Pickles, planes and playoffs
By Steve Herring
Published in News on May 31, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
N.C. Pickle Festival Co-chair Julie Beck laughs as she holds up a bag of dill-flavored peanuts while joking about the nuts she works with.
MOUNT OLIVE -- Pickles, planes and playoffs.
Visitors to Wayne County will have their pick of events next April when the N.C. Pickle Festival and Conference Carolinas baseball tournament and the Wings Over Wayne Air Show at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base are all held at the same time.
"Next year is going to be interesting," Pickle Festival Co-chairman Julie Beck said."Our festival is going to be April 27. That is also the same weekend of the Wings Over Wayne Air Show ... that is also the weekend that the University of Mount Olive is going to host the Conference Carolinas baseball tournament.
"That means in Wayne County we have all of the Conference Carolinas baseball players coming. We have all of the people coming to the Pickle Festival, and we have all of the people coming from the air show.
Beck made her comments during a recent Pickle Festival Committee wrap-up session to review the 32nd annual festival held this past April 27 and 28.
Beck said she has had long conversations with air show organizers and Ashlin Glatthar, director of travel and tourism for Goldsboro and Wayne County, suggesting a committee made up of representatives of all of the events.
Beck said her and Co-chairman Lynn Williams' approach is to tell people to come to Wayne County for the whole weekend because they can attend the festival, baseball games and the air show.
Also, Beck said she and Williams would like to see all of the events cross market everything.
Beck said she has spoken with Glatthar about talking with officials in Wilson, Smithfield, Kinston and Warsaw because there are not enough hotel rooms locally for all of the people who will be attending the events.
"We need to get these people on board now, and work with them as well," Beck said. "Between Ashlin and I, we know all of the tourism directors from all of those areas and we need to make sure that they are also part of this plan because we have got to have those hotel rooms."
That is going to be a win-win for those communities because Wayne County hotels will fill up quickly, she said.
It is the second time in 10 years that the air show has fallen on the same weekend as the Pickle Festival, she said.
When it happened the first time Beck said she and Williams thought it was going to be the worst thing that could happen.
Instead it turned into what was probably the best thing that could happen, she said.
All of the Pickle Festival information was also on the Wings Over Wayne website, she said.
"So when people clicked on that to find out about the air show, 'Oh, there is a festival that weekend,'" Beck said. "And that is when we saw our attendance numbers start to increase.
"It has remained there ever since then. So we look at this as a positive thing. But it is going to take a lot of coordinating the county."
It also means that festival is going to have to tweak the helicopter rides that take off and land at the university and the free shuttle staged there as well, she said.
It is a challenge, but is doable, and organizers have a year in advance to plan, she said.
There are a lot of logistics to work through, Williams said.
Also, the university has a five-year deal for hosting the tournament, she said.
"So we have to figure out for the next five years," Williams said. "So we have to figure out where we can send everybody to park."
Beck said she and Williams had talked about the warehouses located along the Old Mount Olive Highway just north of downtown.
She asked Town Manager Charles Brown and Mayor Joe Scott if the helicopter rides could possibly be staged at the airport located across the highway from the town's industrial park on the Old Mount Olive Highway.
Brown and Scott said that probably could be worked out and that they did not think it would be an issue.
With parking at the industrial park, shuttle buses would have a straight route to downtown, Beck said.
"One thing, too, is getting the directional signs up where people can go and park," Scott said.
The university was a central location so the drawback to using the industrial park for parking is directing people to it, Williams said.
During the lunch meeting held at Pizza Village, committee members also talked about what worked or didn't work at the recent festival.
The consensus was it was a near-flawless event with only a few minor glitches.
"It just went like clockwork," Beck said. "It was probably the smoothest running festival that we have ever had. The only thing that we know that went awry is that at one point we had about 200 people at UMO waiting to get the shuttle."
But that is a good problem to have -- to have more people attend the festival than ever before, she said.
Also, they followed instructions to take the shuttle, Beck said.
The festival did more marketing than in prior years, and it worked, she said.
Beck said people told her they had seen festival billboards and an article in Our State magazine.
"I don't know why it went so well, but I think it is because we have such amazing people," she said. "We have done this enough times, 32 years.
"So the first thing I want to do is say thanks to each of you because the reason it was so perfect was because of what you all did before the festival and during the festival. It was just amazing."