BANGOR – In a certain sense, it is not only the student-athletes out on the hardwood who are looking to score during the high school basketball tournaments held each February at Bangor Auditorium.

Queen City retail businesses are looking to do the same.

For many local merchants, the tournaments and the simultaneous week of school vacation is when they wake from the financial slumber that routinely follows the hectic holiday season.

During the 10 days in February that draw competitors from all over eastern and northern Maine to Bangor – bringing the athletes’ families and spending money with them – the merchants enjoy a boom in business. Waiting lines develop at local restaurants, hotels are booked solid, movie theaters see their revenues jump by more than half, and store clerks find themselves waiting on entire families who live hours away.

“It’s our busiest week of the year,” Matt Stark, manager assistant of Bugaboo Creek Steak House, said Thursday. “It’s busier than Christmas.”

Stark said during the weeklong tournaments and the weekends on either end, as many as 10,000 diners might come through the door.

“On a normal week, you’re looking at five or six thousand,” he said.

Business at Bugaboo Creek seems to have increased since Miller’s Restaurant on Main Street closed last year, according to Stark. Without Miller’s, there are fewer places in the Bangor area that can seat large parties, which make up a large part of the restaurant’s customers during tourney time.

Not only might three generations of one family come in at once, but sometimes whole teams appear in the waiting area.

“Washington Academy [of East Machias] came in the other day,” said Jeremy York, a host and server at the restaurant. “It was 33 of them.”

Inside the nearby Bangor Mall, Bill Swift of Olympia Sports said that tournament time is when the business sells a lot of baseball equipment. He estimated that the store’s revenues increase anywhere from 15 to 25 percent during tournament week.

“It’s probably the busiest week since Christmas,” Swift said. “You’ll see some of the players wearing their warm-up jackets. It’s families, not just one or two individuals.”

At the other end of the mall, Kris Brown of J.C. Penney said top selling items this past week have been swimsuits and light jackets. She guessed that the mall anchor store sees a 25 percent increase in its sales this time of year.

“We get a lot of business from the basketball tournament,” she said. “Last year they were buying a lot of cold-weather stuff because the weather was different.”

The traffic increase at Bangor Mall Cinemas is even more dramatic than it is at the mall stores across the street, according to theater manager Don Pete. He estimated that during the week, both because of school vacation and because of the tournaments, the movie house sees an 80 percent jump in its business.

“Christmas is our busiest time for families,” Pete said.

As he spoke around noon on Thursday, Pete pointed out multiple groups of theatergoers that consisted of one or two women and several young children. He said the films “The Pink Panther” and “8 Below” have been the most popular this week. “Curious George” also has been popular with the younger daytime audience, and many evening customers are watching “Firewall,” he said.

“This week is very busy for us,” Pete said.

Businesses near or in the mall aren’t the only ones benefiting from the basketball crowds.

Rick Schweikert, owner of Bangor’s Grasshopper Shop, said he sees tournament attendees browsing in his store while they visit downtown. He estimated that his sales may be around 10 percent busier but said the week is hard to gauge because other customers might take advantage of school vacation to get out of town.

“I know it adds to our sales,” he said.

Don Simpson, who owns Movie Magic Cinemas on Odlin Road with his wife, Cheryl Simpson, said the impact is easier to gauge for him and his family. Business at the theater has spiked 60 to 70 percent the past week.

“There’s no question the impact [of the tournaments] is a positive impact,” Simpson said while standing at a table in the theater’s cafe. “[But] we’re going to miss the Class A [competition] tremendously.”

In November 2004, Maine Principals’ Association decided to move the Eastern Maine Class A tournament from Bangor to Augusta starting this year.

Simpson was critical of the decision to move the Class A tournament. He and his family just reacquired the theater after selling it in 2001 when Class A schools still played at Bangor Auditorium. During tournament week that year, he had 800 more customers than the 2,500 he has had the past week.

“We know Class A was the big one,” he said. “You’ve got to keep business in town. You can’t let it go.”

Still, with three other class tournaments still being played in Bangor, many people who come to watch the games need places to stay.

The Days Inn next door to Simpson’s business is one of them. On Thursday a small banner that read “Welcome Players, Families and Fans” was displayed on the motel’s front check-in counter.

“Tonight we have like eight rooms left,” motel manager Christina Thibodeau said. “It’s been a good week.”

She said she hasn’t noticed any loss of business from the relocation of the Class A tournament. Families book multiple rooms for parents, grandparents and children and often end up with extra bodies sleeping on cots or on the floor, she said.

“This is similar to summer in that we’re busy every day of the week,” Thibodeau said. “It shakes the doldrums out of us.”