N.C. Pickle Festival to extend Saturday festivities
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 18, 2016 1:46 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- The North Carolina Pickle Festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a longer day of festivities on Saturday, April 23, and with a revamped Friday night concert on April 22.
Depending on the response to the longer Saturday hours, the move could be the prelude to a full two-day festival in the future.
Regular planning sessions for the festival will begin within the next week or two, but several decisions already have been made, said Julie Beck, Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce president and N.C. Pickle Festival Committee co-chair.
Also, vendor applications are online at www.ncpicklefest.org.
The deadline for applications is March 15, but they will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
The festival is sponsored by the Chamber.
"One of the big things is we are extending the hours on Saturday to 8 p.m.," Ms. Beck said. "So the festival will be from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m."
There had been some discussions last year about having a two-day festival.
"This is a compromise to extend the hours on Saturday and see how it goes, and then in the future we will look to see what we want to do down the road," she said. "Our vendors are expected to stay until 8 o'clock. The car show will be come and gone. The stage with the dancers will wrap up around 4 as usual."
However, the main stage located next to Southern Bank on the east side of the 100 block of North Center Street will probably have a band on it even after 5 p.m., she said.
The carnival rides, provided by Brinkley Entertainment of Walnut Cove, will still be going on as well until 8 p.m.
The rides will be located in the parking lot across West Main Street from Steele Memorial Library.
Ms. Beck said organizers are excited about the extended hours since they don't know what kind of expectations to have.
"We just don't know," she said. "Will people stick around or just come at nighttime? We just don't know. So it is going to be interesting to see."
Changes are in store for the traditional Friday night concert at the Mount Olive Airport as well.
"We are partnering with the University of Mount Olive to offer a big concert on Friday night at the airport," Ms. Beck said. "We are negotiating with agents right now to bring in a lesser well-known, up-and-coming country star. We have put in a couple of bids to see if they accept it. Then we will decide who we will go with."
The concert is similar to the caliber of music that the university has been bringing in for its Fall Fest, she said.
"In fact, if I am not mistaken, they are not going to offer Fall Fest, and this is going to be their Fall Fest, but now I guess it will be part of our Pickle Festival," Ms. Beck said. "So that is why they approached us about doing this together -- tag teaming and making it a real big event on Friday night."
The concert would run from run from 8 to 11:30 p.m. at the airport located just north of town off the Old Mount Olive Highway.
Ms. Beck said she does not know yet what the ticket cost will be. That, she said, will depend on which performer is selected and how much it will cost the festival.
The airport activities will once again include a beer and wine garden, she said.
Festival staples, the Tour de Pickle bike ride, the Cuke Patch 5K Run and the classic car show, will once again highlight Saturday's schedule in downtown Mount Olive.
Attendees can expect new things as well, she said.
"I know we are going to try that mascot race again which, unfortunately, got rained out (last year)," she said. "So we are definitely going to try and offer that again this year."
All of the bands for the main stage have been booked for some time, she said.
A decision is expected to be made as to whom the festival T-shirts will be ordered from, she said.
Ms. Beck said she expects something will be done to recognize the 30th anniversary, but no decisions have yet been made, she said.
"One thing we are contemplating as a kickoff event, we don't know if it will become reality, is talk about having a sanctioned chili event," she said. "But that would probably be held a month or so before. We have had someone approach us who is really interested in doing that. So we are going to explore that idea and make a decision."
The festival is also bringing the pickle wine back.
"I have already had conversations with Hinnant (Family Vineyards) about creating another pickle pinot noir wine for us," Ms. Beck said. "We will be doing that with a different label on it. In the past when we sold it, we don't have a (ABC) license so we get Allen Hawkins to sell it at Ribeyes for us.
"We will probably do a wine tasting again because we have done that for the last several years or so. None of that has been worked out, but I am pretty sure that will happen."
New this year will be a social media blitz to promote the festival.
BG Digital Group of Morehead City, the company that also markets the N.C. Seafood Festival, will handle those chores, including managing the festival's Facebook page, she said.
"We are hoping that increases the awareness of our event, increases our sponsorships and increase our participation," Ms. Beck said. "This is something we went in partnership with the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. They are helping us to finance this to really get the word out about our event."
The Chamber also is partnering with the University of Mount Olive's Tillman School of Business whose students will conduct an economic impact study of the festival. The questions are still being compiled.
"We are trying to determine where people are coming from, how much are they spending at hotels, buying meals, buying whatever, so we can in the future determine how to market this event," Ms. Beck said. "So it will be a win-win for the town and the county and our festival to know what the economic impacts are. This is going to be a good thing for us to know."