Fallout-themed Wasteland Jamboree brings $2.3M boost to central West Virginia

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]The far end of Main Street in Sutton, where the Elk River Hotel is, is normally pretty quiet. But, the weekend of May 2nd brought the Wasteland Jamboree, and with it a big boost for local business. The hotel, for the first time ever, opening up campsites on the river, just in case more people came.

[00:00:15]And sure enough, they did. We had a full house, and we actually had about six extra tent sites also booked. So, we had the entire house, carriage house, um all of our domes, and then we had about six uh actual nylon tents set up throughout the courtyard and along the river. It was a great time. Event organizers Butter Popcorn and Fallout for Hope say overnight accommodations like the Elk River Hotel were sold out within a 40-minute drive radius of the event.

[00:00:42]They say within 2 days of the Jamboree, it brought in over $2.3 million in economic impact for Braxton County, which is around 20 to 29% of the county's annual tourism spend. I feel like our our county finally got the recognition and love it deserves. Um I feel like this whole county kind of embraced it. They were all preparing for it. Everyone was so excited. While the Fallout-themed festival meant big bucks for local businesses, it also raised over $33,000 for local nonprofits.

[00:01:10]$17,000 worth went to Mountaineer Food Bank. Um you know, all all of that costs the food bank money. Um and you know, that's money that we have to raise cuz, you know, we are a nonprofit. So, you know, $17,000 allowed us uh essentially probably to just do a good day's work um here in Central West Virginia with with our distributions.