(Seguin) — America celebrated its 250th anniversary on July Fourth, and the Seguin community turned out in a big way to celebrate the nation’s milestone. City of Seguin officials say there was record participation for most of the events held over the long Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Lindsay Hajek, assistant director of Main Street & Destination Seguin, says there was again an impressive lineup of events this year.
“We hosted several events. We also supported other events, collaborated, helped promote it as well, (and) kind of packaged everything as a whole weekend of events. We had the Seguin Craft Beer and Wine Fest that was hosted by the (Seguin Area) Chamber, Fireworks Fiesta hosted by Parks and Recreation, and of course, our Flag Raising ceremony (and) our Biggest Small Town 4th of July Parade. Freedom Fiesta was hosted by KWED (and) we co-sponsored that as well. It was actually held this year on July 4th, which was new this year. And then we wrapped it all up with our patriotic concert in the park, which is the last of our series for the summer,” said Hajek.
Hajek says there was an effort to make each event bigger and better this year, and the community responded well. Tens of thousands of people turned out for the fireworks show, the parade and Freedom Fiesta. Hajek says the city used geofencing to establish the boundaries for each event area and then relied on aggregated, anonymous cellphone location data from Placer.ai to estimate attendance at each free, public event.
“We used cell phone tracking data from Placer AI to put these numbers together. And this year, Fireworks Fiesta had an estimated attendance of 20,000 people. And just keep in mind, this is just the area that we’re kind of calling the fireworks viewing area. You can see those fireworks for miles. So at least 20,000 people were here to watch the fireworks. The 4th of July parade and the flag raising ceremony had 15,000 spectators in attendance, which was big. It was bigger than last year, where we had 12,000 (people). So, we had a jump there for that parade. And then just to share, the parade and the fireworks together, it was about 49 percent of visitors that are coming from out of town to see our celebration. So, it’s not just for our community. It’s definitely got a regional draw as well and it’s bringing people here to visit us,” said Hajek.
The huge crowds continued well into the night. Freedom Fiesta, hosted by KWED, had one of its largest crowds ever for the free one-night community celebration.
“Freedom Fiesta was held on the same day. It kind of was all day. It lasted all the way from the parade until the evening — 11 o’clock at night. So, it kept people in town. It kept people in Central Park all day. And they had an attendance of around 5,000,” said Hajek.
Hajek says the Independence Day weekend crowds far exceeded the normal number of visitors who come to Seguin on any given day. She says the numbers show the events not only attracted local residents, but also a significant number of visitors from other communities.
“Our average daily baseline of visitors in Seguin is 34,000. So, these two events brought from 42,000 to 53,000 over the two days in general to Seguin, and that’s out-of-market visitors that came to see us,” said Hajek.
The cellphone data is further supported by the fact that hotels also filled up that weekend. Hajek says people didn’t just come for one event; they stayed for the weekend and enjoyed all that Seguin had to offer.
“Our hotel occupancy was very, very high. On July 3rd, we were 83 percent occupied, and then July 4th, 93 percent occupied, which was up substantially year-over-year from last year. And we kind of think it was because there was a reason to stay for all the events that happened throughout the weekend. So again, it had a huge regional impact. Some of these visitors come (from all over). Of course, we have our neighboring community, but we saw a lot coming from San Antonio, Dallas, College Station, and Houston,” said Hajek.
The numbers reflect only those free events hosted in the downtown area and at the Seguin Events Complex. Mayor Donna Dodgen says there’s another major event that’s held for several days prior to the Fourth of July. Fields of Honor features a sea of American flags planted in a field next to Faith Lutheran Church at the corner of Cedar Street and State Highway 123 Bypass.
Main Street & Destination Seguin Director Blaire Friar says Fields of Honor is indeed a major event during the holiday, but they were not able to collect attendance data for that location.
“With the data dashboard that we used, like she mentioned, it uses cell phone data, so if you have your location services turned on, it’s tracking those. But there are certain rules and regulations on what areas we can track, and churches and educational organizations are not able to be geofenced. So, that’s why we were not able to pull those numbers. But we know it was a great event, and it’s always an added wonderful opportunity for our community,” said Friar.
The Main Street & Destination Seguin office presented the attendance figures during Tuesday’s meeting of the Seguin City Council.