Brookhaven will likely make a large annual music festival a recurring event after the Cherry Blossom Summer Block Party attracted roughly 34,000 people.
The two-day festival headlined by Collective Soul and The Revivalists was the first large music festival to be hosted in metro Atlanta since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The late July event took place with minimal issues, the city said during a wrap-up presentation Tuesday afternoon.
“Considering how few complaints I’ve gotten, and I can count (them) on one hand... I don’t see how we could have done this any better,” Councilman Jon Park said.
City staff bragged that the music festival boosted tourism to Brookhaven this summer, leading to an 11% uptick in how much hotels were able to charge travelers during that weekend. The event, which took place in the city’s MARTA station parking lot, also led to an increase in train ridership both days.
Mayor John Ernst previously said the festival was the first large event like this to take place on MARTA property. Brookhaven Events Coordinator Mallory Izbicki said the public transportation service saw an 150% ridership increase on Friday and a 600% increase on Saturday.
“I think the event has proven that people know where MARTA is and how to ride it and where the parking lot is,” Izbicki said.
There were only seven minor medical incidents during the festival, which included heat exhaustion, bee stings and diabetic incidents. There were also only a handful of public safety incidents during the event, consisting of a few disorderly conduct and traffic citations. Brookhaven police also launched their drone 41 times during festival hours.
The city budgeted nearly $985,000 for the festival, but city staff said they managed to stay about $151,000 under budget.
Credit: City of Brookhaven
Credit: City of Brookhaven
Brookhaven leaders are already discussing changes they plan to implement the next time they throw a large music festival. City staff said they’d ideally target a cooler time of year and triple the amount of event staff, especially if they use the MARTA-owned site again.
“It was tricky only having that one day when you have such a big setup to do,” Izbicki said, adding that setup time is less of an issue at city-owner properties. “If we’re going to hold something of this scale again, having more staff would be very helpful.”
To cap off Tuesday’s presentation, the city announced the Cherry Blossom 5K will return to Brookhaven on March 19, and the Cherry Blossom Festival — where the block party got its name — will take place March 26 and 27.
“We look forward to supporting you (Izbicki) again next year, and I’m sure it’s going to be a blowout event next year,” Mayor Pro Tem Joe Gebbia said.
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