As the Back to the Bricks Cruise Weekend draws to a close, there's further proof that visitors will come to downtown Flint, provided it's the right kind of event. (A classic car extravaganza, for example, rather than Autoworld, a glorified food court, or a fancy hotel.)
Organizer Dave Wood told The Flint Journal that roughly 25,000 to 30,000 spectators graced several downtown city blocks and about 3,000 cars were parked there.
"It's all more than we expected," Wood said. "We have extra streets we didn't plan on filling that are all filled. People arrived at 5:30 a.m. for the 10 a.m. show."
This event makes me think that all the money that was wasted on Flint's pie-in-the-sky tourist schemes would have been better spent expanding the car collection and facilities at Sloan Museum, while promoting smaller-scale events. People like actual cars, not car-themed amusement parks.