Pat Grant dabbed away a smudge on the 1926 Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus poster framed on the west wall of his office at the National Western Complex.
The memento was a gift from the circus to the National Western Stock Show chief in appreciation of his vocal opposition to a 2004 ballot initiative to ban exotic animal acts in Denver.
“You know who they were coming for next,” Grant said, in a tone that suggested a statement more than a question, “the stock show.”
That kind of protective focus by leaders like Grant has helped this Western institution head off trouble multiple times in its 103-year history.
The worsening economy on farms and in boardrooms certainly qualifies as another fight, said the National Western’s president and chief executive.
“We’re a nonprofit, but we’re also a business,” Grant said. “It’s not an easy time for any business right now.”
The downturn and a laundry list of other problems has shelved the stock show’s hope to find a new location in the next few years. Last summer, a task force of community leaders looked at the prospects of a relocation and said, in essence, “not now,” Grant said.
The show will make do a few more years, at least, with its 100-acre complex at Interstate 70 and Brighton Boulevard, the same spot where it began in 1906.
Officials have put an $800 million price tag on a new complex, and locations as far away as Denver International Airport have been discussed.
The stock show hasn’t seen a significant pullout by existing sponsors, though the sponsorship of longtime supporter Frontier Airlines, now in reorganization, has become largely a handshake agreement, Grant said.
“But we’ve seen two or three big-name sponsors we were pursuing go away overnight, just because of what’s going on on Wall Street,” he said.
Money has become tight for the stock show, just as it has for everyone else.
Blizzards knocked the 2007 show for a financial loop even as crowds flowed in. Heating and labor costs to battle the elements were a major drain on Grant’s bottom line.
The 2007 show reported an operating loss of $556,000, the first such loss in its modern history.
In 2008, the National Western recorded a net gain of $184,000 on revenue of $14.1 million.
“We have to make money to pay our bills, just like anybody else,” he said.
The stock show helps a lot of Denver businesses with their bills as well.
The show’s attendees in 2008 pumped an estimated $110 million into coffers of Denver-area businesses last year, up from $84.1 million in 2005, according to research conducted by Development Research Partners for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. Studies indicate 59 percent of those attendees were from the seven-county Denver metro area, 24 percent were from other parts of Colorado and 17 percent were from outside the state.
Grant pledged that the average showgoer would never notice the belt-tightening the show has undergone, including close management of labor and renegotiations of contracts.
The stock show, one of the West’s top tourist attractions, has just 40 full-time employees, but hires more than 800 temporary employees for the 16-day show. The show has more than 600 volunteers, who perform valuable roles at no charge, Grant said.
“I can promise you that we are going to be very professional, but we’re also going to be very efficient and very effective in putting on a highly entertaining, top-notch show,” he said. “It’s a challenge, but I can’t wait.”
Grant says he’s mindful of how personal budgets have changed in addition to those of the stock show and its supporters.
“We always compete for people’s leisure dollar, and they get a good return with the family fun, the education and the heritage we offer,” he said. “But now I’m afraid that for the first time we’re competing with what people spend at the grocery store, with the necessities of life.
“You don’t have to have a lot of money to bring your family to the stock show. As long as we keep the focus on those families, making this show the best it can be at a price people can afford, we’ll be all right.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
