Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have noticed that Conroe is booming. A 2022 study by SmartAsset named Conroe the number six boomtown in all of the US. Conroe is on par with Montgomery County as a whole. The county ranks “in the top 30 for both its annual GDP and business growth rates.” While the extra traffic can be annoying, with more people comes a higher demand for things to do and see. The City of Conroe is working to meet the demand with an impressive lineup of events and festivals that have a positive economic impact on the community.
Sherry Morgan, Conroe’s Convention and Visitors Bureau Director, is committed to embracing the unique strengths of the city. A Conroe native, she remembers buying school clothes in the 1970s downtown and purchasing her first 45 records from the Capital Drug Store (it was Shaun Cassidy’s “Da Doo Ron Ron”). She says it had been great seeing the “resurgence of downtown energy” by way of shopping and entertainment.
In March, downtown saw four days of live music with the Conroe Crossroads festival. The event boasts 35 shows across eight different venues and a variety of musical genres. Besides supporting Conroe’s designation through the state of Texas as a "Music Friendly City," according to Morgan’s office, in 2023, the event brought direct business sales of $110,408 and a room demand of 329 in lodging. “Direct traveler spending in Conroe proper, within the city limits, is a huge economic driver,” says Morgan.
One of Conroe’s biggest events, the Cajun Catfish Festival, brought in $1.7M in direct business sales in 2023 and an estimated room demand of 5,056. The Catfish Festival, directly and indirectly, supported over 800 different jobs for residents of Conroe.
“It’s the entire event landscape that really moves the needle when it comes to economic impact,” Morgan emphasizes. It’s not just big events that make Conroe a tourist destination. The Lone Star Convention Center is booked solid with events like the AKC Kennel Show, and the new Hyatt Hotel is not far beyond with events like business conferences and cheer competitions. Morgan was surprised to hear of her own brother attending the Houston Money Show, which had over 2,000 attendees and made over $300K in direct business sales.
The success of Conroe’s Convention and Visitors Bureau isn’t happening by accident. Morgan and her office have been working hard so that they “are not only planning to invite people to come in for one stay but setting up a structure that invites them back for multiple stays.” One of these initiatives is Morgan’s micro-campaign encouraging visitors to become a Conroe “Texpert.” She has an app launching soon that will allow visitors to earn badges by completing the live music or birding trail around town.
On April 28th,1976, President Gerald Ford's motorcade rolled through downtown Conroe as part of his presidential campaign. Sherry Morgan was there, watching from underneath the seat of her mother’s woven folding chair. The excitement of that downtown event lives in Morgan's memory as a defining image of how she pictures the downtown area. The surge of festivals and events in downtown and Conroe at large harkens back to that memorable day, bringing excitement, money, and jobs into the community.
