Springfield festival sets records

It sounds like the International Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, Ill., experienced an extremely successful weekend.

From the Springfield Journal-Register:

A total of 1,169 vehicles were registered for the event, which ran Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, breaking last year’s record of 900.

“It was a huge jump, especially in a year when a lot of car shows across the country have seen lower registration numbers. So we were just blown away,” Rosendahl said. […]

The higher number of registered cars also meant a larger evening cruise of more than 1,100 vehicles Friday from the Illinois Department of Transportation building to downtown Springfield. Typically about 600 to 700 cars take part.

The crowds also were bigger than ever, with Springfield police estimating that 85,000 to 90,000 people attended the three-day event, Rosendahl said.

While good weather certainly helped attendance, Rosendahl said another factor was word-of-mouth advertising by previous attendees.

“I think we are getting a reputation as a really quality show,” Rosendahl said.

The 2008 International Route 66 Mother Road Festival will be Sept. 26-28.

This is great. The festival, as you may recall, was originally shepherded by the National Historic Route 66 Federation. The federation held it in Springfield two years in a row, and no one would have been surprised if that was it.

But Springfield liked what it saw, so it decided to make it an annual event. And it’s getting bigger.

And Clinton, Okla., after hosting the International Route 66 Festival this summer, recently announced it was going to have another Route 66 festival in 2008.

And more Route 66 towns are developing festivals around the Mother Road. Flagstaff started one just a few years ago, as did Litchfield, Ill. And it’s no coincidence that both those towns are future hosts of national Route 66 gatherings.