HUNTINGTON BEACH : Events Aimed at Attracting Tourists
Civic leaders are gearing up for a series of major events from June to September that could attract more than a million people to this beach city, which appears determined to reach its goal of making Surf City a popular resort.
Horse jumpers from Brazil, Mexico and Europe are expected to appear for an equestrian event. People on their way to New York in a trans-America walk will start their journey from Huntington State Beach. And as many as 700 three-member basketball teams will compete on makeshift courts on beachfront parking lots.
The single most important event of the season for many will be the reopening of the $12.5-million city pier. More than 300,000 people are expected to attend a three-day pier-opening bash beginning July 17.
“Is this a big summer or what?” asked city Community Services Director Ron Hagan, who supervises the planning of major events.
Even without the pier, the city will play host to the 11th annual Ocean Pacific Pro Surfing Championship June 22 through 28. A battle of surf bands is slated for Huntington Beach High School Stadium on June 28, followed by the city’s 88th annual Fourth of July Parade.
The third annual GTE Equestrian Classic is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 6 through 9, depending on negotiations for television coverage. The Hoop It Up Basketball Tournament, planned for Aug. 29 and 30, also hinges on TV negotiations.
Other events include: roller-blade championships June 5 through 7; the professional disc golf (Frisbee) tournament June 6 and 7; an amateur volleyball tournament on June 9; the fourth annual long board surfing contest June 11 and 12; the second annual amateur and professional volleyball tournament June 13 and 14; a classic car show on June 14; and the 42nd annual rough-water pier swim on June 20.
Also on June 20, walkers in the coast-to-coast trek will start from the city’s parking lot at Brookhurst Street and Pacific Coast Highway.
Hagan said the sheer number of upcoming events has forced him to pull some of his top lieutenants from their day-to-day assignments to work full time on planning.
Hagan also plans to beef up lifeguard forces, in anticipation of bigger crowds. Normally, there’s a complement of 35 lifeguards and 10 alternates. This season, there will be 40 guards and about 25 substitutes, he said.
This will be the first summer since Huntington Beach proclaimed itself “Surf City” in an effort to draw media attention, attract corporate sponsors and cash in on the marketing of products tailored to the popular surfing town.
Last year, even before the city’s major tourism push, visitors generated about $2.5 million in parking, camping, concessions and special event fees, city officials said.
The Surf City moniker, though, appears to have little to do with this summer’s lineup of activities, which were already planned. But the name does help attract television sponsors, who would provide revenue to help pay for the extra city workers needed to handle the events, Hagan said.
“We’re searching for an image of offering clean fun in the sun with something for everyone in the family to do,” he said. “Instead of just a service to provide, we are taking a more of a private-enterprise attitude and looking at our operations as if we are a major amusement park.”
Diane Baker, president of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau, said the plan to generate more tourism “is all coming together.”
But the city still has a way to go before it can call itself a destination resort since it has only one resort hotel, the Waterfront Hilton, she said.
Yet when companion hotels are built and downtown redevelopment is completed, Surf City can well become “the envy of the coast and the jewel on the sea,” Baker said.