Mr Price Pro was ‘best yet’

The Mr Price Pro Ballito organisers estimate the event attracted about 120 000 people to the Dolphin Coast last week.

This year and previously the Pro has been touted as the biggest beach festival in the country.

The Courier contacted a number of role-players in the tourism, retail and event sectors to find out whether the Mr Price Pro is really bringing in the “dough” for locals.

Cyberview letting manager Inus van Schalkwyk says the festival has done a lot for the area over past six years.

“I think most of the letting agencies were fully booked and stay fairly full till 13 July. Mr Price Pro’s marketing of Ballito over the last six years has brought massive numbers to Ballito and even if the event moves back to Durban, I think these people will continue to come back for their winter break,” he said.

Lifestyle Centre owner Bruce Rencken said the event had “a great positive impact on the area”.

“I think in general there was a big influx of people last week. We do not have a foot count at the centre but most of our shops were pretty busy,” he said.

KwaDukuza events coordinator Collette Bundy worked closely with Mr Price to organise the event.

“We had approximately 15 000 people at Friday night’s music concert,” Bundy said.

It is not easy to estimate a crowd size but Bundy explained the method used to calculate the visitors during the week.

“The PR and organizing teams do a daily analysis of the numbers each day, in each of the activation areas and then the total is tallied up at the end of the week, it is however an estimated figure,” she said.

The Friday free music concert was packed and there was hardly space to move at Salt Rock main beach.

The turnout solidifies Bundy’s belief that the festival was the best they have put on.

“The 2014 event has exceeded all our expectations, from unpacking each of the elements of the event to the support and participation of both the international and domestic visitors.”

“The event has a major economic and tourism impact on the region and definitely brings a lot of business to businesses involved directly, as well as secondary ones via the spin-offs. Our focus is very much to support local business first and foremost and we try to ensure we are fully inclusive of locals in every aspect of the event. This event is predominately for the locals, by the locals,” she said.

However she said they are still investigating locals feelings towards this year’s event.

“We have had an enormous amount of positive response from businesses and residents. Over the next month we will be liaising with businesses and tourism establishments to ascertain a more formal response which also includes figures for our close out report and analysis which should be ready for circulation early August.”