Legislation aimed at attracting more large concerts and festivals to the Baton Rouge area has won approval in both the state Senate and House of Representatives.
Filed by Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, HB 450 allows East Baton Rouge Parish to offer a local sales tax rebate on admission to major live music and entertainment events that meet minimum paid attendance requirements.
The original bill specified that events would be eligible for the sales tax rebate if they took place in a publicly owned facility with seating for 10,000 or if the event had an average daily attendance of at least 25,000. The bill was amended in early May to lower those thresholds.
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When reached Monday afternoon for more information, Freiberg said that the Baton Rouge Area Chamber requested the amendment to allow for more venues to be eligible for the rebate. BRAC, along with the city-parish and Visit Baton Rouge were key supporters of the bill.
David Zoller, manager of governmental relations for BRAC, declined to discuss the bill with Daily Report this afternoon and forwarded comment to BRAC’s senior director of communications, Morgan Almeida, who confirmed that BRAC requested the changes to the thresholds.
The bill targets large concerts held in venues such as the River Center, LSU or Southern University, or multiday, outdoor concert events, according to a prepared statement released by BRAC. The legislation supports one of BRAC’s key legislative priorities for 2023—to attract more headline concerts and entertainment acts to Baton Rouge.
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“We wanted to ensure we didn’t exclude any of the larger venues in the parish and our research brought us to the venue size of 7,500 for larger indoor venues,” Almeida told Daily Report. “When calculating concert seating, capacity fluctuated for various venues. This ensured that all large venues would be included, no matter how different venue layouts affected seating capacity.”
Chris Meyer, Baton Rouge Area Foundation president and CEO, also spoke in favor of the bill. The House unanimously passed the bill in mid-May and the Senate passed it on Sunday. It now awaits Gov. John Bel Edwards’ signature.
This story originally appeared in a June 5 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.