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Hilary Young, a licensing clerk for Laconia, was busy Friday morning laminating licenses for 190 vendors who got the city’s permission to set up shop for the 100th Laconia Motorcycle Week, which began Saturday and which will run through this weekend.
Those licenses were for the vendors who had already paid. Young said she typically gets “a bunch more” in the field as the century-old tradition gets underway each year. It’s just one of the ways the city and region benefit financially from the biker rally.
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“It’s a very big kick-off for the summer season for us, not just in the Lakes Region but in the entire state,” said Amy Landers, executive director of the Lakes Region Tourism Association.
Bike Week is such an institution in New Hampshire that US Senator Maggie Hassan had this year’s milestone recognized in the congressional record. Although her statement and the Bike Week website both refer to the 2023 event as the rally’s “100th Anniversary,” the tradition didn’t begin in 1923. It actually began in 1916, but major events (the Great Depression, World War II, the COVID-19 pandemic, et cetera) kept it from happening in seven of the years since then, according to event organizers. That’s how this year’s event became Bike Week’s 100th.
Aside from general vendor license fees, the city collects money by licensing its registered trademarks, which include not only “Laconia Motorcycle Week” and “Laconia Bike Week,” but also “America’s Original Riding Rally,” “In Laconia We Ride,” and “World’s Oldest Motorcycle Rally.”
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Dozens of vendors selling pins, patches, hats, and more with the trademarked slogans have generated between $12,000 and $16,000 per year just in trademark licensing fees, Young said.
Though New Hampshire doesn’t charge a general sales tax, it does charge an 8.5 percent meals and rooms tax on restaurant food and lodging – a key way the state gets revenue out of the thousands of visitors who need places to eat, drink, and sleep during Bike Week.
Jennifer Anderson, deputy director of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, said she estimates the nine-day event generates $100 million or more for the state through M&R taxes, business taxes, and other means. Based on the level of interest and lodging reservations this year, she expects 350,000 attendees or more.
The crowds will contribute to what’s projected to be the busiest of busy summer tourism seasons in New Hampshire. A record 4.3 million visitors are projected to come this summer and spend $2.35 billion statewide, according to the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs.
All that revenue-generating traffic comes with a cost, of course, and Laconia’s event-related revenues haven’t always exceeded its expenses, which include stepping up its police presence.
Public safety agencies said they are prepared to help keep attendees and residents safe at this week’s event. They urged people to behave responsibly. Laconia police chief Matt Canfield warned that alcohol-related crashes “claim the lives of several visitors each year.”
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Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @reporterporter.