The 2016 edition of Essence Festival is behind us, and promoters claim that numbers increased this year to 450,000 attendees. Clearly, Essence has a major impact on the city’s economy because it brings in hundreds of thousands of affluent African American out-of-towners to New Orleans at a time of year that’s pretty dead—from the hospitality industry’s point of view. So it’s a very welcome event. In the words of Mayor Landrieu: “This event draws artists and participants from around the world, creating a lasting economic impact and positioning New Orleans as a top destination for the Fourth of July.”

Well, that’s the whole idea, right? This is why events like Essence, Tales of the Cocktail, Satchmo SummerFest and a few more have been scheduled during the long, wicked-hot, humid summer of New Orleans. We need tourists for the city’s hospitality industry to survive the slowest season of the year.

You may have noticed that we do a poll every week, and last week we asked our readers what they favorite part of the Essence celebration was. Surprisingly, our readers said it wasn’t the music, or the empowerment seminars or the food or the vendors; it was the “scene”: a scene that’s concentrated between the Superdome, Arena and the Convention Center.

Essence is a fairly self-contained environment; maybe it’s just too damned hot for organizers to expect attendees to schlep around the New Orleans French Quarter, or Magazine Street in this blasted heat, so they’ve put their events inside the Superdome, the Morial Convention Center, after-parties inside venues, hotels, or a few tented “markets.” Pretty smart, in my opinion.

But this has an impact on certain members of the hospitality industry (obviously not hotels): restaurants, bars, retailers. The Essence Festers have an environment where they can be entertained, fed and shop, all in the comfort of a big blasting AC. But, aside from the fact that many of our local charms aren’t really appreciated (i.e., the French Quarter, the architecture, history, restaurants, bars, even Bourbon Street to some extent), you could look at this phenomenon this way: Essence Fest could be held anywhere, not just New Orleans, if most of the crowd stays in a convention center, an arena and hotels.

Luckily, the Essence people have chosen to keep the event in New Orleans (a result, I am sure, that they are given many financial incentives by the city and hoteliers to keep it here).

In an article on NOLA.com, there was an implication that many restaurants close during Essence because they don’t want to deal with African-American visitors. I find that incredibly difficult to believe in a town that is about 50 percent African American. Anybody’s money is green. Any business owner that’s stupid enough to not want to cater to the Essence attendees (obviously African American) is just plain dumb, or too racist to live in today’s New Orleans.

On the other hand, it’s also been implied that restaurants’ staffs complain about African Americans’ habits of low or no tipping, or sending food back to the kitchen (this is apparently a cultural phenomenon that has basis in fact), and the restaurant owners simply close during Essence and other African American events like Bayou Classic) to avoid staffing problems. It’s also been said that some add in a 20 percent gratuity fee, European-style, to make sure their staff receives some tips (most wait staff is only paid $2.13 per hour; they survive on tips).

Are New Orleans businesses really so racist as to alienate a group of well-heeled potential customers simply because they are African Americans? If that’s really true, well, the bubble I live in has been burst, big-time.