Officials have completed an initial assessment of this year's Southeastern Wildlife Exposition. Held in eight venues throughout downtown Charleston from February 15-17, SEWE posted strong numbers overall. "With all the talk of an economic slowdown, we were holding our collective breath, waiting to see if attendees would show up in big numbers, and they certainly did," said Jimmy Huggins, president and CEO of SEWE, LLC. "Sales of day tickets are up by a whopping 34 percent over last year, and we estimate our total attendance was back up over the 40,000 mark."

SEWE's VIP program completely sold out for the third year in a row, with many packages purchased by visitors from out of town who came in as early as Tuesday to enjoy all that the Expo had to offer. Attendees filled area hotels, browsed and bought in retail stores, and packed restaurants and bars across the peninsula and beyond.

Organizers of the Southeastern Wildlife Expo were extremely pleased with the outcome of the show, and hope that this positive showing may serve as indicator for tourism in the Lowcountry for the rest of the year.

Art sales were comparable to the last two years, totaling just over $1 million so far, with additional sales and commissioned works by artists in the show still being tallied. SEWE souvenir sales were also comparable to '07, while sales of soft drinks, beer and water more than doubled, likely due in part to the warm, sunny days during the event this year.

"Available space in the historic district is hard to come by, so we added events over on Lockwood Boulevard in 2007. With some new additions in Brittlebank Park and the Charleston Marriott, things really took off this year," said Huggins. "The DockDogs competitions in Brittlebank were a really big draw, and we were pleased to have so much local participation. They will definitely be back next year!"

Watch dogs fly in the DockDogs competition from the South Eastern Wildlife Expedition.

Click on the video tab for the whole story