{"id":13084,"date":"2019-04-18T17:45:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T23:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=13084"},"modified":"2019-05-02T18:41:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:41:05","slug":"spring-sing-brings-influx-of-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2019\/04\/18\/spring-sing-brings-influx-of-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Sing brings influx of business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spring Sing keeps students busy and the campus active, but no part of Searcy is untouched by the semester\u2019s weekend. Local businesses anticipate the wave of visitors and often see the effect in their financial records.<\/p>\n

Buck Layne, president of the Searcy Chamber of Commerce, said Spring Sing has a good impact on the Searcy business community. With approximately 11,000 visitors over a four-to-five-day window, Layne said hotels and restaurants experience a significant increase in customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany local businesses report an increase in their income during this time,\u201d Layne said. \u201cLocal municipalities also experience an increase in local sales tax revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several local businesses mark Spring Sing on their calendars and look forward to the influx of visitors, according to Layne.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you consider the impact and needs of 11,000\u00a0additional people to the regular population, almost anything you can think of in the form of goods and services will be increased,\u201d Layne said.<\/p>\n

According to Layne, hotels, restaurants, auto fuel sales, shopping and auto sales are some of the affected industries in the wake of Spring Sing.<\/p>\n

Rocky Cooper, assistant manager of the Heritage Inn, said the campus hotel allowed for Spring Sing weekend reservations on Sept. 1, over six months in advance, and all the rooms were booked through the website within minutes.<\/p>\n

Kibo Midnight Oil Coffee House sits just a few blocks away from Harding\u2019s campus, and Manager Eric Mount said he increases his staff to accommodate the Spring Sing rush.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt starts on Thursday when people first start getting into town, but Friday and Saturday are just insane,\u201d Mount said.<\/p>\n

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According to Mount, last year\u2019s sales increased 274 percent on Spring Sing Saturday compared to a week prior. Mount said that it is not just coffee, as merchandise sales also climb over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be my first year as manager over Spring Sing,\u201d Mount said. \u201cI was told by the previous manager, though, to stock up and prepare for Spring Sing because it\u2019s going to be crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midnight Oil is not the only business that prepares for the big weekend. Allison Dennison, owner of Mr. Postman Expresso, said she prepares by offering different specials and making sure the coffee shop and post office is well-staffed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpring Sing is a busy weekend, so coffee is an essential,\u201d Dennison said. \u201cIt is always fun to see students bring their families into our shop to show them where they grab coffee and study.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spring Sing may be a Harding tradition, but all of Searcy plays a role as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring Sing keeps students busy and the campus active, but no part of Searcy is untouched by the semester\u2019s weekend. Local businesses anticipate the wave of visitors and often see…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15109,"featured_media":13086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13089,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084\/revisions\/13089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}