Preliminary SEWE numbers show growth, official calls event ‘extremely successful’

CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition had one of its best weekends in its 37-year history. In the preliminary review, ticket sales, art sales, and concessions all surpassed last year’s numbers.

“We are hearing positive feedback from our retail and hotel partners that records may have been broken,” Mary Roberts, SEWE’s marketing director said. “It was an extremely successful year.”

Every year, this expo brings tens of thousands of tourists to the Holy City to celebrate the best in wildlife and wildlife art. Some of this year’s new events included search and rescue dog demos and a Yeti cooler painting live auction.

Last year, the expo brought 45,000 tourists into the city which surpassed 2017’s 43,000.

As for this year, SEWE is still working to calculate the final number of attendees. On Sunday night, officials at the expo were up late trying to figure out the total from all five venues for all three days. They said they will release that number in the next few days.

“We did see an increase of people outside the southeast, and we saw a lot of spending,” Roberts said.

The countdown is already on for next year’s event. It’ll be running Feb. 16 through Feb. 16., 2020

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