140,000 attended the 2006 Chicago Gay Games
The 2006 Gay Games organisers have spoken of their delight at the success of the seventh gay sports and cultural event. The amount of people attending has exceeded all estimates.
“Attendance at Gay Games Chicago events exceeded 140,000, 40,000 more than we had projected,” Kevin Boyer, the Games’ co-vice chair, told the Windy City Times.
107,500 attended the Opening Closing ceremonies; the expo; and all of the sports and cultural events.
Over 30,000 people took part in cultural events run in parallel with the Games.
A closer analysis of the figures released today show that the Opening Ceremony had an estimated attendance of 32,000 while approximately 20,000 went to the world-famous Wrigley Field for the Closing Ceremony.
13,250 went to the four-day Gay Games Expo while participating athletes and artists made up another 11,500.
“Ticket sales to sports and cultural events exceeded our estimates by almost 50 percent,” said Boyer.
The largest events included figure skating ( 1,500 two-day passes ) at McFetridge Recreation Center, diving ( 1,075 two-day passes ) at Northwestern University and dancesport ( 1,075 two-day passes ) at the Hilton Chicago.
The Games were in surplus to the tune of $9.5m.
