By Burton Cole
FALMOUTH—The 2024 Kentucky Wool Festival brought in an estimated crowd of 29,000 people over the three-day weekend, festival president Steve Thomas said.
That’s not a record for the annual festival, which began in 1983, but it certainly wasn’t a low turnout, Thomas said.
In fact, the grounds couldn’t have held many more people Oct. 4, 5 and 6.
“It was excellent,” he said.
There were 24,000 single-day tickets sold. Once three-day passes and vendors are added in, the number should be up by another 5,000, he said.
“I’d call it a normal attendance for the Wool Festival,” he said.
“We usually pull in 28,000 to 32,000 average attendance.
“The vendors said they did well. People who attended didn’t have to wait in line to get in.”
The biggest problems came the week before the show.
Set-up usually occurs the weekend before the festival, but several rainy and windy days, thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Helene, wreaked havoc with the schedule.
“We had a hard setup because of the rain,” Thomas said.
“In a way, the rain was a blessing. It settled all the dust, and the grass was green.”
Once setup crews could get on the grounds, it went down to the wire. But with the help of groups like the Pendleton County High School soccer team, the work got done.
Festival weekend itself was warm and sunny.
It was a good year, Thomas said.
Editor’s note: See last week’s Outlook for festival story and photos.