Even though it was a wet and windy start to the month long event, 2017 saw 434,000 people walk through the gates at Commonwealth Park for Floriade's 30th anniversary. The government says the event contributes about $40 million a year to the ACT economy.

This year's theme, "rejuvenation", had a display of "best of" from the past three decades - and numbers, too, experienced a slight rejuvenation on last year's event, held in bad weather, with rain on 15 of the 30 days. This year, numbers were up 10 per cent on 2016, when 394,000 people visited Floriade.

But attendance was down 47,895 on the record year of 2014, and other than 2016 was the lowest in six years.

The event saw a number of changes to mark the milestone, including new opening hours, more garden beds, and the extension of the NightFest program.

NightFest, Floriade's after-dark experience, was extended across two weekends, attracting 29,743 visitors across the six evening sessions.

Insights from the event said about 28 per cent of visitors were first timers. More than 58 per cent of visitors spent between two to four hours at Floriade on the day that they attended.

According to organisers, the event itself received an overall visitor satisfaction rating of 3.9 out of five.