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Heat. [Music] One second. Press record. Recording in progress. Okay. >> Julie Braa,
Mayor Connors >> here. >> Vice Chair Hermanson >> here. >> Larry Johns. >> Alex Litres >> here. >> Mayor Medina. >> Wayne Sword >> here. John Warren
>> here. >> Chair fil the mic. got green lights. >> Wait a minute. Is that I'm sorry. You need white on your box. >> White on the box. I actually I think that it might have said muted over here.
So, okay. All right. Sorry about that. Let me uh let me just say that again. >> Okay. Were there any disclosures anyone needed to make before we get started? No. Okay. We have minutes to approve from the July 23rd, 2025
uh council meeting. Is there a motion to approve? >> I'll make a motion with one. I noticed one typo, which is page one, two, page three, third
paragraph. >> Uh top >> page >> first sentence regarding the Cocoa Beach Air Show. attendance falls below 5,01. I think that was probably intended to say 50,0001.
Put one more zero in there since they have attendance and access to 50,000. >> Yep. Got it. >> Other than that, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as presented. >> All right. We have a motion to approve
the minutes with an amendment by Tom Hermanson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> We have a second by Mayor Connors. Um, let's call the role on that >> for the minutes. >> Yes, sir.
>> Julie Braa, Mayor Connors, >> yes. >> Vice Chair Herman, >> yes. >> Alex Lford, >> yes. Wayne Thor. >> Yes. >> John Morin >> here.
>> Yes. And we'll we'll show that approved. Thank you very much. Um we'll go into Peter. Do we want to go into the presentation? >> Yes, sir. We can. Absolutely. So, um Bvard Cultural Alliance reached out to us. They are are here today um to seek
um a renewal of the contract that they had with us this past year. So that contract is up on September 30th and um they have a presentation to go through. So Katherine is here to uh to come up and uh go through her presentation.
>> Hi, thank you all for having me today. I'm Katherine Esrock. I'm the executive director at the Bvard Cultural Alliance. And um thank you for the great introduction, Peter. And I'll jump right on into our proposal um and a little bit of a report on our goals from last year
or I guess this current fiscal year's contract and um how everything is going with that as well. So um Bvard Cultural Alliance is the local arts agency for our region. Um, our job is to ensure the current and
ongoing growth of art and culture through our mission to build and sustain a vibrant and dynamic arts and cultural sector integral to Bvard County's quality of life, which looks like a lot of different things. Um, which I'll outline even more through the rest of this presentation. Uh, but the arts
generate over $123 million in Bvard County every year and employ more than 1,500 individuals. I think realistically that's a way way low number. Um but the arts support an awful lot of individuals here in Bvard County.
Um it develops our arts, we develop our arts ecosystems, advance arts education, all kinds of things and make sure that art is there for our citizens, our visitors and stable for the next generations to come. Um one of our main ways that we do that is through dynamic
placemaking. Um, our biggest thing that we do for what we would call dynamic placemaking is our art and public places program. And if you're not sure what that is, you can step out in the hallway right after the meeting and see it right there on the walls. Um, we work with member and local artists to Bard County
to um, take in their artwork. We house it, we store it, we take care of it. Um, and we work with different businesses and organizations around the county to take that artwork, curate it for exhibition and put it up in their uh build uh buildings and we rotate the artwork um two sometimes three times a
year depending on the location. So these locations get beautiful uh local artwork on their walls and they get it rotated out so there's something fresh every now and then. Their employees benefit from seeing this nice artwork. their um clients and customers benefit from
seeing it as well. And then all of the artwork is available for purchase. We sell the artwork on behalf of the artists and we pass on 75 to 80% of the sale to the artists. Um we keep a little bit of a sales fee and we have a fee with the um host organizations. It ends
up being about $100 per piece of art for the entire year. So if you have five pieces of art, you get it swapped out two times a year. That's 10 new pieces of art every year for about $500. It's a pretty great deal and it gets a lot of exposure and eyeballs on it for our artists. Um, we retain more than 900
artworks in our collection, which is a lot a lot. There are museums that don't have 900 pieces of artwork in their collection. Uh, and we work with 26 different locations to display that artwork. So, our goal for this past fiscal year for 2024 2025 was to add
three more new locations to our art and public places program, which was achieved. Um, we had now have artwork in Commissioner Alman's office, in Representative Miller's office, and at Glacier Blue Acupuncture, which is um a
local acupuncture business. We're also right now in progress with working something out with the emergency operations center for um the county and a healthcare company called Rocket Healthcare. So those are in the works as well. So achieved for the 2024 2025
fiscal year. And then for this upcoming fiscal year for the new contract, we would like to add at least another three new locations to that list as well. Um, another thing that we did with Art and Public Places this year is we did a full inventory of all of our artwork, which I
don't think has ever been done in the 50 years of Bvard Cultural Alliance. We couldn't find any paperwork on it from the past. And it took us over a week to go through all of it, make sure everything was where we thought it was, and it is. Everything's accounted for. But, um, that was a big project this
year. And you can see a couple of examples of some of our artwork. This was at the Space Coast Office of Tourism, I believe towards the beginning of this year. I think it's been swapped since then, but those are some pieces that have been on display for an example there.
Um, our next um big overarching thing that we do is inspiring next generations. We do this through mostly through our school programs. We work with the Bvard public schools and the Bvard schools foundation to put on a couple of different types of programs um for inspiring our youth to look towards
the arts as a career and kind of help fight the idea and the stereotype of the starving artist. You can be an artist and you can live well. Also um our big programs with the um schools are our next generation artist residencies where um local professional
artists do different dropins throughout the school year in classrooms. They work with the kids to develop a um an art project and they perform it or display it at the end of the year for their family and friends. It shows them the full creative process from start to
finish and puts an adult that is succeeding and thriving in an art career in their classrooms so they can see that as well. Um another program that we have are arts clubs. Those are in middle schools as an afterchool art program. If a teacher is willing to spend a little bit of their extra time after school, we
are willing to um help provide some supplies and some lessons and a little bit of pay for them to stay around after school, keep the kids interested in art and out of trouble and have some nice additional outlet to put into that. Um so that's in six different middle
schools across the county at the moment. Um, our other big program is teacher professional development. And you can see a couple of pictures here from professional development workshops that we did this past year. Um, where we had some professional um, teachers of teachers that came in and taught
workshops to a group of over 50 teachers who were able to take these lessons back to their classrooms and some of the clinicians were able to go into the schools and also do workshops and clinics with the students. Uh for the 2024 2025 school year, we did
two full day professional development workshops for teachers um with classroom visits like I said from those um professional development folks which impacted 2,000 students directly and another 9,000 plus indirectly um impacted by that professional
development. So our goal for 2024 2025 was to raise at least $25,000 to help support our educational programming. typically we're pretty reliant on the state cultural grants and as you know this past fiscal year those were not done at all. uh that funding got
absorbed into something else and so we made up that gap in that funding we typically have through a private foundation and then for the 2025 2026 school year our goal is to provide um professional development at 8 to 10 Bvard public schools um again to enhance
teacher curriculum and teachers instructional skills to improve student outcomes. Our next main category of uh impact is connecting the dots. So making connections between different art and cultural organizations um government
organizations, government uh service members and individuals from the public, um tourists, all that to make sure that everybody is as connected as possible so they can find these arts resources that they may be looking for. Uh we have
directories on our website that feature artists, venues, events, organizations, all kinds of things. I make an awful lot of connections through emails and in meetings and personally to get the right people, the right resources that they need. Um, and we are working on seeking
out always new benefits and things for our members uh so that they have the resources and supplies that are available to them that they may need. Um, here is a little screenshot of our BCA web calendar. We have thousands and thousands of events on this web calendar
at all times. We try to publish and share things on our social media as often as we can and anytime someone's looking for something to do, I point them directly to our calendar. There is something for everybody. Um, for 2024 2025, our goal was to
reorganize our membership program. Um, it definitely needed a reorganization and some new diverse benefits and we're in the final process for approving that. It's our current membership structure is written into our bylaws, oddly enough. So, we have to change our bylaws in
order to change the membership structure. Um, so we're in the final phases of that and we have included um we've split out our artist membership option. It was originally just an individual artist membership and now we have an option for emerging artists versus established artists with
different benefits for those two groups of folks. And we didn't have any option for people who just wanted to support the arts in some way, shape, or form. So, we've worked on three new membership levels for arts enthusiasts, arts advocates, and a patron circle with behind the scenes exclusive benefits and
all kinds of fun, you know, extra things that you get to do. So, our goal for the 2025 2026 fiscal year will be to fully implement that new membership structure and increase our overall membership by it sure does cut off on that uh slide,
but by 5%. That's our um our goal there. Um, our next category is engaging forward. So, this is um beyond just connecting folks and resources and arts back and forth to each other. Um, reaching out to the community and reaching out to these arts organizations
to try and make new fantastic things happen. So, for 2024, 2025, all of that and that blue square, those were our goals. All have been achieved or exceeded. Um our goals were to deliver at least 10 speaking engagements on
cultural arts which uh included speaking engagements with leadership for art sessions uh the opening of the Space Coast Creative Center, several local Rotary clubs, Willie May's art blast which is a radio show and many many more. Um so those were fun and
interesting all checked off the list there. Um, the next goal was to gain a board seat on one additional board for myself. And as of the writing of this report, that was still waiting on the response. I got the call the next morning that I've been voted on to the
Greater Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce board. So, number three, check and done. Um, the other two are a um an EDC reporting board and the Space Coast Science Center where I am the secretary and you'll definitely be hearing more
about that. uh pretty soon I think. Um so that has been achieved. The next goal was to produce at least 10 episodes of True Colors on the Space Coast, which is our podcast that features new emerging artists um that are local to Bvard County. Uh as of
right now, we have done seven episodes and we have three more scheduled, one for August and two for September. So those will be upcoming. So far, out of those seven episodes, we've gotten 6,300 views, and we're expecting another two to 3,000 probably to come from these
last three episodes. Um, our next goal was to provide four workshops or info sessions on grants for cultural organizations and artists. We actually have done seven. We started doing a monthly Zoom office hours call, and those have gone very, very well.
It's a little different every time. It's truly just an open forum for people to ask questions or um bounce ideas off of each other. They can ask questions of me and our um our current uh finance chair for the board of BCA who is a
professional grant writer. We've had folks who are volunteering who have never written a grant before and are interested in it. They have no idea where to start and we can give them a quick run through of tips and tricks and what to look for. Um, and we've even had professional grant writers or people who are grant writers for their
organizations come and share their wisdom and their information and knowledge and ask some questions, workshops, some things that they're putting into grants, all kinds of stuff. So, they've been quite successful. Um, and we've had 13 total attendees so far and we plan to continue to have them every single month. It's been great so
far. Our next goal was to table at four public or tourism events to promote the arts and member organizations. So, we've tabled this year at St. Catherine's Greek Festival and we also provided um art making activities for kids and some adults. Um that was fantastic. That's
the second year we've done it and I think it will be an annual partnership. It's gone very very well. We also tabled at Eastern Florida State College volunteer fair days and a space swap Earth Day event where they were swapping clothing to reduce clothing waste.
So that is all done there. And then our final goal was to um or well we were also helping Satellite Beach source um local artwork to add to some vinyl wraps around utility boxes. That has been done. So keep your eyes peeled. And Satellite Beach, if you see a beautiful
electric box, that's some local artwork. Uh and then our final goal was to work with the county commissioners to assist in different art and culture projects in their districts. I've met with each of the commissioners individually at least once uh to discuss their priorities in their districts and Commissioner Felner
and I have worked on a couple of initiatives together um including maybe some ideas for a mural somewhere in the government center to liven it up a bit too. So all of those for this past fiscal year have been achieved and our goals
for the 2025 2026 fiscal year are very similar but we're increasing some of those numbers and adding a couple of extra events at the end there. So again another 10 speaking engagements on cultural arts produce another 10 episodes of True Colors on the Space
Coast. Uh provide 12 workshops or info section sessions on grants for cultural organizations. That monthly Zoom workshop has been fantastic and we may even expand from there. Uh but I think 12 is we can at least do one a month um
with those Zoom workshops. Uh table at five public or tourism events. I'd love to see that be even more than five but like to do at least one more. Uh and then everything well that next point is additional. So host 12 art and public places openhouse events. That's
something new that we've started doing this year. We have had um what was my number? I think we've had four three of those so far. Three. We've had three of them so far. Um and it has been fantastic. We've
had a total of 38 attendees with great feedback. We um all we're doing there is opening our doors to the public after hours from 5 to 6:30. the second Thursday of every month after our art and public places approval committee meets, they approve all of the new artwork that's been brought in for that
program over the course of the last month. So, it's fresh new artwork to BCA and to the program. We display it on our walls and we invite the artists, their families, friends, members of the public, whoever would like to come by to come and see our brand new artwork. And people have been coming at the very
beginning. They stay the entire time. and we've seen some interesting new projects and partnerships that have come out of those um events. So, our goal is to have one of those every month next year over the next year. Uh we would like to continue to work with the county
commissioners to assist in more art projects for their districts as they see fit. And then the next three are new or additional events that we have uh plans for. So, we are planning to host a studio crawl. We're calling it the cultural crawl. That'll be October 11th.
We've got 14 studios that are interested in participating um where they've just agreed to be open at the same time on the same day. We're producing a map and a bunch of marketing for this event and putting that out there to have people go to as many as they possibly can. We've
got locations ranging from Titusville all the way to Barefoot Bay. So, right at the very very end of the county, we've got folks everywhere um that are participating in this and we're hoping that it goes swimmingly and we see a great attendance and if it goes well,
we'd like to have another one in the spring, maybe around spring break time to capitalize on extra visitation and uh push more folks into those studios. Then our next new event that we're working on is an art resources fair that
we plan to host in spring of 2026 for artists and cultural organizations to table with information about their events, offerings, all the things that they have going on. Um, so if anybody visiting or local wants information about art and culture in Bvard County,
that's the place to go is go to a whole big convention and pick up all the information you've ever wanted to know about painting, photography, dancing, you name it. If if it's here, we would love to have it at this event. Um, and then the final thing is to host our
bienial cultural summit for fall 2026, which provides professional development and networking opportunities for Bvard County artists and organizations. So, we do that every other year. This is an off year, and we have big plans for this next upcoming year.
Um, so to make all of these programs, initiatives, and partnerships possible, BCA is requesting $217,000 for the 2025 2026 fiscal year along with our own revenue streams and support from other organizations, individual
citizens, and this investment from Bvard County and the tourism development council, we can achieve these goals and more. Um, the arts enlighten our lives with beauty, emotion, and understanding. They cultivate a sense of identity and belonging. foster creativity and innovation and promote social
interaction. All things necessary to a vibrant region attracting investment from visitors, residents, and industry. And together we shine brighter with Bvard Cultural Alliance as a beacon to ensure um continued arts and cultural vibrancy in Bvard County.
Thank you very much. And I'm open to any questions that you >> questions for Catherine >> or comments. Can you remind us what's your total expense and revenue budget for this fiscal and then what are you projecting for next? >> I actually have um some copies of our
budget if you guys would like that if you would like a paper to look at. I brought those with me. >> Sure. >> Sure. Um we do not have a um a final um
proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Our annual meeting to approve that is in September, but it should look pretty similar to this. I don't think the numbers will change too too much. >> That with you all in a second. >> I have a question. >> Yes. >> Thank you.
>> For the event on October 11th, how are you communicating to visitors and tourists about the event? Um, we are communicating with visitors and tourists through social media campaigns and we're also we just finalized our number of studios that are
in on this. So, we're making a big handout with a map and all of the details and information. We'll be distributing those to those studios and asking them to hand out the information to anybody who's coming in. Um, we would love to bring it by any hotels that would be happy to have it to hand out to
their uh their guests. um anywhere and everywhere that we can get these flyers handed out to is perfect. Um so between that and our social media pages, um we've had a couple offers for radio shoutouts that we could do as well. So any any ideas or any other revenues or
not revenues paths that we could go down avenues? There we go. Couldn't come up with the word. Any other avenues that we could go down to advertise it were open to that as well. >> Well, I think it sounds neat and we'd love the information. >> Excellent. I will add you to our list. Thank you.
>> Um, so for the question of what does our budget typically look like here? So this these are our actuals and then our total budget for this fiscal year that we're in, which ends for us at the end of September. And these numbers for the actuals are through July. Um, that's
what's been most recently reviewed by our board. So overall for our income this year we were budgeting and projecting for $360,725 and so far we're at $343,093. So we're under by about $17,000 which again these are from July so that will
be surely made up by then. Um and then for total expenses we are projecting 398,737 and then so far as of July have spent $332,732. So about $66,000 under that expected expenditure as of July. So again we
should be about on track with these things by the end of September. >> Other questions for Katherine? >> Mr. Chair, >> Mayor Connors, >> uh what events, promotional activities,
uh schools you've been at in terms of the events that you uh broke down, which ones of them took place north of 528? >> Out of the events that we host or out of the events that we have attended? >> Well, whatever. I mean, you talked about
going into schools, so I'm assuming that's an event that you guys are hosting or attending. That is an ongoing program that happens pretty consistently in schools and those um the middle school art clubs, those are spread out all across the county. There are at
least two that are in Titusville or Coco that are up north. Um they're typically Title One schools that get to participate in this. And then the professional development workshops, I believe, were both in Satellite Beach just because it's central with the goal
that Hopefully, it's easier for everybody to get there. Um, and that's the school that we were able to work it out with to host there. >> Okay. Thank you. >> By the way, I think we each need to turn our mic on and off with the, you know, just because you see the green
light doesn't necessarily mean it's on. The the mic button over here. Okay. Um, >> white lights is on. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, >> it's not on. >> Yeah. >> Like my white lights are on, but mic is not on. >> Okay. All right, other questions for
Katherine. No, I um now do you get tables at the art shows? So when like the ones that are in Wickham Park and >> Well, I have >> downtown Melbourne or any of those kinds of things? >> So far, we have not, but that's in my plans for this year is to have um tables
at all of those events. >> I I would think that's uh the place where you'll find artists, right? >> Yes. Big time. Big time. >> Okay. Any any other questions for Katherine? Um and then Peter, any
anything else we need to do on this? You have an action item on there, right? >> Yes, sir. We do need a vote uh to make the recommendation on the 217,000 and then that'll go to the board for final approval. >> Okay. Discussion on on that first. Is
there any discussion on the money that they're requesting? I think uh based on that presentation and its detail, it's easy to see that uh the BCA does a tremendous amount of work uh with a u a very limited budget. Uh I think cultural
outreach especially in the education um and the schools is probably the highest and best values obviously as well as sharing um art installations around the county. So, for uh a relatively modest sum of $217,000,
I think the county is getting a good value. And I will make a motion to approve the request as presented. >> Okay. Real quick, any other discussion on that before we vote? Okay. Have a motion uh by Tom Hermanson for to
approve the $217,000 request. Is there a second? >> Second. Second by Julie Braa. We'll call the role. >> Julie Braa. >> Hi. >> Mayor Connor. >> Yes. >> Vice Chair Hermanson.
>> Yes. >> Alex Litress. >> Yes. >> Wayne Sor. >> Yes. >> John Mo. >> Yes. >> And chair. >> Yes. Congratulations. Thanks, Katherine. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Okay.
Okay, Peter. >> Very good. Thank you. Um, we're gonna move uh into a couple of different presentations that I have. But just quickly before we get into that, um,
wanted to mention, uh, I'm going out on a limb and I'm going to say from a tourist development tax collection perspective, uh, we're going to have our best summer ever. Um, our previous summers, our last three summers were all
about 64, 6.15, and 6.17 million. And we're going to break through looks like 6.2 million for this summer. So, um, you know, good good news from that perspective. We obviously we don't have actuals in for
July or August yet, but uh, just looking ahead at STR reports and various other reports that we use to do projections. uh looks very very strong. So we'll we'll come back um obviously in about a month and month and a half and give the
final final numbers, but that's kind of what we're looking like for the summer. So feeling good about that. Okay, so we're going to move into a couple different presentations. Um the first one is the budget. It's the smaller packet in front of you and then I'll
also put it up on the screen. Um, so we're going to I'm going to try to go through quickly, but obviously stop me if there are questions. Uh the first slide is just kind of what you know these are uh numbers from from past
years and I like to I always like to show this on the slide because it shows the growth but you know if you go back to 1617 we were in that 13 thou $13 million range and then we've kind of jumped up in 2019 and 2018 2019 and uh
cracked through the 16 million uh then of course in 20 we all know what happened with COVID kind of a little a dip back down there. But since that time, pretty much since 21, we've been on on a pretty nice tra trajectory. Um the last two years,
breaking through the 25 million. You know, we were 25 1.5 million and 23 and 25 and a/4 million and 24. We're projecting right now 26 million. We believe we'll break that. We'll we'll see if we can break through that number.
That'd be pretty exciting if we could, but um it looks right now looks that way. So, we're we're pretty pleased with that. And then next year's, uh budget, uh revenue budget is 27 million. So, again, continuing to kind of stretch
stretch that number and we'll see see how we do there with, you know, a lot of new hotel properties in in the market. That certainly could could assist us. Um, vacation rentals continue to be about a third of the collection and hotels are about 2/3. So, uh, the the
new hotel room inventory is going to probably be the major factor to help us with that. And then, uh, before I get into each one of these funds, just as a reminder, um, a lot of this is dictated, a lot of our funding is dictated by state statute and
by county ordinance. In other words, the state statute kind of tells us what we can spend our money on and then the county ordinance sort of tells us how we how to bucket those funds. So, it gives us a specific to percentages of the revenue that have to go to each of these
funds. And then, you know, we're authorized by the state statute to collect administration costs. So, those are costs for my staff and various other operational costs that we have. And we pull that from each of the different funds that we have. So you can see here
this is the revenue. It's coming from um those different you know 1441 through 1448 basically are the are the buckets that get um tax allocated to it and we pull a little bit from each of those. And of course then we also have some
carry forward and interest. And so that comes up to just short of 2.3 million. And then if you look at the um next slide on uh page three in your presentation um this is how it's spent. So uh
compensation and benefits um able to hold them pretty strong. I mean we're at 1.65 million last year. We're moving up to 1.7. Some of that's dictated by the county. We've got expenses related to benefits, FRS, things like that that we
have to build into there, but tried to hold those pretty steady this year. Um, but then some of our operating uh expenses um go up, our rent goes up, it's on an escalator, uh things like that. And then
uh and then of course then we are allocated uh by the from the county finance. we're allocated a piece of the county's expenses and so that we don't have any control over that. So, so that's how we get to the 2.3 million. So, that's uh that's our administration
budget and then now we'll just move into some of our uh each of those different funds that um that actually get bucketed TDT. So, the first one is beach improvement um allocation
uh 6.75 million. Uh we have some interest in there. We also have balance forward. A big part of that balance forward were funds that were owed to us from FEMA that came in this past year. We're still waiting for some funds. We're not fully there yet as far as
collection of all the funds that that are due us, but we got a a pretty big uh trunch of that um this year, which is good. Uh so 36 million. And then on the expense side, you can see how it breaks down. We've
got um various beach projects that we have to fund. Right now, we're putting 13 million into those. Not all of that will get spent next fiscal year. Some of that will get will be um some of it is sort of post expenses that we have for
projects that we did previously and then some of it is just holding for projects that we're going to have in the next couple of years. And then the the South Beaches project at 11.586 million that is going to happen next year. That's a big project that's going
on and um we need to do we need to do that work. That's uh something that we try to do every three or four years and um we have a lot of a lot of you know issues down in the south beaches with them being more narrow beaches. So trying to get those projects uh get that
project done before any major storms hit us. Um and then we have various other uh items that we have expenses for. The IRL grant uh program was not in effect last year. Uh so we didn't have any grants to
fund this year, but there was an award to the Derelike Vessel program and uh and keepard beautiful which was sort of designated as an IRL grant program. So those two things come out of that budget. That's 247. Um, we also pay
for the natural resources um, beach uh, administration budget. Um, that's Mike and his team and all all the work that he does. That's 46 a little under 417. Um, of course, Lori Wilson Park has been
designated a park for that is uh, under the tourism office and so we pay for the maint maintenance of that. That's a 253 slight escalator there. Um, and then reserves. We bumped our reserves up to 10 million um from 8.85. Again, using
some of those funds from uh from FEMA that we we got, we were able to put a little bit more into those reserves. So, uh just as a reminder, when we did have uh that year with bad storms, we we burned through about $18 million of our
budget pretty quickly. So, uh, you know, not to minimize the amount of money that's in that budget, but just to point out that it only takes one bad year, uh, to to kind of, uh, hurt us. So, we're, you know, we feel good about going into
next year, but always cautious when, uh, when we're still in the middle of hurricane season. So, that's how we got to the 36. Moving on to capital facilities. So that's um on the next page.
Capital facilities is 35% of the first two cents. Um just under 3.8 million is our projection for revenue. A little bit of earned interest in there. Um our balance forward is beginning, you know, slowly going down because we're we're spending,
you know, those projects that have been previously awarded and previously designated are have been spent down. So, you know, getting under 10 million now in carry forward. Um, we'll have by next year we should have a couple of other of
those projects finished up. So, that number will be even lower as we go into the following year. And then you see on the expense side, um, what's available for capital projects, it's still a pretty small amount. Probably not really going to
reach a good enough number to have a grant program. Obviously, we'll we'll talk about that as we get into our next uh next cycle, uh probably in January, but um 247 the capital projects that are projects either in process or projects
that have not yet begun but are but are designated or holding funds for for an ex, for example, Bright Line um station was awarded 5 million. That's part of that 9.38. So, um you know, that right there would
obviously once that uh project moves forward, um you know, they're waiting to hear some some things about that, but once that project moves forward, then then they're able to to access those funds on a reimbursement basis. Um and then some debt service, capital
reserves, etc. make up the remaining 12.3 million. Okay. Uh VIC. So this is uh not only operations of our visitor information center but um also this uh pays for
really anything that touches the visitor, our uh website, our app. Um we have electronic kiosk um located at the visitor center. Um our vacation guides uh participation in visit Florida's vacation guide. All of those things are
all part of this program. Uh TDT allocation. It's only 10% of the third cent. So, it's 540,000. We have a little bit of balance forward uh for 524. And then you can see uh we have uh one we have 1.5 FTEES there full-time person
and then a part-time that does the weekends. Uh so we're open seven days a week. Um and then the operating expenses there. And then also the um we also have a grant program for the four chambers of
commerce in the county that operate uh their own visitor centers. Th that uh that 100,000 gets divvied up uh four ways. So 25,000 each to help them in their operations and their program to do outreach to uh to visitors. So this is
really truly a visitor centric budget if you will. But that's that's 524. Next is cultural. Uh so we just talked a little bit about one piece of the cultural which is the BCA contract. Um we'll have to make some adjustments based on where the board finally uh
approves, but we have a little over a million uh 1.08 in um revenue. That's 10% of the first two pennies. Then we do have some balance forward that's coming forward for for this year. Um so net
nets out about 792. Um we have you see the BCA that was 202. That's what they had this past year. So we'll have to bump that up to 217 if um the board so chooses to do that. Um and
then the MSP grant program, that's the new marketing support program grant. those were just awarded by the board um last month. So, all of that was pretty much spent with maybe some exceptions. We have to we have to wait and see.
There's still um some district awards that the uh county commission districts are able to award of 100,000 that we haven't seen yet what's going to get awarded. So, we'll have to we'll have to take a look at that and see what um is
finally used. That's going to come to uh the board in October. Um and then uh other than that um you know some opportunistic funds there uh 58,000 um it says slifeguards there was 250,000
uh and you I'll show you where it is in a minute. um that was in this budget that's being transferred for lifeguards is going into the marketing budget uh out of this budget. So that pretty much, you know, there's a little bit of uh opportunity funds, but not a lot in
there uh anymore. So that that is a budget that's been spent down pretty significantly over the last couple of years. Um the zoo, it's a it's a straight up 25% of the third penny. So this is a pass through. this goes uh goes to the
finance department and the finance department cuts them a check every month. Um so that's uh straight through to them. Uh 1.18 million that they will get next year. Uh they use that typically for capital
projects. Then we have the stadium maintenance fund. Um, usually we're by ordinance we're supposed to keep about 300. I think it's 340 that the ordinance says that this is 351. So, we just keep a little bit extra in there, but it's
right around the 340 350 mark every year um that we use for various projects and maintenance that they do that is supporting capital expenses. So, it has to it can't just be any kind of expense that they get reimbursement on. it it
has to be um something that's specific to supporting the the capital uh elements of of the stadium. So work on the fields, work on the building, work on the roof, things like that. And then
um the capital fund um we no longer as the TDC as part of the contract have to put in 250,000. first five years we put in 250 um but they have to put in 250 for 10 years. So that gets added to the fund this year
and that uh right now we've got about 2.7 in there for uh any renovations and enhancements and I can tell you the projects that they're looking at are going to far exceed that. So uh that's something at some point will have to come before the probably the board um to
determine how to how to fund projects that they they want funded. But that's that's the situation with that fund. And then marketing, of course, we're going to go into uh pretty detailed review in a in a minute, but this is
just the the marketing fund. Um we get marketing from different uh sources. So, it's um 25% of the first two pennies, 100% of the fifth penny, and then after
um we use the funds that I talked about for the stadium that were required by contract, the rest of that gets swept here. So, after the 350, that remaining amount gets swept here. So, that that adds up to about 12 million. And then we have a balance forward of about 1.2.
Um and then you can see uh some of the other expenses they've taken out. The net is going to be 13 million and a and some change. Um also then I as I mentioned there were uh two places where
money for lifeguards is being transferred in and then ultimately will get paid out. It's 250,000 from cultural and then the remaining amount comes from the capital fund. It's about 800 something thousand for capital. So that's that total uh budget is 14.4 but
realistically it's a net of about 13 million. And then how that's going to get spent on the next slide is 12 million um for promotional marketing uh media relations uh software that we have to uh buy to to run some of our
advertising campaigns. um sports marketing uh of which um 240,000 of that sports marketing number uh is part of the MSP program that I mentioned earlier. So half a million from cultural and 240 comes from the sports program
and of course that provides um $15 a room night in incentives for sports programming. So that's important to have uh to try to drive that that line item. and then other obviously then some other expenses in there to match up with that
13 million. Um this is another way to look at it by district. So this goes back a couple of years where uh district 2 which includes Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral and the port get 50% of the marketing um and then the
other four districts get um get the the remaining 50% get split between them. So that's what that looks like. Um that's netted down to 11.8. 8 because uh we're holding back 700,000 based on um the reduction and carry
forward. We only had 1.2 million. We had originally thought we were going to have 1.9. Uh but since we're not hitting our revenue, original revenue for this fiscal year of 27 million, it's going to be 26 million. I had to hold some money back here for that uh just to just as a
holdback. Now, if that things improve and we get, you know, on track for more than 27 million this year, then some of those funds can be reallocated. Um, and then I mentioned the allocation of the 500,000 from cultural that got gets pulled out as well since that's not
something the districts can spend uh on this anyway. And then we also have in 1444, we also have an emergency fund if we did have some kind of storm event or other kind of event that would affect us. and we needed to go out with a quick marketing
program or campaign. Um, we've, you know, had some money put aside for that. So, that's uh one point a little over 1.4 million. So, I know it was really fast. Uh, happy to answer any questions and then uh then
Mr. Chair, we'll need a no vote on that. >> Can you speak just briefly on how do we earn interest? How does how's that happen? How's it? >> So, all of our funds are part of the count are part of the county fund. So, they're all amassed at the um with the
finance department and uh that's uh um managed up in Titusville. They hold all the funds. They put them into different instruments that are designated as very safe instruments. We have to be liquid because we're part of you know these are all of these funds are really
operational funds. So they have to stay in some kind of liquid uh instrument. Um usually tea bills things like that. Um so you know usually the the interests are couple of percent depending on what what T bills are floating up.
>> I was just looking at it and uh I'm sorry >> I think maybe your mic's not on possibly there. >> Is the three lights supposed to be on? I I think three are supposed to be on >> testing. >> Yeah. >> Okay, >> I got you. Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I was talking to um Chairman
Felner about the It's hard to tell because I don't know what the average balance is, but the the the interest income on some of these balances is shockingly low. So, you can invest across the board in
um government T bill secured money market funds in excess of 4%. And there isn't a single interest income line on any of those funds that even come closest to 1%. >> And part and we this question came up last year and uh actually think Larry JS
asked that question and I pursued it with the finance department and not all of our funds can get invested all the time because they have to stay liquid and there's a there's a whole formulary to how they do it. Maybe at some point
I'll have the person who who actually is responsible for that come and speak to the the committee because it's come up a couple of times. >> Mark at the >> It is. It's Mark Peterson. Yeah. Okay. >> I think it's a county, not just a TDC fund. We're a small >> Yeah. We're a piece of the bigger
county. We're just part of all of their aggravated aggregated funds. So, yeah. >> To see the county not investing and getting an interest on these hundreds of millions of dollars we're sitting on. I I I don't you're not wrong uh to to have
to have that um to be thinking that. How about how about we have we'll see if we can have Mark come to the next uh meeting and then he could address that for everybody. Is that >> I I I so for my benefit I I wouldn't want to burn Mark's time. Again, ours is
just a small piece and a what a $2 billion budget. uh as a county commissioner, I would I would want to see how they're uh getting even a money market return for uh for all of the county's funds. I I do meet with them for better part of uh a couple of hours
and and they do go through things line by line, but u I'm not a finance person and he we could certainly have him come and explain if I I don't I don't think they'd be against that if if we're interested next month possibly. I I for
the interest discussion, I don't know that it's um thank you for the offer, but I don't know that he needs to come to this committee. I I I'd be interested to go to a commission meeting to see what kind of average rate of return they're getting on the cash funds of the
county. Uh >> let me let me talk to Mark and see see what's what we can make available. >> Maybe an email to us or something to >> Okay, that probably would be easy. >> Yeah. And I think there was an email response that I provided last year as well, but yeah, it' be good for him to
update that for us. >> See what the current situation is. >> Money never sleeps. Gordon Gecko. [Music] [Laughter] >> Now, was that the first movie or the second one? It had to have been the first. Yeah, the the original.
>> Uh, Mayor Connors. >> Oh, I was just signifying that was the first movie. >> Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. Thought that >> we did have something. Uh called on me. Uh fund 1445. Uh the visor information center. >> Yes, sir. >> Um you know, as
>> costs keep going up around the county, I think, you know, 25 grand each chamber. It's kind of tough to run those visitor information centers. So, I don't know if it'd be worth looking at um by me bumping that up. Uh looks like we spent a little bit more last year than what
we're projected spending this year. Um, so it' be my recommendation that, you know, we maybe gave each uh visitor or chamber visitor center 50,000 a grant instead of 25. Uh, cuz some of the best marketing is local, especially as you
guys try to or as we try to mass market to everybody across the county, it's kind of hard to do. Uh, so maybe that that would be helpful, but that would be a recommendation of mine. >> Okay. Yeah. I um again I don't believe this come this coming fiscal that would
be possible but certainly as we look at our budget growing um if that's an interest of the TDC that we look at um funding more for that for that grant program. It's been it's been at uh 25,000 per chamber for as long as I've
been here. So um you know as the budget grows we certainly can take a look at that if that's something the TDC would like. I'd defer to the to the committee to give us some direction on that maybe for the next the next round of uh of our marketing uh budget plan. Sorry for uh
maybe 27 as we look at that. >> I I'll comment Peter just in support of Mayor Connor's. I mean it's 72 mile long county is is very hard and those visitor centers are a great way to directly connect with the tourists and give them information. So, just as well as I think
that the the one on 520 is is well situated and appointed, um they serve those areas that are not as central. >> Yeah. Yeah. And they they do a great job. They do. It's just, you know, question of funding really.
But that's certainly something we can take a look at as we get as we have additional dollars come into that account. I have any other questions for Peter? Okay. Any any discussion? >> I'd just like to thank Peter for making
that as interesting as possible. Thank you, Peter. >> Short of tap dancing. >> Okay. Any other discussion on that? >> Okay. Uh and we do need a a vote on this, Peter. >> Yes, sir.
>> That's right. Okay. Is there is there a motion? >> I'll motion to approve the budget presented. >> Okay. Have a motion by Julie. Is there a second? >> Second. >> I don't know why he's pointing at you. Uh a second by Mayor Connor. We'll call
the role. >> Julie Rocka. >> I. >> Mayor Connor. >> Yes. >> Vice Chair Hson. >> Yes. >> Alex, >> yes. >> Wayne, >> yes. >> John Warren, >> yes.
>> Yes. And we'll show that adopted. Okay. Okay. Well, Julie, if you thought this was interesting, we're going to now step it up a little bit and get into the marketing plan. Um, you have little notebooks in front of you. Um, Laura is
going to try to keep up with me as I I'm going to go through this section by section as, you know, efficiently and quickly as I can, but I'm uh please stop me if there's something that is of interest. I'm going to hit just highle summaries. Um the marketing committee
reviewed this. They they approved it um last week. Um this will go to the board on the 16th for approval. Um there's a lot of there's a lot of detail in here. Um for those that have been on the TDC for a while, it follows a similar format
as past uh past two years, but um I think there's some new things that are of interest that I'll stop and talk a little bit about. Um the first section is budget. So you can kind of skip past that cuz we just did that. Um and if you wouldn't mind and the next section is on
starts on page eight and nine. It's called the day tripper study we did. Um last year if you remember there was a visitor study that we did a full-blown overnight visitor study that was part of the the marketing plan last year. Since
then, we decided, you know, we we got a lot of data on overnights, but we wanted to look at at day trippers and um day trippers are, you know, often maligned. They're, you know, it's often thought they go to the beach and, you know, they
buy their uh, you know, drinks and and food at Publix and they don't spend a lot of money while they're here. Uh, we wanted to understand that. And if you look at slide 13, um it shows that the visit the vis
typical day visitor spends $239 a day. Uh party the party spends $763 a day. So not insignificant amount of money. And when you think about what that mix of day trippers is compared to the overnights
um you know it could be as high as 40% of people coming um come for the day. So that that's a significant amount of money. More importantly we wanted to look at what's the potential with this market segment. And if you look on uh
slide um 15 at the top of slide 15 says three out of four day visitors indicated they were likely or very likely to have an overnight stay on their next visit to the space coast. So converting those people to overnights. We were always wondering well how many of them just
stay day trippers and that's all they do. Well three4s of them told us that they were very likely or likely to to come and stay overnight. So, I I think keeping them in mind, it just helps inform us and just give us the sense that uh this is a market that we don't
want to abandon. Um I will say over the last couple of years, we've probably reduced a little bit of our media spend in Orlando thinking that most of Orlando are day visitors. uh I don't think we want to reduce it much more because I think it's obviously it looks like it is
an important uh segment from both in terms of what they spend but also in terms of their future potential. Um a couple of other studies that are in here related to space I'll point to uh page 17. Um interesting this was something a
piece of work that Anne Bar had done uh for us. Uh they they went out and just wanted to look at perceptions of space in general. Uh, interestingly, Cape Canaveral, uh, ranks up there with Houston as the most associated with leading space exploration.
Um, and then as far as states, Florida, Texas, California, and DC, uh, are in there. So, we're we're obviously in there when people are thinking about it. Um 61% felt that marketing is extremely effective at capturing consumer interest
and um 62% said they would be more likely to buy brands that support space. And then ultimately 65% would be more likely to visit a destination that features space in its advertising. So um I guess we're doing the right thing by having uh some elements of space in you
know not necessarily all of our marketing but at least in some of our marketing as we go forward and look at different creative executions. So an important important finding there and then the uh then we just did we I had been asked by this actually by the space industry what impact in terms of visitor
spending does do rocket launches have and so what we did was we went back and dug deep into the um visitor study the overnight visitor study we had done and pulled out people that had said their primary reason for visiting was um a
launch and and I just to see what those people look like. And if you look on page 21, um it was it looks very good. Their average length of stay is almost five nights. They also spend about $231 a day, about $3,100
per party because they stay multiple days. Um so, uh that's actually higher than the average overnight person. So that's a very uh you know significant number to to say um that they're you know they're coming here. They're not
just coming for the launch. Those people that are staying overnight are really making a vacation out of it and they're spending a lot of money. Um the next piece of research that we need to do is understand um if they were coming for like a major what I would call a major launch like a
crude launch or um something related to you know a moon launch something like that. what does that look like versus just an average everyday Falcon 9 going up and putting, you know, putting satellites up there. And um we're going to do that piece of research in the
fall. And that's going to help complete kind of our real look, a full 360 look at uh at what uh people do when they come here for launches and how to maybe estimate what what their impact could be from a visitor spending perspective. Um,
keep rolling through on page 24. Just a little bit about uh inventory and room night um information. You know, we grew uh this past year. It's first time we've grown in a while. We're over 11,269 rooms now. Um that has obviously had
some impact on TDT that we can tell. Um and then we we've got future properties over the next couple of years uh continuing to open up. Um when we looked at room night demand, you know, we were down a little bit last year from the compared to the year before in 23, but
we are up in 24 compared to 20 uh to 23. Sorry, we were up in 2022 and then we dropped a little bit in 23 and now in 24 we're up a little bit. So, you know, 4.4% that's pretty good. If you look at the next slide, it compares
us to our um our uh competitive set uh we you know we grew less than 1% but if you look at what happened with the other um destinations you know were right in the in that pocket with the others um the only one that was an anomaly which I
would ignore basically is Daytona because they what happened was they had a lot of the year before they had a lot of inventory taken out of the market because of um storms. So, a lot of their hotels were shut down. Those opened back up last year. So, that's why they're
they're up as much as they are, but that's not that has no reflection on marketing or anything else. So, uh but other than that, you know, it looks like we're we're hanging in there pretty well with with other uh destinations. Vacation rental wise, I mentioned that
they would represent a third of our uh tax collections. current inventory is over 9,000 uh 6,000 in Airbnb and 3,000 in VBO. Obviously, we know there's a lot of overlap there. So, we use we use the 6,000 as kind of the probably the the
marker. Um, we did see some uh flattening in their occupancy. The occupancy dropped a little bit, but their ADRs went up. So, kind of almost net net when you get to a a revar for them. uh but you know obviously still an
important segment for us from a from a tax collection perspective. Next we're going to move into strategic considerations. Not a ton changed on a strategy side. I'll mention a couple of things and then when we dig into some of the uh meat and
potatoes of the of the plan, you'll see how it how it change changes what we're executing um on the international market. You know, we've seen a couple of markets reacting to
um let's just say changes in Washington, changes in our administration. Um we ran a Canada campaign earlier this year, saw a lot of negative comments on social media. um the uh when looking at the numbers um
from uh from the state and uh from Orlando on Canada arrivals, those are down. Uh Germany is down. However, UK and Ireland are still performing well. They're still they're still hanging in there and that's important for us
because we get uh flights from TUI come in from the UK to Melbourne and we work very closely with TUI on marketing. So um so that's that's a a strategy point we're just going to keep an eye on as to where we're spending our dollars. But uh
other some other minor changes um we were hearing from the hotel community a lot more interest in meetings and conventions and of course as we know in a couple years we'll have a convention center. So that's an area that we we want to put some strategic focus on.
You'll hear about that in a little bit. Um, other than that, uh, you know, still still fishing where the fish are in the domestic market is very important to us. And I'll show you a slide later that kind of talks about where we're putting
our dollars, how we're allocating to different markets, and where there's opportunities should we get some additional funding, which um you know, you never know, but uh where there's a lot of markets that we're not in that I think uh pose uh opportunities for us.
So, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Uh going to creative. Um we did we've done a lot of new creative. U we've done some new things with billboards which you'll see here. Um you can start paging through those if
you'd like because all the creative is behind uh slide 31. So take a look at that. I'll talk a little bit about the creative execution. You know Cocoa Beach obviously has a heavy billboard campaign is something that they really wanted to do and we work with them on that. But we
also have boards for Melbourne, Titusville, and Palm Bay. Um, like I said, we did add a number of creatives for digital this year. Um, and then we also have uh one new TV commercial for Cocoa Beach. And then we're actually
filming right uh starting next week a commercial for the port. Um and then in the fall, our plan is to work with the um the folks in the Melbourne Pal Bay area to uh do a new branding for that
area and part of that will be um some new creative, new TV and digital for them. Um, another piece of uh, new creative that we did on the digital front is on slide,
give you a slide number, slide 59, we created some digital ads that were um, I'm sorry, my numbers might be different for some reason. Laura, can you go down to the affordable
affordability digital? There you go. Okay. I guess it's slide 61 on on the screen and 59 in your packet or at least in my packet. Hopefully, we're on the same page.
What's it on your trying to make sure we're on? Okay. Sorry. Sorry, it is. It's slide 61. Yeah, that's it. So, anyway, we did some affordability messaging this summer. They performed actually really well. We were, you know, obviously going into the summer, we were a little concerned about where people were with the economy and
things like that. Um, I don't think it's ever a bad thing to have an affordability message as long as you're not, you know, sort of discounting the destination, but you're talking more about things like more for less. Um, es escape crowds, embrace savings, affordable getaways, things like that. I
think that message resonated and we saw a lot of clickthroughs on these ads. So, we're going to keep that as part of the mix as we go into the next um fiscal year. Uh and then I didn't put the actual spots, but the um this is just the story boards. Um I'll bring this
we'll bring the Cocoa Beach spot. Uh we're still tweaking it a little bit more, but we'll bring that when it's finalized. And then you can see the port. We're going to be doing a spot for the port. And then um you guys are pretty familiar with the countdown spot which that's the award-winning spot that last year we won
uh best of show at the governor's conference. So I'm going to the governor's conference tomorrow again. And um I think people will still be talking to me about last year because we swept pretty much swept the awards last year. So uh if they don't remember I will remind them.
Uh okay. Uh little bit about the you know our who is our space coast visitor. So now I'm on 66. um you know not a lot changing in our demographics but we do you know again I think it's important that we go after
that uh that more affluent household I think we need a subsegment like that also those people tend to be um uh have fewer kids in the household or maybe no kids in the household so you know just making sure that our our targeting and
our messaging kind of reflects that. Um and then if you look at page 67, this is the slide I was talking about earlier about our source markets. So this is where these are the top 20 outofstate source markets and then on the right side the top 10 instate source markets
and the yellow is where we you know plan and have funding to uh to do marketing. those red um those red uh highlighted markets are all great markets to be in and they're just,
you know, basically sitting there ripe for us to to um go after. But obviously, you know, funding is limited. So, um never complain about money, but I always say that if we had more money, um you know, here's what we would do with it.
And I clearly I would go down that list and start hitting some of these other places like Boston, Detroit, Dallas, you know, all great markets. Instate, Fort Meyers, you know, is a great market that we don't, you know, we don't do a lot in. So, I just think there's opportunity
there. And if people ask about, well, you know, is $13 million really enough? I always say, well, you know, here's what we would do if we had more. and and uh that that's a lost opportunity right now because it's a very we're in a very competitive uh business and as you know
there's a lot of other beach destinations like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach County, Sarasota uh and um St. Pete that all have way more than money than us in from a marketing perspective. So it's, you know, we're competing with all of those.
Um, just a little bit now digging into a little bit of the approach on our media. Um, you know, streaming has taken over. Um, we have become unplugged at my house. Uh, I've heard a lot of people saying they have it the same. You know, uh, we're we're just basically streaming
all kinds of different things now. We're not not really going straight up uh cable, but uh you know, we do I think the cable companies were a little slow to the market on this, but I think they've caught up now. Uh so we do work with Spectrum, we do work with Comcast. We will buy some cable, but we'll always
make sure there's a heavier mix of streaming in in those markets. So like in Tampa, Tampa is a Spectrum market. Miami, Lauderdale is a Comcast market. We'll work with them on the cable side, but we also work with them on getting good placement with uh with lots of
streaming uh and digital ads that way. So, that's that's just something we'll continue to do. Page 69 is our vacation uh planning and it just shows, you know, you not only need the paid media, but you also need your own media, anything
that you own that we can control like our Facebook, our our website. Um, and then earn media is a great opportunity for us. We get tens of millions of dollars in coverage and PR. Um, I think I mentioned here we were the top 25
destinations in 2025 to visit by Condast in the world. We were one of only two US destinations that came out of PR. So, we got to keep doing that. We got to keep playing that game and trying to uh to um execute well with that. In fact, we're
RFQing our PR agency this fall. So, that'll be really important to take a look at that and see, you know, if there's opportunity there. Okay, coming into the nitty-gritty of some of the budgetary stuff and I'll try to wrap it quickly. Um, the messaging
calendar on page 71 just shows you how we lay out our programming. you know, heavy focus on winter and we shifted um that fall winter time period into January last year and our January bumped. Uh so we we were pleased with
that. So we're going to do that again this year. Then of course spring, you know, is a is a big time. March, April, very important. Easter does fall in April this year. So that's that's good for us. And then um and then of course summer. Um the next page is just a
detail of the media. you can see a bulk of that media um over seven close to $8 million being spent between the annual and the seasonal campaigns. So that's a that's a big bulk of where our our media gets spent. Um
performance metrics on page 74 just to note you know we have been working with um the Cocoa Beach Hotel Association on media buying. They've taken a sort of a top offunnel approach to their advertising, meaning they do a lot more
awareness advertising than digital. Um, so we've changed some of the metrics there where you see uh TV impressions and billboard impressions are higher and that's why. So that that was a slight change from prior years
and then keep on going. Uh our create then you see on page 76 our creative and production. Uh page 77 is social media and our website. By the way our app is doing great. I Laura keep
correct me if I'm wrong. Are we over a quarter million? I think we're close to 300,000 downloads now. Something in that world. Yeah. So, we're we're we want to get to a million. That's our long-term goal is to get to a million downloads of our Space Ghost Launches app. If you
haven't downloaded it, please do. Um, and then I wanted to point out so this is something new on page 78, artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is, you know, sort of taking over the search engines. And if you notice what's happening in Google is when you do a
Google search, that AI happens. Usually it'll happen either above or right below the ads. And so before you get in even to the listings, you're getting sort of the answer. And so the new the new model is instead of a search engine, they're becoming answer engines. And so what we
need to do is make sure that our website and all of our content is readable and accessible by AI. Um, and then I al ultimately I believe uh Brand USA just did this, but I believe probably in 27
we'll need to redo our website to make sure all the searches on the website are not just AI friendly, but actually AI powered. So that's probably going to cost some money to do that, but uh I think that's where we we're going to have to go.
Um, keep going through page 79 is PR. We've talked a little bit about that, so I'll keep going past that. Page 81 I wanted to mention um you know we do a lot in partnership with um a lot of the local partners certainly working with
the port developing a TV commercial for them they're been on board with that uh the airport we work very closely with them next year um they're bringing a air service um conference into town with about 20 airlines uh and we're going to
help work with them to do a familiarization tour with with uh all of those airlines uh on our area, taking them Kennedy Space Center and few other places uh just trying to sell them on the destination and the idea of partnering with us in the airport and
bringing some more air service here. Direct air service helps us and that's important to try to grow that. Um also, uh we've been talking with Moon Pie, which is kind of a fun idea, you know, Moon Pie on the Space Coast. um working
with them to do a big promotion in the uh pre-pring leading up to spring in the southern markets um using a lot of their uh access to their grocery uh partners. So, you know, in Kroger and Windixie and
Publix and all of those having um big Moon Pie displays, but having Space Coast as be part of that as as that display. So, that's something that uh we're looking at. So, just some fun stuff. Sports we talked about, you know,
we have 240,000 that we use towards the um incentive, but also we have our uh sports um commissioner Terry Parks goes out and meets with um a lot of these folks that are event organizers, goes to
a lot of their industry shows and is going to continue to try to bang that drum. So that he does a great job and we're trying to grow that. International I mentioned we um you know probably pull back a little bit in the international
on consumer advertising but we want to keep our rep in Europe. That's important because that person has relationships with all of the tour operators, all of the big travel agencies. We do a lot of training over there. Um, we participate
in shows that Visit USA, um, and Visit Florida do over there. So, we don't want to we don't want to back out completely, but we're probably going to spend a little less in that market, but make sure we have our our, uh, our, you know, finger on the pulse there and just keep an eye on things as
>> Could I could I ask you a question? just uh I hate to interrupt you when you're on >> you're on a roll there. Uh but I I just this might seem like a silly thing, but you know, in talking about the sports, >> we're going to have the top Top Golf
facility um here in Vieira soon. And is there a tourism component to that? I mean, do people uh I mean, do they do events that uh >> They do. Yeah. >> Competition with high schools or any of that? I I don't I don't Yeah, I'm not
Maybe somebody who is golf is maybe more familiar with it. I know in Orlando they have a Top Golf there and you know they a lot of the convention people love it and they do they'll do events there after you know in the evenings after the convention is over. Um they'll bring
their team over and they'll do different different programming there. I don't know about competitions um that I'm going to have to research a little bit more and get back with you on. I I don't know if they there's a way to do, you know, long ball or uh or, you know,
competition using the virtual reality uh component that they have, but uh that would be interesting to kind of look at. >> I know we've had some youth golf tournament situations and um >> you know, we have a big high school right here and um so I I was just
curious really I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, I mean, no, it's all right. And it's I mean, I think the one thing I say about it is the more we have like that that gives people fun things to do while they're here, you know, that improves the length of stay, which that's that's an ultimate goal for us as
well. So, you know, if they know that, hey, you know, one one day, one of my vacation days, we can go and do something at Topgolf, you know, because it's there, uh, that's a good thing, I think. But yeah, we'll look into the competition thing. I'm not sure about that piece. So, we'll check into that.
Um just a couple other things here and we'll wrap up. Travel industry. Travel industry. It's interesting. Um you know cruises the cruise lines have not stopped ever um providing uh commissions
to travel agents. And so a lot of other entities like hotels have really kind of cut back on that. But the cruise lines still, you know, they still uh fund uh that element to the to the travel agents. And we're seeing a real uptick
in interest from the tra big travel agencies wanting to come here, do familiarization tours on ships, but then ultimately do do those tours while while they're here in at the destination. And so we try to support that. We haven't increased the budget at all, but we're
um we're being asked to do more and more fam, which I think is great. Um and then on the next slide, as I mentioned, meetings and conventions. We um partnered last year with a organization called Cvent. Cvent is an online way for meeting planners to issue RFPs to
different destinations that they might have an interest in meeting in. We've already had several um conventions select us through Cvent as their uh as as a winner for their convention. So, uh, it's about a
$10,0001,000 investment and it's already, uh, paid for itself, uh, in terms of the ROI that we'll get from bringing those conventions here and that I think that's just going to grow over the next several years, especially as we open up the new
convention center. DIC we talked quite a bit about, so I'm not going to say much more about that. Research on page 88 is very important. um you know all of our data that we get from STR to doing proprietary research
like some of the research that's in here um all the research that we do for the MSP program to look at the size of audiences coming from outside the area and our source markets coming from outside the area all came from Datafi which is our cellular device tracking
tool. So all of that's really important. So, we obviously want to keep funding that. And then uh and then on page 89 is a wrap-up of just some remaining expenses. By the way, travel did not increase. We kept our travel flat for the last this is our third year in a row
at that number. So, we haven't really grown that. Um try to keep try to be cognizant of um the travel budget at all times. Um but then you see how that ties to the bottom line of the 14.1 million which I talked about earlier. Um that's
uh describes that. So that Mr. Chair and members is around the marketing plan in as quick as I could do it. >> Questions for Peter. >> Okay. >> By the way, sir, I will not do this at
the board meeting. >> So you don't have to hear it three times unless unless you want me to. Unless other commissioners want you to um Okay. So, we need is there any discussion? Anybody in discussion? No. Is there we
need a motion, right, Peter? >> Uh the motion actually I'll leave it to Tom. It came from the committee. So, >> we reviewed all this at the committee and uh had additional discussion, but it you all heard the plan. I think it's a good one. Uh I will add that we just went
through a selection process at the county level uh for a new a new advertising agency and the incumbents one out of a a large group of applicants that came from uh other states many different states. So, we're going to
that's going to be a recommendation to the board of county commissioners or is that a TDC collection uh uh decision to >> uh actually once the RFQ is done that was that was the recommendation. >> So, they went through the RFQ process and you know this artwork is kind of reflective of
older stuff that uh hopefully will soon be changed out and more unified um to reach new heights. So, I think Peter and the staff and his team are doing a great job. Um, and we look forward to getting better uh working with the agency for
another several years. >> Is that your motion? >> And I make a motion to approve the marketing plan as presented. >> Okay. I have a motion by Tom Hermanson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Have a second by John. Uh, we'll call
the role. >> Julie Bra >> I. Mayor Connor, >> yes. >> Vice Chair Hson, >> yes. >> Alex Lford, >> yes. >> Wayne Sword, >> yes. >> John Morin,
>> yes. >> Chair, >> yes. And we'll show that approved. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, all right. I don't Do we have any public comment? I don't think we have any cards or anything, right? >> No, sir.
>> No. Okay. Uh we'll go into uh board reports. Julie, board report. >> Hi, good afternoon. Um I'm in the throws of renovations, so I apologize for my tardiness and not thinking as clearly quickly, but I had two things I wanted
to mention. As uh the beach chair, our beach improvement committee meeting is going to be October 21st, which is going to be a wrap-up meeting. And um I believe Mike's going to give us a report. That's what I heard on the street. No, >> no, no, no, no. In October 21st. October
21st. >> Make sure you're awake. >> Um, >> you came early. >> I am I am going to call on Mike in a second, though. Go ahead. Sorry. So, then the additional thing I wanted to just bring up is um for support of the BCA. I want to thank everyone and and
hope that the board of county commissioners really takes into consideration um that arts are huge value for tourism and that we um spend so much money and time getting the tourists here, but just like Peter mentioned, giving them things to do. Uh Topgolf is also very interesting, but
having activities and things for them to engage in not only keeps them here longer, but also brings them back again. So, thank you very much for what you guys do. And that is all I had. That's quite an endorsement there, Katherine. Good. Okay,
>> Mayor Connors, >> I just want to say thank you to the TDC staff for doing a great job and uh you know, I'm excited for what we're going to do. So, appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Hermanson. >> Nope. Nothing. Thank you. >> Okay. Larry's not here. Alex, uh
>> nothing to report. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh Mayor Medina didn't make it. John, you have anything in board report today? Okay. Wayne, >> nothing to report. >> Sure. Okay. Um, I'll have something I think after Peter. Okay. So,
>> Okay. If I I just wanted to ask Mike to come up real quick because I know there was a lot of interest in this the very offshore storm uh last week, but you know, everybody saw the waves and I know there were a lot of surfers in town
for that, but I wanted to ask Mike to just make a quick comment on what his uh takeaway was on impact on the beaches, if any. And I've only had the opportunity I did a quick look at beaches, but because the the storm was
so offshore, the big long smooth rolling swells that surfers love are not quite as hard on the beaches as a short choppy windblown waves. So, while the waves, the swells
rolled up the beaches, they didn't and they shifted sand around a little bit, but they weren't uh abusively erosive to the beaches in the south beaches, they kissed the dune in a few spots, but because of the distance offshore, we were we fared well.
>> Thank you for for that. Appreciate that. And then, um just a note, uh you see our next meeting, we'll be back in the Florida room. uh thank goodness on uh uh September 24th.
>> Okay. And uh so we also have October 22nd, November 12th is our future meetings. And then uh marketing committee is going to be on September 25th, right? That's what it says. Okay, >> sounds good. >> Today, um earlier today, and he's here,
so I'll embarrass him one more time. Uh Dave Burman's here from the paper and he's retiring soon. Uh so the county management presented him with a with a plaque this morning recognizing him and his service. And uh sir, how many how
many years total with Guanette? >> 20 26 years. Uh yeah 90 99, right? he started with them and so he's leaving in the next couple of weeks and uh so you see him here at the TDC meetings. I I had asked him I said what's exciting
about the TDC um meeting uh just getting with him a little bit in the hall but uh he's always been fair to us and and we appreciate it. So thank you everyone and yes absolutely. Okay, I don't think that we have
anything else. Thank you very much, everyone. >> What? Sir, okay. Yep. >> Um, so I sit on the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association board and Julie brought it up last month. You have three days to make recommendations for people
in the restaurant lodging uh industry to uh for the Rose Award. And you know, I I it's a it's a great opportunity for those people in that position of being in a hotel or restaurant to recognize
people whether they win or not that they get recognized by you um to be nominated for the Rose Award. So, you have three days to get your nominations in and if you want it, I can certainly send you the link so that you can uh make some
some nominations of the staff that you have working for you. Thank you, sir. >> Now, has anyone here ever won the Rose Award? >> We had a staff member. >> Yeah, we had a staff, one of our staff members won it last year or two years ago.
>> Yeah. >> Two years ago >> and one of my associates won. >> Okay. >> I think Leah's got two. >> We're a little confused. >> Okay. I guess it wasn't around when we were when we were >> hospitality specialist of the year awards, which was hosted by the TDC. >> Okay. So that was the way and then the
FRA picked it up when we could no longer do that and with great um great appreciation from our industry that we still get to recognize our frontline personnel. >> Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Okay, thank you for that. >> All right, everyone. Thank you very much. Take care.