RICH SEEKS RICHES
This article was published in the February 22, 2025 Edition.
It really is such an odd phenomenon. Where the richest guy in the world, a guy whose enrichment has been assured by a phalanx of tax credits, government contracts and the like, is now in hyperdrive trying to make sure stops on that gravy train are pared down or eliminated.
Because Elon wants to make it clear that what he does and cares about and is interested in is more important than what anyone else is interested in.
Because for Elon, it’s all about calculable ROI (Return on Investment).
I’m surprised that he’s only laying off National Park Service workers. Next step is obviously sale of public lands. Or long-term leasing of public lands to private concessionaires.
Horsetail Falls at Chevron Yosemite Park.
But back to ROI, with a detour to too-big-to-fail.
Rich Sherman of Omega Events appeared before the Mammoth Lakes Tourism Board on Wednesday, hat in hand, to ask for a $70,000 handout.
Omega bought the Bluesapalooza event from Mammoth Brewing’s Sean Turner back in 2021.
He says he wants to use the extra money to further market Bluesapalooza, which he claims lost money last year.
He said attendance dropped from 8,787 in 2023 to 7,253 in 2024. He attributed this to a “down economy” in 2024, and not the expensive ticket prices (which I imagine he is charging in order to pay down the cost of acquiring the event).
He claimed the ROI (Betelguese! Betelguese! Betelguees!) from the events money MLT already gives him (25K, 20K and 18K respectively the past three years) has generated a return of 134:1.
Here are the 2025 prices via the Bluesa website:
4-Day VIP = $975
4-Day Early Entry = $425 (sold out)
4-Day general admission = $325
2-Day tickets which include Saturday = $240
Thursday only = $55
Friday only = $100
Saturday only = $170
Sunday only = $100.
He had the temerity to suggest that we’ll “probably” do the event without the $70,000.
He later corrected himself to say the event will go on whether or not he gets the $70,000, realizing how ridiculous it would look to suggest canceling an event where the numbers suggest he’ll gross close to $1 million in ticket sales alone – before he even gets around to all the ancillary revenue from patrons and vendors.
It also sounded ridiculous based upon his assertion that he had spoken to two groups about bringing new events to town in 2026.
Why bring a new event to town if the existing event is doing so horribly? Answer: It must not be doing so horribly.
The most embarrassing response to Sherman came from MLT Board member John Morris, who bought the bluff enough to suggest that the Town can’t risk losing Bluesapalooza (implying he’ll gladly support handing Omega the extra dough).
Must be a lousy card player.
The rest of the Board politely gave Sherman the shine and said they’d like to study it further and bring it back next month. That’ll give them time to meet Sherman for a quiet coffee where they’ll reveal the tea leaves and dissuade him from pursuing the issue further.
To give Mr. Sherman some due, he did retain the program whereby non-profits work the bars and pool the tip money proportionally based upon hours worked. That has generated $150,000 for local non-profits over the past four years, at an average compensation of approximately $40/hour.
The MLT Board also met Tuesday to discuss longer-range strategic planning. My favorite part came when Councilman Wentworth (Council’s representative on MLT) talked about how the Town and MLT need to coordinate their message.
For example, he said, a misnomer is that Council is over-budget on TOT (in other words, Council artificially budgets TOT revenue too low so it winds up with a big surplus to spend in all sorts of discretionary ways).
To which MLT Executive Director John Urdi replied, “But you are over-budget.”
Shhh.
More about this meeting next week …
