Kansas City's downtown continues to thrive, recent survey finds

The Kansas City Star

As 50,000-plus Rolling Stones fans showed this summer, Arrowhead Stadium isn’t just for Chiefs games.  And that’s just one of many venues where Kansas Citians – and people from surrounding counties – go for entertainment.

Scarborough Research surveyed nearly 2,000 adults ages 18 and older in Kansas City’s 33-county marketing region about where they had visited and attended events in the previous 12 months.

When it came to event spaces and venues, the responses showed that the resurgence of downtown Kansas City continues. The Power & Light District led the way, with more than 1 in 4 respondents attending at least one event there.

Arrowhead events got a 9 percent positive response. That projected to nearly 169,000 people from the marketing area attending an event there apart from a Chiefs game – and the survey came before the American Royal Barbecue was held there from the first time earlier this month.  And several other venues, most of them downtown, outpaced Arrowhead.

Union Station was second, followed by the Sprint Center, which earlier this month was ranked as the eighth busiest arena in the U.S. by Pollstar Magazine, a concert industry trade publication. Sprint Center ranked behind only venues in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.