MARSHALL — Attendance at festivals and other events in Marshall was strong over the past year, with visitors and vendors at some events growing significantly, Visit Marshall Director Cassi Weiss said.

“We wanted to really focus on our current events that we were hosting and the community was hosting, and really make them the best that they could be,” Weiss told the Marshall City Council at its regular meeting last week. “We clearly saw growth across all of our events, which was wonderful, because 2024 was a really hard year for events.”

Weiss gave an annual report on Visit Marshall, Marshall’s convention and visitors bureau. Part of the presentation to the city council talked about the response to events hosted by Visit Marshall. Weiss said there had been growth in attendance, sponsorships or vendors at a few different events over the past year.

This fall’s Arts and Living History Festival downtown doubled its attendance, drawing 750 people, Weiss said.

“This year, this event really blew up. We had two times the amount of vendors, two times the amount of attendees, and we got additional sponsorships of about $2,000,” she said.

It was also exciting to see that visitors from outside Marshall attended the event, she said.

Other events, including the Made In Minnesota craft beer festival and Fairbanks Ice Dogs hockey games at the Red Baron Arena, had economic impacts for Marshall, Weiss said.

This year, the Made In Minnesota festival sold out at 350 tickets, Weiss said.

“We had 35 vendors, which is 10 more than we had the year before. That’s great, especially with the number of breweries that have been closing lately. We were really excited to see more show up to our event,” Weiss said.

One of the significant things about the Made In Minnesota festival was that it brought in a lot of people from outside the Marshall area. Weiss said more than half of ticket holders for the event were visitors.

“We estimate about a $30,000 economic impact just from that event alone,” she said.

When the Fairbanks Ice Dogs play at the Red Baron Arena, the events have an estimated economic impact of $100,000, Weiss said. The team returns to Marshall this weekend, and Weiss said about 650 people are anticipated to attend Friday and Saturday.

“So far, our sponsorships are up about $8,000 over last year,” Weiss said. “Last year, looking at tickets, about 35% of ticket holders are visitors, and they’re coming to both nights.”

Weiss said encouraging different types of travel in Marshall was part of Visit Marshall’s ongoing goals for 2026. In particular, the group was looking at building partnerships with local outdoors associations, and finding ways to increase business travel, state sports tournaments or events, and events for “niche” sports like darts, rolle bolle or curling.