Features
Q’s With: Chase Center Executive Director Eric Bresler On The Arena’s Symphonic Opening
–
Chase Center presents a custom whiskey box after Dave Matthews Band’s Sept. 10 show at the new San Francisco arena. L-R with Dave Matthews are Another Planet Entertainment’s Gregg Perloff and the venue’s Ashley Williams, Eric Bresler and Kim Stone.
San Francisco’s 18,000-seat Chase Center is up and running in full swing, with an opening from hometown favorites Metallica for two special “S&M2” shows featuring the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Sept. 6 and 8 kicking off a first month that included Elton John (two dates), Dave Matthews Band, Mumford & Sons, Janet Jackson and Eric Church and still others, with big recent announcements including Billie Eilish for the teenage phenom’s recently announced arena world tour.
On opening night, Chase Center executive director and arena veteran Eric Bresler got a shout-out from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who during an intermission told the crowd:
“How fucking cool is this? We have a new, world-class arena in our back yard. Fuck yeah. I just want to thank Joe Lacob and Peter Guber and the rest of the Warriors organization, including Eric Bresler and Jennifer [Cabalquinto, Golden State Warriors CFO], who are the real reason we’re here.
“Thank you for inviting us to your San Francisco and Bay Area celebration party. There’s no other place on the planet Metallica would rather be right now than with you.”
Metallica’s two nights brought in a massive $4.13 million gross, while subsequent shows from Dave Matthews Band, Bon Iver and Janet Jackson reported sellouts too, with Jackson, on tour commemorating the 30th anniversary of Rhythm Nation, moving 12,613 tickets and grossing just under $1.6 million Sept. 21.
POLLSTAR: How did the opening go?
Eric Bresler: It was hectic but we were extremely pleased with the way everything came about – whether it was transportation infrastructure into Chase Center, operationally front-of-house, back-of-house and certainly the overall event services with Metallica and San Francisco Symphony. We could not have asked for a better opening – not only certainly from the show side of things but operationally it went as great as we could have hoped. We have an unbelievable staff that has really stepped up and delivered. Not just front of house and back of house but the entire arena operations.
When you go back-to-back-to-back, it’s hard, but everyone has gone all in. Everyone will look back at say arguably it’ll be one of the biggest moments you’ll have in your career. When you can say you opened up a world-class building in a world-class city, and look at the month of September, and all that it entailed, it’s spectacular. It tests you but in the end you look at it and say we did it.
We had no traffic. We were really, really happy. There was an extensive public transportation system put in place.
I can’t over-emphasize how big the interest and enthusiasm all these acts had for coming to San Francisco is. The support we’ve received, in this case the promoters at Live Nation, AEG, Another Planet Entertainment and certainly all the agents and managers, to have this type of opening for us is fantastic.
Venues are reliant on content and all those providers really stepped up. There’s a lot of good buzz and we’re truly excited.
How big was getting Metallica for the opening – already a major show but with a little extra buzz.
From our standpoint this was truly an event. It showcased San Francisco, it had worldwide appeal – a worldwide band with world-class musicians, and then you just the people coming just to say I was at the event.
The second show went great as well. The exciting part was that the band wanted to do the show for their fanclub.
That speaks volumes about who this band is. There was so much interest and so much buzz that they said we need to do a show just for them. That shows how they feel about their fans.
How have the arena’s state-of-the-art amenities helped so far?
The gantry system with the scoreboard retracting all the way to the ceiling, we used all of that for the opening shows because those were in the round. All the production elements were utilized, like the freight elevator that goes all the way to the catwalk.
How about some of your upcoming shows? Oprah isn’t playing just everywhere.
Picking San Francisco for one of those events is certainly great. Ticket sales have been strong and we’re excited to welcome her.
Illenium is going great. Continuing the variety of events playing the Chase Center, having EDM in the fold, it shows the attraction of San Francisco and the venue. Having our arena in the mix is terrific.
We’re really excited with what’s on the books for now. We’re going to continue to have great content coming to San Francisco and the Bay Area and certainly all of it is exciting.
In your first year, everything is new. We look at it as each night we’ve got new fans coming to Chase Center.
How about the Warriors? You’ve done just about everything other than basketball already.
Our first preseason game is Oct. 5 against the Lakers. We’ve had these concerts and other events but in a sense it’s another first opening. Operationally you have to be ready for that, too.