{"id":2456917,"date":"2026-06-12T20:34:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2456917"},"modified":"2026-06-12T20:34:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:34:50","slug":"for-three-decades-steve-arrison-has-brought-the-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/for-three-decades-steve-arrison-has-brought-the-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"For Three Decades, Steve Arrison Has Brought the Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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6<\/i><\/p>\n

Photo by Jane Colclasure<\/em><\/p>\n

In the history of underdog stories, it is hard to beat Bridge Street in Hot Springs. At just 98 feet long, the swath is only about twice as long as it is wide and, according to one source, did not even start out as an actual city street. According to the Arkansas Roadside Travelogue<\/i>, the Hot Springs River used to run along Central Avenue, and Bridge Street was a bridge, period. The city paved over it in 1870, and the nub became a tiny artery in the heart of downtown.<\/p>\n

At one time tagged \u201cworld\u2019s shortest city street\u201d by Guinness World Records<\/i> and \u201cbusiest street in the world for its size\u201d by Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not!<\/i>, the tiny thoroughfare earned its spurs as a local oddity \u2014 which, truth be told, it may well have remained had it not been for the vision of Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs.<\/p>\n

As the story goes, Arrison and his team were out for an after-work beer and brainstorming session at a Bridge Street pub about how to leverage the tiny street to attract visitors. The suggestion was made to use it as the route for a St. Patrick\u2019s Day parade, counterintuitively the shortest in the world. It was an idea too insane to work yet too tantalizingly wacko not to try. The First Ever First Annual World\u2019s Shortest St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade occurred in 2004, and today, tens of thousands of people descend on Spa City for the annual event, headlined by celebrity grand marshals and bookended by other organized mischief.<\/p>\n

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For nearly three decades, Arrison has been Hot Springs\u2019 leading toastmaster. (Photos provided by Visit Hot Springs)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is without a doubt the crowning achievement of Arrison\u2019s career at Visit Hot Springs, a history-making accomplishment that, like all of the organization\u2019s community events and festivals, will have to learn to survive without him as he steps from the helm to the sidelines in retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSt. Patrick\u2019s Day was just a fluke,\u201d Arrison said. \u201cSomebody had sent me a copy of an article calling Bridge Street the shortest street in the world, and then later that day, we\u2019re sitting there, having a drink, and going, \u2018Let\u2019s do St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u2019 It just sort of happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought St. Patrick\u2019s Day would get to be one of the top 10 parades in the United States. I never saw that. I thought it would be a good local event, but I didn\u2019t think it would be what it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Parade photos: The annual World\u2019s Shortest St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade has welcomed a litany of celebrity grand marshals. (Photos provided by Visit Hot Springs)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Taking something as benign as a 98-foot stretch of asphalt and turning it into a mainstage in a town full of distractions perfectly encapsulates Arrison\u2019s career and the marketing ethos he has instilled at Visit Hot Springs since landing there in 1998 \u2014 events are fun, but it is the place that matters, so find what is yours and share it with the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t play it safe your whole life,\u201d Arrison told Arkansas Money & Politics<\/i> in November. \u201cAs you look at it now, it\u2019s like, gosh, we used to have all these open weekends. We don\u2019t have open weekends anymore. That\u2019s the unique thing about Hot Springs \u2014 about every weekend, there\u2019s something special going on, and a lot of them are at no cost to the consumer. People support that, you know? That\u2019s the reason people live in Hot Springs. That\u2019s part of the reason why they came here, because we\u2019ve got so much stuff going on all the time. It\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Parade photos: The annual World\u2019s Shortest St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade has welcomed a litany of celebrity grand marshals. (Photos provided by Visit Hot Springs)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The range of amenities and events that have come to be standard fare in Hot Springs under Arrison\u2019s watch, both directly and indirectly, would fill volumes. Big-league fishing tournaments, the Majestic Park baseball complex, Spa-Con pop media festival, Stueart Pennington\u2019s World Championship Running of the Tubs<\/a> and the new Birding Festival of the South<\/a> merely scratch the surface of what there is for people to see and experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

He has also led Visit Hot Springs to become a valued collaborator in promoting local events sponsored by other entities, such as the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival; helping to repackage the city\u2019s blues festival as Big Steam Blues & Roots Music Festival; promoting the city\u2019s Northwoods trail park via the G\u00fcdrun \u2014 Northwoods Mountain Bike Festival; and cross-marketing special events at Garvan Woodland Gardens and Oaklawn Hot Springs, among others.<\/p>\n

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Parade photos: The annual World\u2019s Shortest St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade has welcomed a litany of celebrity grand marshals. (Photos provided by Visit Hot Springs)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Arrison winces under what he considers an undue amount of credit for the work that has been done \u2014 culminating with his 2026 induction into the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame<\/a> and the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame last year \u2014 being quick and generous in his praise of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key to Visit Hot Springs and the key to my success here have been the people that I work with and work for,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got such a good group and always have had that. I\u2019ve been very fortunate since I\u2019ve been here. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, not everything I wanted to do has been a success. We had Buffalo Days, which I thought was a wonderful event, but nobody came. We had Hats and Hot Springs downtown; we tried to gather the most people in one spot wearing a hat. It was a dismal failure. Everybody forgets those one-and-dones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrison is so effusive in his praise for others, he even finds ways to credit other communities for helping to grow Hot Springs\u2019 offerings. In other words, he cops to stealing good ideas from elsewhere with abandon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were looking for an idea of something to do during COVID-19,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife and I went down to Savannah, Georgia, and saw them doing a street deal with a nice band and locals and tourists standing around, enjoying it. We brought the idea back here and started it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother time, I\u2019m on vacation in Key West, having a drink in the swimming pool, and the lady next to me was talking about the zero-K run they were in, and we started asking about it. I came back here and said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to do that.\u2019 I mean, that\u2019s a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wherever such ideas originated, there was some kind of magic that occurred once they got to Hot Springs as Arrison and his team applied their own special Spa City spin. The two ideas mentioned above, for example, were packaged to get headliner treatment downtown as Bridge Street Live and the World\u2019s Shortest St Patrick\u2019s Day<\/a> ZERO-K run, respectively.<\/p>\n

Arrison also pioneered the art of building an event and then giving it away in order to support local charities, which he said lends a deeper meaning to people having a good time. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[Visit Hot Springs] doesn\u2019t necessarily want to stay in the event business, and it\u2019s great when charities can take something over,\u201d Arrison said. \u201cThe zero-K run, we started that, and then we gave it to Tri-Lakes [Court Appointed Special Advocates] which raised, I believe, more than $20,000 on it this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has always been on us, saying, \u2018Why don\u2019t you do a Mardi Gras event?\u2019 Well, because that\u2019s so close to St. Patrick\u2019s Day, and there\u2019s just so many things going on, and we can only do so many events \u2014 but now a local charity has started a Mardi Gras event that\u2019s in its first or second year that we helped promote, and it was very successful, so we think that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, Arrison took on a new task, that of orienting his replacement, veteran tourism executive Devin Heath, who officially began in the role of president and CEO June 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cI visited with Devin for several hours when he was in town to interview with the A&P commission,\u201d Arrison said. \u201cI think he\u2019s going to be great \u2014 great for our community and great for Arkansas. I look forward to welcoming him and his wife to Hot Springs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Arrison mingles with Wayne Smith, general manager at Oaklawn Hot Springs, and Heather Baker, president and publisher at AY Media Group, at the Arkansas Derby. (Photo by Ryan Parker)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As the calendar melts down the remaining chapter of his professional life to mere months, Arrison said there are several challenges facing Visit Hot Springs going forward, challenges he will not miss losing sleep over.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day is a new day with the world we\u2019re living in right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI think security will become a really big issue for special events. You look at all these bad people taking advantage of large gatherings, and I think that\u2019s something anybody who does events is very concerned with for the future. It\u2019s certainly something we spend a lot of attention on, and thank goodness we have a great, progressive police department here that works with us to ensure our events are safe, but I do think that\u2019s something that everybody has to worry about, the bad actors out there that want to ruin it for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for himself, Arrison said he looks forward to a slower pace and more family time in retirement, but he does already have one obligation after he clocks out for the last time at year\u2019s end. The architect of Hot Springs\u2019 world-class fishing tournaments has, incredibly, never in his life dropped a hook himself, and some acquaintances have mobilized an excursion to change that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond that, he is eager to see what the future brings, a future he laid the groundwork for and that he now will watch unfold as just another citizen and spectator. The road of his career has been long, but like plucky little Bridge Street, the years have been short and packed full of memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, Hot Springs has got a little bit of everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, everybody needs new hotels and new attractions, where we just need to stay current. I think Hot Springs is finally doing that. Things are coming together for Hot Springs, and I think the future\u2019s very bright. When you have all the assets that we have, it\u2019s just, gosh, what do you need next? I\u2019d like to see something on the Majestic [Hotel] site; I think that\u2019s a key to the future for that end of downtown, and I think that will happen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe city\u2019s done a great job. We\u2019ve got water for ages now, which not too many communities can say, which is going to be key to future economic development. I think our tourism industry will continue to grow while still maintaining a great quality of life, quality of place. As a community, I just think we\u2019re heading in the right direction. Everything\u2019s rolling along here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shea Lewis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Steve\u2019s leadership has transformed Hot Springs into one of Arkansas\u2019 premier tourism destinations, driving growth with innovative approaches that blend the city\u2019s historic character with its extraordinary natural resources. By elevating trails, outdoor recreation and the unique assets that define Hot Springs, he has strengthened the identity of Arkansas as the Natural State. His efforts have not only boosted tourism but have also enhanced the quality of life for residents, helping make Hot Springs \u2014 and Arkansas \u2014 a great place to visit, live, work and play. Steve\u2019s dedicated service on the State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission has further amplified his statewide impact, leaving a lasting legacy on Arkansas\u2019 tourism industry and the communities it supports. \u2014 <\/b>Shea Lewis, Secretary,\u00a0Arkansas Department of Parks, <\/i>Heritage and Tourism<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

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Bill Solleder<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I consider myself one of the luckiest Arkansans to have served under Steve Arrison for the past decade. His mentorship has been priceless, his leadership unmatched and his friendship treasured. Bill Solleder, Director of Marketing,\u00a0Visit Hot Springs<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

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Karen Trevino<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Steve Arrison\u2019s leadership, vision and dedication have helped shape Hot Springs into one of Arkansas\u2019 premier destinations. His impact on tourism can be seen not only in the growth of that community but in the lasting legacy he\u2019s built for generations to come. <\/span>Karen Trevino,\u00a0President and CEO,\u00a0North Little Rock Tourism<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

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Jay Chesshir<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I vividly remember having lunch with Steve and watching his amazing creativity at work. He was brainstorming new opportunities to attract more tourism to Hot Springs. We were at Spencer\u2019s Corner, and he looked out the window toward Bridge Street and remarked, \u2018According to the Guiness Book of World Records<\/i>, that was the shortest fully operating street in America. We should create a tourism event for St. Patrick\u2019s Day and have the world\u2019s shortest parade.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is just one great example of his creativity and leadership for Hot Springs and our entire state. His personal and professional impact has been nothing short of amazing. Simply put, Steve Arrison is the best in the business.\u201d Jay Chesshir, President and CEO, Little Rock Regional Chamber<\/i><\/p>\n

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SEE THE STORY IN OUR JUNE 2026 ISSUE OF AMP BELOW.<\/p>\n