Organizer: Numbers down but Mardi Gras still a hit

GALVESTON — The event’s primary promoter and tourism officials enjoyed Fat Tuesday and are satisfied with the 2012 version of Mardi Gras Galveston. While cold and windy weather the first weekend and heavy downpours the second took a hit on the crowds, overall officials were pleased with how things turned out.

Mike Dean, president of Yaga’s Entertainment, which organizes the downtown entertainment district for Mardi Gras, said ticket sales were down 15 percent from 2011 when 23,070 admissions were sold during the two party weekends. He considered that a victory considering the ticket sales for the first weekend of the 2012 Mardi Gras were off by about 30 percent.

“We made a New England Patriots-type comeback, we just didn’t win the game,” Dean said of the last-minute surge Saturday that helped boost the numbers. “I think all the promotion and all the advertising we did had a positive effect for the entire island.”

Dean said the very cold temperatures and winds on the first weekend and the second weekend’s rainstorms Friday and Saturday morning had a significant impact on attendance.

“That first weekend, people held back because of the weather and again Friday, but come Saturday, it came unglued and people didn’t want to hold back any longer,” Dean said.

Despite complaints that getting downtown costs festivalgoers, Dean said the tickets are here to stay. He said while admission at the gate was $17, discounted tickets as cheap as $8 were available online.

“We still offer cheap tickets,” he said. “They went on sale Dec. 1 and went off sale Feb. 5.”

He said $10 discounted tickets were available online through a promotion with The Daily News. The newspaper was one of the sponsors of Mardi Gras this year.

“I would prefer people bought those discounted tickets because then they have made a commitment to come,” Dean said. “It’s feast or famine waiting for people to buy tickets at the gate.”

Leah Cast, the public relations manager for the Galveston Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, said final numbers aren’t compiled yet but suggested Mardi Gras was good for the hotel business in Galveston.

Hotel revenue for Feb. 10, the first night of Mardi Gras, was up 143 percent compared to the same day a year ago. The Feb. 11 occupancy revenue was up 60 percent, Cast said.

Those figures do not compare Mardi Gras dates of 2012 to those of 2011 since last year’s Mardi Gras was held the first two weekends of March, rather they are year-to-year date comparisons. The hotel occupancy report from the last weekend is not available yet, Cast said.

“It does show that Mardi Gras has a significant impact on the economy on what would be your typical February weekend,” Cast said. “For us, it’s not so much the numbers strictly. It’s more what (Mardi Gras) brings for the island with all the buzz it creates and the media coverage.”

For Dean, the focus now is on the 2013 edition of Mardi Gras, which will feature some new attractions and tweaks to the existing events. Given the weather situation this year, he also is considering putting together contingency plans that would possibly include shifting times of events to avoid weather problems, he said.