Las Vegas based convention FreedomFest coming to Rapid City

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - FreedomFest is a Las Vegas convention that’s now headed to Rapid City, which Priscilla Dominguez from the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center says is one of the largest events the center has hosted.

“It’s a big coup for us. Originally they’ve always been in Las Vegas for the last few years and they’ve made the move to South Dakota because as we know Vegas has kind of been a little bit shut down,” says Dominguez.

According to the FreedomFests website, they are ‘independent, non-partisan, and not affiliated with any organization or think tank.’

And the website states speakers include Governor Kristi Noem, CEO of Whole Foods Market John Mackey, and media personality Dr. Drew.

“It’s been in the works since the fall they reached out late last year after their original 2020 conference got canceled,” says Dominguez. “They started trying to plan for 2021 and as we know it’s really hard to plan with COVID, so they started looking at alternative locations that they could maybe host it and South Dakota became a top one.”

The event is expected to bring in two thousand people to the Black Hills and will include a film festival at the Elks Theatre. Dominguez was told early bird tickets have been selling faster than normal

“The amount of money that they’re spending in hotel rooms, eating out, and seeing tourist attractions is all something that goes back not only to Rapid City but the surrounding neighborhoods so it’s a definite boom for that summer months,” says Dominguez.

FreedomFest is scheduled to begin on July 21st.