{"id":2269364,"date":"2026-02-06T09:06:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2269364"},"modified":"2026-02-06T09:06:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:06:34","slug":"arts-leader-roanokes-entertainment-district-is-a-question-of-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/arts-leader-roanokes-entertainment-district-is-a-question-of-scale\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts leader: Roanoke&#8217;s Entertainment District is a question of scale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" width=\"100%\" height=\"130px\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" data-src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_GK70XTx61Wa?client=wp&amp;client_version=2.7.1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I share Mayor Joe Cobb\u2019s commitment to exploring bold ideas for Roanoke\u2019s future. His <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cardinalnews.org\/2026\/02\/04\/cobb-the-premise-for-an-entertainment-district\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/cardinalnews.org\/2026\/02\/04\/cobb-the-premise-for-an-entertainment-district\/\">opinion piece on the proposed entertainment district at the Berglund Center<\/a> reflects genuine ambition, an important quality for a civic leader. But not all bold ideas are the right ideas.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-market-reality\"><strong>The market reality<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about the actual numbers. The Roanoke metropolitan statistical area comprises roughly 315,000 people. Of those, perhaps 150,000 to 175,000 are adults who might realistically patronize an entertainment district. As America\u2019s middle class is squeezed, what percentage can afford $300 dinners and hotel stays with any frequency? More critically, a wider breadth of customers from outside of Roanoke already have regional options: Bristol\u2019s Hard Rock Casino sits less than 90 minutes southwest, and Danville\u2019s Caesars Virginia is roughly 90 minutes southeast. Both are already competing for the same draw that Roanoke would target.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-cannibalization-problem\"><strong>The cannibalization problem<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>But here\u2019s what concerns me even more: This Entertainment District competes with institutions Roanoke already has and may even destroy them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Roanoke currently supports Mill Mountain Theatre, Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, two ballet companies, the Jefferson Center, the Taubman Museum, 5 Points Music Sanctuary and the new Exchange Music Hall. These aren\u2019t thriving in surplus. Many operate on thin margins, sustained by loyal but limited audiences and the hard work of development staff scrambling for grants and donations.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>What happens to Mill Mountain\u2019s subscriber base when there\u2019s a splashy new entertainment option across town? What happens to downtown restaurants when the district has its own dining venues? What happens to the Jefferson Center\u2019s needed infrastructure repairs when the Berglund performing arts theater gets $30 million in upgrades and steals their touring shows?<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-actually-matches-roanoke-s-scale\"><strong>What actually matches Roanoke\u2019s scale<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Roanoke\u2019s strength has never been competing as a big city. Their success has come from being an exceptional small city. Their arts organizations embody that character. Mill Mountain Theatre, the Jefferson Center, the Taubman Museum, the independent restaurants and music venues, these are human-scaled institutions that create the distinctive sense of place that actually attracts and retains residents and businesses. They\u2019re what make Roanoke special, not what will be replaced by making Roanoke a mini-Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>If there are public dollars available, what if they were used to reduce the operating burden on institutions that already serve your community, rather than subsidizing a new venture that will compete with them for a limited audience?<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-different-kind-of-yes\"><strong>A different kind of yes<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The mayor is right that Roanoke should say yes to bold ideas. But he should also have the wisdom to say yes to the <em>right<\/em> ideas, ideas that match the market fundamentals and build on Roanoke\u2019s genuine strengths rather than attempting to impose someone else\u2019s vision of urban entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>Roanoke deserves better than a project whose primary justification is that \u201csaying no doesn\u2019t get us anywhere.\u201d The Star City deserves a vision that understands who is already serving the community, celebrates what makes Roanoke distinctive and builds strategically on the foundation you\u2019ve already created.<\/p>\n<p><em>Geoffrey Kershner is the director of the MFA in Arts Leadership at Randolph College and the former CEO of the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<\/p>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related stories<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"pmdelayedscript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-minify=\"1\">\n\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '390691409282265');\n\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView', {\"page_title\":\"Arts leader: Roanoke&#8217;s Entertainment District is a question of scale\",\"user_role\":\"guest\",\"event_url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cardinalnews.org\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/06\\\/arts-leader-roanokes-entertainment-district-is-a-question-of-scale\",\"post_type\":\"post\",\"post_id\":160810});\n\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source cardinalnews.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I share Mayor Joe Cobb\u2019s commitment to exploring bold ideas for Roanoke\u2019s future. His opinion piece on the proposed entertainment district at the Berglund Center reflects genuine ambition, an important quality for a civic leader. But not all bold ideas are the right ideas. The market reality Let\u2019s talk about the actual numbers. The Roanoke [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2266083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[438850],"class_list":["post-2269364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-type-8-dwayne-co"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Cobb-The-premise-for-an-entertainment-district.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269365,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269364\/revisions\/2269365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2266083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}