Thursday’s pre-blast had already seen record-breaking numbers and this trend continued Friday.

Bavarian Blast treasurer Dodie Wendinger said 2,300 people attended on Friday, making it one of the best turnouts. Saturday’s attendance was around 3,000.

“It’s marvelous,” Wendinger said. She believed the nice weather was a big reason for the high attendance. The weather remained relatively cool for July and there was no rain, but people were also happy to attend a festival.

“These numbers tell a story that people want to go a place,” Wendinger said.

The Larry Olsen Band played the KNUJ polka hall before the KNUJ polka hall before and after the Bavarian Blast parade.

Many of the attendees were not from the New Ulm region. They came from the Twin Cities or out of state. Bavarian Blast was fortunate to be one of the first festivals to come back in full after COVID regulations were dropped. This made it popular with people who missed festival entertainment.

The strong attendance also extended to high food and drink sales at the local vendors. The Optimist Club’s cheese curd stand did exceptional business, running out of curds by 4 p.m. Saturday. The Optimists started the weekend with 300 lbs of curds. Extra curds were purchased for the remaining Saturday, but they were out again by 2 p.m. Sunday.

Optimist Club president Jenny Janssen credited the weather for great sales and said it was great to work the booth during the blast.

“Everyone is so excited to be here,” Janssen said. “It is fun to see the smiles on people of all ages’ faces. We really needed this.”

Some of the Bavarian Blast games were missed. The annual barrel race, wiener dog race and sauerkraut eating contest were canceled this year, but the stein holding contest was held Saturday evening. The contest was divided into men’s and women’s categories.

Ron Hartig of north-central Iowa won the men’s division. Asked about his secret, Hartig said he did work with sheet metal for 42 years.

In the Women’s division, New Ulm native Erin Depew was able to hold her stein the longest out of 28 women.

Special events continued Sunday morning with a special “polka church service” hosted by Mollie B. This is the third time she has conducted a church service at Bavarian Blast and it has become a popular event. The Schell’s Tent was packed for the service.

Mollie B said “church is about coming together and we can do that here through prayer and singing.”

During the service, Mollie B asked for the congregation to shout out things to pray for. The crowd asked to pray for rain, unity in the country, safe travels, overcoming COVID, safety from natural disasters, veterans and those facing illness.

Mollie B said a prayer for all of these things and asked the congregation to all be a part of helping. An offering was passed around and would assist the A21 organization that fights to stop human trafficking.

The service ended with a request that Mollie B sings Ave Maria. She sang the classic song was done in Latin and she received a standing ovation for the performance.

Music continued throughout the day Sunday, with a brief break for the Bavarian Blast parade was held at 12:30 p.m.

After the parade, the Schell’s Hobo Band played the Nuvera Stage followed by a final performance from Dan Witucki, Alpensterne and the Concord Singers. The Church of Cash was the closing act for the 2021 Bavarian Blast.

The Bavarian Blast board acknowledged this festival would not be possible without volunteers. Around 200 volunteers are needed in different capacities to make the festival run.

“There isn’t a festival without this level of volunteers,” Wendinger said.