Thousands will be in Greene County this weekend for this year’s Hamvention

Today is the first day of one of the biggest amateur radio events of the year.

>> RELATED: Hamvention returns to Greene County this weekend, drawing visitors from around the world

Hamvention will occur on Friday through Sunday at the Greene County Fairgrounds and Expo Center in Xenia.

At least 33,000 people passed through the gate last year and advance sales have exceeded last year’s total for the same period, according to a spokesperson.

“We have friends coming in from the Middle East, we got friends coming in from all over Europe, South America, Canada, Japan. We’ve had people from China come,” Michael Kalter, Hamvention spokesperson, told News Center 7 this week.

He said they expect thousands of new faces to appear in Xenia for the first time.

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Organizers hope to see 35,000 people at this year’s Hamvention and this week’s rain did not stop more than 700 volunteers from setting up tables and getting equipment ready.

“Vendors have lots of demonstrations and everybody’s pretty willing to talk and share the latest technology they might have,” said Kalter.

Tickets for Hamvention can be found here .