Tulsa's not big enough.
John Bolton heard those words from Los Angeles music agents and Tulsa residents alike in the months before the opening of the city's BOK Center in September 2008.
"They thought (the arena) was maybe too large for the market and that we wouldn't be able to really sell enough tickets to have the large, big shows," said Bolton, the facility's general manager.
How wrong they were.
The iconic 19,199-seat downtown arena has spent nearly five years shattering expectations, selling out shows, attracting major artists and landing in national publications' rankings of the nation's top-performing venues.
And with performances by Paul McCartney kicking off its five-year anniversary celebration Wednesday and Thursday, the facility has proved again that Tulsa can attract the world's top performers.
"The BOK Center is really the beginning of what I believe has been the renaissance of our city," Mayor Dewey Bartlett said Tuesday in a ceremony rededicating the arena in honor of the coming milestone.
"But the real way that we can talk about it is just to say that Paul McCartney is here. ... He purposely has picked Tulsa, Oklahoma."
McCartney helped celebrate the BOK Center's first anniversary in a 2009 performance that still ranks as the arena's most lucrative event, having grossed $2.6 million in ticket sales.
But like any major star, landing McCartney, whose choice venues are major outdoor stadiums, took some arm-pulling - especially the first time, Bolton said.
"That was probably the hardest thing," he said. "The back-door politics of it - trying to get people convinced that Tulsa was a real concert market."
Bolton, an executive with the arena's worldwide management company, SMG, had doubts of his own when he was assigned to Tulsa during the facility's construction in 2007. Then, a year in advance of the building's opening, tickets for a Celine Dion concert went on sale.
It was a sellout.
"Once Celine went on sale and it sold out, we had a track record, and all of a sudden the next show worked and the next show worked," Bolton said. "Then it became just, 'Oh my God! We've got to play Tulsa.' "
Since its first show on Sept. 6, 2008 - a sold-out concert by the Eagles - the BOK Center has sold 3.3 million tickets, collected $104.4 million in ticket revenue and generated more than $11.1 million in sales tax.
It has been consistently recognized as one of the nation's top venues, nominated four straight years for Pollstar magazine's Arena of the Year award and ranked by the publication last month as the 14th most-attended arena so far this year.
But most surprising is that attendance has held steady each year between 600,000 and 740,000, bucking a trend among arenas of declining revenue after an initial "honeymoon period," Bolton said.
"Typically, the honeymoon period continues for maybe six months after the building opens, and we've been able to continue that," he said.
Concerts tend to be the arena's bread and butter, but other successes have included attracting a WNBA basketball team - the Tulsa Shock - and national sporting events such as the NCAA college basketball tournament and the 2013 Bassmaster Classic.
The $178 million facility, funded mostly by revenue bonds and a 13-year 0.6-cent sales tax, was the flagship project of Tulsa County's Vision 2025 initiative in 2003.
Renowned architect Cesar Pelli, famous for designing the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, drew up a swirling aluminum-clad exterior and an eye-popping glass facade in response to city officials' request for an "iconic" structure.
The design gave Tulsa "a true icon - a building that people visit just to see it, let alone see a show here," former Mayor Bill LaFortune said Tuesday.
LaFortune helped lead the Vision 2025 campaign along with former Tulsa County Commissioner Bob Dick. Bartlett said during Tuesday's rededication ceremony that a plaque honoring both men will be placed in the facility's lobby.
"People always say, 'You didn't get enough credit for the BOK Center," LaFortune said. "Well, I enjoy as a citizen the fact that we have this."
The ceremony was just the start of fifth-anniversary celebrations, with Gov. Mary Fallin getting in on the fun by declaring Paul McCartney Day on Wednesday.
After McCartney's performances, an Oct. 4 concert by Blake Shelton and two yet-to-be-announced major shows closer to the actual anniversary will also be billed as celebrations, Bolton said.
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