Discover Bastrop reports 1.5 million downtown visits in 2025, flags data caveats

Discover Bastrop Director Mikayla told the Bastrop City Council that the department's Placer AI analysis estimated roughly 1,500,000 total visits to the downtown boundary in 2025 and about 309,000 unique visitors.

"For 2025, we had approximately 1,500,000 visitors through our downtown," Mikayla said, noting that the platform distinguishes between repeat visits and unique visitors. She said average dwell time across downtown was about 82 minutes and that the downtown audience is largely local: roughly two-thirds of visitors were from Bastrop County on many events.

Mikayla walked council through event-level summaries: Mardi Gras (festival day slice about 7,600 total visitors), Big Bang (about 10,000 total visitors on June 28, with more than 6,000 at evening fireworks), a new Bastrop Live month (about 115,000 visits across September), BooBash (more than 6,000 visitors on Oct. 31), and the Veterans Day car show (about 11,000 over Nov. 7—18). She also highlighted a multiweek River of Lights/tree-lighting run that produced about 60,000 total visits (45,000 unique visitors) between Nov. 28 and Jan. 2.

Mikayla cautioned that some year-over-year comparisons can be skewed by event-date shifts and by how the geofence boundaries and dates are selected. "Some of these numbers seem a lot higher than I would, but it was because the date moves around," she told council, and said staff will correct date alignment when producing year-over-year tables.

The director said the platform enables granular audience breakdowns (county and out-of-state origins, dwell time, and demographic slices) and that Discover Bastrop will distribute full reports to event organizers and council. She said the department will return with Mardi Gras post-event numbers in mid-February.

Council members praised the level of detail and said the report will help measure return on event investments.