http://www.northjersey.com/news/229818441_North_Jersey_towns_consider_events_to_attract_Super_Bowl_visitors.html?page=allNorth Jersey towns consider events to attract Super Bowl visitorsWednesday, October 30, 2013 Last updated: Wednesday October 30, 2013, 7:40 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER
The Record
To lure Super Bowl tourists to Hackensack, the city's leaders plan to build a snowy hill for inner-tubing in the center of town. Secaucus will use food trucks and a beer garden. East Rutherford may create a miniature Mardi Gras.
Speaking at a tourism conference at MetLife Stadium on Tuesday, town officials were not clear that any of it would work, but with tens of thousands of football fans expected to arrive in North Jersey for the 48th annual Super Bowl in February, they said they want to make their towns stand out.
Now the scramble is on to find business sponsors to help pay for it all.
"It's not easy for a town to do an event of this magnitude without taxpayer dollars," Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said at MDest 2013, an annual conference on tourism organized by the Meadowlands Liberty Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We have to capitalize on this huge event."
Because Secaucus is right next door to the Meadowlands Sports Complex and has many hotels that regularly host travelers to New York, the town expects to host thousands of Super Bowl ticket holders, Gonnelli said. Most will go to the game and to Manhattan, said the mayor, so the trick will be persuading them to spend time doing something in Secaucus other than sleeping.
In addition to the gathering of food trucks and a large heated beer garden for adults, the city plans to organize a crafts market, plus events for children and families on its new Little League baseball fields.
"Our plan for the Super Bowl is to capture people that are coming from around the country," said Gonnelli. "We know they'll come, but how do we make sure they'll come back?"
Targeting Bergen residentsThe problem is different in Hackensack, where the downtown is 7 1/2 miles north of MetLife Stadium. The city is unlikely to attract many national tourists, said Karen Mastriano, who is coordinating the event for the city.
Instead, Hackensack hopes to lure people from surrounding towns in Bergen County, especially families who don't want to spend the time and money required to attend Super Bowl-related events in the Meadowlands or Manhattan.
That will mean constructing a temporary hill outside the state Superior Court building downtown, covering it with real or artificial snow, and charging for inner-tube rides. The event may also include a snow maze and carnival games.
"We've reached out to a company that will build us a mountain," Mastriano said. "Now we're trying to get sponsors."
Montclair has scaled back its original plans and may now simply close off Church Street, a small road lined with restaurants.
"We've had to dial back a lot because of the lack of sponsorships," said Montclair Councilman Rich McMahon. "We need help to pay for security, and we need to feel like we're part of this."
To help promote its events, Montclair distributed miniature footballs printed with a Super Bowl logo. The NFL, famously protective of its copyrights, forced the city to drop the design.
"It doesn't make any sense to me that we want to throw a big party but we can't say the words 'Super Bowl,' " McMahon said.
MetLife Stadium sits within the borders of East Rutherford, but the borough's residential neighborhoods and small downtown sit up the hill from the Meadowlands, a long walk from the Sports Complex. The borough's elected leaders hope to attract people who want to be part of the event but who don't have tickets to the game, said borough council member Joel Brizzi.
That may involve throwing a Mardi Gras-styled party, but details including its size and location may vary based on which companies decide to sponsor the event, said Ron Simoncini, president of Axiom Communications, the public relations firm that has been authorized by East Rutherford to find partners who could pay for the event.
Email: maag@northjersey.com
