Organizers of the annual Moby Dick reading marathon in New Bedford say they set a new attendance record this past weekend.
Nearly 2,500 people traveled to the Whaling Museum to participate, arriving from 37 states and countries as far away as Australia, Brazil, and Sweden, according to Amanda McMullen, the museum’s president and CEO.
“It’s the highest ever, and it’s the highest ever by a lot,” she said, estimating the next highest attendance level as 1,750 people in 2020.
McMullen said she didn’t have an obvious explanation for the Moby Dick marathon’s rising popularity. She attributed it to several possible factors: the amount of advance publicity the event received this year, the museum’s growing stature as a tourism destination within New England, and the mayor of New Bedford’s decision to unveil designs for an eight-foot statue of Herman Melville the day before the marathon.
McMullen said the crowd felt younger this year, and she expects the event will keep getting bigger.
Next year marks the 30th anniversary of New Bedford’s Moby Dick marathon. It’s scheduled to begin on January 3, the same date that Melville shipped out of the port of New Bedford in 1841 on his first and only whaling voyage.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here and others here.
