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 A Gopher's Worst Nightmare
Posts: 5094
 
Location: Southern Oregon | Several other local ladies too me as well as my self have been kicking around the idea of putting in a LARGE indoor arena. Our area is lacking in a good indoor arena to be used for horse events, such as barrel racing. Our fairgrounds has two indoor arenas, one is HUGE....but they rent it out for car races in the winter and the other arena is tiny and always packed and has horrid ground. I think we all know that putting in an indoor arena is a BIG expense, but do any of you with arena's make any money back? An arena around here would be the only NICE indoor horse arena for about 80 miles in both directions. Where do you make the most at.......monthly or yearly fees for use(haul in fees) or renting it out for events? | |
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Miracle in the Making
Posts: 4013
| cowgirl_3207 - 2015-01-05 10:29 PM Several other local ladies too me as well as my self have been kicking around the idea of putting in a LARGE indoor arena. Our area is lacking in a good indoor arena to be used for horse events, such as barrel racing. Our fairgrounds has two indoor arenas, one is HUGE....but they rent it out for car races in the winter and the other arena is tiny and always packed and has horrid ground. I think we all know that putting in an indoor arena is a BIG expense, but do any of you with arena's make any money back? An arena around here would be the only NICE indoor horse arena for about 80 miles in both directions. Where do you make the most at.......monthly or yearly fees for use(haul in fees) or renting it out for events?
i would definety talk to some owner before do its a huge expense your stalls rv and consession is yiur money maker. call like bob in unidilla ga call owner of different facility through us
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 Veteran
Posts: 146
| Are you putting this on someone's private property or buying the land? I can see issues with it being on one person's property v/s a public piece of property. Sit down and figure up all the costs to purchase and build, cost of monthly maintenance, electric, water, tractor, taxes, insurance, permits, etc.; call and get quotes, you might be surprised at how quickly you are looking at some very big amounts of money. Are you going to have overnight stalls? Remember you aren't just building a structure, you are putting in electric, water, sewer (or rental of porta potties), those things add to the expense. Figure out what each of you have to contribute to the monthly costs; you also need a plan on how to have money if one or more of you pulls out of the business venture and how you will cover costs when the arena isn't being used or rented out. Are there sufficient sponsors in the area to help out with events? Can you all maintain a good working relationship for the long run? I have no advice to offer on whether they bring in money or not, if I had to make an educated guess I would say they is no profit and probably not much to actually pay costs. I can tell you that one locally in my area is now closed up now because they couldn't sustain it. I suspect the arena in your area that rents out to car races does so because they would go under if they didn't. That's the deal, you need to have events going on all the time or there is no income coming in and your will be paying the bills out of pocket.
Is the small arena on the fairgrounds still usable (size wise) for horse events? If yes, maybe you all would be better off, working with who ever runs the fair grounds in good footing and fixing it up for use, really not much investment needed since facilities exist, just need footing etc. Getting them interested in holding some horse events and help run them. | |
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 Unknown Drip
Posts: 5624
Location: Back in MT BABY!!! | Going on it with other people is a HUGE risk! If that is the plan make sure it is done correctly legally. Whats the weather like is S. Oregon? Would you need it heated...would you need lights? Barns are a lot of work and renting it out to others requires a lot of work to keep the ground right.
I know if a lady who rented out her personal barn to some friends to rope a couple nights a week. Well said "friends" advertised roping practice and charged people to come in and rope. "Friends" ended up having 12 to 15 (instead of 4 or 5) people a night there and actually made money from their "personal practices". When they left the ground was so hard and packed down it would take atleast 2 hours of working it to get it back to where it needed to be to run barrels on. | |
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 Fact Checker
Posts: 16575
Location: Displaced Iowegian | I will tell you that we were going that route about 15 years ago. We even had the 80 acres purchased and paid for (won’t make any money if you don’t have PARKING) and the contracts to sign for the arena building. It was going to be family owned. After really putting a pencil to the costs vs. profits, we decided that we didn’t want to live, breathe and die working in that arena to pay for IT and operating expenses……we ended up with an “outdoor” arena for our own personal events. There is a reason that these big indoor arenas cost so much to rent………Additionally, I have seen several "friendships" break-up because of the stress of trying to run a business together........ | |
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