Tourism Bureau Meeting Minutes - Cheesecake Factory June 11, 2019 - 12:00 p.m.

ATTENDEES Barbara Myler (Valencia Jazz and Blues); Jeff Casali, Ginger Hoolahan, Debbee Dugger (Six Flags Magic Mountain); Dan Nguyen (Hollywood Burbank Airport); Trevor Tauber, Nidia Vargas (Courtyard); JoAnne Hilario (Holiday Inn) Bre Rader, Sarah Rosenblade (Hyatt Regency); Courtney Bourdas Henn (Mountasia); Josh Carsman (Fillmore and Western); Beth Heiserman, Sue Hayward (Reyes Winery); Cassie Finch, Memory Rudolph, Rashel Zayayou (Embassy Suites) Courtney Ecklund, Jennifer Wampler (Gentle Barn); Audra Cheney (Westfield Valencia); Maria Christopher (Heritage Valley); Shannon Garcia (Newhall Refinery); Laina McFerren (Wolf Creek Brewery); Marichu Pejora, Chris Lemus (Hilton Garden Inn); Brittany Coldiron, Evan Thomason, Marilyn Sourgose, Liz Arumbula, Mikaela Manion, Garrett Wedel, Pat Downing (City of Santa Clarita)

TOURISM OFFICE UPDATES • Upcoming Concerts o Concerts in the Park - Saturday nights: July 6 thru August 24, 7:00 p.m. . July 6 – WANNABE (Spice Girls Tribute) . July 13 – Surf City Allstars (Beach Boys Tribute) . July 20 – Prussia (West Coast Funk Band) . July 27 – Queen Nation (Queen Tribute Band) . August 3 – Mirage (Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band) . August 10 – Grateful Shred (Grateful Dead Tribute Band) . August 17 – The Replicas (Party Band) . August 24 – Erotic City (Prince Tribute Band) o Boots & Brews Country Music Festival @ Central Park (Jake Owen = headliner) . Saturday, June 15 from 2:00 – 10:00 p.m. o Valencia Jazz & Blues Summer Concert Series – Barbara Myler . Friday nights: June 14 thru August 2, 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. . Barbara Myler: 20th anniversary this year. Concert series runs every Friday night. Celebrating with bigger, better, fresher, talent and a new location. Posters available. Let Barbara know if you have questions. All bands are national or international acts. One was nominated for a Grammy this year. It’s a free event. Please come join us.

• Tourism Bureau Meet up in Old Town Newhall/SENSES (Thursdays @ Newhall event – Super Nintendo Party theme) o Thursday, June 20 at 6 p.m. o Brewery Draconum

• IPW Recap (Marilyn) We were happy to be out with Ginger Hoolahan from Six Flags Magic Mountain and Bre Rader from Hyatt at IPW last week. It was a great way to meet so many international people in a short period of time. We met with a lot of receptive tour operators, some that are actually based in Santa Clarita. (Evan) It was a big learning curve for us in terms of doing businsess with operators. We met with some local people who work in that international space. We with a tour operator who explained that there are certain ways that they like to do businsess, like having hotel rates up front, booking ahead, etc. We plan to have ongoing conversations with the hotels because it’s a different way of doing business, but we believe there is a lot of potential in this area. Six Flags Magic Mountain has a consultant that specifially handles working with tour operators. We’ll see if she might be available to give a talk which would be a big help. On a side note, we had several international people mention the Netflix show Santa Clarita Diet – that was pretty cool!

• 2019 Special Events Boots and Brews: Expecting it to be about a sellout…maybe around 8,000 to 10,000 people. There will be a lot of people in town on Saturday. Hopefully we will see them in our local restaurants and hotels. In May, the Tacos and Tequila Music Festival from had over 6,500 people attend on Friday and 4,500 on Saturday. They did a heat map to see where people were coming from and the largest group was about 2,000 people from Ventura. The next largest groups came from LA and locally.

Amgen Tour of California: We had a lot of traffic snarls as a result of the race and those were expected, but the event went great. This is the first time we ever hosted the start of the final stage. The event organizer, AEG, had a wrap party at the Hyatt. They were thrilled with everything. We got just under 1,300 hotel rooms. Thank you to all the hotels, plus the restaurants and attractions that offered special offers for the website.

Summer Trolley: The trolley is running. Hotels, we have the trolley brochure holders for you.

MEMBER UPDATES Shannon Garcia (Newhall Refinery) We have a Farmers Market Collaboration Dinner coming up July 25. Chef Boole will create a gourmet meal using fresh produce from the Old Town Newhall Farmers Market. Tickets cost $75 and are on sale now. New lunch specials available.

Laina McFerren (Wolf Creek Brewery) The big thing we have coming up at the Brewery is our 5th annual BFE Fest on Friday, June 21. It’s a fundraiser for the LA Brewers Guild. We will have 20+ brewers at our brewery. Live music, food trucks and admission includes unlimited tasters. $30 general admission, $40 VIP.

Debbee Dugger & Ginger Hoolahan (Six Flags Magic Mountain & Hurricane Harbor) West Coast Racers is still under construction. We don’t have a date yet. Our Flash Sale is in September, so if you’ve been needing a season pass, that’s the best time to get one. Fireworks on July 3-6 along with a food fest.

Courtney Bourdas Henn (Mountasia Family Fun Center) We are open daily for summer fun. This Friday, June 14, we start summer hours, so we’ll be open daily at 11 a.m. We do lots of group events for hotel groups.

Sue Hayward (Reyes Winery) LunaFest, a traveling film festival that showcases women in film, is coming up on September 13. Tickets cost $25 and proceeds benefit Zonta.

Beth Heiserman (Reyes Winery) At the winery, we have our monthly hike coming up on June 29. We are doing tastings on Fillmore & Western’s Beer, Wine & Blues Train. Coming up, we will also have a five-course lunch with the same wine pairing with each course to show how versatile it can be.

Marichu Pejoro & Chris Lemus (Hilton Garden Inn) – Summer has been busy and hot!

JoAnne Hilario (Holiday Inn Express) Our renovation is still going on. During summer we will be back to 180 rooms then after summer we will have 30 rooms unavailable. Meeting space not available July and August.

Maria Christopher (Heritage Valley) On June 15, we have the days of Wine and Spirits which will feature a local Santa Paula winery. On June 22 and 23, we have the Honey Harvest Festival. June 29 – Santa Paula Summer Street Fair & Music Festival. July 4 - Sespe Creek Car & Cycle Show. July 15 – Santa Paula Jazz & Arts Festival. Rancho Camulos available for tours.

Jennifer Wampler & Courtney Ecklund (Gentle Barn) We are open to the public every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.. During the week, we have tours open to school kids. We have birthday parties and have even added a new birthday package. We have a big gala going up in September to celebrate our 20th year. We are looking for corporate sponsorships for that event.

Pat Downing (City of Santa Clarita) We will have our annual fireworks show on the Fourth of July at 9:15 p.m. There will be minor road impact on McBean as a result. Show goes on for about 30 minutes.

Dan Nguyen (Hollywood Burbank Airport) We will be sending out a survey to Santa Clarita businesses. We want to know where people are going when they fly out from Burbank. The information then goes back to the airlines to help them with scheduling. I’m not sure of the exact date when the survey will go out, but just keep any eye out.

Josh Carsman (Fillmore and Western Railway) Steam RailFest was a huge success. We had so many people come out, about 8,000 in little Fillmore. Our next event is the Honey Harvest Festival on June 22 & 23. We will have a Honey Bee Express Train that will take you to Bennett’s Honey Farm. There will be tractor rides through Fillmore. Free admission. We have the Firecracker Train on July 4th where you can actually watch the firework show from the train. We have Hot August Nights coming up, which is seven trains rocking with beer, wine and live bluegrass. Thank you Wolf Creek and Reyes Winery for your support on that from day one.

Rashel, Memory, Cassie (Embassy Suites) – No updates at this time.

Audra Cheney (Westfield Valencia Town Center) The Valencia Jazz and Blues Concert Series is our next big event coming up. We are also hosting a block party before the city’s Fourth of July celebration.

Trevor Tauber (Courtyard) Hampton Inn still under renovation but almost complete – maybe July.

Bre Rader (Hyatt) One thing we are doing is a Summer Swim Days promotion for all the locals. If you spend $30 at our restaurant you get access to the pool all day. Sarah Roseblade (Hyatt) Food and Beverage Director at Hyatt. We’ve officially launched our Sunday Brunch at Greater Pacific. It includes both bottomless sushi and bottomless blueberry brut. We will have a Father’s Day Brunch. On June 26, we will have a 5-course meal with paired wines from Pulchella Winery.

Evan Thomason (City of Santa Clarita) We are glad to have Garrett here. He oversees the video production department at the city. We are eager to start working on a few short-form videos that we can use on our social channels or on the website. They might be quick interviews with a chef from a restaurant or event videos. One thing that’s obvious when we go to these conferences is that we are talking to people who have no idea what Santa Clarita looks like, sounds like, what it offers. If we can get some videos up, that would give people an idea of what it’s like in Santa Clarita.

UPCOMING MEETINGS • Tuesday, July 2 – location TBD • Tuesday, August 6 – Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center at College of the Canyons • September – date/location TBD • Tuesday, October 1 – Hyatt Regency Valencia • Tuesday, November 5 – Hilton Garden Inn (to be confirmed) • December – date/location TBD