Hutchinson Sees Economic Boom from All-American Jr. Sheep Show

For the second time in show history, the All-American Jr. Sheep Show moved into Hutchinson over 4^th of July weekend.  The 2019 show more than doubled the number of registered sheep they had when the show was hosted in Hutchinson in 2014.  Nearly 2,500 head of sheep and 1,100 visitors spent four days exploring our community.  The official show dates were July 4-7, 2019.

“When the All-American Jr. Sheep Show decided to return to Hutchinson, we were excited to welcome them back.  We did not know the show was going to grow as much as it did between 2014 and 2019 and having the opportunity to showcase our community to that many new visitors was fantastic”, said Holly Leiker, National Sports & Destination Sales Manager for Visit Hutch.

Visit Hutch worked with the Kansas State Fairgrounds, the All-American Jr. Sheep Show coordinators and local hotels to gather information to generate an economic impact report on the 2019 Show.  After collecting all data, the information was provided to the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism (KDWPT) to generate the report. 

The official report showed that the 2019 All-American Jr. Sheep Show generated a $515,000 direct economic impact to the Reno County community.

“We were pleased with the report that showed this single three-day event had such an impact on our community.  The local attractions, hotels and restaurants saw the direct impact of how important visitor spending and travel is to our community”, said LeAnn Cox, Vice President of Operations & Tourism for Visit Hutch.

Visit Hutch began working with the All-American Jr. Sheep Show organizers in October 2016 on details related to hosting the 2019 show in Hutch.  In addition to the show happening on the Kansas State Fairgrounds, attendees spent Friday night at the Hutchinson Sports Arena for their annual 3 vs. 3 basketball tournament that concluded with a pizza party for all participants, where over 200 pizzas were ordered from the local Papa Johns Pizza.

KDWPT uses a third-party calculator from Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics Company, to generate the economic impact reports.  The calculator uses data from the Kansas Tourism Satellite Account and considers visitor related spending to Reno County businesses during the duration of the event.  Categories include number of overnight visitors, hotel rooms utilized, organizer spending on venue rental, food & beverage spending, and other direct spending data.