RAPID CITY, S.D. — Freedom Fest is an annual festival typically held in Las Vegas, but they have chosen Rapid City to host their three day event, with the main meeting site at the Civic Center.
Other excursions have been booked in the Black Hills area.
Freedom Fest is dubbed as a festival, “where free minds meet to celebrate great books, great ideas, and great thinkers in an open-minded environment.”
The event is anticipated to bring in around 2,000 people to the Rapid City area, which will conservatively compute to a million-and-a-half dollars being brought in.
All the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries play a part in the success.
Julie Schmitz Jensen of Visit Rapid City, says, “We know how to roll out the red carpet, we just do a really good job of that in Rapid City from our office, our staff as well as all the hoteliers and Civic Center staff, airport staff, Mount Rushmore staff. I mean, it takes a team to get this stuff done and we’ve got a great team.”
After the rough year the tourism industry had in 2020, Schmitz Jensen says this and other groups coming to the area will have a huge impact on the economy.
She adds, “This is not the only group that is coming here because of our attitude about meetings and conventions, we are booking other business, maybe this is the biggest one but we are booking business like you can’t believe because meeting planners appreciate us letting them them decide how they want to run their meetings.”
Schmitz Jensen says that 2021 is looking to be a prosperous year.
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