PHOTO BY MEGHAN ERKKINEN

The city of Fife adopted the Lady Washington during the Tall Ships Festival over the Fourth of July weekend. Fife’s flag flew on the mast the whole time.

Fife promotes city at Tall Ships festival

By Meghan Erkkinen

The city of Fife was by no means immune to the hustle and bustle the area encountered over the Fourth of July weekend. Many hotels scrambled to accommodate extra visitors, and Fife staff worked hard to promote the city at the Tall Ships Festival, which drew about 400,000 visitors to Thea Foss Waterway.

The city adopted one of the tall ships – the Lady Washington – as a way to get its name out. Throughout the weekend, city staff and representatives greeted the public and gave out information and temporary Fife tattoos. A Fife resident dressed as character Jack Sparrow, of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, and posed for photos with Tall Ships visitors.

“People were really, really interested in everything from bringing their business to Fife, to moving to Fife, to the (Fife) Swim Center, to the Harvest Festival,” said Laurel Potter, marketing director for the city. “Maybe people are going to start to realize there is a little more to Fife than they thought.”

Of 10,000 tattoos on hand, only about 500 remained after the weekend of the festival. About 50 people posed for photos with Jack Sparrow. The city of Fife flag was also flown on the Lady Washington mast for the whole weekend, and another banner encouraging Tall Ships attendees to visit Fife was placed on one of the gangplanks.

In addition, the city held a contest for tickets, open to Fife residents. The city received about 150 entries, all of which were drawn from the city website.

“I think that for what we paid and everything that people got to do and that Fife got to experience, and then the amount of impressions we made, it was worth it and I think we’ll want to participate again next [time Tall Ships comes to visit],” Potter said.

Potter also worked with area hotels to promote their businesses, as well as the Tall Ships festival. Two hotels received a total of 90 boarding passes for the festival, which were either sold or given out to guests.

That program was a success for the two hotels, Potter said. “Both hotels said they would want to be involved next year and that it was a worthwhile program.”

Most area hotels noted an increase in the number of guests, and many of those guests said they planned to attend the festival.

According to Kristina Dasing, who works at Econo-lodge, her hotel was booked the whole weekend, from Thursday through the following Tuesday. Many guests inquired about the festival.

Employees at Quality Inn and Howard Johnson also noted an increase.

Over the next several weeks, different organizations and agencies will be considering the effect of the festival on the area more in-depth.

The Tall Ships Festival is putting together an in-depth analysis of the impact of the event on the Pierce County economy. At the festival, several volunteers collected surveys from attendees, asking who they were, where they were from and how they planned on spending their money.

“We’re trying to get a sense of what this event means to the local economy,” said Pierce County economic development specialist Sam Wagner. “If we can attach some numbers to that, if we can see not only what people are spending (at the festival) but what maybe that second tier spending is as well, the downstream effect on the economy of an event of this size…as well as demographic information…that’s of interest for us and for planning future events as well as finding potential sponsors down the line.”

The county collected about 550 surveys. The analysis will be completed in August or September, Wagner said.

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