MIDLAND, Texas — After just one year under new management, The Midland Horseshoe is starting to turn over a new leaf.
When asked how the current director, Ken Olson, would describe where The Horseshoe started to where it is now and where it plans to be in the future, Olson said the event space was "leaps and bounds" from where it was a year ago.
Since the management change, Director Olson has appeared before Midland County commissioners many times to iron out any kinks from the old system.
"First on our mind and first on our list was concessions," Olson said. "We know food and beverage[s] went away with the change in management, we are trying to at least get some concessions back."
Though there are still more talks to be had before concessions are officially back, the paint is completely dry on part one of The Horseshoe's reseal and restripe project.
Olson explained that if you were to walk to The Horseshoe, you would see "some beautiful new parking lots and lines on the parking lots that you can actually see and some new fire lanes."
The reason behind this is to keep things easier for attendees to be able to get to their vehicles, for horseshoe staff to get around with dumpsters and moving all of the equipment and things that are needed for daily operations.
The next phase of that project includes additional handicap parking and motorcycle spaces, which is a first for The Horseshoe.
In just a year, the event space has made a lot of headway.
Olson told NewsWest 9 that they did not even have offices or an understanding of where everything worked, but that eventually got the right people to the right places.
Now his team is optimistic about what is to come.
"We're going to grow on what we've already put in place and now we're kind of in that fine tuning," he said. "Getting back to our clients, answering their questions, getting bookings done quicker, handling financials, handling rental contracts and then the details of event security, insurance, food and beverage needs vendors, all of that."