PANAMA CITY BEACH — The second annual Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam lured travelers from 49 states and a handful of foreign countries to Panama City Beach over Labor Day weekend this year, creating an overall economic impact of $15.5 million.
“Basically, we’re going to do it again,” festival producer Rendy Lovelady said as he addressed the Bay County Tourist Development Council Tuesday. “It’s going to be a long-lasting brand and it’s going to work.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the TDC unanimously pledged a $350,000 sponsorship to support the three-day country music festival in 2015, which will take place at Frank Brown Park on Sept. 4-6. The sponsorship matches the dollar amount the TDC provided for the event in both 2013 and 2014.
This year, the festival featured headliners Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood and Dierks Bentley, who helped producers sell nearly 19,000 tickets, a majority of which were purchased by out-of-town visitors.
Lovelady said Gulf Coast Jam already has harnessed three big-name headliners for 2015 and plans to officially announce the names this March.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Lovelady also provided the results of a series of surveys conducted during this year’s event, and described the average attendee as a 37-year-old married woman with a household income of $87,000 per year.
“Our surveys have shown that is who our buyer is,” Lovelady said. “It’s so different from a normal country festival.”
Additionally, the survey signaled 70 percent of attendees planned to return, 60 percent were new this year, and 80 percent said they were satisfied with the experience.
However, 2015 won’t be without a few changes. Namely, producers will scrap the “beach stage” concept that has been a part of the festival over the past two years, due to low attendance and high cost for stage setup. Instead, more funds will go toward creating a bigger and better stage at Frank Brown Park, complete with VIP table seating.
Higher attendance also is part of producers’ projections for the coming year.
Total three-day attendance numbers grew from 32,457 in 2014, an average of 10,819 per day, to 42,234 in 2014, a 14,078-per-day average. In 2015, producers project a total three-day attendance of 61,500, a daily average of more than 20,000, as the festival continues to increase its sponsorships and caliber of artists.
“We should reach our target fairly safe,” Lovelady said. “I think it’s going to be exciting this year. Thank you for believing in us.”
TDC officials applauded producers for the organization of this year’s event, particularly its traffic management plan, which encouraged festival-goers to utilize a free shuttle service to Frank Brown Park.
Board member Andy Phillips also commended the decision to move the festival from late September to Labor Day weekend, a late-summer holiday that has struggled to draw visitors in recent years.
“Labor Day has never been a sellout weekend for us,” Phillips said. “I think the strategic shift in moving to Labor Day weekend was really huge.”
October bed tax sees double-digit increase: The Bay County Tourist Development Council reported Tuesday a 23 percent increase in revenues drawn from the Tourist Development Tax, or bed tax, in October.
Overall, unaudited reports showed collections at $968,998 in October, up from $785,84 last year.
Mexico Beach also reported a successful month, with collections increasing 11 percent in October.
The county’s Tourist Development Tax specialist will begin reporting bed tax collections for Panama City early next year.