Grant helps Keystone offseason

A DMO marketing assistance grant is having a huge impact on Keystone during what is normally the “off” season in the tiny tourist town.

“We got lucky,” said Keystone Chamber of Commerce director Robin Pladson. “We had to come up with an idea and it just so happens that Bigfoot was being built during this time.”

The $85,000 grant, which Keystone received, had to be used to promote marketing and impact tourism and needed to be spent before the end of the 2020.

For a town that virtually shuts down in winter, this was not an easy task. Pladson and the chamber board had a flurry of ideas.

Each idea had to go through a state approval process.

“We had pages of requirements to follow,” Pladson said.

And while some of their ideas got denied, two were approved: a Keystone magazine that will be distributed to tourists and a Billie Bigfoot Bash, which takes place on Dec. 19.

The magazine features advertisements, a map of Keystone and its world famous walking tour, as well as “a lot” of history of the former mining town. It will be mailed to anybody who has requested more information about the town via the visitkeystonesd.com website.

Additional copies will be distributed in person at the Billie Bigfoot Bash.

The Bigfoot Bash will feature food trucks, an unveiling and measuring of the gigantic wooden sculpture and live music. Bash attendees can also take the free Keystone walking tour, which highlights buildings and structures from the town’s historical past as a mining mecca.

A virtual Bigfoot scavenger hunt, which went live in early December, has already garnered 110 sightings across the region. Most local businesses that are still open are participating in the hunt by hanging vinyl decals or banners somewhere on their property.

While Pladson admits the chamber will not spend all of the grant money that was available it made a pretty good dent, spending a little over half of the grant.

The addition of the Bigfoot Bash could prove to be a huge boon to the tourist town’s few businesses that have remained open into the late fall season.