Downtown KC businesses allowed their employees to work from home in anticipation of large amounts of crowds and traffic. But it just feels like standard business here, no big surge of people. It’s a very local-heavy party and crowd. Few to no visitors from out of town from what I can see. Big hotels aren’t very lit up at night, which I expect is because of the prices they wanted to charge. It’s so far going the way I thought it would though - local issues magnified to a more global audience and a party for the locals and their friends. Being in the middle of the country with no increases in flights and no international connections makes it difficult for most foreigners to get to.
And to be honest, the area’s in worse shape than the preparations made for the NFL Draft. Highways aren’t as clean, the cracked out homeless people are more numerous this event and the number of homeless is higher. There’s still a month to go with events and all that so we’ll see if more show up, but it’s a big party for the locals.
Kansas City also hasn’t hosted a game yet. So some of it might be no one has come to town yet since it’s still a few days away.
There was definitely a lot more people out today. There was no FanFest today and there wasn't a big game happening but the streets, especially along the whole streetcar route, were still busy with so many Argentina fans. At the Argentina parade there was also a bunch of international media there and the vibes were high. Anyway, I am eager to see how the ConnectKC transportation system works out tomorrow. Hopefully it performs well, but we'll see. This is why public transportation is important! Love the streetcar, but the Metro Link is better transportation wise.
