Play Spreads Passion With Marketing Plan Savvy

EUREKA SPRINGS — Three concentric halos emanate from Eureka Springs on the map in Joe Gies’ office. Each radius from the Carroll County tourist town takes in another layer of potential pilgrims he hopes to attract to the Great Passion Play.

Gies, CEO of the nonprofit Elna M. Smith Foundation Inc., which operates the play, said the circles mark layers of 50, 150 and 500 miles — distances from a half morning to a full day’s drive. The heart of those rings is still no farther away than the seven-story Christ of the Ozarks statue atop nearby Magnetic Mountain, but a new marketing blitz is summoning audiences from Houston to Chicago.

Gies, a 20-year veteran of corporate marketing in St. Louis, arrived at the play in April 2002 on the heels of a decade-long slide in season attendance. Crowds trickled down from a 1992 peak of 300,000 ticketed visitors to about 130,000 last year, off yet another 4 percent from 2002.

So Gies established the foundation’s first full-time sales and marketing department, restructured its advertising and cultivated local and corporate partnerships. He also launched a niche-focused TV ad campaign in several major markets based on a database the organization has collected of a quarter million “already qualified” customers.

“We’ve gone from the shotgun approach to a very targeted, niche market approach,” Gies said. “We’re mining the good opportunities.”

The overall result for the foundation — which primarily consists of the Great Passion Play but includes some smaller companions — was 11.3 percent revenue growth from $3.15 million during 2001 to $3.51 million by 2002’s end. The foundation doesn’t file its complete 2003 report with the Internal Revenue Service until June, but Gies said the strategy is working. He hopes to double attendance in the next several years.

The play has drawn 7 million total visitors through 35 seasons.

“We’ve readjusted how we spend internally so we can move resources to go out and grow this business,” Gies said. “We had a small drop in ad spending in 2002 that was the product of some learning and spending smarter. Going forward, we’ve got to spend smarter and smarter.

“In 2003, we operated with our largest marketing budget ever at more than a half million dollars and it will be more than that again in 2004.”

Also not hurting the 2002 bottom line was an estimated $200,000-plus gift from The Walton Foundation in Bentonville, which declined to comment. Gies said the contribution also came before his arrival so details are cloudy.

Merchandising

Even though the Great Passion Play is just east of Eureka Springs on U.S. Highway 62, the attraction’s gift shops and concession stands still pay the city’s 2 percent sales tax to the Eureka Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission. The foundation’s gift shop sales for 2003 totaled $889,900, and its restaurant sales were $584,800, according to city records. Total inventory sales through all of the group’s merchandise channels were up 1.2 percent (See chart, p. 17). Merchandising profits were up 0.7 percent even with fewer visitors, according to IRS records.

A loose 2003 gate of $2.99 million can be estimated from the play’s $23 adult ticket price. But there are also rates for children and groups, so the actual total is difficult to figure.

The Smith Foundation also operates programs and gets revenues from its Sacred Arts Center, Bible museum and the replica composite New Holy Land museum. The Christ of the Ozarks statue is always open at no charge and gets an estimated 500,000 annual visits.

The whole complex occupies more than one square mile that founders Gerald K. and Elna M. Smith bought in several parcels. The Christ statue, erected in 1966, is the largest physical memorial to Jesus Christ in the North America. The play followed in 1968 and slowly the other attractions have created eight hours of entertainment.

The organization employs a year-around staff of 40 and during its performance season — April through October — the staff size swells to about 400. About 90 percent of those seasonal workers, Gies said, return the next season to perform on the play’s set which is the size of two football fields and three stories tall.

Niche Markets

Gies said the foundation hasn’t forgotten its local roots. The group recently joined all of its contiguous Chambers of Commerce and this winter made its debut in Eureka Springs’ “Dickens of a Christmas” event. The Foundation produced a live interactive nativity scene with 90 cast members called “Beyond Dickens.”

“It was a huge success,” Gies said.

Vernon Payne, the play’s director of sales, said 50 percent of people within a two-hour drive of Eureka Springs haven’t seen the play. So the group ought to be able to motivate those folks as well as customers 500 miles away. Weekends are the most popular ticket, but discounts and group rates can help put nearby customers in the play’s 4,100 seats.

The play also has contracts with about 60 corporations in the area including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell and Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale for a 20 percent discount off regular tickets. In exchange, the firms distribute promotional material to their offices.

Payne attended the National Tour Association convention in Charlotte, N.C., this year to make contacts with tour operators nationally and to coordinate packages in conjunction with local lodging operators. About 30-40 percent of ticket sales are to groups with 15 or more people.

“Last year, our total group attendance was 38 percent of our total attendance,” Payne said. “Of that group, 65 percent were church groups, 17 percent were tour groups and 18 percent were other type groups such as schools or reunions.”

Paradigm Shift

Gies said a major paradigm shift is happening in domestic travel as “Baby Boomers” hit the road. He said most aren’t enjoying retirement by motorcoach or bus trips like many seniors have before. This generation is driving custom RVs and insists on controlling its own time schedule.

“There is a whole new audience out there we’ve recognized that are independent travelers that have different expectations and different needs,” Gies said.

Gies said they try to meet those expectations by offering a variety of attractions for one price so that the average visitor could spend up to eight hours on their grounds.

Historically, Gies said, the organization could predict its sales three months out because of reservations. Now it’s three weeks or less because same-day ticket sales have gone from about 20 percent a decade ago to more than 50 percent of the gate today.

“The people in this business who recognize the wave that’s coming on the front end will be able to ride it and capitalize on it,” Gies said. “The others are going to be sitting around wondering what happened.”

Click here to read about the Great Passion Play’s effect of the U.S. economy.