Drew Bailey, a Town staff member, told the Little Elm Town Council on Sept. 30 that AutumnFest, held earlier in September at Little Elm Park, drew about 25,900 attendees and generated roughly $144,000 in gross revenue.

Bailey said the four-day event recorded hotel occupancies of 100% on Thursday and Saturday, 97% on Friday and 54% on Sunday, and hosted 52 vendors and multiple performers. Daily attendance figures presented to council were: about 4,900 on Thursday, 3,800 on Friday, 10,400 on Saturday and 6,900 on Sunday; the combined total is “a little over 25,000” compared with about 12,000 the previous year. “We’re very excited,” Bailey said, attributing the growth to the town’s new marketing team and an expanded communications plan that emphasized social media stories and reels.

The town reported a roughly $144,000 revenue take; Bailey said expenditures were higher because of increased public-safety staffing, staff meals, fencing and security. She gave two profit figures: $76,000 excluding staff costs and $61,000 including staff costs, and said the event achieved about a 174% cost recovery. She told council the revenue will fund future community programming such as movie nights, concerts and other events.

Bailey described several program and operations choices that organizers identified as successes: an elevated social-media campaign, cross-promotion with police and fire departments, a free community day on Thursday (no admission charge, parking still paid), and coordination with youth sports so sports participants could attend after games.

She also noted areas for improvement, including a possible entertainment refresh, moving some carnival rides closer to the beach area, adding portable restrooms nearer to ride lines, and adjusting admission pricing (discussion suggested making Saturday and Friday $5 admission days rather than $10 to spread attendance).

Bailey said most attendees were from Little Elm and nearby cities including Frisco, Aubrey, Dallas, McKinney, Denton, Plano, Lewisville, Carrollton and Flower Mound; she also listed several local businesses that saw increased traffic during the festival.

Following the recap, Bailey introduced four new members of the town’s marketing and tourism team. Introductions and titles provided at the meeting were: Jenny (marketing and communications supervisor; serves as PIO 2 and is the town’s Spanish-speaking public information officer), Riley (tourism and marketing specialist, will oversee Discover Little Elm and The Cove pages), Emily Benton (marketing and business development supervisor, focused on event marketing and business outreach) and Isabella Argentine (marketing and communications specialist, overseeing parks, library, animal services, recreation and the senior center pages). Bailey said the marketing hires enabled the department’s first comprehensive event marketing campaign for AutumnFest.