Thanks to plenty of good luck with the weather and a solid concert lineup, Strawberry Festival attendance and spending figures are both up from last year.
According to General Manager Paul Davis, the Festival saw 531,659 people come through over its 11-day run – over 5,000 more than in 2013, when the final figure was around 526,000. Spending also saw a two percent increase from last year.
“It was a great year for us,” Davis says. “We had no major problems.”
Aside from a group of vendors, most of whom were caught attempting to sell counterfeit Strawberry Festival/The Band Perry t-shirts, Davis was quite pleased with everything – the good weather, the big-time entertainment, and the improving traffic situation.
“We’re on the right path to fixing the traffic problems,” Davis says. “Plant City Police Department did a great job. It’s just tough, in a town of just over 30,000 people, to accommodate over 500,000 people coming in.”
Davis has said that his goal was to help make the 2014 Festival one of the best in recent years and, judging by the numbers, it certainly looks like he’s succeeded.