Preliminary numbers show Jack Frost Winterfest attendance on par with past years

This year'sJack Frost Winterfestattendance is similar toprevious years, preliminary numbers suggest.

Though anextra day was added to the winter festival, theoutdoor portionwas closed Feb.16 because of rainfall.

Having the option to move people inside is valuable, said Laurel Lea,tourism officer for the city of Charlottetown.

"Overall, not a big change in attendance numbers, just a change in where people spent their day on Saturday."

About 15,000 patrons passed through the gates throughout the four-day festival, which is a slight increase in attendance, Lea said.

Those patrons passing through the gate during the duration of the festival could have been counted multiple times, butLea said she's relieved to see those numbers.

On average, about 7,500 tickets are sold forthe festival eachyear and Lea said organizers haven't done the final tally for this year.

"We're less than one per cent [growth], so we arecomfortable saying on par."

The festivallost people on Saturday who only wanted to experience the outdoor portion, but this year the festival added a day to overlapIslander Day, with the first 1,000 Charlottetown residents entering for free, Lea said.

"We do feel like that kind of helped to buffer some of the results we may have otherwise experienced due to the lack of the snow kingdom being open Saturday."

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