All three major Downtown entertainment venues are now under the same management arm. Iowa-based VenuWorks has taken over Old National Events Plaza from ASM Global effective Sept. 1, per a decision by the Board of Commissioners for Vanderburgh County, which owns ONEP.
The decision means that Scott Schoenike, executive director of the 11,000-seat Ford Center and 1,950-seat Victory Theatre, now oversees ONEP as well. The convention center contains the 2,500-seat Aiken Theatre as well as a 36,000-square-foot exhibit hall, 13,500-square-foot ballroom, and 12 flexible 1,000-square-foot meeting rooms.
Because of the management change, Old National Events Plaza’s ticket office at 715 Locust St. is now closed on all non-event days. Advance tickets for events at ONEP are available noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday at Ford Center’s box office at 1 S.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The ONEP ticket office opens on event days starting two hours before doors open. Policies and procedures at the three venues — such as the restrictions on the kinds of bags attendees may bring — will be identical.
The changeover left former ASM Global employees in limbo. 248 of them (15 full-time, 233 part-time) were laid off, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice filed Aug. 1 with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. Those workers were given opportunities to reapply.
“Most, if not all, part-time employees were hired if they applied,” Schoenike tells Evansville Business. “Full-time employees were mostly rehired. Due to staff reorganizing, two full-time positions were eliminated.”
Schoenike arrived in Evansville from his position as executive director of U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 14 years ago when Ford Center opened, and he says running convention centers in addition to performance venues isn’t new to him. Bringing ONEP into VenuWorks’ inventory gives him another venue to market to entertainment promoters.
Sports and entertainment mean big business for Downtown. VenuWorks’ latest annual report shows that Ford Center in 2024 hosted 133 events attended by nearly 400,000 people, while Victory Theatre attracted 82 events and more than 56,000 attendees. Both venues had an economic impact around $45 million last year. Convention recruitment to ONEP also is a priority — Explore Evansville CEO Tom White stated that as a goal upon his March 2025 arrival.
Schoenike says the relationship between ASM Global and VenuWorks was cordial, but since both companies were seeking to bring shows and events to their own facilities, they could not always show their cards. “We were competitors, but we got along,” Schoenike says. “Obviously I wouldn’t tell them what I was working on.”
Such caginess now is a thing of the past, with Ford Center, Victory Theatre, and ONEP under one management umbrella. Schoenike says the promoters he communicates with are familiar with all three venues and can choose which best suits a particular act: Ford Center boasts an arena-sized capacity, and ONEP’s smaller Aiken Theatre offers comfort and modern amenities, while the historic Victory provides elegant ambiance.
“It’s about what has the right look, the right feel, and how many people you can sell tickets to,” Schoenike says.
