Mysuru: The serial holidays and long weekends for the year has come to a close with the last of them ending yesterday.

The extended Deepavali holidays like the Dasara holidays saw a huge rush at many of the tourist spots in the city for the last four to five days and the Dasara Exhibition was no exception with a sea of people thronging the expo yesterday.

The stall owners, who wore a dejected look following heavy rains and water logging on the sprawling Dasara Exhibition grounds, wore huge smiles as the footfalls surged and there was hardly any moving space with shops and amusement areas jammed with people of all ages and sizes.

Even as the crowd to the Dasara Exhibition increased yesterday being a Sunday, there was huge traffic jam on Bengaluru-Nilgiri Road near the Eastern Gate of the Mysore Palace.

The rush to the Exhibition could be gauged with the car parking lot on Doddakere Maidan jammed with hundreds of cars and two-wheelers. As usual, the eatery stalls in the Exhibition witnessed the maximum number of people with tourists and the locals with their families enjoying a Sunday outing.

The foodies delights included jolada rotti, ennegai palya, churumuri, huge papads and lip smacking ice-creams.  There was also a big crowd in the amusement park area.

The stall of government departments displaying various government programmes and advertisements caught the attention of the people and many were found interacting with the people at the stalls to glean more information on the welfare projects.

Stall owners happy: At last, the stall owners had something to cheer about as they were all sitting forlorn from the day the Dasara Exhibition was inaugurated last month with hardly anyone coming.

Now, with the rain gods being kind and with the tourist inflow, the footfalls increased rapidly in the past one week resulting in the change in mood of the shopkeepers who have invested good money with the hope of earning handsome returns.

4 lakh visit Expo in one month

Nearly four lakh people have visited the Dasara Exhibition since Sept. 22. However, on Oct. 21 and 22 the total number of footfalls was about 51,000 with Saturday (Oct.21) recording 26,000 and Sunday (Oct.22) 25,000.

The gate entry collection stood at nearly Rs. 60 lakh. The entry fee for adults is Rs.20 while for children it is Rs.10, said Karnataka Exhibition Authority CEO N.M. Shashikumar. The Expo concludes on Dec.19.