Arts, Culture & Entertainment
The Public Assembly Facilities Dept, focusing on the Fairgrounds and Bowman Gray Stadium, revealed major positive impacts related to the infrastructure, travel, tourism, and visibility for the City of Winston-Salem. In this time frame Bowman Gray Stadium was reinvented with over $9 million in stadium reconstruction and investments, including an additional $4.5 million dollars in tandem with NASCAR. This resulted in national and international exposure for the City of Winston- Salem and Bowman Gray Stadium as NASCAR hosted their first Cup Series race here since 1971. This alone resulted in $3.8 million television viewers, 30,000 additional onsite attendees from 48 states, 5 countries and 3 continents. The Fairgrounds paired well with Bowman Gray Stadium increasing its attendance in the year 24-25 to over 615,000 visitors from ALL 50 states. The anchor of the Fairgrounds is the Ice Arena which is home to the Twin City Thunderbirds and the ACC Hockey Championships, both of which draw crowds form outside the triad market.