After two buffalo escapes this year, the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau is embracing the attention with plans to begin a festival in 2016.
Buffalo Days, a celebration of the six buffalo that escaped from their enclosure in April, is set for this spring.
Steve Arrison with the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau said the event will include the Running of the Buffalo, with participants competing in a 1-mile run down Central Avenue in front of Bathhouse Row.
"We expect to have a great assortment of runners — both serious and costumed," he said. "There will be plenty of great free entertainment capped by the Dances with Buffalo event on Saturday night."
Event dates have not been announced, but Arrison said the celebration will be on a Friday and Saturday in late April or early May.
Arrison said the event could help Hot Springs in promoting its tourism season that begins at the end of each school year.
The April buffalo escape wasn't the only one this year in Hot Springs. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on another escape last month involving four buffalo.