When a car show is more than a car show

Sometimes, hobbies can be great generators of economic activity.

Take, for example, the 33rd Annual GTO Association of America International Meet, which was held in early July at The Ranch and Embassy Suites.

It was a busy week and several busy months of preparation for the Northern Colorado GTO Association – of which I’m a member – and the Classic GTO Association of Denver, joint non-profit sponsors of this show. This show, and others like it, is significant boosters to the economy of Northern Colorado.

Our show generated 856 room-nights at the Embassy Suites, well over $100,000 of revenue. Total direct spending by our clubs to sponsor the show was approximately $60,000.

We had 204 Pontiacs registered for this event, 46 GTOs in concours judging and the rest in popular voting classes. The xXx GTO was on display and there were seminars describing the making of the Vin Diesel xXx movie, touring Route 66 in GTOs and several other topics of interest to GTO and Pontiac owners and restorers. For the first time, the GTO show was open to all Pontiacs. There were 259 persons registered for the show and there was a steady stream of spectators viewing the many Pontiacs on display, especially on Saturday, when an all-models car show was held alongside the many Pontiacs on display.

A very rare GTO won Best-of-Show, a fresh restoration of a 1970 Orbit Orange, four-speed, RamAir IV convertible. This car is conservatively valued at more than $300,000 and will now go into a private collection. It may never be seen again in a public show. This car easily cost $200,000 to restore to factory originality, a significant boost to some local economy.

There were 37 states represented by the registrations. There were also registrations from Canada and Australia.

About one-third of the concours cars were local; cars from Northern Colorado, Denver and Wyoming. I know from experience that it costs at least $75,000 to restore one of these cars for points-judging. Such a restoration is only performed on rarer cars, cars that are worth the investment and will increase in value over time. Using a multiplier of 2.0, the restoration of each of these cars probably creates $200,000 of economic activity in a region. If 15 of the 46 concours cars were local, that’s $3 million of economic impact. And all that economic activity happened before the show at The Ranch.

In addition, most of the concours cars and many of the popular vote cars were trailered to the show. A trailer and a pickup to pull it can easily cost $100,000, another significant boost to the economy of the region.

Each owner/family of the registered cars spent approximately $1,500 for their five-or six-day stay at the Embassy Suites and The Ranch. Multiplying the 259 registrations by this amount, and using a multiplier of 2.0, generates $777,000 of economic activity.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that the show added $1 million dollars to our economy.

Several of my friends drove their GTOs to Colorado and spent several days before or after the show in Estes Park and at other tourist destinations along I-70 west of Denver, generating even more economic impact. A sponsored cruise over Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor Center was the feature attraction one day, including a tour-ending stop in Estes Park for shopping and dinner. There was also a movie night for the cars at the Holiday Twin drive-in in Southwest Fort Collins.

What a sight: GTOs lined up for a movie, many with their tops down.

Attendance at our GTO show was hurt by recent fires and all the national press coverage which they received. We had at least 14 cancellations because of smoke and fire issues related to health and visibility issues. These cancellations, assuming expenditures of $1,500 per registration and a multiplier of 2, cost the Northern Colorado economy $42,000, about $8,000 per day. Not much in the larger scheme of things, but significant nonetheless.

In total, I estimate our show contributed about $5 million to the economy of Northern Colorado over a six-month period.

Not bad for a bunch of hobbyists.

John W. Green is a regional economist who compiles the Northern Colorado Business Report’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators. He can be reached at jwgreen@frii.com.

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