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Barclays Center celebrates its first anniversary this weekend, one years since Jay Z opened the Brooklyn arena with eight sold out concerts. The New York Observer decided to take a look at where the arena stands, cast against both the competition and against the projections laid out during the decade it took to get it built. They got arena critic and chronicler Norman Oder to compile the data.
Here's a sampling...addended with some additional notes of our own.
--Barclays ranked No. 1 nationally and No. 3 worldwide in concert and family show tickets sold, with 64 shows, compared to a projection of 40 to 45 in December 2009, three years prior to opening.
--Nets attendance of 17,187 (96.9 percent of capacity) including 26 sellouts, a fraction above the percentage achieved by the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The team ranked No. 16 in overall attendance, No. 1 in growth.
--Percentage of Nets fans walking home after games on weekdays, 8.8 percent --10.3 percent on weekends, with 36.9 percent of all fans returning to Brooklyn after games on weekdays, slightly lower on weekends.
--Percentage of Nets fans traveling home to New Jersey on weekdays, 9.8 percent -- 9.6 percent on weekends, compared to a projection of 17.8 percent provided city officials during planning process. (Almost a third of YES viewers --30.7 percent-- watch in New Jersey.)
--Announced but not yet staged: 1 monster truck show; 2 tennis events; 3-4 shows curated by Brooklyn Academy of Music; 10 promised low-cost rentals to nonprofit groups for "community" events.
--Promised boxing events: 12; actually staged: 4.
The numbers also show certain advantages still held by the Garden: while 20 of the 90 concerts and family shows were told out at Barclays, 22 of 33 were sold out at MSG, which is undergoing renovation. Similarly, the average revenue of a Brooklyn event is $521,000, the average in Manhattan is nearly $1.2 million.
- Barclays Center’s 1-Year Anniversary Highlights Revenue, Ticket Sales - Norman Oder - New York Observer