Local festivals report surging attendance; board hears strong hotel occupancy numbers
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
Several grantees and festival organizers told the board their events drew significantly more visitors this year. Presenters cited near-capacity hotels (about 93% occupancy), multi-thousand weekend attendance at Unbroken and rising overnight stays in August–September.
Organizers for local festivals told the Davis County Board of Tourism that this year—s events produced higher attendance and stronger hotel demand than previous years.
Mark Rogers, president of the Kindred Folk Society, thanked the board for support of a second-year festival and said organizers used most of the grant funding. "We spent almost the majority of the money you guys granted us and have a little leftover for our other projects," Rogers told the board. He reported 16 porches and 16 business sponsors and said the group will return in March to request further support.
An organizer identified as JNB said her first-time request (asking for $5,000) was funded at $4,000; she reported about 175 sign-ins and estimated actual attendance as high as roughly 300.
Presenters for the Unbroken festival provided broader metrics: organizers described "almost 16,000" visits over three days, sold-out hotels and Airbnbs, 60 RV hookups and about 100 primitive camping spaces occupied. Andrew (Visit Madison) summarized hotel metrics for festival nights, saying Friday hotel stays were up to about "93%" occupancy compared with prior years. He also described a strong conversion of day visitors into overnight stays: "August and September were the largest since they started collecting data," he said, noting the place-area module shows substantial increases in total nights.
Board members and business representatives credited targeted marketing — radio, billboards and social media — for attracting attendees beyond the usual 100-mile radius and for driving shoulder-week visitation (Thursday through Monday) that boosts local lodging revenue.
Organizers discussed next steps for growth: expanding camping and RV capacity, reconfiguring stages to allow more people on the riverfront and investing more in marketing to sustain growth. Several presenters asked for continued partnership and data-sharing with Visit Madison to refine metrics ahead of grant requests in March 2026.
The meeting record shows board members acknowledged the festivals' economic upside and welcomed more detailed post-event data at future reporting sessions.