Member News

During a small meeting on Thursday morning at La Margarita, Discover Odessa officials and the Ector County Coliseum director spoke about upcoming events for 2021.

The largest event scheduled to take place this year is the Permian Basin International Oil Show.

Monica Tschauner, the director for Discover Odessa, said the oil show brings in 30,000 attendees with the hotel room demand being 23,858 and the economic impact worth is more than $15 million.

“As of right now, it’s still ongoing,” Tschauner said during the meeting. “We are excited about that.”

The Permian Basin International Oil Show is a biennial event and scheduled for every even year.

However, the 2020 show was postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The oil show is scheduled for Oct. 19-21 at the Ector County Coliseum.

Ector County Coliseum director Aaron Martin served as the keynote speaker during Thursday’s meeting. He spoke about upcoming events at the coliseum and events that have just finished.

Martin said that the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo was limited to 1,800 seats, which he detailed was 38% capacity. The coliseum can hold 4,700 people.

Martin said the coliseum is allowed to have 50% capacity, but he can’t see that happening with regards to social distancing. Martin said the coliseum is selling groups of tickets that range from two to six people and those groups spread six feet apart.

“Everyone is very appreciative that we are even having events,” Martin said after the meeting. “Even though the capacity is diminished and there are some extra hurdles that they have to go through whether it’s how they buy tickets or wearing a mask when they enter the building, our feedback has been mostly positive.”

Martin said the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo had seven rodeo performances with three of those being sold out. Martin said the surprising part of the stock show and rodeo was the stock show portion as it saw a two- to three-fold increase from around 100-150 people to more than 300 people.

One event Martin said the coliseum would be open to would be a parking lot concert.

He said concerts will likely be the last thing to move inside the coliseum.

“The big shows just aren’t happening yet, unless they are in a parking lot,” Martin said. “We are open to doing that. We just haven’t been approached by any promoters.”