Shag festival to boost soldiers, tourism

Nash County tourism officials are organizing a shag dancing festival over the New Year’s holiday to fill hotel rooms and raise money for soldiers’ families.

The Shaggin’ For The Troops events have been scheduled for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Proceeds will support North Carolina troops through the nonprofit group Operation Homefront.

Hotels, Northgreen Golf Course and the Imperial Centre are offering reduced rates for ticket holders.

The idea is to keep residents in Rocky Mount over the holiday and to draw out-of-town visitors to area hotels, said Faye Cahoon, the manager of Brown Auditorium in the Nash Community College Business and Industry Center.

“So many people in our area tend to go to Raleigh (for New Year’s Eve), or they’ll go to Greenville,” said Cahoon, who has been appointed by Nash Visitors Bureau as chairwoman of the organizing committee. “We just haven’t had an event in a long time in Rocky Mount.”

The Rock in 2010 party has been scheduled for 9 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. New Year’s Eve at the Gateway Convention Center. Disc jockey Ricky Viverette will play music. Dress is casual. There will be a cash bar, heavy hors d’oeuvres and party favors. Tickets are $55 per couple and $35 for one person.

The New Year’s Day event is scheduled from 7-11 p.m at Nash Community College’s Brown Auditorium. The Coastline Band will perform. Tickets are $20. There will be a cash bar and party food.

Two-day tickets are being sold for $85 per couple or $50 per person.

Profits will go to Operation Homefront, which provides a wide range of assistance to military families. The organization’s Web site states that it provides assistance to families struggling not only with emergencies but also life’s everyday problems.

“They work as support group with (military) children left behind, the wives, husbands,” Cahoon said.

Shag dancing clubs from across the state, Virginia and South Carolina are being contacted about attending the event.

But event organizers believe that local residents also will be attracted to the parties and will want to stay in area hotels. Shuttle service will be provided from hotels to the events.

Organizers hope the event will jolt the local economy.

“I think it’s to benefit the community, to benefit restaurants, not just the hotels,” said Lisa Ferguson, the catering manager for the Gateway Convention Center. “We wanted to kind of stimulate the economy in Rocky Mount. Most of our local people have been going elsewhere for New Year’s Eve.”

Northgreen Golf Course will offer reduced rates for play during the last week of the year for event ticket holders, owner Wayne Holloman said.

“It’s like added value (to the party tickets),” he said.

The Rocky Mount Children’s Museum and Science Center also is offering reduced rates for ticket holders.

“We’ll do discount coupons to get into North Carolina’s first digital planetarium,” center Executive Director Candy Madrid said.

The event is designed to benefit local hotels at a generally slow time of the year, Cahoon said.

The parties are not just for shag dancing enthusiasts, she said.

“I’ve tried to emphasize to the people I have been talking to that it’s not just beach music they will be playing,” Cahoon said. “It will be a variety that will appeal to young people. We want them to come.”