Last Thursday’s Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau board meeting provided further confirmation of the obvious: The second annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival was a big success.

Last month’s event, which saw attendance increase by 14 percent over the inaugural festival last year, attracted people and their Jeeps from 25 states and three foreign countries.

A major new activity of this year’s event — a Saturday night pig roast — attracted nearly 1,000 people.

To keep the festival interesting to Jeep owners as well as others, the tourism and convention bureau, as festival organizer, must continue to introduce new attractions in coming years.

With such success in the first two years, organizers must work to keep the festival from becoming stale or predictable. The intent must be to keep people interested and excited about what will be happening — something the first two Jeep events did.

The goal must always be to exceed expectations.

Besides organizing the event, the tourism agency faces a challenge as to when to schedule the festival. August of next year will be a very active month beause of the international convention of the Pyrotechnics Guild International that will take place Aug. 10-17 at Cooper’s Lake Campground.

An attendance figure of 200,000 has been mentioned — which would be a bonanza for businesses in Butler County and beyond.

Jack Cohen, tourism bureau executive director, has said that the event is expected to have a local economic impact exceeding $5 million. Cohen, who attended this year’s convention in LaPorte, Ind., said it was “unbelievable.”

Meanwhile, this county must look for — and be accommodating to — unusual opportunities such as those presented by last weekend’s Run for Your Lives 5K race.

The event, which attracted 5,000 participants, put runners on a dirt-and-mud course with obstacles such as hills, fences and a large slide — with live “zombies” seeking to distract and sideline runners by lunging and grabbing at the three small flags attached to each runner.

About 800 people volunteered to be made up and work as zombies or for other duties.

This county hosted one of only 12 such events across the United States and Canada and should strive to attract other unusual events throughout the year, as well as keep those already held here.

Regarding this year’s Jeep festival, Cohen said, “I’m just so proud of how everything went.”

People involved in the zombie race can be equally proud.

Last month made a statement about what good planning can accomplish. And, with that in mind, planning already is well under way for next year’s pyrotechnics convention.

The summer of 2013 looks like it will be another great one for Butler County.