Last weekend’s Hillsboro Homecoming & Festival drew one of the largest crowds in its 29-year history, said Mandy Alley, administrator for the Greater
Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the event.
“I think people just really wanted to get out,” Alley said.
The chamber canceled the festival last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alley said about 3,000 people attended the festival on May 14, adding that she believes it was the largest crowd the event has ever had.
Alley said the festival also was well attended on May 15, but rain that afternoon kept some people away.
“I think the rain actually didn’t really hurt us too bad,” she said. “It kind of almost acted as crowd control.”
Alley said an estimated 1,500 people turned out that day.
She said vendors ran out of food and carnival workers had trouble keeping up with the number of people wanting to get on the rides on May 14.
“We had way more people than what we ever had anticipated,” Alley said. “We weren’t sure how many people would come out and if they were comfortable yet coming to a large event. This was kind of the first large festival in the area, kicking off the summer. It was better attended than previous festivals.”
Alley said she believes the carnival and the live music were the biggest draws. Musical acts included Power Play, Shannon Cox, Leslie Craig and Scott Logan, and the Johnathan Braddy Band.
“The rain moved out, and Saturday evening turned out to be amazing,” Alley said. “The Johnathan Braddy band finally got to play after several rainout years. All of our bands throughout the weekend were phenomenal.”
Alley said the car show on May 15 was canceled due to rain.
However, the parade that morning went on as planned and included 25 entries. The Hillsboro Little League won the award for Best Overall entry in the parade. Other parade winners included the Hillsboro Lions Club for best float; the Hillsboro High School band for Best Walking/Marching Unit; Scott and Keran Geary for Best Motorized Unit; Wayne Wiley for Best Vintage Unit; Highland Baptist Church for Best Religious entry; and the city of Hillsboro for Best Dressed Animal.
A cornhole tournament was held May 15, and the winners were Josh Kelam and Ryan Allen, first place; P.J. Buttner and Aaron Mraz, second place; and Gary Loveless and Kyle Orchard, third place.
Alley said the annual event is the chamber’s main fundraiser each year.
“Our goal as the chamber is to stimulate our local economy and our local businesses, and I would say we definitely did that,” she said. “The feedback from all of the vendors and the businesses was great. They all did great on sales financially; they all either doubled or tripled their sales of what they had done in 2019.”