Content area
Full text
"The river is the lifeblood of Boise, the focal point of Boise--people associate the Boise River with Boise."
That's Grant Jones explaining why the Boise River Festival still carries the name "river."
"If you look at the lineup of 300 events, there's nothing on the river," acknowledged Jones, volunteer festival spokesperson. But in his view, the river's scenic sinew so dominates Boise that any festival celebrating the city and its setting celebrates the river, too.
Festival organizers and sponsors did discuss dropping "river" from the festival name, Jones said, but decided to leave well enough alone.
He described the festival as "tour fun-packed days...a great four days for the community," and added: "Most communities would give their eye teeth to have this kind of entertainment and the opportunity to showcase their community."
If that sounds like froth, last year's numbers seem substantial: Attendance of 156,250, "aggregate attendance" (visitor-days) put at 625.000, and $23.7 million in estimated economic impact.
Although attendance rose only slightly in 1994, the economic impact was up 8.7 percent from the estimate for 1993--the last year in...