After one year of operations the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center surpassed most people’s expectations for what the facility could do for Sioux Falls.

Granted the staff will pedal hard to pull similar numbers for the facility in year two. The official attendance figure for all events at the PREMIER Center was 633,126. Rick Huffman Director of Sales and Public Relations says touring acts are looking at Sioux Falls.

“I think the stars aligned for us that first year. The reputation that we’ve got around the country now with the promoters and the artist managers is pretty good because they’ve had a good experience here. There are not a lot of big promoter houses out there. They talk and they like us. That bodes well for the future.”

Huffman says the scope of dates that were used for the first year of operation was from September 19, 2014 through September 18, 2015.

“We had some Grand Opening events before that which were not part of that count. [The attendance figure] does include private rentals, hockey and football events, the Farm Show and the Summit League tournament.”

As far as competing with other venues, Huffman says their main competition is that city a few miles south.

“Places like Fargo, [Twin Cities[ and Omaha are bigger facilities. We’re in competition with Sioux City to get acts to come here instead of there.”

One display that will be added to the attractions inside the PREMIER Center according to Huffman is a wall of specialty guitars.

“These are pink 'firefly' guitars in the shape of the breast cancer awareness ribbon. Kory Van Sickle from Kory and the Fireflies (helped with the project) and commissioned through the Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Foundation. We give one to each of the artists as a gift and we ask them to autograph one.”

The display will be unveiled on Tuesday with the guitars rotating through the exhibit as more acts perform at the PREMIER Center.

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