Sep. 16—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Determining the precise economic impact of a mostly free, mostly non-ticketed, multi-day, multi-location event such as the Thunder in the Valley motorcycle rally is not possible.
Best estimates are usually general, such as "millions of dollars," when counting the money that visitors spend on lodging, gas, merchandise, concerts, food, drinks, accompanying activities such as Ebensburg's Wheels & Wings, and recreation while attending the annual rally in Cambria County.
Thus, while no exact figures exist, local businesses and nonprofits will undoubtedly lose revenue if the rally ends. The Visit Johnstown tourism promotion organization has announced that it no longer plans to put on the event. Its 25th edition was held this summer.
"People don't understand the economic impact Thunder has," said Cambria County Controller Ed Cernic Jr., who was one of Thunder's original founders when he owned the Cernic's motorcycle business. "Every motel around here and hotel around here is sold out (far) in advance. The restaurants, the bars, just the vendors, my motorcycle shop that I had all those years and everybody else — T-shirts, just everything. It's an economic generator. That's real money that comes from outside in."
American Legion Post 294, located on Main Street, and Stadium Pub & Grille, at the corner of Johns and Washington streets, financially reap the benefits of their locations in downtown Johnstown's heart of Thunder activity.
"It's going to be catastrophic for these guys because it's the biggest fundraiser we have all year," said Post 294 Commander Chuck Arnone, also a Johnstown City Council member. "In four days, we do what we do in business in a month. It's definitely going to hurt us."
"But, thank God, we used our funds to get to where we are now," he said, referring to Post 294's recent building improvements. "As for the future, hopefully we'll find something else to do."
Stadium Pub & Grille holds its own Storm the Corner event that draws crowds who come to the city for Thunder.
"Four days out of the year doesn't make up my business, but it's a huge financial hit for this town," said Patrick Martella, owner of Stadium Pub & Grille.
Von's United Beverage, a sponsor since the rally's first year in 1998, supplies drinks to Thunder's onsite pubs, along with approximately 300 bars and restaurants and about 150 distributors throughout Cambria, Somerset and Clearfield counties, many of which receive direct business from rally attendees.
If Thunder goes away, "in the grand scheme of things, there won't be a major impact to us — some, of course, but it won't require any adjustment," said Von's United Beverage owner Dan Thompson.
Overall, Thompson thought Visit Johnstown did an "incredible" job putting on Thunder.
"First and foremost, it has brought huge amounts of visitors to our community, so pretty much everybody who is in business in Johnstown, I think, benefited from it," Thompson said. "That's sort of a sweeping statement, but I feel it's accurate. I think we all did."
But when Thunder was growing, organizers brought in vendors and promoters from outside the region, which some local businesses felt took away from their efforts and revenue.
"Unfortunately, it's not good news, obviously; not real thrilled to hear that they're not going to have it anymore," said Jason Keller, current owner of Cernic's Cycle World. "However, we haven't been involved in the recent years due to the way that the venue was run.
"The Cernic family and the Cernic business had been a strong supporter of Thunder in the early years, but over the years, as they were harder and harder to get along with about what they wanted, to be a sponsor of the event just became undoable, especially during the COVID times. Unfortunately, they brought in some competitors from outside the area and kind of pushed the locals who helped them start the event out."
Keller added: "I wasn't surprised that the event ended at all. As you could see over the past couple years, it shrunk a lot."
Cernic's has not been a Thunder sponsor in recent years.
'Nobody said that it's canceled yet'
Despite rumors on social media, Thunder in the Valley has not been officially canceled for 2024, let alone permanently.
But Visit Johnstown, which owns the rights to the Thunder in the Valley identity, does not plan to organize it going forward.
"Nobody said that it's canceled yet," Martella said. "It just says that Visit Johnstown isn't a part of it anymore, isn't going to be the lead on it. I think that the problem is going to be, for the next person up, if you're an enthusiast of motorcycles ... and you see 'canceled,' then you're making arrangements to go to another city or another bike rally.
"I think the next person up is going to have a challenge of trying to get those people back that think Thunder has already canceled. That's a difficult thing."
Thunder's future is uncertain, though.
Visit Johnstown Executive Director Lisa Rager said she is "hopeful that another entity or group of entities will assume the management and operation of Thunder in some form. We'll make announcements at the appropriate time if such a result occurs."
Thompson, Martella and Arnone all would like the rally to continue in some form or for another event to replace it.
"It's got to be something that will be of more interest to a bigger group of people," not just motorcycle riders, Arnone said.
Martella is intrigued by the possibility of local businesses taking over the rally.
"Personally, I would love to see somebody pick it up," he said. "I think it has the roots. I just think it's lost its way along the way. I personally think bringing the local businesses back into the picture and having them be part of it in some way (could work).
"And everybody has to pay their way. Everybody has to pay a financial part of it. I just don't know how you do that."
Any new organizer would face a changing world of motorcycle rallies, as many riders are aging out of the hobby, causing drops in attendance.
"I think there are a lot of dynamics at work," Thompson said. "A lot of the motorcycle rallies are less successful now than they have been.
"I think if somebody does continue the event, they're going to have to rethink it a little bit and maybe reinvent it a little. And what that will entail, I really can't predict, given that there are societal changes, if you will. People maybe aren't traveling as often. I'm not sure.
"There was obviously a little bit of a downtick over the past five, six, seven, eight years or so from its peak. The new organizers are going to have to understand that and size it accordingly to still draw a lot of people in, but to make it a successful event for them financially."
Some Thunder-related activities such as Wheels & Wings in Ebensburg could continue independently.
"We were saddened to hear that Thunder won't continue," said Danea Koss, community development director for Ebensburg Borough and the Ebensburg Main Street Partnership. "Our board hasn't met to discuss yet, but I believe Wheels & Wings will continue.
"It's become our second-largest event in Ebensburg after PotatoFest and has been great for local businesses and our local fire department. This event has a strong following of attendees that return every year and has become a local favorite, so we think it will hold its own, going forward."
Visit Johnstown, formerly known as the Greater Johnstown/Cambria County Convention and Visitors Bureau, operated Thunder with the goal of having a big attraction to attract people who would spend money in the area.
Thunder had been one of the organization's three areas of focus, along with the 1st Summit Bank PolkaFest and its core mission of destination marketing activities. The organization itself would break even, lose money, or at best make a bit of a profit on the rally, according to Rager.
No longer hosting Thunder will allow Visit Johnstown, which is funded by a county hotel tax, to focus more on its core mission.
"The county hotel tax revenue that Visit Johnstown receives is applied to the Core Program, which funds the activities that we undertake throughout the year to promote Johnstown and Cambria County to visitors, which is our primary mission," Rager wrote in an email interview. "With Thunder, we strive to raise the revenue needed to support the expenses through sponsorships, the sale of vendor space, official merchandise revenues, advertising sales, bar sales, and admission fees."
Rager continued: "With Thunder, we've not been able to achieve a break even with revenue and expenses; therefore, Visit Johnstown has had to subsidize Thunder out of its Core Program funds, meaning that we've had to adjust our Core Program activities the last half of the year to cover the losses from Thunder.
"The subsidy varies from year to year, depending on weather and other factors that affect attendance and revenue streams, and expenses."
The state's Hotel Tax Reform Law of 2016 permits a county to implement a lodging tax and to distribute the money to a designated tourism promotion agency for marketing, programs, expenditures or grants.
"I should also note that the hotel tax is a user fee that is paid by a visitor when they stay in a Cambria County lodging facility," Rager said. "This is a common source of funding for destination marketing organizations, not only in Pennsylvania, but nationwide. Our industry collectively worked for many years to get this legislation passed."
Cernic said that if Thunder goes away, that would likely mean less hotel tax revenue coming to the county and therefore available for Visit Johnstown.
"Do they think they're going to get that hotel money now?" Cernic asked. "That revenue is going to drop back. I think the end result is, it's not only going to hurt businesses and the economy of Johnstown. It's going to have an adverse effect on (Visit Johnstown) also because they're not going to have the funds."
Cambria County increased its hotel tax from 3% to 5% in 2016.
"At that time, (the commissioners) took a little bit of heat, but it raised the revenue for (Visit Johnstown) from $300(,000), $350,000 to over $700,000 last year," Cernic said.
Cernic added: "I am considering asking the commissioners to reduce that hotel tax back to 3%. Now whether they'll do that or not, I don't know. The reason the commissioners raised it was to help them out because they said they were losing money on Thunder every year."
