there's one of them that is filed bankruptcy, but um uh there's a couple of them that aren't answering at all, and we're not able to get a hold of, but so I I don't know if all of them are active or not, but um the collection attorney is issued on many of them.

So interesting mix of saying open question a second.

I mean three, this is the marketplace all number.

Considering how much business we do.

If any business had this number, they would be celebrating.

So um shared entertainment motion to approve that debt right off.

So vote.

Second, any discussion?

Please call along.

Marcy.

David Cye Nick.

Hi.

David R.

Aye.

Um Jamie.

Aye.

Maggie?

Jim.

Aye.

Bruce.

Thank you.

He said I said I said.

We got you, Bruce.

Um next item on the agenda is disposal of obsolete equipment.

So moved.

Any discussion questions?

Okay.

Please call them out.

Uh Marcy.

Aye.

David C.

Hi.

Nick.

Hi.

A R.

Jamie.

Aye.

Maggie.

Aye.

Jim.

Aye.

Bruce.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

And the next thing to vote on would be plain.

All right.

Vouchers.

We have the operating expense voucher for $6,442,273.36.

And the confirming voucher $6,275,477416.

Any entertain any questions?

Pretty normal stop.

Questions.

Any discussion?

Chairman motion to approve.

So vote.

Zero second.

Okay, uh Marcy.

Aye.

David C.

Hi.

Nick.

David R.

Aye.

Jamie.

Aye.

Maggie.

Jim.

Hi.

Bruce.

Thank you, Bruce.

Okay.

Alrighty.

Um, any other business to come before the board today?

Okay.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.