Beginning this past Thursday, June 16th, Spoiled Pet Cafe was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the 2011 Texas Pete Twin City Ribfest. And though we enjoyed some excellent food, wonderful camarederie with other vendors, and the city of Winston-Salem, the event itself was an abject failure. Several factors combined to doom the event to failure. 

Mother Nature provided the record setting heatwave and the early evening thunderstorms. This combination while perhaps dampening the spirit of the event would not on their own have derailed the event.

The derailment can be layed squared at the feet of the promotors AKA Entertainment & Media. Despite accolades for this event during its early years from such prestigous sources as Bon Appétit Magazine and Martha Stewart.com  this event no longer deserves accolades from anyone. While there was obvious money spent on television advertisement and signage around the Winston-Salem area there was very little thought in other pertainent areas. To begin with the layout and flow of the event was not at all well thought out with a seemingly random mish-mash of vendors, exhibitors and sponsors spread haphazardly around the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds. This made for quite a bit of confusion among all parties concerned, including attendees of the event. Another issue was the sparse at best to non-existent at worst availability of first aid. A middle aged lady actually had such dire heat related issues that multiple paramedics had to be called to assist her. To the best of my knowledge none of the paramedics who responded to the urgent pleas of a vendor’s policeman husband were actually working at the event. The stricken lady was taken to an area hospital and I am happy to report that she was released the following day. Another very disconcerting incident was the locking of all exit gates after the event ended on Saturday night and attendees had exited but prior to the exiting of vendors and exhibitors. While this alone did cause some concern among those trapped in the fairgrounds, the stress among the trapped vendors and exhibitors was heightened by what was probably considered amusing and harmless taunting of the vendors and exhibitors by the staff of AKA Entertainment & Media over the public address system of the fairgrounds.

Needless to say I suspect that many of the vendors, exhibitors, and food competitors will not be returning nex year. While I do not know how Texas Pete, Miller Lite, Samuel Adams, and Jim Beam feel about the management of this event, I am embarassed to have been associated with it. If you would like to share your experience with any of the ‘Big’ sponsors of this event simply click on the appropriate logo. You can of course share your experiences at this event in the comment section of this post as well.

We hope that you enjoy some of the images from the event itself!