Warrenton’s annual Fall Festival on Sept. 24 was, by all accounts, a major success as thousands of people came downtown to enjoy an afternoon of entertainment, shopping and music.

“It went excellent. I couldn’t have been happier with it,” said Warrenton Mayor Eric Schleuter. “There were not hardly any issues, a lot of vendors reported that they had good business, and I haven’t heard a bad thing yet. People just had a really fun time.”

All the festival’s crowd-favorite attractions made their return this year: an afternoon performance by Butch Wax and the Hollywoods, the vintage car show, vendors, kids’ games. But organizers with the city also showed that they’ve been looking for more ways to improve the festival, adding new carnival-style entertainers with Circus Kaput, a cornhole tournament, and a late-afternoon performance from country music trio Fine to Drive to keep the music going until the main concert of the evening.

Both in terms of visitor turnout and vendor participation, city officials were quite pleased, Mayor Schleuter commented. That’s especially true considering another large event was going on at Innsbrook and a smaller community event was in Dutzow all on the same day.

In fact, on the vendor side there was so much interest that every spot for vendors was occupied and some vendors weren’t able to attend because there wasn’t enough room, Schleuter said.

He credits the Warrenton city staff members for their great organization and outreach to make the Fall Festival as much of a success as it is. Planning for each year’s festival is nearly a year-round effort at City Hall, with organization ramping up months ahead of the actual event.

With each passing year, staff members have been getting better at hosting a great, free event for citizens, Schleuter said.

“This is a thank you for our community. This is thank you for everything they do around the city, for paying sales tax. This is to say ‘thank you’ for being citizens here, for being part of our community,” Schleuter noted.

As for the main event of the festival, a late-evening performance by country band Sawyer Brown, Schleuter said they had the most turnout he’s seen since years ago when the festival featured the band 38 Special. Spectators for Sawyer Brown filled almost two city blocks, Schleuter estimated.

It's hard to know how many people attended the festival throughout the day, said Warrenton Director of Operations Jon Struckhoff, one of the chief organizers. Because the event is free and open to access from any point along Main Street, getting an accurate estimate on the turnout would be extremely difficult. Still, Struckhoff said he's relatively confident that the numbers of visitors had increased from last year.

Organizers are now gathering and assessing feedback from the event, which has been entirely positive so far, Struckhoff commented. He noted that the additions to the festival had good responses, and said the city is interested in continuing to have a third band be part of the day's entertainment.

Although the festival is now over, city officials can’t quite rest easy. Organizers have already started discussing what main stage band to book for next year’s event because popular performers have started booking shows almost a year in advance, Struckhoff explained.