Enthusiasm about the Ride Sun Valley bike festival held earlier this month is still being felt around town. As final numbers are tallied, event organizers say they are pleased by the event's success and encouraged by participants' feedback. But they wish they had more data to examine.
Greg Randolph, general manager of the Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce, presented a summary of the event to a joint meeting of the Sun Valley and Ketchum city councils on Thursday, July 21, at Sun Valley City Hall.
The week's races drew 1,024 participants, with an average athlete age of 30, he said. Area marketers are hoping to boost interest in the Sun Valley-Ketchum area among the younger set. The valley isn't well known to that demographic—yet.
"I didn't talk to one person who wasn't just over the moon, and so stoked to come back next year," Randolph said. "The word of mouth of this event is going to be very strong. I don't want to curse it, but I think that next year will be even bigger and better."
Randolph said customer satisfaction was high, due in part to the welcoming atmosphere in the valley.
"I think it's just natural, we're really nice people in this valley, and we're happy and positive," he said.
Vital to the event's success was the more than 220 volunteers.
"It takes a lot of volunteers to put on an event like this," he said.
Despite what seemed like a busy week, with shops and restaurants humming and streams of people on the streets and sidewalks, event organizers say they can't put a number on its financial impact.
"It's all anecdotal," Randolph said.
He and Jake Peters, board president of the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance, asked council members to provide weekly data for local-option taxes.
"We need to have weekly data with regard to LOT in the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley," Randolph said. "When you have an event, you need to know how many beds were sold, how much vodka got sold, what's happening with your numbers, so that we can track and see the effect of these events."
Peters said that monthly LOT reports make it difficult to tease out numbers for a specific event.
"We need to give you cause and effect," he said. "If we can't get data that tracks that (we can't know) what was that week like? Was that week significantly better than other weeks in July? We can then give you feedback with regard to the efficacy of the things that we're doing. If you can provide us that data, we'll be more useful to you."
Sun Valley Mayor Wayne Willich said after the meeting that doing so would be "very tough," especially on businesses.
"It's tough enough to get it done monthly," he said.
Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall said it would be useful to have weekly information but also described it as "problematic" for businesses and city staff.
New name, new website
At Thursday's meeting, the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance introduced its new president and chief marketing officer, Arlene Schieven. Schieven presented a brief overview of what the organization is planning.
Among announcements was a new name.
Sun Valley Marketing Alliance is "a bit of a mouthful," Schieven said. Though the group will keep that as its legal name, it will now be called Visit Sun Valley.
There already is "quite a bit of equity" in Visit Sun Valley, Schieven said. The organization still will have two operating units: the chamber of commerce and strategic marketing.
Visitors and web surfers will see a new look for www.visitsunvalley.com, set to launch this fall.
"I would call it more than an upgrade," Schieven said. "I think essentially what you're going to see come Oct. 15 is a completely new website experience for the visitor. I think it's going to be leading-edge, it's going to be really modern, and I think it's going to be noticed."
The revamp will be done by Origin Design and Communications, which has done work for resort agencies such as the Whistler Chamber of Commerce and the Telluride Tourism Board.
"It's going to be different, but in a very good way," she said.
Peters reported that fiscal 2011 budget numbers are close to projections.
The alliance's slightly revised budget includes $858,600 in planned expenditures in strategic marketing. It has spent $450,000 to date.
"(There are) slight variations ... but nothing too dramatic," Peters said. "We're definitely tracking to be on track with the numbers we've shown to you earlier."
Rebecca Meany: rmeany@mtexpress.com
Bike racer Adam Craig maneuvers down the Super Downhill course on Bald Mountain during the Ride Sun Valley bike festival. Photo by Willy Cook
