Auburn's Homecoming weekend is packed with traditions, events and the crowning of Miss Homecoming herself. Homecoming is not the usual Auburn game-day weekend because it's loaded with events, such as the parade.
"Homecoming is a great weekend for all kinds of activities and seems more relaxed than other SEC game weekends," said John Wild, president of Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau. "Parents, students and fans can have a good time tailgating, meeting for business reasons and including all the normal game weekend activities."
Wild said he wants people to see the benefits and additional activities homecoming weekend provides. Wild said there are new restaurants and shops in the area that were not open last season.
Wild said for the past several years, the tourism bureau monitored hotel occupancy rates and homecoming does not have the same draw as other games throughout the season. Wild said a good game weekend brings in as much as $1 million in revenue from lodging, while homecoming may bring in only half.
"In terms of the actual impact, as compared to our current schedule, it's going to be minimal. We already have containers downtown for recycling and any bottles that we collect, which we hope there are not many bottles," said Tim Woody, director of environmental services. "Any plastic bottles, glass bottles any cardboard that we collect by cleanup efforts, we automatically recycle. We do that as a part of our operations anyway."
Woody said on a typical game day weekend, a crew will monitor downtown Friday night, clean up Saturday after the game and then Sunday morning a crew cleans the entire area.
The new tradition of rolling the wires instead of trees causes some changes in regards to cleanup.
"We use one of our KnuckleBoom trucks, they collect yard debris out of yards with a big claw," Woody said. "We bring that big truck down there and we have some poles a few of our guys made out of PVC pipe."
The pipes are used remove tissue from the wires, the KnuckleBoom truck picks up the piles and the street sweeper takes care of the rest.
"Then we will come in Sunday and clean up before folks start venturing downtown to go to church and eat at restaurants," Woody said. "I would assume to expect that as the season progresses and we keep winning, and have other schools coming to town, we will have more material to clean up, which we hope we do."
Bill James, director of public safety, said the majority of the city's police officers are assigned to work game days.
"Sometimes there are more events going on around homecoming and we generally staff some of those, depending what the event is," James said. "Homecoming in itself, not a whole lot. It's another game day."
James said the parade "is something extra," but believes Homecoming is "nothing more than a regular football game."
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