OC Crowds Set Dew Tour Attendance Record

OCEAN CITY – Last weekend’s Dew Tour in Ocean City featured record-breaking attendance once again, and organizers are already looking to book next year’s date.

“We are thrilled to have hosted another successful Dew Tour in Ocean City. The support from the city and community has been tremendous, with the Pantech Beach Championships being the highest attended event in Dew Tour history, with over 93,000 people enjoying the event over the weekend,” Vice President of Events for Alli Sports Chris Prybylo said. “We are excited to continue the dialogue with the city about the possibility to return in 2013. We are still working through the details, but we have formally held the 2013 dates with the city and hope to make a collective decision with the city officials in a timely manner."

Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association Executive Director Susan Jones reported that most of the hotel membership was full on Saturday night and a good majority on Friday. She added that an unusual amount of hotel rooms were booked into Monday as well.

“It definitely brings an economic impact to the town, and I think it is pretty amazing that we are the only beach location,” Jones said. “If you look at the fact that they are now only choosing one beach, one city and one mountain, and we are the chosen beach, that is pretty cool.”

Alli Sports, a division of the NBC Sports Group, announced in April a four-year renewal of its partnership with Mountain Dew, who has been the tour title partner since its inception.

Following Ocean City the Dew Tour’s city stop will be in San Francisco, Calif., Oct. 18-21, and the mountain stop will be in Breckenridge, Colo., Dec. 13-16.

Ocean City Tourism and Marketing Director Donna Abbott said it was a strong weekend for business in Ocean City.

“It is very difficult to carve out those who specifically came for the event,” Abbott said. “We have not done an economic impact study on this event, but it certainly looks favorable just judging from the crowds that were at the venue, the stands looked pretty full during the actual competitions, and there were a lot of people milling around on the Boardwalk and in the festival area.”

Last year was the first year the Dew Tour came to town and it was held in July compared to this year when it was held the third weekend in August.

“I have heard favorable comments from businesses that were happy that it was coming this time of the year since things start winding down a little bit and schools go back into session. Many that I talked to thought this was going to be a boost for mid- to late-August numbers,” Abbott said.

However, demoflush figures, estimations of population based on wastewater flow, paint a different picture, showing 282,476 people in town this past weekend compared to 292,647 the third weekend of August last year without the event.

Unofficial word is a date in June is being proposed for next year’s Dew Tour stop in Ocean City.

“My first preference would be to have it in June to kick off the summer,” Jones said. “With the decent weather forecast, it would have been a really good weekend regardless, just because weekends in July and August are usually pretty good.”

Jones furthered that if June is proposed she would hope for it to be on the first weekend so that it wouldn’t interfere with other events, such as the OC Air Show.

“I haven’t really talked to anybody in the community regarding the June proposal but I am sure those discussions will be taking place fairly soon,” Abbott said. “I would like to look at it a little more and weigh it out. We have a lot of events now that are coming in June. I have always been the more the merrier type, as long as the city services can be provided and the businesses desire it I say let’s work to make it happen.”