DENVER - About 35,000 people are expected to descend on Denver and its surrounding communities during the Democratic National Convention, and that spells revenue for businesses in the Boulder Valley.

According to the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, for the DNC weekend that begins Aug. 25, an estimated $160 million to $200 million will funnel into the area, and businesses are gearing up to accommodate that level of demand for food, fun, schmoozing and lodging.

One local business slated to benefit from the convention is Broomfield-based Rotors of the Rockies Inc. Co-owner Regina Fyola has two to three helicopters on reserve for delegates from Michigan for an event at The Timbers Hotel in Denver, which has a telipad and will provide  a barbecue lunch.

Fyola is working with the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, a nonprofit that has partnered with Rotors of the Rockies in the past, to bring members of the media and environmental groups into the mountains to raise awareness of the pine beetle devastation. Environmentalists also prefer the reduced-emissions helicopter transport affords, she said.

"Few people know that the carbon footprint for carrying a group of people to the mountains is actually lower in one of our aircraft than if they were to drive. It's because the time in the air is far less than the time they would spend on the road," she said. "Especially when you compare it with the energy consumption of the larger SUVs."

The company has both sightseeing tours and press flights on the books throughout the days of the convention.

The upcoming convention led Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper to seriously ramp up citywide greening goals. The DNC is touted to be the most eco-conscious convention in history, and Boulder-based Standard Renewable Energy, has benefited from some of Denver's accelerated projects, retrofitting buildings with solar arrays in anticipation of the event. The company is a sponsor of the convention's Sunfest party, an event similar to a trade show to be held in Coors Field that will showcase the solar energy industry in Colorado to policymakers.

While competition among solar companies in the area is fierce, according to Sam Ley, Standard Renewable's chief designer, every company continues to grow because the industry is growing.

"There's a lot of room to be successful here," he said.

The core founders of the solar movement in Colorado are people who installed solar panels before an industry existed here, he said. Sunfest will allow their complementary passions to work together and to display the best each company has to offer, pushing renewable energy's agenda on the national stage.

While Sunfest will be attended by invitation only, Standard Renewable also will exhibit at the Green Frontier Fest, set from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, in the Denver Performing Arts Complex Sculpture Park. The free and open to the public event will provide eco-carnival games, speakers, music and a farmers' market.

The Sculpture Park will be home to a grassroots effort organized by delegate and Longmont resident Nate Vanderschaaf. The Electric Vehicle Rolling Showcase aims to provide members of Congress and other dignitaries with an experience behind the wheel of an electric car. Test drives will follow a one- to two-mile course along closed roads.

Boulder-based Metzger Associates, creators of the DNC After Dark blog, is providing the public relations, branding and logistics for the effort. Erin Pickard, a Metzger account executive, will be on site, educating notables about the cars.

A couple of sporty Tesla Roadsters are expected, along with plug-in Priuses, Toyota Rav4 EVs, Chevrolet S10 Es and two AC Propulsion eBoxes, which are electric conversions of the Scion xB. Two stars from the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" will be there to add to the hoopla.

With an obvious flair for the public relations benefits of dramatic gestures, Vanderschaaf has been on the phone in hopes to deliver Barack Obama in one of the Roadsters.  "With me behind the wheel," he added with a laugh.

Close to 250 companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties have registered in the DNC vendor directory, which gives precedence to green, women-, minority-, disabled- and veteran-owned businesses by filtering them to the top of each category listing, in the hopes of taking advantage of the crush of people expected.

Tom Bockes, marketing manager of The Greenbriar Inn Restaurant, has nothing yet on the books for convention weekend, but he hopes that the inn's involvement in the referral system Open Table, which provides a kick-back to concierges for reservations, will funnel the Estes Park visitors their way.

With bids out at some of the banquet hall and mansion venues, Boulder's A Spice of Life hopes to cater those events that don't require union labor.

Jules Gunderson, event center manager, in addition to Steve Maas, president of Maas Creative Advertising in Longmont and Kristina Rose, owner of Photo Craft Imaging in Lyons, expressed an inability to compete with union-shop companies in those DNC venues that contract for union labor exclusively.