RevPAS, Pace, Use Day, Per Cap, Programming Yield – the reporting vocabulary of the venue industry, as standardized in the IAVM sector frameworks and aligned with AIPC, PwC, Destinations International and AMS Analytics definitions. Three venue types, three vocabularies – defined here in one place, the way Thynk Analytics reports them.
From the IAVM Convention Center reporting framework: the units, ratios and space-revenue metrics convention and exhibition center commercial teams run on.
A day on which the event itself runs – show days, congress days, meeting days. Distinct from Use Days, which also count build-up and breakdown.
Any day a space is occupied by an event, including move-in and move-out. The denominator that makes utilization honest: a hall being built for three days is occupied, even though the event has not opened.
A day on which a space earns no use at all. Convention centers track Dark Days to find sellable gaps; arenas also cost them (see Cost per Dark Day).
Gross Occupied Area divided by Gross Available Area for the period. The convention-center standard calculates space occupancy on an 18-hour day, 06:00 to midnight.
Revenue per Available Square Meter: Total Event Revenue divided by Total Available Square Meters. The headline space-productivity metric for convention and exhibition centers. Note that RevPAS means something different in performing arts, where it is calculated per available seat.
Revenue per Occupied Square Meter: Total Event Revenue divided by Total Occupied Square Meters. Read together with RevPAS, it separates how well occupied space earns from how much space sits unsold.
The total space contracted to events across a period – the volume measure that sits behind space-revenue and sales-cost metrics such as Cost per Booked Square Meter.
A regular – at least monthly – review of actual past performance plus projected future performance, by year of production, read against the same point in prior years. Pace tells a commercial team whether the future is filling faster or slower than it did last year.
The revenue value of future business currently held – contracted and tentative – for future periods. Business on the Books against the same point last year is the input Pace Reporting reads.
Contracted Events divided by the sum of Contracted Events and Lost Opportunities. Only opportunities actually won or lost in the period are counted; excluding open opportunities keeps the ratio honest.
Social, Military, Education, Religious and Fraternal – the standard label for a segment of organizers whose events tend to be rate-sensitive but flexible on dates, useful for filling shoulder periods.
The overnight stays an event generates in local accommodation. Used in economic-impact reporting and in the Space Booked to Room Night Ratio (SRNR).
Two food-and-beverage productivity reads: revenue per cap divides F&B revenue by attendees; revenue per cover divides it by guests actually served.
From the IAVM Arenas framework – the nearest recognized standard for stadiums too. Per-head revenue, per-event economics, and what a dark day really costs.
Net revenue per head through the turnstile, by line: F&B per cap is net F&B revenue (less tax) divided by turnstile count; merchandise and parking follow the same pattern; Gross Per Cap is the sum of all of them.
Net Event Revenue minus Event Expenses – what a single event actually contributed once its costs are counted.
Net Event Income divided by the cost of investment, expressed as a percentage. The per-event read on whether the deal was worth doing.
The sum of net profit or loss across an entire season divided by total events – also calculated per event type, which is where the real programming decisions live.
The standard daily overhead a venue carries when no event occurs: full-time salaries, baseline cleaning and security, supplies, utilities. Dark days also carry a qualitative cost – the operational pressure when one is suddenly replaced by an event day.
The three arena deal structures, ordered by who carries the risk: in a Rental the promoter carries most of it against a flat rental; a Co-Promotion shares it; In-House means the venue is the promoter and carries most of the risk itself.
The breakeven and earning-potential worksheet built for a prospective ticketed event – show date, artist, guarantee, deal type, ticketing tiers, expenses, gross and net receipts – before the offer goes out.
From the IAVM Performing Arts Center framework: seat-based productivity, programming economics, and the financial-health ratios boards ask about.
The core split in performing-arts reporting: performances on one side; rehearsals, education programs, receptions and commercial hires on the other. Each of the 365 days takes its single highest-ranking use: performance, then non-performance, rehearsal, tech, maintenance, and finally dark.
In performing arts, RevPAS is Programming Revenue per Available Seat, and TRevPAS is Total Revenue per Available Seat, where available seats are total seats multiplied by events. Never conflate seat-based RevPAS with the square-meter RevPAS used by convention centers.
Programming Revenue divided by Programming Expense – how many units of revenue each unit of programming spend brings back.
Occupancy Cost – security, cleaning and maintenance, insurance, utilities – divided by total seats, total patrons, or total events. Three denominators, one question: what does keeping the building open actually cost per unit of activity?
A company whose rent is fully or partly subsidized in exchange for priority calendar access – one of the standard presenter types alongside Center Presentations and rental presenters (non-profit or commercial).
A third-party financial-health method (Prager/KPMG, adapted by AMS Analytics) that blends four core ratios – Primary Reserve, Net Income, Return on Net Assets and Viability – into a single score on a scale of minus 1 to 10. Referenced here as the industry concept performing-arts boards use.
A 45-minute discovery call with the team. We’ll start with the reports your venue runs on today, where the numbers take manual work to produce, and map where Thynk can help.
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