The 6th annual North Carolina Statewide Star Party, a signature event of the 2018 North Carolina Science Festival, was held Friday, April 20, and Saturday, April 21, 2018. This yearâs theme was âAnyone Out There?â and invited participants to learn about astrobiology and the search for life in the universe. The project engaged a network of partners including informal educators, park rangers, university faculty, librarians, and amateur astronomers, in planning thirty-seven Star Party events. A list of the events appears at the end of this document, and on the Star Party webpage at http://www.ncsciencefestival.org/starparty

Overall, 7,287 people participated: 6,514 attendees, 152 staff, 360 volunteers, and 261 STEM professionals. The weather cooperated across the entire state on the Star Party weekend, enabling all 37 Star Parties to happen as scheduled. The numbers exceeded our targets of 3,500 attendees and 35 events, and set new records for attendee and total participant numbers in the six years of the Statewide Star Party.

Each year, the challenge of the Statewide Star Party is being truly statewide while allocating resources that tend to be localized in the population centersâhow to best leverage local astronomy clubs and volunteers, for example. This year, we reduced the number or overall star parties and gave deeper support to each individual partner. It seemed to pay off as the events were more highly attended and our partners seemed to take better advantage of the resources we provided. Those resources were made possible thanks to NC Space Grant support and seem to provide a two-fold effect of making our educational offerings better, while also making future local astronomy gatherings more meaningful.