Nearly 1,400 people packed Tacoma's Museum District on Aug. 8 for the 21st annual IN THE SPIRIT festival. The free celebration of Indigenous arts and culture set an attendance record.

The festival also hit a vendor milestone. Forty-seven Native and Indigenous artisans filled booths on the Washington State History Museum plaza and, for the first time in the event's history, inside the museum lobby itself.

"It's becoming a destination event," Nicholas Vann, executive director of the Washington State Historical Society, said in a Tacoma Venues & Events recap. "People are making it a point to come out."

The growth required a physical expansion.

Vendors had always set up outdoors on the History Museum plaza, but this year's 47-booth lineup spilled into the lobby for the first time.

Visitors browsed artwork and handmade goods against the backdrop of This Is Native Land, the museum's permanent 3,000-square-foot exhibition. More than 100 Native contributors from over 60 tribes helped shape the exhibit.

IN THE SPIRIT launched in 2005 and spans three venues along Pacific Avenue: the Washington State History Museum, Tacoma Art Museum and Museum of Glass.

The Aug. 8 schedule included cultural performances by Alaska Kuteeyaa Dancers, singer Rona Yellow Robe and hip-hop group 1876.

Lummi Nation artist Dan Friday also gave a glass art demonstration in the Museum of Glass Hot Shop, according to the festival's event page.

Todd Clark, a longtime festival advisory committee member and enrolled member of the Wailaki-Round Valley Indian Tribes, also co-curated This Is Native Land with University of Washington Tacoma professor Danica Sterud Miller. Clark called the festival's cultural significance important for the area.

"The art and vendors are wonderful, and the cultural significance is important for the area," Clark said in the TVE recap.

The City of Tacoma, Tacoma Venues & Events and Tacoma Arts Commission help fund the festival. TVE reinvests revenue from city-owned venues into local events and cultural programming through its Special Events Funding program.

No previous attendance figures have been published, so the size of the record jump is unclear. The festival's advisory committee begins planning each cycle in early winter, selecting vendors, performers and artists in the months that follow.