Volume 15- Issue 10- October
The Road Map
Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau
75th Rally has record attendance
Via the City of Sturgis: The official estimate for attendees in 2015 was 739,000. This number is based on previous comparisons for tons of garbage hauled within the City, Department of Transportation vehicles counts, Mount Rushmore traffic counts, SD Sales tax collections, Sanitation fees collected and Main Street photo counts. The DOT traffic counts which were released in August were for the official seven day Rally week and were not inclusive of the entire Rally period. Attendees began arriving for the event several days in advance prompting the early closure of Main Street on July 29. The SD Department of Revenue reported a record $413,763 in sales taxes collected within the city limits by temporary vendors. This number is nearly double the collections in 2014. Most Sturgis businesses
agree that 2015 was a record year for sales.
In reality, an exact number of attendees for a wide spread event such as the Sturgis® Motorcycle Rally™ can never be calculated. However, considering the entire length of the event and
the reported sales that took place during the Rally period, the 75th Annual Sturgis® Motorcycle Rally™ was the largest Rally to date.