A North Carolina Business Journal is reporting the IBMA’s Annual Convention held in Raleigh last week brought in 10 million dollars from direct visitor spending.
84 thousand visitors coming into the city from outside the Wake Country area were originally reported by the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitor’s Bureau but new figures estimate the number to be 140 thousand.
Raleigh Mayor, Nancy McFarlane and the city’s leaders originally predicted that the bluegrass convention and music festival would bring in about 9 million dollars from about 60,000 visitors.
About 20,000 hotel-room nights were sold according to the convention and visitor’s bureau or a 10 percent increase over the same period the previous year without the conference.
The City of Raleigh and the state of North Carolina campaigned hard to acquire the convention and since winning the bid for a three-year run have worked even harder to let the IBMA know they don’t ever intend to loose it.
“To say that Raleigh ‘rolled out the red carpet for us’ is a bit of an understatement,” stated Nancy Cardwell, executive director of IBMA. “It’s probably more accurate to say that they rolled out the carpet, bought new furniture and built a new home for us.”
The CVB also estimates the various bluegrass events held throughout the downtown Raleigh area also produced $5 million in media value, based on research by Vocus Inc., which estimated the events generated nearly 2,000 domestic and international media impressions.
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