From Aug. 25 to Aug. 28, 2008, the Denver area will host the Democratic National Convention and some 35,000 visitors, including delegates, public officials, distinguished members of the print, broadcast and electronic media, political operatives, corporate lobbyists, celebrities, foreign dignitaries, and various and sundry kibitzers, groupies, bloggers, hustlers, agitators and activists.

And the one thing they all will have in common is a desire to dine, drink, debate and debauch during their four days in Denver.

Fellow citizens of Denver, to paraphrase a beloved Democratic president, ask not what you can do for the Democratic convention, ask what the Democratic convention can do for you.

The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee forecasts that this event will have an economic impact on our state of between $150 million and $200 million. That's not chicken feed.

And you can count on the conventioneers to consume thousands and thousands of chickens, rubber or otherwise, during the days they are here. Indeed, at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami, Kentucky Fried Chicken paid $35,000 for the privilege of delivering a box of its finger-licking product to each delegate on one of the convention nights. The Democratic nominee in 1972, Sen. George McGovern, went on to lose in a landslide in November, but Kentucky Fried Chicken, now KFC, kept on growing and growing, no doubt helped immensely by the national television exposure it received in Miami.

(Chipotle, have I got an idea for you. You already have that burrito-shaped dirigible that floats around the Pepsi Center. Call me!)

As a Colorado media event, the 2008 Democratic convention will be even more widely covered than the 1977 trial in Aspen of French singer/actress Claudine Longet for the murder of ski racer Spider Sabich. What I mean is this is going to be very, very big. Bigger even than MTV's Real World Denver. (But let's not lose perspective. There is no way this convention will rival the wall-to-wall coverage of Kobe Bryant's little misadventure in Colorado.)

So how can the average resident of Denver with something to sell, rent or trade maximize the business opportunity presented by the Democratic convention? First, it helps to know who's who among the visitors. To be crass, some of these people will have more to spend than others.

At the bottom of the scale are the delegates. These folks are mostly committed party activists who have consumed all their evenings and weekends over the previous four years attending political meetings to caucus with each other about the minutiae of electoral politics. If you've ever watched a political convention on TV, you'll recognize the delegates as the people who don funny hats, sport dozens of campaign buttons and wear clothes that were way out of fashion two decades ago. They preface all public utterances with interminable phrases like the "the delegate from the Great State of (fill in the blank), home of (insert name of local celebrity/sports franchise/traditional food product or beverage/obscure geographic feature beloved only by locals)."

Because these people devote so much time and energy volunteering for the candidates, they have a hard time making a decent living. As a general rule, they don't have much disposable income, they expect to be fed and entertained for free, and their value as a commercial opportunity is practically nil.

Expect a large contingent of protesters to descend on Denver for convention week. This cohort will for the most part stay in private homes or sleep in public parks. Not a lot of money to be collected from them, unless you operate a bail bond agency.

It seems there is a "coalition" of protesters calling themselves "Re-create 68," who want to see a replay of the street protests outside the Chicago convention in that year.

In 1968, I was in junior high school, but I was old enough to know it was a terrible year of assassinations, riots and invasions. We don't need to re-create all that. But if the "Re-create 68" people think they can bring back Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones, I say let them have at it.

Next in the hierarchy are the media. These people have a fair amount of money to spend, and because it is their employer's money and not their own, they will part with it without much resistance. However, it helps to be pragmatic with these types. If the network anchorman with the big hair wants the credit card receipt to say "tour guide" rather than "escort services," humor him.

At the top of the convention food chain, you have the political consultants. These characters will be buying prime steaks and $200 bottles of wine at the Capital Grille with the millions of dollars handed over to them by the candidates, who have collected the money in $50 and $100 contributions from patriotic citizens deeply concerned about the continuing quagmire in Iraq, the decline of American prestige around the world, the widening income gap, global warming and the health care crisis.

In other words, if you want to make the really big bucks during convention week, you can do no better than to target the political consultants.

I'm looking forward to August 2008 as much as anyone. I attended two previous Democratic conventions: Miami in 1972 and San Francisco in 1984. In each of those years the Democratic presidential candidate lost the general election in a landslide of unprecedented proportions. I'm looking forward to August 2008 as much as anyone, but maybe I should go the mountains for convention week.

Frank Schuchat is a founding partner with Schuchat, Herzog & Brenman. He also performs stand-up comedy.