Looking for beer or the best views at Boise’s X Games? We map it all for you

It takes a village to host an X Games qualifier. The city itself is paying a substantial chunk of the cost of organizing the whole thing.

But plenty of companies and outside organizations have thrown their weight behind the X Games qualifier that ESPN is putting on Friday and Saturday at Rhodes Skate Park, Boise Parks and Recreation director Doug Holloway said. In terms of dollars, the two biggest contributions came from Wright Brothers The Building Company and the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau.

With money from its own pocket, Wright Brothers moved bleachers from the baseball side of Simplot Sports Complex in Southeast Boise to Rhodes Park, Holloway said. The company also rented scaffolding and reassembled the bleachers on top of it just south of the field of play. The company’s total cost is $33,527.

The Convention and Visitors Bureau picked up the tab for 50-plus hotel rooms for the ESPN crew, Holloway said. That cost came to $18,000, he said.

A host of other companies chipped in thousands more dollars. Holloway said Albertsons is donating lunches, snacks and soft drinks for the ESPN crew; Flatbread Neopolitan Pizzeria, Willowcreek Grill and 13th Street Pub and Grill are donating dinners; Tin Roof Tacos is hosting a VIP tent for sponsors and other contributors; and Northwest Traffic Control is lending barricades for road closures.

In all, Holloway said, private groups are donating goods and services worth $81,137, all on short notice. That’s more than the city’s net expenditure of about $60,000, he said.

“To pull off a quality, first-class event like this, these are the kinds of things we’d want to do anyway,” Holloway said.

The city of Boise expects the Friday and Saturday events to draw fluctuating crowds of around 4,000 people at any given time.

This story was originally published June 7, 2017 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Looking for beer or the best views at Boise’s X Games? We map it all for you."