Bike rally seeks proof of growth

Survey commissioned to reveal event’s economic effect

NWA Media/MICHAEL WOODS --09/19/2013--   Bikers cruse up Dickson Street in Fayetteville Thursday afternoon during the second day of the 14th annual Bikes Blues and BBQ in Fayetteville.  The annual bike rally runs through Saturday.
NWA Media/MICHAEL WOODS --09/19/2013-- Bikers cruse up Dickson Street in Fayetteville Thursday afternoon during the second day of the 14th annual Bikes Blues and BBQ in Fayetteville. The annual bike rally runs through Saturday.

FAYETTEVILLE - In between visiting with customers and working to set up large, inflatable drink cans along Dickson Street, Travis Wooten stopped to ponder what Bikes, Blues & BBQ means to his employer and the local economy.

Wooten serves as on premise manager for Premium Brands of NWA, a local beer and energy drink distributorship that counts the motorcycle rally as one of its busiest weeks of the year. Although Wooten didn’t have access to specific numbers, he did provide a comparison that illustrates how big the event has grown in 14 years.

“You could probably call it two home Razorback weekends combined into one weekend as far as volume,” Wooten said of beverage sales. “We work twice as long. We load twice as often.”

Wooten isn’t alone in having little more than anecdotal evidence - and no firm numbers - about the rally’s effect on the local economy. Sales-tax figures for Fayetteville aren’t broken down by specific events. Spikes in the fall can be attributed to a number of factors, including the rally, University of Arkansas football games and the influx of students and families on campus.

A study conducted in 2005and released in 2006 found the economic effect on Fayetteville to be between $37.6 million and $66.4 million. Interest in the rally has grown since that initial study, and attendance is more than 200,000.

To pin down what the event means to Fayetteville, Bikes, Blues & BBQ organizers commissioned a study through UA’s Walton College of Business Center for Busi-ness and Economic Research. Survey-takers were scheduled to canvass three locations in Fayetteville from Wednesday until today to collect information for a visitor expenditure survey.

Among the 11 questions asked of attendees, information about their hometowns and how much money they intended to spend while in Fayetteville were included. There was even a question pertaining to number of tattoos obtained during their time in Fayetteville. Results won’t be known until later this year because sales-tax revenue is reported two months after events.

Organizers said they think the event has grown significantly since that 2006 study. It’s why they asked UA to help calculate a more accurate attendance figure using factors such as aerial photos and pounds of trash collected.

“Certainly, we think it has grown,” said Bikes, Blues & BBQ board Chairman Ken Mourton. “It has been a few years since the last study, so we wanted to get a more accurate picture of the impact.”

What will not be taken into account in the forthcoming study is how the rally affects the region and state. Vacation Rentals in Hot Springs Village advertises with Bikes, Blues & BBQ and has reported riders staying there in previous years. Bordering states Missouri and Oklahoma also see benefits of bikers coming to and from Northwest Arkansas.

“There is local, regional and statewide impact. All of those things,” said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas. “You can imagine by the nature of motorcycles, they’re meant to go places and not stay in one spot. So it is quite clear the impact will be felt in much more than just on Dickson Street or just in Fayetteville or just in what we call Northwest Arkansas.”

Business, Pages 31 on 09/21/2013

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