What Happened to Burlington Steamboat Days?
For more than 50 years Burlington, Iowa residents have prepared for thousands of visitors to visit their fine city in June for a week long music festival called “Burlington Steamboat Days”. Apparently, the steam has been lost for the event at least in its current form so the event has been cancelled for this year. After a sixth consecutive year of declining attendance, the Burlington Steamboat Days Board of Directors, decided to go in a different direction. The new direction will include holding several concerts throughout the year instead of a week-long festival.
The resurrection of the week-long festival format in the future is in doubt as lining up headline entertainment for seven consecutive nights may be cost-prohibitive. The hope is that holding several individual concerts throughout the year might be viable. But even those concerts will need people to attend, which apparently was the real root of the problem which took the steam away from this great annual event.
Having attended several concerts and great acts in Burlington over the years, I say hats off to the Steamboat Days committee for being able to sustain a year after year fabulous event for such a small town. Here’s to a possible revival of the Burlington Steamboat Days in the near future. If not, thanks for a great run!