When the Super Bowl is played in Arlington in February, the crowd won’t be much larger than one at an ordinary NFL game at Cowboys Stadium.

But the impact in cash and cachet can’t be compared.

Part of what makes the Super Bowl one of the world’s premier spectacles is the happenings off the field, such as a gala in Garland, a reality show taping in Fair Park or a $500 gourmet dinner in Fort Worth.

With a week packed full of parties and fundraisers, techno music and hoedowns, event planners will roll out more red carpets in seven days than this area would probably see in a year.

“The game is a big deal, but all the parties and events that lead up to it, that’s what the Super Bowl is all about,” said Jordan Woy, a Dallas sports agent whose annual party this season is hosted by Pamela Anderson.

He said Super Bowl parties have escalated to a new level in the past decade, turning the host region into a “celebrity playground.” Woy estimates that only a quarter to half of the people at his parties are actually in the stands on game day.

For North Texas, it’s a chance to play the part of Las Vegas or Los Angeles or New York, even if just for a week.

That weeklong, intensive buildup to Super Bowl Sunday is what fuels estimates that the economic impact could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. While game attendance is expected to be in the mid-90,000 range, host committee officials are projecting nearly 150,000 out-of-state visitors.

With a little more than two months to go before kickoff, at least 50 events are listed on the Super Bowl XLV host committee calendar. Dozens more that aren’t open to the public won’t even appear on the list.

And one of the busier booking weeks hasn’t even arrived.

Planning picks up

Kit Sawers, Super Bowl host committee vice president of special events, said party and fundraiser planners were busy booking during the summer but slowed at the beginning of football season. Now, it’s picking up again and could peak in early December when the inevitable last-minute events are planned, Sawers said.

And nearly all revolve around a celebrity or celebrities.

“While they’re [celebrities] here for those three to five days, they want to go to parties where other celebrities and athletes are,” Woy said.

The celebrities attract more celebrities, which in turn attracts more fans for the parties and corporate events.

The Super Bowl also attracts untold numbers of current and former players for events like NFL “alumni” networking functions or the Professional Football Players Mothers Association’s semiformal dinner and dance at Garland’s Granville Arts Center.

‘One unifying event’

“What started as just a game – an amazing game – has now built over time into this one unifying event that brings the country, and in many cases the world, together,” said Peter O’Reilly, NFL vice president of fan strategy and marketing.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that in the early 1980s, there was “an explosion” of parties and corporate events at the Super Bowl. And O’Reilly said that about that time, Super Bowl commercials became sensations with their own following. The 1984-inspired Apple ad that year remains one of the most famous.

“It turned into a pop culture sensation,” O’Reilly said about the Super Bowl.

It was a few years later – the 1991 show by New Kids on the Block – when the halftime extravaganzas with marching bands and drill teams were replaced by current chart-toppers.

Even though the Super Bowl has become what many refer to as an unofficial national holiday, O’Reilly said that each year he sees the game grow.

Now, with media row and its unprecedented concentration of radio stations, the Super Bowl has also become one-stop shopping for celebrities hawking new movies, television shows, books and just about anything else.

Michael Eakman, producer of the 2011 Aces Angels Salute to the Troops at Fair Park, said he’s looking to raise his fundraiser’s profile by moving it to Super Bowl week for the first time.

What started as a small event to help the California State Firefighters’ Association four years ago has turned into a benefit for the Wounded Warrior Project and USO that’s expected to draw thousands, including event host and Kiss front man Gene Simmons. Eakman said moving Aces Angels to the Super Bowl was a “natural progression” as the event grew.

“The attention of all of the media is focused on that particular game in that particular city in that weekend,” he said.

For someone trying to generate buzz – and dollars – Dallas is the place to be. Unlike some other celebrity parties, the $475 per-ticket military-themed fundraiser is expected to attract people from Texas and neighboring states. About 1,000 free tickets will go to troops from Fort Hood.

Moyer fundraiser

Karen Moyer, wife of Major League Baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer, said their Spaghetti Western dinner and fundraiser at Fort Worth’s Love Shack restaurant will be the couple’s second Super Bowl.

She said they created the Moyer Foundation “realizing what celebrity status can do to make it a better world.” Starting a Super Bowl week event, Karen Moyer said, is a way to make an even bigger splash with their $500-a-ticket fundraiser.

“We hope to establish an event that’s so much fun that it becomes a part of everyone’s calendar when they go to the Super Bowl,” she said. But she acknowledged that there’s intense competition even among worthy charities.

Some proceeds go to Camp Erin, which is described as the nation’s largest network of bereavement camps.

In South Florida, the Moyer Foundation and the Mario Batali Foundation – started by the celebrity chef – held a Saturday brunch. This time, they moved into a more prominent Friday-night spot with the dinner at Tim Love’s restaurant.

“We’ve picked smaller venues,” Karen Moyer said. “We hope that we’re going to be forced into bigger venues.”

O’Reilly said that much of the reason the Super Bowl has become so much larger than football can be found in the numbers. The game holds the record for the largest television audience in U.S. history, and the NFL also claims 182 million fans in every demographic from age 12 and up.

“Like our viewership and the overall appetite for the NFL, it continues to grow, and people want to attach themselves to it,” O’Reilly said.