By Justin Fenton
Enquirer staff writer

A confluence of events the weekend of Sept. 17-19 is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars into downtown Cincinnati.

A press conference at Paul Brown Stadium Wednesday to announce the big weekend included a disparate group of people. Among them: Mayor Charlie Luken, two Ben-Gal cheerleaders, Procter & Gamble chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley, Reds mascot "Gapper," Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, singer Bootsy Collins, two dozen seventh- through 12th-grade members of the college prep program the End Zone Club, and an accordion player.

City officials and business and civic leaders are calling the weekend "Queen City Fusion," and they're hoping it will be a silver bullet that helps prop up Cincinnati's cultural and economic health.

"This is one of those weekends a few years ago you couldn't imagine happening," said Luken. Economists at the University of Cincinnati project 750,000 people - a third of them from out of town - will converge on the city.

Among the events:

• Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati, Sept. 18 and 19, expected to draw 500,000 to Fifth Street

• The Reds' series against the Chicago Cubs, Sept. 16 to 19, which is broadcaster Joe Nuxhall's final weekend, expected to draw 140,000, including Thursday's game

• The Bengals' Sunday-night season opener Sept. 19 against the Miami Dolphins, expected to draw 65,000

• The Ohio Classic & Jamboree at Paul Brown Stadium, a four-day event Sept. 16 to 19 featuring a football game between two historically black colleges, Step shows and a battle of the bands, expected to draw 35,000

Also, on Saturday, Van Halen will perform at U.S. Bank Arena, though those crowd figures were not included in the estimates.

All those events combined could bring as much as $72.7 million into the local economy, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati's Center for Economic Education.

"If anything, these figures are likely to be conservative," said Jeff Rexhausen, the center's associate director of research.

"When we come together, we win, and we win big," said Vice Mayor Alicia Reece, whose alma mater, Grambling State, will participate in the Ohio Classic.

Reece said the events could generate $22.7 million in earnings for local workers putting in overtime, which in turn will boost the city's income tax collections.

E-mail jfenton@enquirer.com