As many people load up their cars to head on vacation to the beaches of Long Island and the Jersey Shore, thousands of people will be coming to Queens – and specifically Flushing Meadows-Corona Park for the 19th Annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York.
During the weekend of August 8-9 nearly 50,000 people will descend on the park to watch rowers compete in the event.
“It has been growing quite steadily through our 19-year history because of great support from the community,” said Henry Wan, who is the Chair of the Host Committee for the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York.
The festival consists of lakeside dragon boat races across Meadow Lake with more than 160 boats and teams expected to participate this year and various landside activities, which include a stage that hosts cultural performances for the duration of the event.
“We hope that we match last year obviously [in terms of the size of the crowds], but maybe we can even surprise ourselves,” said Wan, who mentioned that during the difficult economic times more people are staying locally and looking for fun – and free – things to do during the weekends.
Even with the difficult economic times this year, the event has been able to attract many corporate sponsors.
“We have many of our sponsors that are members of the Queens Chamber,” said Wan, who mentioned that by supporting the event as a sponsor, many of the corporations were showing that they wanted to spend money in Queens and help out the Queens economy.
In addition to the actual Dragon Boat races, there will be a food court, free arts and crafts stations for youngsters and dynamic entertainment complete with a variety of musical acts for families to enjoy.
“It’s a wonderful event and it’s something different and it brings in people from all over the city,” said Queens Assistant Parks Commissioner Estelle Cooper “They all enjoy the races and the atmosphere, the Chinese food, and all the cultural music and arts that you can enjoy at the festival.”
With the influx of visitors from all throughout the city, country and even the world descending on Flushing businesses are bound to see an uptick in traffic.
“It’s drives economic development in the area,” said Queens Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Jack Friedman. “One of the wonderful things about Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is its close proximity to downtown Flushing, Jackson Heights and Corona.”
Friedman spoke about how both of the events attract such a diverse audience, which is perfect because Queens is known as the international borough.
“Those neighborhoods are filled with restaurants from around the world,” Friedman continued. “These small mom and pop restaurants and shops, they benefit by these events especially by those that last longer than a day.”
