It has been a busy month for Cape Fear Community College’s new Humanities and Fine Arts Center, which opened Oct. 3 with a gala featuring Liza Minelli backed by the N.C. Symphony.

Despite a few glitches that first weekend – a major rainstorm and flooding that canceled the symphony’s concert and electrical problems that interrupted a performance of Beauty and the Beast – the center has operated to great success, said director Shane Fernando.  

Ticket sales have been a major surprise, Fernando said Thursday.

“The biggest shock, to me, is the success of our sales,” he said.  “We have very little inventory left. Boz Scaggs [who performed Wednesday night] was sold out. We have fewer than 20 tickets left for Jackson Browne in January. We’ve sold 50 percent of the tickets for Lily Tomlin in February.”

Tickets to this season’s two remaining PNC Broadway Series performances – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in February and Mamma Mia! in May – are nearly 50 percent sold, Fernando said. Not only was the Oct. 4 N.C. Symphony concert sold out before weather canceled it (it has been rescheduled for Nov. 12), but the orchestra has added a second holiday pops concert in December, based on its ticket sales in Wilmington thus far this year.

“That’s the first time in decades the symphony has added [an extra] performance in Wilmington,” he said. “It shows that classical music is still alive and well. Their subscriptions here this year are double what they had the year before in total sales.”

Even contemporary dance, which Fernando said has not been a strong draw in Wilmington, is doing well. There are only 20 tickets left for each of three dance performances scheduled for early 2016, he said.

Ticket sales in the center’s first month, and some research on the ticket buyers, have helped affirm two assumptions that that informed planning and design of the Fine Arts Center. One was that people would come from out of the area to see major performing artists and Broadway shows, and the second was that people would be willing to pay higher-than-Wilmington-norm prices for tickets.

Fernando said that ticket buyers to date hail from all across North Carolina as well as from neighboring states and as far away as Ohio, New Jersey and New York. And those people aren't just coming to a show while in town visiting relatives, he added.

"I've had phone calls from people who are flying in or driving in specifically to see a show," he said.

“National numbers for cultural and entertainment tourism indicate that 31 percent of ticket buyers are from outside the performance area. From the very first week, these demographics have held true for us: 25 to 35 percent of all our ticket buyers have been from outside Wilmington,” Fernando said. “This reflects not only our marketing efforts but our artists’ marketing efforts. We are getting Wilmington on the map as an entertainment destination.”

Wilmington area residents also seem willing to pay higher ticket prices for shows at the new center. Fernando isn’t surprised at that. Early research showed that enough people to fill the Fine Arts Center leave Wilmington every month to attend concerts, shows and other kinds of performances elsewhere.

“Now we’re keeping those dollars in Wilmington,” Fernando said. “And it’s not just ticket sales, which are producing tens of thousands of dollars in tax revenue, but it’s hotel rooms, and restaurant meals and cocktails after the show.”

Fernando and his staff continue to make changes at the center to enhance the visitor experience, he said. One such change is adding more concession capacity, reportedly a problem at the Oct. 3 gala.

“That is a challenge, and we are working with our vendors. Last night we had two concession stands and four additional concession kiosks," he said. "It’s something we will constantly be evaluating.”

While the performing arts aspect of the Humanities and Fine Arts Center has been operating for most of October, the building’s academic operations are beginning this week, as faculty members and students move in to classrooms, offices and laboratories.

The building contains 25 formal classroom spaces, studios for a variety of visual arts, a Mac lab for digital and graphic design, a language lab and an array of music practice and rehearsal spaces. There is also an outdoor conservatory for performances with a capacity of 600 and a 108-seat black-box theater.

“Several thousand students are expected to be taking classes in this facility each semester as part of their studies,” CFCC spokesman David Hardin said in an email Thursday.

Some of those students, as well as interns from University of North Carolina Wilmington, have already been learning in the building as they work alongside tech crews on shows.

“The student hours have been in the hundreds already," Fernando said, "either through a formal semester program or working on a show-by-show basis."