The stage crews, performers, princesses and princes are just the beginning of those who — in addition to the contestants — are drawn to Vicksburg each year for the Miss Mississippi Pageant.

This often means hotels are booked solid, restaurants have waiting lists and maneuvering around town can be a challenge, but those are not necessarily negatives.

Miss Mississippi draws in thousands of people over the span of a little more than a week, increasing revenues for a variety of local business and organizations.

Annette Kirklin, executive director of the Vicksburg Convention Center, where the pageant has been held for the past 19 years, said the 2 percent return the convention receives on hotel and motel business each year is boosted by the pageant.

“There’s not necessarily a convention center out there that will break even (from just income). There’s always city subsidy, and that tax is our city subsidy,” she said. “The pageant makes such a positive impact, yes on us, but in the big picture on the city, and that’s why it’s so important. We show ’em how it’s done here.”

Based off of conservative price estimates and the numbers the Miss Mississippi Corp. listed on its contracts with the VCC for the event, Kirklin estimated the pageant rakes in $2 million each year, calculating $140 per person involved with the pageant.

“That’s a very conservative estimate,” she said. “That’s including food, things they buy in the store, overnight (accommodations). That’s extremely conservative per night. Anywhere else in the state they probably do it more than that, but we try to be as conservative as we can because you just don’t know for sure.”

Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. stressed the importance of the pageant to local merchants and the city as a whole.

“It’s the single biggest economic impact we have to our economy each year,” Flaggs said. “It allows visitors to stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants and shop in our stores. There’s a definite correlation between the pageant here and the economy. That’s why we go out of our way to roll out the red carpet.”

The millions the pageant brings in revenue each summer is the boost that Laura Beth Strickland of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau said the city and many local businesses need.

She said summer months are typically slow for tourism due to the warm weather.

“Without the pageant it would look like there’s a dip (in tourism) in the summer, so it’s nice to have an event to keep us steady through the summer,” she said.

Strickland added that in 2014 the VCVB gathered information from every hotel in town to try to pin down the pageant’s exact economic impact on hotels and found it created $1.5 million in hotel sales for just Wednesday through Saturday the week of the pageant.

“I think there are more girls (this year), so the numbers should be larger,” she said.

Several local businesses said they take advantage of the increase in business by ordering pageant-themed wares to sell to the contestants, their families and other visitors.

Florist Geni Fulcher, owner of the Ivy Place, which will provide the bouquets for the winning contestants this year, said that she expanded to selling other gifts besides flowers to take advantage of the potential revenue the pageant brings.

“Though we push flowers, the other gifts have taken wings,” Fulcher said. “We’ve got everything you can think of. We’re just having fun with it.”

The fun of the pageant is a community affair, she said.

“It’s the Kentucky Derby of Vicksburg. It’s beautiful, exciting and fast,” she said. “It’s a great atmosphere.”

The Cinnamon Tree downtown is also taking advantage of the pageant.

Owner Karen Ruggles estimated that 75 percent of that week’s business is pageant related.

“It’s good for us,” she said. “Everyone really benefits from it, and we enjoy them.”

The store has pageant-themed merchandise ranging from tumblers to plush animals stationed in two main areas in order to take advantage of the economic benefits of the pageant.

“There are just crowns all over the place,” she said.