Thursday's opening of the state high-school basketball finals at Bank of the Ozarks Arena was the seventh-best attendance since the championships began in 1993, Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said Friday.
Thursday's opening-day attendance was basically flat compared to last year, Arrison said, with 12,968 fans this year compared to 13,093 in 2015, a decrease of only 125.
"We had HOSA in, too, which is the Health Occupational Students of America Conference," which ended Friday, Arrison said, adding to the number of visitors in town.
"There's not a hotel room to be had in town this weekend," he said.
Bank of the Ozarks Arena isn't the only basketball venue in Garland County seeing the benefit of the state championships.
Lake Hamilton Wolf Arena and the old Lake Hamilton High School gym have been the "home away from home" to many of the basketball teams that are playing in the Arkansas Activities Association's state basketball championships, Brian Bridges, the Lake Hamilton School District's communications coordinator, said Friday.
"We have opened up our arena and our old high school gym to teams over the past two weeks during state tournament and state finals week," Bridges said.
Teams from Bentonville, Cabot, Hector, Kirby, Watson Chapel, Pine Bluff, Jonesboro, Emerson, and Maumelle, "to name a few," have been at Lake Hamilton to practice while in town for the tournaments and championships.
"Lake Hamilton has been blessed with such great facilities, we are more than happy to share those with schools who are visiting our area," Bridges said.
Visit Hot Springs has had to make some shifts this year with the closure of the former Austin Hotel Convention Hotel and Spa, now The Hotel Hot Springs & Spa, due to a major renovation under a new owner.
"We had to move the state basketball teams to some other downtown hotels," Arrison said. "We had to move over 180 rooms."
To get to Hot Springs, the teams and their fans have also had to deal with heavy rainfall, which has led to severe flooding in parts of the state, especially in southeastern Arkansas, but Arrison said it apparently hasn't affected attendance much.
"If your child is playing for a state championship, I think people travel through snowstorms -- they're like the U.S. Postal Service. They're going to watch their kids play," he said.
Local on 03/12/2016