Festival vouchers make it fun and exciting for the attendees, provides additional branding opportunities for sponsors, pushes the attendees to spend more and MOST IMPORTANTLY helps keep the costs down for vendor entry fees.  

The 2021 Evansville BBQ Festival will cost us somewhere north of $30,000 to organize.  Our major costs will include 10 billboards around the area, a large radio and social media promotion with radio remotes live at the event, permitting, insurance, 5  bands (many from out of town), event staff, event cleanup, staging, sound, tent and equipment rental and so much more.  It takes everything to ensure we have several thousand attendees to ensure each food and beverage vendor will want to return next year.  We take 100% of the risk and most of our budgets are spent way before the event day.

We completely understand our food and beverage vendors add value to the event, and we'd prefer to keep the entry costs affordable and share in a small percentage of the success (usually 25% of food revenue).  If you're new to this concept, it's not new at all.  In fact, if you were offered the opportunity to be a vendor inside the Ford Center you would have a rental fee and be required to pay 40-50% of all food and beverage revenue and 35% inside the Old National Events Plaza.  This is why fountain drinks are $6 and hotdogs $8 at concerts and sporting events.  Please do not be discouraged---We can help you create a unique menu for the festival that will create more value for the customers and help you receive what you need to make.

We believe these large-scale festivals create a significant impact in our community as many attendees travel from out of town. They stimulate tourism, small business, gas stations, hotels, and develop more fun things for the community to do.  We organize just 4-5 festivals a year.  These festivals bring food trucks, restaurants, caterers tremendous exposure and branding followed with high revenue catering requests.