Decatur Book Festival Attracts Record Crowd
Decatur Metro | September 8, 2010 | 3:05 pm
From a just released Decatur Book Festival press release…
While total crowds figures aren’t yet available, [DBF Executive Director Daren] Wang estimated a 15 percent increase in guests over last year.
Pic above: Terra McVoy, left, AJC DBF Assistant Program Director, helps lead the Lady Bug Girl children’s parade Sunday morning.
A few more sassy, official pics after the jump!
Lain Shakespeare, left, executive director of the Wren’s Nest, interviews Nigerian author and MacArthur Fellow Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the power of stories.
Llama, Llama, Red Pajama author Anna Dewdney kicks off the festival
The AJC’s Jennifer Brett, left, interviews best-selling novelist Emily Giffin, in front of a packed house at First Baptist Church of Decatur.
Funny, it felt less crowded and chaotic. This is a good sign if attendance was up but it still doesn’t feel overpacked. Not sure if it was the slightly cooler weather, our having more experience with how to navigate the festival, and/or good festival planning and scheduling but events, venues, crowds, flow, all felt real smooth, even despite some disappointing last-minute cancellations.
I think several factors contributed to the less crowded/chaotic feel. There were a couple additional venues that were large capacity (greater utilization of Baptist Carreker Hall, addition of the high school, two ballrooms at the conference center and Methodist Chapel) and the campus was more spread out as a result. Better management of the Children’s traffic–this has been a chaos hot spot but was much better this year. Plus excellent volunteer stage captains and traffic management at the venues! I might be biased, though.
Agree, agree about *much* better management of the Children’s traffic. Thank you.