N.C. Pickle Festival planning underway

The 2022 N.C. Pickle Festival was a really big “dill”, far exceeding anything that organizers could have ever imagined or planned for, said Julie Beck, festival co-chairwoman of last year’s event.

And, before the committee charged with organizing the 2023 edition of the award-winning festival can fully begin detailed planning, it first must tackle challenges presented by last year’s overwhelmingly successful festival that packed downtown streets with shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, she said.

Coordinated by the North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. in partnership with the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce, the 37th annual N.C. Pickle Festival will be held from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, April 28, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 29, in downtown Mount Olive.

While last year’s massive attendance, estimated at 60,000, created some challenges, the festival also is up for nine awards from the North Carolina Association of Festival & Events Showfest.

Beck and Melissa Kilpatrick will be in Charlotte over the weekend of Jan. 27-29 for the annual awards program. Along with hopefully bringing home even more awards, Beck said she hopes to bring back ideas that can be incorporated into the Pickle Festival.

Beck called the 2022 Pickle Festival a “surreal event.”

“It was beyond anything that we could have imagined,” she attested. “We knew it was going to be big, but we could have never predicted it would turn out as big as it did.

“I think it was a combination of we haven’t had one in three years, people were coming out of COVID and were ready to go anywhere and everywhere.”

The festival benefited as well from unbelievable marketing and free media, Beck added.

“All of that combined brought 60,000 people to our town,” Beck said. “Because of that it brought a lot of challenges, good problems to have, but it brought a lot of challenges.”

Planning strategy

As such Beck, who also is Chamber president, said she and co-chairman Lynn Williams, public relations manager at the Mt. Olive Pickle Co., had decided to take a different approach to planning.

It all boils down to safety, they both said.

“We’re going to talk about some of the challenges that we had and how can we fix it for this year,” Beck said.

That could mean that the committee, which held its first meeting Monday night at Ribeyes Steakhouse, might look at expanding the festival’s footprint — something that needs to be decided early on — to spread out the crowds and vendors, adding more food vendors and booths of the crowd-favorite free samples of Mt. Olive Prickles, additional parking and free shuttles.

Other options could include addition of water and misting stations, more vendors selling pickle foods and/or pickle crafts and all clearly marked by flags or banners, and ordering more Pickle Festival merchandise (T-shirts, hats) to sell.

“We had ordered more shuttle buses (in 2022) than we ever had, and we still could not even keep up with the crowd — there was just no way,” Beck stressed. “We brought in more food vendors than we ever had before, and we still did not have enough.

“It was things that we couldn’t control at that point. But when we realized what was happening it was too late for us to change anything about it. So we just said we would deal as best we could.”

Last year, 60 percent of the food vendors were first-timers who were not familiar with Pickle Festival crowds, putting them at a disadvantage to start with, she said.

They were not prepared for 40,000, much less 60,000, Beck explained.

All of the first-time vendors had to go to grocery stores to buy more food, she said. If they come back this year, they will be better prepared, Beck added.

Williams said she does not think that finding vendors will be a problem.

The vendor application period has been open for only three weeks and already nearly 100 have registered.

“Now, do we think we’ll have 60,000 again this year,” Beck asked. “Probably not. But do we think we’ll have 40,000 to 60,000? Absolutely. We probably lost some people because some people came and it was so crowded and they had to wait in line an hour to get food even though we brought in extra food vendors.”

That also includes people who had to wait in line to sample free Mt. Olive pickles, she said.

As such, some people are not going to come back, but there are “tons” who will, Beck added.

The festival media and marketing are already blowing up, she said.

“So we know we are going to have another huge crowd,” Beck emphasized. “It’s kind of hard to go forward without looking backward to see what our challenges were.”

Some plans finalized

Despite first addressing the challenges, some aspects of this year’s 37th annual N.C. Pickle Festival already have been finalized, the chairwoman said.

Already confirmed are:

— Southern Trouble will present a free concert from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., Friday, April 28, in front of Ribeyes Steakhouse.

— The Cuke Patch 5K Glow Run will be held from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, April 28. April 1 is the early-bird registration deadline. Prizes will be awarded for best male and female costumes and best group costumes. A portion of the proceeds benefit the Mount Olive Parks & Recreation Department.

— Pay one-price carnival rides will run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, April 28, in the Steele Memorial Library parking lot at the corner of West Main and North Chestnut streets. The rides will run Saturday, April 29, as well.

— Check-in for the Tour de Pickle bike ride will start 8 a.m. Saturday, April 20, with start times of 9:30 a.m. Saturday, April 29, for the 75-mile ride; 9:35 a.m. for the 53-mile ride; and 9:40 a.m. for the 25-mile ride. The rides will start at the Mt. Olive Pickle Co.’s Walker Warehouse located at 100 Commercial Avenue, just off the Old Mount Olive Highway, north of town.

— The Saturday main stage bands will be TCB-Throwback Collaboration Band, Rivermist, Wild Ride and British Invasion Band.

— The 2023 N.C. Pickle Festival logo, with a royalty theme, has been created. Beck said she came up with the idea after visiting England during the summer.

— Drones will be used to film the festival.

— Posters and billboards have been ordered.

— T-shirts are to be ordered this week (Jan. 23-27).

— First-time sponsorship by N.C. Lottery.

— PBS/Wayne County Partnership for Children will sponsor the children’s area. Beck said she received a call several weeks ago from PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) that had received a grant for programming.

“We were very fortunate that they selected our festival to come and do some children’s activities and giveaway all kinds of freebie stuff,” she said. “They said they wanted to partner with the Wayne County Partnership for Children.

Beck said she just had to laugh because the Partnership for Children handled the 2022 festival’s children’s area.

— There will be plenty of pickle-related events including the pickle-eating contest.

— The crowd-favorite car show will be held April 29.

For more information, visit ncpicklefest.org.