summer games, thousands more will be tagging along.
Terry Richardson, a Pictou County resident who is on the Summer Games organizing committee, said the games are expecting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,500 family members.
That doesn’t even include the 500 coaches and support staff who will be in attendance, or the roughly 900 volunteers who will be on hand to ensure the events go smoothly.
“The economic impact will be in the millions,” said Richardson, who attended the 2014 Summer Games in B.C.
The opening ceremonies that will take place on July 31 – one day before the competition begins – is slated for the Keating Millennium Centre, which has a seating capacity of 1,501. That event was sold out through social media, before organizers even had a chance to advertise it.
When all those people do arrive at the Games, they’ll be pumping a lot of money into the economy, and not just in Antigonish: the effects will be felt from Cape Breton to New Glasgow to Truro, and to a lesser extent, further south in Nova Scotia.
While the athletes and coaches will be staying in dorm rooms at StFX University, hotels, motels and other forms of lodging are quickly being snapped up.
“The accommodations are almost full in Antigonish and in Pictou County,” said Cindy MacKinnon, managing director of Destination Eastern and Northumberland Shores (DEANS).
“They’re going to sleep, they’ll eat here, they’ll shop, they’ll be buying gas and going to stores. The economic impact of the games is going to be huge.”
She said people in central or western Canada who have never been to eastern Canada will take the trip “and make it a vacation,” she added.
“Pictou County will see a spinoff from the Games.”
Lynne Delorey, director of volunteer services for the Games, said roughly 30-40 per cent of the volunteers will be coming from outside the northern Nova Scotia area, and added that anyone with questions about lodging can contact the Visitor Information Centre in Antigonish at 902-863-4921.
