Want to see more photos from the Strassenbash festival? Check out our Strassenbash photo gallery.

Strassenbash, Wright City’s largest community festival, had a great turnout last weekend and is starting to realize its potential for being an even better community celebration, said Mayor Michelle Heiliger.

Heiliger is a member of the small committee that organizes Strassenbash. She said she was pleased to see the festival on Oct. 7 and 8 bringing community members together at Diekroeger Park.

“We had a lot of new faces this year, which is super exciting. A lot of young families came, which is our goal — to create an event that families can come to that is not negatively impactful to their budget. You can spend the whole day there and everything (except food) is free,” Heiliger commented. “We also had more people who got involved in helping with the event this year, which was fantastic.”

The festival this year featured several elements that organizers are aiming to nourish and grow, including the return of events on Friday evening, more activities for children throughout the day, more live music, and more community involvement, particularly in the Strassenbash Parade. For the last two years, organizers have challenged parade participants to go the extra mile by decorating themselves and their vehicles with a theme, and they are seeing more people getting in on the fun, Heiliger said.

This year’s parade theme was cartoons. The mayor and Wright City aldermen helped lead the way dressed as characters from “The Flintstones.”

“I feel like (the themes) will take a couple years to ramp up. People always worry, ‘Am I going to be the only one who does it?’” Heiliger observed. “So when the leadership embraces that and decides to have a good time — when we say ‘It’s OK to be silly’ — then that will spread through the community.”

She also noted that a lot of small additions to the festival, such as character actors, a foam party, and afternoon live music, made a big difference in giving everyone who visited something to enjoy.

About 120 merchants, including food trucks, were registered to attend Strassenbash, Heiliger said, although some weren’t able to make the festival.

The mayor added that she wanted to give special thanks to the group that helps organize Strassenbash, all the volunteers who help prepare Diekroeger Park, and every business and community member who sponsored activities so they could be free for visitors. Without all of them, the festival wouldn’t be possible.

“My favorite part of doing events like this is just working with all the people who are there for the right reasons,” Heiliger said. “We do this to have a great day in our community. ... It’s a way to introduce new people to the culture of who we are and what we believe in. It’s about seeing people you haven’t seen since Strassenbash last year. To me, it’s about the sense of community that the whole thing creates.”