Oct 25, 2024

Visit North Platte Grant Awards

Posted Oct 25, 2024 4:00 PM

Visit North Platte

(North Platte, Nebraska) Local event organizers are dedicated to creating fun and exciting events in North Platte and Lincoln County that attract visitors and boost the economic vitality of our community. Visit North Platte’s Promotional Grant Awards are specifically designed to promote, encourage, and draw visitors to Lincoln County, for these events. The grant funds, as well as the marketing and operating expenses for Visit North Platte, are entirely funded by lodging taxes collected from overnight stays at lodging properties within the county.

The Visit North Platte Board of Directors approved grant funding at the monthly meeting on October 23, 2024, for the following. The applications totaled $53,500 in requests and a total of $53,500 was awarded.

· Approved $3,500 in Grant Funds for the Flatrock Pro/Am powered by Prodigy Disc Golf Tournament. This disc golf tournament is an official event sanctioned by the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) and is scheduled to take place on March 14-16, 2025, at the Cody Park Disc Golf Course and the River’s Edge Golf Course. Last spring North Platte hosted the Flatrock Pro/Am tournament for the first time, and it successfully brought in over eighty players from Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming, and other communities throughout Nebraska including Lincoln. We believe the 2025 tournament will grow to have even more participants, as it promises to be a captivating three-round B-tier tournament.

· Approved $50,000 in Grant Funds for the City of North Platte to lease or purchase a Turf Tank. The Turf Tank is a robotic field painter designed to mark all types of sports fields easier, faster, and more efficiently. This machine will have many uses for local sporting events as well as sports tourism events that bring visitors to our community. A few examples include painting the lines for the youth soccer fields at Centennial Park, marking football fields for area schools, and painting temporary lacrosse fields for upcoming skills camps and tournaments. Not only does the Turf Tank offer more precise marking due to its use of GPS, it also drastically cuts down on the labor and time that it takes to manually measure, mark, and paint these fields. Additionally, the reduction in paint usage will significantly lower the environmental impact on our community.

The next round of funding is now open, with a January 1 deadline for events or projects occurring in April, May, and June of 2025. These applications will be considered at the regular monthly Board of Directors meeting scheduled for January 22, 2025. Anyone interested in submitting a grant application is encouraged to contact the Visitors Bureau at 308-532-4729 and discuss their project with a staff member.

Visit North Platte operates under an agreement with the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners to facilitate the Nebraska Visitors Development Act. Grant funds, marketing, and operating expenses for Visit North Platte are funded by lodging taxes collected and remitted by lodging properties from overnight stays in Lincoln County.

It is thanks to the efforts of the lodging property partners located within the county that funds are available to attract more visitors, which have a significant impact on the economic well-being of our Lincoln County communities.