HOPE — While attendance records were not broken, the 53rd annual Hope Heritage Days will still go down in the books as one of the most successful in the town’s history.
For the first time, scientific methods such as drone images were used to establish a realistic estimate of crowd sizes, said Jake Miller, chief executive officer of the organizing Heritage of Hope board of directors.
“Based on our calculations, we probably saw anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 people over three days,” Miller said.
The largest estimated attendance for what is considered the county’s largest and oldest multi-day festival has been slightly over 30,000, which Miller said is incredible for a community of only 2,200 residents.
For the Heritage Days to attract almost 10 times its own population to Hope over a three-day weekend, “it means we are doing something to attract people,” Miller said.
When asked to rate his swan song as outgoing president of the Heritage of Hope’s Festival and Bandstand division, Randy Sims didn’t hesitate to give his answer.
“Ten,” Sims replied with a sense of pride in his voice. “There seemed to be a lot more people standing in line to get food. Everybody I’ve talked to said they made a little bit more money than they did in 2019, which really surprised quite a few food vendors.”
Based on sales, the most popular food was the funnel cakes offered by the philanthropic Hope Kappa Kappa Sigma sorority, Sims said.
After several nonprofits lost their primary or sole revenue last year when COVID-19 canceled the festival, many Hope-area residents did everything they could to attracting large crowds this year, town manager Frank Owens said.
Over the past year, most of the nonprofit food booth operators resorted to extensive belt-tightening just to stay afloat, he said.
But after talking with many of these organizations, Owens said it appears most have seen their financial situation improve.
In addition, the northeast Bartholomew County town of 2,200 residents is expected to receive over $500,000 in federal assistance from now through next year, Owens said.
The town council is expected to consider, among other things, using some of that revenue to help nonprofits financially hurt from last year’s cancellation, Owens said.
As Sims toured the Hope Town Square each day, he says he was impressed by how well the food vendors were doing.
“There seemed to be a lot more people who were standing in line to get food,” Sims said. “Many nonprofits ran out of food on Sunday.”
But longer lines may have been the result of fewer vendors, rather than larger crowds There were only 14 food vendors this year, compared to 17 a few years ago.
Another challenge was older and cautious volunteers who decided not to be at this year’s event as the Delta variant of COVID-19 spreads through the region, Miller said.
Some decided to skip the entire festival because they felt they would not be able to recruit enough younger volunteers, he said.
“I’ve talked to (Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp.) administrators,” Miller said. “We are trying to recruit enough older students so that all of our nonprofits can participate in the future, he said.
But with mild to warm temperatures, as well as mostly dry conditions, “I didn’t talk to a single person that said anything negative about the festival,’ Miller said. “Everybody stayed busy, but ended up thrilled with the crowd turnout.”
Among those who enjoyed the Heritage Days were visitors who came to Bartholomew County primarily for the Mill Race Marathon, which was held Saturday in and around Columbus.
Organizers of the two events have met with Columbus Area Visitors Center executive director Karen Niverson regarding how both events can feed off each other, Miller said.
“In previous years, they’ve done a good job of getting visitors to attend both events, but there are always ways to improve how they work together,” Miller said.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the 2021 Hope Heritage Days was Ernie Brown, Jr. of Lebanon, Kentucky. Nicknamed “The Turtleman,” Brown was featured in the reality TV show “Call Of The Wildman” that focused on two guys and a dog who worked together as nuisance animal removers.
Although the “Animal Planet’ program stopped airing original episodes in 2014, event organizers were amazed at how popular Brown has remained over the past seven years.
“We had people lined all the way up Jackson Street, from Harrison to Main, waiting in line for three-and-a-half hours to just shake his hand and get a picture with him,” Miller said. “The Turtleman didn’t finish meeting with his fans until about midnight on Saturday night.”
