Where do we go from here? As The Forum gets older it is time to question what the future has in store for it.
The contract with the Northern Maine Fair Association will expire in around 25 years, with a couple of options for short extensions. At that time the building will revert to ownership in accordance with the amount each entity, the City and the Fair Association, contributed to its original construction, but there are many questions that must be answered before we reach that time frame.
To start we should ask whether or not the facility can fulfill its function as is? While The Forum is doing well, there are many handicaps that prevent it from doing better. The first is its location. The Northern Maine Fair Association is interested in doing more and more events in the future which leaves us competing for event days.
Closely following the location problem is the facilities size. Many people ask when we will be doing our next concert. Due to the size of the facility it is difficult to coax a promoter all the way up here. The Forum’s Gross Potential is too small! Depending on the event we can squeeze up to 5000 people into The Forum. We need to be able to comfortably seat 6200 people to have any real interest from outside promoters.
There are other items such as acoustics, the type of seating we have, the age of the ice system, (Freon is eventually going to be pulled from the market), lack of locker rooms and shower facilities, lack of bathrooms, etc. The list goes on and on.
There are only two real answers; continue to use the facility as is with little or no room for improvement or build a new facility designed to do what we want to do with it. The facility could be stand alone or even combined with the Recreation & Parks Department. Anything is possible if the design and the location is correct.
James F. Kaiser is director of the Forum. He can be reached at 764-0491.
