Riverfest gets better every year
Fireworks served as a fitting finale Saturday night for yet another successful Riverfest.
In fact, Riverfest is not just successful, it gets better every year.
Among the things that made Riverfest even better in 2017 were a shade tent in the food court, misting tents at the concert sites, a large video screen and an app.
While organizers are always looking for improvements and additions, one thing is constant with Riverfest: It provides a wide range of activities, food and performances of interest to families and people of all ages and backgrounds.
And it does so in a safe environment, at a reasonable price. An adult can buy an all-access button for $7 through an early bird program or for $10 at the gate. So, for about what you’d pay to see a two-hour movie, you can get access to all nine days of the festival. We think that’s a good deal.
Attendance this year totaled about 410,000, with closing fireworks drawing the largest crowd - about 60,000. Concerts that provided a wide variety of musical choices were also popular.
Of course none of this would be possible without hundreds of organizations that contributed $820,000 in cash sponsorships and $900,000 worth of in-kind help. Also key are the 7,500 volunteers who contributed more than 45,000 hours of work to make sure Riverfest ran smoothly.
The Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com are proud to support Riverfest and to be a part of the festival with our annual Medallion Hunt.
We congratulate John Matthew and his family, who found the medallion on the last day of the hunt and won $1,000. It’s hard to imagine a better scenario for the winners: The Matthews have participated in the hunt every year since 1984 and had never won. The planned to give their winnings to charity.
Riverfest is a community-wide effort. It is part of the fabric that makes up Wichita’s identity, and we are lucky to have it.
This story was originally published June 14, 2017 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Riverfest gets better every year."