‘It’s a perfect year’: Guntersville city leaders prepare for HydroFest

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - With just over a month until Guntersville’s biggest summer event, Marshall County’s tourism department is still making preparations.

HydroFest is a fast-pasted boat race that brings many spectators each year. With the recent announcement of a new record-breaking course, Marshall County Tourism and Sports is expecting a larger turnout.

“From the fan experience, the race track will look and appear to be the same. However, we have stretched the turns. So, by widening those turns, we are still running a 2.5 mile oval, but we are now one of the fastest courses in the world. The expectation is that we will see some world records broken on our waterway,” Katy Norton the president of Marshall County Tourism and Sports said.

Marshall County has experienced a wide variety of growth since the 2022 festival. The completion of City Harbor and hotels around the city of Guntersville is expected to bring more people to this year’s event.

“Our county as a whole, we’re seeing huge growth. We’ve had two hotels open that are brand new, the condos at City Harbor which provides a lot of lodging for folks who are interested in coming to HydroFest. Even if you’re just coming from the Huntsville area or Madison and you just want to spend the night and have a good time with us, it’s the perfect year to do that. So we expect that we’ll have great crowds,” Norton said.

Tickets for the festival are on sale now. They can be purchased at explorelakeguntersville.com.

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