Visitors Committee Approves Grants, Disappointed With Brochures Offered

SIDNEY--The Cheyenne County Visitors Committee had its monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 3, and several topics were covered during the three-hour long meeting. After approving the agenda and minutes from the last meeting, the Committee heard from Director of Cheyenne County Tourism Kendra Mitchell, who detailed financial reports concerning the state of tourism growth and activity in Cheyenne County. She noted that revenues in January of 2024 were down 26.9% compared to last year at the same time, and for the fiscal year, revenues were down 5%. Meanwhile, the State of Nebraska's overall tourist revenue rose 9.1% over the same month last year. The committee members mused that perhaps the weather played a part in the down numbers, but had no definite answer in response to the decline.

The Committee then discussed funding two grant requests, one from the Cheyenne County Fair Board, and the other from Sidney Gold Rush Days. The committee members started to discuss the Fair Board grant, then decided to wait until Fair Board member Ryan Filsinger arrived at the meeting. The committee then spoke with Ken Geu of Sidney Gold Rush Days about their promotion grant request. Geu explained how Gold Rush Days continues to grow, and how they have 50 vendors already signed and are expecting 75 by the time of the event rolls around. Geu also said that Gold Rush Days is expecting more "frontiersmen" to be on hand and the event will be bringing back the historic cricket games and a scavenger hunt and bicycle riding sponsored by Pedalers Corner.

Geu also said that Gold Rush Days organizers are in the process of forming a corn hole tournament, and to get more attendees the event has increased its advertising efforts. In addition to using the Sun-Telegraph to advertise, the Gold Rush organizers are also getting the word out via rural radio advertising in eastern Wyoming and the Chadron area. The Visitors Committee approved a $4,500 grant amount for Sidney Gold Rush Days.

Ryan Filsinger of the Cheyenne County Fair Board then arrived at the meeting, and the committee went back to discussing the grant request for the county fair. Filsinger said the Fair Board increased their marketing and advertising budget from $5k last year to $15k this year. Visitors Committee member Anne Rexroth asked Filsinger if the Fair Board would be willing to work with the Visitors Committee's contracted marketing firm, Maly Marketing, and Filsinger said as long as they can help push digital advertising this year, they would have no problem working with Maly. Filsinger noted that the $15k budget is coming from the Fair Board's budget, and they're still going to work with local radio, and the Sun-Telegraph, for advertising as well as in-kind marketing packages. Filsinger said the board is focused on saturating a 150 mile radius to pull in concert attendees, and that digital marketing campaigns can focus on specific areas and demographics to get the message out.

Filsinger said that last year about 6500 tickets were sold for five events, with a rough breakdown of 1500 for the Rodeo, 1500 for the Demolition Derby, about 500 for the Check Race and the concerts drawing about 3000. Filsinger is hoping to increase those numbers by 1500-to-2000, with a more focused digital marketing campaign and bigger names at the concerts than last year. Filsinger also noted that there will be no Tractor Pull event, and that the "carnival" offering will be "non-traditional", as the Fair Board was unable to come to an agreement with a carnival provider to service this year's fair. Many of the companies that would service the size of fair in Cheyenne county have gone out of business since COVID-19, and the few available outfits that could provide carnival rides were either too far away to make their services logistically feasible or way above the monetary budget the fair could allocate. The fair will have a number of attractions such as a virtual reality trailer, bounce houses, a Rock Wall and a Mechanical Bull to keep the youngsters entertained. Although the Fair Board was asking for a $15k grant, the Visitors Committee approved the sum of $7500, pending approval from the Cheyenne County Commissioners.

The committee then went over the brochure and billboard samples supplied by Maly Marketing, and most of the members were unimpressed with Maly's initial offerings. The brochure designs were very simple and stark, and did not provide much information in most of the committee members' opinions. The brochures were of two types, a tri-fold brochure and a "rack" brochure. At the end of the discussion, the members seemed to be in agreement that the brochures should stay the way the were originally, and just a removal of the "Exit 59" logo was all that needed to be changed. The billboard design was better received, but there was disagreement over the white and red colors, mainly due to fading issues that will happen with the red color. Hal Enevoldsen, the committee member from Potter, went into detail about the Potter billboard, and how it should be blue with white lettering, similar to a Nebraska Highway Road Sign. In the end, the committee needed three billboard designs they liked, and they received four. The committee then decided to hold a special meeting on April 22 to finalize billboard and brochure designs

The meeting closed with a discussion of the "All is Bright" Christmas event. Kendra Mitchell said that the committee needed to get started earlier to have everything completed and ready to go and to add additional activities and features for the event. They plan on upgrading to LED lighting for the event. There was some disagreement concerning the funding procedure for the event, with some members believing that the event should have to apply for grant money like any other event, and others believing that since the event was put on by the Visitor's Committee, their funding just needed to be approved in the budgeting process. Some of the members were not present for the budget vote earlier in the year, when the All is Bright funding was approved, which caused some more discussion. It was asked if the $10k funding request could be more detailed and broken down by expenditure, and Kendra Mitchell was able to produce a spreadsheet from last year's event, showing where all of the money went by line item. Since it was the first time for the event last year, there was no "road map" to follow on what exactly the expenditures would be, but now this year the committee will have a much better on idea where the money will be spent for the event. The members voted to approve the $10k expenditure for the "All is Bright" event.