Cape Girardeau tourism looks up with August total solar eclipse

Tourism literally is looking up these days in Cape Girardeau as a total solar eclipse Aug. 21 is expected to draw countless sky gazers to the area.

Half of Cape Girardeau’s nearly 1,000 hotel rooms have been booked for Aug. 20, the day before the eclipse, said Brenda Newbern, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“They are filling up,” she said, adding hotel rooms in Perryville, Missouri, already are sold out.

Newbern credits many of those bookings to interest in viewing a total solar eclipse.

“Eclipse chasers will travel,” she said, adding some will book hotel rooms in different cities and decide at the last minute where to go based on where it is sunniest.

Cape Girardeau is directly in the path for viewing the total eclipse, which will place this community under the moon’s shadow for one minute and 45 seconds, according to information posted on the Southeast Missouri State University website.

The city and the university plan to host separate events to celebrate the celestial show.

The eclipse in which the moon passes between the sun and the earth will be the first such event that will be visible from America’s lower-48 states in more than 38 years, according to EclipseWise.com.

Cape Girardeau has not seen a visible total solar eclipse since 1869, according to the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“I just pray for sunshine,” Newbern said Thursday. “If it is cloudy, the show is over.”

The city of Cape Girardeau will hold a free “watch party” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. outside the new SportsPlex, Newbern said.

The eclipse is set to begin at 11:52 a.m., with the moon totally blocking the sun at 1:20 p.m., according to the visitors bureau.

Free, glow-in-the-dark T-shirts commemorating the event will be handed out to the first 200 attendees, and disposable glasses will be provided to the first 1,000 visitors.

The glasses are designed to filter out harmful ultraviolet and infrared light.

“It is the only way you can safely view the eclipse,” Newbern said. “Regular sunglasses won’t work.”

Food trucks also are expected to be on hand at the event, and a sound system is planned to provide a musical accompaniment, she said.

Southeast Missouri State University will host several eclipse events, including ones for area schoolchildren, Newbern said.

The “SEclipse” event will be at Houck Field. University officials said events still are being finalized.

The date of the eclipse also is the first day of classes on the Southeast campus.

The university events will culminate with a presentation at the Show Me Center by Michio Kaku, one of the most recognized figures in science.

Kaku’s presentation, “The Next 20 Years: How Science Will Revolutionize Business, the Economy, Medicine and Our Way of Life,” will be open to the public. It is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

Tickets will go on sale July 1. General-admission tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the Show Me Center box office or online at showmecenter.biz.

Earlier in the day, Kaku is scheduled to discuss the eclipse with students, Southeast officials said.

Newbern said scheduling public events around the solar eclipse “is the most interesting and difficult thing to try to plan.”

But she added it will be good practice for the Convention and Visitors Bureau staff, as another total eclipse is on the horizon. According to online information from NASA, a total eclipse next will be visible in the Cape Girardeau area April 8, 2024.

Cape Girardeau is one of the locations where the 2024 eclipse will be visible for the longest period of time, Newbern said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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