BLAND — After drawing more than 1,200 people to its Fourth of July celebration, the city of Bland is already looking ahead to another major community event this fall.

During the July 13 Bland Board of Aldermen meeting, city officials reflected on the success of this year’s Independence Day celebration and began discussing plans for the Oct. 3 tractor pull and fall festival.

Mayor Merrilee Spurgeon said the Fourth of July event exceeded expectations.

“The Fourth of July thing was big, huge,” Spurgeon said before explaining that attendance was estimated using a mobile application that detects the number of people at an event.

“My daughter has an app that pings how many people was at events,” Spurgeon said. “We had over 1,200 people there, and that’s just the ones that they pinged.”

Board members praised the turnout, entertainment and volunteers who helped make the celebration possible.

“Everybody loved the music,” Spurgeon said. “It was a big, huge success. I’m really grateful that we pulled that off. What a great team.”

Officials then turned their attention to the Oct. 3 tractor pull and fall festival, discussing ways to build upon the success of the Fourth of July celebration.

“I’d like to have a repeat of that,” one alderman said.

Board members agreed live music played an important role in attracting visitors to the Independence Day event and discussed securing entertainment for October.

“The band’s were really big,” Bland Police Chief Charles (Chuck) Holtz said.

Officials discussed the possibility of booking a bluegrass band to complement the tractor pull.

The board also considered ways to increase vendor participation and expand the variety of food and activities available during the fall event.

Spurgeon suggested keeping vendor fees affordable to encourage more people to participate.

“If we only charge them $10, the more we get there, the better we are,” she said.

Spurgeon said her brother and sister-in-law were already planning to operate a stand near the tractor pull and sell bratwurst sandwiches. She said they had developed a menu and prepared a promotional poster.

Officials also discussed recruiting food trucks and other vendors from throughout the region. Suggestions included contacting vendors attending nearby festivals and events before the October celebration.

“You’ll see places where they have a whole group of food trucks come to town at one time,” Spurgeon said. “Why don’t we work on some event like that? We can have that for the tractor pull.”

Holtz suggested creating promotional cards that could be distributed to potential vendors.

“We need to make a little card that says, ‘Call Bland, we want you,’” Holtz said.

Board members also discussed the possibility of adding a horseshoe tournament and other activities to the fall festival.

The Fourth of July celebration served as the Bland Police Department’s largest annual fundraiser for the Shop With a Hero program. Holtz reported that the fundraiser brought in $3,550, exceeding the department’s $3,000 goal.

Two young girls who operated a lemonade stand during the celebration donated $180 of their proceeds to the program.

Members of the Bland Fire Department and other volunteers also worked in the food stand during the celebration.

With the Oct. 3 event approaching, city officials said they hope to build upon the Independence Day celebration’s success by attracting additional vendors, entertainment and visitors to Bland.