Those holding an event can now choose to have the City of Humboldt sell their tickets for them at the Uniplex office – for a fee.
Rob Muench, Humboldt’s mayor, said there’s been a few events, like the Brett Kissel and Johnny Cash tribute concerns, that have already had tickets sold out of the Uniplex.
“Staff felt we needed to have a firm policy on this, what we were charging for selling rates and service charges,” he said.
For a ticket price of $25 or less, the city will charge a $25 setup fee plus $1.50 a ticket; for a $25 to $50 ticket, the fees will be $30 plus $2 a ticket; for a $50 to $75 ticket, the fees will be $35 plus $2.50 a ticket; and for a $75 to $100 ticket, the fees will be $40 plus $3 per ticket.
The event organizer can choose whether the per ticket fee charged by the city will be part of the stated ticket price or charged on top of the ticket price.
Muench said one of the ideas of the new policy is to provide a service to local event organizers.
“If people are doing an annual event and they would just like to have the city, for convenience, handle the ticket sales.”
At the same time, the service is designed to turn a profit for the city, which will use the money for the Unipex.
The policy was approved at the Nov. 26 council meeting.
Rate increases
Council has also determined price changes for the Uniplex, aquatic centre and convention centre rates for the next three years.
“We had already set the rates for 2019 earlier and so what we did was reviewed and added a couple of years on to it, just so we have a forecast into the next couple of years to see what we are doing with rates,” Muench said, adding that those affected by the rates will have a better idea where they will stand in the future.
Muench said the city traditionally increased its rates on a year by year basis. The city would consult with user groups and examine what other communities of similar size are doing, all while trying to keep up with the pressures of inflation.
“We found a few years ago we were considerably lower than a lot of other places for our hourly rental, so we’ve been trying to move then up to where they’re consistent with other cities and towns in the province,” he said.
The goal will be to have the facilities, which are subsidized by the taxpayers at large, to pay for themselves as much as possible.
