Having just completed its first week, the show is still packing in between 2,500 and 3,000 people a night.

“I think our crowds, at least initially, have been at or a little above what we’ve seen in the past,” said Ray Robinson, director of the Nauvoo Temple Pageant, which typically sees 50,000 in one summer.

Sherry Saint, manager of the Zions Mercantile Inn, has noticed the same thing, although she also notes that it’s different for other hotels. “For us here, it seems larger than normal, but some hotels are down,” she said. “I also heard from the Nauvoo temple president that attendance is down [from last year].”

The different in numbers might indicate that more people are locally traveling to see the pageant. Whatever the case, it continues to be a highlight for viewers and participants alike.

First performed in 2005 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth, the Nauvoo Pageant uses family cast members as a force to help transform Nauvoo. These families, who apply through Church outlets to come and participate together, play music, perform small plays throughout town, and put on the old-time fair and dance that precedes every show. The pageant and all related activities are free to the public.

“To walk out here and see all these families, kids, teenagers doing the polka, it’s wonderful,” said Robinson. “Almost 700 cast members are involved by the time the month is over.”

As the performing families remain involved in the daily activities around Nauvoo, they develop personal relationships with the visitors. It creates a greater sense of oneness in a community already known for its hospitality.

“Everyone’s friends,” Robinson said. “These people [visitors] see on the stage doing live performances are people they’ve seen all day.”

Saint also said that, during the month it runs, the pageant strives to involve community members. “The Church makes a big effort to involve not just LDS people, but the community as a whole. Every year, the wards have a ‘Nauvoo Day’ where they provide a free meal for any local people to come down and have special seats in the pageant. It’s their town, and we want them to feel part of it.”

In this, and other ways, it is evident that the pageant is as much missionary-oriented as it is family-oriented.

In fact, Robinson noted that, when the scriptwriters were called in October 2004, they received a preview copy of Preach My Gospel, the Church’s missionary text. The influence of the text on the dialogue of the show is “unmistakable,” said Robinson.

And opportunities to share come. While many come to the pageant as part of a sort of “pilgrimage” to Church history sites, a great number end up at the pageant without knowing why, only to find the reason later.

One man, who from all outward appearances appeared not to be a member, stood in the back of one show. Afterward, as the cast spoke with him, they asked him why he had come; he told them he didn’t know. As a biker, he traveled a lot and felt that he should come to Nauvoo. He didn’t know what was there, but he saw the lights of the show and came to see it. He told them, “I need to know more.”

Last year, another man attended after meeting some of the family cast who were out before the show. “He came for a full week . . . and was baptized about a month and a half later,” said Robinson. His wife was later baptized, and this year the two were sealed in the Nauvoo Temple.

“There’s such a good feeling in the city,” said Saint. “We have a lot of miracles. It’s really fun to be here during pageant time.”

The pageant runs Tuesday through Saturday nights from now until August 1.