Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. released preliminary data regarding Summerfest attendance for 2013.

Summerfest claimed 840,356 attendees over the course of the 11-day festival. That's an increase of 4.3 percent over last year, when the heat kept many at home.

Festival-goers hailed not only from Milwaukee and Wisconsin but from 49 other states and 40 countries including Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Uganda and Poland.

Summerfest claims that 78,445 patrons took advantage of free entrance promotions like Johnson Controls Stop Out Hunger Day. Unsurprisingly, there's no data on how many patrons were admitted for free on nights like June 29, when crowds swarmed the gates in such bloated numbers that festival staff was obliged to grant free admittance to everyone and security screenings allegedly all but stopped.

More Summerfest figures released today:

• Over 800 acts gave over 1,000 performances.
• Food and beverage sales increased by 7 percent over last year.
• 59,947 cheeseburgers, 22,300 brats, 13,605 eggplant strips, 41,584 mozzarella sticks, 41,978 ears of corn, 167,796 mini donuts and 33,728 ice cream cones were consumed.
• Patrons took 4,105 paddleboat rides and 4,181 zipline rides.
• The Verlo Mattress Skyglider provided 92,566 one-way trips.
• 4,101,600 feet of towel was used along with 972 gallons of hand soap (good to know people were sanitary).
• 80 sponsors and media partners participated in the festival.
• 140,000 hours were worked by nearly 2,000 employees as well as 875 volunteer shifts from 400 volunteers and drivers.
• Summerfest photographers captured over 15,000 digital images.

And we're going to do it all over again next year. Summerfest 2014 will take place June 25-29 and July 1-6 and will be closed on June 30.