A driver loads material from last weekend's FairWell Festival onto a truck Tuesday at the Deschutes County fairgrounds in Redmond as trucks carrying carnival rides for the county fair stage nearby.  

Last weekend’s FairWell Festival brought tens of thousands of people to the Deschutes County fairgrounds in Redmond for the largest single event, with the exception of the annual Deschutes County Fair & Rodeo, in the venue’s history.

The three-day event, which took place from Friday to Sunday, featured more than three dozen musical artists from a range of musical styles, including big names like Willie Nelson.

Anybody driving between Bend and Redmond surely gasped at the snarling traffic leading to the fairgrounds, and it took legions of workers to staff and then clean up the event, said Bart Platt, the marketing, event and sales coordinator for the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center.

“It took between 500 and 600 staff members to pull off the event, and a crew of 30 people pretty much working around the clock to clean it up. That’s just the trash portion. That’s not the staff disassembling the staging and stuff like that,” Platt said.

Platt said 200 security guards had to be bused in from California for the event as well.

Platt said on Friday there were between 15,000 and 16,000 people at the event, on Saturday between 25,000 and 26,000, and on Sunday between 17,000 and 18,000.

Despite the traffic, all of those visitors have a huge positive impact on Central Oregon’s economy.

Geoff Hinds, the director of the fairgrounds, said he estimates the event brought in about $20 million to the local economy as visitors poured into the area, stayed at hotels and ate at restaurants.

Hinds said the festival contracted with a highly experienced cleaning crew to pick up after the massive festival, and its members are now getting the place ready for the county fair, which begins Aug. 2 and runs through Aug. 6.

“It is the largest single event we have ever had outside of the fair. The fair has a larger attendance over the five days, a larger cumulative attendance, but this is certainly the single largest non-fair event we have ever had,” Hinds said.

Hinds said everything is on track for the county fair, and at this point crews are breaking down and packing up the music festival and getting the landscaping ready for the county’s next big event.

“The biggest impact is getting water back on the grass so it will be green and ready for our fair attendees,” he said.

Hinds said people journeyed from far and wide to enjoy the music at the fairgrounds.

“You had huge numbers of people coming from Seattle, the Washington area, Portland, the Boise area in Idaho, and the Bay Area in California,” he said. “But there were people from all over the country as well as the world who came to visit us.”

Hinds said he was aware of at least one person who drove 900 miles to attend the event. Hines also said one of the perks of being the director of the venue is that he was able to attend for nearly the entire thing.

“It was a tremendous event and an opportunity for people to come together and celebrate and have a great time with likeminded people and listen to great music at an amazing location here in Central Oregon,” Hinds said. “A lot of excitement and an opportunity to see some of these big name acts here in our backyard as well as discover some new music is always a great experience.”

Katie Johnson, the senior marketing manager for Visit Central Oregon, also said there is a clear link between large events like the FairWell Festival and the local economy.

“An event like this brings people from all over… A festival of this size is likely to have a significant economic impact on lodging, restaurants and other local retailers throughout the region,” Johnson said. “Central Oregon is a place that is really easy to fall in love with, and I think that is a trend that some of these event venues are seeing. And it is bringing bigger acts and bigger events, and that is bringing more people here to enjoy all that Central Oregon has to offer.”

Kevney Dugan, the CEO of Visit Bend, said while he doesn’t have the data yet, his gut is telling him that local hotels especially made a killing from the surge in visitors during the FairWell Festival.

“That was probably the largest singular event that the region has ever hosted…That just took it to a whole new level in terms of size and scale of events that Central Oregon has ever hosted,” Dugan said of the festival. “We are not only a recreation destination. We are also evolving our arts and culture that is bringing people to this region to enjoy all it has to offer.”