NASCAR Hall of Fame losses are slowing
Wednesday, Feb. 08, 2012
Attendance at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in December was 15,428 people, down only slightly from the 16,136 people who visited in December 2010.
The December attendance was good news for the hall, which had seen attendance decline in some months by more than 30 percent compared with the same periods a year earlier.
Hall spokesperson Kimberly Meesters said the week after Christmas is a strong period for the hall. A year ago, the "UnDeck the Hall" promotion, in which visitors can take ornaments and other items off of Christmas trees, lasted three days.
"This year all items were gone within hours," Meesters said.
The hall lost money in December, but the loss was smaller than a year earlier.
In December the hall lost $242,485. A reimbursement for maintenance costs from the city of Charlotte reduced the deficit to $171,882.
A year earlier, in December 2010, the hall lost $327,000.
For the first six months of the fiscal year, the hall has lost $767,725. Reimbursements from the city have closed that loss to $440,000.
Any deficit will likely be paid for by Charlotte Regional Visitor Authority reserves. The CRVA is funded in part by two hospitality taxes - a hotel/motel occupancy tax and a 1 percent tax on prepared food and beverages. Steve Harrison
More racing news, blogs, photos and more at www.ThatsRacin.com.
The Charlotte Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since charlotteobserver.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The Charlotte Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
