75th Annual Water Carnival Brought In Record Crowd

The 75th annual Bemidji Jaycees Water Carnival has come to an end.

Jaycees members spent the day taking down tents and cleaning up both carnival locations. Organizers say the carnival brought in a record crowd at the entertainment tent and at the Merriam Midway Carnival.

Planning for the waterfront carnival started back in September. The Water Carnival co-chair says this year’s carnival was bigger and better than last year’s.

“We had more people attending activities, we had about the same amount of activities, but they were bigger and better than last year’s, and that was our goal with the 75^th celebration was really just to expand on what we knew would work and bring in new things,” Eva Fisher said. “Like our crafts fair, we brought that back, people loved it. It was very well received. So it’s blown probably the last 10 years of water carnivals out of the water.”

The Jaycees say they’re already taking notes on ways to improve for next year’s carnival.