INMAN, Kan. (AP)  – The popular Kansas Sampler Festival will end nearly three decades of operation after the 2017 event in Winfield.

Kansas Sampler Foundation Director Marci Penner said this week that the event is ending because it is time to do something different.

The ending is not because of dwindling interest. The Hutchinson News reports last year’s festival in Wamego drew a record attendance of 12,000 and had so many exhibitors that some had to be turned away.

The festival is designed to provide the public with information about what to do in Kansas, particularly in rural areas.

Penner says the organization wants to start discussing what the next step will be this winter. The emphasis will be on getting people out to Kansas locations, rather than providing information in one place.