Antique Festival draws record attendance
After October’s Clinch River Antique Festival, Katherine Birkbeck, director of Historic Downtown Clinton, touted its success and the general value of visitors to Clinton and Anderson County.
She told the Clinton City Council at its Oct. 28 meeting the festival had 35% more vendors than ever before. She said some artist vendors traveled 3,500 miles to join the event which took place Oct. 4 and 5. About 7,700 visitors from outside Clinton came to the festival, she estimated.
She shared statistics from the Anderson County Tourism Council, which described visitors as spending $190.76 million total in the county or on average $153 per person per day in 2023. She said if that 2023 average was still true for the 2024 festival, visiting festival-goers spent about $1.1 million in the county.
The Tourism Council also shared these statistics in a handout to the Anderson County Commission.
It stated that visitors in 2023 collectively contributed $11.1 million in state taxes and $8.27 million in local taxes.
Anderson County was 16th in visitor spending out of Tennessee’s 95 counties.
The highest category of visitor spending was transportation, followed by food and beverage; lodging, including second homes; retail; and amusement and recreation.
“The festival was amazing,” said Clinton City Councilwoman Wendy Maness, adding that her daughter said it may have been “the best festival they’ve done.”
Birkbeck also spoke of a business downtown with a roof that suffered damage due to a storm before the festival, although she did not name it. She said people ran in from the street to help so the business could open on Oct. 5.
“A beautiful thing to see and says a lot, I think, about Clinton and its downtown,” she said.
