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Chattanooga: Vespas, tattoos, singers -- Divergent groups here along with deer hunters

By: Elizabeth Ryan
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Christina Sacco is heading to Chattanooga’s Amerivespa 2008 rally with her 1962 Vespa VNB scooter, her riding gear and $500.

“It is not just a scooter rally, it’s also a vacation,” the Atlanta resident said. “And what I like to do on vacation is to go shopping.”

The 450 scooter enthusiasts attending the rally this weekend may be among the most visible of the 5,000 conference visitors in Chattanooga, but they’ll be sharing the city with the Chattanooga Tattoo Arts Festival, the Quality Deer Management Association and the National Association of Negro Musicians.

“It’s tremendous the impact that they have on the city,” said Candace Davis, marketing and public relations manager for the Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Tourism contributed about $688 million to Hamilton County in 2006, fueled in part by conference attendees who book hotel rooms, go out to eat and visit local tourist attractions such as the Tennessee Aquarium and Rock City, Ms. Davis said. The convention crowd alone generated $4.8 million in May and June of this year, she said.

Jim Bambrey, general manager of the Chattanooga Choo Choo, where the tattoo artists and Amerivespa will be, said the steady presence of meetings and conventions keeps his business strong year-round. The presence of the tattooists and scooter rallyists could generate as much as $90,000 in sales for the Choo Choo, he said.

“It’s a benefit to the community as well as the Choo Choo,” Mr. Bambrey said. “It’s just good business for everybody.”

Part of Chattanooga’s draw for Tattoo Arts organizer LaLa Hartline, who started the convention last year, is its willingness to take a chance on the unknown.

“I just think Chattanooga is very open to people wanting to do something new,” she said.

Ms. Hartline, who owns Evermore Galleries, a tattoo shop and art gallery on Shallowford Road, said she hopes the community will be open to the idea that tattoos are not just for sailors any more.

“In today's society, it's an art form,” she said. “Now, it's the very well educated — whether it be firefighters and police officers to doctors and lawyers — who are getting tattoos and getting very large, expensive pieces.”

The city’s hospitality also makes it a favorite place for the Athens, Ga.-based Quality Deer Management Association, an organization dedicated to improving deer herd and habitat management. After a record turnout at its meeting and trade show here last year, the organization decided to return for a second year, according to Randy Bowden, its director of marketing.

“It was a phenomenal city that embraced us, and we had such good success that we decided to come back,” Mr. Bowden said.

In addition to the 1,500 members expected to attend the weekend’s research-based discussions, Mr. Bowden said the conference also will attract about 8,500 people for a consumer trade show featuring habitat improvement products and industry-related vendors, such as firearms dealers, tree stand companies and seed manufacturers. Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s are two vendors scheduled to be represented, he said.

Raising the profile of Chattanooga is another reason why local conference organizers brought their meetings here, they said.

Jen Obal, co-owner of Scenic City Scooters in Red Bank and one of the organizers of Amerivespa, said bringing a national conference was an opportunity to share everything she loves about her adopted hometown.

“We wanted to show them some of the nice scenery that’s around here, and we wanted to show them some of the stuff there is to do because a lot of people still don’t know,” said Ms. Obal, who moved to Chattanooga six years ago after living in Maryland and Ohio. “You don’t think that Chattanooga is a real city, and it is and we wanted to show that.”

Beyond the hard numbers, increased traffic from the outside can have economic benefits to the community by attracting new residents.

Ms. Obal said she had six friends move to Chattanooga after coming down for visits, and she has two more who are thinking about it.

And Ms. Hartline said a tattoo artist she knows from Atlanta recently purchased a boat to keep in Chattanooga for weekend getaways on the Tennessee River.

Attracting creative people is important for a city because it feeds the cultural life, improving the quality of life for all citizens, according to Christy Painter, a fellow at Createhere.org., a local nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the arts in Chattanooga. Intangibles such as quality of life are important, she added, because they can spur further growth.

“Having a city that has a lot of culture, it attracts businesses and it attracts a work force, which is important for the city’s economic development,” Ms. Painter said. “Part of the courting of the VW executives was showing them the Hunter Museum.”

Creative people also tend to patronize local businesses, Ms. Painter said, which helps develop the unique character of the city and bolster the small-business base.

The coincidence of the scooter rally and the tattoo convention occurring on the same weekend is a lucky one for Ms. Hartline, who said the groups’ similar tastes present opportunities for socializing.

“They like what we like, we like what they like,” she said. “For people who are spending the whole weekend, it gives them something extra to do.”

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