BOISE, Idaho — Between warbirds in the sky, fairgoers and Expo Idaho and golfers on the green - it was a busy weekend in Boise.
The major, high-attendance events were happening at the same time: the Gowen Thunder Airshow, Western Idaho Fair, and Albertsons Boise Open.
Those three events gave people plenty to do, and brought plenty of money into the city.
"Not knowing the Western Idaho fair numbers yet, we can put the Gowen Thunder and the Albertsons Boise Open numbers together - and that's an equivalent of nearly $14 million estimated impact, and nearly 200,000 people," Carrie Westergard, executive director of Visit Boise, said.
Visit Boise is the tourism division of the Boise Metro Chamber. Their mission is to inspire people to explore the City of Trees, including through events like what we saw over the weekend.
They crunch the numbers to figure out what type of economic impact those events have on Boise.
"Visit Boise uses an industry calculator, we input the numbers of how many people are here each day, it backs out how many people are day visitors versus overnight visitors," Westergard said. "And it gives us an equation based on room night stays, travel here, restaurants. Then there's also the indirect [impact] that happens just from visitation in general that you wouldn't even expect."
Gowen Thunder had an estimated $8.7 million economic impact. It drew 120,000 unique visitors, 30% of whom were from out of town. About 40% of those who traveled to Boise - 14,400 people - stayed overnight.
The Albertsons Boise Open also drew in plenty of people to the green - and brought in a lot of green during its 34th year at Hillcrest Country Club.
"We estimate about 55,000 people that go through during the week, it averages about 14,000 people a day," Westergard said. "That's a $5.1 million economic impact."
In addition to those events, the Western Idaho Fair was also winding down over the weekend.
While we don't know fair attendance numbers yet, KTVB caught up with Western Idaho Fair Director Bob Batista on the final day of the fair to talk about how this year went.
"We're really looking forward to closing strong...This has been a longer run than we normally feel like, because of the weather has been a challenge for us on some days," Batista said. "But I think at the end of the day, those that did come out had a really good time out here at the fair."
It took about 600 workers to put on the fair over its 10-day stretch.
"It's a great feeling to get that accomplished. Most people don't realize all the energy that goes into this and how many people it takes," Batista said. "So we do build a city, and we have a city of people that make sure that guests come out and have a good time."
Boise has another major event coming up later this week. The Spirit of Boise Balloon Classic takes flight on Wednesday August 30 and runs through Sunday. Flights start around 7:20 a.m.
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