“If you remember one thing from today, please remember that not one penny of your property tax has anything to do with what we do,” stated Speros Batistatos, President and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority at the weekly Valparaiso Noon Kiwanis meeting on September 4th. The lunchtime presentation gave the service group an opportunity to learn more about what a convention authority offers the community, as well as the chance to ask questions.
Recently celebrating a 30th anniversary on July 1st, the South Shore CVA was created in 1983 by the Indiana General Assembly, “when the economy was worse than it was today,” Batistatos stated. “A number of people got together and said we needed to do what Indianapolis was doing, create a convention bureau, make more investments in hospitality and try to get people to bring their money to Northwest Indiana.”
“We are the second largest convention and visitors authority in the state of Indiana, after Indianapolis,” Batistatos continued. “We are basically the good people that do the following: heads in beds, cheeks in seats, feet in the street, fans in the stands, and torsos through turnstiles. If it doesn’t put a head in a bed or a cheek in a seat, we don’t do it. Our cause has to be exclusively focused on bringing people here.”
The South Shore CVA provides a variety of entertainment events and services to Northwest Indiana thanks to funding provided by the hospitality industry. When visitors come to the region for events, they are spending their money in our communities, which in turn funnels back to continue said events. “They come in, they take money out of their pocket, they leave it in our communities at various events, whether it’s the Air Show, Popcorn Fest, amateur sports, you name it,” said Batistatos.
Batistatos takes pride in what he and his staff have been able to add to Northwest Indiana. The events have brought incredible amounts of people to the region, without incident, such as the Gary Air Show and last year’s opening ceremonies for the NSA Girls Fast Pitch World Series in Valparaiso. “We ran the Air Show for 7 years in the city of Gary and not one person got arrested. Not one.”
What are the future dreams for the South Shore CVA? Batistatos longs for a convention center in the region. “We are losing groups like Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Indiana counties, Indiana realtors, Indiana bankers. I could go down the list of people who no longer come to Northwest Indiana because we don’t have a space big enough to accommodate them,” he stated. “The bigger Indianapolis gets and the bigger Chicago gets, they are forcing business off the table.”
Want to be a part of history? On October 29th of this year, 11:00 am, the South Shore CVA will be unveiling a bronze statue of Flick, made by the artist who created the Valparaiso Orville Redenbacher statue, Lou Cella. Jean Shepherd, a Hammond resident, penned the story that fueled the popular holiday film, “A Christmas Story.” Bringing in 1,000 people a day for 40 days, the annual “A Christmas Story” exhibit at the South Shore CVA pays honor to Jean Shepherd every Christmas season.
The unveiling will pay homage to Shepherd’s legacy, as it will “unveil Flick with his tongue permanently attached to our flagpole at the Visitors Center,” Batistatos said. “You’ll have yet another photo opportunity in Northwest Indiana to share and get people to understand that we’re not just that area between Chicago and New Buffalo. We have some great history, great legend, great men and woman that have made our culture what it is today.”