Hotels, restaurants near Save Mart Center hope Paul McCartney means business

In the last song ever recorded by the Beatles, Paul McCartney wrote and sang that “in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Hospitality businesses in Fresno hope the love that McCartney takes from fans will equal money to make this week as the ex-Beatle has his first ever concert appearance in Fresno at the Save Mart Center on Wednesday night.

It’s the opening show of his 2016 One on One world tour and is the only California stop on the tour. Because of that, and because it’s McCartney’s first performance in California since September 2014, the anticipation is that the show will attract fans from well beyond the San Joaquin Valley and generate spending by out-of-towners on hotel rooms and restaurant meals.

It seems like a pretty safe bet, at least on paper. Even 46 years after the Beatles broke up, McCartney remains a top concert draw worldwide. Pollstar, the Fresno-based concert industry magazine and website, reported that the septuagenarian’s 2015 portion of his Out There world tour ranked 13th among the top 100 concert tours worldwide last year. He sold nearly 500,000 tickets for 23 shows in 19 cities in 2015 and grossed an average of about $4.1 million at each stop.

Neither the city of Fresno nor the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, the Fresno Convention and Visitors Bureau nor California State University, Fresno, have analyzed any economic effects generated by concerts and other touring shows coming to the Save Mart Center. Businesses contacted did not want to share revenue details.

But there is anecdotal evidence that such major events at Fresno State’s arena – which seats between 15,000 and 18,000 people depending on the event and stage configuration – translate into additional commerce for nearby businesses.

“Save Mart Center drives big revenue for us,” said Sammy Franco, co-owner of the Beach Hut Deli, which opened last June at Campus Pointe, across the parking lot from the arena. “Concerts, basketball games, MMA events. It’s all great. Country concerts do really good for us.”

Since Monday, Franco said he has seen business from people coming into Fresno for the show, as well as road crews who will be setting up the trappings of the concert. “I expect just huge traffic on Wednesday,” he added. “It’ll probably be mostly people who grew up in the Beatles era – middle-aged and older, and that’s great for business.”

Franco spent four years working at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant on the south side of Shaw Avenue across from Save Mart Center and said that restaurant also benefited greatly when there were big events, as did the Dog House Grill next door. “You’ve got a sold-out crowd of 15,000 to 17,000 people, and they want to eat and get a drink before the show,” he said, “and inside the arena it’s very expensive.”

Also in Campus Pointe, Mad Duck Craft Brewery manager Becky Fowler said she is staffing up the restaurant for a big crowd on Wednesday, like she has for every major show since the restaurant opened in July.

“Different concerts have different types of crowds,” she said. Like Franco, Fowler is expecting an older crowd – one more likely to have wine with dinner rather than a country crowd that consumes a lot of beer, or younger patrons of teen pop concerts like the recent Justin Beiber show, for which shots of liquor were the order of the day, at least for those over 21.

Two hotels nearest the Save Mart Center and Fresno State are reporting a surge in reservations that they believe is attributable to the McCartney show.

“So far, our occupancy (for Wednesday night has) jumped from 45 percent to 60 percent now,” Minh Tran, general manager of the University Square Hotel on Cedar Avenue just south of the Fresno State campus, said Monday afternoon. “Usually the last day will show how much the event would impact the business.”

At the University Inn, directly across Shaw Avenue from the Save Mart Center, “there’s been a lot of reservations” because of the McCartney concert, desk clerk Angel Garcia said. “Whenever there’s an event across the street, it’s usually pretty busy here.”

But McCartney isn’t the only big name to play the arena, nor the only one who generates additional commerce for nearby businesses.

Since it opened in late 2003, the Save Mart Center has consistently ranked in Pollstar’s list of top 100 arena venues worldwide based on total ticket sales. Last year’s sale of nearly 160,000 tickets put the arena at No. 91 on the global Pollstar list and eighth among performing venues in California.

Johnny Harris, sales manager for the Hilton Garden Inn in Clovis, less than a mile east of the Save Mart Center, said his property already is sold out for Wednesday – not because of the show, but because it is typically filled with business travelers on Monday through Thursday evenings.

It’s on weekends when events at Fresno State trigger a meaningful increase in business from concert-goers – and occasionally from the performers and their entourages – at the Hilton Garden Inn or its sister property next door, a Holiday Inn Express.

Beiber stayed there when he performed recently at the Save Mart Center, Harris said. So did comedian Kevin Hart and country singer Carrie Underwood. Later this month, country star Luke Bryan is expected to stay there when he performs at Save Mart Center.

“They stay here because it’s convenient and they want to be nearby the Save Mart Center,” Harris said.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Hotels, restaurants near Save Mart Center hope Paul McCartney means business."