“We’re still big smilin’ even though the bloom is done for the season,” said Tulip Town’s May 14 Instagram post. “Such a great year sharing color and creativity with all our guests and digitally connected friends!”

Cindy Verge, executive director of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, estimates between 250,000 and 300,000 people visited the valley this year. In dollars, “my sense is we did really well,” she says.

Verge says asking visitors to book visits to Tulip Town and Roozengaarde in advance was a very positive move. Reservations spread out traffic evenly throughout the month, allowed growers to comply with pandemic regulations and plan staffing and made visitors happy, too.

She predicts the reservations system will return in 2022.

Several La Conner retailers told Chamber of Commerce Director Heather Carter that this was the busiest festival in 15 years.

She called the combo of beautiful weather and people eager to get out in the fresh air “an explosion of riches.” The only downside: fewer visitors stopped by the Chamber offices, now tucked away in Maple Hall.

“We didn’t get to experience the same connection we had when we were on Morris Street,” she noted.

But after a year with no Tulip Festival at all, no one is really complaining.

Verge summed it up: “It was spectacular! We could have a festival.”