The organizer for this year’s rejuvenated Regatta at Lake Arthur hopes to attract as many as 10,000 people to the early August event.

The Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau last year hired Holly Muchnok of East Wing Events in Allegheny County to organize the regatta, which has suffered from declining attendance for several years in a row.

Primarily organized in the past by a volunteer staff, the regatta is a full-time job in itself, Muchnok said of the event that will occur at Moraine State Park on Aug. 2-3.

The newest addition to the regatta this year is free activities made possible by a $10,000 grant from the Urban Land Institute. Those include wind surfing, canoeing and stand-up paddle boarding.

Regatta participants will have the chance to engage in free lessons and demonstrations from professionals for those activities.

Muchnok said registration for each specific event is available on the regatta’s website at www.lakearthurregatta.org.

“These new events seem to be getting a lot of attention and a lot of activity in registration,” she said. “We’re very pleased that some of the pre-registrations are already sold out.”

New events are just one reason why Muchnok hopes attendance will spike this year.

In talking with organizers of past regattas, Muchnok said she heard attendance dipped down to as low as 3,000 people a year.

“I heard that over the years it’s gone from 40,000 people to around 3,000,” she said. “My goal, along with a couple days of nice weather, is to see that go back up to around 10,000. We want to push that number back up.”

Muchnok said she wants to infuse the regatta with “new energy and life” after several years of decline.

In addition to several new activities this year, Muchnok said many of the mainstays of the regatta will be back. Those include a car cruise, fireworks, sailboat races and music concerts.

A large portion of her strategy in bringing people back involves making the regatta more of a regional event instead of one just attended by Butler County residents.

“We want to be the premier event in the area,” she said. “We don’t want to have an average event.”

For now, Muchnok said she’s concentrating on tying up loose ends with the event less than a month away.

She’s still looking for volunteers for the regatta, and anyone interested can contact Muchnok through e-mail at info@lakearthurregatta.com.

Regardless, the event planner is confident that this year’s regatta will be a much bigger and better version than in years past.

“I can’t believe how much further along we are this year than in years past,” she said.