Nixa prepares for thousands of visitors at the 64th annual Sucker Days Festival
NIXA, Mo. (KY3) - Summer festivals are kicking off! Nixa Sucker Days is happening May 20-22. The Chamber of Commerce is ready to welcome thousands of Main Street visitors.
Main Street will be packed for the 64th annual Sucker Days Festival organizers are getting the final details in place before people can enjoy all the fun at this year’s festival.
Nixa residents can expect to see roads closing starting Thursday. At 5 p.m. Main Street from Elm to Route 14 will be closed to all traffic. This area will remain closed until 8 p.m. on Sunday or when the event is cleared from the street. Parts of South Street, Water Street and Gene Streets will have heavy traffic on Friday morning between 7 a.m. - noon to allow for all vendors to set up.
If you are planning to attend Sucker Days below is a map of places to park. You can park in the lot on the corner of Rt. 14 and Main St for a donation to Thrive Church. There is Free parking located in the surrounding area including at the O’Rilley parking lot and behind Nixa Public School Administration Building.
This event has more than 100 vendors and lots of fun activities for the whole family to enjoy. This year, Sucker days is expanded to a three-day festival.
“We did expand the event into Sunday and we’re adding even more activities on Sunday,” said Nixa Chamber of Commerce CEO Chris Russell. “There were so many people in the last couple of times that we did it, we thought if we could disperse the crowd a little bit, it might be a little bit more comfortable for some people because literally when we get the right weather and the right conditions, Main Street is packed wall to wall up and down all the way from one end to the other end pretty much all day long.”
With thousands of attendees, this event helps support small business owners and contributes to the local economy.
“The economic impact that this has on our community stretches even further than just Nixa,” said Russell. “All of our local vendors do really really well, but I noticed about 80% of our arts and craft vendors, over 100 of them, all have a 417 area code. Of our food trucks, 95% of them have a 417 area code, which means we’re” impacting not just Nixa, but definitely the region.”
Before guests can enjoy all the weekend activities, event planners are finishing setting up to help keep everyone safe. Emergency officials also have a plan in place to be prepared for any emergency that could happen. Nixa Police Department and other emergency services will be present throughout the event and have a command post to provide various services, including locating a lost child.
“When we deal with a lost child, it’s usually a child looking for a parent,” said Lt. Jason Fleetwood with the Nixa Police Department. “We usually find the child first, so just please keep track of your children on the rides, they like to wander off. If you do find yourself in that situation, please come to the mobile command center as soon as possible and notify us so we can start our efforts to locate the child.”
Sucker days will kick off at 2 p.m. Friday. The event is free to attend. For a complete list of activities and more information CLICK HERE.
To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com
Copyright 2022 KY3. All rights reserved.