Thousands of visitors are slated to arrive in Loudon County for two scheduled large-scale events, the 47th annual Arts and Crafts Festival in Lenoir City Park and the inaugural Smoky Valley Rally ride, headquartered in Loudon's Municipal Park on Highway 72. 

Lenoir City Police Chief Don White said, in addition to the destination traffic of the scheduled events, the Highway 11 exit from Interstate 75 is seeing through traffic increase daily as tourists headed for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park attempt to avoid Interstate work.

At peak tourist season, the potential exists for serious traffic backups here, White said.

"There is no way to determine what the traffic is going to be," White said. "We are going to be monitoring it throughout the day Saturday and Sunday. I have been monitoring the traffic on the bridge every day, and there is no way to predict. It may be absolutely horrible one time, backed up for miles, then nobody there another time."

To facilitate traffic flow as much as possible, and lessen the impact of traffic jams on 321, Arts and Crafts Festival traffic will be routed differently this year from previous years.

White recommends those in traffic avoid the park entrance from Highway 321 if possible. 

"The 321 link to the park is probably a bad idea for everyone," White said. "What we are suggesting is to bring traffic (to Lenoir City Park) down Highway 11 and Broadway to Grand Street, then to the Elm Hill Drive entrance to the park," White said.

Signs will be posted to mark the suggested route.

Calhoun's Restaurant will be open, on City Park Drive, and people going to the restaurant will be allowed to enter from 321, White said. The rear entrance to the park, at Lakeview Drive, will be closed, he said.

A parking lot will be located on the hill and 10 shuttle buses will be taking people into the park on a continuous basis.

Jody Cusick, festival exhibit coordinator, said more than 200 arts and crafts vendors are expected, from all over the country, and festival attendance runs from 8,000 to 10,000 most years. "Last year, we were down a little," she said. "About 7,500 came through that paid."

Cusick said the Elm Hill entrance to the park is made one way most years, allowing traffic only to exit. Organizers decided to reroute traffic this year because of the bridge work.

 "We are trying to control traffic in the park...Usually, the Elm Hill entrance is one way, but this year we have to make it two-way- it is the only logical way to bring people in."

Cusick said traffic planning was late. "We did not know anything about the bridge work until the week before it came out in the paper," she said. "This is the worst possible time for this. This time of the year, more people are using the lakes."

"This festival has been planned a long time. This has been thrown in our face, but we will deal with it. If people want to come, they will come. We are very aware and we are trying to keep people happy and make it easy as possible."

There will be motorcycle parking at Elm Hill in the right lower parking lot, Cusick said. Also, there will be a handicapped parking area, and ETHRA buses to transport handicapped attendees.

Mark Harrell, Loudon Parks and Recreation director, said the self-guided motorcycle rides, with the exception of Saturday's Stay in Loudon Day, will not be impacted by the traffic jams on 321. They will be directed away from the bridge," he said.