GEDDES — The Syracuse Nationals, year after year, draws thousands of car enthusiasts to the New York State Fairgrounds in Geddes. Right Coast Association, the Brewerton–based group that organizes the show, describes the annual mid-July event on its website as the “Largest Car Show in the Northeast.” The show is set for the weekend […]
GEDDES — The Syracuse Nationals, year after year, draws thousands of car enthusiasts to the New York State Fairgrounds in Geddes.
Right Coast Association, the Brewerton–based group that organizes the show, describes the annual mid-July event on its website as the “Largest Car Show in the Northeast.”
The show is set for the weekend of July 18 through July 20, running from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, according to the website.
Adult tickets are $17 at the gate, while tickets for children aged 6 to 12 are $8 at the gate.
More than 7,000 cars participate in the show, depending on the weather, says Robert (Bob) O’Connor, director of Brewerton–based Right Coast Association, which organizes car shows on the East Coast.
“… A lot of the local people, say within an hour or so drive of Syracuse, they wait and see what the weather is going to do,” says O’Connor.
Right Coast takes a “complete body count” of everybody on the grounds for an attendance figure, including the car owners, the vendors, the sponsors, the spectators, he adds.
“We’ll be in that 80,000 range probably again for the three days,” says O’Connor, noting the attendance figures increase about 4 percent to 5 percent per year.
O’Connor declined to disclose how much it costs Right Coast Association to put on the annual event.
The car show is estimated to generate about $13 million in economic impact for the area, according to David Holder, president of the Syracuse Convention & Visitors Bureau (SCVB).
The car show always includes an art auction, called “Artie’s Party,” that Art Schilling, from Surfside Beach, S.C. and owner of East Coast Artie’s, organizes each year.
Schilling invites people to come in and paint throughout the weekend.
“They come in on their own nickel,” says O’Connor.
Those participating painters included visitors from Italy, New Zealand, Japan, and from Great Britain, according to O’Connor.
“Artie’s Party” in 2013 raised $73,000 for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central New York, according to the Right Coast website.
The Syracuse Nationals, which started as an idea in the summer of 1999, has grown each year since its debut in July 2000 when more than 4,300 vehicles and 30,000 participants took to the Fairgrounds.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
