By Brandon Brown | Phoenix Business Journal
While Arizona’s tourism industry has already been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Valley’s prime tourism and events season is right around the corner, leaving organizers with big decisions to make.
In normal years, hundreds of thousands of visitors would flock to the Valley, particularly Scottsdale, from January to March to attend such events as the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction, Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, Waste Management Phoenix Open and Cactus League spring training. This year, all of those events will still take place, but the numbers in attendance could be dramatically reduced.
Organizers of six of Scottsdale’s largest events joined a conference call hosted by Experience Scottsdale to give the city’s hoteliers, restaurateurs and other tourism officials an update on their events. All of the events’ organizers said that having large crowds at events doesn’t seem possible with COVID-19 still very prevalent in the Phoenix region and across the U.S.
The Fiesta Bowl still hasn’t decided if fans will be allowed in the stadium for the Jan. 2 game. While the college football bowl game is played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, the teams are contracted to stay at Scottsdale and Paradise Valley resorts. Mike Nealy, the executive director of the Fiesta Bowl, said as of right now, the organization is targeting 25% capacity of the stadium, but a lot of things can change from now and then.
The Phoenix Open, which usually has hundreds of thousands of people on site for the weeklong professional golf tournament, also is planning a major reduction in capacity. This year’s tournament chair, Scott Jenkins, said Tuesday that the tournament has been working with the Mayo Clinic, as well as Arizona State University and the University of Arizona on developing a plan to have people in attendance Feb. 1-7.
Jenkins believes the 2021 Phoenix Open might be the first PGA event with a significant number of fans in attendance, but exact numbers are still up in the air. So far, the tournament has not yet constructed any hospitality sites at Tournament Players Club of Scottsdale or sold any tickets. He said he hopes to make a limited number of ticket packages available in the coming weeks.
Scottsdale auto auction house Barrett-Jackson hosted a fall event that had up to 5,000 people attend during one day. CEO Craig Jackson said the event went so well he thinks he can grow it for the company’s largest auction, which is in January. Everyone in attendance had to wear a mask and temperatures were checked at the entrances. Jackson said all of the employees on the auction block were tested for COVID-19 every day and workers were separated into pods so if there was a positive case, not everyone had to quarantine.
Scottsdale’s public art festival Canal Convergence will not have its large beer garden like it usually does, but the event’s director Kim Boganey said local restaurants and bars are being encouraged to have attendees come enjoy their establishments and patios. That way the crowds are spread out across Old Town, instead of in just one area.
No matter what form these events take, but Taryl O’Shea, the executive director of the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, said it is important to keep them on the books and in front of fans, so they can come back even stronger in 2022.
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