BROCKVILLE – The co-chairman of the Brockville Tall Ships Festival is calling the event “a huge success…we exceeded in a lot of different areas.”
“The feedback and the compliments have been pretty strong and there was a lot of variety in the offerings so we got really good feedback from all our tourists that came in here,” Dave Paul told Brockville Newswatch Monday.
The Navy ship HMCS Ville de Quebec was still giving tours through 4 p.m. today (Monday).
Paul estimates about 10,000 passports and over 40,000 people came down to the waterfront during the two-and-a-half days. He believes there was a bump in attendance on Sunday, due to the good weather.
He said the surplus will put in a reserve account and “will be a good starting point for the next festival that might need some seed money” to develop a few festival.
As for logistics, Paul said weaknesses discovered in 2013 with washrooms, garbage pickup and movement of people had been improved this year.
Paul told BNW there were a few extra performances and attendees that helped the festival.
He’s hopeful the merchants reaped some economic benefits like they did in 2013.
“We did track that and we had some amazing testimony so we still have to make some interviews and see how well the merchants did too.”