Ark. business owners fail to move Toad Suck Daze festival

The Conway Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors voted unanimously to keep the Conway, Ark.’s annual Toad Suck Daze festival a downtown event despite a petition circulated by local business owners calling for a move.

The three-day May festival, which has been an annual community event since 1981, has been held in downtown Conway since 1990. Chamber executives unveiled a plan at their June meeting to address the business concerns that included delaying the closure of city streets during the festival and adding two downtown merchants to the Toad Suck Daze committee, according to the Log Cabin Democrat.

The name derives from the history of the Conway area, when steamboat captains and crew on the Arkansas River would dock when the water was too low to pass and visit local taverns. They were said to suck on bottles until they swelled up like toads.

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