Blues on the Fox breaks Aurora records

For the past 12 years, Aurora officials have known they've had something special in the city's annual Blues on the Fox music festival.

Saturday night, they found out just how special it is.

"(The weekend fest) was definitely the biggest special event we've ever had here in the history of Aurora," special events manager Gina Morga said Monday. "People keep asking me today how many people we think we had there and I seriously don't know because I couldn't even get through the crowd to look all the way down and see everyone."

Unofficial counts, determined by city staff members, put the weekend tally at between 10,000 and 13,000 blues-loving fest-goers. Enough, officials said, to cause some food and drink vendors to run out of supplies early.

The free weekend festival also allowed guests to come and go freely without a ticket-counting paper trail.

The fest celebrates the city's history of the RCA Bluebird recordings that were made in the 1930s at the Leland Hotel's famous Sky Club in downtown Aurora.

Morga said hundreds of songs were recorded by John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, and others, clearing the way for the urban blues movement that spawned rock 'n' roll.

This year's attendance, she said, can be directly linked to the lineup of award-winning musicians, including platinum-selling blues rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

"It's the lineup; the caliber of the talent we brought in here this year, it had to be that," Morga said. "The show Saturday night, when (Shepherd) brought the blues living legends on stage with him, was great. I mean, the crowd went absolutely crazy."

The next hurdle for the city's blues committee will be keeping the annual event from peaking in its 12th year.

"We don't even know how we can top this so we need to focus on keeping this momentum and bringing in that caliber of entertainment," she said. "I can't tell you who we're looking at for next year yet, but those wheels are definitely in motion."