PICKENS—With a tight economy and job layoffs, Azalea Festival officials were slightly concerned about the size of the crowd for the 25th annual event this weekend.

But those concerns turned out to be unfounded, as festival officials believe this may be the biggest year ever.

“I think by the time we get done tonight, we will have had 40,000 people during the three days of the festival,” said Pat Mulkey, a member of the festival committee.

Mulkey said that the festival committee makes an effort not to pad attendance numbers, as is the case with some festivals in the state.

“We want to make sure they are fairly accurate, or as close as possible,” Mulkey said. “Higher numbers for our crowd will likely make our insurance rate rise, but to say we just had 25,000 or so would just be unreal. So we’ll come as close as we possibly can, and deal with the consequences.”

The possibility of higher insurance rates for next year’s festival is countered by the possibility of continued growth, Mulkey said.

“The higher your attendance numbers are, the more vendors and bands are interested in being part of the festival,” he said. “Of course, that’s likely to draw more people, so we could grow even more next year.”

The weather also helped the festival attract more people.

“We’ve had a beautiful three days, so we’ve really been blessed,” Mulkey said.

Mulkey said the family atmosphere is also attractive to those attending.

“The whole family can came and have a lot of fun,” Mulkey said. “We’re an alcohol-free festival, so folks can come and know they won’t have to deal with some of the problems that sometimes comes with that.”