KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — UT will kick off alcohol sales in Thompson-Boling Arena starting this weekend.
The long-awaited policy change will see a test run at the Alice Cooper concert Saturday.
The band's music is going to shake the rafters at Thompson-Boling Arena this weekend.
One reason why—alcohol.
"I daresay the event we're going to have Saturday night would not have come without the introduction of alcohol," said UT Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Jeff Maples.
Maples said this weekend is important for the future of alcoholic drink sales at Thompson-Boling.
"We want to see logistically how this works," Maples said.
It will be a test run for the long-awaited idea.
"The whole concept that was introduced and passed was to get more events to come to the Knoxville area and increase economic impact," Maples said.
Maples says adding alcohol alone would bring 4 to 5 more large events to the arena each year, and increase how much money people spend there drastically.
"$2 to $4 a head--per person without alcohol," Maples said. "With alcohol, it goes to $10 to $12 per person. So you can do the numbers."
And if we do the numbers, a sold out show at Thompson-Boling could make as much as 12 times the 21,678 seats in the arena.
That's more than a quarter of a million dollars.
Maples said the signs are all over the kiosks—they're taking the rules seriously.
"We've emphasized multiple times—you could be carded multiple times if you have a beer in your hand and you don't look 21," Maples said.
But, the chances the new arena policy spills into Neyland are still brewing.
"As far as football at Neyland Stadium, we're still looking at that as to whether we're going to do that for the first game or not," Maples said. "A lot will depend upon how this goes tomorrow night."
Maples said they're hoping of course for a successful event.
He doesn't foresee anything going wrong, but he said they're going to be on the lookout.