Tourism bureau launches boardwalk live stream
Published 8:36 am Monday, September 14, 2026
LONG BEACH — Have access to the internet? If so, one or two clicks is now all it takes for people near or far to check out what’s going on around the clock at one of the peninsula’s most popular attractions.
Last month, Washington’s Evergreen Coast — the business name of the Pacific County Tourism Bureau — launched a 24/7 live stream of the Long Beach boardwalk on its website and YouTube channel.
According to Josh Phillips, the tourism bureau’s executive director, the main reason behind the launch of the live stream was because of the high traffic that the organization was seeing to its website’s webcam page — evergreencoastwa.com/plan/web-cams.
The webcams that can be found on the page include shots of the Astoria-Megler Bridge from both the Washington and Oregon side, courtesy of the two states’ transportation departments, views of the Cape Disappointment and North Head lighthouses via Washington State Parks, and a shot of the Columbia River Bar from Fort Columbia.
The webcam page pulls in roughly 3,000 direct clicks per month, Phillips said. But, prior to the Long Beach boardwalk stream going online, “all of the cameras we have linked are dated, don’t stream live and are out of our control.”
“We want the visitor journey to be fantastic when people get to our website and learn more about Pacific County, so updating one of our top landing pages was a natural next step,” he added.
The tourism bureau chose the boardwalk as its first live stream location due to its iconic status, Phillips said — especially with the long-anticipated reconstruction wrapping up earlier this year.
“[It] gives people a clear taste of what their experience could look like when visiting,” he said. “We also wanted to feature the beach so visitors and locals know current conditions.”
The stream first went live for a test run during last month’s Washington State International Kite Festival, and as of last week had been running for 10 consecutive days. Streaming the boardwalk during the kite festival highlighted some of the logistical challenges that the tourism bureau has worked to overcome.
“The wind on the coast is challenging,” said Phillips. “We are still working on camera stabilization, but we believe we have working solutions in place.”
Lighting has also proved to be a challenge, with weather ranging from bright sunshine to rain to overcast to fog. Phillips said they’re working to ensure the image quality remains strong even as conditions shift.
The live stream had garnered 3,649 views as of Sept. 10, with an average watch time of nearly five minutes. About one-third of those views, Phillips noted, had come in just the previous two days.
For the tourism bureau, success is measured by how much engagement they can generate with authentic content and, ultimately, in bringing people to visit Pacific County.
“There is so much artificially created content on the internet, and this webcam pushes right through that by letting people see what conditions truly look like at the beach in real time,” Phillips said.
Broadcasting the live stream on its YouTube page — youtube.com/@evergreencoastwa — also helps the tourism bureau with its desire to be represented across all digital platforms. Phillips admitted that the organization doesn’t have a strong presence on YouTube outside of paid advertising, which has been seeing greater success in 2026.
“As we continue to scale,” he said, “this gives us another valuable channel to reach a large audience and show them everything Pacific County has to offer.”