The numbers are in, and this year's Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival was the largest one yet.

Patti Jo Lambert, festival director, said a total of 2,937 Jeeps participated in the event, which was June 12-14 at Cooper's Lake Campground and also included the Jeep Invasion parade on June 12 in downtown Butler.

“Our growth has been phenomenal,” Lambert said.

The number has increased every year. In 2011, the event's first year, there were 1,300 Jeeps. Last year, 1,911 Jeeps participated.

This year a thousand more came.

“This year was a large, large jump,” Lambert said.

Additionally, 25,000 people came to Cooper's Lake during the weekend. This is a 5,000 person increase from 2014.

Lambert noted that did not include the estimated 20,000 people who attended the Jeep Invasion parade.

Attendees at the event represented 38 states and two Canadian provinces. Lambert said 28 states were represented last year.

The Jeep Invasion included 2,420 Jeeps, which Lambert said is enough to unofficially capture the Guinness World Record for largest parade of Jeeps.

The 2011 event, the last one to have such a parade, initially had the world record. Then this year, the Jeep Beach event in Florida beat that record with 1,846 Jeeps.

Lambert said it will take a while before the record officially is verified by Guinness.

This year's event also had 168 vendors and sponsors, an increase from 101 last year.

Lambert said the return of the parade likely was one of the reasons for the increase in size.

“They wanted to be a part of it again,” Lambert said.

She also said the world record competition with the Florida event also probably helped.

“The Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival has quickly become one of the most well-known Jeep-only events in the U.S.,” Lambert said.