OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — Summer might be drawing to a close, but Discover Oshkosh (Oshkosh's tourism bureau) Executive Director Amy Albright says it's been "one of our best summers ever."
Albright estimates more than a million people flocked to the city of about 66,000 this summer, making it one of the busiest on record. Several of Oshkosh's biggest summer events enjoyed their best attendance ever;
- EAA AirVenture drew 677,000 visitors, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association;
- The Waupaca Boatride Volleyball Tournament drew somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 attendees, according to tournament officials;
- And Christian music festival Lifest drew an estimated 30,000 visitors per day, according to Albright.
Beyond just coming to see the events though, Albright says Oshkosh visitors also took time to see all the city has to offer.
"They came in for an event, but they ended up doing all the things," she said. "They experience the water, the Paine Art Center, they went to [The Experimental Aircraft Association's] Aviation Museum, they did all the things," she said.
Albright added that "giving people that Oshkosh experience for me is what makes this worthwhile."
Although Albright says the exact economic impact this summer's events had on Oshkosh won't be known for a while, Becket's restaurant owner Kris Larson says all the visitors helped make this summer "one of the busiest years we've seen in the 15 years we've been here."
Larson says he's enjoyed seeing so many visitors from all over the globe this summer, and thanks Discover Oshkosh, for helping bring so many big events, to a relatively small city.
"I think we punch way above our class in [hosting events]..." he said. "Our tourism bureau is better than most and they put in a lot of work to get these things here... it just winds up being a good place for things like that to happen."
