{"id":243285,"date":"2026-05-25T20:41:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/243285\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T20:41:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:41:57","slug":"queen-mary-may-downsize-cut-regular-events-to-make-room-for-amphitheaters-schedule-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/243285\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Mary may downsize, cut regular events to make room for amphitheater\u2019s schedule\u00a0 \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Margaritas on the Mary. Boots on the Bay. Eccentric bingo and era-specific orchestral dance.<\/p>\n

Visitors to the Queen Mary may have to bid farewell or expect fewer bookings for some of the ship\u2019s longstanding programs that may need to be rescheduled \u2014 or ended altogether \u2014 to accommodate the start of shows at the city\u2019s new waterfront amphitheater this summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steve Caloca, managing director of the Queen Mary, confirmed Wednesday that planners are reviewing about a dozen regular events to see if they need to be shuffled around or cut.<\/p>\n

Staff has already begun to contact some performers and vendors that might be affected, which could include Candlelight Concerts, Studio 354 disco nights on first Saturdays, Murder Mystery Dinner and Brushes and Bubbly, among others. They will also look at scaling back availability aboard the ship for private catering and parties, as well as events scheduled during holidays like St. Patrick\u2019s Day and in the weeks leading up to Christmas.<\/p>\n

The reason: a lack of parking. There\u2019s a total of 750 car slots between the two venues \u2014 350 for guests on the ship and 400 for VIP and premium attendees at the soon-to-open amphitheater. The ship already hosts about 150 events a year \u2014 weddings, galas, luncheons \u2014 that draw thousands of people, leaving officials lamenting there simply isn\u2019t enough parking to go around.<\/p>\n

That is further complicated by the 12,000-seat amphitheater that opens with its first show on June 6. Event planners expect many attendees to stay at the hotel aboard the Queen Mary, or at least want to hang out aboard before or after it ends. That same day, Caloca said, the Queen Mary expects 1,400 people aboard the ship for a catering event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want as many events here on the Queen Mary as possible,\u201d Caloca said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve been doing a record number of events, and we love doing it, \u2026 but with the amphitheater opening, it is going to use a significant amount of parking spots. So the last thing we want to do is be a disservice to our customers (and) our guests by saying have your event here at the Queen, and then there\u2019s just not enough parking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $21.3 million amphitheater is the city\u2019s most visible example of a yearslong strategy to wean itself off a reliance on local oil production and rebrand itself as an entertainment capital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once fully built next month, the city hopes the venue will generate up to $3 million in revenue each year \u2014 enough to pay off its construction debt after five years and put a dent in the city\u2019s budget shortfalls \u2014 between $6.2 million and $10 million annually through 2035 \u2014 caused by declining petrodollars.<\/p>\n

Officials will need to figure out how to have its newest venue coexist with other revenue generators-turned neighbors, like the Queen Mary, which officials say turned an operating profit<\/a> in 2023 and 2024 after years of struggling to make money.<\/p>\n

\"\"Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson talks about the new amphitheater at the State of the City address at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, Tuesday Jan. 14, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

For now, Caloca says it\u2019s too early to say whether specific programs will be ended. The plan moving forward is to squeeze in events where they can and downsize where they must. Some events, like the country-themed dance party Boots on the Boat, have already been reshuffled from the weekend to midweek. \u201cAnd we still get a good turnout,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

But others might not be so lucky. Alex Mendham, who leads an 11-person orchestral band, says his monthly program\u2019s performance was canceled following a dispute with the ship managers over late payments.<\/p>\n

Mendham\u2019s band first began playing aboard the ship in June 2023, quickly becoming a monthly program with performances for the ship\u2019s Christmas and New Year\u2019s celebrations in their main ballroom. In that time, he says invoices were late nine times \u2014 four of those times were more than a month behind. Their Dec. 27 performance, for example, was invoiced on Dec. 20 but went unpaid until March 9.<\/p>\n

Late payments \u2014 $6,750 for each gig \u2014 forced Mendham to pay his bandmates out-of-pocket and wait for reimbursement by the Queen Mary. The inconsistency, he said, led to several musicians quitting or refusing to work with him.<\/p>\n

In February, he raised complaints with the ship\u2019s operators that carried over for weeks. Then, he said, dates for performances in April, May, August and September were canceled.<\/p>\n

After a performance on March 7, Mendham got a call from Caloca\u2019s assistant. \u201c\u2018Because of amphitheater construction, they\u2019re having to scale back a lot of their events, and as a result, the orchestra is no longer required,\u2019\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

He and his wife, Caroline Adamy, brought the issue to the city, which owns the Queen Mary, earlier this month, offering a timeline of late payments and other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want us to be on the ship anymore,\u201d Mendham said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want us to perform there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a May 15 response,\u00a0 Johnny Vallejo, deputy director of the city\u2019s Economic Development Department, assured the ship\u2019s purchase order system has since been fixed and reiterated that the show\u2019s cancellation was tied directly to parking concerns and that his series \u201cisn\u2019t the only programming reconsidered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may have been an assumption from the vendors that the series would be continued indefinitely, but\u2026 we\u2019re going to be bringing so many visitors onto the campus, guests and visitors on site\u2026 we just have to be careful on how we\u2019re managing events throughout the campus,\u201d Vallejo said<\/p>\n

Caloca declined to comment on accusations that the cancellation was due to retaliation, saying his discussions with vendors are private.<\/p>\n

But he and Vallejo both said an offer has been made for Mendham\u2019s performance to return next year, after the amphitheater\u2019s first season, this time on a quarterly basis. Caloca added he\u2019s even open to Mendham performing for this upcoming New Year\u2019s celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always had a good relationship with (Mendham) in the past,\u201d Caloca said. \u201c\u2026We just need to make sure that it\u2019s the best business decision for the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Margaritas on the Mary. Boots on the Bay. Eccentric bingo and era-specific orchestral dance. Visitors to the Queen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-243285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}