CLEVELAND — On this cold January day, you may not be thinking quite yet about your plans for the April 8 solar eclipse, but 11 weeks out, the folks at Destination Cleveland are.
"We've actually been bringing people together for about the last three years or so,” said Emily Lauer, Destination Cleveland’s vice president of communications.
Lauer and the team at Destination Cleveland have gotten event planning down to a science, but this model is different. They're usually hosting a big event like a convention, all-star game, or draft that takes place in the city's core but whose impact is felt out across the greater region. The eclipse flips that model because the place where it's happening is not just downtown but all over.
"The center line is in Avon Lake, but totality will cross Cleveland it will cross over into Lake County and Geauga County, and what it allows us to do is hopefully it means that Cleveland will become an epicenter of eclipse activity with lots of different events for people to choose from or people can stay home and have their own eclipse watch party,” she said.
What Destination Cleveland is doing is making sure there's coordination and collaboration between all these different smaller productions through its website. It features a countdown clock and a running list of the activities taking place all over ahead of and through the eclipse.
Hotel rooms across the region remain at a premium, especially in downtown Cleveland, that’s because the eclipse comes less than 24 hours after the conclusion of the NCAA Women’s Final Four Basketball Tournament at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. April 8 is also the Cleveland Guardians home opener at Progressive Field.
Many people will be coming to Cleveland for the first time as part of a well planned trip, for others it will be a last minute, you only live once decision to just pick up and go. They'll be catering to both because they carry the same three benefits.
"It's the economic impact. It's those outside dollars coming in. It's the opportunity to change perceptions of Cleveland, and then it's the opportunity to inspire return visitation, which we think the eclipse will do,” said Lauer.
Yes, as big events go, this one isn't something Cleveland had to bid or lobby for. It was entirely the luck of Mother Nature's draw, but the end results are still the same.
